Tractor Seat Green Complex

[Mike Hendren]

The Raynor horseshoe/thumbprint green has been called the toilet seat.  

Has anyone ever seen a tractor seat green complex?



If not, it's time has come.  Imagine a nice lion's mouth bunker front center.

Mike

[RJ_Daley]

Looks more like the 'lionsmouth bunker' position should be renamed too... to the ballbuster bunker.

[plabatt]

Bogey

This was a favorite complex design for Wilf Reid and William Connellan.  The first two holes of Bald Mountain (1928), Lake Orion Mi, are tractor seat complexes.  The first hole is approx 480 yds and the green complex sits on a rise.  I have often thought that a bunker in front of the green ( a lion's mouth) would alter the strategy in playing this hole.  

When the pin is to the side of the green, your approach shot is to the other side.  A daunting putt is over the crotch mound to the depression before the edge rises away.  

Tam O' Shanter C.C. in West Bloomfield, Mi has some tracter seat complexes on a larger scale than Bald Mt.

For those luckly enough to have played the Old Course at Indianwood, you could affirm if Reid and Connellan used this pattern on that design.

Petey

[Jeff_Brauer]

I need to go see Indianwood on my next trip to see my mother up there.  I like it.

I have done similar concepts, but make them bigger so that each side of the green is a more attainable target, and then I need to have some make it more of an A frame house green as a result to fit sprinklers in around the edges........

Don't Coore and Crenshaw do a similar green (like 8 SandHills) on enough courses that Doak commented that he had seen it too many times?  

[John_Cullum]

Searching for tractor seats on ebay again, huh Mike?

There's a reason this man calls shots for the hillbilly tour.

[Mike Benham]

Has anyone ever seen a tractor seat green complex?

How is this one and a double green to boot ... [/i]

[Mike Hendren]

Mike,

That looks like some California version to me.  Is it the short course at Olympic?

Seems like a true tractor seat would have slight false fronts on either side of the center hump.  The most difficult pin would be front on either side as to miss on the wrong side would yield a difficult putt across the hump that would first break toward the rear of the green and then back toward the front.  To sling a putt off the rear bank would be dicey at higher green speeds given the false front and possibility that the ball runs off the green.  

Petey, I'd love to see some photographs of the greens you mentioned.  

Jeff, I first thought of the 8th at Sand Hills but it lacks the hump in the crotch.  Maybe the 13th at Rustic?

Mike

[plabatt]

Bogey

We have to wait for the snow and ice to melt before I can produce some photos of the greens at Bald Mt.  It is definitely on my to do list come the spring thaw.

Petey

[Matthew Schulte]

Jeff was being humble.  He built a very neat "tractor seat" green on I believe the 14th hole at The Wilderness in Lake Jackson, Texas.  I have only played it once while visiting my wife's family during the Holidays.

The back nine in particular deserves more attention than it gets.  Those nine holes alone feature a: "Tractor Seat" green, a "Punch Bowl", a "Biarritz" and a green with a "Valley of Sin" fronting its' left side.  Check it out if your travels ever bring you to south Texas.

[Norbert P]

  Good drainage... hard and fast and heavily contoured.  Mike, you better copyright/patent your idea.  

Three Rivers (R Muir Graves) in Kelso, WA has a few of these and tend to have bunkering placed (safely?) up into the containing slopes of the green surrounds.

 My arbitrary memory tempts me to say that #3 on Gunnamatta at St. Andrews Beach is a tractor seat green on a grand scale.  Though the angled approach fights this urge, once you walk into the Bunyanesque "arena" of that complex, it resembles a John Deere Rear Holder  

[Mike Hendren]

Mike Benham,

I believe that is in fact a rare example of the Haight-Asbury green complex, so named because from above it brings to mind a bad drug trip from a by-gone era.

http://www.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=san+francisco&safe=on&ie=UTF8&z=19&ll=37.710428,-122.499506&spn=0.00084,0.002599&t=k&om=1&iwloc=addr

Peace.

[Tom Huckaby]

Bogey - did you happen to notice that complete utter stud and man among men crossing the green Mike pictured?  What a chick magnet that guy must be.  Fish fear him, women want him, men want to be him.

TH

ps - interesting green idea also.  

[Mike Hendren]

Bogey - did you happen to notice that complete utter stud and man among men crossing the green Mike pictured?  
TH

Scott Hoch, right?

[Tom Huckaby]

Bogey - did you happen to notice that complete utter stud and man among men crossing the green Mike pictured?  
TH

Scott Hoch, right?

The pictured stud has much more hair than Scott Hoch.  But Mr. Hoch does meet the verbal descriptions.  

[paul cowley]

Got you covered Bogey...the new 12th green at Ricefields has one, repleat with the lions mouth bunker too.

[it doesn't have those little drain hole lines though it and it will be green, not that funky yellowish color].

[Sean McCue]

Here is the 16th at The Country Club at Castle Pines.

Looking down from behind

Looking up from the approach

[Jason Topp]

I would have to say this one fits the bill:

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

Jason I think you got it. Bogie, you are on top of your game. Must be a slow week at the ole banc.

[Kalen Braley]

How about the 5th at Dismal River