The Best Course You've Never Heard of, Part 2

Next week people will flock to the Augusta area for The Masters.  The best golf option for people looking to tee it up during The Masters is always Palmetto Golf Club, the very private Mackenzie course that opens its doors to the public for one week a year.  With that being said, I would argue the second best option to play that week or really any week of the year is a course that is a mere two miles from Palmetto, Aiken Golf Club.

http://www.aikengolfclub.net/

One unfortunate trend of the last 30 or so years is the dismissal of shorter courses as unworthy.  Just because a course is under 6000 yards doesn’t mean it’s not worth your time to play.  Aiken is the ultimate example of this.  I would put Aiken right up there with Cape Arundel and Merion (West) as the best under 6000 yard golf courses in the country.

A trip to play Aiken Golf Club is a must because its good for your soul.  From the moment you arrive you feel something special in the air.  You walk into the quaint old style locker room and feel the history of the course  You take a fun tour around the putting course and you are immediately excited to tee it up.

The fantastic double green at #1 and #17 sets the tone for what is in store for you on this wonderful journey

1st and 17th greens

The brilliant short par 5 second hole is a dogleg right that requires a tee shot down the far left side of the fairway if you want a shot at reaching the green in two.  Don't let the yardage fool you.  This 446 yard par 5 is not the easy birdie that you think it is.  It makes you earn it.

2nd Hole

The brilliant routing navigates you up and down some gentle slopes.  One of the most noticeable ups is on the short par 3 fourth hole.  Only 128 yards from the middle tees, this hole has an outstanding green and emphasizes the fun that is playing at Aiken.

4th Hole

The shortish par 4 sixth hole is relatively flat and yet is one of the strongest par 4's on the course.

6th Hole

The short par 4 eighth hole features one of the most well bunkered greens on the course.  The uphill par 3 ninth is in the background.

8th Hole with par 3 9th in the background

After two outstanding short par 4's at 14 & 15, we arrive at the downhill par 3 16th hole.

16th Hole

We return to the double green with the uphill par 4 17th hole.

1st and 17th Greens, 17 on the right.

The 18th hole is a long par 3 that ends our journey around one of the most fun golf courses in the country.

18th hole with clubhouse in the background

If you ever find yourself in the Augusta area, please take the time to play Aiken Golf Club.  You will not be disappointed.

California Trip Review

After reading my recent Florida trip post a friend emailed me asking when he would see a review of my January California trip.  I hadn't thought of doing a review of that trip because it happened before I created this blog, but it's always fun to look back on wonderful golf trips.  So, I present my January trip to California.

My January trip the past few years has been to the Hilton Head area with a group of friends, but for logistical reasons I wasn't able to make that work this year so I decided to look for someplace warm to play golf in January.  The last time I was in California was in 2010.  My wonderful wife allowed me to fly to LA for a couple days of golf before we got married in Las Vegas.  On that trip my experience with LAX didn't go well and I was determined through planning to make this trip much less stressful.

My first stop right off the airplane was The North course at Pelican Hill in Newport Beach.  I was impressed with how Tom Fazio was able to make a course on a very severe site very playable.  Of course I shouldn't be surprised as that is Fazio's expertise when it comes to design.  The course has so many elevated tee shots I remember thinking "When are we going back up hill?"

9th Hole

14th Hole

17th Hole at Darkness.  This was my last hole, the pace didn't allow me to finish

The second course of the trip was Wilshire Country Club in Los Angeles.  I was really looking forward to playing Wilshire.  The pictures of the recent work by Kyle Phillips looked amazing and I was excited to get out early walking with a friend I hadn't seen for a couple years.  I came away extremely impressed with Wilshire.  I would put it in the top 10 golf courses in California.  The walking culture was also very impressive.  My friend and I played behind a foursome for the first four holes, and were let through a five-some on the second nine and even with those delays, we walked the course in 2 hours and 45 minutes!

4th Hole.  Wonderful bunkering restored by Kyle Phillips

9th Hole with the Hollywood sign in the background

11th Hole

Next up on the trip was the South course at Pelican Hill.  The courses at Pelican Hill could easily be renamed Upper and Lower as the North (Upper) sits on the high part of the property and the South (Lower) is on the bottom part of the property with a few holes right on the ocean.  The South was another solid Fazio course with very aesthetically pleasing holes and lots of width.

