Easthampton

[Joe Andriole]

Anyone have knowledge of this course, a low pofile Crenshaw&Coore layout on an extremely small parcel of land?

[mike_beene]

On Ben Crenshaws website there are two nice pictures of the bunkering.

[Colin]

I just walked East Hampton this late Sunday night. I played it last summer as well and I can only say great things about it. The front nine is very much a compact sandy, heathy nine. The eight hole is a pure drop shot short hole.
The back nine is more lush, and more meadow-like and vastly open...the soil is heavier, yet it has true seaside breezes very much like a few slightly inland links. 11 can be driven and 12 plays to a massive fairway with a thick two-rail white O.B Fence.  

I also peeked at the new nine at South Fork.

[TEPaul]

I've spent a lot of time at Easthampton G.C. beginning in the final stages of construction and up to last summer.

The first thing to note is that Coore & Crenshaw took on an "inherited routing" on this one! The reason being is the extreme permitting and approval processes in that area. The course was apparently routed long before by a member of the Bistrian family that owned the land for many years and hired Coore & Crenshaw on the spur of the moment as they and their crew were preparing to start at Friar's Head before running into a snag that delayed the start of construction there.

The story goes that Bistrian called Coore & Crenshaw and said this: "We heard you were in the area and we've always wanted to build a golf course, we know virtually nothing about how to do it, our land may not be very good but would you help us?" And Coore and Crenshaw said: "Ahh, sure we will!"

And that's the way they took on the project. Bill Coore says #6 and #11 are his favorite holes there. #8 is a hole that Ben Crenshaw did not think could be done in it's present position but Coore and "The Boys" convinced him otherwise. The green has some really unique internal contours to approach and putt! #9 is a unique little hole crammed into a corner of the property and has a green orientation and shape that makes an "other" a very common number to shoot. #10 is a good wind hole and approach shot where the ground game back nine starts.

Out of interest the approaches to many of the greens were "reamed out" and sand based for up to 40-50yds to insure the ground game approaches. #15 actually has an alternate fairway that Ben decided not to use (that has irrigation lines under it)! The bunkering on the left in the mounds in the drive zone on this hole is some of the best natural bunkerwork you can find--it's definitely worthy of a photograph as is the bunkering to the left of #11.

As redanman mentioned #12 is a most unique design that will sadly have to be changed somewhat!

#16 is a nice hole whose strategy is to hit as much off the tee as you need to gain visibility on the green. The green has one helluva interesting contour in the center of it.

#17 just might be the best psychological (par related) quandry "go/no go" short par 5s I've ever seen! At first I thought this hole was a long par 4 and that the green size and shape was ridiculous and out of scale. But as a par 5 it's brilliant. I'd heard Coore & Crenshaw might have been looking to do a concept that put real psychological pressure on a good golfer as to what to do on the second shot and they appear to have pulled it off brilliantly on this hole!

I never really like #18 much and I'm not sure why. It's hard enough but something about it never suited my eye or taste. I need to go back and look at it again. Frankly, it's probably a very good hole for either match or stroke play!

The fairways are fescue and carts should never be used on them and won't be. I admire Coore & Crenshaw for taking this project. Inherently the routing has problems that they could never do anything to fix.

Jim Craig was apparently the project manager on this one and Geo. Tiska, the super who is now at "The Bridge" was the grow-in man!

[Mike O'Neill]

Tom P,

You have mentioned that idea of removing soil and adding sand so many times now, that I am almost ready to believe you, except that we didn't do anything like that when I worked on the front nine. And I asked someone who worked there on the back nine and got the same answer. Did you witness something that you can describe to me along the lines of replacing the approaches?

Redanman,

Interesting that they have to plant trees on the back nine. When I first arrived to work there, I heard the lament that the two nines seemed like very different golf courses. My reply was to suggest they plant trees out of play in several areas on the back nine and in ten years that lament would disappear. As you describe it, I can't imagine room for 2 million trees, but I can imagine room for a few hundred and that could work in my opinion. By the way, I was never bothered by the difference between the two nines. It was not my lament. But it did bother some people.

[TEPaul]

Mike ON:

Yes, I can tell you why I said that. The first time I walked the property Geo. Tiska appeared after a while in his cart and took me around some of the back nine. The course was growning in but there were some very noticeable patches or strips running well out of the approaches from the greens on that nine that were much different looking and as I recall had not "grown in" yet at all.

