Shoreacres

Shoreacres (ranked #51 in the world) is located in Lake Bluff, Illinois, north of Chicago on Lake Michigan and was designed by Seth Raynor in 1919.

In a happy coincidence, I bumped into The Itinerant Golfer, who happened to be playing Shoreacres the same day I was. For some reason, probably because I’m psychotic, my first thought was, “Criss Cross,” which is the phrase used in the wonderful Alfred Hitchcock movie Strangers on a Train, where Guy Haines and Bruno Anthony meet coincidentally.

What are the odds that two golf lunatics will meet crisscrossing the planet playing their top 100 lists? Pretty slim. Steve and I played together at Galloway National a couple of years ago as part of his journey, and we both hosted the crazy kiwis this summer. An amazing coincidence and a stroke of good fortune. Small world.

If you’ve never seen the movie, it is one of Hitchcock’s best, particularly the tennis scene played on grass at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills, New York where the US Open used to be played.

The Golf Course

My experience at Shoreacres was very rewarding. We had an 8am tee time on a lovely summer morning and were the only ones on the course. When I stepped to the first tee to hit my drive, the Star Spangled Banner started playing. I thought, "Hey, this is pretty cool," until my host politely pointed out that it wasn't in my honor but was the daily ritual at the Great Lakes Naval Station, which is located across the street from Shoreacres. Throughout the round we heard our nation's bravest marching, chanting and doing drills.

The defining characteristic of Shoreacres is the way Raynor routed the course around, over and through the ravines that dominate the landscape. The majority of holes play over a ravine on either the tee shot or the approach shot, sometimes both. The ravines are so prevalent that the scorecard features a local "Ravine Rule," allowing you relief under various penalty strokes if your ball ends up in one.

A ravine on the 4th hole at Shoreacres



A major ravine crossing the fairway on the 5th at Shoreacres

Raynor is known for his use of prototype or replica holes, and Shoreacres has many. The prototype "Biarritz" hole, the sixth, is a 192 yard par three that features a green that measures an amazing 88 yards from front to back with a big swale through its middle. Without moving the tees, the hole can vary in length from 148 yards to 236 yards just by moving the pin.

Like the golf course itself, the halfway house behind the sixth green is classic and refined. They have a nice selection of finger sandwiches stacked on a three tiered serving tray. The edges of the bread are nicely cut off the salmon, chicken salad and egg salad sandwiches. Her Majesty would approve of the halfway house at Shoreacres. Call me a ponce if you'd like, but I get off on this kind of stuff. It's the little things in life that count!

Shoreacres has the usual polish of a Raynor course, and the front nine was a joy to play. The course really picks up steam, though, on the back nine: Holes eleven through fourteen really get your heart racing. The tenth is a great rendition of a "Road" hole with only one bunker protecting the green, but when the pin is on the left side, one is all that's needed.

The intimidating 11th hole from the tee

The eleventh is a 378 yard par four with the fairway set at an angle to the tee so you have to decide which line you will hit on and judge the distance correctly. It is a classic risk-reward shot with a big penalty for a miss.

Not only do you have to carry the massive ravine off the tee, but also once again as you approach the green. The hole is seen from the green looking back below:

The 11th hole seen looking back from the tee

The eleventh is a true world-class hole and is followed by another at the par three twelfth, a prototype "Short" hole. It plays only 127 yards from an elevated tee box, but just look at the beauty of how Raynor designed the large green to sit tucked away in a small valley.

The world-class par three twelfth, "Short" hole at Shoreacres

The short 332 yard par four thirteenth features a completely blind tee shot over the ravine. Once again, your second must also carry a smaller ravine.

The approach to the 13th green

Shoreacres is not a long course; it measures 6,530 yards from the tips, but remember, golf is supposed to be a game we play to have fun and not a place to prove our manhood by demonstrating how far we hit the ball. Besides, holes like the 449 yard par four fifth and the 438 yard par four sixteenth provide plenty of opportunity to use muscle, if that's your cup of tea. Raynor routed the entire course to take advantage of the ravines, and even though the property abuts Lake Michigan, there are no holes where you can see the water.

Shoreacres is a tremendous place to play golf and I am a lucky man indeed to be invited to experience a place such as this, although as I approach the end of my journey, I wish I could slow the whole thing down and make it last longer. Shoreacres also represents the 52nd course I have played where you have to be hosted by a member. I've really become spoiled playing courses without a lot of people on them and with great caddies.

In addition to a world-class golf course, Shoreacres also has one of the stand-out clubhouses along with Shinnecock, Loch Lomond, National Golf Links and Cypress. There are few places better to enjoy an after round refreshment, overlooking the beautiful and cooling Lake Michigan. The clubhouse is set on the top of the bluff overlooking the lake. Of the 95 courses I have played, eight stand out as places I would like to join if I had unlimited money and better manners. The other seven are Maidstone, San Francisco Golf Club, Royal Liverpool Golf Club, Sunningdale, Yeamans Hall, Somerset Hills and Camargo Club.

