Review: Inness

Few new golf courses have captured the public imagination like Sweetens Cove down in Tennessee. The subject of admiring journalism from publications such as the New York Times, the 9-hole course has become quite a destination and the epitome of craft golf. It's also kicked the careers of its designers, Tad King and Rob Collins, into high career, making them some of the most sought-after people in the golf course design business. They have several projects underway, but the golf course at Inness is their first true sequel. The first course by King-Collins to open up after Sweetens Cove. 

Unlike Sweetens Cove, Inness is not a pure golf-only venture; the course is part of a new resort built on and around a former 18-hole course that's been plowed under to make way for the new 9-hole course. But the ethos of the Inness course is basically the same, and it features the same sort of wild contouring that Sweetens Cove is famous for. That makes Inness seem like a Sweetens Cove for the Northeast, being located a bit off the New York Thruway, about 2 hours north of New York City. That is much closer to me than Tennessee, especially I pass right by on the Thruway while going to visit my brother up in Glens Falls. So I had to swing by and check the place out.  

The first hole is a mid-length par 4, so things start off innocently enough. The fairway is incredibly wide, so you'd have to really try to miss it. One of the little quirks of this course is that there is very little traditional rough. It's basically all either fairway or long grass that's very difficult to find golf balls in. That will become important a bit later. It's the green that things get interesting. Inness has massive, sprawling greens filled with dramatic contours. We're talking upward of 5 feet of internal motion from top to bottom, and when the green is slightly elevated like the first green is, accuracy is way more important than you might think considering the sheer amount of hole present. It's not enough to hit the green, you need to find the right section; if not, three putting is a very real and almost likely possibility. And since there's so much fairway around the greens, chipping becomes a real free-for-all of possibilities. Do you putt? Use a wedge? Bump and run? There are no wrong answers since there are no right answers. Whatever you're most comfortable with is my answer to the short game conundrum. There are bunkers on this hole, with one behind the green and one in the fairway to catch long drives, but they're almost irrelevant. The hole is plenty complicated, and it would be just as compelling without them.

The first hole.

Approaching the first green.

The first green. Yeah, the scale of the features is something to behold.

The first green from behind. You can see all the humps and valleys within the green here.

The second hole is a short 340 yard par 4 that is, thanks to the sheer enormity of the shared green (with the ninth), almost driveable for long hitters. Again, the fairway is nearly impossible to miss unless you end up in the small central bunker right where a lot of drives would like to end up. At least it's easy to avoid. However, while it's awfully tempting to use driver, that may not be the best play because of the green. I suppose the hole could be cut in any number of radically different places, but for the hole location I saw, it was extremely difficult to get a 50-yard pitch anywhere close. That's because the front of the green is higher than the center; a relatively low and low-spin pitch will land on the downslope and bound way past the hole, possibly ending up on the high plateau. And just try to keep a putt close to the hole from up there. If you stay back and approach with a full wedge, you can get height and spin on the ball, and you can avoid the bad bounce. Alternatively, of course, you can utilize the ground game and bounce a ball off of the upslope short of the green, letting it trickle down close to the hole. There are so many decisions you can make, and that makes this my favorite hole here. The contours are extreme, but there's so much space to work with that it works. Just a bit of a shock to the system.

The second hole.

Approaching the second green. It's a double green, sharing one massive green complex with the ninth hole.

The second green, with the ninth behind.

The third hole is about 200 yards and plays slightly uphill to a giant green. It's a double green with the sixth, which I'll obviously get to later. Since the green is also draped over the side of a hill, there's a lot of slope from left to right, and I can tell you from experience, you want to land your tee shot left, and preferably with a draw. I hit a really good iron, but it was 15 feet right and slightly faded, so it took one of the numerous big slopes and ended up very, very far away. Still on the green, but nearly impossible to two putt, and I walked away with a bogey. So while I like the hole, I can't help but be a bit annoyed with it.

The third hole. 

With this slightly different angle, you can see the third and sixth greens are connected. And you can also see just how much slope is contained within the green; it must fall 10 feet from left to right.

