Golf Club Atlas Lists Les Bordes Golf Club Among '147 Custodians of the Game'
By Ran Morrissett, Southern Pines, North Carolina, United States of America.
147 Custodians of the Game +2
Below is a list of 149 courses where the game, as I enjoy it, is celebrated. Why 149? That is because there have been 149 Opens – and with a few exceptions, that event has served as a celebration of the game. Same with this compilation, which started off with 147. Since the expression ‘147’ gained notoriety, I have elected to maintain that moniker but add a + figure for each update.
The purpose remains to highlight courses whereby when you walk off the 18th (or 9th!) green, you feel invigorated rather than exhausted, and the allure of returning to the first tee is strong. Harry Vardon’s words, ‘Don’t play too much golf. Two rounds a day are plenty,’ spring to mind. Elation beats frustration and these courses remain immensely enjoyable throughout all stages of life: from childhood, where one discovers the magic of the game; through the hubris of youth, where one aspires to become its master; through adulthood, where one seeks recreation and refuge from worldly demands; and through the later stages of life, where one may age gracefully while still enjoying this inscrutable game.
These are courses where you aren’t meant to hunt for balls in tall grass with your head down. They must be walkable. The focus is on the kind of features that are fun and engaging to play on a regular basis. As a consequence, width, playing angles and strategy are paramount. This is the time-tested recipe for pleasurable golf among all classes of golfer. Courses that struggle to reach 40 yards in fairway width are essentially absent; so too are courses with poor mow lines that preclude balls from running into bunkers. Courses that fare the best on this list combine design attributes for the thinking golfer with features that connect man to nature. Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, courses which have influenced (or should influence!) the direction of architecture are prized. The opportunity to play artful recovery shots is crucial; an abundance of water hazards invites exclusion. A club with no tee times is to be savored, but so too is the feeling of being in the mix with fellow golfers at a bustling resort.
If the architecture of an 18-hole course isn’t interesting at 6,400 yards, there is no chance it will be more interesting at 7,400 yards. Distance and toughness are less meaningful measures of a design’s worth than the simple test of how badly one wishes to play the course on a consistent basis. Forget about how the holes photograph and ask yourself after the round: are you worn out or energized? If the latter, then the course should have a real hope of earning a place on this list. How has our original game, featuring a quick and enjoyable stroll outdoors, with engaging puzzles to solve, taken a back seat to the unimportant values of length and difficulty? How did the discussion become so messed up? Stimulating a desire to play again and again is the intangible attribute of great architecture. Alas, too many designs are mediocre, meaning they fail at their most basic duty of motivating one to pursue the sport.
Since GolfClubAtlas went live in 1999, how we view the game has changed. Long form writing is dwindling on a popular basis; Herbert Warren Wind, Pat Ward-Thomas and Charlie Price are no longer here to remind us how the joy of the written word can bring a course to life. Instead, splashy photos of sprawling bunkers blitz the senses on social media. Courses continue to increase in size and, therefore, in maintenance expense and time required to play. This is a dangerous trend, as both time and money remain the great threats to any leisure activity, especially golf. A course with hundreds of bunkers along a lake can be spectacular to the eye, but if you as a golfer only want to wrangle with it once year, is that design to be lauded as much as one you wish to play on a weekly basis? Valuing the spectacular over the playable is a mistake, as it encourages developers to build more of the same. Not only is this ill-considered formula destructive to pace of play, it foists on the architect the prerequisite to build easy-to-photograph features that often have nothing to do with good golf. We as a community of golfers need to move the conversation away from the superficial and reorient the game back to features rooted in nature, subtle (and challenging to photograph) though they may be.
These Custodians of the Game (not ‘the only’ custodians, mind you, as plenty of others exist) are a counterpoint that celebrate those courses and clubs that embrace the simple virtues of the game. A score or so of household name courses are absent. Why? Because they promote the more cumbersome, Americanized version of the game. Perhaps over-eager employees rush to snatch your clubs upon arrival or “professional” caddies exist in place of youthful club carriers and are mandatory a majority of the time. The more people involved not playing the game, the less pure and more expensive the pursuit. Some in the United States construed this criteria as ‘anti-caddie’ when the 147 was initially published. That isn’t true, especially as plenty of caddie programs are virtuous undertakings that help young people. Rather, my message is simply one of pro-carrying-your-own-bag. The best places have the fewest rules and allow players to play in the manner in which they prefer.
Additionally, places with such policies fall prey to the temptation of conspicuous green keeping with everything overly manicured, to the point where the course appears jarringly unnatural. Imagine the silliness in overspending to make something look extra fake. Just as architects in the last half of the 20th century had to learn when not to use a bulldozer, clubs in the first half of the 21st century need to learn how not to over primp their courses. The colonization of nature should be avoided.
Policies that make golf more elaborate do not perpetuate a humble version of game; rather, clubs risk becoming enthralled by the trappings of the game more than the game itself. Only clubs that embrace a walking culture are on this list, and those that allow the option to carry your bag over your shoulder or take a trolley fare better than those that mandate a caddie until mid-afternoon. Clubs around well-heeled cities like London, Edinburgh, Amsterdam and Melbourne set the standard in this respect and many American clubs should reflect on why they have tedious policies in place that are absent in the game’s other leading cities.
This list is ‘updated’ after the completion of each Open and next time there will be 150 courses. Typically, a ~ dozen courses come on and off. A twice-Covid-canceled trip should allow me to see more Sean Arble Anglo-Welsh country gems that may be added in the next edition, such as Kington, Welshpool, and Cavendish. International courses woo such as Toronto GC and the Himalayan Golf Course in Nepal. Meanwhile, a series of tantalizing course openings and restorations occur this fall in the United States.
The course designer is not included below as this list concerns more than just architecture. Nonetheless, a quick count shows that Colt, Doak, Macdonald/Raynor, Coore & Crenshaw and Ross lead the way. Many of the courses have been profiled on GolfClubAtlas and you can click on the club name to be taken to its profile. The criteria for the list below in bullet point form is:
A course that provides engaging puzzles to solve beats one which does not.
A course where the ball is encouraged to run beats one where it is not.
A course where you can carry your bag at anytime beats one where you cannot.
A course where you can play quickly while walking, beats one where you cannot.
A course that you can enjoy at all ages beats one where you cannot.
A course with understated maintenance practices beats one with conspicuous green keeping.
A club that emphasizes the simple game of golf beats one which pursues the trappings of status.
A course you want to play again and again beats one you only wish to play annually.
The ‘purpose’ of this compilation mirrors the purpose of the web site: to foster discussion on what matters. To the extent that you value fun and engaging golf, you aren’t alone. Golf is a game – go have fun, which you will, should you find yourself at one of these 147 +2 Custodians of the Game.
46. Les Bordes
Architecture-wise, this could be the Garden City GC of Europe, with countless open greens at grade from the fairways. What trajectory and where you land your approach shot is up to you, making it a supreme design for all ages. Bumbling across sandy loam in the French countryside blessed with a panoply of textures and colors, trolley in tow, has quickly become my golfing ideal.
(Written about the New Course)
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