I asked Geo. Tiska what that was and why they looked different like that and that's what he told me--that it was to insure the functionality of the ground game approaches to some of the greens. I don't know enough about architecture, or sure didn't then to think of something like that on my own. Something like that would never have occured to me then.

I have no idea who would have done it either. When he took me around C&C were out of there though and down in South Carolina.

[Anthony Pioppi]

     Brad Klein and I played this course last week and while we enjoyed many of the holes, we were not blown away. Too many of the drives are no-brainers, just hit it in the short grass. There are few in any bunkers to carry off the tee, thus little thought required. While the 12th may look great, it did not appear to be as wonderful as has been made out to appear in other posts. The imposing out out bounds down the entire right side forces smart players left. We played the hole downwind and I was nowhere near the fairway bunkers from the back tees (409 yards), nor was anyone else.
      We also found some of the greens too severe. I believe it is the par-3, 5th hole that has two levels. (My mind is a little foggy. We played 50 holes in about 24 hours on 3 courses.) When we played the 209-yard uphill hole, a gusting wind was in our face. I hit 3-wood and Brad driver with pin on the lower level. Brad's solid drive stopped just off the back. We were told that in the summer greenspeeds are so fast, very few balls on the top level can be putted so as to stay on the front level and that he would have no chance with his chip. Those that do roll off the putting surface, can go another 30 yards down the fairway.
      We also had a problem with the dogleg-right, 509-yard 17th. We played into the wind and I hit a good drive onto the middle right of the fairway. My second shot was blocked out by a tree on the inside of the turn leaiving me either a 6-iron over, or a rip slice around, the tree. I went over and was left with another 6-iron.
      There is some good topogrophy out there and the majority of the greens are wonderful. It was also great to play off of fescue fairways. Let's hope the incoming membership allows the superintendent to keep the place firm and dry.
      All in all, however, I'd take Silva's Red Tail over Easthampton without question.
      

[TEPaul]

Greens that are too severe at Easthampton? No way, you should come down here sometime! It was always my understanding that the architects told the club there was a speed that should not be exceeded and they should not try to increase green speeds!

[Anthony Pioppi]

     Everything on 8 rolls from left to right and it is a very small green. We hit 8s and 9s and nobody hit the green. Heard a story about some Hollywood type landing his shot on the far left left side of the green and it rolling 35 feet into the hole that was far right. Our pin was middle back.
      Remind me of the sixth hole. Man, am I losing my memory.      

      TE, not sure where your getting your information, but green speeds were high last year and will probably be that way again. You think those members are going to drop that kind of $$$ to join and then have the slowest greens around, even if it makes sense and fits into the architectural style?

[Rosie]

Guest,

You don't have to hit it straight to be loved.

[Joe Andriole]

THANKS TO ALL FOR THE GOOD INFORMATION AND FOR NOT MENTIONING THE OBVIOUS SPELLING ERROR

[TEPaul]

AnthonyP:

No, of course I don't expect those bigtimers to listen to the architects and keep their green speeds reasonable for the contours of Easthampton's greens--I'm just mentioning what the architects advised the club to do. But why would bigtimers ever think to listen to the architects when they can 3-4 and 5 putt and blame it on the architects for building greens that are too severe for green speeds they were not designed for? The only thing that matters architecturally is that their stimpmeter reading is the highest in town!

#6 Easthampton? A fairly long par 4 immediately following the long par 3 that you remarked on and going in the same direction with a green with a very steep decline to the rear of it. It didn't do all that much for me and I have no idea why Coore said it was his favorite--he just did and I never asked why.

[Brad Klein]

Well, thanks to Tony for dragging me into this.

Mr. Guest (or is it Mrs?), I detect mean-spiritedness on your part, but I'd be very happy to play you at my index of 14.1.

A few things. I'm reviewing this course in detail in the May 25 Golfweek Preferred, so I'll save the details for there. It's a lovely layout, old-fashioned and with a great, walkable routing. Lots of beautiful looks, with a PIne Valley feel on the front and a heathlands or open links (Muirfield) on the back, all at about 7/8ths scale.

I can understand why someone would build a 6,400-yard course these days, esp. on an inherited routing that took 25 years to permit. But why a par-72? Esp. when the real yardage is 6,300 no matter what the scorecard says.

