Long Walks Between Holes

[Dan King]

Tom Huckaby writes:
You don't like 14, so the walk sucks.  Totally understood.

I think this is the key to any long hike on a golf course. There better be a reward. This is part of why Cruden Bay works so well. When you finish your hike you have this wonderful view that made the hike worth it.

This is why the Ranch doesn't even come close to working. A long hike leads you to another mediocre hole. There is no payoff.

Cheers,
Dan King

With a fine sea view and a clear course in front of him, the golfer may be excused if he regards golf, even though it be indifferent golf, as the true and adequate end of man's existence.
  --A.J. Balfour

[Tom Huckaby]

Dan:

Well said, future partner.  Total agreement re Cruden Bay and The Ranch as well as the general concept.  And let that be the last time those two are included in any sentence outside of "Cruden Bay is excellent and THE RANCH really really sucks."

TH

[Jon Heise]

There's a course in Pinckney MI, Timber Trace that has a 5-6 minute CART RIDE between I think 13 and 14.  Between 7 and 8 at Arcadia Bluffs would be a long walk too...

[Garland Bayley]

I've got another one for you. At Buffalo Peak in Union, OR you leave the club house and walk to about the highest point on the course to tee off 1. At 9 green you are at about the lowest point on the course, which you leave and walk up to 10 tee which is just below 1 tee. Wonderful fellows these cart-ball designers are now aren't they?

[Bruce Wellmon]

I don't remember the exact hole numbers, but the Donald Steele Cherokee Plantation course in Yemassee, SC has 3 holes on the back nine that are separated by old rice fields. The "gap" was long enough that we were carted.

[Don Hyslop]

Having walked this beautiful path between the 12th and 13th hole at Highland Links, I can only say what a great walk it is along the Clyburn. Every golfer should have the pleasure of taking it. Better still golf carts are not allowed on this path but take a far less scenic route to the 13th tee. I have hijacked the photo from Ran's article on Highland to exhibit here:

[Sean_A]

Tom Huckaby writes:
You don't like 14, so the walk sucks.  Totally understood.

I think this is the key to any long hike on a golf course. There better be a reward. This is part of why Cruden Bay works so well. When you finish your hike you have this wonderful view that made the hike worth it.

This is why the Ranch doesn't even come close to working. A long hike leads you to another mediocre hole. There is no payoff.

Cheers,
Dan King

With a fine sea view and a clear course in front of him, the golfer may be excused if he regards golf, even though it be indifferent golf, as the true and adequate end of man's existence.
  --A.J. Balfour

Dan

Where is the hiking involved at Cruden Bay?

Tom

Are you serious?  You altered a tee location because you thought people would play the wrong hole and the alteration requires a hike?  That is amazingly sad.  Guys can find their way round the world but you can't trust them to find 18 tees.  I have been lost a few times on a course, but these incidents were down to me shortcutting.  Go back and alter the tees the way they should be.

Ciao

[jeffwarne]

Sean,
quite a long walk up from 8 green to 9 tee

[Sean_A]

Sean,
quite a long walk up from 8 green to 9 tee

Jeff

I spose its not a good walk being steeply uphill especially as the 9th is a poor hole, but the views.....

Ciao

[Dan King]

Sean Arble writes:
I spose its not a good walk being steeply uphill especially as the 9th is a poor hole, but the views....

That was my point. You put that hike on almost any courses and it is bad design. At Cruden Bay it works because of the reward at the top.

I wonder what people who play it regularly think. The locals I played with were always happy to make the hike, but I think it was partially to show off the view. How do they feel just out playing on a Sunday afternoon? I might skip going up the hill and just walk around to the 11th, 14th or 16th holes.

Cheers,
Dan King

[Crudin Bay] A great personal favorite of mine which I hated to leave out of my Gourmet's Choice; but I couldn't list it as superior to Simpson's Ballybunion. Cruden Bay is more of a "cult" course, thanks to it's huge sandhills, superb views, great and terrible holes, and relative anonymity.
 --Tom Doak (The Confidential Guide to Golf Courses)

[Bill_Yates]

General information for consideration in both the "longest walks" thread and the "shortest walks" thread.

In a green to tee distance race between the UK and the USA, the UK wins - big time!

I wrote an article for Golf Magazine comparing the pace of play in the UK to the pace of play in the US.  While visiting eleven courses in England and Scotland, I measured the courses and the green to tee distances were a key ingredient of my calculations.

To sum it up, the average of the total green to tee distances a player travels on a UK course was 788 yards (approximately 46 yards per hole), as compared to the average of the total green to tee distances traveled by a player on a US course which was 3,061 yards (approximately180 yards per hole).  Therefore, the Brits typically walk 1.3 miles less from greens to tees than we do when playing 18 holes.