The stand out Shoreacres clubhouse

Some of the best golf courses in the world such as Pine Valley and Peachtree are located in average neighborhoods. Shoreacres is no such animal. Lake Bluff and the adjacent town of Lake Forest are one of those elite suburban areas where everything is perfect and the people are at the highest echelons of wealth in the country.

An interior view of the classic clubhouse

The view from the clubhouse overlooking Lake Michigan

I have now completed playing all of Seth Raynor's courses ranked in the top 100 and feel that he got better as he went along. I think his best is Yeamans Hall (1925), followed by Camargo (1921), then Shoreacres (1919) and Fishers Island (1917). Yeamans, Camargo and Shoreacres have all been renovated by Tom Doak and seem better because of it. Perhaps Fishers can hire Tom and his firm to refresh the course to be more in line with its peers and for it to live up to its true potential.

Who would you want to have a drink with?

The results of our latest poll question is in and not surprisingly, Bobby Jones commanded the lead in the voting, "Which golfing figure would you most want to have a drink with if you could?"

Bobby Jones 37%
Halter Hagen 21%
Jack Nicklaus 14%
Phil Michelson 12%
Tiger Woods 9%
Colin Montgomerie 4%

Only 12 other people voted with me selecting the dour Scot. Even after his performance on the Ryder Cup? The man is a living wonder.



Prior poll results:

Hardest course to get on? Augusta
Great golf course architect? Mackenzie
Best golfing region in the world? Long Island

Please join me in our new poll question: The best Redan hole?

I have a new write-up coming later this week on a real gem of a course.

Wade Hampton Golf Club

Wade Hampton Golf Club (ranked #88 in the world) is located in Cashiers, North Carolina near Asheville, close to the South Carolina border. Cashiers is in the Western mountainous part of the state where the Great Smokey and Blue Ridge Mountains are located. The course takes its name from a confederate soldier known as "The Giant in Gray," General Wade Hampton III. Hampton's family owned the land the course was built on for generations, and they summered in the area; they also had a hunting lodge nearby. The Hamptons used to harvest ice from the lakes and where the eighteenth green sits today there was previously one such ice house.

Wade Hampton sporting a serious handlebar mustache

Hampton was the highest ranking Confederate cavalry officer under Robert E. Lee's command. He fought in the Battle of Antietam, the First Battle of Bull Run and the Battle of Fredricksburg. He was injured numerous times at Gettysburg. After the war he served as Governor of South Carolina and as a U.S. Senator. The likeness of Hampton seen above greets you in the form of a big painting hanging in the pro shop.

The course was designed by Tom Fazio, and he remains an active member today. The club was opened in 1987 with 120 charter and founding members, all from below the Mason-Dixon Line: seven from Augusta, Georgia and the remainder from Florida, Alabama and North Carolina. Although the membership has changed somewhat since the club's founding, Wade Hampton remains a below-the-radar Southern club. Similar to Fishers Island, in order to be a member of the club, you have to own property or a house bordering the course, making it a small, tight knit group, which explains why it took so many years for this cantankerous Yankee to get invited to play.

At the guard-gated entrance we were greeted with a big "Good maw-nin." Once through the gate you make a "ryat" followed by a "layft" to get to the clubhouse.

The course has a program where they sponsor young adults from South Africa to apprentice as caddies and in other jobs to learn the golf business. These well-mannered youngsters add some nice character to Wade Hampton. The course also has the nicest staff of any course I have visited. As at the Honors Course and Muirfield Village, your car is valet parked. EVERY employee greeted us warmly and welcomed us to the club. This was consistent all day long; they have really developed a culture of service excellence here that is unmatched.

The dramatic, downhill par 5 opening hole at Wade Hampton

Cashiers sits at 3,650 feet in elevation. The course begins on the highest point on the property with a 534 yard par five that plays down into a big valley. The course is essentially built into the mountain and has a lot of elevation change. The major characteristics of the course are its brilliant use of the elevation, its lushness and the creative routing through the large and omnipresent trees.

The downhill par three sixth hole

The par threes at Wade Hampton, as with most Fazio courses, are all very good. The sixth hole is a good example. It plays 152 yards downhill. In a very interesting design feature, the water in front of the green flows over a large granite slab that slopes down the hill. Two of the golfers in our group (yours truly included) came up short and the ball bounced off the rock onto the green. Apparently, there has been a hole in one recorded on this hole from a ricochet off the rock.

Seventh hole from the tee

The seventh hole is a 376 yard par four with a forced carry over both scrub and water. Wade Hampton was blasted through granite and carved out of thick forest, and you can get a sense of the density of the trees and foliage on the course from this picture taken off the seventh tee. The hole is a good risk-reward hole since you can choose how much of the water to take on with your tee shot.

The par three 11th

The 172 yard par three eleventh is another downhill beauty that uses the trees and bunkers to perfectly frame this verdant hole.

At least twelve holes at Wade Hampton play from an elevated tee box and the thirteenth is the most dramatic of them all. The 406 yard hole plays from an elevated tee and the second shot is also down a hill to the green.