The green contours in places are way too severe for modern agronomics - and , more importantly, Tom Paul, modern bentgrasses. Telling a membership or club these days to keep their green speeds at 8 (ideal contours speed for EHGC) is like telling parents not to let their kids prepare for SAT exams.

Crenshaw and Coore eyeball their greens when they build them, I suspect. They don't laser them. That gives them more latitude to work and create interesting contours. I suspect, but don't know, that those greens are soil push ups, not USGA specs. Good for them. But even if I'm wrong about the contruction technique (I'll find out tom'w) they should not be creating the kinds of slopes on small greens that make a front to back putt on no. 5 unstoppable, or that make it impossible to hold the slope on 8. (Tom, the pin was back right, there, and contrray to Tony's account I did hit it to the green with a 9-iron, about 15 ft. to the right, and missed the putt. But I had an easy putt. Anything from the left is racing there.

There were many other green contours that were on the verge of out of control - and this in April, on a cool day follwif rain. I don't fault the maintenance, I question building greens that will work best at 8 and that are out of control at 10. All is not disaster. These slopes can be easily softened, and should be.

I also disagree with Tom Paul about no. 17. I thought it a very strange dogleg par-5. Yeah, there's a speed slot down the left side for scratch golfers. But for average players or anyone who is in the center or the right side of the fairway, there is no shot option for a second shot except some kind of cut like hell middle iron. That's not strategy, and the best way to judge strategy on a par-5 is to evaluate the second shot options.

I fear this post will be misread as some sort of attack on Crenshaw and Coore. Nothing could be further from the truth. I admire their work, have played four of their courses and walked another one in its early stages with Coore, wrote the first rave national review of Sand Hills (in "Links Magazine" in 1995) and think they are doing wonderful stuff. But they're not above criticism and tweaking. No one is, least of all on this Web site.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Brad Klein,

I thought I heard anguished scream.

Could someone dial 911 and give them TEPaul's address, just to make sure he's okay  

[Anthony Pioppi]

     First, I want to apologize to Brad for saying he missed the eighth green. He did in fact make an easy par on the way to a 41 on the front side.
      Guest, the cheapshots are not needed. My point about the tee shots is that many are point and shoot rather than creating indecision or offering options. My point about the 50 holes is that I am lousy at recalling courses hole by hole. My drive on the 17 was a B maybe B+ considering we were hitting into a pretty stiff wind (I'm an 8 by the way) and my ball was about 12 yards inside the right rough line and the longest of our threesome.
      If you have any more shots you want to take at Brad or me, just e mail me and save the rest of the discussion group from having to read them.

      

[TEPaul]

Brad:

I don't disagree with a lot of what you say about Easthampton at all and I like the tweaking from Pat about calling 911!

I do not agree though about the green contours of Easthampton. If anything I've wanted to see Coore and Crenshaw take some real chances in architecture because I think they have the sophistication to do it! The line is that Ben may actually be a bit more conservative than Bill is.

As for the green sizes and contours and the speeds of them I don't agree at all. 8 on the stimp is way too slow and those green could stimp to 9.5 or 10 and would not go over the top at those speeds but would only become "greens within a green"! Not much different than the size and speed of NGLA #1! To be able to reasonably two putt on that green from any area would definitely take an 8 or less but somehow it can do OK at 11 because it becomes a most strategic "greens within a green"! Same with Easthampton!

I hope I only said the fairways were fescue. As for my feeling about Easthampton generally, again, I admire them for taking the project the way they did. Easthampton is not a great course--it really doesn't have the capacity or ability to be. It was an inherited routing and they did what they could. They weren't trying to hit a homerun at Easthampton as some people think architects should or try to every single time. They only say they did what they could and I do think the architectural feel and detail is really excellent. I love your opinion of it being 7/8 scale--that's a neat observation and likely very true!

But as for the holes and do I think they're all wonderful--not really, certainly not all of them, in my opinion. #1, not very good, bad position on the propery but not much anyone could have done about that. #2 is a good par 3 and is deceptive distance-wise but visually wrecked by the radio tower backdrop. #3 is a good looking fun short hole! #4 really does start to look like Pine Valley and some great bunkering particularly the huge thing down near the green on the right. #5 is a good hard long par 3 with a tough green. #6, apparently Bill Coore's favorite lost me--I don't really see why he said that. #7 has one of the more deceptive drives visually to actually but I really don't buy that blind depression on the left on the second. #8 is a hole that from a designer's perspective was just an obstacle to overcome. Ben didn't see how to do it but I think they succeeded! A downhill par 3 of 130 yds with a tough "greens within a green" is OK with me even if it is small. #9 is a blind odd drive with no ability on the golfer's part to get his tee shot into a position to play his approach into the length-wise gut of the green, but removing trees on the left to do that obviously wasn't something they were allowed to do. Too bad but even the way that hole is conceptually is pretty cool. It's just jammed into a difficult corner of the property though right up against the road--inherited routing again.

