UM Golf Course one of the best

Yes, thankyou. MacKenzie trumps Nicklaus every time. However, there are so many things wrong with our golf course (referring to U of M not Radrick) these days its just sad. I played this golf course nearly every day for 4 years and quite simply they are ruining this golf course.

•  The random placement of new trees on 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 12, 13, 14 & 15. The golf course was never intended to have trees like it does. There are plans hanging in the team meeting room at the golf course that show this. The trees they have added ruin design aspects of many of those holes which changes the strategy of the course immensely - and not for the better.
• The removal of sand faces on bunkers on 5, 8, 10 and more to come. In order to make it easier to maintain the bunkers, they are lowering the lips of the bunkers on many holes so that no hand raking is required. With the undulation of many holes that require uphill approaches, this changes the look of bunkers to the point where one might not know it even exists. This is more of a visual change than physical as to how the course plays but it ruins the look of 3 holes. 
• Buckeye trees line the right side of the 9th hole. BUCKEYE TREES SHOULD NOT EXIST ON OUR GOLF COURSE. 
• We use a RED, white and maize flag system for hole location identification. Our golf course should also never have RED flags. Why not some combination of Maize, Blue & White?
• The cutting of the cups is just miserable and was for each of the 4 years I was at school. They routinely fail to cut the cups deep enough which leaves the metal rim of the cup at about one centimeter down rather than the standard one inch. Consequently, lip outs are brutal because balls that are supposed to go in do not as they bounce off the metal rim. I have even seen balls bounce back and out towards where the putt came from when they are center cut and rolling at a good holing speed. 
• The greens are WAY TOO SLOW. They never verti-cut them, and U of M does not even own a roller. 
• The fairways are WAY TOO LONG --- it is honestly like playing out of the first cut of rough at many courses. People catch fliers from the middle of the fairway. As a team we used to be at a disadvantage when we went to tournaments where the course had tight fairways just because the ball would sit up so high at U of M we never played off of lies representative of other courses. 

All that being said it should still be in the Top 10. The course is a gem but they are ruining it with every passing day. As for the OSU courses. The gray sucks, and is not worth playing. The Scarlet course is just plain hard but really not that great. It is in good condition but the design is pretty bad. They took a MacKenzie masterpiece, handed it to Nicklaus, and let him ruin it. I played with Tom Lehman (who played for Minnesota) in U.S. Open Sectionals there in 2007. He had played there before the redesign and after 9 holes he looks at me and says, "I have a hard time believing this is the best he [Nicklaus] could do with this course. I just don't understand why he changed some of things he did."

EDIT: The men's team is hosting NCAA regionals in 2012 which is very positive for the program. Many people think the golf course is not hard enough but hopefully they will at least get it in good shape for that event because the handful of times when the course has had some rough in addition to playing firm and fast, it has been pretty difficult because you have to be so precise to score low. 

was a Pete Dye design.