Mimosa Hills CC's 7th

[Mark Bourgeois]

A cartographic but not topographic straight hole, the 7th at Mimosa Hills CC is 493 yards from the back tees and a technology-proof wonder.

The task off the tee is to surmount the ridge shown in the picture below.  From the back tee, the ridge line is roughly 250 yards out, maybe a little farther.  Ideally, the drive comes to rest somewhere around the right-third of the fairway.  This offers a better angle into the green.  But this ridge, which Donald Ross used also to excellent effect on the 8th, 10th, 12th, 14th, and 15th holes(!), cants from left to right.  Under firm and fast summertime conditions, a drive high up the ridge to the left still may hang up, complicating matters enormously.  But just a little too far to the right quickly becomes a matter of a lot too far to the right.

7 tee


The ridge seen from the tee hides a second, lower yet effective ridge.  Together, the first and second ridges form a "half-pipe" running laterally.  The effect is to "preserve" the second shot from threats due to conditioning, technology, and, in a match, differential lengths of tee shots: the first ridge provides a turbo boost, the second a turbo brake.

A golfer who nails his tee shot is likely to face a second shot of similar length as the golfer who slightly misses his or who is not quite as long off the tee.  The technology proofing is provided by the second ridge, which requires the energy of something like a 315-plus yard drive, which under firm-and-fast conditions may not be as daunting as appears but nevertheless is not within the capabilities of 99 percent of golfers.

7 fairway, showing the second, turbo-brake ridge



Time for a decision.  Does the golfer go for the green, which like Prairie Dunes's 5th is benched into a hillside with a ruinous false front?  From the base of the second ridge, the shot is something like 210 yards.

Why not have a go?  A third ridge, its top lopped off to present a left-to-right sloping plateau, will propel sharply to the right any shots hit short of the green.  Lurking to the right is out of bounds -- with a paved cart path ready to supply the final indignity of shooing a dying shot beyond the white stakes.

This slope has an amazing and very demoralizing efficiency at transferring the ball's kinetic energy into, well, a bush.

Another, closer look at the approach to 7: note from left to right the slope directly in front of green (the "tan line" follows the slope), the cart path, the OB stakes, the bushes



So the play is to hit some sort of draw into the slope.  Two complications arise: first, the ball lies beneath the golfer's feet, and, second, over-executing this shot produces a highly-challenging, downhill pitch (or bunker shot) to a green running away from the golfer.  Perhaps no problem for longtime Mimosa Hills member Billy Joe Patton (who, if you are playing at lunchtime, will be sitting on the porch of the halfway house to watch your tee shot on the long, uphill par 3 9th), but you are not Billy Joe Patton.

Experience likely teaches the golfer to lay up!

Laying up however offers no respite.  From this plateau in front of the green, the golfer must either pitch all the way to the green or chip all the way up; any shots failing the green may well return past his feet owing to the sharp false front plus aforementioned third ridge.  (In member parlance, this is called getting "Rossed.")

A hole front left as shown in the picture below is a nearly impossible birdie.

7 green: the third ridge runs from 5 to 40 yards short of the green and sharply from left to right


And there you have it.  A 493-yard par 5 that under firm-and-fast conditions pretty much will guarantee a legitimate chance to go in two; the half-pipe pretty much ensures, under virtually all conditions and from most tees, that shot will be somewhere between 205-225 yards. The golfer who chooses to go for it must propel the ball all the way, playing up to the left if he needs use of the ground at all, risking bunkers left and right and a steep drop off long if he tries the all-carry route.

Depending on hole location, 3 is possible, 4 possibly likely -- but 6s and 7s lurk left, right, short, and long.  Walking off with a 5 does not seem such a bad score in the final analysis, even if it produces disappointment -- particularly if he has a score going: the genius of Ross's routing is to follow an "easy" par 5 with a 469-yard par 4 and a sharply-uphill 190-yard par 3 (with the parking lot just to the left).

Like all the par 5s at MHCC, the 7th is not really a par 5.  But it's not a par 4 either.  It's like a par 4/6.

Call it a great match-play hole. It supplants Prairie Dunes 5 and Durban 3 as the favorite straight hole of those I have played around the world.

Mark

[Ed Oden]

Mark, a very interesting analysis.  If you told me you were going to discuss a hole at Mimosa and asked me to guess which one, the 7th would not immediately come to mind.  There are a number of other holes that I like a lot more.  That being said, your take on the strategic merits of the hole are spot on.  You can make eagle or put up a big number.  I'm not a big fan of the row of bushes that runs along the right side of the hole although I understand it provides a buffer from the road.

What did you think of the rest of the course?  I like what Kris Spence did there, especially with regard to restoring the Ross bunkers.  But they could still use some further tree removal on the back nine.

Are you playing anywhere else in the area?

Ed

[Lawrence Largent]

I've played in the the Fall Invitational there now for 10 years.  I think this could be the most underated course in North Carolina maybe even the Southern United States.  The course has so much character and it must have been a real treat to play with Persimmon and Balata balls.  The 11th, 15th, and 18th holes are my favorites.  You really have to be able to work your ball on the back nine in order to get the correct angles into those greens.  The bunkering is some of the best of any Ross course I've seen.  I really can't tell you how excited I get every Oct. when I'm heading over that way. 