#10 is a good long par 4 hole with a very strategic "right corner" and bunkering and a great into the prevailing wind ground game option approach shot. #11 is a little jewel. I love holes like that that pull your aim at the most agressive line! The green is wonderful. #12 is a hole that is basically such an unusual "look" to be sort of special to me. How well the hole  actually works as to the functionality or use of the right side drive option and exactly what the strategy of the hole means in relation to either right or  left drive option vis-a-vis the meaning of the approach to the green is probably somewhat debatable!

#13 is a very good par 3 with a very deceptive right side set-up with the bunkering. #14 should be a good "into the wind" par 5 but I can't see why they didn't do the alternate right fairway particularly if they tweaked up the difficulty of getting to the left one successfully somehow. The blinded approach to the right side of the green from certain fairway angles is good! #14 seems to be a pretty good par 3. #15 is a very good distance strategy drive option hole to risk gaining visibility. The green is a gutsy move on their part with the dramatic contour in the center.

You're right about the tee shot on #17! You have to hit a good tee shot to get into positon for the meat of the hole--which is what to do with you second shot! If you don't hit it far enough you have a big problem and a one dimensional weird second to get yourself back into some kind of position to have a reasonable approach for a third shot to a very narrow raised green.

I don't see what the problem with that is. If you generally can't hit it long enough off the tee the strategy would be to play the tee shot a bit wide to the left to gain yourself some room and angle to hit a more direct but longer second instead of having to hit a slice if you drive it too short and too close to the corner.

Brad, I'm real short off the tee but even I had a direct look at the green off a good drive for me from the tips. But I was out there a ways with a long iron into a raised narrow little green and wasn't sure what to do which is exactly the way C&C wanted me to feel. So I layed up, but others who can hit  irons much farther than me from the same basic position might have gone for it.

If I detect what I might feel is one inherent criticism about Coore and Crenshaw is that Bill (who is generally the router) tends to route around right angles sometimes as he did on this hole!

There was one iteration at Ardrossan Farm that way where if a player didn't hit a drive long enough he had a very odd and cumbersome little shot to get back into positon for his next shot approach and this one at Ardrossan was a par 4 to boot!!

But becuase #17 Easthampton is a par 5 the tee shot and second shot if you miss your drive makes far more sense to me. Sometimes I like the way good architects tend to break the expected rules and make one shot--or a bad shot connect to the next shot in the form of basically limited options just to get back into positon for the next shot.

Think how many times that's true at Pine Valley for missed or semi-missed shots! #1, #2, #7, #13, #18!! I have no problem with that at all--I think it's good tough meaningful architecture. I think the idea of having a ballsy "get out of a bad shot" recovery shot after each and every misplayed shot is a completely overblown philosophic architectural prinicple!

And as I said previously #18 just didn't grab me but it looks pretty hard--for what that's worth!

I have no problem with criticizing Coore and Crenshaw where I see it, as Pat thinks I do. I have no problem praising Tom Fazio where I think he deserves it either like a few of the hole at Galloway!

[Mike O'Neill]

Guys, you cannot play 17 down the right side unless you can hit a slice second shot. Anthony, 12 yards inside the right rough line won't work well. Just because they cut the grass shorter there doesn't mean that is a good place to be. On the other hand, 17 is a three-shotter unless there is a big tailwind, which there will be on occasion during summer days. As such, if you cannot get to the green in two anyway, play the ball middle or left and set up your third shot into the green from there. That is the strategy on that hole unless you can hit the ball really long off the tee. Maybe a B or B+ won't do it. You might need an A or A+ drive.

It sounds like the greens are too fast. But remember, just like at say a course like Winged Foot, much of the golf game at East Hampton is in and around the greens. The members will learn which side of the green to be on.

Also, which tee were you playing on #5? Was there something a little shorter to balance out the force of the wind? I don't remember the actual distances because when I worked there, the distances had not been determined. However, given the shortness of the course, is it all that unfair to have a hole of the difficulty of #5? I would hope that they are mowing the green approach a little longer so that one can err on the side of being short rather than long and still hold the hill side.

