Pebble Beach #14 Hole Locations

[Adam Clayman]

Jim, I'm not advocating anything other than questioning the status quo. If the mindset is, that the right side of the 14th green is unfair...how does one make it fair? Surgery seems like the status quo answer (Tom has become so mainstream) and I don't like that answer. It's disrespectful to the artist and it's a solution that condones the speed race which is ego driven and bad for the sport of golf. Didn't they slow the 18th green at The O club in 98'?

How can it be that slowing the green will make it too easy, and pining it will make it to difficult, or, unfair?

Perhaps one of the reasons I have a hard time with this exact question on pinability is that I was fortunate to make my second attempt, in just such a scenario, to qualify for an event. I'm no pro but I see no reason to ask a pro, every once in awhile, to do something extraordinary. Isn't Shinny 04' germane to this? Michaud asked the pros on 7 to hit shots they just are not faced with anymore. The retaliation was the re-writing of history, leaving people to believe things got out of control. Rather than then one side of the extreme that tests the best golfers on the planet. Just as BB in 09' was extremely soggy.

In Tim Bert's photo you see the ball just off the front of the green? That's where almost every ball comes to rest that is hit to the right side.

[JESII]

Golf becomes ludicrous when a ball putted and missed from 10 or more feet below the hole rolls right back to your feet...it's not about expectations or consistency, it's about a great game becoming stupid.

So, assuming we're not going to promote greens (or even a single green) being prepared like that, the other option for using the right side is to slow the green down to the point that balls will not all roll back to the front edge...in which case, Paul Goydos would have won the tournament this past weekend and every player in this summers US Open will have double the target area to hit the 14th green with their approach shot. That's how it will become too easy, the green will double its effective size because the right side will be fine as well.

I don't care which they do...but you cannot pin it when it's fast and you have to recognize the trade-off when you slow it down.

[Adam Clayman]

Why ludicrous? Especially on this green, where there is a half pipe nature to that right side. The putt is very makable.

Your assumption that the right side is not a target worth considering, I would argue with. The up and down from the front right is not particularly over bearing. I'd even say it's the second easiest place to play from when missing the green. Long being first easiest. And one of the creative ways to get to that easiest spot, just off the back of the green, is to flirt with the right side bunker playing the side slope that will kick your ball left.
Just over this ball only off the back of the green.



Having only the left side pin does not ruin any intent or the quality of the hole.  It does require hitting that proverbial sewer cap on the top left. The terrain is responsible for much of the added difficulty, in executing that high soft wedge, not the small size of the target. Every pro I had in a group treated an area that size as huge and well with in their wheelhouse.

The hole has spirit, idiosyncrasies which require familiarity and an overall great quality to it. Altering it for the whims of the day is short sighted.

 
Isn't there a course in Georgia where balls are constantly rolling back to the players feet after a poor play?

[JESII]

Do you consider it a poor putt when you lip out a 15 footer?


Also...I'm not assuming the right side is not a target worth considering...just pointing out that if you slow the greens enough to put a hole there you will doublt the greens effective size on the days when the pin is up top.

[Kalen Braley]

Adam,

I think you made excellent points in your last post.  Whats wrong with a tough hole thats difficult not so much because of its length, (for the pros at least), but because its well defended around the green.

I've read enough threads on GCA.com in the last 3 years to recognize that defending holes around the greens seems to be the hip and more economical thing to do instead of lengthening the distance to make them tougher.