[Tommy_Naccarato]

This in today from a Pond (scum) crossing/galavanting Noel "Naffer" Freeman. (Funny how it looks like him in the post card. I would assume that he picked it for that very reason.)
Front

Back

[SPDB]

Tommy -
I want to know two things:

1. How you created the stamp on photoshop.
2. whether Noel got up and down from there.

[Rick Shefchik]

It appears that the only conceivable way to get to within 10-15 feet from that position is with a perfectly executed flop shot. I bet there weren't a lot of golfers playing that shot when Deal was built.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Sean, Its a plug-in I got from an Adobe site. Let me know if you want it, and I'll tell you how to install it. The stamp itself is one I captured from The Royal Mail website

Rick, I think if you play it for straight, similar to Noel, get it just pass that 1 swell into the second, it would come close. I think this is a totally fair green.

[James Edwards]

Two great holes, the 3rd with it's punchbowl green and the 4th, the complete opposite with it's large plateau green.

Thanks Noel

J

[ForkaB]

Great photo.  Its what links golf (and ALL golf) should be!  Thanks Noel and Tommy.  But, Tommy..........where did this concern with "fair" come from???  Noel should not have been where he was in the first place.  By getting there he didn't achieve "fair" just "fun."  Wash your mouth out with soap and report to Mrs. Grundy's office, tout de suite!

[NAF]

Tommy,

Thanks for putting that picture up and my postcard.. That my friend is craftsmanship in the highest order!


What you see is my 3rd shot on this 463yd (from the member tees) par 4 3rd hole at Deal.  Deal during the summer plays to a southwesterly wind and this pastweekend the winter northerly blew with a westerly bias to boot which made this hole unreachable in 2.  I have birdied and parred this hole before but never left with what you saw which is DEATH.  I relished the shot, one of the most fun I've ever played in links golf.. There is no way from where I was putting to get it close to that pin placement.. I didnt have my lob wedge and that would have been the only way to get it close.  Instead I putted to the left of the bathtub as I called it (truly it is a sunken punchbowl green) and watched the ball gain a ton of speed down the slope and leave 15ft for par. I missed and took a bogey.  My friend Russell Talley who took the shot of me doing this had a good chuckle.

I hope to see Tom Doak at Painswick and ask him about Deal, I think he really underrated the course at a Doak 6.  There are some wonderful greens at Deal, the 12th pinched between two mounds that act as sidewalls.  The punchbowlish 16th and 17th greens.  The 2nd green could be right out of St. Andrews and the 6th green atop a steep plateau requires the deftist pitch to hold especially downwind during the summer.  Just great stuff and when you combine it with fairways that move like ocean waves, the course is spectacular.  Deal doesnt have the wild and wooly nature of a Lahinch or Cruden Bay but I think may be the supreme combination of fairness and quirk I've played on a links.  Deal's green's thrive on plateux settings and one must see them for a links education.

I encourage you all to get there.

JJSE- spoke a long time with Mr. Reynolds before your practice this past Sunday.. He gave me a good grip lesson, hope to see you at Deal when I return in May.

[Keith Durrant]

In the summer southwesterly, the 3rd played a drive and a 9 iron (and the ball still rolled through the green !)

Agree, the 6th is a splendid short par 4, does anyone have a picture of the approach shot?

The 1st green is pretty tricky too - two waves or swales running across the middle.

[NAF]

ROTTCODD,

if you go to my in my opinion piece on Deal, there is a pic of the 6th green back towards the approach.

[James Edwards]

Noel,

I second your opinions on those green complexes..  The course has so much more than the ratings suggest.

Yes the old boy certainly knows his stuff.  He is a great professional.  Talking about people who have played round the world... Mr Reynolds is a dark horse.  From Cypress to Augusta to Australia and so on, he has been there and played with the most important - don't ask me how but he has some astonishing stories!

You have a great club in RCP, as you know and i assume you got your country membership sorted?

Look forward to seeing you soon and Russell

James

[THuckaby2]

My question is:  how would Tuco play that shot?

NAF, you know I'm gonna use this from time to time.  

Great pic - thanks for sending.

TH

[NAF]

Tom,

Tuco is a gunslinger so he would have tryed to bend his wedge to 64 degrees and flop it and risk hitting it 60 yards over the green.. Unfortunately, the turf is not as crisp as it is during the summer and I didnt have the lob wedge to use as well.

JJSE-I am now an overseas member of Deal.

[RJ_Daley]

Noel these photos and the opinion piece really seems like any sand bunkers are very secondary or incidental to the soul of the golf course.  Looking at them, all I feel is a yearning to play upon the turfed mysterious grounds.  The place looks magical.

[NAF]

Bernard Darwin on Deal:

In point of banks and braes and plateaux, St. Andrews must always come first, but the ground at Deal, so far as natural richness is concerned, comes very little behind it.

--Deal is emerging from  its trials (the flood in 1938) a course transfigured, and I am prepared solemnly to assert that there will be no finer one in the whole world of golf.

**pretty strong praise..

For Tommy: Darwin again:

The old  Sandy Parlour, once the pride of the course, had lost all its old terrors and splendours and become nor more than a chancy, blind mashie shot.

The new Sandy Parlour came before the flood.  It was admitted by all to be a fine hole and it is, incidently, still better now.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Naffer,
I'm going to take the hard line here and say, "bullocks!" Bring back the real Sandy Parlour!

Long may it live!

[Matt_Ward]

Can someone post a hole-by-hole yardage and any other pertinent comments about Deal -- I'm psyched to play it on my next journey across the pond.

Thanks for sharing Noel and Tommy ...

[Brian_Gracely]

http://www.royalcinqueports.com/

[Dan Kelly]

Thanks so much for that picture.

That looks like one of the greens I'm envisioning for the bunkerless course I imagine (and tiresomely talk about here).

[JNC Lyon]

Hate to point this out, but isn't it Southern Pines, North Carolina?

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