The world's best architect--the world's best firm

[Peter Galea]

Yes, 14 is cool, tee ball especially. I chose the others because of the visibility of the greensite from the landing area.
14 green is a little lower profile, and to me doesn't get really stunning till your walking up to it. Thinking about it now, put it on my list.

[THuckaby2]

Pete, to me Pasa is a little like people describe Sand Hills in that if you ask for favorite holes, you're gonna get many different answers.

That's kind of a description of a great course, huh?

We played a very good one yesterday - Stanford - and it was running very firm and fast... Pasa's gonna make for an interesting comparison indeed.

TH

[Peter Galea]

#4 Pasa and #13 Stanford, "similar" look and values. You think?

[THuckaby2]

Ooh... muy interesante... very good choice there, Pete.

The more I think about it, the more they do have the same shot values and the same look.  You have a cross bunker to some extent, and another one to avoid... Then a 2nd into a well-bunkered, smallish green...

Damn this is thought-provoking.  There are obvious differences - tee shot at 4Pasa must clear a "valley", where the tee shot on 13Stanford is flat.. but block that out of mind, as a solid drive shouldn't have trouble with the valley at Pasa, and these are indeed more similar than one would think at first glance.

This is getting my mind into overdrive.  I may blow a fuse thinking about this before playing Pasa on Monday.  There are more similarities on other holes if you push it....

TH

[Bill_McBride]

Huck and Pete - the last time I played Pasatiempo was maybe 6 years ago, and it had been years since the previous visit.  I hit an okay tee ball on #4 (which was nice after the struggles of #2 and #3), but pulled my second shot to the left.  What an incredible green.....found my ball maybe 2' from the back right pin position, the ball had bounced a little right and then fed all the way back to the pin.  
#14 is the par 5, right?  What a great hole and green complex.  On #16 I missed the green to the right, back pin position, and lag putted from the frog hair.  That is by far the easiest way to par that hole!
Don't get me started on the 11th and 18th green speeds!

[Peter Galea]

Bill, here are some photos I posted about a year ago to jog your memory. Should have some new ones Monday.


Par 5 - 13


Par 4 - 14

[Ben Cowan-Dewar]

Is this different, or is it just me?

[Peter Galea]

Ben, same hole, different angle, different lens.

[Bill_McBride]

Pete, I never can remember where the par 3 fits in that routing (#15 I guess) - good photo of #13 and I love that swale in the left side of #14 fairway, a great and unique feature.

Those photos make me want to book a flight to SFO right away!    Thanks.

[Cory_W.]

How about the firm of myself?  I have designed some great courses in my head.  That probably doesn't count, right?

[TEPaul]

I've never seen Pasatiempo before! I love the look of some of that bunkering though, and the bunkering in the swale on #10 is very unique! The lines on the capes and fingers is nice and see the way none of it has that puffy, upholstered look. Then #14 is just a grassy swale--different than #10.

I can't believe #1 though! What in the world was that design  about originally? Well, if that's the way it was originally, I guess I can answer my own question--it was a par 5! Even that isn't an excuse though! I guess I can sort of see some merit in asking a golfer to gut out how accurately he can hit his longer clubs right out of the box, but other than that what can you say? At 460yds the most sensible thing to do with a hole like that is put it back on the card as a 460yd par 5! That way a golfer could make an eagle or birdie with some guts out of the box or get off in the wrong frame of mind by getting tangled up in two dead straight treelines for a while! If he chose a different opening strategy I guess he could settle for three 7 irons and two putts!

I still stand by my post that Alister was the greatest but even the greatest had his weird moments, I guess! After all, Alister was the guy who was crowing about that great front nine in Michigan until Maxwell set him and his math straight that it was only a great front eight!

[Peter Galea]

Here's a photo of Pasatiempo's 5th green, par 3, ~185 yards, taken from the left side. It is uphill. The bunker shown on the right side is actually left center. The photo was taken today as I galleried a feature GCA foursome.  

