How to assess a golf course

I spend a lot of time evaluating golf courses. Many of them are new to me, so I’m visiting for the first time. Over the years, I’ve developed something of a routine or framework for quickly getting the lay of the land and finding out the basic character of a place — what works and what needs TLC.

This is not just some tool for consulting. It’s also useful to anyone playing a golf course for the first time. In fact, it might also be a useful tool for a superintendent or assistant preparing to interview for a job or to see a colleague in their workplace.

Aerial. Before visiting I always look up the course on Google Earth and try to figure out the routing. With many courses featuring returning nines, you can usually figure out some semblance of a sequence, even if you get the nines flipped. With a continuous or “out and back” routing you should be able to figure out the logic, although as soon as you introduce home development and roads, the flow will be disrupted. This tells you a lot at the outset, because ease of routing is the single most important factor in the success of a golf course.

Arrival. I get very uncomfortable at golf developments where the homes are big enough to be confused with the clubhouse. Likewise, the hyper-vigilant security guard gate out in the middle of horse country where the vigilance is performative rather than functional. Another off-putting element would be the bag-drop area where the bag rats on headsets immediately surround you and appropriate your golf bag for placement on one of a long line of motorized carts. As if walking were not a viable option.

Clubhouse. I learn a lot in my first walkthrough of a clubhouse. Is it golf-oriented and welcoming? Or evocative of some mythic English country hunting lodge replete with faded prints of barking dogs? Is it trying to be a museum of modern Western art? Or a place that feels comfortable for hanging out in common rooms that open up to views of the surrounding landscape? And do the walls convey something of the place — its history, championships, design evolution, prominent guests who have played there, boards depicting winners of various club events?

A clubhouse should honor the facility’s locale and landscape and not feel as if it is adorned with discount art acquired by the truckload.

First steps. You know you’re in for a long day when the route from the staging area to the range is not self-evident and instead, entails detailed instructions, a map or an extensive network of signage. The more signs on a course, the more it feels like a cruise ship or gawdy hotel and the less it feels like traditional golf. The same goes for verbal instructions, like the speech the starter will often give at the first tee — which ought to be brief, welcoming but not overly effusive or didactic.

Golf. It takes about three holes to figure things out that count: like the quality of the turfgrass coverage; whether the tees are level, crowned or collapsing on the edges; whether the greens are reasonably shaped or have lost their perimeters over the years; and whether the putts are running smoothly, which is a much more revealing indicator of maintenance quality than their speed. Is cart traffic reasonably managed? Or is it out of control with multiple solo carts in a group and random access and egress on holes? Are the bunkers showing signs of proper drainage, edging and sand depth? Or are they collapsing, clogging or overly filled with sand to compensate for underlying structural failures?

Flex. The real strength of a golf course is whether it can accommodate players of diverse skill levels simultaneously. Too many course evaluations and ratings by various panels take place from the back tees and end up being a combination of difficulty and superficial aesthetics of dense, lush greenery.

What counts is what everyday golfers are doing from 6,500 yards, 5,800 yards and 4,900 yards. A proliferation of unavoidable forced carries into greens is a liability in this regard, as is a single-minded emphasis on length, narrowness and penalties for golf balls that stray. What counts are diagonally placed options, ground game access for everyday golfers, and a variety of pin placements and teeing grounds.

It’s not hard to form a reasonable judgment about a golf course on the basis of an initial visit — even a quick one. The key is fitting that assessment into the larger and more complicated issue of the club’s culture. Every facility has its own distinct manner of deciding what it wants to be and who should have a say in that presentation.

As with any aspect of business life, the real skill isn’t the material component; it’s the element of human relations. More on that in my next column.