Torrey Pines - good as any; better than most

Over at Golf ClubAtlas, where golf architecture lovers occasionally become indistinguishable from wine critics in their snootiness, the carping has begun. Perhaps the only surprise about the thread Is torrey pines the worst course to host a US open in recent memory? is that it currently only runs to two pages.

Most of us, of course, will never get to play it other than through a computer but for us at least, I would argue that this year's Open venue is no worse than most other courses on the rota and will be better than many, thanks to its backdrop of the dazzling Pacific.

They may be fine courses to play but Shinnecock Hills and Pebble Beach apart, I can't think of any US Open venue of my lifetime that has imprinted itself indelibly on my memory as an onlooker. If I had to sum up the typical Open course in three words, they would be earnest, worthy and arduous.

Until Daily Mail golf correspondent Derek Lawrenson said much the same thing several years ago, I had written myself off as just a ghastly philistine but before you add 'biased' to the charge sheet, let me say that once you remove St Andrews, Turnberry and Royal Birkdale from the equation, my summation of British Open tracks would be shaggy, lumpy and windy...

Torrey Pines' South course has its moments: the cute par 3 3rd, the pond nibbling away at the front of the 18th green and the newly-doglegged 14th, with its green now pressed hard against the cliffs' edge as part of the redesign carried out by Rees Jones not long into the new millennium. According to Geoff Shackelford's report on the organisers' welcome proposals to inject variety into a Major that has become a route march, "they are 'contemplating' moving the 14th-hole tees up one day in hopes of introducing a drivable, eagle-prone hole".

Briefed to bring the course up to Open standard, I wouldn't say Jones has been merciless. While additional bunkering has made straitjackets of many fairways, he has opened up the entrance to a number of the greens on a course where the run-up shot was previously all but extinct. On the 8th, admittedly, he has gone to the other extreme, leaving a sliver of green sandwiched between bunkers at either end of the putting surface, transforming a ho-hum par 3 into something of a pig...

Here's Jones talking you through his revamp, hole by hole:


Rees Jones at Torrey Pines from California Golf News on Vimeo.













Elsewhere, Golf World's course coverage looks as good as any: with its own pictorial course tour and a fine piece by John Hawkins chronicling the course's history. Ron Whitten, meanwhile, has penned one of my favourite types of scene-setter: 6 Things You Didn't Know about Torrey Pines.

And because every course tart needs his Torrey Pines wallpaper...