What make Foxy so great?

[Yannick Pilon]

Recently I was trying to gather a list of the best holes in Scotland.... Obviously, Foxy (14th at Royal Dornoch) is one of them.

Then I started thinking about why this hole is so great.  Is it just the green?  Is it the fact that it's pretty much a par 4-1/2, similar to the 17th at St. Andrews?

What are your thoughts on this hole? Why is it so highly regarded?

[George Pazin]

Can't believe none of you guys have responded to this....

The one thing that I've always read is that it is the most natural hole in the world - no bunkers, just like someone mowed the grass and, voila, a wonderful hole.

Of course, that's only what I've read, I haven't had the pleasure myself yet.

I'll keep bumping this till a few others like Goodale chime in.

 

[John Goodman]

- Shot values:  calls for a draw off the tee and a fade to the green, both with some precision.
- Allows for/ kind of calls for ground game (particularly a bump or Texas wedge) on the third shot, when just looking at it you would think some kind of lob would be best.  It's usually not.
- Strategy involved in the play:  do you want to try to hold that green with a long iron, or play short of it and trust your short game?  Very good match play hole.
- Hole appears found rather than made, to me.
 

[Tom Huckaby]

George:

As to why no one has responded, well....

This has been discussed MANY, MANY, MANY times before.  It does become wearying reiterating one's thoughts.  On top of that, most of us who have played it have done so just a few times... when there's an expert like Goodale in the house, it becomes kinda silly to even bother trying.  He's the authority on the subject - the thoughts of a visitor rather pale in comparison.

BTW Yannick, I mean no offense to you - it is a great hole worthy of discussion, and you had no reason to know any of what I just wrote.

In any case, I can also add little to what John Goodman just said - he captured it perfectly.  I guess I'd also just add that the green is rather one of a kind, accepting and/or rejecting every conceivable type of shot.  it is maddening to the extreme.  Good shots are rejected, bad shots are rewarded and vice versa - but the best shots always work out well.  The approach to that green has to be one of the world's most intriguing.

TH

[John Goodman]

Great surrounds also; a tremendous challenge to get up and down.

[Sean_A]

George

I would agree that the hole's success relies on its simplicity.  It is amazing how a double dogleg is created by the angle of the tee in relation to dune hump which intrudes the fairway at about 150 from the green and half the green nestling behind behind a hump that runs from the right.  This is pure magic.  

Now throw in a raised green not unlike The Deuce's greens and a few slight humps in the fairway which if judged correctly and with a bit of luck will kick the well hit tee shot down the left for a clear, but not easy approach and you have the makings of a great hole.  

What seals the deal for me is that a well struck tee shot that hangs slightly out to the right will result in a blind approach and most likely a bogey or worse.  I write or worse because it depends on how well you judge the chip shot (if you have played #2 you know where I am coming from).

In short, Foxy is architecture at its very best.  Despite his naysayers, Old Tom knew a thing or two about golf.

Ciao

Sean

[Ian Andrew]

Sean,

That was a magnificent reply.

I think the green site is one of the best in all of golf.

I also think that there is more than one way to play the approach (which includes many third shots too)- if you have the courage you can try run it up instead of flying it in. My father played a magnificent runner into the green to prove it could be done.

[ForkaB]

Just noticed this threda, and thought I would repeat what I said in my interview:

"....Now the 14th, well………that could never be over-rated! The more I study it the more I think it is the finest hole in the world of golf. World class tee shot, world class approach options, world class recovery challenges and world class green shape and contours. What else is there? Oh yeah, there are no bunkers. Who needs them!

As for the green, all evidence points to Old Tom Morris having found it. It is on one of a long series of natural fingers of land which connect the middle links with the lower links on the land stretching from the 4th green to the 15th green. The oldest map of the course (dated 1892) shows the green exactly where it is today, and this was only 6 years after OTM’s visit to Dornoch. It is quite possible that the closely mown area grew in subsequent years (as many of the early Dornoch greens were rectangular and small) but the basic green site of today would be recognisable by players from the turn of the last century, IMHO.

Interestingly (at least to me!) I have not yet seen an effective (in terms of playability) copy of the 14th green, even though I know of at least two well known architects who have tried. On the other hand, effective copies of the 6th (sans gorse) are numerous, even at my modest home club in Aberdour where we have three of them!

How does the 14th (Foxy) illustrate your concept of 'effective width' discussed above?

A few months ago I thought about Foxy in a discussion on GCA about width, and it dawned on me that the same golfer (e.g. me) could expect radically different outcomes (in terms of second shot requirements and options) with relatively minor differences in the execution of the tee shot.

The fairway on 14 is a wide one, and if you are really wide (right) you can even tack your way up the 3rd fairway to the green! That being said, because of the design of the hole, there is really only a very narrow channel (10 yards or so) which gets you to Position A. This is down the left hand side where a long and straight shot will bound down the firm fairway and end up to the left of the finger of land which protrudes into the fairway at 290 yards or so. Hit the drive just a bit to the right of that left hand channel and you are either blocked by the finger (which is 10 feet high) or (even worse) up against it with an awkward shot from an upslope in medium length rough. Hit the ball a bit further right (safe shot) and you both lose distance (as you are angling away from the straight line to the green) and are assured of a blind shot over the finger. Pull the drive just a bit left of perfect and it will land in the rough, which is not thick but is soft. As a result, while you will probably get a decent lie there, you will only get the distance you can carry the ball, which means you will probably be 30-50 yards behind Position A.

