Nicklaus makes a greensite look fake, even if it’s supposed to be real, (See River, Dismal). Tom Doak showed Jack how he builds courses at Sebonack, Jack looks at his crew and asks his guys don’t ever do that, they roll his eyes, he builds Dove Mountain.
And then Geoff Ogilvy says:
“The greens at Augusta look right. Most of them are built on the hill that they’re on, the slopes are natural. These look a little contrived.”
Michael Bamberger added: Jack Nicklaus, the course designer, has of course done a lot of great things in golf. This Dove Mountain course, in my opinion, is not one of them. I don’t see the players eager to come back here year after year. Although $1.6 million to the winner could change a lot of opinions.
And Gary Van Sickle sums up nicely:
“They were goofy. Tiger didn’t like them. No one did. And that didn’t help Tiger’s enthusiasm. No matter how good of a putter you were, you couldn’t hole much outside of 10 feet on those rollercoasters. It almost wasn’t real golf.”
The whole golf.com discussion on the topic is here.
Jack, power down the bulldozer and just lay out the greens on what you find there. It’ll look and play better.