The dramatic par four 13th hole with the mountain backdrop

What makes the thirteenth hole so dramatic is how close the granite face of Chimney Top Mountain is to you. It is not in the distance, but quite close to you as you play the hole and about 1,000 feet high. It's hard to focus on playing the hole, the grandeur of the mountain is so distracting. This was one of my favorite holes, along with the eighteenth.

The par three 17th hole, framed by two giant hemlock trees

The tantalizing seventeenth is also a very dramatic par three. It plays 190 yards downhill, with a small stream running in front of the green. The green is framed by two giant hemlock trees and the mountain. Wade Hampton is one of only a handful of mountain courses ranked in the top 100, the others being Highlands Links in Canada, Homestead (Cascades) in Virginia and Naruo in Japan.

The 18th green with the lovely clubhouse in the background

The eighteenth is a really good short par five finishing hole that gets progressively narrower from tee to green. Down its entire left hand side there is a stream and the fairway slopes right to left. It is equally as magnificent viewed from either the tee or the green. The intoxicating clubhouse provides a welcome distraction as you approach the green. It has a series of cascading porches, verandas and patios and exudes understated Southern elegance. The boys put some serious money into this hideaway.

The 18th fairway looking backward from the green

There are probably only a handful of courses better to play on than Wade Hampton on a sunny summer day; certainly almost none away from the sea. Playing at Wade Hampton is like being inside a Thomas Kinkade painting: Idyllic, with bucolic scenery and an idealized version of the world.

With the exception of the par four thirteenth, I liked the par threes and fives on the course better than the par fours. The par threes all make great use of the downhill terrain and are perched in special locations, tucked into corners around the property. The four par five holes were all very well designed and rewarded bold shots, but also gave a safe play for the higher handicapper. The course is quite difficult, with slope ratings on the various men's tee boxes ranging from 136-146.

During my visit I stayed at the High Hampton Inn, which is less than a mile from Wade Hampton down Highway 107. It is an old-style traditional inn where you still have to wear a jacket and tie at dinner; it has no air conditioning, no TV's; and still has its original 1930s knotty pin wood interiors. We sweated profusely at dinner but still enjoyed the show put on by the old-time Southerners who frequent this region in their seersucker suits and summer linen outfits, strutting their stuff up in the mountains. Our food at the buffet dinner was awful and the lack of air conditioning led me to develop a serious case of prickly heat. Plus, the place was also over-run with toddlers and kids. On the positive side the breakfast was quite good and the place has serious ambiance. One night staying there was enough, since I'm too uncouth to appreciate it and I miss my MTV.

My regular readers know I'm a big fan of the South and enjoyed playing Yeamans Hall, The Honors Course, Kiawah and Harbour Town. Wade Hampton is no exception. Wade Hampton is hard to get to, and frankly, like a lot of out-of-the-way places I have played like Sand Hills and Barnbougle Dunes, that is part of the charm. I drove the three hours from Atlanta to Cashiers, the last 45 minutes of which you ride on the single lane South Carolina State Highway 107. It is a long and winding road which snakes steeply uphill with 'S' turn after 'S' turn in the back woods, with the occasional old broken-down general store or barbeque shack. I continue to love the countryside, traditions and feel of the Old South, although I wouldn't want my car to break down on any of these back roads. It's not hard to see why Deliverance was filmed near here.

Only one more course in the South to play. I'm livin' the dream out here!

Sunningdale Golf Club

On a few occasions I have written about courses that I've played on before and really liked, most notably, Maidstone. I haven’t played Sunningdale in years and recently played it again. I had forgotten just how much I like it. This time with digital camera in tow, I got some nice pictures and thought I would update the post.

Located right down the road from the Wentworth Estate in Ascot, Surrey, adjacent to land owned by the Crown Estate (The Queen) is Sunningdale, one of the world's great golf courses. Sunningdale Old (ranked #44 in the world) was designed by Willie Park Jr. in 1901 and was tinkered with over the years by H.S. Colt who served as the secretary at Sunningdale. Once you enter inside the electronic entrance gates, you are in an oasis. The clubhouse, locker room, pro shop and property have a good feel to them, and the course has an intangible quality that makes it special.

I have always liked clubs of the understated variety, those that just have a good vibe about them. Sunningdale is comfortable, welcoming, traditional and has a patina and character that you only get through graceful aging.

Heathland courses such as Sunningdale were developed primarily because of the underlying land's resemblance to seaside links courses. They take advantage of sandy soil, the absence of mud in the winter and good drainage. Most of the area around London has a clay base and thus is not ideally suited for golf. Sunningdale, in the Surray heathland, is one of the brilliant exceptions.

Golf is sometimes referred to metaphorically as a walk in the park. In the case of Sunningdale, it is literally true. The course is surrounded by deep woods and is idyllic and peaceful. Its scenic beauty stacks up against the world's best. It achieves a high ranking in the world without being located near the water and without having hosted any Open Championships. The combination of the natural terrain, sand, birch trees, heather, gorse, pines and water come together beautifully to create a unique environment. It feels like one big classic English garden. Sunningdale is the quintessential English golf club in many respects. Aside from the stately English clubhouse, there are walking paths around the course where people stroll about with their dogs in peaceful solitude, and like Britain in general, it's delightfully quirky.