7th Hole

13th Hole

18th Hole

Fourth course on the trip was a quick early bird warm up nine at Oaks North Golf Club in Rancho Bernardo.  My tee time at the next course was eight a.m. and I didn't want to waste a couple good hours of daylight so I played nine at this executive course with three nines.  I had a memorable exchange with the starter when I told him about my next tee time and said I would walk the nine holes in about 35 minutes.  He told me that was impossible.  I said we'll see and I walked it in 31 minutes.  I resisted the temptation to find him and ask him what time it was when I finished.

4th Hole

7th Hole

9th Hole

After the warm up nine I made the short drive to Maderas Golf Club in Poway.  Maderas was my second Johnny Miller design.  Johnny must like challenging the average golfer as the greens were very difficult.  The three locals I played with said the cardinal rule was "never get above the hole" as most putts coming from above fail to stop within ten feet of the cup because of the severity of the greens.

3rd Hole looking back

4th Hole

9th Hole

The next course on this day involved a gorgeous drive over a mountain to get to Borrego Springs and Ram's Hill Golf Club.  Ram's Hill was one of the best Fazio courses I've ever played.  I was impressed with the creativity, the bunkering, and the interesting greens.  I found out a few days later that the course is actually a Jackson/Kahn design under the Fazio name, which explains a lot about why I liked it so much.

5th Hole

6th Hole

10th Hole

17th Hole

Day four of the trip began with Tradition Golf Club in La Quinta, California.  Tradition is an Arnold Palmer design and Palmer was a part time resident for many years.  The golf course may be Palmer's best design with several stand out holes and excellent use of the property right up against the mountains.

10th Hole

Rams on the 16th Hole

15th Hole

17th Hole

The Par 3 Course at Tradition was the next course on the trip.  I really admire what the club did with creating the Par 3 course.  It doesn't take up much land, the holes are all short and fun, and it is easily walked.  My caddie at Tradition told me a great story about Arnold Palmer and the Par 3 course.  Palmer's house was to the right of the second tee of the Par 3.  He would sit out on his back porch and watch people play.  He wouldn't hesitate to yell "great shot" to somebody.  You'd look over to see who said it and there he was.  Lots of people would go over to say hi and then all of a sudden you'd be having a five minute conversation with one of the greatest human beings to walk the earth!

4th Hole

8th Hole

9th Hole

The next course on the trip was the one I was looking forward to the most because it was designed by my favorite modern designer, Tom Doak.  Stone Eagle Golf Club sits up on a hill in Palm Desert.  Doak, traditionally a minimalist designer, had to move more earth than at any golf course he designed previously.  The way Doak used the site was amazing.  He used the elevation changes to build world class holes without sacrificing width.  The greens were as usual for Doak-fun, interesting and wild.

14th Hole

15th Hole

18th Hole

19th Hole

The final day of the trip began with a dew sweeping round at Strawberry Farms Golf Club in Irvine.  Again, not wanting to waste valuable daylight before my nine am round, I took advantage of the proximity and played the scenic back nine at Strawberry Farms, a Jim Lipe design.

10th Hole just after sunrise

14th Hole

17th Hole

After the warm up at Strawberry, I made the short drive over to Shady Canyon Golf Club.  Shady Canyon is a high-end private Tom Fazio course.  Similar to my experiences at Pelican Hill, Fazio took a beautiful but challenging piece of property and created a very pleasant golf course.

4th Hole

7th Hole

17th Hole

The last round of the trip was at Santa Ana Country Club.  Santa Ana was recently renovated by Jay Blasi.  Jay did an incredible job of transforming a bland course on a tight piece of property into one of the most fun and interesting golf courses in California.  Jay added many classic architecture templates like the Biarritz and Punchbowl.

6th Hole

8th Hole with Biarritz Green

11th Hole

Florida Trip Review

I recently spent five days in Sunny Florida. I played 11 golf courses in five days, 10 new courses, which put me at an even 100 golf courses played in Florida.  This is the fourth state where I have reached 100 courses played, NC, PA, & VA being the other three.  SC should join the list this year or next year, but I digress.

