MD/DC/VA Golfers - Twelve Monkeys Mental Divergence

[ceejay81]

I’ve played Twin Lakes (The Oaks Course) more than any other course I think. Played it at the end of July and those fairways and tee boxes were in rough shape. Up until last season, it had been one of the better conditioned local muni’s. Not no mo.

[SullGolf]

The conditions at Twin Lakes weren't horrific, but they were the worst conditions I've played on this year. That includes East Potomac. East Potomac is consistently below average across the board, but Twin Lakes was a weird mix of good and terrible. Too many bare spots around the course. If you played LCP you'd be fine.

[aiyyer]

Played Worthington Manor badly three days in a row but also spent most of the holiday weekend researching modern golf clubhouses for a project.

The Blessings Clubhouse, University Of Arkansas, was one of my favorites -

From a functional standpoint and experience, any cool clubhouses that tick all the boxes for you? What features do you like - access from parking, relationship to the 18th hole, grand vistas, proximity to the practice areas, pro shops or more mundane stuff like urinals with privacy screens etc?

Just ironic that traditional courses are closing and more Top Golf locations are opening. In Germantown, a Top Golf will prosper on the same site as the Waters Landing Driving Range that closed about 8 years ago.

Coming back to clubhouses, can they morph into something more to attract non golfers and grow the game?

Best local clubhouse - Worthington Manor

Worst - Whiskey Creek. Typical of overblown, porchy house architecture

 

 

 

 

[Johnny T]

That's a cool looking clubhouse....and will look really dated in 15-20 years.

 

 

Things I like in a clubhouse:

-restaurant/bar (with a patio) that overlook the 18th

-walking distance to the range

-don't have to walk through a maze to get to the Pro shop for check in

-yes to urinal privacy screens and taller/full length stall doors

-easy access to restrooms at the turn (don't want to walk through entire clubhouse)

 

 

Birkdale Golf Club in Huntersville, NC checked a lot of those boxes. Can't remember what the exterior looked like so that tells you how important clubhouse looks are to me.

 

 

 

 

[FAbb]

> @aiyyer said:

> Played Worthington Manor badly three days in a row but also spent most of the holiday weekend researching modern golf clubhouses for a project.

> The Blessings Clubhouse, University Of Arkansas, was one of my favorites -

>

> From a functional standpoint and experience, any cool clubhouses that tick all the boxes for you? What features do you like - access from parking, relationship to the 18th hole, grand vistas, proximity to the practice areas, pro shops or more mundane stuff like urinals with privacy screens etc?

> Just ironic that traditional courses are closing and more Top Golf locations are opening. In Germantown, a Top Golf will prosper on the same site as the Waters Landing Driving Range that closed about 8 years ago.

> Coming back to clubhouses, can they morph into something more to attract non golfers and grow the game?

> Best local clubhouse - Worthington Manor

> Worst - Whiskey Creek. Typical of overblown, porchy house architecture

>

 

That clubhouse is very cool. I'm a sucker for modern style architecture.

 

I think the architect in you is blinding your view of hWhiskey's clubhouse. The building itself may leave something to be desired, but that back patio is one of the best 19th hole spots in the area. And it's located pretty darn centrally to the parking lot, putting green, range, 1st tee, 9th green, 10th tee, and 18th green.

 

I guess I've never really thought much about what features I like most about a clubhouse. I'd say above all else, a sign of a good clubhouse is that it's a place I want to make time to go in and enjoy after the round. If I've got time to sit down after for food/whatever, and I'm looking for places to go off-site, you're probably doing something wrong. I want to feel like I'm in a bar/restaurant, not a snack bar.

 

I can deal with other things not being ideal, because outside of apres golf, the clubhouse is just a place I go to pay for my round. That's not to say I don't appreciate things like full privacy stalls in the bathroom, or a convenient location.

[dcmidnight]

I dont know what porchy house architecture is but I would take the Whiskey cluhouse 400 times out of 100 over whatever the F that thing is. I thought maybe it was that seed vault thing in the Arctic. Or some monstrosity of a mansion that Elon Musk built.

 

Good grief. To me thats the complete opposite of what I want a clubhouse to look like. Tobacco Road probably comes to mind as my favorite.

 


 

And if thats porchy house architecture, then count me in.

[FAbb]

> @aiyyer said:

> Coming back to clubhouses, can they morph into something more to attract non golfers and grow the game?

