Cuscowilla / the Patriot offering

[Brent Hutto]

I took Mike Whitaker up on his gracious offer to join his group today. It was a nigh-perfect day to be on the golf course and I had a great time. My thanks to Mike, Terry and "the Chipper" who provided an endlessly entertaining (if ultimately disappointing for the good guys) match. It was one of those times when you shoot two under your handicap, still have to pay up after the round, and really don't mind getting pounded because it was done so stylishly.

About the course. I liked it. I like the routing, I really like the design of the greenside bunkers, fringes and chipping areas and I love, love, love those Mini-Verdae green surfaces. They were dormant (or at least trying to go dormant given our warm fall around these parts) and not overseeded and they were the perfect putting surface. Why can't every course in South Carolina have greens like those?

The most notable feature of The Patriot of course is the Revolutionary War theme and concomitant earthworks and ruins. It all makes for a visually interesting and distinctive theme although in fact it has very little to do with the way the course plays. It's very well done and seems a better use of resources than waterfalls or fountains. It also provides a really neat way to isolate the practice tee and lets them perch the practice putting green way up in the sky at the highest point on the property, which is cool when you're awaiting your tee time.

I made a few notes when I got home, although not about every hole. I'll post a summary of them when I get a chance...

[Brent Hutto]

Here's my summary of the front nine at The Patriot from the perspective of a prototypical "Bogey Golfer". As always when I post here, my perspective doesn't let me discern the qualities that matter to stronger players so I try to avoid conclusions about the "greatness" or otherwise of any course. I just point out things that I notice and say if I enjoyed the experience or not.

The first three holes aren't particularly memorable with the exception of the steep false front on the third green. Just a series of well-executed Par 4's with very little trouble to  contend with, designed to allow a graceful start to your round.

The fourth hole is one of my favorites, a sloping punchbowl green with the right side much higher and water to the left and front. With the hole cut on the back left it sets us ideally for my lefty slice but unfortunately my ball went dead straight and ended up by the cartpath up on the hill. From there it was still an interesting chip shot that had to land in the rough behind the green to kill some speed and then around the punchbowl to the front left of the green. From there I could see the putt would go a little right, away from the water and
the main slope, but I couldn't make myself play enough break so I missed it to the right. I know some people don't respect anything resembling a punchbowl but this is a cool hole.

The fifth hole is the first Par 5 and really isn't much to describe other than the dogleg-left tee shot over a pond. Just medium-length, downhillish, with a pretty plain green. As we were walking off the green I had the thought that so far the front nine only had one hole worth getting excited about.
As it turns out, the real heart of the course was coming up in the next four holes.

The sixth through ninth holes provide great variety and fun plus a little more challenge than the early part of the course:

#6 is a sexy-looking shortish Par 4. I love the way the hillside works away to the left toward a bunker that comes into to avoid a second shot dealing with a large tree reaching into the line of play from the right. Hitting the approach off an upslope makes it easier to go over that tree and harder to
manufacture a shot under or around it (as I found out). The bunkers around the small green are not too tough to play out of.

I think more courses need a hole like #7, a postage stamp concept. In this case the difficulty comes from a brick wall hard against the right side of the green. The green itself is kind of narrow and deep with a rolled off front. As many other times on the day I played it, the hole was just just on the brow of the false front. The wall could be seen as an unfair gimmick but I figure hey, it's just a 100-odd yard shot so you shouldn't be hitting it 15 yards offline anyway. From the 6,200-yard tees we were playing and with the front hole location it was exactly 99 yards. Our group made two pars,
a bogey and a triple (wall trouble).

Looking at the fairway from the eighth tee it seems like a plain, wide-open uphill Par 5 of moderately short length. However, when you get ready to hit an approach shot you realize that instead of being where you'd expect it to be the green is tucked way back to the left in the edge of the trees and with a sizable bunker about 50 yards short of the green. That's not the easiest hole to get to with a second shot and even with a short-iron third it is quite a small target. There's a high vertical bank forming the right side of the green and a flat bunker maybe six feet below the green surface (is this a Raynor inspiration?) as well as a hump crowding in from the left. There is also a lot of dead space front left to collect balls that disappear over the big left bunker (and that you think might have made the green). The small well-protected green is what makes this hole and once you're there putting is
complicated by the shadows from surrounding trees. It seems that the quality of the green surface and surroundings may suffer a bit from the shade but on a member's course that doesn't get super-heavy play it may work out OK.

Rounding out the Final Four of the front side is a very interesting longish Par 4. There is all the room in the world off the tee but if you bail out to the left as I did you are faced with a very unappealing long shot over water to get to the not
very large green. If a layup is called for you are faced with a difficult choice. You can hit a wedge to lay up before the water, about 130 yards from the green. An alternative is to play a long shot but aim to the right of the green where there is plenty of room 40-50 yards short of the green if your long shot comes up short. But if you want to hit a conventional layup to a comfortable wedge range of around 100 yards you're aiming at a very narrow strip between the right side of the water and the trees lining the entrance road to the
golf course. All in all, you just want to hit a tee shot that's long and on the right half of the fairway. Then your choices are much more palatable.

[Brent Hutto]

The tenth hole, like the first, is a Par 4 made easier and more memorable by the fact that you tee off from atop the earthworks making up signature "fortification" which surrounds the practice range and putting green. Otherwise it is pretty basic although it plays longer than the first hole which serves as a warning that you've finished the easier side of the course.