The first stop of the trip was Hyde Park in Jacksonville.  Hyde Park is an old Donald Ross Municipal course that looked like it had the original greens as they were very large and undulating and didn't appear to have lost any original green pads.

1st Hole

Sign on 6th tee

3rd Hole

Not so humble brag, lowest nine hole score in a few years!

Second stop of the trip was another Ross municipal course, The South course at Daytona Beach Golf Club.  I really enjoyed playing this course.  The greens have obviously shrunk over time from the Ross originals but they still had plenty of interest and undulation.

7th Hole

12th Hole

Third course on the trip was the only course I have played before, the Blue course at Streamsong.  I believe this was my 11th trip around the Blue and it gets better every time I play.  Seminole is the best course in Florida, but Streamsong Blue is my favorite course in Florida.  It also contains one of my all time favorite Short Par 4's, the 13th hole.  Any time you get to dew sweep at a golf course is an amazing experience and being able to do it at the Blue was an extraordinary treat, thanks KH.

2nd hole in the early morning light

8th hole

Next stop on the trip was Pinecrest on Lotela.  One of my goals is to play every golf course designed by Donald Ross.  I use the Ross Society list as my guide and this course appears on that list.  However the list hasn't been updated in 4 years and it has been proven that the course was designed by Birdie Way, who also designed the South course at Firestone.  Even with this knowledge, I still felt the need to play the course.

1st Hole

10th Hole

Fifth course on the trip was a course only a golf architecture nerd like me could love, Highland Florida golf course, formerly known as Lekarica in Lake Wales.  Lekarica was designed by Styles & Van Kleek and when it opened in the 20's, it was probably one of the best courses in Florida.  Unfortunately, the course declined over many years and has been closed and re-opened a couple times over the last few years.  The routing is basically the same as when it was designed and some of the bunkers are still there.  The course could really benefit from a chainsaw more than anything else as seen below in the picture of the 2nd tee:

2nd tee, in major need of tree work

7th Hole

The sixth course on the trip was the first private club of the trip, John's Island Club in Vero Beach. John's Island has two courses at its main clubhouse, North & South, and another course at a separate location, the West course.  I played the West course about 6 years ago and hadn't played the North & South.  We began our day on the South course.  The North & South are both early Pete Dye designs and they reflect his slightly restrained early period before he got bold with some of his bunkers and greens

7th Hole

18th Hole looking back

After a quick 2 hour and 45 minute round behind 2 twosomes we played the North course at John's Island.  The North is 300 yards longer than the South and obviously the "championship" course at John's Island.  

4th Hole

7th Hole

Next on the itinerary was the biggest surprise of the trip, Hawk's Nest Golf Club in Vero Beach.  Officially the course is called Hawk's Nest at The Moorings, as it was bought by The Moorings Club a few years ago.  Hawk's Nest is a Jim Fazio course that I really enjoyed.  My experiences with Jim Fazio in the past have not been great so I was really shocked at just how good this place was.  The routing was tremendous.  He got maximum use out of a very good piece of property.

9th Hole

11th Hole

The ninth course I played on the trip was Old Corkscrew in Estero, Florida.  I admit that I have a bias towards dis-liking Jack Nicklaus designed courses.  In my opinion his courses are way too hard and borderline unplayable for high handicap players.  With that being said, I thought Old Corkscrew was a solid course.  The greens were a little difficult but I found it to be playable with some very good holes.

2nd Hole

First time I've seen them put this on the GPS System, made me a little nervous

10th Hole

The tenth course I played on the trip was West Bay Club in Estero.  West Bay is a Pete & PB Dye design.  The course is in the early stages of a total renovation where they will re-grass and soften parts of the course to improve playability.  Typical for a course where PB is involved, it is a touch on the unfair side on several holes but overall a very enjoyable course.

6th Hole

12th Hole

The final course I played on the trip was San Jose Country Club in Jacksonville.  San Jose was designed by Donald Ross and most of the routing remains intact.  The course has gone through several renovations so it's difficult to tell what is Ross and what is not, but what is there is very good.  The greens are wonderfully undulating and fun and the fairway bunkering, while clearly not Ross, is also very well done.

5th Hole.  This is one of the holes not part of the original Ross design.  Still a very good hole

8th Hole