>

 

And to this question, I'd say no. You might attract non-golfers if you have a really sweet bar and restaurant, but I don' think it's going to make them take up golf in any capacity.

[TheCityGame]

What I like about that club house is all the long converging lines. The vertical slats of the material break it up a little, but kind of enhance it. It's a nice perspective for that photo. Nice clean roof line (they're either hiding the equipment in the center of the roof, or around the back somewhere). I assume those large windows spaces upstairs are good rooms for hanging out and viewing the landscape (which looks pretty flat in the immediate area, which goes with the building). I like the combination of the the 3 main materials. . .stone, steel (aluminum?), glass.

 

I like how -- as far as I can tell -- there's very little landscaping. It kind of goes with that building. I wonder what the footpaths (and patios?) are like. Hopefully they jive. I wonder if the stone is local.

 

 

BUT. . .I hate "forbidden looking" ground level features. All I can picture behind that stone wall is a janitors closet and bathrooms. It looks like the bottom of a parking garage. I just imagine walking up to that dark door and it has no handle and it's really a fire exit for the other side. Thanks. I don't understand the difference in size of the dark hole and lighted window.

 

Now, a head-on view of that might not look so forbidden (the large expanse of stone might actually look smaller because that might be a central hallway, but the point stands about the rest of it).

 

Sometimes I like an evil looking ground floor when the whole building is evil looking, like this. . .

 


 

But not when the rest of the building is supposed to be welcoming.

 

[dcmidnight]

One of the things I love in a clubhouse - and Whiskey I guess would fit that description - is the ability to sit outside and watch groups behind you play up 18. Its actually one of the things I really dont like about Worthington. Whiskey has the good chairs outside, shaded porch, perfect view of people hitting long second shots into 18. I dont recall their beer selection being particularly good or bad.

 

Other favorites: Kingsbarns, Erin Hills. Locally - Musket Ridge fits that description. PoSho - although less so the more clear cutting that they do. Mattaponi Springs.

 

[FAbb]

Not so forbidding from the front, City.

 


 

EDIT: Moar.

 

https://www.marlonblackwell.com/project/blessings-golf-course/

[dcmidnight]

The inside of that clubhouse just looks so...sterile to me. The chairs look like an executive dining room in a big office building somewhere, not some place you'ld want to hang after a round of golf. Even the couches look uncomfortable.

 

Just me.

[misplacedtexan83]

Looks like an office building..

 

[aiyyer]

JT, thanks and that helps. Typically, club house exterior and aesthetics have been strongly tied to the identity of the course and historical local context - St. Andrews, Augusta, Oakmont etc. Being dated is relevant but that does not mean we should be stuck in nostalgia. The Birkdake club in Europe is of its time..,

The other challenge and hard to do is dealing with parking and avoiding the clubhouse in a parking lot look. I think this matters more in bucket list courses than the typical residential community course but still a consideration.

Is routing the nines back to the clubhouse critical?

We Ko Pa and Streamsong are also pretty interesting from an exterior standpoint.

[FAbb]

> @dcmidnight said:

> The inside of that clubhouse just looks so...sterile to me. The chairs look like an executive dining room in a big office building somewhere, not some place you'ld want to hang after a round of golf. Even the couches look uncomfortable.

>

> Just me.

 

It's interior design, bro. This is such like a typical golf nerd, like 40-year-old white man … I don't know how to explain it. It's modern. It's design.

[FAbb]

> @aiyyer said:

> Typically, club house exterior and aesthetics have been strongly tied to the identity of the course

 

Tobacco Road nails this. I don't know that I've ever been to a place with a more cohesive aesthetic than Tobacco Road. The course, the clubhouse, the tee markers, the scorecard, and so on. It all just presents a cohesive image of the place.

 

 

[misplacedtexan83]

> @aiyyer said:

> JT, thanks and that helps. Typically, club house exterior and aesthetics have been strongly tied to the identity of the course and historical local context - St. Andrews, Augusta, Oakmont etc. Being dated is relevant but that does not mean we should be stuck in nostalgia. The Birkdake club in Europe is of its time..,

> The other challenge and hard to do is dealing with parking and avoiding the clubhouse in a parking lot look. I think this matters more in bucket list courses than the typical residential community course but still a consideration.

> Is routing the nines back to the clubhouse critical?

> We Ko Pa and Streamsong are also pretty interesting from an exterior standpoint.

