MikeS:
Interesting suggestions.
I'm not sure I should comment as doing so might make me look like I'm trying to be smarter than Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw which might imply I think I'm better than they are or any other golf architect in history.
TomD, my old 9th grade "Logic" teacher just might say you're getting a bit liberal with your "implications" there.
I have great respect for Ben and Bill and Sand Hills G.C. too. Making the comments I did about #4 green a few months ago were just observations. I don't think I said the green should actually be changed, I think I just said I thought it might play more interesting and optional and look better (more naturally occuring) if it was down to the right at a spot that just flowed with the natural land coming off that huge and impressive blow-out bunker.
I also truly take note of the remarks Tom Huckaby and PeteB made about hole #4 being, in their opinions, one of the great holes of the Earth
. That sort of reinforces my belief that true "controversy" over a hole, for instance, just might be one of its finest assets, in the end. Who can't say that very strong opinions BOTH WAYS about a golf hole isn't eternally fascinating?
Why did I say the things I did about #4 green? Well, thinking back now I guess I said that for a number of reasons. My recollection when first playing the hole the first day with Pat Mucci (we were playing the tips or Diamond tees) I thought the hole was obviously a very hard and demanding par 4 with a really demanding approach shot. A very high shot value to approaching that green, in other words---not much in the way of alternate approach shot options---just a very high demand one dimensional approach shot "shot value". No problem there at all. To be honest I feel Ben and Bill create a hole or two like this on most of their courses I’ve seen---maybe one or two super long par 4s into the wind or something. I view this as an interesting offering of sort of a “half par” and I really like that (like a few of the long par 4s at Hidden Creek, Easthampton, Friars, and similar to what Tom Doak did on perhaps #4 at Pacific Dunes).
Another reason I might’ve said that about #4 green is when Pat and I got around to maybe #14, I think it was, we very coincidently said to each other almost simultaneously that there was some certain feeling of similarity to the holes of Sand Hills when standing on the tees. That’s a whole different story and issue and the reason we came up with for that is entirely different and not exactly a criticism of the course, merely an observation of the feeling one might get on a course like Sand Hills built out there on land of that immense scale and on that much open land (no trees). We believe, talking to Dick Younsscap, that the golf course itself may encompass something like 500 or more acres. That’s huge and logically one would feel each hole is sort of a separate entity unto itself from each tee in that immense open expanse of land. No problem there either (Pat and I decided) since the holes played differently enough once you hit your tee shots and once you got over the impression of standing on tees just looking out at another green swath in a sea of brown rolling natural land and blowouts and another separate green entity with no real view of another hole next to it. This is really ironic, if one thinks about it, in that when standing on those tees all one can basically see is the separate entity of the hole in front of you when while you stand on Ben’s Porch you can see 16 of the 18 holes down there stretched out before you! An interesting visual juxtaposition, to say the least!
But the other two reasons I might’ve said that about the 4th green is it just seemed to me and to my eye and feel that Sand Hills has about one green and green site too many that feels like its sort of hidden around the corner to the right of some big blowout or some big piece of topography. This would include #4, #14 and a much shorter version, #8. But the last reason I might’ve said that about #4 green is because Dick Youngscap told me the story about the creation of the 4th green, in that all the other 17 greens are natural landforms that cost $300 each to do and #4 cost $40,000. I just sort of wondered why that was (I think Dick did too
), particularly as #4 looks to me like it really was a “man-made” affair just sort of “shelved” up into the hillside against that massive blowout bunker.