One round: Seminole or Medalist?

One round: which club would you visit?

  • Seminole

    Votes: 9 45.0%
  • Medalist

    Votes: 11 55.0%

  • Total voters
    20
Out of the blue, you get invited by members of both Seminole and Medalist Golf Clubs to play a round of golf - but both invitations are on the same day, and you're not likely to be invited back by the person you snub. Which would you choose to play?

I thought this would be an interesting question to ask in light of the last two Sundays of televised golf. You can make your decision for any reason - quality of the golf course, expected experience, people you might spot at the club, whatever. (If there's another course in the Miami/West Palm Beach corridor you'd rather visit than these two, you can add that as a comment.)
 

cshea

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Nov 15, 2006
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Seminole is the better course but Medalist is Tiger’s joint and I’m a Tiger honk so I’d end up there on the chance of seeing him.

Edit: Also Medalist looked easier for someone of my skill level (15). Less room off the tee but way less diabolical greens.
 

voidfunkt

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Apr 14, 2006
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Medalist looked really boring on TV. That said, it probably was not done any favors by the meh broadcast quality, but I saw nothing there that excited me. Seems like the kind of place you join if you have a lot of money and want to be able to rub shoulders with celebrities.
 

jercra

No longer respects DeChambeau
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Jul 31, 2006
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Arvada, Co
Seminole, and it's not close. Medalist looks like a nice course and the chance to randomly bump into a few tour pros in the locker room is cool, but there are a lot of courses like Medalist in the world and not a lot like Seminole. Give me a gem of a Ross course any day over a more generic modern layout. As much as I'm sure it would eat me up, I'd love to hit approaches and chips into those greens for 18 holes.
 

BigMike

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Sep 26, 2000
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I'm not good enough to play either one.

Seminole is of course incredibly forgiving of bad tee shots, especially when there is only 1 foursome on the course, but the approaches would be torture, because even if you hit a good approach for my skill level, you are just going to roll off the green and down into a death bunker, or a play up a 15 foot rise to get to the green.

Medalist is in my opinion prettier. Obviously is has more colors on the course, But I'd likely lose as many balls as TB12 did. On the other hand if I could find the fairways, I think medalist would be far less frustrating in terms of rewarding decent approach shots (note I said decent, not low handicap/pro good)

Anyway given the choice I'd pick medalist
 

Deathofthebambino

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Apr 12, 2005
41,947
Medalist. I want to be able to hang out and have some drinks/dinner after a round and shoot the shit. I don't want to be ushered to my car and told to leave the premises by 6:00 p.m.
 
Seminole, and it's not close. Medalist looks like a nice course and the chance to randomly bump into a few tour pros in the locker room is cool, but there are a lot of courses like Medalist in the world and not a lot like Seminole. Give me a gem of a Ross course any day over a more generic modern layout. As much as I'm sure it would eat me up, I'd love to hit approaches and chips into those greens for 18 holes.
This is where I am, FWIW. (I think I said last week that Seminole wouldn't be in my Top 20 courses I'd kill to play in the USA...but that's not to say that I wouldn't love to play it, and the architecture would be far more interesting and important to me than any of the off-course stuff.)
 

jercra

No longer respects DeChambeau
SoSH Member
Jul 31, 2006
3,147
Arvada, Co
This is where I am, FWIW. (I think I said last week that Seminole wouldn't be in my Top 20 courses I'd kill to play in the USA...but that's not to say that I wouldn't love to play it, and the architecture would be far more interesting and important to me than any of the off-course stuff.)
I'd love to see that list. Since you live in Scotland and can play all of the amazing courses over there I'm guessing your list would be pretty signifcantly different than most Americans.
 

RedOctober3829

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Jul 19, 2005
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deep inside Guido territory
I voted Medalist because I would not break 110 at Seminole with those greens. But I wouldn't be clamoring to play either of those. I want to play a couple of local(to me) courses first in Shinnecock and Friar's Head.
 
I'd love to see that list. Since you live in Scotland and can play all of the amazing courses over there I'm guessing your list would be pretty signifcantly different than most Americans.
Yeah, thanks for plunging me down this rabbit hole! Upon further consideration, Seminole probably just about squeezes into my list of the Top 20 courses in America I've never played but would love to play, which in rough order of preference would look something like this...

Augusta National
Pine Valley
Sand Hills
National Golf Links of America
Oakmont
Crystal Downs
Friar's Head
Old Macdonald GL
Fishers Island
Prarie Dunes
Ballyneal
Maidstone
Chicago GC
Sebonack
San Francisco GC
Garden City
Pinehurst No. 2
Seminole
Whistling Straits
Kiawah Island

...but there are at least five courses I have played - Cypress Point, Shinnecock Hills, Merion, Pacific Dunes and The Country Club - which aren't on the above list but which I would rush back to again before Seminole if given a choice. So that's my Top 20-25, or thereabouts. (I had an invitation to play Pine Valley, too...still kicking myself about that one, sort of.)

Anyway, that's just my American wish list, although in truth there aren't that many courses outside of the US I'm dying to see which I haven't yet seen. (I've been around most of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and played many of the best courses in Australia in my one visit there, nearly two decades ago; the Republic of Ireland is the one country I really need to see properly some day, although in truth, as a recovering golf course architecture junkie I've mostly learned to be content with what's on my doorstep and not make the quest to see and play new golf courses a central facet of my existence.)