Lahinch in Pictures

[Jud_T]

Gorgeous.  But yikes that is some thick-looking long grass!  And we sneer at the long "US Open roughs" at places like Winged Foot, Oakland Hills or Pebble Beach...

I expect that 3.5 hour rounds are expected at Lahinch but does that include every player having to locate one or two lost balls?

You should have seen the rough we played in the week before the Irish Open.....

[Ron Csigo]

Jim -Thanks for the pictures.  What are your thoughts on the Dell hole, hole #5?

[Jim Tang]

Hey Ron -

I loved the Dell hole.  It is a very old school golf hole that probably would get zero consideration today in terms of being built.  The lack of a view of the green makes depth perception on the hole tricky.  You don't really have a reference point and I thought the distance to clear the dunes was shorter than it was.  It just looks closer than the yardage says.  That mistake, and the wind, got me and I ended up short in the dunes.

Would I want a lot of golf shots like that in a round?  No.  But it was a ton of fun to face a golf shot like that, a shot from a different era of golf course design.

[Michael Taylor]

Jim,

But do you think that if that dell hole was created today, that there would be a negative reception to it? Seems to me that a lot of the older courses can get away with a bit of quirk, whereas today (as you said), they probably wouldn't even consider building it.

[Jim Tang]

Michael -

I completely agree with your statement.  Yes, if the dell hole was built today, I think people would scream from the mountain tops.  The quirk you mention seems to be enjoyed, even celebrated, on older courses but if a newer courses has something like that, people flip out.  A big part of the attraction of playing golf in Ireland, for me, was getting to play on courses that have some quirk in them and have design elements that you don't get to see every day here in the states.  It seems a double standard does indeed, exist.

Actually, the dell hole was recreated at Erin Hills, which I played in 2008.  The two holes were remarkably similar.  I could be wrong, but I believe the dell hole at Erin Hills was elmininated during the redesign of the course.