This years birthday trip

After the extravagance of East Lothian's finest for the big 5-0 last year I was stuck in a bit of a conundrum about what to do this year. Last year would have been extremely difficult to top (Muirfield, North Berwick, Gullane 1 and a night on the lash in Edinburgh) and as 51 is hardly a big milestone age I felt a bit of downsizing was in order. I think however that I've struck a good balance...a day out at St George's Hill. 27 holes with all the trimmings of brekkie on arrival, sandwich lunch then a slap up dinner after the afternoon 18.
20 of us going so should be a good day

Who's played it? What did you think of it and how does it compare to the other Surrey Heathland courses?

Any excuse for a nice treat JAS   

I stopped celebrating my birthday when I left home at 17   

Maybe I should start it up again... Perfect timing as it's the big 3-0 this year...worth a wee trip up to Dornoch perhaps...

Did gullane 1 and berwick and night out in Edinburgh last year as well. Tough to top I reckon!

Not played St Georges Hill JAS but if anybody drops out... 

It's great, and super expensive.

It's not exactly cheap George but £117.75 for 27 holes of that quality and food for Brekkie, lunch & dinner thrown in? I thought that wasn't a bad deal at all.

...and yes Barra you should, everybody deserves a treat once in a while especially for big milestone birthdays.

To be fair monty we ran out of weather luck for Gullane 1 but the day at North Berwick made the whole weekend

BCM there are a couple of 606ers going. PM me if you're interested the booking is done based on a minimum of 20 people. So there is scope for drop outs.

Jas, that sounds like a good deal for St George's and all that food.

I played all three nines a couple of years ago, and it was in good condition. There used to be two courses, but they lost nine holes of the New Course after WWII and then redesigned it to be the green nine. I really enjoyed the green nine - thought it was good.

It's similar to the other heathland courses in that area. It reminded me of Worplesden most I think, but you can see similarities with Wentworth, Sunningdale, Swinley, Berkshire and many of the others.

There's a premium on straight hitting. It's not long - none of the three nines are long, and I think only one hole of the 27 is over 500 yards. Like Moor Park, it's a Colt course, so the fairways tilt, the bunkers have slivers of land extending into them, and the greens have some subtle and not so subtle borrows. There are doglegs, but usually only gentle. Come to think of it, it's very similar to the High course at Moor Park, but not as long.

Have a great day.

Cool, thanks for the info George I've played the 2 Sunningdales and Swinley and love that kind of course.

I suppose I can consider myself quite lucky in that my birthday falls right at the end of the winter green fee period so with a wee bit of research I have scope to unearth a good bargain

Another one I played quite recently which I was really impressed with as well (not quite in the Sunningdale league - but price reflected that) was North Hants. Nice visitor friendly attitude too, well worth a visit.
I suppose

Bloody hell jas you sure I wasn't there? Gullane was shocking weather for us too (reckon 26 won)! And berwick cannot be played in better conditions I reckon. Winner had 42 points playing off 5. Bet that's not done often when the breeze is up!

I recall a sign in the locker room at StGH for juniors. "If you can't carry your bag you have too many clubs in it!"
They also have a large mirror in a tree by first tee (can't recall which 9) which enables you to see when the fairway is clear. Shortly before playing there someone had smashed it, and took many goes to reposition in exactly the right place! One of those quirky things, like the periscope sticking out of the starters hut at Elie. Anyone spotted other notables?

This sign stands next to the first tee on the Black course at Bethpage in New York.

http://golf.lohudblogs.com/2011/06/29/bethpage-black-gets-into-barclays-rotation/

I witnessed mediocre golfers really struggling with hard courses in the UK, US and Europe. I think signs like that should be replicated at any course which is longer than 6800 yards. I wonder whether these people enjoy struggling round long courses, spending half an hour or more looking for balls and losing at least £12 worth of balls in addition to the green fee.

Surely a sign reminding players to play a forward tee if need be, is all that is required?

Very true Mac, I think we should dispense with the name "ladies" tee and just call it the red and can be used by anyone.

I think there is a plan within the depths of England Golf to do exactly that. Anyone can play off any tees which are only differentiated in name by colour for example. "Ladies" "Mens" and "Competition" tees should become a thing of the past. Whether this will lead to anything different in practice or not remains to be seen.

I guess most of the problem is with men's ego seeing the forward teeing ground as "beneath" them in some way instead of having a go, scoring better and (probably) enjoying it more as a result. Still, sure we all enjoy scrabbling round for lost balls en route to 24 points and a 5 hour round whilst proffering the view that the problem lies with all the other golfers for being too crap for the course rather than us who are merely having a bad day because we're normally much better than this...

Would you enjoy it more, though? I've had one round this year, and shot level par but because it was a shortened course off mostly what would be the ladies tees I don't think of it as that good a round.

There is a lot of stigma attached to playing off the whites v reds aka ladies.

