Greg Norman Says The Player He Talked To Really, Really Liked The Earth

The Race to Dubai ends on the "Earth" Course at Unfinished Dunes, Beach And Outta Money Club, where Greg Norman designed the first course (the subsequent Fire and Rain courses, or whatever they were to be called, are on hold).

Alistair Tait reports that Norman says he's getting a lot of positive feedback from players, even if he'd only spoken to one. And that same player thought Liberty National could host a major.

Course designer Greg Norman said he’d had good feedback from players on the 7,675-yard, par-72 layout. Turned out Padraig Harrington was the only player he’d spoken to. Had he talked to others, he might have had some evasive answers from players too polite to tell the truth.

“Awful.”

“Not worthy of the season ending event.”

“Boring.”

These are among the comments I’ve received from just a perfunctory walk along the driving range. All off the record, of course, since under Euro Tour rules players aren’t allowed to criticize courses.

James Corrigan in the Independent writes about the lovely sixth hole:

Even if it is possible to blank out the windowless and roofless, then the stench from the pond on the sixth hole is unavoidable. Augusta National famously uses blue dye to enhance their water features; Jumeirah should have resorted to Blue Toilet Block. There is also a quilt-work patch of fairway on the seventh which will have to be Ground Under Repair should any ball fall that short.

Derek Lawrenson writing for the Daily Mail:

But walk round this inordinately long course, and you can’t tear your eyes from the fact that hardly a single piece of property lining the fairways has been finished. Work on the clubhouse stopped in May, and it remains an empty shell. No wealthy Brits will be proudly showing off their new vacation home this week. No champagne will be flowing on any balconies here, as the players move into view.

And...

As one ex-pro, surveying the view, dryly put it: ‘Magnolia Lane it ain’t.’

Comments

[Greg]

I'll reserve any judgment until I see it on TV.

[FWIW]

Not to nitpick, but it's been at least a decade since Augusta had the unfortunate incident with the dyed fungicides that turned the waters an unnatural greenish blue. They've been no color other than brown for many years.

[SGarrett]

Greg, don't trust what you see on TV too much. As Tait wrote in the article...

>>>>>>>

Your TV sets probably won’t give you a true picture of the setting for the championship. No doubt that European Tour productions have been given good instructions on making the Earth Course as presentable as possible.

That should be no problem – they’ve had a lot of practice in turning pigs’ ears into silk purses over the years.

So cue tight pictures of the golf course, a few selected villas and the hospitality units around the 18th hole. Don’t expect any broad vistas.

[Scott]

I guess the course in Fresno, Running Horse, has been moved to Dubai. Does anyone remember Running Horse?

http://www.pgatour.com/story/9312407/

[Tom]

I looked at the hole flyovers on the ET website, just put up this week. The authors Geoff links to are right, the course is the centerpiece of a housing development which so far consists of vacant lots. A lot of vacant lots---the course is laid out like an octopus with 5 or 6 arms consisting of a fairway going out, a parallel fairway coming back, and maybe a par-3 sandwiched in between, each arm surrounded by empty lots of bare desert.

So the locale is not the Pebble Beach of the Persian Gulf. The Gulf is only seen way off in the distance.

Tait is right about the width of the fairways. He doesn't mention that a number of those fairways are broken up with central fairway bunkers (or on 18 a central creek). When the subject is Augusta or Sand Hills the widespread opinion among experts (Geoff?) is that the wide fairways are central to the strategy of the course, and my naive suspicion is that Norman had the same idea in mind.

How good is it?--I have no idea.

Oh, and Corrigan repeatedly mentions a purse of 7.5M pounds. ET website says it's 7.5M dollars. Now whom should I believe....

[Roo]

It used to be Euro's. But it sounds better to them in US$, given that the world knows they are struggling to find the money anyway.

[Warren]

Round 1's in the can. "Earth" is another Liberty National. I'm done watching this week's race to half-built condos.

[Emporer's Lackey]

I'm mortified that the other 2 courses have not been renamed Wind and Fire.

[Pickworth]

...or how about Moon and Stars. It would make for a good bit of signage at the car park drop off.

[OWGR Fan]

The two other courses should be named Sun and Moon.

Fans of Love and Rockets (the band) will understand the above reference.