In Spite of Myself, I Like Burnt Pine

December 4, 2016

BurntPine5 — *Jones’ design aesthetic is singular — you could probably tell who designed this course from one photograph.*

For reasons that I cannot explain, all the vertical features and doodle-bunker shapes don’t bother me as much at Burnt Pine as they do on many other Rees Jones course from this time period.

Maybe I’ve just played so much golf in Florida that I’ve come to appreciate how much more apathetic most courses would look on this flat site without the artistic if predictable machinations of the architect. Or maybe Jones is such a master of mounding that this particular work represents a kind of apotheosis of his particular aesthetic.

No matter how they look to you, one thing all the humps and elevated catcher’s mitt greens do is make the course profoundly difficult if you don’t have precise control of your approaches. So it can’t be said the shaping and divided green levels don’t have a practical purpose.

*Looking across the 14th green and Choctawhatchee Bay toward Sandestin.*

Though portions of northwest Florida do have interesting topography and flora, this particular site is nothing to get excited about unless you like swamps and rodents and snakes.

Outside of the big par three 14^th that spans a marshy cove of Choctawhatchee Bay there’s not much that’s very memorable. But most of the holes border reserves of attractive pines and hardwoods on the far, wooded north end away from the resort’s sprawling campus (this is Sandestin’s members-only course), giving Burnt Pine a pleasant feeling of separation.

So perhaps this is the right place for some kind of exaggerated architecture, something I can’t say for Falcon’s Fire in Orlando, or of most other Jones courses from the 1990’s. The shape and style of the mounds and bunkering can read dated — they look like Keith Haring’s leftovers blew out his window and landed here — but it somehow works. The routing stinks, no surprise given the real estate component, but the holes feel balanced, especially on the out nine, and you’d better strike your ball to score well.

What can I say — in spite of myself, I like this golf course. (87)

Burnt Pine Golf Club at Sandestin Golf & Beach Resort

Destin

Architect: Rees Jones

Year: 1994

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