From the outset I knew I wanted one of the tee shots on the course to be from a high tee shooting downhill with long views across the course. Looking at my routing plan, hole 2 seemed to be the ideal choice. This sort of a view is what I call a 'welcome to the course' shot giving tantalizing glimpses of the holes to come. As such it's better to have the hole early in the round rather than later. The first hole at Crystal Downs is a perfect example. What a fantastic opening tee shot view.
Below is a fantastic painting of the hole by Richard Chorley. You can buy prints of it at Oldsportgallery.com
My prospective hole was going to be a strong '3 shotter' with the downhill tee shot making way for a flatter 2nd and culminating in an approach to an elevated green. Lots of variety and different challenges right there with just the elevation changes throughout the hole.
The really tricky challenge on this hole though was going to be the second shot - on too many 3 shot par 5's (ie green out of range in two shots) the second shot is a 'nothing' shot with little to challenge or interest the player apart from advancing the ball as far as possible to make ready for the green approach.
I wanted this second shot to offer a great challenge and some excitement in the pursuit of a birdie. The tee shot would not be unduly difficult with a reasonable wide fairway to shoot for, but once negotiated, a large bunker would stand in your path to the green, tempting you to go for the carry which would leave an easy pitch to a green well guarded at the front by two deep bunkers.
It will take two long and accurate shots to clear the trouble in two, so laying up may be the wiser option. However this is not as easy at it first seems, because the further you attempt to move the ball down the fairway, the narrower it gets, so you will have to choose once again between the safer option of laying back further into the wider area of fairway or advancing the ball as far down as you can to a tapering fairway while leaving it short of the large bunker. PHEW!
As you can see, you won't be going to sleep on this hole.
Below is an early pic of the hole showing the view of the approach to the elevated green from a layup point.
Mike
ReplyDeleteNics pics you are delivering to us....thanks :)
I probably make this comment after the wrong post from you, but I want to ask a Q on design strategy from the great IRL golfcoursedesigners.
I read in a golfmagazine a few years ago , that all the great old designers
(...can't remember who they refered to ) on the backnine deliberately tried to get the golfer to fall into false sence of security. Making them to feel really good on the 15 tee. Tempting them to "have a go" for the difficult shot to get a shot-reward. In most cases they should fall into the trap and for struggle for the par and most likely ending up with a bogey or double bogey......using the same strategy on the last 3 holes they try to make the golfer fall apart toatally.
Am I right on this or did I "dream" I read this article.....if I wasn't dreaming ...were you aware of this strategy....and at last ...are you using it in your own
Links designs ????
Thanks
Ola from Sweden.
One more Q
ReplyDeleteHow do I make comments so I see its from my username "olazaboll" and not "anynomous"
Thanks
Ola
I wasn't aware that any of the 'classic' era designers had a specific agenda to make the last few holes more difficult than the rest or indeed try to lull them into a false sense of security on those specific holes.
ReplyDeleteI do think that it's more interesting to have at least some of the holes play a little bit more difficult than they might first appear. This doesn't neccesarily mean that you should save all those holes until the end though.
An enjoyable round of golf ebbs and flows with the difficulty levels of the holes as I find golf courses that are a struggle from beginning to end, tiresome. If every course we played, ended with it's most tricky and difficult holes, many people who didn't play the first few very well would 'give up', knowing that there was no chance of redemption later in the round.
Rather than making the last few holes difficuly or deceptive, I'd rather try to make them even more interesting and enjoyable than the ones that preceeded them so that on leaving the course, a golfer might look back fondly on his round
I think you have to log in or create an account to see your name tagged to your comments.
ReplyDeletePlease don't feel the need to create an account just to leave a comment though.
Thanks for the reply Mike
ReplyDeleteWould you like to read the article ???
I could try to search for it on www.golf.se
wich is the national golf website in Sweden.
They have all their magazinenumbers saved on the web ( since late 40:ies I belive....pretty amazing hah...??)
I happily (try) to translate it for If you are intrested in the article. Can take som e time though. Just let me know
I do have a log in: olazaboll
I try to find the way to log in next time
Brgrds
Ola