Cobb's Creek Golf Club: Olde, 1st Hole

[Kyle Harris]

What's all this kerfuffle about?

Indeed, even some Philadelphians must be asking themselves this question as the 1000+ Post Cobb's Creek thread still inhabits the front pages of GOLFCLUBATLAS.com and seemingly still consumes hours of time from the regular participants in the thread.

The pedigree is certainly well-establish. Hugh Wilson lead an appointed group of other interested Philadelphia golfers including George Crump, Ab Smith and George Klaudner on a high-profile public golf course project that is contemporaneous with Pine Valley, the Merion courses and other seminal works in the so-called Philadelphia School of Golf Architecture.

However, while Merion and Pine Valley rightfully have found their places at or near the pinnacle of what Golf Architecture can offer the player, it is not outside reason to think these could very well be one-off successes for the masterminds behind their evolution. There is very little "other" work by which one can assess the talents of Hugh Wilson and George Crump. This series of hole by hole threads is an attempt to assess the positives, the negatives and everything in between about what makes Cobb's Creek worth the trouble.

*I would like to keep these threads as an honest assessment of the shots presented by the architecture and wish to avoid superlatives and comparisons to other courses. I'll allow the individual to make their own judgments and decisions

[Kyle Harris]

Perhaps the biggest reason for this series is that it allows everybody to take a look first hand at the features and architecture. Accessibility may be Cobb's Creek's biggest asset. Being a public park, it's possible to walk around the golf course and watch play, or just take in features. I hope these threads encourage both discussion from those who know the course, and those who may not be familiar to take a look a bit under the surface.

Cobb's has long suffered from a decline in general maintenance and it is admittedly difficult to see beyond this, especially as the maintenance can, and often does, interfere with a good number of the challenges presented by the lay-out. I will attempt to diagram and explain the holes and shots from the perspective of a golf course conditioned with a reasonably firm fairway, and greens in the above average quickness category. Well-struck 8 irons and above will hold the green, while other shots will have release commensurate with their length.

Now, let's take a walk to the first tee, along with Joe Bausch and his camera.

[Kyle Harris]

First Hole:

Par 4/5
Blue: 484 Yards
White: 423 Yards
Red: 412 Yards

Handicap: 2

The well-prepared golfer has probably been hitting putts on the putting green near the first green for about 15 minutes, perhaps pausing to see a few tee shots from the groups in front. Even before reaching the putting green, the discord between the Blue and White tees is apparent as a backswing from the Blue tee seems destined to strike a car on Lansdowne Ave.

On the surface, there isn't much to be seen from this tee as the landing area of the first hole is the only portion of the golf course visible....

Landing area? Landing Area?

With that ditch out there, just where is the landing area? Short of it is wide open, but how far is short? How far is over?

Where is the green?

This is the first conundrum faces on the Olde Course at Cobb's - the opening tee shot.


It's a fairly simple affair to sleepwalk and just bunt a safe 220 yard shot out the middle and see what lie ahead. In fact, this is probably a reasonable play most days. However, as is often the case with a decent half-par hole - the temptation to take too much, and the temptation to settle for too little is ever present. The question becomes: How can we eek that extra half shot out of the hole this time?

Perhaps, the answer lay above.

Let's take a look at the aerial:


The circles represent the tee boxes, with the orange indicating alternate teeing areas.

The squares are distances to the green:
Blue: 200 Yards
White: 150 Yards
Red: 100 Yards

[Kyle Harris]

Deus Ex, and Google Earth allows us to analyze the angles presented by the tee shot:

Line: 250 yards


As the line shows, the ditch is a 250 carry. 220 leaves us just under 200 yards. So why not lay up?

The landing area short of the ditch:


We still don't see the green. While it is true that blindness is not necessarily a detraction with repeat play, analysis at the green end shows a green sloping toward the road and OB and an approach defended by a bunker.





All these subtle features compound to make gaining that half-stroke all the more difficult. The ditch effectively nullifies a full 35 yards in the 150-200 yard range forcing the player into a decision to face a difficult, semi-blind 200 yard approach to a green falling away toward OB and a bunker or attempting a 250 yard carry over a water hazard.

