I should start saying that I had great expectations, given what I read about the course and considering also the quite expensive green fee,

Unfortunately I was a little disappointed for a number of reasons: first of all greens were not in great condition, not only because they were pretty slow, but also because they had a lot of pitch marks not repaired: unacceptable!

As far as the course is concerned, it is obviously a nice course, but less than I expected. There are only few remarkable holes with a strong character which after the round I still remember.

Definitely a tough start of the round with three turtleneck greens at holes n. 2, 3 and 4. After that the course is definitely easier.

Even if Pete Dye said that "there’s no other golf course in the Northern Hemisphere that has as many seaside holes" (which I frankly doubt, having played a lot of courses in Scotland and Ireland…) the ocean is practically invisible as you can see it only from a couple of hole, so nothing to compare with the views and experience of ocean courses such as Pebble Beach or Torrey Pines, but also of Portrush, Dornoch, Ballybunnion, Waterville and many others!

All in all I would define the Ocean Course a “tick the box” course. You want to play it at least once given the number of major event played in the past and that will be played in the future, but also considering that for the same price you can play Pebble Beach, is definitely a course I am not interested in playing again as it does not worth the "outrageous" $600 green fee which I have been happy to pay at Pebble (where actually I paid even less)!