When I played at the Shire I noted that the tees there are referred to as emerald, sapphire, diamond etc. I thought this was ridiculously pretentious, but on reflection it does remove the stigma. Maybe more courses should come up with random colours, so that we don't have a standard red, yellow, white hierachy.

Roller_Coaster wrote:I think there is a plan within the depths of England Golf to do exactly that. Anyone can play off any tees which are only differentiated in name by colour for example. "Ladies" "Mens" and "Competition" tees should become a thing of the past. Whether this will lead to anything different in practice or not remains to be seen.

I guess most of the problem is with men's ego seeing the forward teeing ground as "beneath" them in some way instead of having a go, scoring better and (probably) enjoying it more as a result. Still, sure we all enjoy scrabbling round for lost balls en route to 24 points and a 5 hour round whilst proffering the view that the problem lies with all the other golfers for being too crap for the course rather than us who are merely having a bad day because we're normally much better than this...

I don't have any problem with someone playing off the back tees on tough courses provided that they can consistently hit it 200 yards through the air off the tee. Sadly, it seems there are a lot of guys - usually aged 18 - 40 - who think you haven't played a course unless you play off the back tees. And even more sadly, the majority of them can't play very well and struggle. Yet they keep coming back and keep making the same mistake. Maybe it's masochism, but I just don't understand what they get out of a morning taking eights and looking for balls.

Golf course signs: pretty sure there used to be a sign at Royal St Georges's saying "No women, no dogs"

It said "no dogs, no women". Allegedly anyway.

Cecil Leitch played in the British Women's Amateur Championship at Sandwich, and she commented that the competitors weren't allowed in the clubhouse. In the 36 hole final, played on a freezing cold day, she said she kept her hands warm at lunchtime by putting them on the radiator of a Rolls Royce in the car park.

Golf is hard enough as it is, why do poeple want to make it more difficult. Im guessing people are not playing most yellow tees to level par standard on a regular basis, but then want to play off the whites.

If i played of the reds i would probably still be crap.

We played Kingsbarns off the green tees last year. I played crap. I'd far rather had played crap off the whites. Not fussed about playing off the championship tees though!

Part of the issue with playing from the Red tees is that they are not rated for men's use. I doubt the ladies would be too happy if their tees were rated, for example, SSS 67 for men and SSS 72 for women, as it would crudely quantify the difference between a scratch male and scratch female golfer.

Using different tee boxes, based on handicap ability, will ultimately be successful if there is good course design. I'm basing this on a very unscientific study I conducted a few years in Florida. I played Celebration, which also has tee boxes rated by handicap ranges for men and women, and decided to move forward as I hadn't played for a few months. The course design was in such a way that it still made me think about where did I want to be. I couldn't just carry all of the trouble just because I'd moved up. It meant that I wasn't able to overpower the course and it was still a good test.

barragan wrote:We played Kingsbarns off the green tees last year. I played crap. I'd far rather had played crap off the whites. Not fussed about playing off the championship tees though!

Part of the issue with playing from the Red tees is that they are not rated for men's use. I doubt the ladies would be too happy if their tees were rated, for example, SSS 67 for men and SSS 72 for women, as it would crudely quantify the difference between a scratch male and scratch female golfer.

I doubt most women would be at all bothered. In any case, the issue isn't competition golf as much as people turning up as visitors to play round, or people learning to play, or getting on in years.

Grumps makes an excellent point; the course I play most often has three sets of tee boxes:
5,800 yds
6,600 yds
6,850 yds

I've recently despaired of the forced carries on the 6,600 yard set-up and moved to the 5,800 yard tees.
But they're just put there, no effort to create a nice design appropriate for shorter hitters.
Easy to forget what a pleasure a well-designed course can be until you find yourself playing one that leaves so much to be desired.

fair enough, probably most women would not be bothered at all - but - those in charge of administering and protecting womens golf may view it differently - just a thought. i mean, if they weren't bothered at all, we'd have a single handicap rating system for men and women, wouldn't we, and not two seperate?

Although Beninho is right that I can't shoot level par off the yellows, I still want to face all the challenges that the course designer set out. For me, that usually means playing off the whites, with championship tees too far back for me.

Perfect example of this is the RTJ sr course Stockley Park. Not played it for years, but it was a really good design. I didn't appreciate it at first and used to find it pretty easy off the yellows, until I switched to the whites. Then I suddenly became aware of the fairway bunkers at driving distance, the way the fairways pinched in at certain points with mounding and rough, and the risk reward of taking on certain carries.

It must be almost impossible for designers to set up a course to offer the same shot values for all players.

For example, let's take a championship course with a 450 yard par 4. The hole has fairway bunkers at 290 yards, so a professional golfer can carry the bunkers with a 300 yard drive, which is rewarded with a short iron approach of less than 150 yards. Or he can hit a 3 wood 270 yards off the tee to lay up short of the bunkers and leave 180 yards for the 2nd shot, which is probably about a 7 or even 8 iron.

