Royal Melbourne = goofy golf

[LICC]

You need to learn how to understand the comments better. I didn’t say the course is goofy. The setup of some of the greens is goofy.

[cardoustie]

I’ve played it

incredible

shot makers dream

[Hawkeye77]

Because they hit it in the wrong spot and not allowing for the conditions. No different than figuring out where to land in various conditions on seaside links.

[shoot4par]

Hmm seems the internationals are navigating it well. Guess they are playing a "different" course. This course is perfect for upset city... Shorter, target golf, firm, fast and wind.

[FairwayFred]

Interesting that ALL the people who have posted that have actually played RM think it's amazing and the 2 main people complaining about it have never played there.

[BB28403]

I’m with you, the fairways and greens look ok but off of those it looks like the common area at the fair.

Looks a bit like a dump, but you can’t see much cuz pga tour live only shows the score and 1 shot and tiger grimacing every 10 mins.

[BIG STU]

Well if you come to Coastal SC I can show you Alligators in the bunker ( and yes I know the difference between a Croc and a Gator) and I am sure other Members in Florida can too.

[BIG STU]

What little of it I have seen the course does not remind me of a dump per say but a everyday working man's type Muni set up. Which BTW I like. Frankly I lost interest when Tiger picked himself to play so I have not went out of my way to keep up with it------- And before anyone starts on me I am not a Tiger hater but it is MHO that a captain no matter who they are should not be playing

[Old mate]

Hi. I have just spent the week in Melbourne watching the golf and playing other courses (including Kingston Heath- #2 in oz). I found all the Sandbelt courses greens were very firm and quick. Took me nine holes to figure out I need to take half a club off my range finder distances. You quickly get used to the speed. You needed plenty of imagination with long putts and chips/pitches. It is a shock on the first green seeing your ball bounce almost 2 meters in the air from 150m out!

I haven’t played RM but from walking around it I was blown away with its beauty (from a course architecture aspect and the Aussie bush feel). Much more hilly than what the tv shows. Most holes are prime examples of the ‘risk/reward’ approach to design. I also love how each hole (except for 16-18) feels isolated from the other holes.

Goofy? Maybe the wrong choice of words. Certainly interesting greens but these boys were sinking plenty of awesome putts and chips. Wow- can they putt!

[Man_O_War]

this is real golf. goofy is sawgrass.

[rgk5]

Correct. The complainers prefer courses with four lane cart paths, greens as soft as chocolate pudding, artificial ponds with spewing fountains and beer tents every 100 metres.

[LICC]

Irrelevant comment with zero value to the discussion. The people who have played it have not played it in these conditions. My comments are about the setup, not the course design.

[LICC]

Please explain what you find goofy about Sawgrass and I hope you have something other than the 17th hole.

[LICC]

Yes because expecting a 120 yard wedge shot hit well by a professional golfer that lands on the front of the green to not roll 30 yards through the green and off the back translates to exactly what you said. Sure ...

[Man_O_War]

too artificial. too man made. too many gimicky hazards. it's quintessentially..american.. i prefer links golf..by a country mile

[LICC]

What gimmicky hazards? I don’t think you really know the course very well

[LICC]

See this video of a Gary Player Wonderful World of Golf match at RM from the 1960s:

https://youtu.be/U__jLwUXF9sWatch the approach shots. The shots didn’t roll out on the greens anywhere near as much as they have this week. The goofiness isn’t the course design, it’s the setup on some of the greens. If you have a 9 foot false front where if you hit it 5 yards short you roll 30 feet back but if you hit it 5 yards long you roll off the back of the green, that is a bad setup.

[davep043]

Its not like these guys haven't had a chance to practice in these conditions. If you need to land the ball 10 or 20 yards short of the green, then do it. Yes, it brings in more variability of the bounces in the fairway, but with the benefit that fewer shots will go long. Play the course and the conditions as they are.

[Roadking2003]

Nope. Not even in my top 50. But since you are interested, here are the top ten that I have played;

 

 Augusta NationalPebble BeachRoyal County DownCabo Del Sol - OceanCastle Pines Golf ClubCarnoustieWhistling Straits - StraitsTrump TurnberryKiawah - Ocean Course Mauna Kea

[Roadking2003]

A rather juvenile post. Are you in first or second grade?

[Roadking2003]

Exactly. The course was not designed with Stimps of 13. Cut it to 6 or 7 like they did 50 years ago and the course would play as it was designed.

[bulls9999]

I guess it can be fun, since I like tricky greens; personally, I love the way some of the greenside bunkers are constructed, as if someone took a giant cookie-cutter and plucked them out...how the edge of the green just stops and a ball can so easily roll into a bunker. But I'm always in wonderment over some of the majors and other 'tests of golf' that when PGA tour players are used to playing one type of course for 95% of their professional play and are given something like this, it reminds me something like a student studies chapters 3, 4, 5 for a test and the instructor gives a test on chapters 7, 8, 9, with the adage that "let's see how good a student you are'?

[FairwayFred]

You called it "overhyped" earlier in the thread. We're you referring to the course setup? Who exactly has overhyped it?

Also I guess I didn't realize you were in charge of deciding which comments added value to the discussions and which were relevant. You have been doing alot of that lately. Is this something you decided to take on or was it mandated by the WRX team?

[davep043]

Hey, these aren't 10 year olds taking a test in college calculus. These are post-grad students taking post-grad-level exams.

[Schley]

We all have our preferences, but this is true golf IMO. It is an exacting test, as you can't just blast driver fearlessly and there is no deep rough which the US model of setups seem to think is the way it should be. Fast and firm is the only defense left with today's players. We see that over and over again. The randomness of some bounces is part of the game and although not common in the US. The sand base allows it to be firm and fast, you can't just make any course this way, so there is some geography that factors into the equation. Really like RM.

[geochitown]

Downwind?

[LICC]

You can’t land the ball 10 yards short with some of these false fronts or valleys in front of the greens. With this setup what you have on some of these greens is very small target golf to just hold the green, which seemingly is not how the course was designed to play.

[LICC]

Don’t go lying about what I said now. I said the course seems excellent but I can believe it is overhyped. It’s remoteness and the fact that it only sees a highly publicized tournament on rare occasions adds to the mystique.

[davep043]

I agree, in the 1930s the greens could not be cut this close. On the other hand, the ball didn't fly as high or spin the same way, so perhaps this WAS the way it was intended to play, land short and run up. I don't know for sure, but it certainly seems plausible.. But you CAN run it up, you just have to land it short of any false fronts and have the ball rolling up the slopes. I say this from personal experience playing in sand-based areas like Pinehurst, Scotland, and Ireland. He1l, the 18th at the Old Course has one of the deepest fronting valleys in the world, and players routinely land short and run it on. It can be done, but most of these players don't picture or play it that way.

[FairwayFred]

So I'm lying about what you said because I said you "called it overhyped" but instead you really said "you can believe it's overhyped". Which is essentially the same thing. Got it.

Remote? Maybe far from the USA but that's hardly the same thing. Melbourne is a city of 5 million people. Now for example, Sand Hills is remote. It's 20 miles from the nearest city that has about 250 people in it. I've never heard of anyone calling a course in a city of 5 million people remote before. Care to explain?