Anyone ever play any of Arnold Palmer courses ?

[sam004]

I just played my first Arnold Palmer designed courses.
Wondering if anyone else here has played any of his courses
and what were your thoughts or impressions were ?


http://www.arnoldpalmerdesign.com/co...px?q=GlobalMap

[sam004]

I just played this one.

Links style course. Found it quite challenging.
Hardest part was the 'Fox Trap' holes 6,7,8

http://www.arnoldpalmerdesign.com/co...AA60443F38A591

[Long_Ball_Bogey]

http://www.arnoldpalmerdesign.com/co...C62E837B9B61DA

I played this one quite a bit when I lived in Hawaii. The design was awesome and it flowed very naturally with the environment. A lot of consideration of the seasonal tradewinds factored into hole design and course layout. He's great at what he does. --LBB

[Shindig]

I haven't looked through his website, but the first professional tournament I ever attended was at one of his courses - Empire Lakes, inland empire, CA. I played it earlier this year and it was magnificent, even when they aren't expecting professionals to come waltzing through there.

From the white tees, I didn't find any really objectionable lines or holes. Sure, it wasn't easy, but I did step back to the blue tees on a few holes just to see what it looked like (I played all 18 from the white tees, for the record), and there was a noticeable difference. Twice, I stepped to the tips to see, and whoa, that's an interesting tee shot. I can imagine what I'd have to hit to play from those!

In short, it was beautiful, well laid-out, and had what I felt at the time were appropriate challenges from each tee box.

[flap]

The Mrs and I play Rivers Edge in North carolina and it is like a 149slope from the Blues andwill kick most golfers butts.

[alf174]

This one, Northville Hills , is directly across the street from my work, and I should be playing it sometime next week for the first time (I promised a client I'd wait to play it till he came into town).

[Clubchucker]

I've played one (TPC Rivers Bend) many, many times. It's one of my favorites. If this is a typical Palmer designed course, then I like his work much better than Nicklaus.

At Rivers Bend, you definitely get rewarded for good shots, but don't get killed if you hit a bad one. Punished yes...killed, no, unlike the two Nicklaus courses I've played. Nicklaus seems to put a premium on position shots...at least from my experience.

[wingchamps]

There are tons of Palmer company designed courses. Mr Palmer has not been doing much design work for some time. The Palmer designs tend to be less penal than Nicklaus or Dye, and less ostentatious than Fazio courses. They can get boring at times but I have found them to be quite playable. My favorite designer group is Moorish/Weiskopf.

[sam004]

I haven't looked through his website, but the first professional tournament I ever attended was at one of his courses - Empire Lakes, inland empire, CA. I played it earlier this year and it was magnificent, even when they aren't expecting professionals to come waltzing through there.

I was thinking about a trip out LA later this year. This one came up in a search for courses.

At Rivers Bend, you definitely get rewarded for good shots, but don't get killed if you hit a bad one. Punished yes...killed, no, unlike the two Nicklaus courses I've played. Nicklaus seems to put a premium on position shots...at least from my experience.

I thought I read somewhere that his course designs were challenging yet fair, I was more focused on the challenging part to notice the fair part :)

[Shindig]

I was thinking about a trip out LA later this year. This one came up in a search for courses.

Empire Lakes is certainly well within the quality of a course I'd look for on vacation.

[tjy355]

Just for the record, the man behind the name for the most part, was the late Ed Seay. Arnie is the King, but an architect he is not.

I'm familiar with three Palmer-Seay designs in the greater Phoenix area:
- Arrowhead CC (Glendale, 1986)
- Starfire GC (aka Scottsdale CC) (9-hole addition, 1986)
- Wildfire Palmer Course (Phoenix, 1997)

All are sporty, fair designs if somewhat vanilla. No holes that really stand out. The Wildfire course is quite fun to play and would be my favorite of the three.

During our first play of the Wildfire shortly after it opened and before any surrounding development, we approached a green and noted some small doves foraging in the nearby grass. As I was lining up my putt, I saw something flash past out of the corner of my eye. I turned and saw a puff of feathers and then looked skyward to see a hawk flying off with a dove in its talons! Whoa!

[ElWagonne]

Twin Creeks is a Palmer designed course that's about 5 minutes from my house. The greens had a lot of undulation, but it really doesn't stand out to me, especially considering that it's got a lot of competition for the golf dollar within 15 minutes of it.

[sam004]

Just for the record, the man behind the name for the most part, was the late Ed Seay. Arnie is the King, but an architect he is not.

FYI

http://golfarchitects.lib.msu.edu/seaye/index.html

[tjy355]

Just for the record, the man behind the name for the most part, was the late Ed Seay. Arnie is the King, but an architect he is not.

FYI

Arnie's site has a tribute to Mr. Seay (scroll down to the bottom):

http://www.arnoldpalmerdesign.com/staff.html

[Jay-Bird]

Kapalua - the Bay Course. It's beautiful, but then again, it's in Maui so that goes without saying. Front nine was pretty easy. Not too long from the tips, not too much trouble to get into. Back is a little trickier. 18 is an easy par 5.

[Elvisliveson]

I have played two: Angel Park in Las Vegas and Kapalua Bay in Maui (recently played by the LPGA). These courses were very playable for golfers of all skill levels. As was his nature as a player, Palmer rewards bold shots, but doesn't severely penalize failed ones.

[BigAl5150]

Played King's Walk up in Grand Forks, ND. Decent track and entertaining to play with the wind. Also, a good practice facility.

[chipper2]

I have played 3 of his courses, Northville Hills, Northville, MI; Coyote Preserve, Fenton, mI and Myrtle Beach National, Myrtle Beach, SC. All three were fun courses to play, fair, challenging, but not really with any outstanding memories.