WOW!!! Pine Valley...

[Patrick_Mucci]

Archie,

You mean, original modified green on left, don't you ? 

[James Bennett]

Ed

great to see you about, and your words ring so true to a fellow one-time visitor.

I recall the 2nd hole as a 'flyover green' - it was as if the green was set on a highway flyover.

very accurate description of the 3rd hole - it will chew you up and spit you out if you try to be too cute.  Sometimes you just have to accept you cant get a ball next to the pin.

James B

[ed_getka]

 

Ed also clearly loves #8.....one of the best short par fours on the planet.  ( original green ...left)

Archie,
   I assumed the left green was the original, it just sits there so well. When was the right green added? The R green seems to have quite a bit more pitch back to front, but doesn't look quite as interesting with its internal movement. Which green do you find more interesting?

[ed_getka]

Ed - Really great write up and thank for posting your observations.

The course is absolutely more visually intimidating that just plain penalizing, IMO. The movement in the fairways and the complexity of the greens will all test your short game like no other course I've been on.

Dan,
    I am interested in your comment about the complexity of the greens that will test the short game. Can you give a couple of examples? Being a 10 handicap I miss plenty of greens and have to rely on my short game to save par quite a bit. I pay quite a bit of attention to the short game requirements of a course because of this. Are there micromovements in the greens that are hard to discern if you haven't played the course before? Thanks.

[ed_getka]

Ed,

The prevailing wind is usually right to left and downwind on #7.

The addition of the new back tees on that hole have made it more difficult.  on the tee shot, it's the second narrowest fairway on the course and with the added length, you almost always have to hit driver from the back tees in order to reach the second fairway in two shots.  

   That is interesting about the wind. That makes #6 a bit more interesting off the tee then to decide the line I assume.

[ed_getka]

Ed - your post on #7 has the line - "on the tee shot, it's the second narrowest fairway on the course." Part of that is the new tee on #9. I have been to the Crump a number of times, and a few years ago I noticed a few new tees. The new tee on #9 was basically placed back almost in the fairway on #7. Thus the narrow driving area. The new tees on holes like 4, 7, 9, 13, and 18 added a lot of yardage. I mentioned the new tees to one of the marshalls and he said that the new tee on 18 was a big difference. Instead of mid-irons many players are coming into that green with a 3 wood. He thought there were a number of shots ending up in the parking lot due to that. I am enjoying your posts. I have always thought that a good player, playing well, could shoot a really low number there. I saw one of the seniors a few years ago make about 7 or 8 birdies in one round. He missed the 2nd fairway to the right and made a 7 or 8, but probably played the rest of the round in 6 under. That was a year that the weather was bad and they had to play stroke play instead of match play. I think one of the marks of a great course is that you can shoot a low number if you play well, and you can do it there.

  Tom,
     Thanks for the additional information about the new tees. I'm not sure what you are quoting from me. I absolutely agree with your assessment that a great course will yield a low round if you play really well. If not, then the course would just be a torture test.

[ed_getka]

Ed,

Add me to the list of people really enjoying your posts.

I especially loved your comment on the 3rd hole..."Having said all that there really isn't much reason to get worse than bogey unless you don't have a sand game."...as I made a pair of 5's last week...believe it or not, I also had a pair of 12 footers for birdie on #5!!! Golf???

   Jim,
     That is very interesting about the pair of 5's on #3. Where did you play your second shot from to make double bogey? I presume you were trying to save par. Do you think if you were willing to settle for bogey that you would have made 4 instead, or was your second shot so difficult that 5 was the most likely outcome? I know you are an excellent golfer from posts here over the years, so it is hard for me to imagine you making a 5 on #3 unless you were being too aggressive.

[ed_getka]

I recall the 2nd hole as a 'flyover green' - it was as if the green was set on a highway flyover.

very accurate description of the 3rd hole - it will chew you up and spit you out if you try to be too cute.  Sometimes you just have to accept you cant get a ball next to the pin.