There are a number of holes at Dornoch which have the same sort of effective design. It offers reward to the one who dares and succeeds, but punishes the bold and incompetent, all the while also allowing the average golfer alternative routes consonant with his or her own capabilities and strategies. That’s what I call 'great.'....."

[Bill_McBride]

I think it's interesting that Ross grew up at Dornoch and therefore obviously didn't design Foxy, but obviously learned a great deal from it's playing.  Many of Ross' great holes require a faded tee ball and drawn second shot, or a drawn tee ball and faded approach.

Of course this is becoming somewhat of a moot point since it's golf au courant to hit all long shots very straight vs working the ball in either direction!  Where is Corey Pavin when we need him most?  

[Garland Bayley]

Bill,

I think Paul Daley recommended Corey take up SEX over golf on the Corey Pavin thread. Maybe that tells you where he is.

[Tom_Doak]

Rich:  The only attempt I've ever seen at copying Foxy is at the Donald Ross Memorial course at Boyne Highlands in Michigan -- and if you can't copy the turf (which they didn't), it's pointless.

Our 15th green site at Pacific Dunes was inspired by Foxy (same size of plateau, approximately the same height), but it certainly wasn't intended as a copy, the angle of the hole to the plateau is completely different and we weren't going to pick up the plateau and rotate it.  I'm still very fond of that green site though.

[ForkaB]

Tom

Thanks for the insights.  The 15th at PD was one of the copies I was thinking of.  The other was the 7th(?) at Applebrook.  As you rightly say, both examples are homages rather than "copies,"  and the latter is effectively impossible due to both turf and climate but also other elements of ambience (they don't call them "complexes" for nothing!).

In fact, and in IMO, what you (and Gil) did was to extract a few of the most interesting and important elements of the green (the tableland situation, the fortress like effect from most lines of attack, and the prominent pimple at the center of "entrance" to the green) and apply them to the actual situation.  Realistically, I think that is all an architect can and should do.

[Tom_Doak]

That's okay, Rich.  I haven't seen Applebrook.

By the way, the plateau on the 15th at Pacific Dunes was originally twelve feet high, we had to cut it down to its present height.  That's why there is a bit of a bank at the back where you exit the green.

[TEPaul]

Rich:

Since I've never seen Foxy, it interests me that you say Applebrook's #7 was inspired by it. Do you remember who told you that?

My memory may be failing but I think I recall that Applebrook's #7 came right out of Bill Kittleman's head. Like most things Bill does, I think the crew and maybe Gil, Rodney and Jim Wagner just leave him alone and come around from time to time to look at what he's doing and sort of scratch their heads since they can never figure out what any of it means but it seems in the end everything he does is pretty remarkable in one way or another.

There's a bunker complex around #12 and maybe #13 at Applebrook that they call something like a ten box feature because that's how many cigars Bill smoked creating it. His wife believes she may've lost a few of her best silver teaspoons to that bunker. Apparently if you ask Bill to describe how he did it or how he'd describe it he just says: "Grunkle".

I noticed yesterday at Doral some guy hit a fairly suspicious shot and Johnny Miller said it looked like he "grunkled" it. The other commentators jumped on Johnny saying that was the first time all year he'd used one of those odd words and where did he get it? Silence! I guess he didn't feel like admitting he may've gotten it from the "Madman of Merion".

[ForkaB]

Rich:

Since I've never seen Foxy, it interests me that you say Applebrook's #7 was inspired by it. Do you remember who told you that?

Tom

I told me that!  I was obviousness at first sight!

You were there at the time, although skulking around the grunkles rather than playing, so the fact that you were not listening to me then is not at all surprising............

[TEPaul]

Rich:

Interesting. I'm not questioning your powers of connecting inspiratons of various holes but now that you've successfully made a concept connection between Applebrook's #7 and Dornoch's great "Foxy" and it's seemingly completely natural green site, I should explain to you the nature of Applebrook's #7 green site pre-construction.

I think I'm correct in saying that for about 25 years the area around where #7 green is was a massive flat commercial building pad on which the commercial building never happened.

When Gil got that job I was wondering what he was going to do with those massive commercial building pads. I guess BillK decided to ream out some dirt in front of what's now the green and move it into bermy/dune-like affairs short of the green's site creating certain degrees of blindness and visibility from particular areas of the fairway and also steep short grass fall-offs around portions of the green-site between the bermy/dune affair and the green.

So if Dornoch's #14 is a "natural Foxy", let's call Applebrook's #7 a "semi-commercial Foxy".

[ForkaB]

Tom

1.  I'm not sure if it was #7, but if it has a pimple in the front, it is!

2.  Before Old Tom Morris got out to Foxy it is not impossible that those flat fingers of land that ought to be greensites (or "Cromarties, as one of my best old friends describes them......) were "commercial bulding pads" too!

Maybe seaweed drying enterprises, or gorse bloom gathering points or even sheep shagging centres.  Who knows!

You know that I only met Kittelman once (at Applebrook, with you) and I can just see him out at Dornoch 100 years ago grunkling to his hearts content.  Some kinda guy.....