Golf Digest Best New: Fast And Firm Has Arrived

Ron Whitten unveils Golf Digest's annual Best New, which thanks to the economy remains more of a celebration of the few quality projects that managed to conclude with a new or revitalized course.

There's a slideshow of all the named courses here, but more interesting is Whitten's take that the changing of the guard is complete: "Old golf-course architects never fade away; they just lose their draw."

Citing Tom Doak as his mythical architect of the year and naming Gil Hanse and Coore and Crenshaw as part of the changing guard, he writes:

How did this New Wave upset the Establishment architects? Mainly because of a fundamental shift in how American golfers play the game. For decades, golf in America was an aerial game. Turf conditions were green, lush and uniform, a concession mostly to housing developers who financed most course projects.

Those conditions demanded long carries and afforded little roll. Subsequently, club manufacturers developed equipment meant to get the ball in the air and keep it there for as long as possible. Instructors taught methodology aimed at the same goal.

Then along came the upstarts, led by Doak, who embraced the Scottish/Irish (and early American) standard of drier turf and bounce-and-roll golf. The ideal, Doak has pointed out, would be to have fairway approaches into greens be firmer than the putting surfaces, but across America, just the opposite had been the norm for decades. The Doak formula was not immediately accepted in America; in many climates, firm and fast seemed impossible to achieve.

"Blurring the Line between Golf Bloggers and Traditional Writers"

Chicago Duffer Adam Fonseca takes a look at the world of online golf writing and the reduction in print options for both established and aspiring writers. I'm quoted and frankly, I can't believe I used the platform word. Impactful and activate may be next.

Interesting take from FoxSports.com's Robert Lusetich:

“The bottom line is that Old Media is finished,” Lusetich states. “New Media – including bloggers – will find a way to survive, as journals and newsletters did after the printing press was invented. The key is discovering how to make money from the enterprise, as it needs to be a business.

“Now it’s up to bloggers to find the money to make it work. It’s still evolving, but I think it’ll happen.”

Update On The Sheep Ranch And Bandon's Punchbowl Course

Thanks to reader John for alerting me to Ron Bellamy's story on Bandon's Sheep Ranch course that is now twelve years old and still offers one of the more amusing processes to get on a golf course. But also, it's just a fantastic story of imagination and cleverness by the developers to create something so mysterious and old school.

It's also a story about creating a course where the golfers make the design, something I wish could be done more often.

You have to know about this place to arrange to play it. You phone Bandon Golf Supply, where they put you in touch with the course superintendent, Greg Harless. Scheduling is generally for weekdays, from November through June; there’s no irrigation on the fairways, so the course closes in the hot summer months. At the appointed date and time, Harless meets you at the course, collects a check for $100 per player, gives you a scorecard with a suggested routing for 18 holes, with a daunting par of 71, and shows you where to begin.

And then, literally, you’re on your own, for as long as you can play. Most days, your group, whether just two of you or 20, is the only group. You can follow the suggested routing to the greens that are lettered, not numbered, or create your own holes. You can bring a cooler, even a grill, and stop back at your car for lunch, and play some more; there’s no group pushing you at the turn, because there is no turn.

Bellamy also files a sidebar on the upcoming Punchbowl course at Bandon, which looks really, really neat and opens in May.

Certainly, you can practice your putting on The Punchbowl, the 3.5-acre putting course designed by Tom Doak, with Jim Urbina, the same duo who created Pacific Dunes and Old Macdonald.

There are mounds and slants, dips and drops, uphills, sidehills, downhills.

“You will find every kind of putt that you can imagine out there,” Doak has said, “and probably a few that you’ve never dreamed of.”

And the vibe already sounds entirely appropriate. If golf courses only had more of these kinds of fun places to hang out.

That’s evidenced by drink-holders by every “tee box” and hole, to hold your beverage of choice while you putt. Unlike the large putting green at the resort’s driving range, where golfers practice in near-silence before rounds — or stubbornly try to fix their strokes after rounds — golfers on The Punchbowl played in groups of two and more, and certainly not quietly.

And so this recent scene is likely to be repeated during the warm months next summer: A golfer, walking from the nearby restaurant at Pacific Dunes, crossing The Punchbowl to rejoin his buddies there, carrying a pitcher of beer to refill their cups.

USC Women Win Seventh-In-A-Row

We've been spoiled a bit by Cal's amazing run of tournament wins last year, but it looks like the USC women are going to reset the standards in women's college golf.

The defending national champions just won the Pac-12 Preview, an amazing 7th tournament win-in-a-row dating to the end of the 2012-13 season.

From a Golfweek.com report on USC edging rival UCLA.

The Bruins entered the tournament ranked No. 1 in the Golfweek/Sagarin College Rankings while USC was No. 2. USC has now beat UCLA in both tournaments in which they’ve gone head to head.

USC won its previous three fall tournaments with three different lineups. The Pac-12 Preview marks the first time this fall the team that won last year's NCAA Championship has come together.

“I am so proud of our team,” head coach Andrea Gaston said. “To win four events this year with four different lineups is a testament to the depth and talent of our team. As their coach, I appreciate how hard they work, and how they just keep fighting on! This is truly a special group of young ladies.”