What Makes a Golf Course Great?

So what makes a great golf course?

The world is full of good, average and even poor layouts over which to test ourselves, but few manage the accolade of ‘great’ which, in our view, means the sort of course you would try and play before you die, no matter the cost.

It’s a relevant question for two reasons. A Great Golf Course - Kingsbarns

First, because there are no written or objective criteria to define greatness. And second, because courses such as Kingsbarns, just outside St Andrews, has won so much in terms of accolades and recognition since it opened in 2000 that it has already earned the description ‘great’.

But while the criteria for such a label do not appear in a rule book anywhere, perhaps here at Mulligan we should consider our own terms.

First, a course must be memorable – no blandness in this list. If you have played a layout just once, and have difficulty recalling the difference between the 1^st and 18^th, or cannot instantly bring to mind the best holes, it’s not good enough.

Second, it should offer a proper golfing challenge, but that does not mean simply that it is tough – the Blue Monster at Doral is fiendishly difficult, but it’s not great. Pine Valley is both.

Third, it should be subtle, and require careful thought or a few visits to properly appreciate the test it represents, and probably the best example of a subtle test is the Old Course at St Andrews.

Fourth comes aesthetic splendour, although as with all things, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. To some, the rugged, wild landscape of Royal Dornoch or Carne is unattractive but to golfers, they represent the Mona Lisa.

Finally is the almost indefinable element of mood, or atmosphere or ambience or whatever other label you may want to apply. Some places spend millions of pounds and employ the best golfing brains in the world yet somehow disappoint, while others have that ‘wow’ factor almost permeating the soil, or so it seems.