Furthermore, the aggressive line off the tee is a rather unnatural one. The player is asked to aim a shot down the cartpath to the blind portion of the fairway. At 250 yards, most players from the White tees are demanded to hit the ball true and pure. Catch the bottom line and catch the ditch.

Even better is this hole as the #2 stroke hole. The higher handicap player in a match is most likely getting a stroke here, allowing him to further pressure the better player into making 4 by playing the hole as a conservative par 5.

[Geoffrey_Walsh]

Kyle,

I have always been curious as to the distance to the creek from the back tee.  By your numbers, it would be about 300 yds., no?

[Kyle Harris]

Kyle,

I have always been curious as to the distance to the creek from the back tee.  By your numbers, it would be about 300 yds., no?

291 as per Google Earth.

[Mike_Cirba]

Kyle,

While I agree that a hole-by-hole analysis is worthwhile, I think it's important to point out that 33% of the golf course Wilson, Crump, Smith, et.al. created has been significantly altered through the 1954 re-routing, and even those holes that are still original have had some degradation in terms of green shrinkage, etc., so I hope this hole by hole thread points out those differences from the original course clearly, as well.

[astavrides]

i remember on the earlier aerials that the trees between 1 and 2 were not there when the course was built, and not there until recently if I remember correctly.  I think even if money could be spent on their removal (as well as any other objections could be overcome), that the trees should stay--both for safety from #2, and to keep #1 from becoming too easy.  I usually don't buy the stuff about trees reducing options and preferred angles into greens. 

[PCCraig]

How many rounds a year are played there and what is the maintenance budget?

[Mike_Cirba]

Alex/Kyle,

The trees planted in question appear to have been put in sometime between these two aerials, the first in 1937 and the second from 1942.   

It was likely WPA labor.

1937





1942




One thing that is important to consider about the hole, as Kyle mentioned, is the strong left to right slope in the green and exactly how close that green lies to the adjacent public road and OB.   

There really is nothing much to stop a ball running strong and long with a hint of rightness to it, except for a couple of trees planted on that perimeter.

[Kyle Harris]

i remember on the earlier aerials that the trees between 1 and 2 were not there when the course was built, and not there until recently if I remember correctly.  I think even if money could be spent on their removal (as well as any other objections could be overcome), that the trees should stay--both for safety from #2, and to keep #1 from becoming too easy.  I usually don't buy the stuff about trees reducing options and preferred angles into greens. 

Alex,

I've given some thought to your comments. As you well know, I advocate tree removal for the restoration of options and angles and I think in this case, modest removal is something to be considered.

The carry from the tee to the bridge is 250. This requires a tee shot aimed left of the cartpath and over the scrub on that knuckle. All aspects of the shot are blind. I think clearing the knuckle obscuring the bridge from the tee is a reasonable goal.

A golfer achieving that carry is rewarded with a 150 yard approach to a green falling ever so slightly left to right. Under my maintenance conditions, this is cause for some concern but should still be a green light for a skilled golfer. The point is, in attempting to get down in four, the golfer is face with addressing the major hazards of the hole head-on. A slightly skulled tee ball is ending up in the ditch for most players and in a blink of an eye, the player is dropping for 3 from 185 yards out along the same angle as the 150 yard approach.

On holes such as this, there needs to be adequate temptation to go for the 4.

Mike,

I think the green is perched up enough that balls landing on it are not likely to run off on to the road unless the ball were skulled. Missing the green, however, is a completely different story. I'd like to see the fairway cut and the bunker on the right match the line presented by the road though. If a lesser player is playing for 5, this is an ideal approach angle to the green and presents the best chance for such a golfer to "steal" a 4 from the hole.

[Mike_Cirba]

One other peculiarty about the 1st and 2nd holes is the fact that they were altered during original construction from the original "to be" 1915 plans.

1 is more of a dogleg left than originally envisioned, it appears the ditch was dug during construction, and the 2nd hole plays more along right to left fault line than straight up the slope.

Here is how the two holes were envisioned on the original drawing from 1915.

[Mike_Cirba]

I also have a few pics to add..


The view from the back tee;



The "layup view" of the second;



The 100 yard approach;



Looking back towards the tee;