The 17th at TCC in Pepper Pike, Ohio

[wsmorrison]

Inspired by Mark's study of the 14th at St. George's, here is a photo essay of the 17th at The Country Club of Pepper Pike, Ohio.  William Flynn designed the course in 1928 and it opened for play in 1930.  Thankfully, the Depression did not stall the project.  While little known, this hole in particular and the course in general merits closer study.

Hole drawing

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Tee shot

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Overhead

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Overhead showing fairway cant

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Approach from the right rough

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Approach from the more difficult left side

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Looking back from center of green

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[PThomas]

thanks Wayne, nice stuff...I hope to get out there this year

[Phil McDade]

Wayne:

Wonderful stuff of a course I once lived nearby; one of the more exclusive in the Cleveland area.

A few questions:

-- On the tee shot, are those two tallish trees on the left inside of the dogleg -- just about on the highest point of the rise -- essential for the strategy of the hole, ala the Eisenhower Tree at Augusta's 17th, or could they be cut down? Permanent slicer that I am, those trees would certainly be in my swing thoughts on the tee.

-- On the overhead shot, it looks like the player on the right side of the fairway is in the preferred position, as opposed to the one where the bag is standing center-left. Is it hard to hold that fairway on the extreme right side given the cant of the fairway? Sure looks like it.

-- Would it make sense to have the fairway mown nearly all the way to the first bunker, and perhaps the second, to make the fairway cant even more of a factor? I'm thinking of the bold player who really wants to crank a draw out there, hoping perhaps for a <100 yd. pitch into the green. Overcooking that shot could land his ball in the fairway and a roll into one of the first two bunkers -- a scenario perhaps not possible with the mowing patterns depicted?

-- The green looks to have several very good pin positions; has any of the extreme left side/back of the green been lost over time? A couple of the pictures suggest perhaps maybe.

Thanks for the great photos of an under-appreciated course. A neat-looking short par 4 with good use of the terrain.

[Mike_Cirba]

Wayne,

That looks like a superb hole.   I love holes that "ride the edge of the ridge", so to speak, and this one reminds me a good deal of the 2nd hole at Lancaster Country Club.   The irony of course, is that Flynn only did the first part of that hole, but this one at Pepper Pike does seem to offer much the same challenge.

[Mark Bourgeois]

I really like holes where you have to fight the slope to find Position A.  Is the right side really easier?  It sure doesn't appear so, with that front-right bunker and slope.

Shades of the 5th hole at Pinehurst #2.  On that hole, you can't believe how far right you need your approach to land on the green.  Similar deal here?

[Steve Kline]

The left side appears to offer the much preferred approach from these photographs. You are hitting more into the slope of the green instead of running so much right to left and you don't have to over the front left bunker.

Are the trees on the left necessary? Would it be possible for extremely long hitters to go for the green if they weren't there? Do those trees make it harder to hit left side of the fairway which seems preferred?

[wsmorrison]

The trees at the corner, and seen in the drawing, are highly strategic.  They create some thinking on the tee.  Without them, cutting the corner would be pretty easy, though the slope of the fairway needs to be taken into account.  With the trees, it is evident that both the near and far fairway lines come into play so both distance and line of play must be just right.  Going through the fairway gives you a draw lie and requires a fade, similar to shot testing at Huntingdon Valley and other Flynn courses. 

I guess I should say that there really isn't an easy approach into the green.  From the left it is a very shallow target and over the green is very problematic for a recovery with the green sloping away.  Short isn't much of a bargain either.  From the right side, you have the length of the green to help out and it is a short enough shot that you can get a lot of loft on the approach to hold the green.  I went over the green one of the days I played and it took a perfectly executed lob to hold the green.  I don't recall hitting one.

[noonan]

The hole appears very similar to 14 on NCR South.

[wsmorrison]

Jerry,

I don't know NCR at all, but the designer, Dick Wilson worked for Flynn for many years on the construction side.  Chances are Wilson worked on building the TCC in Pepper Pike under Red Lawrence or William Gordon for Toomey and Flynn, the construction arm.   He learned something from the master as his architectural work after leaving Flynn (Flynn did all the design work in a separate firm) is very highly regarded.

[Mark Bourgeois]

Wayne

Did Flynn tend to route holes along ridges rather than perpendicular?

I wonder if originally he considered this hole as a dogleg left.

The other interesting thing is how this hole can fit into a typology of oblique hazards, such as streams in the case of 14 St Georges or landforms here.

You see so many examples where the hole is routed at an either perpendicular or parallel angle.

But I like oblique and wish we got to experience it more.  St Georges could be the masterwork of this design feature.

On so many holes you must drive either just to the edge of an obliquely angled ridge, choose the proper section of the ridge, or just somehow negotiate it using your best guess of how the angle needs to be played.

I have a picture of the 2nd that shows the fairway seemingly pointed directly toward the green off in the distance. The fairway looks like a green version of a US revolutionary's tri-pointed hat!

I will try to post later...

[Tim Taylor]

Cool hole. I looked at the google maps aerial and it took me a while to realize that this is THE COUNTRY CLUB AT Pepper Pike and not Pepper Pike Country Club next door. Silly me. I wonder how many guests or outing participants go the wrong course?!?