Lawrence

[Mark Bourgeois]

Ed,

You mean you're okay with the OB but not the bushes? Or is it the OB you dread?

Lawrence, you know they just held the Hickory Open there last month.  Wonder how they found those bunkers!

Mark

[Ed Oden]

Ed,

You mean you're okay with the OB but not the bushes? Or is it the OB you dread?

Mark, as usual, I'm not sure I have a good answer to that question.  I certainly understand that the bushes are needed to provide a buffer from the road.  So I don't have a problem with the bushes even though I don't particularly like their appearance.  However, wouldn't the hole be better without the road/OB on the right?  Obviously that is impossible now.  But I wonder if the road was even there when Ross originally designed the course?  It sure would be a more natural design if the right side was in play.  And it seems a bit unusual to have so many factors (downhill, left to right cant and an ever so slight bend to the left) all conspiring to nudge every shot toward a very close OB.  So it wouldn't surprise me if the road and the surrounding neighborhood were not part of the original design but came at a later date.  Does anyone know for sure?

Ed

[Mark Bourgeois]

No, Ed, that is a very good answer. I'm no fan of the airplane-crash nature of OB, myself. I don't know when the road went in but its name, "Golf Course Road," seems to provide a clue! Of course it might have been extant but renamed.

Let's say path -> OB -> bushes -> road weren't there.  Shots would run out pretty far to the right under summertime conditions.  The golfer would be left with a pitch up the hill and depending on how far his ball ran either some sort of ridge or false front or the bunker to negotiate.  Those seem like penalties enough!  And as they're not necessarily fatal, I like that, too.

But in the final analysis I don't think the current setup hurts the hole. OB here is used to produce a legitimate risk of a high score, and in conserving land it's efficient.  So I don't see it as a "compromise" type of OB; it serves a purpose intrinsic to playing the game.  Nobody's forced to challenge the OB, it's a consequence of free will.

If there's a legitimate criticism over there to the right, it would be the use of a paved cart path, wouldn't it?  Even there though the path narrows the hole really only for the golfer who chooses to go for it.  It is not in play unless the golfer chooses to put it in play.  Call it the Hillbilly Road Hole!

So I liked the exacting nature of the challenge (slope -> cart path -> OB -> bush).  It's not like you're forced to go for the green, and if you choose to lay up you won't have to deal with any of that -- well, there's the issue of getting "Rossed" on the chip / pitch but that failure won't introduce you to Oscar Bravo.

All of this comes down to preferences, I reckon.  Bottom line I'd like no OB but as it's there it doesn't seem to hurt the hole. For all I know it helps -- sure puts a fear into you!

Hmm.  You know, it's like there are two widths available to the golfer standing ~215 yards out, but both widths exist together.  Going for it narrows the playing width, while laying up widens it.  That's pretty fascinating, don't you think?  Two widths in one playing corridor -- two routes in one?

Most times you see different widths it's due to different playing corridors, like twin fairways.  In other words the corridor fixes the width.  But here the shot fixes the width.  It's like the two widths are layered or embedded within the same corridor.

That's really neat. Can't say I'd thought of that before now.

Mark

[Ed Oden]

Mark, a lot of good points.  I suspect Kris Spence knows whether or not the road has always been there along 7.  I've sent Kris an IM and hope he will chime in.  It wouldn't surprise me if the road that bends around 2 and 5 was the original access to the club entrance.

Ed

[Lawrence Largent]

The course plays firm and fast most of time when the tournament is held in early Oct.   The hole is a short par five by todays standards as I'm sure you know.  While most of time the mid to long players hit a good drive and a 5 to 3 iron.  Thats where the fun starts because if your not in the right side of the fairway even the slightest push or fade your ball hits just off the right and kicks way right into a devilish position.  Then the player is really just playing to make a 5. When the green speeds are fast that green can defend itself just fine.  Whats funny though is the next Par 4 your normally hitting the same club or longer into a even tougher green.  Its alot like Holston Hills with number 7.   I've found most of the time that your hitting a longer club into the par 4 12th than the par 5 7th. 

Lawrence

[Mark Bourgeois]

Lawrence

Do most players get it past that second ridge? In my three rounds there I didn't see anyone do it but could see the flatbellies getting it done.

Also, what's the play: fly it to the green or bounce it in?

Speaking of conditions, the pro told me he would like to have a sort of membera' tournament where the rule was you couldn't land your ball on the green but had to run / bounce it up.

How cool would that be out there?

Thanks for the comments,
Mark

[Lawrence Largent]

My experience has been that the longer hitters hit in the flat part in between the two ridges.  The shorter hitters hit on the down slope of the first and the balls really end up in the same place.  I have been able to get it over the second slope maybe twice in all the rounds I've played there and it was down wind and I fly the ball around 280.  Last year I hit driver 4 iron 8 feet to a back right flag but I'll have to say that I've missed the green more than I've hit it.  I will say the green really makes you try to hit the left side cause the front right slants back. This is also the reason I think running the ball on is so hard because there is a steep upslope of I would say 2 feet you have to climb and with the slope of the fairway, green, and how the greens tapers away makes for a even harder shot.  I to agree that the par 5's are really par 4's but you would be surprised that there are not alot of birdies made on them unless you execute really quality golf shots.

Lawrence