- Joined
- Aug 6, 2007
- Messages
- 4,525
I got the chance to play the highly renowned Idlewild course in Burlington, KY (just south of Cincinnati, OH) a few days ago. I do not want to do a full review, but I did want to post my thoughts.
It is a beautiful course on a perfect piece of land for a course. From what I have read and heard, it is a professional level course with a Par of 72 and a Scratch Scoring Average (SSA) of around 69-70.
I was expecting to get beat up by a grizzly man (like I feel after playing Renaissance here in Charlotte, NC). Instead, I left feeling like I was beat up by my sister!
Frankly, I was disappointed.
Don't get me wrong, there were a lot of great shots and great spots on the course, but there were waaaaay too many "doinky" holes. What I mean by that is multi-throw holes where you float a putter 100-200' to a landing zone and then do it again and again to get to a par 4 or 5. I mean, I could make a ton of par 5's in my house that would be about as interesting: Throw from closet to bedroom door (10'), throw down hall (13'), throw into bedroom (10'), throw into closet (8'), putt. Obviously, I am overstaing my point....but I hope it makes my point........
Maybe I should have known this would have been the case since the course is only 8,220' long and is par 72 (by contrast Renny Gold is 9,407' and is par 70).
Maybe the PDGA course description calling it "professional level" misled me. I might have had a different expectation going in had it said something like, "This finesse course will test your accuracy like none other. Check your cannons at the door since you will need them on only 3 drives."
There are simply not a lot of holes that you can really get the testosterone flowing and let 'em rip. I am not a big arm (average 300' controlled drive with 360' being my absolute max – real distance measured on a football field), so for me to say that should give you an idea of how the bigger arms must feel. Talk about being beat up by a girl…..
There were also too many holes with tightly spaced trees in either blind areas or in your approach to the basket. That is not a good design technique in my opinion since it injects too much luck into scoring.
An element that is unique and very cool on the course is the way that the course uses the meandering stream as an obstacle. It is beautiful and fun. My complaint is that there are 4 holes that have the creek wrap around the putting green creating OB moats within 10' of the pin. That is a cool design for 1-2 holes per course…..but 4??!! It is a very artificial way IMO to boost up scores as it unfairly punishes shots that are otherwise great approaches that are slightly low (or long in some cases) or that take a bad skip.
I rated this course a B. Funny thing is, Banklick Woods is several miles away on a similar piece of property and is absolutely phenomenal in my book. It is the highest ranked of all 120+ courses I have played – absolutely looooove that course. Obviously, folks in Cincinnati know how to design good holes/courses, but Idlewild falls short.
PS: I shot a 75. That was with 3-4 strokes added by me hitting what looked like the landing zone "perfectly", only to find out that I was not even close (that's what you get by not running up an scouting the hole....or playing with a local). I also missed about 4 putts inside 20' (I usually miss about 2 per round).
It is a beautiful course on a perfect piece of land for a course. From what I have read and heard, it is a professional level course with a Par of 72 and a Scratch Scoring Average (SSA) of around 69-70.
I was expecting to get beat up by a grizzly man (like I feel after playing Renaissance here in Charlotte, NC). Instead, I left feeling like I was beat up by my sister!
Frankly, I was disappointed.Don't get me wrong, there were a lot of great shots and great spots on the course, but there were waaaaay too many "doinky" holes. What I mean by that is multi-throw holes where you float a putter 100-200' to a landing zone and then do it again and again to get to a par 4 or 5. I mean, I could make a ton of par 5's in my house that would be about as interesting: Throw from closet to bedroom door (10'), throw down hall (13'), throw into bedroom (10'), throw into closet (8'), putt. Obviously, I am overstaing my point....but I hope it makes my point........
Maybe I should have known this would have been the case since the course is only 8,220' long and is par 72 (by contrast Renny Gold is 9,407' and is par 70).
Maybe the PDGA course description calling it "professional level" misled me. I might have had a different expectation going in had it said something like, "This finesse course will test your accuracy like none other. Check your cannons at the door since you will need them on only 3 drives."
There are simply not a lot of holes that you can really get the testosterone flowing and let 'em rip. I am not a big arm (average 300' controlled drive with 360' being my absolute max – real distance measured on a football field), so for me to say that should give you an idea of how the bigger arms must feel. Talk about being beat up by a girl…..
There were also too many holes with tightly spaced trees in either blind areas or in your approach to the basket. That is not a good design technique in my opinion since it injects too much luck into scoring.
An element that is unique and very cool on the course is the way that the course uses the meandering stream as an obstacle. It is beautiful and fun. My complaint is that there are 4 holes that have the creek wrap around the putting green creating OB moats within 10' of the pin. That is a cool design for 1-2 holes per course…..but 4??!! It is a very artificial way IMO to boost up scores as it unfairly punishes shots that are otherwise great approaches that are slightly low (or long in some cases) or that take a bad skip.
I rated this course a B. Funny thing is, Banklick Woods is several miles away on a similar piece of property and is absolutely phenomenal in my book. It is the highest ranked of all 120+ courses I have played – absolutely looooove that course. Obviously, folks in Cincinnati know how to design good holes/courses, but Idlewild falls short.
PS: I shot a 75. That was with 3-4 strokes added by me hitting what looked like the landing zone "perfectly", only to find out that I was not even close (that's what you get by not running up an scouting the hole....or playing with a local). I also missed about 4 putts inside 20' (I usually miss about 2 per round).
