Books
  • Lines of Charm: Brilliant And Irreverent Quotes, Notes, And Anecdotes from Golf's Golden Age Architects
    Lines of Charm: Brilliant And Irreverent Quotes, Notes, And Anecdotes from Golf's Golden Age Architects
  • The Future of Golf: How Golf Lost Its Way and How to Get It Back
    The Future of Golf: How Golf Lost Its Way and How to Get It Back
    by Geoff Shackelford
  • Grounds for Golf: The History and Fundamentals of Golf Course Design
    Grounds for Golf: The History and Fundamentals of Golf Course Design
    by Geoff Shackelford
  • The Art of Golf Design
    The Art of Golf Design
    by Michael Miller, Geoff Shackelford
  • Alister MacKenzie's Cypress Point Club
    Alister MacKenzie's Cypress Point Club
    by Geoff Shackelford
  • The Golden Age of Golf Design
    The Golden Age of Golf Design
    by Geoff Shackelford
  • The Good Doctor Returns: A Novel
    The Good Doctor Returns: A Novel
    by Geoff Shackelford
  • Masters of the Links: Essays on the Art of Golf and Course Design
    Masters of the Links: Essays on the Art of Golf and Course Design
  • The Captain: George C. Thomas Jr. and His Golf Architecture
    The Captain: George C. Thomas Jr. and His Golf Architecture
    by Geoff Shackelford
  • The Riviera Country Club: A Definitive History
    The Riviera Country Club: A Definitive History
    by Geoff Shackelford
Current Reading
  • Fifty More Places to Play Golf Before You Die: Golf Experts Share the World's Greatest Destinations (Fifty Places Series)
    Fifty More Places to Play Golf Before You Die: Golf Experts Share the World's Greatest Destinations (Fifty Places Series)
    by Chris Santella

    Follow up includes yours truly nominating Rustic Canyon. Shocking, I know.

  • Sports Illustrated The Golf Book
    Sports Illustrated The Golf Book
    by Editors of Sports Illustrated
  • Planet Golf USA: The Definitive Reference to Great Golf Courses in America
    Planet Golf USA: The Definitive Reference to Great Golf Courses in America
    by Darius Oliver

    The highly anticipated second volume comes to America for more design analysis and stunning photography.

  • St Andrews Golf Links: Six Centuries of Golf
    St Andrews Golf Links: Six Centuries of Golf
    by Tom Jarrett, Peter Mason

    Another St. Andrews book to warm us up for the 2010 Open.

  • Swinley Forest Golf Club
    Swinley Forest Golf Club
    by Nicholas Courtney
  • Jenkins at the Majors: Sixty Years of the World's Best Golf Writing, from Hogan to Tiger
    Jenkins at the Majors: Sixty Years of the World's Best Golf Writing, from Hogan to Tiger
    by Dan Jenkins
  • The Leaderboard: Conversations on Golf and Life
    The Leaderboard: Conversations on Golf and Life
    by Amy Alcott


  • The 19th Hole: Architecture of the Golf Clubhouse
    The 19th Hole: Architecture of the Golf Clubhouse
    by Richard Diedrich

    SI Golf Plus calls this the #1 golf book of 2008.

  • World Atlas of Golf: The Greatest Courses and How They are Played
    World Atlas of Golf: The Greatest Courses and How They are Played
    by Mark Rowlinson

    New and updated, including contributions from Ran Morrissett and Daniel Wexler.

  • Golf in America (Sport and Society)
    Golf in America (Sport and Society)
    by George B. Kirsch


    Fresh and well researched perspective on the history of golf in America

  • Follow the Roar: Tailing Tiger for All 604 Holes of His Most Spectacular Season
    Follow the Roar: Tailing Tiger for All 604 Holes of His Most Spectacular Season
    by Bob Smiley
  • Pebble Beach: The Official Golf History
    Pebble Beach: The Official Golf History
    by Neal Hotelling
  • Free: The Future of a Radical Price
    Free: The Future of a Radical Price
    by Chris Anderson
Classics
  • The Book Of Golfers: A Biographical History Of The Royal & Ancient Game
    The Book Of Golfers: A Biographical History Of The Royal & Ancient Game
    by Daniel Wexler


  • A Season In Dornoch: Golf and Life in the Scottish Highlands
    A Season In Dornoch: Golf and Life in the Scottish Highlands
    by Lorne Ruberstein

    A summer in Dornoch.

  • Emerald Gems:The Links of Ireland
    Emerald Gems:The Links of Ireland
    by Laurence Casey Lambrecht

    Beautiful images of the classic Irish links.

  • Golf Architecture in America: Its Strategy and Construction
    Golf Architecture in America: Its Strategy and Construction
    by Geo. C. Thomas
  • The Spirit of St. Andrews
    The Spirit of St. Andrews
    by Alister MacKenzie
  • Club Life: The Games Golfers Play
    Club Life: The Games Golfers Play
    by John Steinbreder
  • Discovering Donald Ross: The Architect and his Golf Courses
    Discovering Donald Ross: The Architect and his Golf Courses
    by Bradley S. Klein
  • Evangelist of Golf: The Story of Charles Blair MacDonald
    Evangelist of Golf: The Story of Charles Blair MacDonald
    by George Bahto
  • The Course Beautiful : A Collection of Original Articles and Photographs on Golf Course Design
    The Course Beautiful : A Collection of Original Articles and Photographs on Golf Course Design
    Treewolf Prod
  • Reminiscences Of The Links
    Reminiscences Of The Links
    by Albert Warren Tillinghast, Richard C. Wolffe, Robert S. Trebus, Stuart F. Wolffe
  • Gleanings from the Wayside
    Gleanings from the Wayside
    by Albert Warren Tillinghast
  • The Missing Links: America's Greatest Lost Golf Courses & Holes
    The Missing Links: America's Greatest Lost Golf Courses & Holes
    by Daniel Wexler
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« Bethpage Losing Its Two Best Talking Points | Main | Tiger Won The Australian Masters With New Grooves »
Wednesday
18Nov2009

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.’

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Reader Comments (10)

I'll reserve any judgment until I see it on TV.
11.18.2009 | Unregistered CommenterGreg
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.
11.18.2009 | Unregistered CommenterFWIW
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.
11.18.2009 | Unregistered CommenterSGarrett
I guess the course in Fresno, Running Horse, has been moved to Dubai. Does anyone remember Running Horse?

http://www.pgatour.com/story/9312407/
11.18.2009 | Unregistered CommenterScott
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....
11.18.2009 | Unregistered CommenterTom
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.
11.19.2009 | Unregistered CommenterRoo
Round 1's in the can. "Earth" is another Liberty National. I'm done watching this week's race to half-built condos.
11.19.2009 | Unregistered CommenterWarren
I'm mortified that the other 2 courses have not been renamed Wind and Fire.
11.19.2009 | Unregistered CommenterEmporer's Lackey
...or how about Moon and Stars. It would make for a good bit of signage at the car park drop off.
11.20.2009 | Unregistered CommenterPickworth
The two other courses should be named Sun and Moon.

Fans of Love and Rockets (the band) will understand the above reference.
11.20.2009 | Unregistered CommenterOWGR Fan

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