Golf Digest Best New...Last For A Couple Of Years?

Cal Club's 9th (click to enlarge)I finally got around to Golf Digest's Best New Courses feature and soaked it all in since it's hard to see this appearing in its current form the next couple of December's thanks to the complete stoppage of new course construction.

In the Best Remodel category, the only course I had seen was 3rd place finisher Cal Club, which lost out to Charlotte Country Club and Olympia Fields. While I'm sure those are both fine efforts from Ron Pritchard and Steve Smyers, I would have been disappointed if Cal Club won. Since it's the most remarkable transformation of a golf course I've seen, I would have had a tough time surviving knowing the Digest panel had seen the same thing. Had they, I might have started resorting to Ambien and we know how well that can work out.

Cal Club's 16th (click to enlarge)Pick a category--design, maintenance, environmental sensibility, aesthetics, maintenance meld--and Kyle Phillips' restoration with Mark Thawley, George Waters and Josh Smith is as fine a piece of work as you could want to see. Throw in the fact that it's artfully managed by fast-and-firm guru Thomas Bastis and team, and well, we just can't have the Golf Digest panel rewarding that!

Comments

[Tighthead]

Geoff,

From everything I have read and heard, the Cal Club remodel was an all-timer. Considering how often remodels are flat out bad, hopefully this sets a new standard.

Of course, it is hard to be the standard when you are a bronze medallist

[Emporer's Lackey]

Typical Golf Digest tripe.

Cal Club is fantastic.

Wonder where LACC will end up.....might be the best in history. So probably 4th behind re-remodels of Torrey Pines, Cog Hill, Bay Hill, Valhalla.....

[Dr. Phillips]

Hallelujah! A golf related story -- how novel!!

I played CCC several times this past summer and it is spectacular. A significant portion of the membership is unhappy because they find it too difficult but I must say I enjoyed it. Significant tree removal and huge fairways make it a pleasure to play, and view, from the teebox. Green complexes are just that, very complex. A lot of deep bunkers and steep drops around the greens which may be overly challenging for a lot of the membership. Overall it is just terrific.

As a part of this reno they took out all the cart paths, other than minimal paths around the greens/tees that is. This has been controversial as well. If it rains no carts are allowed and for those members that cannot walk this is an untenable situation.

[Greg]

Charlotte Country Club looks like a lot of fun.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23629689@N07/4184210364/

[JT]

Shouldn't Kyle Franz get some props as part of the team for the Cal Club bunkers or is my information incorrect?

[Tired of the Politics]

Dr. Phillips,

While you may have loved CCC, the course opened in the fall of 2007 and Golf Digest knows it. The Cal Club shouldn't have been competing with it in the first place. There is no integrity at GD as many already know.

[Dr. Phillips]

Tired of Politics, I don't doubt what you say. I was just trying to get some conversation going on something other than you know what. But on your topic, if nothing else the membership at CCC is well connected.

[Jordan]

The fees at the new privates and the new publics seem way too high given the economy. Six of the ten privates have initiation fees over $75,000. Pete Dye at French Lick, or whatever it's called, the top new public, is $350 per round. Really? For a new torture track in the middle of nowhere. There's no great lake in Indiana that I know of. Can it be worth that much?

And didn't they used to have a separate category for best affordable public v. best not-so-affordable public? Does this just reflect that courses aren't opening?

[Jordan]

Here's Golf Digest's take on the bunkering at the latest Dye-abolical:

The bunkers look like giant gopher holes, except for those atop mounds on the par-4 second. The resort calls them volcano bunkers, but they look more like the creepy egg-pods from the movie "Alien."

I feel a fun round in the offing. And at only $350? When can I book my tee time?

Yikes!

[Dr. Phillips]

Jordan, good point on the $350 fees. That business plan is destined to fail.

What's the latest on Pound Ridge? They were in the $250-275 range which resulted in a tee-sheet that was wide open 7 days per week.

[Jordan]

Pete apparently built it to get a PGA Championship. It can stretch to over 8,000 yards. Nothing about it looks interesting to me. But anyone who's dropped the $350 to play it. Please tell me that I'm wrong.

[Joe Jemsek]

Hard part about these "contests" are you have to get people to play the courses, sometimes deserving courses are missed because they aren't open to the panelists. Conversely a course that goes out of its way to invite panelists (F.L.) gets rave reviews. Maybe it's just an East Coast bias!

PS Lackey, the idea of best remodel is the most upgraded, LACC was pretty great to start with so unless it's the second coming, it difficult to put it first.

PSS Jordan, don't worry French Lick isn't trying to make money, it's an amenity and a pet project. Also $350 is a daily fee so you can go around as many times as you want.

[Jordan]

Joe:

Will I want to go around more than once? And even if I did, is it worth $350?

[Odd Job]

Having played Cal Club recently, it is just too difficult to enjoy on a daily basis. So many bad spots to end up in. There... I said it. Beautiful course and club.

[Will Smith]

Kyle Franz was the lead shaper at the Cal Club for both greens and bunkers and certainly deserves a shout out for his efforts.

I have found Cal club to be quite playable both times I have played there. There are definitely places around the greens that leave a tough up and down, but they can be avoided with some thought. I have not seen CCC but have heard great things from those who have seen it. I have a hard time believing it is better than Cal Club though.

Congrats to Tim Liddy and Princess Anne CC for their eighth place finish on the renovation list. (Full disclosure: I was involved in the project). The before and after are night and day.

[BV aka Emporer's Pal]

As a former member of the Cal Club and a current member of a Top 100 club, my opinion is that the best part of the remodel was the improvement in drainage. The new holes are more or less a toss-up for the holes they replaced and tree removal started in 1983 after an El Nino took out about 800 and the next one did another 800. Drainage was always abysmal, now it's not

CalClub has always been a great and under-appreciated golf course. A few shaggy bunkers and all of a sudden, it's the re-invented wheel. Not.