Some quick background: Poppy Hills is a public golf course found on the Monterey Peninsula, just up 17-Mile Drive from some of the most celebrated golf courses in the world: Pebble Beach, Cypress Point and Spyglass Hill. While it can never share the metaphorical rarefied air of its neighbors, Poppy Hills is the home course of the Northern California Golf Association (NCGA) and has therefore offered a relatively cheap and accessible Monterey golf experience to Northern Californian golfers since it opened 28 years ago, in 1986.

In March 2013 it closed for an extensive renovation and didn't reopen until March 2014. Over the course of that year RTJII (who also was the original designer) and Frontier Golf managed to make Poppy Hills a brand new golf course with only one significant routing change (new 11th and 12th holes) to the original course. What else is new?

A 5 1/2 inch sand cap was added to improve drainage. The Monterey Peninsula is often damp and foggy so the sand cap creates the most significant change to the course's playing characteristics. Instead of plugged lies in the fairway, the ground will remain firm and shots will bounce and run out. Contoured fairways and more roll mean that well-placed fairway bunkers are very much in play.
Rough eliminated, wider fairways. The area of fairway cut was tripled, from 20 acres to nearly 60. Paradoxically, the amount of irrigated turf was reduced from 82 acres to 62 (equals big $$ savings on irrigation, maintenance and turf inputs). This is the result of eliminating all rough and making out-of-play areas (e.g. alongside tees and along some fairways) into non-maintained sandy waste. Again, this has a dramatic effect on how the course plays and feels. The low-handicap golfer really needs to think backwards - determining the day's hole location, deciding on the best angle to attack that pin location from the fairway and getting to that area of the fairway from the tee. The high-handicap golfer is given a much greater margin for error with short grass everywhere. The feel of the course is much more expansive and less cramped.
Artificial mounding and propped up tees and greens were lowered to tie into the surrounding grades. While I didn't see the course prior to the renovation, it's my understanding that the bottoms of the surrounding trees weren't visible due to extensive containment mounding. I've also read many complaints about the original greens and fairways being wildly contoured. I can attest to the fact that this is no longer the case. The grading is restrained and ties into the existing landscape nicely and naturally.
Green complexes were reconstructed and the green surfaces were changed from poa annua to bentgrass. The entire green complexes were regraded (and sometimes moved several yards left or right to soften doglegs). While the original greens had wild internal contours, the new greens have more subtle internal contouring with more humps, rolls and mounds on the edges of the greens, which bleed onto the putting surface. In addition, the greens are still very new (and have no thatch) so they're not at all receptive to long approach shots. As a result, the surrounding contours are of the utmost importance. On many of the holes, the only way to stop your ball on the green is to run it up the fairway or play it off a surrounding slope so that it slowly rolls on.

**5th hole tee shot - non-maintained sandy waste surrounds the tees, which is both out of play and nice for photos.**

**10th hole approach - so much width, so many options!**

**16th hole approach - More room to play & with a green side bunker borrowed from #10 at Pasatiempo.**

As for my impressions as an average to below average golfer (20 handicap):

This course was a lot of fun to play! I was finding myself in trouble all day but mostly due to unfamiliarity with the course (at least I'd like to think so). I was typically on the wrong side of the fairway, leading to dangerous shots into the greens, which I invariably hit over and through due to my not accounting for their firmness and not using the surrounding contours to feed the ball safely onto the putting surface. Green side recovery is difficult due to the tight lies. A true thinking player's course that I will play differently next time. It's courses like this that I really, really look forward to playing again.
Not only do I love playing without rough, I love the look of it. I'd only ever seen this done previously at the recently renovated Cal Club (just south of San Francisco), the newly renovated Pinehurst No. 2 (host of this year's US Open) and, to some extent, Chambers Bay (another RTJII course and the host of the 2015 US Open). Perhaps not coincidentally, the green complexes here were very reminiscent of the greens at Chambers Bay, which also repel direct attacks but have mounding all around to feed the ball on. With these high profile courses the no-rough idea definitely seems to be trending upward.
The sandy waste areas added an interesting new element. The surface played like a hard pan and there was vegetation scattered throughout so there was very much an element of luck involved when the ball entered the sandy wastes. I'd imagine this is similar to what was seen at the men's and women's US Opens at Pinehurst No. 2 this year.
My favorite holes were the ones that presented an obvious decision from the tee. Hole 9 is a terrific strategic par 5, daring the player who hit a great tee shot to attempt to reach a very large and difficult green in two. Hole 14 is a short par 4, also with collecting central fairway bunkers, that severely punishes golfers coming into the green from the wrong angle. The par 3 holes (#2, 6, 11 and 15) are very diverse in length and character.
My biggest criticism is that the cart path is ubiquitous and the walks from green to following tee were awkward in places, particularly the road crossings from 9 to 10 and from 16 to 17. As a walking golf enthusiast, the walkability of a course often leaves the most lasting impression on me. I realize that, due to the scope of the renovation, little could be done about routing issues in this case. The positive take away is that the topography allowed for a fairly easy walk, without too much hill climbing.

**Hole 9 tee - stay right of those fairway bunkers if you want any hope of reaching the devilish green in 2!**

From one of the press releases:

"The result is a new philosophy at Poppy Hills, one that embraces play both on the ground and through the air, and one that rewards the imaginative and strategic shot-maker. This is further encouraged with just one cut of grass throughout the course – a fairway height that runs from the tee boxes to the green. The links-style short fairway turf is used as both a defense, and a new and unique opportunity to score.

These playing conditions were achieved by creating the previously unthinkable – firm and fast conditions year-round in Pebble Beach. The irrigation was replaced and optimized with a state-of-the-art computer system that can control water application to localized spots throughout the golf course. The course was then capped with a 5-inch layer of sand, fostering firm, fast and fun conditions year-round. All 18 greens were reimagined and rebuilt with bentgrass, and vary in size from 4,700 to 9,000 square feet."