Huntley Division, #7 Seed, CC of Fairfield, Hole #9, 200 yards
At least six of Seth Raynor’s designs routinely vie for inclusion among the world top one hundred golf courses, making some modern architects sniff that his work garners too much attention/praise. After all, they argue, the man repeated numerous design themes throughout his designs. To them, this is a sign of weakness as perhaps Raynor was running low on original ideas and concepts of his own. Such comments probably are born out of jealousy, primarily at the fact this engineer was afforded the opportunity to work on so many excellent sites. Fairfield is, of course, one such site and indeed, the author looks at Raynor’s appreciation of the Redan as a blessing. Take here at the ninth for instance. Without a preconceived desire for such a right to left falling hole, what architect would have seen that this abrupt hillside presented the perfect opportunity into which to bench a Redan green? Probably not many and one of the world’s three or four great Redans would never have been built. Hepner pronounces the ninth to be ‘as strong a Redan as you will ever find as it features a great angle and no background, plus the most uniquely contoured approach area that I’ve seen.’
