Hidden Creek revisited

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Hallaleuah Tom Paul!

As Mike had previously mentioned with PV#12 as well as the rest of the great course, it is all about pin placement on the green and where it is best to attack from in relation to one's very own style and grace. For most, I would say that the intent is for the goal to be the most simple putt into the hole. I however, and I can't begin to say enough of the joy of the impossible putt--and the possibility of sinking it.  Give us CHALLENGE!!!!

I have to resort to a hole which Russell Talley will attest to my fondenss for.

#10-"Death & Glory" at Northwood, North of London.

I don't have the script at hand, but if any of you own Darwin's Golf Courses of the British Isles it will project a hole that is of a "kick and a spit length." Some 310 yards with a second shot so demanding that as a par three it would have been a great hole. It isn't. It's all (Or used to be) all of a par 4 that 500-yard, two-shot holes can dream of. A golf hole with big and nasty teeth, ready to swallow you whole.

Like the description of Hidden Creek's 8th, it is/was nothing more then a 275 yard drive to a green that could best be described as protected by every natural element of the site. The green is located right next to a huge hillock, covered in gorse and bramble with the exception of the green side where the golfer can carry the huge sand hazard and try to bounce it off of the hill on the green without rolling off into another very deep side sand hazard and a small rippling creek.

The fronting hazard is one of truely Victorian preportions. a deep nasty scath in the earth which is no doubt the results of the hillock feeding into the creek. The wall of the hazard which was bulkheaded with sleepers, is a certain for failure for not reaching the green. A rather large weeping-willow protects any entry from the left, over the deep left sand hazards.

But after all of this, one still has to be in the proper position for the flag on the green, to be able to sink the putt, and go forward to the next hole in a reasonable and positive fashion. Non-compliance will in fact bring on massive bouts of depression and faillure.

These types of holes are what the game is all about--CHALLENGE.

Its just like driving to the golf course. Who cares what kind of car, how fast it goes, or even how much great mileage it gets. YOU have to be the one that decides which door you are going to use to get into the clubhouse. The same it should be for ploting your strategy of play. Thats what entertains us most.

[Brian Phillips]

Isn't the 12th the sort of hole that Shivas was talking about a while back:

You stand on the tee thinking birdie but for some unknown reason you end up writing a bogey on the card.  It manages to suck you into taking a chance and if you don't pull it off you are in trouble.

Brian

[archie]

 


Ok for starters

Twisted Dune #17 eye candy bunkers behind the green, they gotta go!  Also the fairway is unnaturally high and doesn't fit the eye as well as I would like, although the hole is fun to play.  I had to eschew some real gnarly stuff in front of the green because our customers would have been tortured unmercifully if I stuck to my original idea. Also, the green needs about twenty feet on the back end so as to create some more interesting putting options, we can do this fairly easily.

#11   One of my favorite holes but!!!!!!   technology (not so good) and firm fairways  (good) have made this hole play shorter than it should. Plenty of room for another tee for the big hitters, it will be added. Always thought a low runner would be the shot of choice here, just want to force it on some people a little more.

#12    Pot luck bunkers need to be worked on a little more and maybe a couple added, kind of bland!


#18   Cirba and Matt Ward are wrong on this one!  A Muirfield or Philly Cricket bunker ala number nine would only punish the shorter hitter, who can run the ball onto or right in front on this long par four. It is hard to reach for the shorter hitters but an easy chipping four for a good wedge or bump and run player. Just watch Tom McCarthy( our pro) play this one and you'll know what I mean. The second shot for someone who can rock it has a very narrow window as any ball that flies onto the green is deflected left or long. Willie Park employs this green design concept to great success at Greate Bay, so I have experienced it first hand a lot.

# 9   New tee is in, giving a cape look to the tee shot  on this par five from the tournament tees.Bill V will like playing it from here as we scouted it out together, also Doug Fraser helped as he and I have been playing it when there was no grass.
Nothing wrong with an easy hole like this. The player who is trying to hit the green in two has to hit a very precise second to avoid the water or hitting it over the green while a conservative layup and a good chip and putt will give you
a relatively easy birdie.
 
My last response to my critique of eight Hidden Creek!

I think that if you can slug it there is little or no fear, the bunker in front can only hurt the shorter hitter, and his second shot with an intelligent lay up is infinitely harder than my chip or a longer hitters putt.  Put in the bunkers all along the left hand side and make me hit it as straight as TEPaul, then we're talking fun!!!!!!












 

[Mike_Cirba]

Archie,

Since we're hypothetically suggesting possible improvements, perhaps both have the same solution.  