The third green.

The fourth hole is where things start to fall apart. Inness was always walking a fine line between genius and madness, and the first three holes threaded the needle well. This hole? Not so much. The problem is width. With forest and O.B. left and wetland right, there's maybe 40 yards you can actually use, and that space is further narrowed by a group of half a dozen large trees that, for reasons beyond me, were left in the right portion of the fairway. Sure, they're nice big trees, but they're really, really in the way, and I'm sorry, but they ruin an already-marginal hole. The hole is a big par 5, 585 from the back and 530 from the tees most people will use, and there's so little space for a driver. I suppose you can hit a fairway wood or long iron, but it's a par 5, and that's just so incredibly lame. Anyway, once you get past that group of trees the hole widens a bit (enough to not be annoying), with a couple of internal fairway bunkers complicating lay-up shots. If you thread the needle successfully, you'll have a wedge third into a very wide but quite shallow green filled with the usual dramatic elevation changes you've come to expect from Inness.

The fourth hole.

Approaching the fourth green.

The fourth green.

The fifth hole is about 175 yards, making it the shortest hole at Inness. There's a pond that you have to cross, but it's not a huge issue, and neither is the tall grass around the green. I'm sure people will go in it, but it's far enough back to be reasonable. The main hazard here is the bunker sitting right where the front section of the green should be. It looks an awful lot like a Lion's Mouth green(a lesser-known Raynor template), though typically the bunker is directly on the line of play, not offset like it is here. Even so, it's very much something to worry about. I wonder if they ever put the flag behind that bunker on the little stretch of green extending down; that would make this a brutal hole, and I think there might be enough space for it. Glad my brother and I didn't see that.

The fifth hole.

The fifth green.

The sixth hole returns to the big wide field the first through third holes plays on, and the sixth shares a green with the third. It's basically the same length as the second, and it's tricky in broadly similar fashion. Getting close to the green is very tempting, but odds are it's a mistake to do so. It's also a mistake to hit right down the middle; a single small bunker right in front of the green does so much work in making pitch shots – and even full wedges – way more difficult. You're much better off aiming out to the sides of the massive fairway, along the native areas. That'll give you a better angle. I imagine which side depends on hole location, but all things being even, I'd recommend the left side, since the green has a subtle (the only time I'll use that word to describe anything about Inness) tilt from right to left. Otherwise, it's a gigantic green filled with bold and brash undulation.

The sixth hole.

Approaching the sixth green. The one time splitting the fairway isn't a good idea.

The sixth green.

And now we come to this hole. The seventh hole. As I said earlier, Inness walks a very fine line, and this hole beat that line up, stole its lunch money, and then egged its house. This is quite possibly the worst hole I've ever played. I genuinely want to know what the architects were thinking when they designed it. Did they think this was okay? The hole is a 440 yard par 4, but it plays to by far the narrowest fairway at Inness, a fairway that only narrows as it goes on. If you hit driver, you'll have maybe 30 yards between completely impenetrable wetland and tall grass. You'll never find a golf ball in there. Plus the fairway bends left where driver would end up, making your odds of finding short grass with driver even less likely. So unless you have a death wish, you have to use a fairway wood, and that means you'll have to use a mid or long iron for the second shot. That would be fine if the green could accommodate low-flying, lower-spin irons, but it can't. It's incredibly narrow and there's almost no space for the hole, let along approach shots. The shelf that the hole was cut on for our round was maybe 20 feet in diameter. That is literally an impossible task for a shot of 200 yards. Not challenging, impossible. And if you don't manage to hit that tiny target, you're almost certainly going to make a bogey, since the slopes are so insane. The front-left section of the green slopes up about 5 feet in a space of 15 or so yards; now, I've seen greens gain more altitude, and I've seen slopes just as, if not more, extreme. But the combination of those factors is just insane. It's completely unusable. You cannot play this hole as a par 4, you just can't, not unless you're a scratch-level golfer. I hate to use the word since it gets thrown around way too much and is often wrong, but it's completely unfair.

The seventh hole.