The first green in a park-like setting

I like a relatively easy starting hole, and the short par five first (492 yards) with O.B. down its right side, eases you into the round. Sunningdale reminds me a bit of Pine Valley. You can see the similarities between Pine Valley and Sunningdale throughout the round. This is not entirely surprising given Colt's influence on the design at Pine Valley.

The 3rd green could just as well be at Morfontaine

Aside from Pine Valley, Sunningdale also reminds me of Morfontaine because of its heavily wooded heathland setting in a forest. Sunningdale was built at a time when it was not in vogue to actively move terrain. Willie Park, Jr. is an important architect Thus, Sunningdale is a historic course, in addition to being so spectacularly beautiful. The Old course follows the natural contours of the land brilliantly. I like the use of cross-bunkers 60 to 80 yards from many greens, which creates doubt when hitting approach shots. Park's mixture of long holes, short holes, uphill and downhill is the ideal combination. The demanding par four (489 yard) second hole wakes you up after the easy first hole. It asks that you hit to the proper angle off the tee over heath. Mind the ditch down the left side of the hole if you want to score well. The blind second shot is to a well protected, canted green.

The sixth hole with its beautiful cross-bunkering

Sunningdale arguably has one of the top five routings of any golf course ever built (Pine Valley, Carnoustie, Sand Hills and Cypress Point in the mix). The shot variety, change in direction, change in elevation and mix of holes is top of the heap. Aside from the top shelf routing, the other defining features are forced carries over heather and scrub and the very well-placed cross-bunkering. You can see these to great affect in the picture of the 433 yard par four sixth hole, above.

The seventh is just a fantastic hole from tee to green and one of my favorites in the world. The tee shot is completely blind and plays to a hill that slopes sharply from right to left. The hole plays 406 yards and dog-legs to the right.

The seventh seen looking back from the fairway to the tee

Shots hit to the left will roll down the hill, potentially leaving you a shot blocked by trees. Even if you are not blocked by trees, the left side leaves a much more difficult angle to approach the uphill green from.

Approach to Sunningdale's 7th green

The elevated green is extremely well-protected. It is also large and slopes from back to front. The best tee shot is to the right side of the fairway, on the top of a little plateau that gives you a clean shot at the green.

The seventh green at Sunningdale looking back

The seventh is the middle of a fabulous three hole stretch that offers great shot variety and scenery. The 277 yard ninth is another very good example of a risk/reward hole with an extremely large green and well placed bunkers just short for those that try to go for it from the tee. The tee shot is essentially blind. Nine is an easy hole, which is a good thing, because the next hole is decidedly not.

Sunningdale's signature 10th hole

Sunningdale's 475 yard par four tenth hole is also a world-class hole. The hole plays from the highest point on the course down into a massive sweeping valley up to a well-protected elevated green. It's a real cracker and difficult.

The well-stocked halfway house off the tenth green offers traditional English fare including lovely egg mayonaise or bacon & chicken sandwiches. You wait at the halfway house for the group ahead to ring the bell on the eleventh green when they are done to indicate you can proceed.

I like short quirky par fours like the 322 yard eleventh, which makes for a nice breather between the two hardest holes on the course. This is classic Sunningdale. After beating you up, it hits you with a short par four to balance off being too harsh. The twelfth has a tee shot similar to the blind third hole at Royal Adelaide. I would imagine some people wouldn't like Sunningdale because it has some blind shots and several short holes. The genius in the routing is that hard holes are followed by those of relative ease. A long hole is usually followed by a short one, etc. Sunningdale does not have a weak set of holes anywhere on the course. What makes them all good is the risk/reward nature of them combined with their natural beauty.

Another nice feature of Sunningdale is that the walk from green to tee is always delightfully short, but never forced. Unlike Park’s design at Maidstone, there are no holes or shots across other holes.

The approach to the twelfth green

Aside from a world-class golf course, Sunningdale also has a very strong Bobby Jones history. It was on Sunningdale Old during an Open Championship qualifier in 1926 that Jones shot what was described as a perfect round. The standard scratch score on the course at the time was 75. He shot a 66 with a 33 on the front and a 33 on the back. He had 33 full shots and 33 putts. The highest number written on his scorecard was a four. This feat is even more incredible if put into its proper context. He was using hickory shafted clubs and a golf ball that was nowhere near those of today's standards. On ten holes he hit his shot to the green with a two iron or a wood. The more I learn about Bobby Jones, the more I see why he is a golf legend.

Sunningdale's "Stockbroker's Tudor" clubhouse behind the 18th green

I’ve had some difficult rounds on my travels, but at Sunningdale everything finally clicked and I played to my true potential. About time. It was nice to finally have some payback for pounding all those balls on the range and suffering through so many poor shots. The round was made even more pleasant by having a caddie who has carried bags here for forty years.

