Holes that look alike

[Tim Taylor]

I was just flipping through my 2003 USGA calendar and looking at the January page featuring #18 at Columbia CC. Is it just me or do this hole and #18 at Golden Horseshoe Green look very similar?

Other than holes that are intended as copies or tributes, can you think of other holes that look very similar?

TimT

[John_Conley]

Fazio's design group found a hole they like and have sculpted it many times in Florida.  Three I can think of are #3 at the Bonita Bay Cypress course, #5 at the Legacy Club at Alaqua Lakes, and also at PGA Reserve in Port St. Lucie.  Can't remember which Fazio course of the hole number, but it is there.

[Tim_Weiman]

TimT:

I can't remember the hole numbers, but a few years back when we had a get together at Tobacco Road I had a real sense of seeing one of the par 3's before at Royal New Kent.

Even for Mike Strantz, it is difficult to keep coming up with new ideas. Tobacco Road clearly has its own character, but this one par 3 did provide a moment of disappointment. No sense of discovery. A sense of "been there, done that".

[Bill_McBride]

Tim, that 18th hole at Columbia CC is a great finishing hole - the tee shot is into a saddle and it's long, 436 uphill to a big green right below the clubhouse terrace.  Columbia has a wonderful mix of holes.  The 17th just before is 285 yds to a tiny table top green, very steep semi-blind uphill pitch shot.  The 16th is a mid iron 3 par across water, the 15th before that is a shortish par 4 sharp dogleg left which dives steeply downhill and has a blind second shot if the tee ball isn't just right.  Really a fun course to play, probably my favorite in the DC area.

[Jeff Goldman]

The 18th hole at Blackwolf Run - River, PGA West and TPC Sawgrass (and possibly other Pete Dye 18th holes)

Jeff Goldman

[A_Clay_Man]

The championship course at UNM south is tagged as having similar looking par 4's. Maybe on a couple of back to back holes on the front this is somewhat true.

The wierdest feeling I've had in this regard is when playing Dalton Ranch in Dirango Co.. I was reminded of a couple of holes from Dayton Valley in Carson City Nv. It made me think that Ken Dye may have apprenticed under Palmer/Seay, but the truth is yet unvailed.

[Matt Kardash]

Jeff,
Doesn't Blackwolf Run have sand instead of water on the 18th..it's similar but not quite the same as the others you mentioned.  

However i think they flooded it for the US Women's Open

[Jeff Goldman]

Matt,

You're right, but it's still hole 18 from the championship course playbook to me.

Jeff

[Mike_Cirba]

Jeff Goldman;

You can add Dye's 18th at Bulle Rock, as well as the 9th at Prestwick (SC) to that duplicative mix.  I believe 9 at Prestwick was originally intended to be #18.

[SPDB]

i'm fairly certain you'd have an easier time counting the 18th holes that Pete Dye has done in the last 20 years that aren't replicas of TPC. This is one of the regrettable things about his design style that really bothers me. It's almost like he designs 17 hole courses.

Add Mission Hills, Pete Dye Golf Club, Paiute and others that are escaping me to the list of cookie cutter TPC 18ths.

[Jeff Goldman]

Mike,  

Pretty amazing to me that although I love Kohler, the only really good, original 18th hole is on the meadow-valleys course.

Jeff

[Ben Cowan-Dewar]

Dye can certainly be accused of this, however, I do not feel that 18 at BWR plays the same way. The scrub is less intimidating than the water, and thus players will take the more dangerous line and leave the more awkward approach.

Also, PDGC is not similar to me. Unless you consider the hole moves left with water down the left. The water is less in play and the movement of the land is far more interesting. I think the 18th at PDGC is stronger than that of the 18th at Sawgrass.

[Ken_Cotner]

Not individual holes, but 2 courses.   Both are classic Rosses which I dearly love and are within a couple miles of each other -- Southern Pines GC and Mid Pines.  I've heard a few other golfers that live there talk about being confused about which course they are on.

Off the top of my head, #10 at SPGC and #4 or 5 at Mid Pines are very similar.

Ken

[Matt Kardash]

Seriously, the 18th at the PDGC does not fall into this category. It might actually be one of Pete's best finishing holes.

[A_Clay_Man]

Jeff- I really am trying to keep an open mind but I keep bumping into that double green at BWR. So, I still can't get behind your saying it has the same feel or look. Maybe shot values but the look is unique(to me) at the river course's 18th which by the way was the original ninth. So, from that perspective how could it be similar to the #18 hole on the courses you mentioned?

[Jeff Goldman]

Adam,

On a superficial level, when I got to 18 at PGA West, I immediately thought I'd seen the hole before - bend left, how much to bite off, mounds in the bail out right, open for a run-up shot.  However, Ben is certainly correct that the tee shot is easier on the River course because there is a recovery from the junk, but not the water.  I didn't think of the double green, because it doesn't really come into play (at Harborside in Chicago the 2 courses share a double green and I hit a terrific shot on the Starboard course 2 feet from the Port course flag; people fell over laughing).  There are a few differences, but they seem cut from the same playbook.  Mea culpa:  I thought this was the original 18th hole (as played in the Women's open), with 18 meadow the original 9th - as I said, the best 18th of the 4 courses.

Jeff Goldman

[bodgeblack]

The 8th and 10th holes at Western Gailes, Scotland are like carbon copies.

If scrutinised they are quite different but in terms of the golfers experience you feel like you have just played the same hole twice.

I believe it was simply due to the lay of the land that they appear like this not because of any outstanding architectural merits.

cheers

jamie

[mike_beene]

Maybe a stretch,but what about the 18ths at Old Course,North Berwick and Prestwick?