Tom Doak Quote & 5th Hole at Riverfront

[Carl Rogers]

Some background: The 5th hole at Riverfront between the 4th hole, an attractive medium length par 3 featured on the RDG web site as one of their best holes (the topic of a previous post) and the par 4, 6th hole that is the no.1 handicap hole on the course that has a severely penal tee shot & a very large complex mountainous well bunkered punchbowl green.

The 5th hole which is a shortish 350 ish or so yarder; straight away for the back tee ….


…. from the middle tee, the hole is about 10 yards shorter and about a 40 degree dog leg left

Tom said on this web site “TD on thread title ‘The most Architecturally Important parts of the Course”
May 25, 2005
….  “At Riverfront in VA, I remember specifically telling Eric Iverson to look at the green sites from twenty yards left of the pole and twenty yards right, and try to make the approach shot really different from those two spots. …”
”.  The approach shot on this hole illustrates the execution of this quote as well as any of the holes at Riverfront.  They all do in reality to a greater or lesser extent.  Future posts on this theme could be the 1st, 9th, 10th,12th ,14th & 15th holes.

At about 150 yards from the middle of green, these series of pictures start from the left edge and move progressively to the right edge of the rough.  The closer you play your tee shot to the fairway bunker the better the approach angle.  The player only tries to cut the dogleg once and then only find out what the hole is about. One very subtle item is the rolling ground movement that slightly contradicts the angle of play.











Another theme at Riverfront is the contradiction of level lie together with poor angle and slightly uneven lie with good angle.  (See the 15th hole at Riverfront)

[From the fairway it is not evident there is not that much fall off to the right.  All of your attention is focused on the big bunker. (See the filled bunker in the forground of the last picture). 
PS:  Sorry forgot how to use photobucket!

[Scott Weersing]

I think this hole plays easier from the blue tee box than the white tee box because it is easier to hit a drive to end up the right side of the fairway. When you play from the white tee box, you have to hit a fade to be on the right side of the fairway and have the better angle to the green. I can't hit a fade but I have tried to hit a tee shot through the tree on the right.

I am like that Doak creates holes that have a preferred side of the fairway. This hole illustrates the risk/reward of going towards the preferred side. I have hit many a drive into the bunker on the right.

The green complex makes this hole interesting because of the large bunker on the left hand side and the deep bunker on the right hand side.

The green is one of the few on the course that is standard in that it slopes from back to front. But it also slopes from left to right. 

[Tom_Doak]

Carl:

Good choice of a hole to illustrate the concept.  That is exactly the place where I had the conversation with Eric.

P.S.  The plantings behind the green are really distracting.  If I were still in my youth, I would've said "hideous" instead of distracting.

[Carl Rogers]

Tom,

The plantings are lining the road.

I make hardly any suggestions to course management.  But one I have made is to instead of using background trees in rows (sort of camouflauging the development), think in terms of a few clusters here and there and not the same specie. 

I am sure it went over like a lead ballon.

[Jeff Doerr]

This is a very intimidating shot to hit from the left. As with all the greens at River Front, some very nice movement. The road trees were not quite as distracting in "green" - more of a blend in stage...