James,
    I was expecting to see a lot more greens like #2 and #18 from what I had imagined from what I've read over the years, but there is such a nice variety of greens and green settings at PV that are constantly giving you different looks and different kinds of shots to consider.

[ed_getka]

#9 par4 422 yards
    Any hole would be a bit of a let down after one as cool as #8, but #9 keeps asking you to play some solid golf. A bit longer carry off this tee (180?) but to a pretty generous fairway, most of which you can't see of course. I had no idea there were back to back holes with alternate greens at PV. I knew there was at least one hole like that. I am assuming that the left green is also the original on #9 as it looks to tie into the hole better from my point of view. The right green is rather narrow and the back right third of the green seems unpinnable, so I am not quite sure what the point of the green is. Nice longish par 4 playing fairly straightaway into a L green with some nice slopes on the right, a central "muffin" to make most putts interesting, and a back shelf that must make a back right pin a bear to get to with the 6' deep bunker looming to the right.
    Leaving the course on my second loop when they closed the course down to the public I started to head out the back of the green to go down to #18 fairway and head in. As I traversed the slope heading toward the clubhouse I found some stairs that the members obviously use when they decide to call it a day at the 9th hole. A nice little shortcut home.

[ed_getka]

#10 par3 142yds
    What can I say about this famous little hole that hasn't been said before? Missing this green on ANY side is the polar opposite of being a picnic. The Devil's A.. isn't really a bunker, it appears to be more of a missile silo! Makes the Road Hole bunker look like a piece of cake. Fortunately it is a pretty short hole with the fronting bank dropping down about 15', the right bunker is 6' deep, the 18th tee is just off the left side. Shockingly there is a bunker behind the green. So the only apparent bailout is to put it on the green.    
   The green is pretty interesting with a diagonal spine running through it from 4'o'clock to 10'o'clock with the back shelf being about 2 feet higher. What I found interesting is that near 4'o'clock the rise up to the back shelf is very gentle and by the time you get over to 10'o'clock the slope up to the shelf rises quite abruptly. I don't know how it affects the hole strategically, but I don't remember seeing something like that before. Shelves seem to generally rise relatively uniformly which I find boring, so this was cool to see.

#11 par4 385yds
     Carries off the tee are getting a bit longer now. This one is about 150 over scrub, with about 20 more over grass rough. Is the grass rough a newer gentler addition since the course was first built? I think it is great because it is not fairway, but you can hit a shot out of it and it will extract at least some distance penalty out of you. Straightaway off the tee, with about 80yds of fairway before coming to a 10' downslope that gives an advantage to the longer hitter by leaving them with a shorter approach. The hole swings a little to the right after this and there are some flanking bunkers in the fairway a bit short of the green that seem odd to me. The one on the left that is more in line with the hole is deeper, while the one on the right is pretty shallow, especially by PV standards. Are these both original? Green is pretty straightforward with a pretty good little lower bowl over on the left that is probably 2' lower than the rest of the green.

[John Shimony]

The movement all throughout the 11th hole makes it stand out in my mind after my only visit to PV for this past Crump Cup.  We saw a golfer drive too far left off the tee to where he could not see the green for his second shot.  His approach shot caught a piece of the trees and barely got past the outcropping.  Then a pitch to the long narrow (and soaking wet) green leaving himself a 50 foot putt putt to the back hole location, if I recall.  All he coud do was concede.  Great little hole.

[ed_getka]

One of the things I really like about PV is how it triangulates and keeps you moving around. There are a few parallel holes, but between changes in direction and changes in topography you never get the feeling of playing the same type of hole.