If you think that #5 is difficult, wait until you see #10 at Austin Golf Club. 260 yards from the back, 230 yards of carry from the backs to make the approach, death long or right. I will be playing from the front end of the middle tee if I ever get the chance to play that hole.

[TEPaul]

Mike O'N:

What do you mean about #17? The hole is no longer than 485 from what I saw of the hole and it's yardage and talking to Coore about the concept of the hole it certainly is within reach in two for a good player with decent length.

According to Coore the entire point of the concept of the hole is that a good player is well within reach of the hole distance-wise but when he sees the narrowness of the green, the fact that it's raised and the fact of the steepness around it if he gets the ball to it but misses it side to side he has a bigger problem than if he layed up short of it but inline with it.

The whole point of that hole is that a good player is well within reach of it for the second shot but psychologically he's in a quandry of whether to try or not although hitting it that far is no real problem for him. And the fact that it's a par 5 and he's within reach of it is both tempting and frustrating! It's the perfect quandry "go/no go short par 5--a real rare concept indeed for a good player.

For the rest of the golfers it's a 3 shot hole where the strategy is to get as close and into the best angle as possible to the green for the 3rd shot approach--that's very important for the other levels.

[Mike O'Neill]

Tom,

I don't understand your question for me unless you simply answered it with your last post. As I (and you) said, the hole is a three-shotter for the average player (unless there is a big tailwind) and a two-shotter for someone with length.

By the way, one way to look at the hole is to compare it to #13 at Augusta. If you try to play down the left side of #13 but do not hit it long enough to get past the trees, you cannot go for the green in two. Same concept.

[TEPaul]

Mike O'N:

Maybe I misunderstood you but I too feel #17 Easthampton is much like ANGC's #13 but with a wrinkle. Both are clearly designed as very good high quandry "go/no go" holes for good players! Obviously, for the rest who really can't hit two shots 485 yds it's a 3 shotter like ANGC's #13.

But my understanding of what C&C were trying to do conceptually there is not just present the good golfer with a second shot of aerial length that basically only has to clear something like Rae's Creek to a fairly generous green but to give him something that requires a real high degree of accuracy even more than length to be tried and accomplished successfully. It's definitely an interesting wrinkle on the "go/no go" quandry concept.

Someone who really should know told me a while ago that C&C were looking to do a short par 5 somewhere that would basically appear to negate a good player from going at a short par 5 but would actually tempt them to do it anyway in some cases!

It's a hard concept to do successfully as the balance of decision making is a very delicate one in the mind of a good golfer. And their point was to use "par psychology" to really make the decision confusing to a good player. In other words, #17 Easthampton would be perceived entirely differently if it was exactly the same and a par 4 vs a par 5 (originally I thought it was a par 4 and it looked dumb and over the top as such to me). When I found out later it was a par 5 the whole thing made perfect sense.

Varying degrees of temptation is the name of the game on this hole but as the hole is designed it's a tricky one to pull of successfully but the fact it's a par 5 has eveything to do with that psychologically.

The success of the hole and its concept would be this to me. If it made some good golfers play it cautiously for fear of making a mistake in accuracy (not just distance) and paying a big price and it also made the rest of the other good golfers sort of throw caution to the wind and go at in because it tempted them or even frustrated them. And for those that did go at it in two the quality of the hole and the concept would be in the cumulative results of my scoring spectrum barometer. There would be birdies and eagles for the excellent shots (the green is so narrow) and there would be plenty of bogies and maybe even "olthers" for those who missed its slim margin for error in a second shot attempt!

If those things happen it would be a good and successful hole and concept, in my opinion. But the good golfers will have to be tempted to go enough or it won't be a successful hole and concept.

I'm interested in this concept very much because of our #7 hole which Perry Maxwell redesign having just come from ANGC. It's a conceptual copy of ANGC #13 but Maxwell made a mistake on the green-end. The green was far too small to hit in two and missing marginally put the good player in the quarry. So the "go" option never functioned well--it never tempted successfully and the hole began to devolve slowly into a one dimensional short "go/no go" par 5 where the risky option was not used.

For options to be good, even high risk ones, they have to be used and if they are they should create a wide score spectrum!! And the conservative option should have something to it too on the third shot! If you have those things, utililzed that way, with those cumulative results you have an interesting and good hole, in my opinion. And I hope that will be the future for #17 Easthampton!

