The Demise of a Classic American One Shotter

[Fred Yanni]

I had the pleasure of playing one of my favorite classic courses a few weeks ago, Westchester Country Club's West course.  So one can imagine my excitement when I arrived on the tee on the par 3, 5th hole, one of my favorites on the course.

The 5th hole is a beautiful, give or take 150 yarder, with an ample putting surface surrounded by death.  Everything is right in front of the player.  If you hit a solid 7, 8, 9 or wedge you have a nice opportunity for birdie.  If you miss the green, well good luck making par.  I love one shotters like the 5th at Westchester. 

So we arrive on the tee and I notice my caddy keeps walking.  I yell to him that I don't have a club.  He stops, looks back and says there is a new tee.....   

Here we go.  Off we wander back down the hill off to the left to a few new tee boxes that now, in my opinion, present to the player the ugliest hole on the golf course.  You can't see anything except the top of the pin and a big bunker.  The hole plays 175 to 200+ yards uphill and has no where to run the ball up and no bailout except the front bunker.  The tees we played were 185 yards or so  to a green that was designed for a short iron... 

I can not for the life of me think of a reason why this needed to be done to this hole.   I have seen pros miss this green plenty of times with short irons and the fun begins.  It seems that too many courses have decided that all one shotters need to be 185-210 yards now and do not take into consideration what club the green was designed to accept.  I can't count the number of times I hit the same club on 3 of the 4 par 3s on some courses now - "another hybrid - awesome - thanks for the variety Mr. course designer or golf committee...." 

So after I rant I ask you,

What classic one shotters have you seen destroyed in the never ending quest to lengthen golf holes?


 

[Brent Hutto]

It's the cheapest (in terms of land requirements) place to add some difficulty. Taking that hole from 150-ish to 200-ish uses 50 yards of length in a fairly narrow corridor and adds immensely to the difficulty. Taking a 370ish Par 4 to 420-ish take more land (width) and probably adds only a tiny fraction to its difficulty for good players.

Sounds silly but I suspect something like that line of thought is involved.

[Michael Huber]

A few years back I was playing a course alone, and I eventually caught up with the owner of the course...he and two others were also playing. 

Anyways, we got to the 17th hole, a par 3 of about 222 from the tips.  When we got to the hole, the owner declared "Hey, I'm thinking about moving this tee box back to about 290 yards.  Hell, if the guys at oakmont can do it, why can't I?"

Of course, the hole was fronted by bunkers and was tough enough to land on from 222 (let alone the 170 from the whites, where I played from). 

I suppose its part copy cat syndrom, part machismo, and part something else.