Steve Czaban on Tobacco Road!

[Jay Flemma]

I sent my broadcaster buddy to Tobacco Road - he had never heard of the place - and in one night he comes back with a whiz-bang review!

http://onmilwaukee.com/sports/articles/tobaccoroadgolf.html

[A.G._Crockett]

Sean,
I agree with you about the green speeds.  My guess is that if he played The Road recently, they were slow in preparation for what is being forecast to be a very tough summer in the southeast.  I don't see any problem with them running at 10, and my guess is that they frequently do.

As to the sections of greens where you can't putt to the hole cut in another section, think of them as double greens without a second hole.  At the distances that we are talking about, you've really missed the green, if effect.  I don't think it was bad design, anymore than having a 50 yd. putt at TOC would be.

[Jim Nugent]

However, one extreme I did encounter twice on my last go round The Road was I couldn't get to the hole from where I hit the green.  This happened on the 8th and 11th.  I can let one time slide, but I thought being in this situation twice in four holes wasn't a clever design trait.  

Sean, how close to the hole could you get on those holes, with a great putt?  

[A.G._Crockett]

Sean,
On 17, if the flag is on one extreme and you are on the other, given that it was probably a wedge that you hit, you missed the pin by a LONG, LONG way!  It plays 142 from the tips, extremely down hill, and the green is around 50 yds. wide, I believe.  If I miss a wedge by 30 yds. or more, don't I deserve what I get?  That's not OTT, or quirk, even.

Less so on 15, and with a longer club, but still a bad miss.  It just happens that you are still on the green, right?  

That said, this discussion illustrates why the slope is so high at TR, and probably why the rankings are so often low.  I vehemently disagree, but I do understand it.

[Brent Hutto]

A.G. beat me to it. If you can't bring bogey into play on a downhill 120-yard hole, then a serious golf course shouldn't include a 120-yard hole at all. I think we reify "on the green" and expect that it implies that we should make par unless we screw up.

It's like that discussion a week or so ago about the idea that a shot "in the fairway" should not have to contend with a tree whereas the same shot being in the rough makes the tree perfectly fair.

Taking this critcism to heart would tend to disallow an architect from building greens like the ones at Tobacco Road which offer multiple ways of setting up one-shot holes to play completely differently on different days. I think that's one of the outstandingly creative features of the course and the only trade-off is that you can leave yourself a virtually certain three-putt where on most courses it would be an almost certain chip-and-two-putt from the rough or fringe, chipping over a mound.

Then again, I putt better than I chip so it fits my game.

[A.G._Crockett]

Sean
There is a par three at Tot Hill with 3 levels and a green that is 60 yds. front to back.  They actually had to stop using the upper level pin position because players who missed on the lowest level would hit lob wedge up to the top rather than try to putt.

So, no, I don't think they (he) intended for you to chip on the green.  I DO think that Strantz intended to make you pay a penalty stroke for missing a pin by over 30 yds., though, which is what you are talking about here.  You CAN recover; it ain't a pond, after all.  But you will have to burn a stroke to pay for hitting the ball 100 feet offline with a short club.

[cary lichtenstein]

"The late course architect / golf rebel Mike Strantz took a piece of sand and scrub-strewn land in central North Carolina and carved out a radical version of the considerably stuffier Pine Valley."

Clearly he's never been to Pine Valley without sneaking in or paying someone to take him there!  My club is stuffier than Pine Valley.

I never found Pine Valley to be stuffy...what did I miss?

[Evan_Smith]

I'm glad Strantz did something out of the ordinary in the Pinehurst area but some of those greens are a little dumb.  Not just 15 but what about 16?  If you've ever been above the hole you would know what I'm talking about.  Now it's been about 4 or 5 years since I last played the course so I don't know if they've made any changes, but there are some pin positions that make the course not very much fun.  A good friend of mine (a pro to give you an idea of ability) will fight me if I mention the course to him.  He said without a doubt it was the worst golf course he had ever played.  Needless to say, he's only played it once.  My first round, I thought it was great, and then when I played it  a second time (with a different set of pin positions) I could see where he was coming from.  The pins make too much of difference on the total enjoyment of the round.  I like the course architecturally, but the severity of the greens make some pins unfair.

[Jay Flemma]

Admittied...Czabe is dead wrong about Pine Valley and spoke glibly.    Granted also...he may be still learning about the green speeds.

But don't overlook the big picture here.  We successfully started to convert someone who used to be more enamored with penal architecture and what he saw on TV and the Jones boys.  In one day...ONE DAY...he wrote a really good review with alot of important nuggets lkie "not why" but rather why not."

Czabe reaches and influences alot of people through Fox Sports Net, The Jim rome show and other programs.  Its a good thing for the mainstream acceptance of both The Road and great design to get broadcasters that excited about the architecture.  Plus Czabe is a first rate guy.  If the article were an 18 hole round, he had alot of birdies and only a bogey or two at most.

Here's the nugget we should be praising:

"Blind shots? Oh yeah, they got 'em. But, I have never been one who thinks ANY blind shot is an automatic design travesty. If you do, then stay home."