[Chip Gaskins]

What a hole, Creek Club #6 downhill tee shot leaving a mid-iron to a risk reward reverse redan, punchbowl green.  Fantastic!

[Ben Sims]

Chip,

Fantastic pics.  Can you imagine a far right pin location? How did you play the hole? 

[Robert Mercer Deruntz]

The pictures do not show how the middle pins are the toughest on this green.  There are a couple of really good pins in the front part of the green, but a prudent approach usually leaves a very makeable putt.  No matter how good the approach, the middle pins always result in very difficult putts.  The 1998 Met Open featured a front pin and two middle pins.  The cornered and hidden pins was how the course was able to do a pretty good job of defending par.

[Emil Weber]

Does a punchbowl green have drainage issues when it's not built on sandy soil?

Pictures look great, a really cool combination which I saw for the first time.

[Anthony Gray]

  I would love to bounce one in.

  Anthony

[Stephen Britton]

Chip,

You definitely get to play some sweet tracks! 

[Patrick_Mucci]

RMD,

While the green is quite unique, hitting it in regulation is more than a routine challenge.

[Brian_Ewen]

To this Scotsman , thats nae a punchbowl green .

[C. Squier]

Chip, I agree....that is one of my favorite greens that I've played.  Makes you want to play that hole 5 times in a row and then finally move on after all options have been exhausted.  It's also a bit tough to fight the urge to hang out at the beach club for a few hours after you've played the next hole.  Great place to visit.

[Charlie Goerges]

Chip,

Thanks for posting. Your first image is the best one I've ever seen of this hole. Every other one is taken at a high angle which flattens everything. I've always thought the hole looked so-so in photos, but now I get the accolades.

[Garland Bayley]

To this Scotsman , thats nae a punchbowl green .

Kinda like a punchbowl sitting on a hill Brian?

[Chip Gaskins]

I hit 5 iron in and some how hit the best shot of the round.  Flew it 15 feet on left hand side and it released down to the right about 20 feet.  I promptly missed the down hill putt.  It bounced and released even as wet as it was (you can see the water in the fairway) I can only imagine how fun this hole is with firm and fast conditions.

You guys think if a hole was designed like this today we would think it is goofy?

[Matthew Runde]

Just today, I read about this in Thomas' Golf Architecture in America.  Cool to see photos of it.

[Ben Sims]

You guys think if a hole was designed like this today we would think it is goofy?

Well, depends on who you're talking to.  I think most of us on this site would think it retro-cool, a nice combination of features that make the hole the rare fusion of fun to look at and fun to play. The general golfing public, I don't know.  It's the same question that can be asked about Silva's Black Creek, or Renaissance's Old MacDonald.  Both will prove to be successes, and IMHO, Old Mac will be the most fun of the four up there.  I am not sure how many players at The Resort will know who C.B. MacDonald was, or even care.  They will see features like the back of the 11th green, they will see sod-faced, sleeper faced, and free form bunkers and wonder if Mr. Urbina was schizophrenic without knowing the history of those particular hole types.  In the end, it may look weird to those who don't know, to those on this site, we will love it!

I've never seen Black Creek, but I would love to see how the average Chattanoogan reacts the first time they see it.  It's not like grass faced, flat bottomed bunkers bordering geometrically shaped greens is common in the Southeast. Silva's interpretation of classical design could be thought jarring by an unwashed, unfamiliar observer.  Just as this hole at Creek Club could/would be considered if built today.

[Chip Gaskins]

Ben

Here are a few of Black Creek from a few months ago....

A very several Redan with a 3 iron



Punchbowl



I liked both old and new.

[Ian Andrew]

You guys think if a hole was designed like this today we would think it is goofy?

No - I think it would be admired for the audacity - and for how much fun it is to play.

By the way - that is the hole I most wished I had designed - and would have been my choice for Paul Daley's book.

[PThomas]

just one of the MANY great features at The Creek Club!

[Brian_Ewen]

To this Scotsman , thats nae a punchbowl green .

Kinda like a punchbowl sitting on a hill Brian?

I suppose I shouldnt comment on what I see in photos , but surely a punchbowl green should resemble a ...... punchbowl ?

Should a punchbowl green have longer grass on its walls ?

A sunken green doesnt equal a punchbowl to me .

[George_Bahto]

The names that have been attached to this great hole - and to me it is one of the greatest holes they built - .........  These names; punchbowl, reversed Redan; combinations of both names and others were never given to the hole by Macdonald or Raynor.

I don’t think that mattered to them very much at the time.

The holes was called Soundview - obviously because of the view of the Long Island Sound and I think they just saw this “hole” when they viewed the property.

It was a no-brainer to build this hole - steeply downhill te shot to this green

The green is very similar to the original 3rd green at Yale (RIP) except the one at Yale may not have had such a high left shoulder.

I was looking for someplace at Old Macdonald to suggest using some replication of this green complex. I think Tom D may have captured some of it when he and Jim designed the green complex on the 18th - probably a distant cousin of sorts.

You’ll like 18 Old Macdonald.


Some earlier asked about the drainage of the 6th green at Creek: It seems to me they opened up a slot in the lower right wall of the punchbowl years ago to left surface water drain out which really improved the hole a lot. I think there was a long period when the Lower section of the green was not used because of the drainage problems in that area.

My source? Bill Jones, then super at Creek.

Perhaps Tom can chime in on some of this - like, what 6-green was like before Ren-Golf reworked

additionally: CBM made some formal recommendations about the holes at Creek that came up while Tom Paul and I were reasearching their many papers. 

There is no date on the sheet but there were references to the year 1929:

CBM: “cut off bank of bunker short of the green and deepen trap”

I’m not sure if that was done or not but if it was, the bunker face must have been pretty high.

he also suggested placing a Princiapls Nose bunker short of the 3rd green (never saw photos of that)

gb

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