#11 is a nasty little piece of work. From the tee you're looking uphill at a fairway bunker on the right at about 210 from the blue tees. There is also a sort of ramp built into the fairway from that bunker all the way to the left rough. So we needed to hit drives that carried about 225 yards uphill and upwind in order to have a reasonable look down the other side of the hill toward the green. Once you get a clear look, you see another small green tucked back left behind some trees. Unlike #8, the Par 5, this shot is downhill and the green is a bit more exposed and slightly larger. However, given that the hole plays 440 yards from the back tees it makes a heck of a tough target if you're thinking about making par. The crowning and slope of this green is more gentle than some but it seems to fall away on every side and you're not going to get
lucky very often with an offline approach. Clearly the toughest hole on the course. I like it.

Possibly my favorite hole at The Patriot is #12, an almost 90-degree dogleg left with a downhill second shot. There's a big fairway bunker guarding the dogleg with a lip between you and the hole that is high and covered in vegetation. At the bottom of the hill about 30 yards short of the green there's another speed ramp, this one to keep shots from being able to run down the hill and follow the curve of the approach to get close to the green. This green is pushed up quite a bit and its shape is basically a circle rather than an oval except with a slightly squared off outline instead of smooth curves. It is also crowned in the middle and quite small. I think maybe this is the best example of the "Rossnor" greens that Paul Cowley has talked about on this forum. Near the start of the round I had made a comment that some of the greens were rather plain and geometric. As I continued missing greens and chipping I realized that these are some of the most fun greens around and that their "plain" appearance hides the subtlety needed to get the ball in the hole. I also appreciate the closely-mown chipping areas on sides that aren't bunkered.

The next three long holes provide a major portion of the playing length of the second nine. #13 is the one man-sized three-shotter at The Patriot, although the first two shots play downhill (with an interesting semi-blind approach if you play a short-iron third). It's followed by an equally man-sized two-shotter in #14, which I'll testify plays very long indeed from the adjacent sixteenth fairway. Speaking of #16, it is sort of the big brother of #12 with a severe dogleg left (enforced by woods and OB rather than a bunker), and a downhill second but this time with a tiny shallow green tucked over a small water hazard. I didn't think that green fits in with the rest of the course but it certainly is hard to hit and hard to putt, so it has that going for it. I didn't care much for #16 to be honest.

#15 is the easier of the back nine one-shotters but the green has enough crown, rolls and falloffs to be an honest challenge on an otherwise wide-open hole. #17 is perhaps the most attractive hole on the course (although I find #12 more to my taste) with water and wetlands hazard in front and to the right and a brutal bunker in line from the tee to any back hole location. There is a narrow bailout area short and left that I wish I had availed myself of. Somehow my ball ended up rolling through the bunker and nestling in the rough between the bunker and the green. Double-bogey from a not very bad tee shot.

So we're left with #18. From the practice putting green you're looking back down most of the length of the hole and it seem very long and very canted. In reality the length just isn't there and even I was able to reach the green with a short-iron third shot, keeping in mind the hole was playing directly downwind. I think of this hole as the easy cousin of the fourteenth at Cuscowilla. There are pretty massive fairway bunkers set into the fairway but in this case they separate clearly defined left (closer to the hole and better view) and right (lower and farther from the green but you don't have to get up and over the bunkers to reach it) layup areas. The green is pretty large and receptive by The Patriot standard so I'm sure the big hitters can get it on in two fairly often. There is a deep "moat" about 70 yards short of the green to dissuade anyone from attempting some kind of halfassed go for the green from 300 yards or whatever. Still, it's an easy birdie closing hole although I doubt there are many eagles since the green is still sloped enough to make every putt tricky.

[Pete Buczkowski]

Brent,

Thanks for your nice writeup about the Patriot.  And please don't make apologies for your reviews - its great to hear about a course from all perspectives, especially given your thorough descriptions.  Keep 'em coming!

Now that you have played both the Patriot and the Love course @ Barefoot, can you comment on the difference/similarities between the brick walls at the courses?  I played both the Preserve at Jordan Lake and the Love Course; the Preserve has rock formations that appear similar to the ones in the photos of the Patriot.  Just curious to see if there are similarities there.  

Glad to hear you enjoyed yourself.

Pete

[Brent Hutto]

The scale of the ruins thing at Barefoot was really not in the same league. Actually, in both cases the brickwork was only seriously in play on one hole. There's the postage stamp at Patriot and a short Par 4 at Barefoot. Those were quite similar in look and function although the Par 4 wall was proportionally farther from the green surface, maybe 15 yards from the fringe versus 6-8 yards at the postage stamp. There were also so gun emplacement sort of brick cylinders in play but they would only affect a really bad shot on a couple of holes.

But the impressive part of The Patriot was the massive earthworks. We're talking a clearly artificial mound (representing a buried fortification) up to 25 feet high and probably 2 acres in size sited on top of a hill. There's a small practice putting green (too small IMO) right at the very top and tees for the first and tenth holes built on top of "wings" of the fortress. Plus the practice tee is partially encircled and there is also a couple of acres of walkways and such adjacent to it where they have member cookouts and so forth (with additional small "ruins" including a working fireplace with a grill in it). So in a sense, Barefoot looks like a warmup run for the whole deal at The Patriot.

Let me make two other comments. First, this is the most walkable course I've played that was built in the last 10-15 years. A total pleasure to walk. I think other than a little bit of space from the ninth green to the tenth tee there was really just one uphill jaunt of a few hundred yards between holes. There's a fair bit of elevation change within the course but except for the eighteenth hole you could walk fast with no risk of getting out of breath anywhere.

My other comment was that it was really wet. There had been multiple inches of rain about 48 hours before we played and I had to take casual-water or casual-mud drops two or three times. The greens and their surrounds weren't exactly firm and fast but quite playable. Some of the fairway were problematic, though. That's a pretty severe downpour for this part of the country but it's unfortunate the course didn't shrug it off a little quicker.

Oh, and a third comment. I never imagined that a course which opened just five months ago could look so finished. There's no sense of "when it matures it will be really pretty", it's already very attractive and grown-in.