So, if you want to find the longest walk between holes, you'll probably find it in the US.

[Carl Johnson]

Sean,
quite a long walk up from 8 green to 9 tee

Jeff

I spose its not a good walk being steeply uphill especially as the 9th is a poor hole, but the views.....

Ciao

From the standpoint of a humble, low-skill golfer: I really liked number 9 the one day I played two rounds at Cruden Bay.  The climb up from 8 is steep, but not too long.  Nine is a simple hole.  You hit it up and over the top of the hill, probably the top of Cruden Bay's world, and then down to the green.  The view up the fairway from the tee -- a green field (fairway), the line at the horizon and then pure blue sky above (true), with no indication (except memory) of what's beyond I still believe is one of the greatest views off a tee I've ever seen, both aesthetically and from a golf standpoint.  The contrast with the rest of the course, and the half-way link -- a break -- between the mostly rolly-polly holes on either side makes it in my view a wonderful hole in its place at the top of a wonderful course.  10 is a similar link -- a typical but it brings you back to earth.  But then that's just my opinion.

[Anthony_Nysse]

Pilgrim's Run - I'm blanking on the exact holes but it is toward the end of the front nine (either 7 to 8 or 8 to 9??)

#8 green to #9 tee..you actually pass #3 tee, #2 green AND THEN through the woods!

Tony Nysse
Asst. Supt.
Colonial CC
Ft. Worth, TX

[Chuck Brown]

The ride to the top of the mountain for the 1st tees at Boyne Mountain takes at least 15 minutes (don't recall the names of the two courses).  It's got to be well over a mile.  Can't actually imagine how long it would take to walk with a golf bag, but that's way more exercise than I'd be interested in. . .

Mark you beat me too it after I began to read subsequent posts talking about long walks to first tees and from the last hole.  And you are right about the Boyne Mountain "Monument" and "Alpine" courses.

[Rob Rigg]

Brasada Ranch near Redmond has countless monster green to tee transfers, many with sharp elevation changes.

Easily the worst course for walking I have ever seen.

Tetherow has some long transfers as well, although Garland seems to have found a way to shorten them to make his total trek there only 6.5 miles
- 2nd to 3rd - ouch
- 6th to 7th - ouch
- 7th to 8th - ouch
- 9th to 10th - like wicked owee
- 12th to 13th - major leg heaviness
- 15th to 16th - through a tunnel - woo hoo
- 17th to 18th - this must be the last one
- 18th to Clubhouse - 1/2 mile up a hill to collect your beer
-

[Sean_A]

Sean Arble writes:
I spose its not a good walk being steeply uphill especially as the 9th is a poor hole, but the views....

That was my point. You put that hike on almost any courses and it is bad design. At Cruden Bay it works because of the reward at the top.

I wonder what people who play it regularly think. The locals I played with were always happy to make the hike, but I think it was partially to show off the view. How do they feel just out playing on a Sunday afternoon? I might skip going up the hill and just walk around to the 11th, 14th or 16th holes.

Cheers,
Dan King

[Crudin Bay] A great personal favorite of mine which I hated to leave out of my Gourmet's Choice; but I couldn't list it as superior to Simpson's Ballybunion. Cruden Bay is more of a "cult" course, thanks to it's huge sandhills, superb views, great and terrible holes, and relative anonymity.
 --Tom Doak (The Confidential Guide to Golf Courses)

Dan

I spose I didn't think the 8 to 9 walk was anything too harsh regardless of what came next.  Plus, this is the only one like it on the course which is really quite remarkable considering the size of the dunes.  I have often thought that the wee course in the middle of the big course has some terrific land.  I reckon it must have been a tough choice to not use this land and instead head over toward 10-12 with #9 being the linker.  In the end, the views must have won the day.

Ciao

[Jon Wiggett]

Sean,

I think that the fear was that players would deliberatly play down the 4th fairway and that they would mistake the 4th for the 12th.

[Mike_Cirba]

While we know better today, apparently some times long walks were added on purpose!

...and, more importantly, they were added by guys like Hugh Wilson, George Crump, Robert Lesley, Ab Smith, and if memory serves, even Tillinghast bought into their fallacious reasoning! 

Here's a bit more discussing the "intention" to add long walks to Cobb's Creek so as to reduce congestion.

This comes from January 1915, after the course was routed, but prior to construction.  It's funny how even the golf writer, "Joe Bunker", buys into this obvious fallacious reasoning. 

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Mike,

I refer to the walk from 17green to 18tee at Cobbs as "Cardiac Hill." I'm all for the installation of an escalator if and when the course gets restored.