Tom Paul suggested that a diagonal line of bunkers starting wide on the left and veering in closer to the green on #8 would improve the hole.  I would concur as you do.

How would the same thing work on 18 at TD?  I know I've been fixated on this Muirfield 18th foreshortened bunker thing, but understand your argument that it would affect weaker players most.  

So, just thinking aloud, what about starting a row of narrow bunkers about 50 yards short and wide left, having them continuing diagonally to green's edge on the front left side?  The fall of the ground would direct shots that weren't "up" towards the bunkers, but would still be unpenalizing for the weaker player who probably can't reach in two anyway.  

Plus, I think it would interesting as one considers the approach, because bailing right is no picnic from the hillside with the green running away.

Just some food for thought.    By the way, great to hear about the new 9th tee, and fully agree with your suggested tinkering to 17 and 11.    I think the little understated pots on 12 are really cool as they are, however.

Best,
Mike

[archie S.]

Hey Mike, always great to hear from you,even if we don't agree on #18. I'm still feeling pretty spry, so hopefully I'll have a few years left to tinker with Twisted!!

Hopefully we can get a gang to play some day soon, as the greens continue to mature and improve. I haven't played a full round at Twisted in awhile, as I have been working hard at Great Bay, lots to do but definitely on the improve.

Hope your dad is feeling a-ok and playing again, stay cool!!

best regards,

Archie

[Joe Pfaff]

Archie,
I loved the 8th at Hidden Creek and think it's really wonderful. It's going to provoke thought, discussion and repeat playing interest. BUT...it's disappointing you weren't able to express your views. The 8th is a very unique hole. The green is about the wildest thing Coore and Crenshaw or any other modern designer has done. I can definitely see why some might not like it or find the options not to work after a couple of rounds, and I would assume the locals would expect some negative reactions. If not, they should get used to it and consider such reactions a compliment to their club. Because the course is SO different looking, SO interesting and has SO many holes worthy of discussion, there are going to be many different views. How many new courses can we say that about these days?
Geoff

As a frequent visitor to this fine site, I think some of you may start to hear similar positive comments about Laurel Links, a new private course opening in September on eastern Long Island, about 5 miles east of Friar's Head. Kelly Blake Moran did a spectacular job on this par 71, 7100+ track that is being called a true "hidden gem" by visitors who have walked the course. Bill Shuford (9 years with Bob Rainum at Atlantic) has done a superb grow-in. ABout 14 links style hole with much risk/reward fairway bunkering and 4 holes cut into a treed section. Bent througout with fescue blend roughs and lots of native plantings and natural areas. I'm a member and looking forward to many pleasurable rounds.

[Mike_Cirba]

Joe,

Could you tell us more about it?  Or better yet, start a new thread describing the course and some of the holes?  Thanks!

[TEPaul]

Incredible--how that get missed on here? Five miles east of Friar's Head!? Is it near LI National (is that the one about 3 miles east of Friars?)? Is Laurel Links in the flat land or is some of it in the band of dunes that runs along the north coast? How about those LI enviro-conservationists--weren't they all over Laural Links too like Friars and The Bridge?

[Mike_Sweeney]

Joe,

Could you tell us more about it?  Or better yet, start a new thread describing the course and some of the holes?  Thanks!

Here is a link to the web site. It is near Friar's Head, but on the Peconic Bay side of the North Fork. FH is on the LI Sound side.


http://www.laurellinks.com/

[Roger Hansen]

Archie,
I don't think it is sacriligious to queston the architects thought process in the hole design. I think that you have made some very good observations and I will take them up with Bill,Ben and Jim when they are here this summer. One thing that is good about golf course architecture is that there is no absolutes. The 8th will play well for many people and not so well for others. You know I will always appreciate your comments and will dicuss them with Bill and Ben. So far the members like the 8th hole but there has been a lot of comments about it. We expected it when we were building the hole.
So far I am very happy with the way the course is maturing. The members are all having a great time playing it and the better players have found it to be very challenging. The one thing that makes me most satisfied is the peaceful atmosphere that the architects created with not only the design of the course but the whole facility.

[TEPaul]

Roger:

I'm certain you're aware that in a sense "controversy" as it relates to a golf hole (or course) can be a benefical  thing--ultimately with potential to be very positive.

Today clearly some architects assume "controversy" is completely synonymous with "negative criticism" and they try to avoid it in design at all costs but in the old days "criticism" or "controversy" was considered very much a two way street.

Anyway, an architect like MacKenzie encouraged "controversy" and at times appeared put off if he didn't create it or have it!

I think this is what should be hoped for with a hole like Hidden's #8! If there's a wide spectrum of opinion about it and also how best to play it, so much the better. Total agreement about a hole like that would probably not be a good thing!