As with the first time I played here, I had a very nice apres-round Guinness to celebrate. Sunningdale has a lot of members who work in the financial industry, aka "The City.” Where else can you overhear a conversation like this on the front porch after a round over drinks? "We spent the winter in St. Moritz; our next big adventure is to Antarctica. In between, we'll have a “short” two week trip to Kilimanjaro. And of course, we’re spending June and July in Cannes. It’s quite easy now to just have a Bloomberg installed in your holiday home so you can keep up with the markets and “pop in” to London for one or two nights if necessary to attend to business." They were not discussing this to boast. Quite the opposite, in typically English style they were being discrete and spoke in a near whisper. Although my rabbit ears are a big detriment when I’m trying to fall asleep, they come in handy for listening in on conversations. It gives you a good sense for the type of membership Sunningdale has. They're not living paycheck-to-paycheck (more accurately in Britain pay packet-to-pay packet) at this most aristocratic of clubs.

As I've said before, I have had few finer experiences than sitting in the Sunningdale clubhouse after the round of golf with a pint reflecting back on a brilliant day's golf. Sunningdale is in a small group of courses that combine the best of both worlds - a world-class golf course with a great, warm and inviting club. Others are Maidstone, Somerset Hills, Yeamans Hall, The Valley Club of Montecito, Morfontaine, Royal Liverpool and San Francisco Golf Club, to name the best of the bunch.

Bobby Jones sums up Sunningdale in one eloquent sentence that perfectly captures my sentiments: "I wish I could take this course home with me."

Fantastic!

Colonial Country Club

Colonial Country Club (ranked #100) is located in Ft. Worth, Texas. It is the only top 100 course ranked in the state. Readers located outside the U.S. may not be familiar with the psyche in The Lone Star State, which is summed up cleanly in their unofficial state motto, "Don't mess with Texas." Texas isn't so much a separate state as it is a state of mind. Ft. Worth has an interesting history as a genuine Western city. If someone walks around Dallas with a big cowboy hat they would be assumed to be a Yankee trying to fit in. In Ft. Worth, the cowboys are real, based on the local cattle industry. Ft. Worth is also a major rail hub, but more about that later. Ft. Worth's city motto is "The West Starts Here," and there is much truth to that. It was previously nicknamed "The Paris of the Plains" due to its freewheeling reputation during the mid 1800's. Ft. Worth had a rowdy saloon district in the latter part of the 19th century, known for its debauchery and crime. It was called "Hell's Half Acre," predating the use of this nickname for the seventh hole at Pine Valley by a good fifty years.

Colonial was built by John Bredemus in 1936, and modifications were made by Perry Maxwell a few years later. Maxwell was the same designer as Prairie Dunes & Southern Hills. The course is famous because it was Ben Hogan's home course during the height of his career.

The Golf Course

Colonial starts out simply enough on flat ground. The first hole is a straight forward dogleg right par five of 555 yards, one of only two on the course. As you can see in the picture below of the first green, the course is well bunkered around the greens. It has possibly the whitest sand I have seen on a golf course. Stepping into the immaculate bunkers can be blinding because they are so white.

The first green

It becomes clear pretty quickly at Colonial that the greens are small. Along with Pebble Beach, Harbour Town and Inverness, they are among the smallest of all the courses I have played.

The three hole stretch three through five is known as the "Horrible Horseshoe." Horseshoe, because the third tee is right next to and left of the fifth green, and the three holes swing around in a U shape. Horrible, because they are not easy. The third is a 468 yard par four dogleg left with a slightly elevated green. The fourth is a tricky 220 yard par three, also with an elevated green.

The par three fourth green

The fifth hole is one of the most renowned in the world. It gets endless accolades. Golf's 100 Toughest Holes includes it on its list. The 500 World's Greatest Golf Holes ranks the fifth among its top 100. Dan Jenkins, in his 1966 book The Best 18 Golf Holes in America, selected the fifth hole as well. It is a 459 yard par four (481 for the pros), dogleg right. As Jenkins describes it: "The drive must be almost perfect, a slight fade and 250 yards out, if you are going to reach it in two. But fade too much, and there is the Trinity waiting. You can bail out to the left but there is a line of trees and a ditch there." The Trinity he is referring to is the Trinity River, which snakes along the outside of the course.

It's a hard hole for sure, but not that hard. As my readers know, I'm not exactly a scratch golfer and I parred the fifth. In fairness, the prevailing left to right wind wasn't blowing when we played; I imagine it's a different hole if the wind is up.

The sixth is a lovely 381 yard par four, dogleg right with another elevated green. For the record, the greens were as well conditioned as I've seen in my travels, so my compliments to the greenskeeping staff. They keep this place immaculate, which, given the heat and humidity down here, they should be commended for.

The elevated sixth green from the left side

I must say, though, that walking off the seventh green, I was not terribly impressed with the course. Very pleasant, for sure, but I was thinking to myself, ok, so it's in the top 100 in the world because Ben Hogan was a member. Nothing wrong with that. We should respect the wee ice mon. I'm good with that.

By the time I walked off the eighteenth green, I had a different opinion.

