The 3rd at Alwoodley

[Chris_Clouser]

I was looking at some stuff last night and came across a mention of the third hole at Alwoodley.  The hole is listed among the 500 greatest holes in the world by George Peper.  It is listed by Tom Doak as one of the best holes created by Alister Makenzie.  My question is why?

The hole is 515 yards in length and plays downwind from what I've read.  So it is reachable for a good number of people.  You would think there was a center line hazard that creates some strategic element but there is not one to be found.  Just one to the left of the fairway that could be a problem for pulled or hooked drives.  So just hit it straight and go for the green.  

The only elements that I see that the hole has that are interesting are the natural slope of the terrain, which is from right to left, and the left side of the green that is surrounded by trouble. So naturally the left side fo the fairway is a problem mostly when the hole is cut on the left side of the green.  Granted the left side of the green looks interesting, but why is a hole with only half of the green looking interesting and some decent movement in the land so acclaimed?

On paper and in pictures I just don't see what it is about this hole that makes people gush.  Is it architectural fanboy adulation of Mackenzie that says he only produced greatness or is there something that just isn't tangible through pictures and words?  I must say I have never seen the hole in person so I cannot speak from first hand knowledge of the hole so I would love to hear from others as to why it is so well revered.  Tom Paul, Tom Doak, anyone!  Tell me what I am missing.

Why is this hole so great?    

[Jon Wiggett]

I have been fortunate enough to play Alwoodley a great amny times. The hole is great, despite not having any hazards that really come into play.
Why?

Firstly it fits the land and the surroundings perfectly. The drive is kind of blind but not at the same time. Due to the gorse and heather plus the fact that the land crests away from you, you have the impression you can kind of see the fairway but it is difficult to be sure. This brings an element of suspense as you need to walk quite a ways forward to be sure your ball is okay.

The second shot. This is where the hole really kicks in. The green is split in two levels with a lower bowl like level on the left side. It is important if you go at it in two to hit the green becaus of the heather pressing the green on three sides. The fairway narrow by the green and the right side of the green slopes away from you. Miss the right level and you have a difficult two putt, miss the green and you might not be able to keep the ball on the green let alone the right level.

The smart play is to lay up short and chip it. That is the smart play but somehow the lay of the land in front of the green appears as though it will gather the ball sending it towards the green and if the the pin is in the bowl like lower level it looks as though you only have to hit that level and the eagle putt will be a gimmie. Don’t get fooled, lay it up but damm it looks so easy how can you resist that tap in eagle.

The green itself has lots of slope in it and is deceptively large with some great putting.

Chris, Alwoodley is talked about alot but not many peole take the trouble to play it. It is a great inland course and no golfing education is complete if you haven’t played.

[Chris_Clouser]

Jon,

Thank you for your comments.  It sounds like the right side fo the green is interesting as well and the drive has more going for it than is ever conveyed.

How do think the third compares to the other long holes on the course like the 8th and 10th?

[Bill_McBride]

Chris, I enjoyed Alwoodley very much when I played there in 2005.  #3 is as good as described by Jon Wiggett, the lower side of the green left dominates the play of the hole but it is difficult to make yourself hit toward the woods on the left so as to come in from that side.  When the pin is back, almost every shot hit into the center of the green is thrown to the front left, so it's hard to get close with the pitch from anywhere but way left toward the OB tree line.

#8 is even better.  There is a diagonal line of rough with a gnarly bunker in the middle of it which must be carried with second shot to get the best angle for the third, or to have a chance to get home.  The farther left the better for the approach, again toward the OB tree line, but the diagonal hazard only covers the left 2/3 of the fairway and it is easy to steer the second over toward safety.  This leaves a dicy pitch across the slope of the green.

#10 played as a par 4 the day we played, at about 450.  A big dogleg left, our host suggested it might be the model for #13 at Augusta!

Alwoodley is worth a trip if you are anywhere north of London and south of Edinburgh.  As a side benefit, you might get a look at MacKenzie's hand-drawn routing plan!  