In other words, it's better to be talked about, even with extreme disagreement, than not talked about at all!

[archie]

Roger,  as you know I talked to you about this before posting, and as you know better than most I'm certainly not afraid to question most anything. If I didn't think that there were so many good things going on at Hidden Creek I wouldn't have said anything about the golf course, as criticism and discussion are vastly different. I think #10 & 11 are excellent holes, and #2 is really neat. Fifteen is my favorite green and very Pine Valley like in contour.

I don't have a problem discussing golf holes, irregardless of the owner or architect, and it is fun to try to get into the head of the designer. Sometimes there isn't rhyme or reason to a hole, no matter who built it!  I would guess for many on this site they are of similar mindset and wouldn't be afraid to say the "architect has no clothes, regardless of who it is.
Getting invited to mutual admiration society meetings isn't real high on my agenda. Now a good four ball with screaming fast conditions, count me in!!!!!
  

[Mike_Cirba]

Bringing another one to the top for Mike Malone, who bemoaned the lack of architectural discussion on HC..  

[mike_malone]

 Mike Cirba is exempt from further discussion on Hidden Creek!

[Patrick_Mucci]

I've always found discussions about # 8 interesting because almost every discussion is solely in the context of the BIG hitter, never in the context of "ALL OTHER" golfers.

That one dimensional approach is the reason so many of our great golf holes and golf courses have been disfigured over the years.

I'd like to hear from people who:
A.  Can't reach the bunker
B.  Can reach the bunker
C.  Choose to lay up short of the bunker.

If you lay up short of the bunker you have a blind shot to a very challenging green, where hole location has a dramatic impact on your next shot.

If you land in the bunker, while the approach is relatively short, at about 90-120 yards, it's a deep bunker with a high face, and a blind to semi blind shot.

It's a sporty hole.

It wasn't meant to be a do or die hole.

It's the kind of hole you might expect to make birdie or par on, but, are disappointed if you don't.

I love the hole as it is.

[blasbe1]

I'd like to hear from people who:
B.  Can reach the bunker

It wasn't meant to be a do or die hole.

It's the kind of hole you might expect to make birdie or par on, but, are disappointed if you don't.

I love the hole as it is.

8 is my favorite 4 par on the course, I only wish there were one more like it on the back nine.

I can reach the bunker, tried to play a cut off of the right side of it and blocked it way right (in front of Bill Coore of course).

I drew a lucky angle to play from in the hard pan/sand waste area right of the fairway and played a flop shot blind over the front right greenside mounding to two feet.

Had the pin been on the left of the dead elephant I would have struggled to make 4.

It's a great short hole that I too love.  

[blasbe1]

Some additional thoughts after yesterdays round, which was my second at HC:

Part of what I struggle with about HC is that while each hole has it's own character given the playing corridors and the scale of HC is large, it lacks many open vistas across holes and I would really have loved to see a few of the holes on the back, say between 15/16/17 cleared through entirely and let tall fescue penalize an errant tee ball, not the pine tree undergrowth which equals a lost ball but also chokes off views to other holes.  

Another place would have been to the right of # 4 (back right of #3 and short right of #5).  To walk off of 3 green, get a glimpse of 4 green front right and possibly 5 green looking back right would give a player a look ahead and would, IMO, enhance the experience and scale of the place.  The more the trees could have been cleared the more the movement in the terrain would be apparent.  If you could walk down 3, for instance, glance to the right and see how 5 green drastically runs away from you, the way you can see it as you stand looking back from 6 tee, nobody would ever comment that the terrain is bland.  Essentially, this would be very similar to much of Garden City.

 

       

[Patrick_Mucci]

Jason Blasberg,

Garden City sits on the Hempstead Plain, also one of the largest deserts east of the Mississippi.

Hidden Creek sits at the perimeter of the dense Pinelands.

How would you justify the cost of clearing and preparing those areas in light of Roger's statement regarding ROI being two generations removed ?

[Dan Herrmann]

Patrick,
I laid up on #8 and paid dearly for it.  I didn't realize just how big a factor that green was, and ended up on the right side while the hole was on the left.

I actually hit my putt fat because of the intimidation of the shot.  Got to the top and rolled back toward me.  I 4-putted that green and realized that there's a lot more than meets the eye.

A good par 4, like #8, doesn't need to be long to be good.

Another facet of the course that I liked was the way the greens seem to have 'melted' from the fairway.   This provided a totally different way of playing than the more typical hitting up to a green that's on a plateau.

