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Awesome pics. Well done.

So tell us how badly it beat you up and what you shot.

I've always been fascinated by Pine Valley. Now that you've played it, what is it about the course that makes it #1? You've played a lot of American golf course royalty. What separates this one from all the others? I know people cite its difficulty above all else, but beyond its sheer toughness, I'm fascinated about why Pine Valley beats out places like Cypress, Augusta, and Shinnecock.

This will sound stupid because the first round I shot an 85, but this course is gettable. The fairways are certainly wider than I expected and the greens are fairly large, but when you make a mistake it bites your ass off. We are talking 30 feet lob shots, 150 yard bunker shots with a 7 foot lip. My last round I shot a 39 on the front and doubled the 9th hole. The back nine I oddly enough played just as well and shot a 42. I had three tee shots on the back nine where sitting in the fairway my only option was to pitch the ball laterally to have a shot at the green. The 11th fairway has a landing spot maybe 80 yards wide, but only 20 yards of it is useable. My 81 is the equivalent of a 5.5 handicap. The greens are a 14 and the slope on the greens scare you.

The conditioning is immaculate as good as Augusta National for the Masters. The difference is Augusta has some good holes and some amazing holes. At Pine Valley every hole takes your breathe away. I feared putting these photos out there because they are terrible compared to the real thing.

When you play it you never leave the property which is 650 acres. I went for a walk one morning to walk to the "Short Course" and I walked for an hour and gave up. I came back and told the guy in the clubhouse and he said that you need to take a car to get there.

Their range is 25 acres of land and the practice greens that you hit your target shots at are mown to a 14 on the stimp. Your practice balls are new ProV1s and there are zero locks on any of the doors. I could have walked into anyone's cabin or even the clubhouse at 3AM. After every golf round I would come back to find my shoes shined and by my door.

When you are on site you are essentially a member- you are treated like royalty. I have played some amazing course and private clubs, but none of them came close to offering everything to enrich the experience like Pine Valley. IT IS GOLF HEAVEN.

We took the head pro at Innisbrook and he shot a 71 at Pine Valley. It's all about control out there.

They do "toughen" it up for the Crump Cup.

Excellent. Thanks for the insight and the pictures. It's the hardest of the top clubs to find out anything based on the lack of public exposure, lack of national tournaments, and satellite availability. On Google Maps, you can see where the driving range is, but not much else in terms of where the clubhouse is and what the exact routing is. The only other course that I've found to be tougher to learn about is Nanea in Hawaii.

Two time winner of the Crump Cup- Francis Ouimet.

I have zero doubt that if they wanted to they could make a 1 handicapper shoot 100. It would take a couple tweaks and it would be deadly.

As a side note, their clubhouse is amazing and they truly cherish their club's history. They have one of the finest collections of ancient golf clubs I have seen and I literally just finished writing a narrative that Pine Valley might use inside that display case. That would be such as honor for me to assist one of the preeminent golf clubs in the world.

Thanks for the pics, LL ! I live 10 minutes from here, but have never been able to see the grounds ....

You can walk the course when they play for the Crump Cup.

If I knew when that was ....

It is in September. Attached is the link. I went many years ago so bring good walking shoes.

http://www.amateurgolf.com/ama..

Cool !