[Andrew Mitchell]

Despite living within a thirty minute drive of Alwoodley I've only played there a handful of times - mainly due to my golfing chums baulking at paying the green fee and most of my corporate invites in North Leeds tending to be for Moortown.

I'd agree with Jon that the attractions of the 3rd are subtle.  The last couple of times I've played it the pin has been on the higher right hand side of the green which makes the second shot to the hole much more straightforward. A different story when the pin is tucked to the lower left hand side.

I'd agree with Bill how good the 8th is and would confirm that the 10th is considered to be MacKenzie's model for 13 at Augusta.  However its difficult to pick out individual holes as there are very few weak ones!  I've always thought that Alwoodley vies with Ganton as the best course in Yorkshire, with Moortwon a few steps behind.

As Bill says Alwoodley is definitely worth a trip and I'd be more than happy to meet up with anyone passing through the area and looking for a game there!

[Jon Wiggett]

Hi Chris,

to answer your question I will fall in line with the Bill and Andrew. 8 is a great hole as well but leaves you in no doubt as to what is required. 10 is an outstanding driving hole but for me the green site (not original I believe) doesn't quite fit the bill. Between them is the par 3 9th, simply awesome. Finally the run to home which is very strong is capped by the fabulous 18th. Teeing from a raised position in the middle of a gorse field the entire hole is laid out in front of you and behind the green is the unusual but pleasing to the eye clubhouse.

Oh, one more small piece of information is Alwoodley is the only course I have played where there is heather growing in the the fairway even though it is cut to fairway height. I am sure there must be other courses who can claim this as well but I have not played one. When I first saw this a good 20 or so years ago I asked the Head Greenkeeper why this was and he replied that it probably had something to do with the fact that they were only cutting the fairway about once a month. Amazing!

[James Bennett]

My memory of the 3rd geen was that the lower left half is hidden behind the heather.  So, a running shot from distance can only access the right side, leaving a tricky putt or pitch.  And the 100 yard pitch from a lay-up would also be tricky trying to deal with the step from high right to low left (remember the greens are firm - no hit and stick).

The other 'quirk' of the hole is the play across the 16th fairway.  Typical Mackenzie.  The tee is set in the rough about 20 yards from the right edge of the fairway, just past the shot point of the 16th tee shot.

Oh, and the heather is on both sides of the fairway.  You don't need bunkers with that stuff, and a not too wide fairway.  And the description of the curvature of the land so thatyou are constantly playing to a fairway skyline - a never ending thin line of fairway that is not really blind but is never visible.

I was taken by the 8th (tee shot plays across the 7th hole between tee and green), the 9th par 3 (remindned me a little of Morrtowns 4th hole, with some excellent alternate tees changing the line of the hole), the tee shot on 10 (very Augusta #13th like with great movement for the second downhill that just fekt it could have been better, then the 11th which appears to have great similarities to Moortown's 10th hole - Gibralter.

A word about recent developments on #18.  When I played at the end of April (at 4pm, for the twilight rate of 35 quid I think) they had the tee shot landing zone on the left side rough fenced as GURPP, and a request to register if you hit in this area.  Apparently the balls over the fence left may be an issue.  I hope a good solution can be found.  I gather the members aren't ahppy with the prospects.

sorry, no pictures of Alwoodley.  Camera wasn't working.

James B

[Marc Haring]

I have got a picture of the hole but it doesn’t show much except a very natural looking fairway. I think the green is set in a hollow at the end with the left side appreciably lower than the right. A long running draw around the heather line will end up accessing the left side. I think it is a good example of an entirely natural hole and also illustrates the routing skills of the good doctor. Kind of agree though; maybe should not be included in the best 100 in the world.

[James Edwards]

Mark,

Thanks for posting that...
- Strange Choice though isnt it??

[TEPaul]

Chris:

I've only played Alwoodley once about three years ago and I have no idea why Tom Doak and others call #3 a great hole. I see nothing at all wrong with it but I can't see why someone would call it great.

My best impression of it was the green and the unusual fact that #16 fairway crosses perpendicular near the 3rd tee.

