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Caledonia #9

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Kyle Harris:
Would this be an example of a site where 15 or 16 holes would have been better?

Brad Klein:
Actually, it's simpy a site where an 18-hole course measuring 6,526 yards from the back tees, par-70, with 5 par-3s, works fine.

Besides, a par-70 with 5-3s and 3-5s at that length functions exactly like a conventional par-72 measuring 6,900 yards.

Ted Kramer:
Brad,

Great posts above.
I think you hit the nail on the head.
While I don't really care for the hole at all, I agree with your comments regarding the routing aspects of the 9th being the major problem . . .

-Ted

Tom_Doak:
I thought the ninth was okay.

I do think it's a bit like the sixth at Tobacco Road, but the sixth came afterwards, and it is an improvement with its alternate angles to the green.  It is very likely that Mike Strantz thought about what he would have liked to do at Caledonia if he'd had the room, and later, applied that thought to Tobacco Road.

I didn't even notice the disjointed routing at Caledonia, because I understood how crammed in the course is.  The par-3 in the middle of the back nine at Royal New Kent is much more disjointed ... it looks like they only built 17 holes and then added one later.  Does anyone know the story behind that?  Did a hole get nixed by the permitting authorities late in the process?

Tim Gavrich:
I had my father read the thread (the first 10 or so posts), and he had this reply, which I found an interesting response:

"Bottom line, if the architect had more room to sculpt a finisher to the first nine, would he have designed this 9th?  Maybe, maybe not (such lack of flow and cohesion is one of the things I don't like about Strantz).  All designers have to make compromises if the land mass isn't endless.  But Van Gogh wouldn't put an eyeball where a full head should be.  It would look weird.  Dali, on the other hand, would put the eyeball anywhere he damn well chose, and his fans would call it art.  That is the difference between, say, Donald (Ross) van Gogh and Mike Dali.  It's a matter of taste, and my taste says that any time you are able to hit wedge to a par three, the penalty for a miss should be a more severe than just sand traps."

I disagree with my father as to the "lack of flow and cohesion" in Strantz' work.  The progressions of holes on any Strantz courses never seem jerky to me.  I did find the van Gogh-Dali comparison interesting, though.  I do believe Strantz's holes are a bit of Surrealism brought to the golf course, but apart from the fact that #9 is awkwardly routed, is it a random eyeball as it relates to the rest of the holes?  I don't believe so, because the hole still fits the character of the course.

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