Courses that fit your eye and ones that do not .

You ever go out and step on a first tee and just feel great over the ball, while you look down the fairway? When you are done with 18 you can't wait to go back and play that course again.

Then you have other courses where no matter how much you want to like them they just have too many holes that don't "fit your eye." Could be something such as the designer having lots of blind shots with hazards you can't see off the tee, when you prefer to stand on the tee box and know exactly where you need to hit the ball and can visualize that.

One of the things I am not a fan of is when a designer puts together an uphill par 3 where you can't see the green.

Course that fit my eye more than any other was Cal Club. Truly a spectacularly beautiful golf course. RCD has the perfect setting but some holes don't have the visual appeal that Cal Club has on every shot. Cal Club is just perfect golf design.

Course that does not fit my eye is Tobacco Road. Yes Strantz was a mad genius, yes the point of Tobacco Road is to be wacky, but I don't want to play there again. I respect and appreciate the course and all of its craziness, but it just isn't for me.

I tend to hit a draw so any course that requires many more fades or, that have greens which tilt a lot from left to right (I'm lefty) tend to not be the best for my eye. I don't mind blind shots because I can just pick a tree or cloud to aim at... I have a decent amount of confidence in my yardages as long as I make good contact.

I'm a big fan of courses of the Doak/Strantz/Coore/Crenshaw variety. Courses like True Blue, Streamsong, and Kapalua I thoroughly enjoy because they give you so many visual cues to aim off of. You may not be able to see the fairway, but typically they set up their hazards to frame the fairways, greens, and the preferred routes very well. These types of courses also provide options along the ground should you find yourself in trouble.

Courses that don't fit my eye: any type of parkland course with inverted bowl greens and straight holes. I just get mentally bored and lazy on them, and thus never play well. Show me a challenge, show me what I need to do, and I can do a much better job visualizing the shot I need to hit.

This is a good topic and something I feel like I can put some thought into. I always have liked courses that I are tough but fair. I want a challenge, and I still want to enjoy myself when playing poorly. Parkland style courses have always fit my eye better. I like scenic holes, but I can always take a simple hole here and there too.

Courses with huge greens have never fit my eye. I don’t like having 100 foot putts. I’d rather chip from that distance. I also don’t enjoy courses with way too many hazards. I don’t enjoy looking a dozen golf balls in a round of play. Been on a few courses that eat golf balls for lunch. If I can spray it a little and still get up and down I’m all about that life.

Not a fan of Tillinghaust style designs like Bethpage. The way the bunkers outline the fairways and green complexes in such a demanding way, just seems so unnatural and doesn't suit my eye. Much bigger fan of Scottish style links and the minimalist style.

Agreed on courses with huge greens. Give me greens that are small and require accuracy to hit so I can have a good putt at birdie if I am on my game.

If you were on your game wouldnt you still have a good putt at birdie from hitting it close no matter the size of the greens?

Personally a course with too many trees does not suit my eye even though I hit the ball really straight off the tee. I like to decide what shot I'm hitting rather than the course only giving me one choice.

I'd rather chip than have a lag putt to get my par.

On big greens you can hit a good shot and then if it spins back the slope could leave you with a 60 or 70 footer. If I'm playing small greens instead of leaving me putts of that distance the ball ends up off of the green where I have to chip or pitch the ball. I much rather play the game that way.

What about a course that has a nice mix of both?

That's completely fine.

If you hit a shot that spins back 60 or 70 feet, I'd say its not really a good shot. You either hit the ball with too much spin for the situation, or you landed it in the wrong place.

I prefer variety for challenge and wide open for fun! I guess it has a lot to do with the two main courses that I grew up playing: One, the local municipal, is fairly wide open with a mixture of long holes and short holes, but is fairly straightforward. A few doglegs to cut, but nothing major. What you see is what you get and its fun to try to make a ton of birdies but also try out the inevitable few recovery shots that will be faced amongst the trees. The other, a Dye/Finger design, is very much the opposite, and I love it as well. The long holes have wide fairways and bigger greens and the short holes have skinnier fairways with smaller greens. There is a par 5 that you aren't even coming close to in 2 and there is one where a good drive will leave you an iron in. A very risky, but drivable, par 4 3rd hole is then followed by two 450+ par 4's that test your driver and long iron game. If you want to attack the course, you can at your own risk, and if you want to play safe and lean on your wedge game, you can do that as well. It's a course where you are going to be asked to hit every single club in your bag at least once every round and I've always thought that was a good thing for a good course to ask of a golfer.