I liked the 169 yard par three eighth hole. It has some wicked bunkers and trees around it, and the green slopes back to front. Starting on this part of the course, there are two dramatic changes. First, there is a lot more change in elevation and terrain; and second, you play alongside the massive adjacent railroad yard. I know, stick to the golf, you fool, who cares about rail yards? Well, in my view it is an integral part of playing at Colonial. I'm not talking about an occasional train that goes by like at Carnoustie or Royal Lytham & St. Annes. We're talking a major working rail yard right next to the course. Serious rolling stock, my friends.

The par three eighth hole

Because of the cattle business and stock yards, Ft. Worth has had railroad yards since 1876, so they have been here a lot longer than the golf course. It's not unusual to be hitting a drive or a putt and hear train cars smacking into each other as they are coupled up. Train whistles toot their horns throughout the round more than Donald Trump when he is on camera.

The tenth was also one of my favorite holes. It is a nice 381 yard dogleg right par four. Your second shot is over a big swale to a well protected green. Like Harbour Town, Colonial is a narrow, shot makers course. You don't need to bomb the ball to score well here. What you need to do is hit around trees and be smart with club selection.

The tenth hole, approach to the green

The eleventh hole is the other par five on the course, and it is Texas-sized at 600 yards from the pro tees. The green is protected extremely well as seen below.

The par five eleventh green

It won't be uncommon to hear high-pitched screeching as you play around this part of the course as metal train wheels brush against the metal tracks as they are continually put together and leave the station. I'm not bringing up the trains to be critical of them. In fact, the course has a perimeter of trees that block out most of the noise. It's not obnoxious, but it is constant background din all day. Just like it would be hard to describe Moray Golf Club in Scotland without talking about the everpresent jets taking off from RAF Lossiemouth, it's hard to talk about Colonial without discussing the bustling rail yard.

The twelfth was also a very good hole, a 400 yard par four dogleg right with a bowl-like fairway. The elevated green is protected by trees and beautiful bunkers. The green is the smallest on the course, which is saying something here, given that they are all small. Where Colonial excels is in its subtle but sneaky-hard use of doglegs. Ben Hogan's assessment of the course describes how the doglegs are used so effectively, "A straight ball will get you in more trouble at Colonial than any course I know."

The tiny twelfth green

Fifteen was my favorite hole, another 400 yard par four, this one another dogleg right. Tee shots will kick right-to-left off the sloping terrain. There is a creek that guards the left side of the elevated green, which you approach from the bottom of a hollow.

The fifteenth green

Sixteen through eighteen are strong finishing holes that I enjoyed. It is a finishing sequence like this that makes Colonial such a good venue for the PGA tour. Seventeen is a 373 yard par four that gets progressively narrower as you approach the green, and you have to hit over a swale in the middle of the fairway. The eighteenth has water left of the green. When Phil Mickelson won the tournament here in 2008, he hit a miracle shot over trees after being completely out of position. When he made the putt for birdie, some drunken fool did a cannonball into the little pond adjacent to the green. He was arrested, but you must agree that it was a rather imaginative move. At least he had the decency not to take his shirt off before he jumped in. The video on YouTube.

Obviously, I liked the back nine better than the front and liked Colonial overall. I almost always walk when I play, but I took a cart at Colonial because, like Shadow Creek, it's just too hot. We were treated with true Texas hospitality by everyone at Colonial including our forecaddy who was a nice young man who always had a mouth full of chewin' tobacca' and called us "y'all" the whole round.

As they say, don't mess with Texas.

Colonial and the rail yard from the air

Royal Adelaide Golf Club

Once you start to get really serious about playing the top 100 golf courses in the world, you start to look beyond the obvious courses located in places you might otherwise travel to. That’s when the maps come out and you try to figure out where places like Hutchinson, Kansas (Prairie Dunes) and Adelaide, Australia are.

A time-space trivia question to start. Where in the world can you fly for one hour and arrive in only thirty minutes? The answer: Melbourne to Adelaide. Adelaide is a city of 1.5 million people located in South Australia, west of Melbourne. Their clock is set thirty minutes off those of the big cities on Australia’s east coast. Thus, when it is 3:00pm in Sydney and Melbourne, it is only 2:30pm in Adelaide, an interesting quirk.

Royal Adelaide Golf Club (ranked #50 in the world) was founded in 1870 and is the oldest golf club in Australia. This current location in Seaton is the club’s third. This course was first laid out in 1903 and the original designers were H.L. Rymill, and C.L. Gardiner. And, like many of the great courses in this country, the course was changed by Dr. Alister MacKenzie in 1926. In the middle of MacKenzie's Melbourne visit he traveled by train to Royal Adelaide for four days.

One of the things you notice immediately at Royal Adelaide is the Grange-to-Adelaide train line. It runs through the middle of the course including right by the club house and first hole. It is a pretty active train line; we saw the petite two train cars shuttle back and forth from the suburbs to the beach about twenty times during the round. The train is only twenty yards from the thirteenth green and runs quietly so you really must look both ways before crossing it several times during your round, since there are no protective gates. Many of the great courses of the British Isles have train tracks running alongside the course; none have a train running through them.

