Review of the Month - February 2024

The purpose of the Review of The Month feature is twofold. Top100GolfCourses has always aimed to salute and encourage those who are putting admirable effort into reviewing the world’s great golf courses. Moving forward, we are also looking to learn from these experts! We’ll be chatting with the month’s star authors and discussing topics such as golf in their area, what they like to see in a strong course review, and of course dig a little deeper into their own winning review.

February 2024’s Review of The Month comes from Kyle Harris, who finds value in the Dye Course at the PGA World Village, one of the less-renowned routes in Florida from the iconic designer, but one that Harris thinks deserves your attention.

You emphasize the lack of water — a controversial hazard among modern course architecture aficionados — at the Dye course. Does its absence force more thoughtful design, in your opinion?

I think it forces the architect to thoughtfully open the tool bag. Building a difficult golf course is fairly straightforward and is too often quantified by high scoring. Nobody cares about your double bogey and similarly, nobody cares when the architect leans into penalty shots too frequently to drive scoring high in the name of difficulty. I believe most interesting golf lies in the journey between making a three, four, or five on a hole. With those numbers, the range of scores over 18 holes is 54 to 90. That's where most interesting golf lives. So, with all that in mind, the golf architect that confounds the effort to make a four with a penalty shot is already driving scoring outside that three to five range.

Pete Dye has many courses in Florida, with many water hazards among them. Can playing the Dye course at PGA Village give Floridians new insights into his talents as an architect?

Absolutely. PGA Village (Dye) has 18 compelling green complexes that are, for the most part, extensions of the approach. Likewise, there is just enough ballfield off the tee to set up an attack into these complexes as the golfer may see fit. Where Pete excelled in all of his courses was taking the slightly missed shot and placing it uncomfortably away from the target in an awkward manner. Two examples of this at PGA Village are at the No. 5 green and the No. 12 green. Both holes exist in this half-par world where it is possible to both under and over-think the approach. All Pete is asking is that you commit to your plan and execute it with precision.

You suggest that Top 100's ranking in Florida (no. 79) might be accurate for the Dye course, but you might consider it among your personal Top 10 for the state. How do you differentiate between quality and preference when ranking a course?

This is one of those Your-mileage-may-vary-type statements largely made because I feel that Florida has more compelling golf than people give it credit for and there is a ton of wiggle room for ties and the like in one person's esteem. PGA Village came relatively early in my exploration of Florida golf and largely influenced the above idea that there is more compelling golf in Florida if you're willing to try.

With that in mind, PGA Village (Dye) has become one of those touchstone-type courses that I find myself drawn toward after some time as a way to "reset" or "recalibrate" my experience. I generally "rank" courses based on the opportunity cost to play them. This is a bit more abstract than the old "ten-round test" between two courses because it factors in things like time since I've played a course and how much time I have to drive there, etc. It being an already-known quantity and the fact that I would drive past a lot of other courses to play it are what drives a golf course up in my esteem.

Do you, a golf course superintendent, take anything special into account when analyzing a course design, that perhaps a hobbyist golfer does not?

Not particularly. In fact, I try to dissociate the career from the round as best I can. My being a "play the course as you find it"-type helps I think because I do grade on a curve based on what I perceive to be a superintendent's budget and the "use" of the course. Golf is, for the most part, a consumer good and we as golfers must share the golf course in order to have a place to play. So a 200 round/day factory-type golf course is getting graded on a curve, and a significant one at that.

Now that you're a celebrated "Review of The Month" winner, let us know what factors you appreciate in a strong golf course review!

Hole-by-hole descriptions are incredibly dross and I think are a lazy way to review a golf course. Likewise, mentioning anything other than what happens between the first tee and the eighteenth green is an almost immediate “no” from me. You're reviewing the (emphasis) golf course and not the clubhouse or the "hang." I think most reviewers speak to what they know, and if they mention precious little about actual golf architecture or anything outside their own game or experience, they're practically telling you they don't have much to say.

What's one course that you're excited to write a review for in the upcoming year?

I'll probably circle back to Pennsylvania and write something up on a place I've been that is underserved. The skew to these kinds of lists is interesting. I'm not particularly interested in joining the line of voices (and in a lot of cases groupthink) extolling the virtues of the upper tiers in any area. That being said, there are a number of places that I feel should at least be present on the website that aren't.

I just looked through the Pennsylvania list and for some reason a place like Jeffersonville isn't on it?