Love Golf Design's Greensboro Tour Stop

[Mike Hendren]

Love Golf Design did a nice job at Forest Oaks, what appeared to be a relatively dated Ellis Maples design south of Greensboro.  Worth watching this week for the fantastic green complexes - hopefully they'll be detectable on the telly.

10th and 18th are wild, 11th features a nice vertical spine and the 15th has a ginormous false front.  Good stuff on the front as well - perhaps they'll show the geniune biarritz at the second.

Joe Bob Briggs says check it out.

Mike

[hhuffines]

They showed a lot of the front last night on the golf channel
and I couldnt believe it was Forest Oaks.  The new grasses
look fantastic, at least on TV.

I know its a man-sized course, I just wonder how these guys
shoot such low rounds?  Easy pins for more birdies?

[paul cowley]

Its hard to believe its been five years since we did a total 10 month start to finish redo....and this includes grow in....of Forest Oaks CC....and during that time frame we received 82" of rain. ....in clay soils.

Greensboro was officially the wettest place east of the Mississippi during that period.

As a consequence we were not able to detail as much of the outer areas of the course as we had wanted to....construction triage....but its nice to see on the telly that others have filled the visual void with fescues etc.

The greens were shaped and seeded earlier on and are quite good in my opinion....thanks Mike for your concurrence.

[paul cowley]

The Golf Channel was showing the front nine last night, which includes the biarritz #2 hole, a par five.

The pin was on the back left shelf and it was interesting to see more than one shot land on the first down slope inside the green and watch the ball go screaming off and over the back.

The fact that the hole is a par five and that most are playing long iron and woods into the green site allows for the original strategies of a biarrittz hole to re emerge......except for the fact that the longer clubs of today create a much higher ball flight than those of old ....especially in the hands of these guys.

Oh well....we did our job by introducing this type of hole in competition. Its been interesting to observe how many of the Tour players had no idea about the history of the hole or how to play it. They do seem to enjoy its challenge, with very little grumbling.

In the future I'm sure it would be interesting to watch them play Old Macdonald.

TomD, will that courses layout course be able to handle a Tour event?

Does its design allow for these type of players?



 

[paul cowley]

I had to smirk and felt slightly embarrassed for an announcer [I'm not sure who], who was trying to describe the par three 17th hole as a Redan.....despite the fact that it slopes entirely back to front and has a steep 45' false front.

I will grant that it green sits diagonally right to left,  with a long bunker guarding the left side. ....and that the hole was in the top 10 for difficulty of par threes played on Tour in years past.

If anything the drivable par four 7th hole has a Redan inspired green....but its not intended to be a copy.

[Mike Hendren]

Paul,

The fact that you label the 7th driveable saddens me immensely.  I should have mentioned the nod to Raynor in some of the bunkering, most notably the rectagular greenside bunker left of the 7th.  

Fantastic front pin position at the 6th but for gosh sake someone needs to snap off the small trees planted inside the dogleg there.  

Should've mentioned the 8th green as well with the front left turned down and front right turned up.  Haven't seen that done before.  

Hart, the tall grass indeed looked good on the telly, but I did not care for it in my short britches!

Mike

[paul cowley]

Michael......I have not seen the trees on the inside of the almost 300 yd dogleg on #6.
The Club asked where they might plant some memorial trees, and I suggested in the open areas around the tees, as long as they were not in play......sounds like they could not have found a worse place to plant them.  

#7 was designed as a drivable par four, but only for Saturday and Sundays rounds when the smaller field is less apt to slow play. For whatever reason the Tours tournament  setup has never used the forward tees.....they have rebuilt and are using for play one of the back tees that we had abandoned. I think the tournament has watered down what could be an exciting hole, but my lament is probably going to fall on deaf ears, as I understand this might be the tournaments last year....at least at this location.