Approaching the seventh green. Good luck getting a 6 iron close to that flag.

The seventh green. I wish I'd gotten my brother in for scale, but you can sort of tell from the flag just how steep the slope on the front-left section of the green really is.

The eighth hole is a very short par 4, only 310 from the back and 270 from the next set up, so I think it was supposed to be a tempting driveable par 4. However, there's native area in front and right of the green, and precious little space left of that native area to skirt a driver past onto the left section of the green. Even if you do that, you'll may have a gigantic putt over typical Inness undulation, so what's the point? There is just no real reward and way too much risk in attempting to drive the green. So that leaves you with hitting a 200-yard lay-up (if even that far), then hitting a wedge into the green. So sure, the hole may look flashy and busy, but in reality it's actually pretty boring. There's only one correct way to play the hole, and with the native area and large bunker short, you can't even utilize the ground game. It's not as hopelessly unplayable as the previous hole, but it's not a good hole.

The eighth hole.

The eighth green.

The ninth hole is a giant par 5, just like the fourth, and also just like the fourth, there's not nearly enough space for the driver. The fairway's even narrower, and the left side is basically pointless if you want a third shot under 150 yards. Basically all you need is a long, straight drive down the right side, and that will give you a decent shot at laying up in the proper position. Maybe, maybe if you're especially long and the tees are up (as they were for us), you could have a try at the green. Mercifully, if you do want to try that, the green is ridiculously large (it's a double green with the second) and there's no trouble around it. The last 200 or so yards of this hole aren't hemmed in by trees and native area, which is something. I'd say that Inness finishes with a flourish and a particularly crazy green, but after the insanity of the seventh, even the ninth can't compare. It's crazy, sure, but since there's so much green, it feels okay. I will say, it was certainly a sight to see when we first got to the course and we saw this green of titanic proportions just outside the modest clubhouse. I wish the first 350 yards of this hole was about 20 yards wider, but at least it finishes well.

The ninth hole.

Approaching the ninth green.

The ninth green.

As you can probably tell, I have thoughts on Inness. I haven't played Sweetens Cove (I'm not driving all the way to Tennessee just to play a 9-hole course), but I have to imagine that it's better than this. Inness has some good golf. The first through third and sixth holes are really fun. They're a little extreme and I suspect were designed with an eye toward being shared on social media, not toward replayability, but they work as golf holes. The fifth is sort of there (funny how something as in your face as a Lion's Mouth can fade into the background when there's so much going on around it), the eighth is boring, and the ninth starts badly but finishes well. But then there's the fourth and the seventh. I don't like four, but I can live with it. Seven, though, seven haunts my nightmares. It's the worst hole I've ever played, and not just because it's a bad hole (it is, but work with me here), but because the designers should have absolutely known better. Width and space is so important for golf. It's okay to make a hole tough, but the golfer needs space to bail out if they so choose. Plus bad golfers exist. I don't want to start ranting about seven again, so I'll just say that it drags the entire course down in my opinion. If it weren't for that hole, I'd be happy playing Inness again, but knowing that it's out there, waiting, my interest is basically gone.

That sort of leads into my other main criticism of Inness: Replayability. I honestly feel like this isn't a golf course that was really meant to be played. It was made to be photographed. Oh sure, you can go around and play on it, but that's not the point. The point is for well-off people to come and fill the resort and take pictures of the insane greens for all their friends on Instagram. If you live in the area and you just want a place to play a few times a week, Inness would be a nightmare. It was $50 to play nine on a Monday, which is a lot, but it gets worse. If you want a tee time for the weekend, you'll be paying $75 for 9 and $120 for 18. Yeah, Inness is fairly close to New York City, but it's still the middle of nowhere. This isn't Westchester. Luckily there are other courses in the area, so locals still have a place to go, and if I lived in Accord, I'd play Inness once and then give it a very wide berth. It's wacky, quirky, offbeat, and very memorable, but it also feels a bit too performative for my taste. And that's just me, I know my brother likes it more than I do (though he's similarly against the fourth and seventh). Some people may love the theater. It's just not for me.