Torrey Pines: North
What is a Fredo? Frederico Corleone (Fredo) is the weaker and less intelligent Corleone brother who has little status within the family. It is a term that has expanded to mean the weaker of any “siblings.” For example CNN’s Chris Cuomo is a Fredo (though his brother is an ass, too). Donnie is the Fredo Wahlberg and there are seven more Fredos in that fam. Milwaukee is the Fredo to Chicago. The Jets are the Fredo to the Giants. Merion West is the Fredo to Merion East but if you think that Torrey Pines North is the Fredo to South, you couldn’t be more wrong.
Played Torrey Pines North in 2019. Tom Weiskopf had just re-done the course (in 2017) and I had read that the recent re-do brought the course up closer to snuff with its more famous sibling. I don’t know what I expected but I was blown away by North. Step-for-step, North has the better views, is just as playable and if it got the tourneys versus the South, it wouldn’t be considered by many to be the Fredo. It’s a hell of a lot cheaper and is certainly worth putting on the play list if you’re planning a golf trip to San Diego.
Now I’m not saying if you go to Torrey Pines and can only play one course, you should play North. South is a great course with the championship pedigree and if you’ve already laid out the cash to get here, don’t be a cheap bastard – pony up to play South. But if you’re playing four or five courses on a San Diego trip, I’d rank this right behind South on my list. I talk more about the area in my South write-up here.
To the course. They reversed the nines in the re-do. I’m not sure why as there are just as many dramatic ocean-front holes on each nine, so maybe they didn’t want the huge congregation around the two first tees or maybe they wanted the tough formerly ninth hole to serve as the finishing hole instead of a short par five. I shot an 83 here with seven pars and a birdie on nine. From the greens, the course measures over 6,300 but it is 125 slope. Even at 125 though, an 83 is about as good as it gets for me.
The first is a pretty blah start but two brings the schmoogies and “cliff” into play on the left and gives you some great ocean eye candy. Three and four are awesome. Through ten the holes are good not great, then a great stretch through 17. Eighteen is now a long par four and a tough finisher. If you play, get the camera out.
As the course is so playable for the bogey golfer, you don’t have the Chinese March of Death that you can get on the South. The greens are pretty big and I can see how they challenge the pros with some areas that provide really tough pin positions.
Golf Scrapbook 