Grange-to-Adelaide train running through Royal Adelaide by the first tee

The first hole plays with the train running down the left and is a relatively straight forward 342 meter (add 10 percent for yards) dogleg left hole with one well placed bunker in front of a small green. In general, the greens at Royal Adelaide are small, and the breaks are very subtle. We had trouble all day reading the fast greens.

Approach to the first green

The second hole plays on the other side of the train tracks and is a 468 meter par five. I hit my tee shot onto the tracks, which is not O.B., and it bounced down the line and back into the path running alongside. You can see the distinctive reddish sand at Royal Adelaide, the natural color.

The well protected 2nd green

Many golf books, including Planet Golf, rate the third hole as one of the world’s great par fours. The small green sits among sand dunes set in a narrow hollow. It is only 265 meters and potentially drivable, but the shot is blind from the tee. The fairway gets progressively narrower the closer you get to the green. I agree that it is a real cracker, as they say down here.

Blind tee shot, Royal Adelaide third hole

The area around the green, like many at Royal Adelaide, has closely mown areas for chipping, with a Pinehurst style upside-down bowl green. The narrow green is set at an obtuse angle to the line of play. The third is a tantalizing hole, the type where as you are walking off the green you start to think, "I should have hit a driver," or you begin to imagine a dozen different ways you could try to birdie or eagle this hole, or like the greatest holes, perhaps make a six or seven if you get too aggressive...

The beautiful third green at Royal Adelaide, from behind

The fourth is also a very good hole. It is a 369 meter par four with a blind tee shot. You have to hit over a grassy knoll to a hole that doglegs to the left slightly.

The blind tee shot of the par four fourth hole

The fourth fairway has many humps and bumps that send the ball ricocheting.

The fairway, fourth hole

MacKenzie’s major contribution was to re-route the course through the dunes on the central part of the property. MacKenzie's re-routing eliminated the back and forth across railroad tracks. Aside from the back tee on fourteenth, all holes now play on either one side or the other. MacKenzie said, "If the suggestions put forward for the reconstruction of the Royal Adelaide course are acted upon, it will be superior to most, if not all, English championship courses." He wasn't far off.

When you drive into the Royal Adelaide property, it has the flat and wide-open appearance of a links course, similar to when you first pull in to many classic links courses such as Lythan & St. Annes, St. Andrews or Royal Liverpool. It doesn’t look like much, but it is.

The seventh hole is a 148 meter uphill par three and is guarded by the “big six” bunkers. The green slopes back-to-front and it is a standout hole.

The well bunkered, elevated green, seventh hole

As you would expect from MacKenzie, Royal Adelaide is a well routed course that offers a lot of variety. Long par fours mix with shorter ones and great dogleg holes. This variation is important to keep shot variety interesting when the wind is blowing. Another interesting hole is the 483 meter par five ninth, which first doglegs to the left and then to the right. It is seen from the green below.

Ninth green looking back at fairway

The back nine reminded me a lot of golf in the Hamptons, although you cannot see the water from anywhere on the course. The course feels a bit like Maidstone around holes nine through fourteen.

Royal Adelaide is an easy walk and has so many pine trees that it has a fragrant smell of pine as you stroll about. I really like sandy courses like this that have a great routing and don’t try too hard to impress you. The eleventh is another standout hole, called the "Crater Hole." It plays 354 meters from the back tees and is another blind tee shot (the third at Royal Adelaide) up a slight hill. The second shot is a beauty.

Once you climb the crest of the hill, you can see the amphitheatre setting the green is set in.

Approach shot to the eleventh hole

The 382 meter par four fourteenth is also listed as one of the top 100 golf holes in the world. If you can carry the plateau landing area you will have a clearer shot at the renowned humped green. The plateau is guarded within the right elbow of the dogleg by three bunkers that run consecutively from the edge of the fairway farther into a fourth. The plateau can also produce a downhill lie for a ball struck well enough.

The fairway is also unsheltered and open to the wind. The club has removed many trees over the last three years in an effort to return the course more to the way it originally played.

The fifteenth also ranks as one of the 500 greatest, and the challenges begin the moment you reach the tee. The double-dogleg fairway goes first left then right through a narrow chute of trees, and from the sheltered tee box it is virtually impossible to gauge the affect of the wind. The par five hole plays 450 meters and has very deep greenside bunkers.

Tee shot, par five fifteenth hole

What do you get when you combine a seaside links-style course with a MacKenzie routing and several of the world’s great golf holes? Simply, one of the best courses in the world. I count it among my personal favorites and can see why it is rated as one of the top fifty courses in the world. It’s hard to say that any course in the top fifty in the world is under-rated, but I think Royal Adelaide is. For example, I think it is a better and more interesting course than several of the courses on the list that rank above it such as Baltusrol, Oak Hill and Royal Birkdale. I think the same is also largely true of New South Wales and most of the premier courses in the Southern Hemisphere. If courses such as these got more exposure, their rankings in the world would undoubtedly rise.