[Ken Bakst]

I have been out to Easthampton many times and perhaps that explains why I see things out there that Brad and Anthony apparently didn’t see while they were fitting it into their 50 holes on 3 courses in 24 hours.     Or perhaps I’m just seeing things that aren’t there (this wouldn’t be the first time)!  Now I am, of course, a huge C&C fan, but please don’t think that I’m just defending them blindly because I don’t believe that anybody in any profession is above reproach.  So please try to read what I am about to say without immediately thinking: “Oh, he’s just biased.”

Before moving on to the subjective issues, however, I have to correct Brad on some of his facts.  First, Easthampton GC is not a par 72 – it is a par 71 with  5 3’s (2,5,8,13,15) and 4 5’s (1,7,14,17).  Second, C&C do not eyeball their greens without the use of a laser.  And I know for a fact that the greens at Easthampton were lasered because I saw it being done there with my own eyes.

With respect to the architecture, you should all keep in mind that C&C inherited the routing (as has already been said), and the front nine (where there were constraints on tree clearing) sits on just over 40 acres.  So given the site constraints, Easthampton was never intended to be anything other than what it is.  A great little gem that is incredibly fun to play that has a ton of subtle influences that might only be revealed with repeated visits.  Sounds like a pretty good members course to me!

With respect to the green speeds, I agree completely with Tom Paul.  The ideal green speed is not 8, but more like 9.5-10 (just like Winged Foot).  If they are running them at super fast speeds, then that would be a maintenance/course set-up mistake, not an architectural one.  To say that the ideal speed is 8 because anything left on 8 or long on 5, citing just 2 examples, is dead is not valid in my opinion.  The 8th green wouldn’t work on the long 5th, but it is an incredible green on a great short 130 yard hole that plays even shorter because of the 30-40 foot drop from tee to green.  You just have to hit it short and right of the hole and not get suckered by the left hand pins (particularly the back left shelf like I did).  And Brad, you seemed to have gotten it right if you were able to fine an easy 15 footer for birdie.  This green is very similar architecturally, in mirror image form, to the 6th green at Augusta, albeit at ¾ scale.  And what is wrong with a green like the 5th where you have a difficult, if not impossible, 2 putt if you hit it long (particularly with a two-tiered green with the pin down in front).  The play was to make sure you were short, not long, but you obviously weren’t able to figure that out on your first go around if you were hitting driver, even into a strong wind.  At 209 to the middle, you only needed to hit it a 190-195 yards, so your driver into the wind was obviously way too much club!

Now I am completely baffled by Anthony’s statement that “too many drivers are no-brainers, just hit it in the short grass.”  Nothing could be further from the truth and I could show you so many places on this golf course that you wouldn’t want to be in the short grass it’s not even funny.  Anthony’s experience with the 17th hole tee shot is just one of many such examples.  A long ball hitter can try to cut the corner to shorten the shot and get a great look into the green from a plateau, but blocking it right could be disastrous and pulling it left will leave you with a longer and completely blind second shot.  The shorter hitter must keep the ball up the left side of the fairway to open up the second shot, so Anthony’s shorter tee shot up the right side was NOT a good tee shot.  But even then, he still had the OPTION of cutting a long iron or fairway wood around the corner or laying up with a 6 iron over the trees.  Perhaps the yardage on the card induced them to play from the wrong tees.    And I’m in complete agreement with Tom Paul’s description of the second shot on this hole.  So what am I missing?  Spectacular looking golf hole?  No.  Great fun strategic golf hole?  Absolutely!

Furthermore, I completely disagree with the “no options on the tee shots” comment.  But rather than me telling you all what I think the options are on every hole, perhaps Anthony could describe for us in detail why he thinks there are no options on the tee shots on almost every hole.  There are some great options out there, but perhaps once again it takes repeated visits to really appreciate them.  And I must be stupid because I’m obviously not one of those “smart” players who is forced left by the imposing out of bounds on the 12th hole.    Now we are discussing a hole that is being changed as described above, but I think it can still be useful to discuss it’s architectural merits anyway.  That green sets up much better from the right and if you accept the challenge of the right side, you are rewardly beautifully with a second shot angle down the spine of the green away from the OB/wall.  The further left you go, the more difficult the approach shot becomes (although left isn’t so bad with pins in the front 1/3 of the green or into a right to left/quartering wind).  So, in my opinion, you just have to either hit it left to right and skirt the left side of the central bunkers, or attack the right side and avoid the OB (why does this concept not work here when it works so beautifully at Merion?).  And I can’t figure how the central bunkers don’t come into play, particularly downwind.  Perhaps they were once again fooled into playing the wrong tees by the overall yardage on the card?  And even if those bunkers don’t come into play for the shorter hitters, what’s wrong with that (if you fixed that by adding more central bunkers back towards the tee, then you would eliminate the OPTION of laying up short of them)?