In Mike Malone's defense, I too found some of the holes repetitive looking from the tee.  Maybe it's because we had a great caddie who told us exactly where to hit our tee shots.  It took away some of the 'whimsy of discovery'.

Whimsy of Discovery - how's that for a new term?

[blasbe1]

Jason Blasberg,

Garden City sits on the Hempstead Plain, also one of the largest deserts east of the Mississippi.

Hidden Creek sits at the perimeter of the dense Pinelands.

How would you justify the cost of clearing and preparing those areas in light of Roger's statement regarding ROI being two generations removed ?

Pat:

I said I thought it would be a better course, I'm not aware of the financial burdens but considering an additional nine holes was routed, clearing between certain holes couldn't be that prohibitive, but maybe it would, it would be interesting to know what it would cost in the areas I mentioned.  As I recall, the areas between certain holes seem smaller than many fairways, but my perception may be off there.

Cost issues aside, what are your thoughts, would HC be better for having some areas cleared?

 

[blasbe1]

How would you justify the cost of clearing and preparing those areas in light of Roger's statement regarding ROI being two generations removed ?

Patrick,

This is common, btw, our family owned public course in Suffolk County didn't turn a profit for about 20 years.  At every level of course there are cost issues, I didn't think we were relegated to discuss only cost feasible GCA issues here?

Jason

[Patrick_Mucci]

Jason,

You can discuss anything you want, in reality or  in theory, but, if you want to be realistic you have to deal with the actual issues that would impact your proposal, and financial considerations are one of those that have a significant impact on decisions.

With all of the freedom given to Bill Coore, it would seem that he had no intention of opening up the golf course as you suggest.

Was it because he wanted to preserve the global feel of the golf course, without sporadic openings ?

It's a question that you'd have to ask Bill.

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Pat

I went for the green but hit a weak drive to the right in the woods to the right of the bunker. Luckily, I was able to hit one of my patented recovery shots to the back of the green above the hole. My long putt almost went in, causing great concern to my match opponent, Jason Blasberg, whose approach was 2' from the hole and a certain birdie.

The 8th hole is one of my favorites at HC.

Steve

[blasbe1]

Pat,

You've skillfully avoided answering my question from which I  draw no conclusions.

Personally, I don't prefer courses where each hole is seperated from the rest and while we could discuss this preference on several levels, an immediate and likely relevent comparison is Cuscuwilla which is a course cut out of woods, albeit significantly less dense woods (but the pines are five times the size) as it was a former pine tree experimental nursery (that's why so many, if not all of the pines are larger at the base that from about two feet and upward from the various grafting of different strains of pine).  

The hole to hole vistas at Cuscowilla are more than impressive, they remind players where they are during their walk (while walking down 6 you see 1 to the left and realize you're back at the club house, while standing on 4 tee you see glimpses of 5 through the fescue, while walking up to 7 green you catch glimpses of 8 green and Lake Oconee through the trees left, while standing on 10 tee you see 11 green in the background, while standing on 15 green you see all of the 3 par 16th, while walking down 17 you see 15 green to your left) and it's a large part of the overall design, part of the experience, and part of being able to appreciate the architecture.

My observation was intended to express an impression about HC that resonates with me, and, fairly or unfairly, in comparison to another C&C design, and that is that as wide as HC's playing corridors are, I feel boxed in there and I also believe the inset greens that are it's greatest strength don't get appreciated as a result, mostly because the player, during the ordinary course of play, can't see them from any angle other than directly in front while playing or behind/to the side while walking to the next tee.

This is not theoretical this is a constructive criticism of HC.  Perhaps the explanation is site driven, but I would suggest that clearing certain areas between holes at HC could vastly improve the course and show case it's greatest strengths.

Simply put, the density of the pines choke the course off at the pass, IMO.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Jason,

If you feel boxed in then you missed observing what C&C did with respect to width and depth.

The deliberately cleared vast areas around the greens so as to give an open feel.  They also cleared areas far beyond the fairway lines  

Right on # 1 fairway, Left on # 2 fairway, etc., etc..

If you examine green sites like # 4, # 6, # 7, # 8, etc., etc., you'd see that 30-50 yards around the green was cleared to open up the look and feel.

Of all the things I've ever felt at HC, being boxed in isn't one of them.

I prefer to play # 3, walk of the green, and then see the fabulous 4th hole, I think it's a more impressive introduction than seeing it as I was playing # 3.  I think it would be more of a distraction if I could see it from # 3.

Bill Coore indicated that there wasn't a single area, larger than a table that wasn't woods.  To plant openings with tall fescue would seem artificial and contrary to the nature of the site.

With the freedom given to Bill Coore, had he wanted to do as you suggest, I'm sure he would have.