I’d like to have access too Lag.
Gotta a chance to play a round with my new 1961 Hogan Power Thrusts.
Mr. Hogan sure knew golf clubs.
Copy of the email i sent to the USGA today
To whom it may concern.
How do you sleep at night knowing what you have done to this great game.
To allow the equipment changes you have in the last 25 years is a complete tradgedy to the game.
When will you allow our great courses to be played as intended. Did Dr Mckenzie imagine 9 irons into 13th at Augusta ?
You along with your equally inept pals the R&A, have utterly ruined this great game, bow your heads in shame.
Steve
I do not expect a reply
You have done something I didn’t have the guts to do but someone had to do it. Maybe they’ll take notice. Of course those knuckleheads are only concerned about one thing. Money. They don’t care that they are ruining this great game. All they see are dollar signs.
One of the things that is quite sad about all this frying pan, shovel technology is that whole generations will never know what its like to hit a persimmon or a classic blade. They will never know the strategy of the game.
Its so interesting to play the game as it is meant to be played, using strategy to navigate a course. To use more then a driver and wedge on almost every hole. When I played Saturday, I had to hit my 3 iron to set up a shot to the green. I hit 4 iron into a green, I hit a 5 iron into a green. I used every club in my bag to navigate the course. What a great experience. It was nothing like the bomb and gouge style of play you see today.
Its all becoming a lost art.
We are the keepers of the game and it is up to us to keep the Classic game of golf alive.
Thank you apples!
I played a little know MacKenzie track today “Northwood” about 100 miles north of San Francisco. I’ve posted about this course before… built in the 1920’s and carved out of a giant redwood forest… which obviously would never be allowed in today’s age of ecology. But regardless… what a golfing experience. The course is unchanged from what I can tell. It’s pure Alister all the way. Every single hole just screams “risk and reward”. I took a friend up there and had a good non golfing friend walking the fairways with me and I just told him what was going on with the options of how these holes could be played. He could easily see and understand it as I was trying to execute the proper shots. This course is just so narrow it’s crazy. There is a par 3 about 150 yards that if you hit an 8 iron… you will have to literally thread a gap of about 5 yards between two towering redwoods… but instead I played a lower trajectory 6 iron that left me about a 10 yard gap between the trees. There are many shots that REQUIRE excellent trajectory control under tree branches… even from the middle of the fairway, but the greens are also designed to accept those lower trajectories. Most of the par 4’s require significant curvature off the tee… or you can choose not to curve it and play an iron off the tee. The greens are tiny, and very sloping… but not too fast. Nothing scary fast, but just very difficult slopes. You absolutely need to keep the ball below the hole… but for the most part… you can see this from the fairway very clearly. A couple holes have classic decoy bunkers 20 yards short of the greens that really throw off your eye if you are sighting your yardages. Having a book would take a lot of this out of the game. As much as I was aware of these, they still affected my and I came up a bit short even though I knew better.
It’s a nine hole course you play twice. 6 holes have OB down one side of the fairway or the other… and often very close to the green. It sends a chill down your spine even on a casual nine holes. This whole course is position, position, position.
I would recommend anyone visiting the SF Bay Area to make the trip up there. You can cut over to Bodega Bay in about 20 minutes and even stop and see the famous Church and School house from Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” on your way back. It looks exactly like it did 50 years ago. You feel like you are on the movie set. It’s a very affordable and memorable day.
Fantastic
Rory wouldnt have enough golf balls to finish lmao
Steve
While it’s not a long track… it requires some serious shotmaking prowess to play this course correctly. Who is to say what a proper professional test is? I would like to see who could work the ball around a course similar to Northwood and get it done.
No one is going to run the table on these greens. You just have to hit the ball into the correct spots or you’re dead. Pasa Tiempo is very similar, but just stretched out a bit.
Fantastic pictures Lag, thanks for putting them up.
I would love a crack at that layout, just for the shotmaking that appears required from looking at the pictures… screw the putting though 
Are there any holes out there one can play backward: instead of wood off the tee and iron into the green, iron off the tee and wood into the green, to avoid narrow areas with big branches sticking out. 
Northwood absolutely epitomizes the tee shot risk and reward element of the game…
You want to go at it with a frying pan swinging at it with 120 mph swing speed… be my guest. You get that ball just a fraction off line and you are going to hear the sound of plastic hitting redwood then echoing through an ancient forest in a hurry. Redwood trees that are 6 feet in diameter are not very forgiving… your ball comes straight backwards… or glances sideways either into the fairway with huge distance loss or veers deep into the forest where you are not going to have much of a shot on your next swing of the club. There is NO wedging it or hitting it over at tree.
You either hit 4 iron off every tee… or from there simply increase your risk probability exponentially with each decision to go with more club. You don’t get away with much here… you either put the ball in play or pay dearly. Not easy chipping from off these greens either. Rough lies… sloping greens… no automatic up and downs from homogenized lies to perfect surfaces.
You’ll be really glad you have a bag of heavy gear with flat lie angles out here.
Bring your A game folks.