So, I drive out to Southampton Thursday afternoon and tee off at NGLA with some other fellows.
As I play, I'm again reminded how spectacular the golf course is.
Anyone studying architecture should study the green complexes at NGLA, they're simply brilliant.
So, we hit to the 6th green and the lightening siren goes off.
We head to the nearest shelter, which is the maintainance barn.
In there we find Bill Salinetti and his crew, Dave and Mike from Cyrstal Downs, Paul the irrigation consultant and a few other interesting parties and three foursomes.
We examine the schematic of the irrigation system, which is quite impressive.
We discuss golf course architecture and Bill produces a big, mounted 3'X3' 1938 photo of NGLA, Shinnecock and Southampton.
There are other interesting photos of NGLA, some dating to 1911.
We see one from 1911 taken behind the 9th tee, looking up the fairway where the 9th tee has been sodded and there's barely a tree in sight.
Dave calls Tom Doak and says there's someone here who's been talking about you and GCGC. Tom laughs and I may have a new mission. Dave takes a picture of me holding up a sign and promises to send it to Tom with a copy to me.
It's raining like in "Caddyshack" The heavy stuff isn't coming down for a while.
We spend two hours having a great time.
It rains 3 inches.
The next morning the course is great.
How they did it would have been a mystery if Bill hadn't told us about the abundance of dry wells he installs over the winters.
They appear to have been super effective as the playing surfaces are great.
Not once does any mud or debris come on the golf ball and the lies and speed of the greens is terrific.
In our discussion the previous day, we discussed green speeds, the contours, hole locations and the word was that 12.5 is about the maximum the greens can be before vital hole locations are lost. Anything from 10.0 to 12.5 is probably ideal at NGLA.
Some of the hole locations are just frightening, like on # 13, all the way back on a little plateau.
# 15 on the top middle and left, # 11 on the left side plateau, # 7 on the front right.
On each hole there are so many great locations.
The next day we qualify for the tournament, teeing off at 7:40 am.
After lunch, we drive over to Southampton to meet Gene Greco, who through some extraordinary efforts and through a special exemption for those of us playing in the tournament, was able to get us on the golf course.
I had heard mixed reviews on Southampton, most of them..... mediocre.
Although, some had mentioned that a recent project had produced positive results.
That's an understatement.
I get to the course and am joined by two very good golfers, one who's not involved with GCA and another who's very much in tune with GCA and our 4th, an esteemed dentist.
One of the other fellows is from Long Island.
He made some comments about how crazy the people on GCA.com were, including me.
I admit to everything he says, well, almost everything.
As we're waiting to tee off, an elderly gentleman comes over and engages us in conversation.
It turns out that he caddied for Charles Blair Macdonald.
We talk about golf, architecture and other matters before teeing off.
We look at the scorecard, a mere 6,359.
What a pushover this was going to be.
After playing 7,000+ yard golf courses this was going to be a birdie fest.
Boy, were we wrong.
The air in the East End is heavy, laden with moisture off the water, and it's cooler.
With the wet spring, roll is minimal. This golf course played big, well beyond its yardage.
Southampton sits lower than Shinnecock, NGLA and Sebonack and is relatively flat, although, the 4th hole has some elevation and is a really good hole. But, overall, it's a low profile golf course. I think that's what makes me fall in love with the fairway bunkering.
The fairway bunkers aren't deep, but, have three foot berms (approx) fronting them, giving them a ferocious and intimidating look from the tee.
I also love the RANDOM bunker patterns.
One hole in particular, along with # 1 has great fairway bunkering, # 17 can confuse the golfer on their tee shot and their second shot.
It reminds me a lot of the 14th hole at Westhampton, with the random bunker patterns off the tee and on the second shot..
Back to # 1.
The fairway bunkering is deceptive to the eye.
On # 1, the left side fairway bunker turns out to be a diagonal bunker, something that wasn't clearly discernable from the tee.
It makes the bunker more challenging to fly.
The second hole is the short, a wonderful short.
I should mention that all of the greens are huge, offering an incredible variety of hole locations, enabling the holes to play differently every day.
All of the greens have some pretty good movement, either in the form of contour, slope or both.
And the greenside bunkering is great, with many back bunkers, which make the back hole locations so demanding and risky.
# 3 is a neat dogleg over a hill to a "maiden" green.
# 4, a strong, terrific par 4 to a green purched up high, with NO room for error long.
# 5, a neat short, drivable hole with a great center bunker that tempts the player to go for it. But, the dentist wouldn't be tempted, he layed up while the rest of us hit pretty good drives just short of the green.
# 6, a wonderful doglet with fabulous elbow bunkering and a backstop similar to a punchbowl backstop.
# 7, the redan. Flattish tee to green, with disaster left and a huge interesting green.
# 8 was another great hole, long par 4, 444, double plateau green.
# 9, another long par 4 with a great punchbowl green.
Before going further, Southampton has reclaimed a good deal of the lost greens with many of them squared off.
The putting surfaces are huge and unique.
On to the back nine.
# 10 is a neat Eden hole.
# 11 another neat par 4.
# 12, our first par 5. While only 510 it played longer and had neat bunker patterns and a great green with a bunker behind it.
The front right of the green had a feature not disimilar from that of # 13 at Westhampton.
# 13, a neat dogleg that's disorienting off the tee. You don't know how much to bite off.
# 14, a hybrid Biarritz. One of the fellows said you can call it a "Biar" or a "Ritz", but you can't call it a pure Biarritz.
The green and flanking bunkers were neat.
#15, A long par 4 over a rise, not drivable today, into a nice size green.
# 16 A shortish par 4 with a neat punchbowl green.
# 17, a terrific par 5 with great bunkering.
# 18, a semi long, 397 par 4 into the "road hole" like green.
Fairways in nice shape, greens in nice shape.
At speeds a little higher, the greens would be very challenging.
The wind seems to be a material factor and as I indicated, it's a heavy wind that has a significant influence on the ball.
Southampton is the kind of course, that makes you want to go from the 18th green to the first tee.
It's fun, sporty and challenging.
One fellow, who's been in the Hamptons since the 60's, couldn't believe that he'd never played it.
He also thought it was terrific.
I'm told that Brian Silva did the work and it's terrific work.
When combined with the tree removal, the results are impressive.
It's a terrific golf course and I still can't believe it's only 6,359.
It plays significantly bigger.
My one comment would be that I'd change the scorecard to reflect the template hole moniker.
I take that back. My second comment is that they should listen to Gene Greco, he's been playing there for a long time and gets it and he gets what needs to be done to continue improving the course.
It's a wonderful course that unfortunately sits in the shadow of giants.