[Bill_McBride]

Tom Paul - I don't think there were anywhere near that many trees lining the first fairway and separating it from the 9th when the course was built.  There were a lot less when I first played the course in the early 60's.  Just another case of over-forestation.   Like a lot of courses, early photos show very few trees.  I agree with you, the 1st is best as a get-away par 5, and can play at about 490 very well.  Valley Club of Montecito starts with a very simple, straight dowhill 480 yard par 5, like Pasatiempo finishing with a slippery well bunkered green.   People at the Valley Club tell me they think MacKenzie liked to start players off with an easy par 5 because there wasn't a driving range, but I don't know any other courses where that is the case. Meadow Club in Marin County maybe?

[brad_miller]

Bill, Meadow Club also starts with a simple fine opening par 5, with a wonderful green "restoration" by Mike Dervies. Mike expanded this green back to its oringinal size making 2 putts no longer a sure thing. Also of note is the work done on 17, picture of which can be seem in "Spirit of St Andrews" and "The Links." MC is working to restore 3-4 holes per year, maybe Mike can fill us in on this years work.

This course like Pasa, could really be even better with significant tree removal, but for saftey reasons and amount of play probably not a practical reality.

This raises a question, Why where  MC and pasa routed so tightly? Was it keeping MC within  the valley for which it sits?An  extra 75-125 yards of width between MC 16,6,13,and 15 would really help today. Driving range, clearly not oringinal also hinders 12 and 18. Which calls for another question.

[THuckaby2]

Brad - Meadow Club and Pasa are siblings in many ways, not the least of which being how addition of ranges hurt each golf course, that's for sure!  Good call there and good topic.

Bill - re #1, I agree this hole is in keeping with MacKenzie's written words (short par 5) especially since he sure as heck didn't put that range in.  As distances are today, it's a long par 4 but since the two trees near the green have been removed, it's not a "killer" or anything... Oh, I still think of it as a par 5 no matter what the card says, but given there's not much in the way any more, it is at least doable.  And the point is depending on one's treatment of it, it can be a "welcoming" opener indeed - just do think of it as a par 5!

So that's what I still do, and I made birdie yesterday, no matter what the card says.  

Seriously, the bottom line is that it's pretty downhill - I got it to 170 in, and I don't hit the ball that far at all.  Goodale couldn't have had more than 150.  The college boys playing in front of us must have had wedges.

TH

[Bill_McBride]

Tom, refresh my memory here.  Isn't there a tee up on top of the hill which makes that hole (#1) play more like 490-500 yds? I seem to remember it as pretty much even with the door into the grill room where the photos of opening day are hanging in the hall way.

Those college boys must have been hitting Pro V1s!

[THuckaby2]

Bill - you have it right.  There's a tee pad up on top of what used to be the cart barn, from which it would be 490 or so.  That's no longer in play.  Eliminating that means the blue is where the white used to be, playing at 460.  White moves a pad up, to 440 or so.

And as for ProV1's, well... yesterday was a rare day I didn't play such myself!  They were the ball of choice amongst the GCA stalwarts yesterday, for sure.  I just cheaped out and went for the NXT.

TH

[Dan Kelly]

Pete Galea --

What a fine picture from your day of gallerying! Makes a boy from the Frozen North even more hopeful that spring will someday, somehow arrive. (Where's the picture of the Stalwart Foursome?)

Side note: My eyes are getting to the age when not only does the old Scots gent on your posts look like Ernest Hemingway, but the line underneath him appears to say: "Fat and Sure."

Sounds like either me or my golf game! Or maybe both!

[THuckaby2]

DK - I read that as "far and sure" - but then again, I don't have the world's best monitor here.  I sure as heck know that's what Pete wants it to say!

But "fat and sure" describes me pretty well also.  Pete has some pics from yesterday that ought to confirm that.  Stay tuned - he'll put some more on here soon enough - we're just waiting for permission from all attendees as to putting their likeness on the site... that oughtta give you a hint as to the identity of one of said attendees....

And these past couple weeks have reminded us why we live in CA.  Over 70 for about 15 days in a row.  Yesterday was incredibly beautiful... and no surprise Pete captured that - he's got to be as great as a photographer as he is a human being.  That'll make sense when you see more of his pics, and even more sense if and when you do meet him!

