And yet he’s SO GOOD now. Like SO GOOD
1 Like
eyeballing an emergency round out at St Andrews just before 4pm if anybody wants to join me.
my only rule is that you have to keep up because I’m getting 18 in before dark!!!
I’m pulling hard for Harry! We played a bit together when I was at Lionsgate and he was in town practicing.
The first time we met, I was playing in the club championship. He was following his younger brother, Alex, around in the group behind me. He knew my playing partner and was chatting it up at the turn; he told him I was 3 or 4 under. Without knowing who I was, he bet my playing partner $50 I would implode on the back nine. 
For the record, I did not! Got introduced after the round when he was paying up and I learned. I was like, “WTF man!?!” 
I never considered him a PGA Tour talent, or even Web for that matter, when we would play. But he’s found something the last two years, I want to know what it is! I like his move.
2 Likes
May I ask why the negative feelings towards Great Life? I’m a member up in Minnesota. It has made golf affordable for quite a few around here.
Affordability it definitely has. Unfortunately the affordability comes at the cost of lack of maintenance of some courses that used to be some of the best courses in the area and turned them into ‘value’ golf. And I dont mean value nicely in this context.
1 Like
I hope it’s different up there, but they’ve absolutely ruined Prairie Highlands, Falcon Ridge, and a few others that used to be at least solid mid tier public courses.
I’d also lump in Hillcrest, but it was in decline well before GL bought it. I’d love to see it return to glory with some extensive tree removal, bunker restoration, etc. it could be such a cool club. My dad still tells stories about how big of a party/gambling club that it was in the 80s/90s when a bunch of his buddies were members.
1 Like
so I walked it today.
I’m sure it helped that it couldn’t be better walking weather, but it was TOO bad. I did walk 18 at St Andrews yesterday as well, and had a few brown waters so I wasn’t at 100% today either. I wouldn’t call it an easy walk, but I felt totally fine until the climb from 15 green to 16 tee. I can see how you wouldn’t want to do this when it’s 90 deg out though.
The golf course was better than I expected. I quite enjoyed the stretch from 8-13. I might include 7 in that too, but I think it has a dumb green that doesn’t suit the hole. A tiered green on what is one of the longer approaches? C’mon. 4 is fine, 5 is good.
14 is a bit goofy with the tee tucked against the treeline left, then the fairway bends left, and the green back to the right with another tree on the inside corner? I kinda like the flow of that hole but it feels like there should be a bunker there instead of a tree (strategic vs penal blah blah).
I thought the finish was actually a bit disappointing and the worst part of the golf course. 16 is a tight straight away hole with it getting tighter at the landing area. an uphill slog all the way.
how do you even get a golf hole on 17? how does this play in the summer when (if) the fairway is rolling at all? that’s some of the most severe grade I’ve seen. so much R-L slope, with a cliff off the edge on the right (hazard), and a bunker on the right too that it seems like you have to swing it at the trees L and hope it bounces down somewhere decent? that green complex has to stay soaking wet all the time too.
18 is fine, but again, seems to get narrow at the landing area between the creek and the bunker. Somewhat consistently, it seemed like the tee shot looked like there was plenty of room, but there really wasn’t.
9 i thought was kindof a cool hole with an uphill tee shot, where you want to favor the left side (the highest side), with an approach that falls back down the hill to the right, and what looks like a cliff edge off the back of the green. it’s a short iron/wedge approach, with a nice green site that fits the land, and a bunker you don’t want to be in. but the side you want to be on, high left looking straight down the green opening…they planted a cluster of 4 maples that are fine now but will be an issue in less than 10 years. 
greens were really good though for this time of year. not a ton of bounce but in good shape, rolled great, and pretty good speed. tiered greens i could do without.
anyway. it’s very fazio, and I enjoyed it today but I could see how it could beat you up over the long haul. The wife thought it was nice, loved the gym and coffee/juice bar/cafe thingee. It’s within 5 minutes of our house, on her way to work, the members I’ve met seemed great, and they said there was almost 250 people at their kids haunted house/halloween thing last week.
I never thought it was a legitimate possibility but it keeps beating my expectations in every way.
Blue Hills tomorrow.
sidebar; St Andrews is 9 million times better than OP in golf course and conditioning. except for this. WTF.
3 Likes
Blue Hills.
There are two things that stand out golf course wise, blind tee shots and big greens. I think I heard a member say that other than the par 3s, only two greens are visible from the tee. I’m not really a fan of that but I think it would be something you get used to.
The members also said this was the fastest they’d seen the greens maybe ever. The speed made what look like subtle breaks really snap, and gave them a fair bit of interest. Being so big means there was lots of pretty flat area as well, but there’s enough contour that they had some nasty pins.
Blind tee shots means there has to be lots of elevation, which there kinda is, but not in the way that Hallbrook has elevation at all. It’s not big massive dramatic fall offs, the course rolls with the land far more naturally. Bunkering is lacking at Blue Hills, not because they’re in bad shape by any stretch…but why is there 5+ yards between the bunker and the green? The greens are so big already I have a hard time thinking it’s because the greens shrunk.
