Golf's Sistine Chapel

[Steve Lapper]

Cypress Point..


Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Nothing much more to say other than two days and 72 holes is enough to fuel my golfing memories and dreams forever(doesn't hurt to have birdied #16).

A quick report:

The course remains in pristine condition. Many of the bunkers were scheduled to be refilled with identical consistency sand to match all the other bunkers. Many small cypress trees were being planted in places side-by-side with the existing older trees. I'm told this was being done so as to allow for the potential removal of decaying existing trees...purely preventative at the present time.

The greens were nearly ready for the seasonal aeration but were waaaay fast, with speeds approaching 12-13 on many surfaces.

Most importantly:

I came away this time with the distinct and unwavering conviction that several holes were so grossly under-rated and more than merely magical. #'s 8 and 9 are exquisite tests of perfect shot-making and I just don't know of any b-t-b short four par duo that hold a candle to these.

#'12,13, and 14 are such a stretch of imaginative group of special four's that they should never be hurried to get to the ocean walk. The drive on each has such a great risk/reward equation, the approach so full of variables. The wind really makes all of these different.

10 and 11 are often lost on the player, yet each and every round I played, they had critical roles determining the scoring and the pace of shotmaking carried out to the beach.

Of course, 15 thru 18 are pure golfing bliss and may never be equaled anywhere in our lifetimes.

I beacme a staunch defender of the closing hole, (much to the surprise of our member host). The drive's sweet spot is now nearly obscured by the growing Monterey Cypress tree, but is this much different than the lines on 9 at RCD, the 17th at Garden City, or the "O" at the Road Hole?
A large overhang of cypress laying over the approach to the 18th green should be pruned back a bit, but PLEASE....never otherwise change that finish.

Anyway, I could blather forever about this magical place. Anyone who reads this should beg, borrow, or steal to get a chance to play it.....something only reserved for the greatest of routes.

CPGC might just be the one place I'd like to be sentenced to having as the only course I could play for the remainder of my life.

[TEPaul]

I agree--it would be hard to top.

[Jonathan Cummings]

I love the fact that members have to share lockers at Cypress.  My friend has shared a locker with Clinton Eastwood for the past 15 years (who he has never met!)

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Slapper,

Is all of this distinct and wavering conviction because of an "architectural awakening" with so many who WANT to open their minds and learn?

I certainly hope so

I couldn't agree with you more on the holes most don't get to see at CPC. People just don't talk enough about their natural attributes and features.

[Steve Lapper]

Slapper,

Is all of this distinct and wavering conviction because of an "architectural awakening" with so many who WANT to open their minds and learn?

I certainly hope so

I couldn't agree with you more on the holes most don't get to see at CPC. People just don't talk enough about their natural attributes and features.

Tommy,

It is! While a relative newbie to GCA, I have always prided myself in the pursuit of knowledge and the maintenance of an open mind.....Although my wife does think I ought to seal the holes in my cranium....

I readily admit to having not fully noticed and appreciated those under-exposed holes the first time I played the course 6 years ago. My passion for "architectual awakening" has opened a whole new path of appreciation.

The natural features of those dunes, wind exposure, elevation changes, etc...fully combine throughout the 1st thru 14th holes to provide enough very real sensory challenge to any golfer. I remain in awe.

As for the locker room.....nothing could be more spartan yet so complimentary to the rewards of the experience.

[Matt_Ward]

slapper:

For what it's worth -- the great quote by Jimmy Demaret still applies in my mind -- you know the one about the greatest 17 hole course in the world.

Look, I've played the course a handful of times and agree in many ways with Sandy Tatum about its Sistine Chapel connection. Just standing on the 16th tee is absolutely mesmermizing but there ARE, as you indicated, so many other gifted holes. I also agree it's doubtful you can have better short par-4 in consecutive order than #8 and #9.

But, at the end of the day -- you still have a turkey for a closer. It's like the build-up to a superlative opera and just when the high note needs to be sung you get strep throat!

[Jonathan Cummings]

Every square inch of CPC is magical, including the 18th.  I once hit my tee shot on 18 through the fairway and into the crap.  From there I chipped back towards the tee, hit my third to the green and made the putt.  A smile was pasted on my face for a week!

A friend of mine, Mick, told me after I badly sliced a drive on #9, "JC, that's where the deer go die......"  

