[Tommy Williamsen]

I played Woodhall Spa Nov 3 with director of operations Richard Latham.  WS is a seductive wench yet filled with charm that dares you to test your manly skills.  It can beat you up.  There are some 110 bunkers.  In some ways there are too many.  Yet, they provide for a lot of strategic play.  It is possible to avoid them if you want.  I was in only one.  Or you can challenge them with more aggressive play. Over the next few days I’ll post some pictures. 

Today the first six.





The opening tee shot is pretty benign. Make par here.  It is the easiest hole on the course. 361/361 yards (both tees)



 Left side fairway bunker



Number two 442/411 yards



One of the 110 bunkers.  This at the 2nd green.



Number Three (415/415) has a daunting tee shot, to say the least. It is scarier than need be because the carry is only about 150 yards.



fairway bunker on the left.



Number four 414/414 yards

There is about 160 yards of carry heather to reach the fairway.  On the left is a large cross bunker you can challenge.  Richard did and lost.



Greenside bunker about five feet deep.



This is the 150 yard fifth hole from the right hand tee. It is a more difficult angle because the bunker on the left is more in play.  From this tee the hole is only 116 yards.



This bunker is eleven (11) feet deep.  It guards the left side of the green and is the deepest bunker on the course.  Stay out of it!!





Number six is a 526/510 yard five. It is pretty reachable if you dare challenge the ever-present bunkers on the left. From the forward tee it is a 461 yard par four.



This bunker catches any tee shot pushed.



This bunker catches a pulled second shot.

[Kalen Braley]

Tommy,

These are outstanding photos, thanks for posting them.

I can't recall having seen a course that looks more integrated into its surrounds.  With all the wooly and wild tie-ins that are seemingly unkept this is my kind of golf.  Great stuff!!

[Greg Krueger]

Tommy, thanks for the great pictures. You must have played pretty darn good to only catch one of those bunkers!!

[Tony_Muldoon]

I look forward to people's opinions on the course.  I think it's simultaneously both one of those special places with a challenge all of its own, and overrated.  Ganton and Alwoodley are both superior, courses IMHO of course. 


Maybe it’s me but it seems like an early template for a Florida course. Flat and with hazards everywhere.

 If you are still in touch with Mr Latham can you thank him for his two fine books and ask him the following.  Why have the powers that be at the club placed such a premium on having flat greens?  I went thought the book in detail and every change recorded on a green involves taking out a hump or reducing slope.  The course cries out for more variety on the dance floor.

Marvellous value for money though.


PS also ask him which course is next for the book treatment.

[Tommy Williamsen]

Tony, I hadn't thought of it as a template for Fla courses.  Fascinating.  I agree that the greens were a little uninteresting.  I did ask Richard about it and he really didn't have an answer except that is the way they have been.  As for the rest of the land being flat, that was the terrain that was there.  I don't know what they could have done 100 years ago. 

[Paul_Turner]

Nice pics, I'm a big fan of Woodhall Spa...I think it's become vogue to criticize the flatness of the greens.  They are simple but not as flat as often implied (see the pic of the #2 green) and I like that the greens simply extend from the fairways.  Wild greens with those hazards would be torturous, no?

I reckon some of Woodhall's greens have shrunk a lot.  Take Tommy's pic of the 3rd green complex,  I think the green would have extended into that shallow trough and all the way out to the bunker on the left resulting in a green with a lot more contour.

Same for the 1st.  The green should come forward to create a shallow false front.

The second green should come down the slope at the front too.

Does the club history show an older aerial?

[Tommy Williamsen]

Paul,there are a couple of aerials. One helpful inclusion is a diagram of each hole as it was in 1935 and as it was in 2005 when the book was written.  I had heard about the flat greens and also thought that very undulating greens would be a little too much given the severity of the rest of the course.  The greens did have more movement than I expected, however.

[Sean_A]

Tommy - excellent pix.  Its been a long time since I have been to Woodhall - its time to get back there. 

I too agree that the greens are fine the way they are.  They blend into the topography very well and are often hard targets to pick out.  I think tougher greens would run a serious risk of making the course too difficult. 

Ciao

[Paul_Turner]

I don't think there's any chance that Hotchkin et al wanted the greens shaped as simple small circles such as shown here at the 3rd



I have just checked 1960s aerial views of the 10th and the green did come 5-10 yards futher out into the fairway.

[Tommy Williamsen]

I brought this forward now that the last six holes are posted.

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