Now from the white tees that hole might be only 400 yards. The carry over the bunkers is now 250 yards, a good hit for a handicap golfer like me, and the lay up distance is 220 yards which is a solid hybrid or fairway wood. So off the tee the shot values are similar for a pro and me. But the difference is that if I lay up and leave myself 180 yards for my 2nd shot, that is a 4 or 5 iron, which is a lot tougher than the 7 or 8 iron the pro has. Does the course architect design the green to be receptive to a long iron, or does he design it to accept short irons (e.g. elevated, surrounded by bunkers etc)?

I don't think that you can rely solely on different tees to make a course successfully playable for all. Difficulty is about so much more than just length off the tee. I think you just have to accept that some courses should be designed tough and some should be designed easy.

ray,
Agree to a certain extent, but the point I was trying to make is that there's a lot more to it than placing tee-markers fifty yards down the fairway; different angles, allowance for shorter forced carries, strategy for par-5's etc, etc all play a part.

A course should be a pleasure to play at an appropriate skill level, whether that's for a scratch player or 24-handicap.

Must admit I enjoy playing off forward tees from time to time (especially in winter when all the tees are moved forward)

My club allows play off the whites even for social games so most members (including me) tend to play social games off the whites just as practice for comps. Visitors are supposed to play off the yellows though and generally do but it's not really enforced. If I have a visitor along with me and other members we offer them the choice of playing whites, or we move to the yellows if that's what they prefer; I also occasionally play a friendly game with an older chap - who although still hits the ball quite a distance for his age, feels intimidated by the whites

So yes, shorter tees can be good fun and a different challenge (hitting 8 or 9 irons into par-3s instead of 5 irons) but when with regular mates I'll still use the whites as practice for comps

barragan wrote:fair enough, probably most women would not be bothered at all -  but -  those in charge of administering and protecting womens golf may view it differently - just a thought. i mean, if they weren't bothered at all, we'd have a single handicap rating system for men and women, wouldn't we, and not two seperate?

I'm not sure what you mean by handicap rating system, but if you mean course ratings (as in what SSS should be) - no - there should be different systems for men and women. Clearly women can't hit it as far as men, so you would expect a scratch man to hit it further than a scratch woman. Playing to a men's SSS would probably mean the best women players were 3 or 4 handicap. Although it would make mixed competitions a bit easier to administer it isn't fair on the best women players whose handicaps should reflect they are the best, by being scratch or better.

Exactly George, but this is why i don't think it would happen. it's about protecting the status of the elite female golfer. If courses were to go ahead and assess the red tees and assign an SSS rating for male golfers, it would undermine the female scratch golfer. If it wasn't an issue, it would have already happened.

George1507 wrote:This sign stands next to the first tee on the Black course at Bethpage in New York.

http://golf.lohudblogs.com/2011/06/29/bethpage-black-gets-into-barclays-rotation/

I witnessed mediocre golfers really struggling with hard courses in the UK, US and Europe. I think signs like that should be replicated at any course which is longer than 6800 yards. I wonder whether these people enjoy struggling round long courses, spending half an hour or more looking for balls and losing at least £12 worth of balls in addition to the green fee.

I took that sign as a challenge !  Seriously though, I wouldn't feel comfortable playing it at any time other than twilight when it's quiet.   What really deters people from playing the black is that motorized carts are not allowed at any time.  Caddies are optional but you have to walk, and you'd be surprised how many people consider it to be too long/hilly to walk.

Plunky wrote:

I took that sign as a challenge !  Seriously though, I wouldn't feel comfortable playing it at any time other than twilight when it's quiet.   What really deters people from playing the black is that motorized carts are not allowed at any time.  Caddies are optional but you have to walk, and you'd be surprised how many people consider it to be too long/hilly to walk.

I stayed at a resort hotel in Phoenix a couple of years ago which had an "executive" golf course. It was 9 holes, mostly par 3s with perhaps three short par 4s as well. There were guys going round in buggies. They couldn't have walked much more than 300 yards during a round, and they only did that because they couldn't drive the buggy on the green.

Tom Morris and James Braid would be spinning in their graves.

Plenty of executive courses in Florida and Arizona.

I would go back to St. George's Hill in a minute ... great course(s) and clubhouse.

Got to say, I think I got the choice of venue just right. 24 of us had a very very enjoyable day yesterday. The place reeks of class. We were well looked after without any fuss whatsoever.

As far as the courses were concerned, it seemed to be tee after tee someone would be saying..."wow look at this one". Great layout, greens maybe weren't as fast as I was expecting but winter golf is winter golf. Some of those greens would be scary in high summer.

In terms of the golf, I was utter mince, not sure if it's the marathon training thats seizing up my ability to turn freely through the ball. Strangely the afternoon winner was only 35 points though. SGH Red and Blue isn't really long (infact it's quite short). By clever design though it clearly presents a real good test.

Bottom line....would I (and 23 others) go back?? In a heartbeat. If anyone gets the chance to play here, do NOT pass on it.