Both courses look pretty neat from the air. Some cool centerline bunkers on PPCC. TCC@PP appears to be wider and generally have bigger features.

How are these clubs holding up in Cleveland? Can't imagine the economy there is all that great.

Tim

[Glenn Spencer]

The hole appears very similar to 14 on NCR South.

I had never made this connection before now.  The holes are of similiar length. TCC's 17th slopes to the left and moves to the left the entire hole. NCR 14 is more like straight out off the tee and then and iron shot to the left. All flat lies in NCR's 14th fairway and not the case at TCC 17. I would say that NCR's green is a touch more challenging.  NCR's green has significantly more back to front slope in it. All balls basically end up in the front part of that green on the left side. NCR's green would be much wider as well. Pin-high seemed doable at TCC, it isn't at NCR. The trouble long is about equal. There is a lot more trouble short at TCC 17 than NCR 14. Both are great holes, but 17 at TCC would get my vote here by a pretty decent margin over 14 at NCR.  NCR 14 is a 2-iron and 8-iron whenever I play it. TCC 17 made me think a little more than that off the tee.

[tlavin]

Wayne,

Thanks for the very instructive post.  I'm sure the members think that the trees on either side of the fairway really define the hole, but all they do is obstruct the elegant simplicity of the hole.  It strikes me as a fun and imaginative shortish par four that would be much more fun to play if the trees on the inside of the dogleg (in particular) were removed.

[TEPaul]

Wayne:

Flynn may've been a little carried away with trees on that particular course. I know he drew some trees on the inside left on his hole drawing but in my opinion that hole would be so much better if those trees weren't there. Basically, in my opinion, they just serve to make that hole less multi-dimensional. The only problem with taking them out is that's a hole that does need some tee length addition for today's game and I don't think there is any functional way of getting it on that particular hole.

[Sean_A]

Are you guys kiddin me?  You are worried about guys reaching this hole which looks to be about 300 yard carry up a shoot and over bunkers with falloffs long-right and left and a bunker short right?  It would seem the perfect candidate to cut the trees down just so guys can have a whack.  When did it become bad to tempt players? 

Ciao

[Jason Connor]

How are these clubs holding up in Cleveland? Can't imagine the economy there is all that great.

I wonder that, too.

There are so many great private clubs in Cleveland.  So I wonder how they're doing.

I lived a block or so from Shaker Heights CC (pre WWI Ross course) from 2000 to 2003 and there were so few people on it.  Beautiful spring Saturday mornings and it'd be empty, broke my heart.  If only I'd have the cash I could have played all the 2 hour rounds I wanted there!

I'm guess the two in Pepper Pike, Canterbury, and Shaker must have plenty of money in the bank to keep things going.

[wsmorrison]

When the hole was designed, there was no chance of anyone reaching the green.  Today, some of the longer hitters could reach the green.  While it is true that the trees nullify some of the distance differential between long and short hitters, that isn't such a bad thing on occasion.    Longer hitters have an advantage on most holes, what's wrong with the occasional hole limiting this advantage and in fact asking the longer hitter to make some decisions on the tee and execute a distance and line of play demand?  The hole comes at the end of the routing.  So thinking in terms of match play, I think it is fair to give the shorter hitter a chance against the longer hitters if (s)he is hanging in there this long in the match.

Yet, temptation is also a very good thing.  Tom and Sean suggest that with today's carry and overall distances off the tee, another approach is to give them the temptation and ask them to pull it off given the very difficult green site.

I think there are advantages to both scenarios.  In balance, given that this is at the later stage of the golf course, I'd keep the trees, especially as the longer hitter has a distinct advantage on the 440-yard closing hole.

[wsmorrison]

How are these clubs holding up in Cleveland? Can't imagine the economy there is all that great.

I imagine that The Country Club and Pepper Pike Club are both on solid financial footing.  The Pepper Pike Club is a male only membership and quite a few men are members at both clubs.  I believe there is still some serious money in Cleveland and it wouldn't surprise me that a lot of it is at these two clubs.

[BCrosby]

The hole looks like the 12th at PVGC.

For the same reasons the trees on the left ought to go there, they ought to go here too.

As Sean notes, don't we want to tempt players to go for the green? Isn't the green designed to make that an interesting and difficult choice?

Bob

[wsmorrison]

It is possible to go over the trees, though not many can pull it off.  I bet Jamie or Sully could do it.  I'd vote to keep them...not that my vote counts for anything.

[Phil McDade]

How are these clubs holding up in Cleveland? Can't imagine the economy there is all that great.

I wonder that, too.

There are so many great private clubs in Cleveland.  So I wonder how they're doing.

I lived a block or so from Shaker Heights CC (pre WWI Ross course) from 2000 to 2003 and there were so few people on it.  Beautiful spring Saturday mornings and it'd be empty, broke my heart.  If only I'd have the cash I could have played all the 2 hour rounds I wanted there!

I'm guess the two in Pepper Pike, Canterbury, and Shaker must have plenty of money in the bank to keep things going.

If these clubs can survive what occured to Cleveland's economy in the 1970s, when I was living there, they can survive the current down cycle. There is A LOT of old money in the Cleveland area; other moneyed parts of Cleveland, particularly its high-end cultural scene, are doing much better from what I hear than they were 20-30 years ago.