#12 par4 328yds
     A nice little short par 4. Essentially straightaway for close to 300 yds and then turns abruptly left. About 130 over the scrub, then 20yds more over flat sand (areas like this one should remain ungroomed IMO), and then 40yds more over grass rough. I like the progressively longer carries you are encountering through this middle section of the course as you are now warmed up and should be striking the ball pretty well. The key to his hole whose fairway is pretty flat is the pitch into the green. Completely different from the one at #8. Here the green appears to be sloping gently away from you so controlling the distance, bite, and rollout provide a different but not much less exacting shot than #8. The difference being here is the overall target is bigger and the potential for a huge score is very unlikely. Controlling the pitch to make birdie here is the key. Great mind games as I think of it. I doubt too many golfers are seriously thinking birdie very often at #8, while on #12 it is probably exasperating not to get birdie because it has to feel so doable from a perfect lie in the fairway and with a generously sized green. The green is flanked by 6' deep bunker left and 7' right, while there is a grassy downslope that falls away about 5' over the green. I would estimate that the green falls about 2' from front to back. Internally there are a couple of waves of contour that add to the challenge of getting your ball close. A very nice little hole.

[ed_getka]

The movement all throughout the 11th hole makes it stand out in my mind after my only visit to PV for this past Crump Cup.  We saw a golfer drive too far left off the tee to where he could not see the green for his second shot.  His approach shot caught a piece of the trees and barely got past the outcropping.  Then a pitch to the long narrow (and soaking wet) green leaving himself a 50 foot putt putt to the back hole location, if I recall.  All he coud do was concede.  Great little hole.

John,
    Too bad we didn't get a chance to meet on our maiden stroll around PV. How did the other golfer do on #11? It is an interesting hole that I look forward to seeing again next year as there are some things I still need to figure out about it.

[ed_getka]

#13 par4 442yds
     This hole puts the STOUT in stout par four. Starts right off with high tees to the right, and low tees on the left. The hole bends ever so gently to the left along its length while it gently rises a little past halfway and then probably descends gradually about 15-20' down to the green in the last 180 yards. Initial carry is 170 over scrub with another 20 over grass rough, then at about 210yds is a cool whoop de doo that drops about 10' and then goes back up about 15' to the top of a ridge. If you can get your drive up onto that ridge you must be feeling very pleased that you have a chance to play the hole well. If you don't get past the whoop de doo I can only imagine how tough it is to pull off that blind shot and stay out of trouble. The fairway is generally falling off along the left along with plenty of sand/scrub to eat up your scorecard. The green sits on a diagonal to the left but is quite large (once you are standing on it!), although it doesn't seem like that out in the fairway where you are trying to hit your approach shot. The last 30-40 yards of the hole have sand/scrub dropping off anywhere from 6-12' on the left so you are certainly trying to avoid that. On the right of the green are some nasty little pot and slot bunkers for those too intimidated to go at the green and ending up bailing out right. The prudent play for the golfer lacking confidence is to come up a bit short of the green and rely on your short game to get up and down. The green is pretty open from that point and although there is some movement in the green a golfer with a serviceable short game should be able to get up and down on occasion. This is the type of daunting hole I thought I would find throughout PV, and was very pleastantly surprised to find a wonderful variety of holes instead.

[ed_getka]

#14 par3 187yds
      Dropshot par 3 with carry over water all the way except the small 4' wide "beach" in front. I would guess the drop is about 70' down to the green. The green is pretty flat and ringed with sand that looks to vary from 3-4' deep. Pretty straightforward do or die hole.

#15 par5 574yd
      The other par 5 at PV. #7 is the famous one, but this is the really good one. Teeing off you feel like you are out on an island in the lake with 14 green right behind you. I'm guessing the water carry is about 140yds, so the tee shot isn't too bad from a carry standpoint, but this is one of the holes you don't want to unleash a slice on as the water goes down the right side on the other side of a thin strip of trees for a while. Fairway moves gently from left to right most of the way along the hole. Sand with islands of scrub up the left side as a buffer you end up in the woods. The fwy rollercoasters along until you get to the crux of the hole which is where to put the 2nd shot. If you lay back in the 110-140 range you will be on a sideslope with a hanging lie, particularly if you end up close to the left edge of the fairway. If you have the 'nads you can try to get within a 100 yards or so, but at that point the landing area is VERY narrow and the scrub/sand pinches in here. Also it is highly likely that your second shot wouldn't have been off a flat lie. However, if you can get to that 100 yard 3rd shot you are rewarded with a fairly level lie into a green that is still a little above you, but not nearly as much as when you lay back. Not seeing a lot of the green surface must make it difficult to get near the hole with your approach shot. There is a 15' dropoff down a grassy slope on the right and the everpresent sand on the left. There is a little spine in the front portion of the green that rises up about 1.5-2' that isn't quite a false front, but probably keeps shots from pitching forward as much as you would like. A hard hole to describe, but is one of my favorite par 5's ever without even playing it.

