Curious Golfer

I was fortunate enough to play Spyglass Hill in June of 2009.  I played with my friends, Jack and Alisa who used to be my golfing partners at Springfield CC outside of Eugene, Or.

I was really excited to get to play Spyglass since it is pretty much a golfing icon and certainly one of the top golf destinations in the country, if not the world.  Upon arriving at Spyglass, my expectations were extremely high, but I was not disappointed.  The whole atmosphere was fantastic, the staff was immensely friendly, and the weather was phenomenal.

We arrived about 2 hrs early and ate brunch in the halfway house across the street from the pro shop.  The half way house is located just off the number nine green, so we were able to get a taste of the course along with our meal.  The food was nothing to write home about and fairly expensive, as you would expect at a place like this.  I had eaten at the restaurant next to the Pebble Beach pro shop a few years ago and it was much better.  I recommend eating there if you have time.  Oh…  and bring your own ibuprofen; they charged me $3 for two pills. lol.

Anyway, we first hit the driving range, which was very nice.  Oddly, there were deer hanging out in the middle of the range waiting to get struck by errant golf balls!   We’d soon discover that there were deer all over the place out there.  One thing that I didn’t like about the range was that you had to hit off mats.  They were really nice mats, but it wasn’t real grass.  There were signs that said you could use a tee on the mats, but all of us found it impossible to penetrate the surface with a tee.

Next we hit the putting green, which really impressed me.  The putting surface was really good.  It was very consistent and true, as one would expect with a nationally recognized facility. I was happy that the green were fast, but not so fast that I’d make a fool of myself with multiple 3-putts.  As it turned out, I had two 3-putts which is not that bad considering that I usually have one 3-putt per round on non-world-class venues.

Alisa and I decided to get a caddie.  After the putting green, we met our caddie, Dave, who was really great.  If you ever get the chance to play a world class golf course, I highly recommend getting a caddie.  If you get a good one, they are incredibly helpful.  Dave was a true professional and a very good caddie.  He helped me alot and also knew that I was there to have a good time, so he provided a very nice balance of honest straightforward advice along with discretion about when to let me unleash.  I knew I should have probably been hitting my driver much less, but I didnt come to Spyglass to hit 3-iron off every tee, and Dave could tell.  Dave also told us that he had been working as a caddie for Gregor Main, a young PAC10 golfer who he said would be one to watch when he turns pro.

The first tee at Spyglass is a blind tee shot, which I am not particularly fond of.  But hey, its Spyglass and Robert Trent Jones, right?  So I tried to relax and go with the flow.  My first tee shot was not great, but almost in the fairway.  When I got down to the 2nd shot, I see why RTJ designed it this way; your 2nd and 3rd shots go toward the ocean and the view is amazing.  From the tee, you don’t really see how close to the ocean you really are.  Even as you walk to your 2nd shot, you are not facing the water, so you still don’t realize what is coming.  Then, as you line up for your 2nd shot…  Bam!  You see the ocean view behind the green and you realize that this is not your average golf course.

My 2nd shot was really good, but this as a long par 5, so I was still like 130 out for my 3rd shot.  I hit the green in regulation and proceeded to 3-putt.  This was basically how I was playing that day, but instead of letting it get me down, I just decided to enjoy being at Spyglass and roll with whatever my game was doing.

On the 2nd hole, we saw more deer, which we’d soon learn was nothing special around Spyglass.  We saw deer on at least 6 or 7 holes, and they are tame and docile.  They don’t even hardly notice the golfers.  They just let you walk right by them, within yards.

One thing that I liked alot about Spyglass was the way that the grass was cut.  The fairways are of an adequate width for average golfers, and the first cut of rough is also fairly generous, but long enough to be very mildly penalizing.  Being in the first cut of rough doesn’t mean you are penalized because you can hit out of it, but you have to pay a little more attention because its about 2 inches tall which means that a non-crisp shot will not play as intended.  In my opinion, this is perfect for the first cut of rough.

The deep rough was true rough.  In places, it was around 4 inches tall (definitely taller in some spots).  It was so tall, that it clumped together and fell over and could really penalize you for errant shots.  The grass behind number 2 was this sort of rough with clumps of really long grass where the ball nestles down where you almost can’t get a club on it.  My approach on number 2 was long and I ended up in this grass.  Dave, my caddie, wise advised me to take some practice swings in that tall grass, which I did.  Dave was clearly not very optimistic about my chances, but tried to be encouraging.  I surprised Dave, and even myself, when I popped the ball out and landed it perfectly just barley on the green and rolled it to about 6 ft.  Again, I missed the putt, but was glad to escape with bogey.

I won’t continue going hole by hole, but I have to mention number 3 because its spectacular.  Its a par 3 from an elevated tee down to an ample green thats its right next to the ocean, and the view is really spectacular:

Fourteen is also a particularly gorgeous hole, though this photo doesn’t do a good job of showing it:

As I mentioned earlier, Spyglass Hill was designed by Robert Trent Jones Sr., who is a legendary golf course designer and has designed some of the most revered courses in America.  I have played two other RTJ courses, Eugene Country Cluband Corpus Christi Country Club, and I must say that I can see a resemblance in all three courses, especially between ECC and Spyglass.  The first element that I would say is similar among all three courses is the pristine manicuring.  Spyglass is manicured immaculately, as is Eugene CC.  I don’t know enough about RTJ to know if this was one of his signature elements, but it would appear so to me. 

I don’t particularly like the extreme immaculate grooming, but if I only played Spyglass Hill for the rest of my life, I think I would be in heaven.  I can appreciate that style of design, but its not my favorite.  That being said, you have to marvel at the way that Spyglass is really something out of a fairy tale, with its perfectly manicured green-side bunkers, the perfectly laid paving stones that line the ponds, etc.

Another thing I found interesting was that 3 of the 4 par 3’s were from elevated tees.  I missed all the greens on the par 3’s, so I didn’t really play them as intended, but I would have thought that someone as renowned as RTJ would have had more variety in the par 3’s.  There was also no really long par 3’s, which I particularly enjoy since I am better with my long irons than with my wedges.

One thing I found really nice about spyglass was that there is not really alot of OB, which is unusual for a course with real estate development.  The first 5 or 6 holes are close to the beach and there are not many houses.  The next few holes are spotted with homes, and the last few hole shave houses all around, but you don’t really notice that they interfere at all with the game, which is very nice.  Interestingly, there were some homes for sale and they ere much cheaper than I expected.  I guess the real estate market has hit that area particularly hard.

One criticism that I would offer about Spyglass is that I do not recall there being any real reachable par 4’s.  Seventeen is a 312 yd par 4 (from gold tees, 325 from blues), which might qualify, but there is not really any serious trouble that you can get into if you go for it.  The green is surrounded by bunkers, but that is hardly a penalty for any decent golfer.  I like what A.W. Tillinghast said about designing risk-reward holes:  You want to punish “almost good shots” and reward great shots.  Seventeen doesn’t meet that standard in my mind.

All in all, Spyglass is a great course and I’d recommend it to any serious golfer.  …but not before I’d recommend Pacific Dunes or even Bandon Dunes.  That being said, I want to play all three of those again, as often as possible.