Yeah, die and go to heaven!

[GPazin]

Can someone explain exactly why 18 receives such vitriol?

I haven't had the pleasure, but from photos & diagrams it doesn't look anywhere near deserving of the criticism it receives. It almost makes me think that some people are biased towards certain types of closers.  

[John_D._Bernhardt]

Slapper, it is always good to renew the discussion of one of golf's great courses. I too agree on your comments about 8 and 9, 10 and 11 and 12 to 14. I am not as high on 18 as you. i really have trouble even playing the tee shot to a very small landing area. I have enjoyed all the various 2nd shots that all seem to resemble recovery shots even fom the fairway. I do love the green complex on 18 though.

[Steve Lapper]

slapper:

For what it's worth -- the great quote by Jimmy Demaret still applies in my mind -- you know the one about the greatest 17 hole course in the world.

Look, I've played the course a handful of times and agree in many ways with Sandy Tatum about its Sistine Chapel connection. Just standing on the 16th tee is absolutely mesmermizing but there ARE, as you indicated, so many other gifted holes. I also agree it's doubtful you can have better short par-4 in consecutive order than #8 and #9.

But, at the end of the day -- you still have a turkey for a closer. It's like the build-up to a superlative opera and just when the high note needs to be sung you get strep throat!

Matt & George,

Demeret's quote still gets a lot of play in Monterey. I really disagree about 18 because it boils down to having a very short par four dogleg after 3 (and 14 others) of golf's greatest holes. Maybe the letdown or disappointment is due to the fact that the round nears its end, yet the needed shots are 245 (NO MORE) to a very tight landing area that reveals a very elevated sloping green that cedes few easy pins and far more agonizing ones. Add in one more feature and that is the blindness of the tee ball over some well canopied and shaped cypress trees.
The second shot(150, 175 actual) requires a deft measurement of distance, wind, height and shape...nothing less! The green, its backslope and surrounding high grass, demands a shot that remains below the pin lest one wants to putt for any score from the bottom of the hill again.
 .

All together this is simply a wonderful ending hole that has no patience for the tired or weary golfer. Every sense and shot discipline is called upon to finish and that strikes me (after playing it 4X in two days) as a mind tightener.

One might well argue that the preceding three holes more than adequately tightens other parts of the anatomy. If thats the case, the 18th well fits the pattern and works perfectly.

I suppose that had the good doctor convinced the club to build the originally imagined tee in the sea, no semi-demeaning 17 hole monicker would ever fit, just the cadence of walking back into the Pacific from the 17th green would provide ample awe.

Such awe was packed in my bag on the first hole!

[A_Clay_Man]

George- The 18th gets a bad wrap because it is the antithesis of everything you just experienced. It's not wide open and as JB says the uncomfortable feeling on the tee is probably why most don't like it. All you see from the tee are this criss cross of trees. And thru the Angled cypress is an almost magic carpet serpantining up the hill to the roundish green. There is no way one walking up 18 could feel let down after thier virgin trip. One is still so jazzed from the precedings that I assume it takes many many rounds to actually hate it.

[TEPaul]

Jonathan:

Maybe your friend does share a locker at Cypress with Clint Eastwood but at my club we don't even have lockers--only hooks!

I believe I shared my hook with Walter Annenberg a few times and I don't really recall ever meeting him either!

I did see him once though. He was sitting in "the pit" with Bob Hope and the secretary of the US Treasury but I didn't dare interrupt them to say howdy!

One of our hilarious old senile members did saunter up to me though and say; "Look at those young men in suits--they must all have hearing problems!" (Secret Service).

It was even odder as there was one of Bob's old "Road" movies on the telivision although he seemed completely oblivious to that fact!

[Paul Richards]

As I have said on many occasions here -

There's Heaven,

there's Cypress Point,

and then,



there's everything else!

[Jonathan Cummings]

TEP - you win  

[Bob_Huntley]

Slapper:

Go through the archives, you will find any number of comments to refute your panegyrics of the 18th. If I took you out to a pretty awful hole at Rancho Canada in Carmel Valley, you would say the trees are in the wrong place. Why cannot the so-called cognoscente admit the same for this hole?