[ed_getka]

#16 par4 434yds
     Did I say #13 was stout, well this one gives it a run for the money. It probably doesn't play quite as hard, but you certainly wouldn't think that standing on the tee facing what looks to be about a 250yd carry over sand/scrub on the most aggressive line. For the bold golfer this hole is pretty straightaway, but for the more conservative golfer this begins to almost be a double dogleg par 5. The farther left you go off the tee the shorter the carry but the farther you are away from your ultimate target. I would guess the shortest carry to the fairway is probably about 150-170yds, which means you ain't gettin' home in 2. Also the farther left you hedge the more you will notice the water in the distance on the right of the green. The same body of water you carried off the previous tee as 15 and 16 parallel each other. Overall you have a VERY wide landing area off the tee if you are simply trying to get in play. Now comes the 2nd shot which I found interesting as the ground gently slopes down and into the green after getting over the grass rough buffer that ends about 70yds short of the green. The green itself is pretty large and accomodating, but the water is right there along the right side and bailing left entails getting in some nasty sand/scrub. This green was a little unusual with a couple of shelfs on the left side that start stairstepping up at about the midsection of the green. The first shelf rises about 2' and then maybe 10' later the next shelf goes up about 2.5' and then rises up pretty steeply to the back of the green. The shelves themselves were what stood out as they don't go too far across the green and seem out of place on the course. I'm struggling to find the right words to describe these shelves. They just don't seem to fit. A very solid hole and certainly worthy of what you expect when seeing PV for the first time.

[ed_getka]

#17 par4 339yds
    An interesting little hole. Steadily uphill most of the way so plays longer than the yardage. The carry is probably 200 yards on the right of the scrub/sand while the left side is only about 150yds. One of the narrower driving holes on the course if my memory serves me correctly. The last 50 yards before the green is flattish sand (should be ungroomed) with scrub areas right and left. I don't know if that is to entice players to try to get close to the green or not. Green rises up about 5' from the fronting sand with 6'deep bunkering on the right. There is plenty of bunkering all around this green, but it is fairly decent size for this length of hole. I found this green interesting, because the right flank of the green is a shelf that raises up about 3' from the rest of the green while the rest of the green is essentially a back to front sloping punchbowl. Getting up on the right shelf must take serious nerve with the deep bunkering to the right.

[ed_getka]

#18 par4 425yds
    Are you serious?!!! When someone wants to describe a tough finishing hole it has to begin and end here. It doesn't seem too bad when you are way up on the tee box looking down to the seemingly inviting fairway. I would estimate it is about an 80' drop down to the fairway from the teebox. About a 200yd carry over mostly scrub, so this is definitely NOT the time to top a tee shot. Assuming you've made the carry you have landed on a fairway that slopes gently down towards the stream you eventually have to carry, while the fairway also slopes a bit more steeply left to right. So now all you are left with is a long iron or hybrid off a downhill, sidehill lie to a green that is elevated about 15' above the fronting stream and wall of bunkering. Sounds easy right?   Deep bunkering right and thin slot bunkers left add to the challenge. The green has a pretty severe unpinnable slope over on the left side and then the rest of the green is essentially a punchbowl like the last green, just bigger. Go ahead, make par, the course dares you.
    What an awesome, epic course. When the bus let me off back in the parking lot at the amusement park I did one of those sink the winning putt fist pumps. What a great day. I can't wait for next year's Crump Cup.

[ed_getka]

The holes I was most enchanted by were #6, 8, 13, and 15.