So, in the immortal words of Ernie Banks, "Let's play two!"

Eye test:

Pass: Pasatiempo

Fail: PGA West Stadium

There are courses out there that have severe enough greens which are big that will make your ball end up 70 feet from the pin due to the slope. I was not talking about spinning the ball 70 feet backwards

I've played ALOT of courses and I've never seen a green contoured in such a way that a good shot that would end up close on a flat green instead ends up 70 feet away due to slope.

I've never played a course for the first time and felt so comfortable as I did at Troon north Pinnacle

I missed this when you write it, but I recently played at Tobacco Road, not far from Pinehurst. There are a few multiple-tier greens with severe enough slopes that a ball can roll 50 or 60 feet. I'm not sure that a "good" shot would be effected, a good shot would make it to the proper level, but slightly errant shots can be pretty severely punished.

Exactly my point. Hit a shot that would leave you with a 20-25 footer for birdie on most greens and you end up 50 or 60 feet from the pin due to the slope in the green. Look at Olympic club in San Francisco for a perfect example of what I am talking about.

As I said, a GOOD shot ends up on the right tier, its the less-than-good shots that get the severe punishment. That's part of planning the shot, choosing the right target, which isn't always the pin. And excuse me if my memory lets me down, but isn't Olympic one of those courses with smaller greens, the ones you say you prefer?

If you watch the US Open the last time it was there, there were plenty of good shots that ended up very far from the pin due to the slope of the greens. Just hitting irons pure doesn't guarantee good chances at birdie. Like you said just because you hit a shot flush, if you don't land it on the right part of the green you end up far away. A guy can be striking the ball awesome but if the slope is severe enough he is hoping to two putt and get out of there. This is why some players play certain courses and stay away from others unless its a major.

"Like you said just because you hit a shot flush, if you don't land it on the right part of the green you end up far away." If you don't land it on the right part of the green, I'd suggest its not really a good shot. And some players avoid tough courses because they prefer to make birdies, and hate having to struggle to make par.

But to return to the original topic, I'm a person who doesn't want to play the most difficult course around, or play a course that's too long for me. I enjoy a balance of properly challenging holes alongside some holes where you almost expect to make birdie. I prefer terrain, up and down hills, but I've loved playing the relatively level courses in Scotland. I like to understand where I'm going, but an occasional blind tee shot or uphill par 3 are fun. I like some trees, but I'm not crazy when every fairway is tightly lined with trees. I guess I can't really define what "fits my eye", I just know it when I see it.

Same boat as you. Give me a course with some really challenging par 4's, but also some holes that if you make par you feel like you made a bogey. A nice balance of golf where you have the opportunity to recover from a bogey with a few birdies.

I may be in the minority but I appreciate a course with par-4's that stretch your limits on a long approach, and has par-5's that are gettable and allow you to pick up strokes there. Par-3s under 150 yards are generally lame, but too many over 190 are exhausting as well.

Thought I loved tree lined and secluded buy have learnt to appreciate old-style open courses.

Forced landing area's and target golf sucks... hole's that allow creativity and different ways to attack from the tee box are far more fun.

False front greens are visually impressive and challenging, a course needs to have terrain. Water hazards are ok but I prefer to see strategic, well shaped deep bunkers and fescue.

Just my 2-3 cents.

Basically, Whistling Straits if you have played it...Merion/Oakmont traditional style as well.

Never played an uphill hole that I enjoyed

Almost any MacKenzie design. Coore/Crenshaw layouts, William Bell layouts.

Give me a links style over target golf. Something with multiple options for how to play a hole, or a shot.

My favorite courses are Fazio and Coore/ Crenshaw. I enjoy a few Nicklaus courses, but they don't necessarily fit my eye. Constantly seeming to be working on where I need to be aiming as opposed to just playing the shot.

Of course... they are typically harder.