[Bob_Huntley]

Slapper:

By the way, on your way to a 245yd tee shot, it also has to carry trees of some 60 feet or more. I find this more difficult as I get older, especially when the handicap stroke number is as high as 12.

[Matt_Ward]

George P:

Appreciate your insertion of the word "bias" on your post. There's none intended partner because the hole is just lame given the absolute grandiose nature of what has preceded it.

I do like short ending par-4's but the 18th at CP is far below the qualities of such comparable holes as the 18th at Olympic (Lake) and Inverness.

I also don't believe you need a back breaking par-4 to seal the deal, but CP's finish is just so disappointing. That doesn't mean I feel less about Cypress (it's utterly superb in so many ways!), but it's important to remember that Demaret didn't throw that quote around for nothing. In my mind it does have meaning and merit.

[Bob_Huntley]

Matt:

Please come out to the Peninsula and be my guest. You are my new best friend.

[George Pazin]

Matt -

That was the purpose of the big smiley face - I was joking, kind of poking fun at myself, actually. I would've thought my feelings on bias were quite clear by this point.

I'm glad you brought up Olympic, because when I look at the pics in Geoff S.'s book & other diagrams, that's the hole the came to mind. They're not that similar, but the concept appeared similar - long iron layup, somewhat severe greensite. The tree canopy does not look like much in Geoff's book, but I'm assuming from Mr. Huntley's post that the trees must encroach a good deal more now.

I don't have any problem with criticising the hole, I just wonder if that quote is a little overstated.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Bob Huntley,

I agree with you about the 18th hole at CPC.

But there are certain topics, issues, holes and architects whose works are sacrosanct in the eyes of the cognoscente.

I view the 18th at CPC in the same light that I view the 18th hole at Baltimore CC, Five Farms, weak, in light of its position on the golf course as the closing hole, and in comparison to the other holes on the golf course that preceed it.  Though, I believe its position is the bigger issue with me.

Perhaps, it was the best that could be done, in order to get the other holes fitted into the site, and as such perhaps it was a compromise or default hole.

George Pazin,

You didn't mention the B word, did you ?  
How could you insert that word into any topic on GCA ?

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

George
The hole is not that bad. It is very popular and fashionable to criticize the 18th at CPC - plus it gives you the opportunity to quote Jimmy D. The hole is no doubt unusual, but I personally like it. Its fun, challenging and thought provoking.

[Bob_Huntley]

Tom:

Fun, challenging and thought provoking eh! Tell me, you are not really into S&M are you?  

[Dan Kelly]

Just curious -- and asking those who might know:

Does that 18th at Cypress look and play the way it looked and played when Dr. Mac was finished with it? Or have the trees grown in such a way that they have obscured the artist's intent?

A few years ago, they spent a whole lot of time and money cleaning up the Sistine Chapel -- the object being to restore color and details lost to the centuries.

Is the 18th at Cypress Point a candidate for the same sort of treatment?

[TEPaul]

Bob Huntley:

I've only played CPC a couple of times and it's been a while now but I must say when I got to #18 I was perplexed. It looks like the ideal shot is right into a grove of trees!

But what in your opinion could be done to #18 to make it a more acceptable and respected hole--that is without the common suggestion of lengthening it by putting a tee out where MacKenzie proposed and Morse nixed?

[Steve Lapper]

Dan,
 According to Geoff's book on the course, the 18th is considerably different than A. M's original layout. The corner and far fairway bunkers are gone and a substantial low canopied Cypress tree occupies the middle left of the fairway next to the original mature tree. The bunkers greenside left that ebbed into the treeline are also gone.

 This most certainly does echo the artist's original intent to provide a "stern test...designed to give a match a tough finish."

As is amply said above by others, the drive through the center fairway trees does visually upset the player and require some height. The front tees allow for more room to hit through the slot. I don't know how one can complain about having to put 60 feet of height on a long iron, fairway wood or driver? A low runner is also possible, but difficult to visually align. The deception created by stacks of Cypress trees is just another MacK quirk that evolved.

I still believe the only pruning really called for is the near left, near greenside tree overhanging the green.

If one doesn't like the trees in the fairway, then should the clump of trees firmly esconsced on the 17th go?

I doubt it.

Instead I think people's expectations, as in most of life, reach some point of deflation...often at the intersection of reality...in this case, the clubhouse, the parking lot and the promise of another crack at the magic!