So greens are good, green complexes are not because it’s all standard rough surrounds, and the aforementioned bunkering. There is some movement in both directions on the course, but it tends to look fairly vanilla from the tee because so much of it is blind. I don’t know it well enough to say if that can be fixed with a tree management program or not.
The holes that come to mind that I like, are holes with elevated tees like 4 (?) and 17. 18 isn’t elevated but at least you can see where you’re going.
Without dragging on too much the big group I played with was great, and I think they’ve got a really good group of very active members. The wife came and actually preferred it to Hallbrook because of the very family friendly atmosphere and lack of any sort of pretentiousness.
It’s really the exact opposite of Hallbrook, and very likely where we’ll join.
…but Milburn is a better golf course.
2 Likes
Maybe you flushed it, maybe you caught a flier, but whatever is it was, you went for it and you went long. That’s a hill many good aggressive players have died on. You messed up, sure, but you’re in good company.
Ok
BHCC is a really solid track, can’t go wrong there!
I’d recommend chatting with a few members about how the KFC Tour event affected the course, conditions, etc. There is a reason Lionsgate members got rid of it. Maybe the May date makes it easier to stomach?
I have brought that up to both the GM and the member I’m friends with. They’re consulting with the tour agronomists (for better or worse) about how to improve conditions, and have removed over 250 trees so far, which is a good thing. They only shut the course down for the week of the event, and they’ve also hinted at some practice facility upgrades the tour would pay for.
The member I talked to thought it was worth hosting the event at least so far, and he said the course wasn’t really torn up too bad. There’s a couple people who have had unfavorable views of the relationship with Lionsgate, but I never really heard any specifics as to why.
1 Like
I’m honestly surprised they said the course wasn’t tore up all that bad considering the event was during the rainiest May in the history of KC.
I played in early June and the course had taken a beating from the event and the winter kill. I can’t remember which par 4 on the front was shortened to like an 80 yard par 3 for us, the fairways were in rough, rough shape on multiple holes and the members I played with said it took a huge effort from the maintenance crew to get it up to snuff for the KFC event. Then, they had to turn around and get it back to decent shape for the members. The member I played with thought having the event was worth it and I think they learned a ton from this year. She also mentioned that a ton of members were livid about the tree removal lol
The May date doesn’t help conditions, and they got a bad break this year. It was unseasonably cold and wet.
That is how it was at Lionsgate too, but the course was babied in the 3-4 weeks prior. The May date probably helps them here, whereas the late-July date made it frustrating for some of the prime golfing weeks.
I’m guessing that means more end-range netting so people don’t die on #4.
Lionsgate got torn up only where the grandstands and heavy traffic were, Tournament 17-18 = Club 8-9. While they allocate repair monies, the problem was it never fully healed before the next go around. I went to the event this year at BHCC and only recall the grandstands on 18, which isn’t that big of problem considering the hole (rarely going 20 yards long that uphill of par five).
I think our membership just grew tired of the logistics outlined above. I heard that any monies paid to to host were actually collected by ClubCorp, so Lionsgate never reaped any(?) rewards for their inconveniences. They’re still waiting to break ground on the winter hitting facility they’ve been advertising to prospective members since < 2015…
maybe there was less spectator traffic as a result of the weather?
I remember Evan complaining about this now that you mention it.
If the only grandstand was behind 18, I saw no ill effects from it yesterday. Really the only place I saw that they were having any turf issues was the left/shaded side of 13. But overall it felt like there were less tree/airflow issues at BH than Milburn, and way fewer issues than Hallbrook.
this absolutely would infuriate me, and one of the reasons I haven’t even called Lionsgate. I don’t really have any interest in being a member at some big entity, or the sleazebag that sold Brookridge out from under the members. As an aside, I’m sure you’ve been there Matt, but Leawood South is almost an exact duplicate of Brookridge.
Glad to hear you liked BHCC. I think you’ll be happy with the decision if you go that direction. Have they changed to concrete paths from asphalt? Growing up it was always asphalt and the Blue Hills ball mark was always a nice black smear across the ball from hitting the paths.
another great thing about the club is that it has some easy short loops if you don’t have much time or have the kids with you. 7 through 9 for 3 holes, 1 through 6 and 10-12, 16-18 for 6.
I have very fond memories of long time Head Pro Bud Williamson (RIP), smoking Marlboro 100s in my 10 year old face while giving a 3 minute lesson ahead of junior golf on summer Friday mornings. 
3 Likes
Yes, I think they did cart paths 3-5 years ago. I will give them credit for placing the cart paths in areas where I never noticed them, and I think only one shot from our group that was 40 yards offline hit a path.
Since you bring up Bud, BHCC has a pretty cool history of only having 4 head pros since 1912 (PD is on it’s third since 1937) and having Sean Dougherty right now doesn’t seem like that will change anytime soon.
It’s Duke Gibson, Bud, Todd Loechler, and Dougherty, right?
i think Todd is out of the golf biz now.
I’m not real sharp on my Blue Hills history, but the first two I think are right. The masters crystal on display from Duke is bad ass.