My only complaint at Royal Adelaide is the brand new seventeenth hole that seems out of character with the rest of the course. It has a massively wide split fairway with huge bunkers in the middle that are in play off the tee. No other holes have wide fairways or bunkers in the middle. The green is very large, also out of character for this course. The hole seems more appropriate for Barnbougle Dunes than it does for Royal Adelaide.

The City of Adelaide

Despite being the place where Rupert Murdoch got his start, I liked Adelaide a great deal. Named after the English Queen consort of King William IV, Adelaide is filled with many charming Victorian buildings. As my regular readers know, I like to go for an early morning walk to explore cities I am traveling to for the first time. Adelaide is very walkable, has interesting architecture, a glorious Botanical Garden and a quaint University. It is one of the most livable cities I have ever been to. It has beautiful weather year round, minimal traffic and is close to Australia’s biggest wine growing region. It is big enough to have a lot of amenities but small enough to be intimate. As a university town it has a similar feel to Palo Alto, California or Stellenbosch, South Africa.

The city is the capital of South Australia, the only state that was freely settled. As a planned city, it was laid out in a grid system with wide boulevards, public squares and is surrounded entirely by parkland. As you can see from the pictures, it has more of a Western feel to it than the more cosmopolitan and urbane cities of Melbourne and Sydney.

Rundle Street, Adelaide

The travel writer Bill Bryson sums up Adelaide succinctly and perfectly: "It feels rather like an urban version of a gentlemen's club - comfortable, old-fashioned, quietly grand, slightly drowsy by mid-afternoon, redolent of another age. It is to Australia essentially what Australia is to the world - a place pleasantly regarded but far away and seldom thought about." Let’s hope it stays that way, I would hate to see it change.

Routing map of Royal Adelaide

If you are going to Australia to golf and are debating whether to make the side trip to Adelaide, by all means do.

Dodgy - Pure Golf 2010

It was my pleasure to host Dodgy on his travels through the U.S. recently. Dodgy, or more formally a modified 1988 Dodge Ram Family Wagon, was part of the traveling caravan accompanying the two "crazy kiwis," as I call them. Michael Goldstein and Jamie Patton are testing the age old question of "How much golf is too much?" They are 25 year-old lawyers from Nu Zillin, who have decided to travel the world and play golf for 365 straight days, raising money for the First Tee New Zealand. You can follow their daily travels here: Puregolf2010.

They began their quest at Kauri Cliffs, and spent an extended period of time in Australia before flying to the U.S. I met them at Kingston Heath and joined up with them again as they were coming through New Jersey. They were about as impressed with the New Jersey Turnpike as most people are, but it was good to see them again and we had a fabulous time, despite the fact that they made fun of my golf shoes and think I'm a sandbagger. 88 to 1.

Dodgy at Hidden Creek

Dodgy turned out to be quite a useful purchase for the crazy kiwis since it provided a backup when they have nowhere to stay overnight. They are doing their quest with a minimal amount of money. If they can't find a host for the night, then Dodgy it is. Thus far in their travels they have played Royal Melbourne, Cypress Point, San Francisco Golf Club, Riviera, Pine Valley, Winged Foot, Baltusrol and both Shinnecock and National Golf Links on the same day, with the lobster lunch! I tried to impress on them how lucky they were to be able to play them at all; that most folks never get the chance to play. Even more amazing, they have paid for only one greens fee thus far.

I don't know if you remember what you were doing when you were 25, but these two have maturity well beyond their years. They are observant, witty and have it all together. They are great company and very good golfers. I think their winning combination of traits makes them uniquely qualified to pull this journey off. Young professionals who are affable and articulate with serious golfing abilities. Plus, people generally have a fascination and fondness of Kiwis given their place in the world and charming accents. Can you imagine a couple of middle-aged Germans duffers trying to do this? Fat chance.

Their writing style is very good and it has provided a welcome relief every day to read their amusing posts and keep track of their travels. Some of their best examples are below:

1. In South Carolina: "A cantankerous swine of a woman hogged the shuffleboard table all night, so we didn’t get the chance to experience what looked like an interesting game."

2. "Sawgrass, really, is a deviant."

3. "As Dodgy pulled up at the TPC Louisiana track the hooter was going off to suspend play. "

4. Sleeping in Dodgy in Silicon Valley: "The state trooper that banged his 6 foot long torch on our window just as we’d got to sleep wasn’t too impressed. He probably thought we were glue sniffers. We’re not."

5. Traveling to Adelaide: "On these long straight roads the temptation is to cut loose, autobahn styles. Mike succumbed and was duly pinged by the South Australian Police Force; an unwelcome pouring of $220 down the drain."

We shall soon be closer to having the age old golf question answered. Can it be done? Can your body take golf every day for a year? Can your psyche? Can you retain your friendship and not kill your traveling companion? Will you be lucky enough to have flights run on time and not hit a thunderstorm? I wish them all the luck in the world and hope they are successful. They leave the United States tonight and are off to Scotland.

Godspeed and safe travels boys. Hope to see you in New Zealand this winter. Thanks for not burning the house down!