I have always thought that Easthampton would appeal to anybody that understands and appreciates great architecture, and not necessarily to someone that is going out with the expectation of seeing another Sand Hills because it was done by the same architects.  So I am somewhat surprised by Brad’s and Anthony’s opinions.  They may be right, but then, again, this could just be a circumstance where they might just come around to my way of thinking after they have seen/played it a few more times.    So Brad, perhaps you should come out again and study on this one for a while longer before you go writing something that you just might regret later!  

And Patrick, I don’t think you have yet seen or played this one, so stay out of this!  

[TEPaul]

This is a really excellent post by Ken Bakst about the various ramifications of "strategy" generally and what any golfer both should and should not expect certain aspects of it to be.

Some of us appear to be getting a bit too definite and doctrinarie about the overall subject of "strategy", what it should and shouldn't be and how various architects create and design it. After a while this filters into our overall analysis of architecture and golf courses generally.

Coore, who I probably know the best, at least in this particular context, seems to have a different take on it then some of us appear to.

It's hard at the moment to define how and why he does or what that might be exactly but I've always noticed a difference with him or an apparently different outlook than most of us have.

This is not to say that he might miss things that we might see---not at all--that's definitely not so. Frankly, he seems to see things most of us don't--different things!

But his outlook on "strategies" and how they might get presented in concept, design and architecture seems to me to be much more free-floating or free-flowing than with many of us. He seems to have the attitude that "strategies" just might be more what any particular golfer might want to make of them! But that of course does not in any way indicate that they don't have "meaning" because of that fact!

I know that because I've seen him both test and talk about various nuancy "strategies" during construction that I, for one, may never have noticed!

I'll try to define what I mean better later but when talking about the quality of golf courses and their architecture, one word seems to crop up a lot with Bill Coore--and that word is "different".

Or put another way, Coore, in my opinion, would be the least likely architect anywhere who would ever get into writing one of those little booklets for golfers explaining to them exactly how to play one of his golf courses.

[TEPaul]

Brad Klein and Anthony Pioppi:

("50 holes on three courses in 24 hours")?

Are you two guys golf architectural analysts and course raters or are you analysts of Nascar tracks?

Anthony, you asked me what #6 Easthampton looked like and you said you don't recall holes that well! Well, no wonder! Your eyes probably can't work all that well at that speed!!

Why don't you two guys slow down and smell the fescue? Who knows, there just might be something out there on those courses you mighta missed!!!

[TEPaul]

redanman:

I noticed that you said perhaps C.B MacDonald might have been right when he said you have to play a course over and over again in all kinds of conditions to be able to analyze it correctly!

Well, perhaps C.B. was right about that but I'm here to inform you that just because Pat Mucci agrees with C.B. on that does not make Pat Mucci right too!

Matter of fact, it should henceforth be automatically assumed that Pat Mucci is wrong about anything and eveything he says unless and until he can prove himself otherwise---a likelihood that's probably as common as a cold day in Hell!

[Brad Klein]

Yes, of course it's a par-71. My mistake. I'm curious if they inherited the entire routing in terms of exact positions for every tee-fairway-greens sequence, or if they had a little latitude.

By the way, when we played, it was about 45 degrees and windy - the 5th hole played into a 20 mph, and as 3-wood was not enough for two who hit first my driver was not the wrong club on a shot where there is no run up and the ball has to be carried all the way. My ball landed half way and ran to the back apron.

I must say that there is an edginess to some of these recent responses that does not exactly contribute to a constructive dialogue. It's fine to disagree, but to take cheap personal shots simply undermines the quality of discussion and gives rise to a concern (which I have heard voiced by others) that there is an aggressive tone here whereby certain living architects are treated as beyond reproach. I'm not sure whay there can't be a modest tone here, even - or especially - in disagreement.