I’ve had a chance to play a good number of Tom Weiskopf tracks and every one is a sheer delight and not in a predictable way, which is good. One of the special characteristics of Tom’s courses is that you get the sense you could shoot your best round ever on one of them. Or your worst. And like every other of his courses, Monument reminds that apart from the playing of the game, a golf course can be a beautiful place to be.
The trouble is of course to your right and left, not in front of you, so if you keep your ball in front of you and hit some greens in regulation, you will have makable birdie putts. Weiskopf believes in birdie putts, holeable birdie putts!
And he believes in greens that are open in front and give you a chance to run your ball up or face chips that present fascinating problems, all of them resolvable. And he believes in drivable par 4’s.
Now drivable par 4’s means drivable if you are very long and very straight. If you are a 240 hitter then you lay up to the fattest portion of the fairway possible to be sure of a pitch of the easiest variety in theory, but short pitches can be treacherous if you misjudge distance or trajectory.
Playing the Monument Course with it’s generous scoring nature, I’m reminded of what legendary designer AW Tillinghast said about a course that no one had broken par on. “What’s wrong with it?” he asked.
In the case of The Monument Course at Troon North, nothing. Nothing at all.