[John Shimony]

Ed,
The other golfer on the 11th hole played his short iron approach shot from the middle of the fairway to the middle of the green.  But he still had a difficult slow uphill putt (right to left if I recall?) to get back to the day's hole location.  Perhaps we'll run into each other at the Crump Cup next year.  Hopefully the weather will be a bit nicer.

[ed_getka]

John,
   I will make a point of meeting you next year. Thanks for the info on the other golfer. I didn't spend much time watching the golf for just the reason you describe with the putt on #11. I knew I wouldn't see how the course plays under its usual conditions. I will be hoping for good weather next year. One of the things I really enjoy seeing on great courses is how really good golfers interface with the course.

[Dan Boerger]

Ed - Thanks for your detailed notes on each hole. I've always thought 18 was a bruiser, just as you observed. And, thanks to Pat Mucci, I finally got it through my thick skull that the approach shot was downhill. (No, didn't par it last time I played, but a tap in bogey was just fine with me after I pushed my tee shot right (and into a pretty severe bunker).

And 12 looks easy, but with 13 on the immediate horizon it's no easy birdie, much less par!

I've never been on a course with more inspired routing.

[Kevin Pallier]

Thanks Ed - I thoroughly enjoyed reading your hole by hole analysis.

Which P3 stood out for you ?

Which did you think was the better of the dual greensites on each of 8 & 9 (left or right) ?

[ed_getka]

Kevin,
   I think #3, then 5, 10, 14. #3 has the most interesting green from what I saw. For that length of shot and playing downhill it seems like the most difficult one to get near the hole with any pin position I could imagine. I could certainly envision making par on occasion, but the bogeys are going to FAR outnumber the pars and birdies are hard to imagine.
   For anyone who has played here a number of times what is the most accessible pin? I would think it would be in the central portion about 2/3 of the way back. That gives enough room for the ball to get over the downslope at the front of the green and still be able to get near the hole. Anything right in front or in the back left just has to be very difficult.
  #5 is certainly a difficult hole, but as I described, it is more visual intimidation than impossible. It is by no means easy, but it can be played without having to hit the best shot of your life.
   #10 is famous for the DA and it is surrounded by trouble, but at that length it is reasonable.
    #14 is the most pedestrian of the set. A long shot over water to a flattish green. I'm sure it is a hard shot, but it just isn't very interesting.
   I definitely like the left green better on #8, it just seems to sit on the land the best, and it seems like the angle of the approach makes the approach shot more difficult. That sidehill, downhill lie has to make for one of the most demanding pitch shots a golfer will ever experience.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Ed,

I had an interesting experience the last time I played # 11.

I hit my drive very solid, but pulled it a bit, ending up at the end of the fairway on the left with an uphill lie.

The caddy wanted me to chip down to the center of the faiway so that I could hit an approach to the green and maybe make 4, 5 at worst.

I told him that I was going to knock it on the green.

He said how.

I said, do you see that 4 foot by 6 foot opening in the trees, up about 25 feet off the ground ?
He said yeah, I said that I was going to choke down on a 5-iron and hit it through that opening with a little cut, onto the green.
He said, "No way".
I hit the shot and the moment I hit it, I knew it was a good shot, up and right  through that opening.
I didn't see it hit the green, but my partner let out a yell as did the other caddy.

I missed the 20 foot birdie putt, but, my caddy said it was the greatest shot he ever saw.

He later asked me why I didn't chip down to the middle of the fairway.

I said, hell, anybody can do that, but, I'm at Pine Valley, I didn't come here to hit little safe chip shots.

I asked him if I had hit the chip he wanted me to hit, if he'd remember it tomorrow, next week or next year.

Then I asked him if he'd remember my choked 5-iron through the opening in all those trees.

He said, for the rest of my life, and I said, and so will I, that's why I attempted it.
And, I attempted it with a good degree of confidence.

I think you have to believe in yourself when you attempt heroic shots.

I will never forget that shot, and neither will my opponents and partner that day, and neither will the caddies.

It deserves a plaque