TH

[TEPaul]

What the hell is going on with Pasatiempo's bunkering? It's been restored right?

I love the look of the bunkering in the swale on #10 and the bunkering short of #13 too but some of the greenside bunkering on #13 and most definitely that bunkering on #5 is starting to look just like Fazio/MacDonald's generic restoration bunkering all over the place!!

Just look at how puffy and upholstered looking those capes are on hole #5! Why couldn't they have gotten them to look more like the more interesting much lower profile capes on #10 and #13? Those two look like MacKenzie and the other bunkering is starting to look like Merion, Riviera, Bethpage, Rolling Green's MacDonald's puffy capes.

Is it possible a different operator did work on #5 and the greenside bunkering on #13? They should take at least a foot or more off the top of those capes and make them look more like Mackenzie. They should also put more small random edginess into those greenside bunker edges!

Gotta call a spade a spade here! What kind of documentation or photographs did they use to restore those greenside bunkers anyway?

[THuckaby2]

TEP:

The Esteemed Mr. Goodale made the same comment (for the most part) re the bunkers on 10.

All I can say is one does need to see these in person.  My comparisons go with what I've seen since playing the course beginning in 1981, and old photos... both of which the bunkers today compare to VERY favorably.  To each his own as to whether one "likes" them or not, all I can say is that in general, they are far superior to what they were in the 80's in terms of everything I care about (look, condition, placement) and they track damn well exactly all the old photos I've ever seen.

That being said, Tom Doak himself needs to weigh in on what's been done and why.  I don't even know if 13 has been touched - though to me it sure looks like it has in the last two years... but that might be me seeing things.

The bottom line here is that the bunkering at Pasa REALLY says MacKenzie to me, today more than I've ever seen it.  But other better trained eyes might indeed see it differently.

TH

[Richard_Goodale]

Tom P

My on the ground view of Pasa yesterday confirmed my initial suspicion that at least half of the bunkers put into that swale short left of the 10th green are superfluous.  The hole would have a much cleaner and more interesting look if the 1st 2/3 of that swale were just short grass, a la the 14th.  I also thought that the bunkering on the 5th (and elsewhere) was much better integrated with the look and feel of the rest of the course than at Merion, for example.  Others will disagree, of course.

Overall I found the course to be much better than I remembered it from the 5 or so times I played it in the 80's.  And in terrific playing shape.  Added to the great company, it was a very, very good morning of golf.

[THuckaby2]

Hmmmm... re #10, I just can't bring myself to criticize those bunkers, given what that hole had become with a stupid tree where they are - and I also can't find fault with Doak putting it back to how MacKenzie had it!  Damn I wish you could have seen that picture of #10 from 1929.... maybe Geoff has it somewhere.

The separate question is obviously whether MacKenzie's bunkers are superfluous and what might be better there -  and you guys can go ahead and blaspeme - I'm staying out of that one!    Just please do realize, once again, that the Good Doctor's initial set up has indeed been realized and brought back to life by the Doak group, and it is a huge improvement one way or the other from what was there last year at this time.

As for my traditional rants about Pasa's greens, nothing has changed there.  The back of 11 and about 3/4 of the area of 16 are indeed still unpinnable, as are far too many other parts of these wonderfully contoured greens.  It is a GREAT golf course indeed, but my whining shall continue!

TH

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

MacKenzie's original plan for the 10th green appears to be a single bunker occupying the swale. I'm not sure why, but when the course opened that single bunker had become several bunkers that from a distance seem to simulate a single bunker - perhaps for drainage reasons. In the plan the green was an inverted 'U' the wrapped around the swale creating two very narrrow and distinct lobes. And that is basically how the green was originally constructed. I'm wondering if Doak plans on restoring the green.

[THuckaby2]

Tom Mac:  thanks for confirming my sanity - I knew I saw an old pic of those bunkers as they are today - ie "chopped up."  I did NOT know MacKenzie's plan... Sounds VERY cool in any case and not atypical for Pasa's incredible greens, but they just finished re-doing this green... Obviously we need Tom Doak to settle this, but it was my impression that work on that green is DONE.

TH