 

https://www.golfdigest.com/story/the-30-best-clubhouses-in-golf

[dcmidnight]

> @FAbb said:

> > @dcmidnight said:

> > The inside of that clubhouse just looks so...sterile to me. The chairs look like an executive dining room in a big office building somewhere, not some place you'ld want to hang after a round of golf. Even the couches look uncomfortable.

> >

> > Just me.

>

> It's interior design, bro. This is such like a typical golf nerd, like 40-year-old white man … I don't know how to explain it. It's modern. It's design.

 

Signed, the guy who would bruise himself just sitting on one of those couches.

[Puppetmaster]

Do these so-called club houses provide Gold Bond in their locker rooms though?

[TheCityGame]

Whiskey, architecturally, feels like a "Disneyland Clubhouse". It feels phony and sterile. But, it also works. It's a big, airy room where you can see holes and it has a great back porch.

 

Worthington is almost the opposite. It's so charming and classic.

 


 

But, the back porch is almost claustrophobic. It doesn't have a view of 18, but it has a cool view of 14. It feels like walking into an old farmhouse (gee) in a good way. Where's the bathroom? What's this odd room off the pro shop? It used to have a horrible snack shop and I've only been out once with the new bar.

 

Clubhouses are funny because they seem to need to serve people coming in from a parking lot, and people coming in from the golf course. They need to work from a lot of directions. Probably Shinnecock does that best.

 

I love Mid Pines from the 18th. . .

 


 

I'm a fan of Riviera. . .

 


 

There's all these paintings of some plaza somewhere that it reminds me of. . .

 


 

 

[dcmidnight]

Caves Valley - another favorite. Small. No nonsense. Nice without being uncomfortably ostentatsious for outsiders IE - Congressional or Belle Haven.

[TheCityGame]

I like this. ..

 


 

[dcmidnight]

Soft spot since its where I got married but Ocean Course clubhouse w/ Ryder Cup bar.

 


 


 


 


 

 

 

[thechief16]

Modern is an instant turnoff for me, i.e. Streamsong.

 

Patio overlooking 18 is must-have -- Pinehurst #2 is pretty much the standard. Whistling Straits, Baltusrol, Bull Run, PoSho all come to mind as well.

 

There's a course outside Vero, Quail Valley, that is fantastic.

 

 

 

[ceejay81]

Kingsbarns had one of the best that I saw in Scotland. The locker room is upstairs and had tremendous views of the property.

 

 

[SullGolf]

I don't love the Whiskey interior. It's a little too big and open for my taste, and it's always 75% empty. I guess the porch is nice, but the reason it's nice is that BOTH 9s terminate there and you have a view of both from the porch. Off the top of my head I can't think of another course around that has that type of routing. Plus the nearby range and putting green, as was mentioned. So IMO it's the course routing and location that people love there, not necessarily the architecture of the clubhouse. Personally, I don't care that much about watching people come in 9 or 18 in particular, but I want a spot where I can watch people hit shots.

 

After location, a good outside seating area is key.

 

I don't like the pic that City liked of the modern clubhouse interior. It looks like a restaurant that happens to be next to a golf course. I actually really like that building, just not as a golf clubhouse.

 

[TheCityGame]

I'm a sucker for cruddy clubhouses, like where I grew up.

 

This was Mingo Springs that I played this summer in Maine.

 


 

This is my Mom's course. If the inside of your clubhouse looks like this, you're going to hear some funny stories.


 

 

 

 

 

[dcmidnight]

> @ceejay81 said:

> Kingsbarns had one of the best that I saw in Scotland. The locker room is upstairs and had tremendous views of the property.

 

Agreed. It was incredible because so many groups were rushing in/out with their tours to get to another course or city that we had the place to ourselves. Its an amazing spot for food/drinks and you're right, the locker room had great windows too.

 

 

[FAbb]

Cruddy with character is awesome.

 

Cruddy because it's basic is not. I think of a clubhouse like Northwest - that makes me want to barf. Completely lacks any type of character or interest.

[baddomes]

PJ Koenig do the write up for the best 30 clubhouses in the country?

 

Clubhouses are like feet-as-a-fetish for me. I don't care about them, but I get that they're important for other people.

[TheCityGame]

Driving to Tobacco Road :

Domes :

Me :

Chick with her feet out the passenger window :

Me : Nice feet

Domes :