From the tee, #4 at Lundin looks innocent enough, but with ocean on the left, rough on the right, a burn in front and a small, elevated green, it is anything but.

    Lundin Golf Club in Fife, Scotland was born of necessity 100 years ago.  The original links course was shared with the townspeople of next-door Leven and was played starting at both ends.  With 1,400 enthusiastic golfers -- this is Scotland golf we are talking about, after all -- things got a bit congested as townspeople crossed each others' paths.  Thus, the towns decided each should have its own links course, and Lundin, designed by five-time Open championship winner James Braid, opened in 1909.
    Overall, Lundin is not a difficult course to negotiate, playing to just 6,371 from the tips and offering generous bounces down firm fairways.  But, of course, the wind affects play on seaside courses, making some holes play longer than their yardage, and making it tough to control shots launched downwind.  
     Lundin is no different.  The 455-yard par 4 4th, the #1 handicap hole on the course, stands out from all other holes at Lundin, not only for its length but also for what faces the golfer on both the tee shot and the approach.  Played along the beach, which is out of bounds, the 4th is a continuing test of courage right until the ball goes in the cup.  First challenge is the tee shot where the temptation is to turn away from the roiling ocean on the left and aim well right.  But the fairway is humped in the middle, and a ball even just a smidgen right will bound off into the rough, turning a long approach shot into a likely lay-up shot.  Consider that a 255-yard drive, almost certainly into the wind, still leaves another 200 yards, and many players will opt to approach the hole as a par 5, and hope for "birdie."  (Note:  My son Tim and I each bogeyed the 4th when we played it last June, one of only three bogeys he had all day.)
    The long approach shot is just the half of it.  A "burn" crosses the fairway 44 yards from the green, and its running water eagerly gobbles any misplayed fairway wood or long iron shot.  Those who opt to play short of the burn are still not guaranteed a putt at par, as the 28-yard, perfectly circular green is elevated on all sides.  When the green is firm, as it most always is, the only play is to deftly run the pitch shot up the front slope and hope you don't run it down the back.
    The Scots love to put names on all golf holes, and this one is tagged with "Mile Dyke."  The ocean, the creek and the sheer length of the hole makes it seem to play like a mile long.  Toughest holes are those where par seems a major accomplishment.  The 4th at Lundin fills the bill.

Thar she blows:  The 4th at Lundin Golf Club is long and lean and mean when the wind is up, which it almost always is.

The two-year old Bright's Creek Golf Club in Mill Spring, NC, a Tom Fazio course, cracked the top 100 list at Golfweek. Photos by L. Gavrich

   Golf course designer Tom Fazio is finicky about what assignments he takes on.  If he doesn't like the canvas, he won't paint the picture.  During a trip through the western North Carolina mountains recently, I learned Fazio had turned down a commission on a brilliant piece of property at Balsam Mountain Preserve, near Waynesville.  Arnold Palmer took up the challenge and the result is a beautiful layout with some occasionally odd holes.
    I have never encountered a hole I would call "odd" on a Fazio designed course, and I have played nearly 300 holes on his courses.  Although it is fairly easy to identify certain Fazio elements on all his courses (banked fairways, buried cart paths, elaborate fairway bunkers), a few holes stand out.  The best example for me is #17 at The Cliffs at Keowee Vineyard, a 260 yard downhill par 3 with water on the right, a bunker wedged between the lake and the green, and ample bailout to the left.  The go for broke shot to the green, over water and bunker, gives the effect of a dogleg right, something you don't see every day on a par 3.  It is a beautiful hole, as well as a brutally challenging one, for a few years the toughest hole on the Nationwide Tour when the course hosted preliminary rounds of the local BMW Pro-Am.
    For the visual appeal of his courses and their not-too-hot, not-too-cold but just right playability factor, Fazio is the darling of many high-end golf community developers.  On Golfweek magazine's 2009 list of "Top 100 Residential Golf Courses," Fazio leads every other designer with 19 courses, followed closely by Jack Nicklaus with 18, including the cleverly named Concession Golf Club in Florida where he shares credit with Tony Jacklin, to whom he conceded a famous Ryder Cup tying putt a few decades ago.
    Fazio and Nicklaus also command the first four spots on the list, with Fazio's 1988 design at Wade Hampton in Cashiers, NC, holding down its perennial top spot, and Nicklaus' Castle Pines (Colorado, 1981) and Mayacama (California, 1988) in second and third position.  San Antonio's Briggs Ranch, designed by Fazio in 2001, is at #4, followed in fifth place by Cuscowilla, a favorite of mine in rural Georgia that was designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw 10 years ago and has vied with Wade Hampton for the top spot in the last few years.
    No other designers crack the double-digit mark on the list, although Tom Weiskopf has his name on 10 courses, four in partnership with Jay Moorish and all but one (in Michigan) in the southwest region of the country.  By my count, Pete Dye has five on the list, and Arnold Palmer, Rees Jones and Greg Norman four each.
    A handful of courses are new to Golfweek's list, including Mill Spring, SC's Bright's Creek (#38) and Madison, GA's Long Shadow (#74).  I played Bright's Creek, another fine Fazio layout, a few weeks ago and reviewed it here.  I played Long Shadow a few years ago before it opened, invited to do so by designer Mike Young, one of the most accomplished architects you have never heard of (he has designed 40 courses around the world).  Long Shadow's layout was wide open, for the most part, with Scottish links touches around the yawning fairway bunkers.  When the wind blows, I would imagine it is a bear (apologies to Nicklaus).
    Golfweek has also published its list of 100 top resort courses for 2009, with the usual suspects in the top five positions (ranked in order from #1):  Pacific Dunes, Pebble Beach, Whistling Straits, Pinehurst No. 2, and Bandon Dunes.  Many of the resorts are in the middle of golf communities where residents coexist with vacationers.
    Oddly, Golfweek's web site only displays the 2007 and 2006 top 100 lists, but the full 2009 lists for residential communities and resorts are in today's weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal.  I cannot find any link to the Golfweek list at the Journal's web site.  If you have any questions about a particular community or course, residential or resort, send me a note and I will check on it for you.

Designer Mike Young adds a number of Scottish elements to his rural Georgia course, Long Shadow, near the charming town of Madison.