The Tryall Club
Tryall, Jamaica
9th hole, 405 yards; The property that Tryall occupies was originally an English coastal fort, built to defend the Crown’s interests from pirates, the French and the Spanish. Itlater became a sugar plantation and throughout its history, The Great House has presided over the property from atop a dominate hill. The Great House is just that and Plummer’s routing took full advantage of this one-of-a-kind historic structure with holes playing around the hill’s base.
Plummer beautifully routed the ninth in its own secluded valley.
The low profile features around the ninth green do little to aid the golfer in determining how best to get his approach shot close.
Tenth hole, 170 yards; Several of the steepest pitched greens are located just the other sideof hazards. Agronomically, rain water is quickly shed off the green and toward the hazard. From a playing perspective, the challenge is both simple and enduring: the closer one flirts with the hazard, the easier (i.e. uphill) the putt. Take the 10th for example. To fly the ball deep into the green and well away from thecreek bedis to court a three putt. For decades now, golfers have come to Tryall for a one week stay. At the start of the week, theyhit the ball long, avoiding the obvious trouble fronting the green. The ensuing three putt prompts them to get more and more aggressive with their tee ball as the week wears on until they finally land in the creek bed. They are back the next day hitting the balldeep into the green and the cycle repeats.
After the uphill approach to the ninth, the golfer faces the downhill tenth.
The creek bed and back to front pitch of the green provide the tenth's enduring strategy.
Eleventh hole, 500 yards; This three shotter sweeps left up the hill to the highest green on the course.Plummer’s routing of the hole incorporates a ditch in a similar fashion toMacKenzie’s 13th at Augusta National: the golfer eager to get home in two ideally must draw the ball and flirt with the left hand portion of the fairway. Anything in the ditch or left guarantees a high score.
The bold line on the dogleg left eleventh requires an uphill carry of 240 yards over this creek bed to bring the green within reach on one's second.
Twelfth hole, 215 yards; IMG and Peter McElvoy added blue tees to the course in 1991 in preparation for the Club hosting itsfirst Johnnie Walker World Championship that December. The task was relatively straightforward and they stretched the course 300 yards to its present length of 6,775 yards. However,the tee at the 12th took quite a bit of imagination. Plummer’s original hole was 180 yards and played downhill a good 50 feet.Forgoing the glamour of the hole’s drop shot qualities (the white tees remain on the elevated tee), McElvoy built a lower tee 35 yards back. The resulting long iron shot across the left to right slope of the hillside is a genuine thriller. According to Head Golf Professional Nelson Long,miss the green long so as to guarantee a chip back up the green,the back half of which slopes away from the golfer on the tee.
The twelfth plays sharply downhill from the white markers. The sea is in view despite this tee being the most inland point on the course.
The Club undertook a bunker restoration project beginning in XXXX with both depth and character being successfully restored to Tryall's bunkers, as seen here with the front one at the twelfth.
As seen from behind the twelfth green, the back half of the green falls away from the tee.
Fourteenth hole, 450 yards; One of the game’s great two shotters, Plummer left well enough alone anddidn’t create asingle bunker from tee to green as his routing over the twisting topographydidn’trequire such clutter to give the holeexcellent golfing qualities. Plummer benchedthe green into a hill and any approachhit left will bound onto the green from the high side. Complicating matters is that more times than not the wind comesfrom thegolfer’s right, ascaptured in thephotograph below.
Many architects in the 1950's and 1960's would have mistakenly bunkered this green front left and right, thus limiting the type of approach shot that the green would accept. Not so for Plummer - he created the high left bank, left the green open from that angle and ever since, many a member has delighted in bouncing the ball onto the green.
Fifteenth hole, 445 yards; Along with the 11th and 12th holes, the 15th is the other hole where IMG’s 1991 blue tee additions paid off most handsomely. Originally a straight hole,McElvoy benched the new blue tee into the hillside and a dogleg left was created (this helped to offset the loss ofPlummer’s slight dogleg left 4th hole).
The addition of the back markers in 1991 made the fifteenth a dogleg left and a very powerful two shotter as it generally plays into the wind.
Seventeenth hole, 390 yards; A dangerous hole in all respects with out of bounds hard down the right and the green literally walled off. Head Golf Professional Nelson Long likes to hit a lowchasing fade off the tee and let the ball run out down the fairway. The wind wants to push the ball right toward the out of bounds, so the golfer whohas a low tee ball at his ready command has theadvantage.Owing to the influence of The Old Course at St. Andrews and England’s first great club Royal Liverpool, out of bounds was once viewed by many architects as a key feature for any great course to possess. And the defining feature of the last three holes at Tryall is that out of bounds is most prominent just when the pressure within one’s match is at its peak.
To say the seventeenth green is well fortified is not an exaggeration!
Another attribute of a round at Tryall isthe wide variety of indigenous tropical vegetation that the golfer gets toappreciate as he walks the course. Though theClub has always been very careful to preserve wide playing corridors, the holes are most handsomely framed by the vegetation. Along with the pine tree, the palm tree is one of the few trees well suited for a golf course as its branches are well off the ground and the golfer is generally given some kind of opportunity at a recovery shot. Looking for lost balls amongst palm trees is unheard of and of course, the palm tree does little to hinder the wind – a very good thing.
A one of a kind tree. The Club is to be congratulated for how it has preserved the distinctive tropical trees and vegetation without letting them crowd the golf.
New courses open up all the time, accompanied by a big media push. Such courses stream into the public’s conscience one year but seemingly fade away just a few years later.With Tryall being a privateclub open to limited resort play, it doesn’t promote itself to any degree. Yet as itshistory shows, this course is the real deal and hasbeen so for over forty-five years.
Rather than chase the latest and greatest courseopenings,more golfers should come to Tryall. Montego Bay is a two or three hour direct flight from many points within the United States,hardly any further than Florida.What true golfer ever tires of flighting his shots in the wind or of managing his game properly to stay below the hole? Such challenges were at the heart of the game when ittook hold in the United Kingdom over 150 years ago. Throw in the tropical climateand beautiful spirit of theJamaican people, and the golfer is guaranteed to return home more invigorated than when he left.
After the round, the Beach Club is directly across from the golf professional shop and a soothing rum drink may provide clarity as to where the strokes went.
Private residences at Tryall like the one at Randolins (www.randolinsvilla.com) can be rented on a weekly basis.
The End