There were a number of holes at Alwoodley I was a lot more impressed with than #3 and for a par 5 I thought #8 was much more challenging and interesting and better, maybe even great.

[Chris_Clouser]

Thanks for the feedback gentlemen.  As always I learned something from this site after reading your comments.

It's amazing how much information resides within the confines of this small group.  

[Marc Haring]

Oh, one more small piece of information is Alwoodley is the only course I have played where there is heather growing in the the fairway even though it is cut to fairway height. I am sure there must be other courses who can claim this as well but I have not played one. When I first saw this a good 20 or so years ago I asked the Head Greenkeeper why this was and he replied that it probably had something to do with the fact that they were only cutting the fairway about once a month. Amazing!

Jon

So much more civilised this site is it not?

You’re right about the heather in the fairway and I think Alistair MacKenzie details the Spartan mowing frequency in ‘The Spirit of St Andrews’. I have seen it once before at Royal Ashdown Forest, another classic course noted for its simple maintenance.

[TEPaul]

Chris:

I'd like to reiterate that if you or anyone think what I said about Alwoodley's #3 is criticizing the hole, I'd like to stress I'm definitely not doing that.

While I don't exactly think a hole like that is great, I am nontheless pretty fascinated by it but for other reasons most probably wouldn't suspect.

A hole like that I consider to be so interesting simply because it is very much a type and look of hole of an era---an early era in architecture.

It looks remarkably amorphous because it is just that----eg basically a hole across a natural piece of ground that doesn't have much going for it in "architectural look" until one reaches the green. My point is very little was obviously done on that hole architecturally other than to use whatever assets that natural ground had.

I can see that green alone has the potential to screw up a player being aggressive and going for the hole in two but playing it in three (in par) is not a difficult or particularly challenging thing to do, in my opinion.

And if one thinks hard about it this is precisely what some of the best of the old fashioned strategic mind-set was all about---eg this was in fact a great example of the tortoise and hare analogy---the tortoise played conservatively because he basically had to but also to lay in wait for the hare to make some unintended mistake through his aggressiveness.

When I played those courses over there in the summer of 2003 it was remarkably dry for GB and as I recall I got into my iron mode---eg into playing Alwoodley, Scarborough North Cliff and one other with only a 2 iron off the tees. All I was trying to do was play conservative and strategic golf (fairways) and make par with either GIRs or easy chips and putts and that's exactly what I did on each of those last three, shooting exactly even par on each one of them.

That to me was a most gratifying thing to do not just in shooting even par on all three of them but for the way I went about trying to do it----like the tortoise in the old fashioned  tortoise and hare analogy.

I think #3 Alwoodley is a great example of an effective "tortoise and hare" type hole from that old fashioned analogy. That and the fact it is basically just the use of ground the way it always has been.

[Jon Wiggett]

Yes Chris it is a shame but you are right, people here will give you a straight answer to a straight question.

T E Paul I can see where you are coming from but I think you would change your mind about both points if you played it another twenty time. The second shot becomes much harder with experience because the third shot from short is not as easy as it first appears.

Is one better than another just because it looks more impressive?

[TEPaul]

"The second shot becomes much harder with experience because the third shot from short is not as easy as it first appears."

Jon:

Believe it or not, I really do know what you mean by that. Holes that become more complex and mysterious with experience are pretty rare, in my opinion (even though I'm aware of some of them) but in the final analysis they just have to be some of the most interesting and mysterious of all, and of all architecture. It does not surprise me that despite the look of it the first time and the way I played it the only time there that #3 Alwoodley may have a whole lot more about it than I picked up on.

This is the best reason there is that some golf architecture just can't be critiqued all that accurately without a whole lot of experiences on it.

Holes that deal with bad memories effectively and sometimes harshly are some of the most interesting architecture in the world, in my opinion. What they seem capable of doing so effectively is just reinforcing the ultimate mystery of all of golf which is that our mind (our lack of confidence via our bad memories) can play so many nefarious little tricks with our physical golf games and golf shots.