Pop Quiz. Your opinion on 3 holes.

[Bruce Wellmon]

I played this ODG course recently. LOVED IT. The land was excellent, the routing was excellent..............until.
Hole 14.
(16, 17 and 18 were great also.)
The par 4 #13 is at the bottom of the picture.
If you turn left off 13 green, that is 15 tee.
If you go off the back right of 13 green, then you play #14, par 3.
14 is on the original routing at 140 something yards. 160 or so today.
Off 14 green, you walk BACK 60-70 yards or more and tee off on the par 5 15th.
I know this happens on modern courses to take advantage of a landform, Streamsong comes to mind.
I have never seen this on an ODG course that I remember.
From what I can tell, the uphill #15 was converted from a par 4, lenghtened to a par 5 by those 60-70 yards. So instead of teeing off near #14 green, you tee off near #13 green. Kind of took the wind out of my sails so to speak because the routing was that good.
Did I over react, is it just "quirk?" or did they ruin a perfectly good hole?

[Jason Thurman]

What, the people playing the forward tees can't have a short walk from the green even once during a round?

Personally, I'm fine with it. I've done far longer walks. Looks like it's pretty easy to drop your bag on the 15th tee and just take your putter on the way to the 14th green. How did you score on 15?

[Phil McDade]

Bruce:

What's your handicap?

15 looks to have four tees, stacked, plus a ladie's tee near the back edge of 14 green. Looks like a near-horizontal walk to the most forward of the four stacked tees, and a modest walkback to the next one. Only the deep two stacked tees look like much of a walkback.

What's the length on 13? That looks to be a pretty cool hole.

[Nigel Islam]

Anytime a course is modified the routing is at risk for being compromised. Having said that I would suggest that the overall experience you had should trump the negative.

[Bruce Wellmon]

Phil,
     I too thought 13 was an excellent hole. The card is at home, but I remember it being 330-360. I'm a 7 HC, 55 years old, and hardly a big hitter. We played the 6700 yard tees. Which would have been one of the 2 further back tees on #15. It is not a long course yardage wise.

Jason, I think I parred #15 on my way to a sweet 87.   

[Cory Lewis]

As a big fan of this course, I find little wrong with any of these holes.  This is one of those courses that could really benefit from restorting the greens to their original widths.  I think that would put this course in the discussion for top 100 in the country.

[Ronald Montesano]

No clue which course...no problem with the walk-back...it's shorter than the walk from Reynolda Hall to Wait Chapel.

[hhuffines]

Glad to hear you enjoyed it... We have a similar situation over in Raleigh and we just hit our tee shots on the next hole before putting on the par 3.  

[Mark McKeever]

The real issue is that they felt the need to lengthen the 15ht hole to make it a par 5.  It seems pretty seamless to tee off as a par 4 from behind the green of the par 3 at the forward tee.

Mark

[Adam Clayman]

It probably wasn't a routing glitch, until the hunger for more length became in vogue.

Looks like you could tee off on 15 before putting out on 14 if you wanted to.

[rjsimper]

I think the 14th hole is good enough and the setting nice enough that I don't mind the extra walking around there, but it is admittedly a bit quirky to get to the 15th tee.

As someone who likes par 5s, I am happy that 15 is not a par 4, though assuming it's dry (not a sure thing on this ground) it plays like a par 4 anyway.

Drop your bag, grab a driver. Grab an extra ball if you aren't very confident...I put myself in that group.

I'd say that I'd rather this quirk was not there, but I don't mind it enough to knock the course down.

[Scott_Burroughs]

I think the 14th hole is good enough and the setting nice enough that I don't mind the extra walking around there, but it is admittedly a bit quirky to get to the 15th tee.

As someone who likes par 5s, I am happy that 15 is not a par 4, though assuming it's dry (not a sure thing on this ground) it plays like a par 4 anyway.

Drop your bag, grab a driver. Grab an extra ball if you aren't very confident...I put myself in that group.

I'd say that I'd rather this quirk was not there, but I don't mind it enough to knock the course down.

Agree with Ryan and others.  No problem with this situation at all.  There are hundreds of walk-backs out there, and it gives a chance to drop your bag and walk back.

This course is just a few miles from me as I type, but a question for Cory....are you saying that Silva's work about 10 years ago didn't restore the greens to original width?  It's been 8 years since I last played the course, so the details of green widths isn't 100% in my memory.

[Philippe Binette]

The original back tee on 15th might have been the one just left of the tree.

and like many courses they added new back tees 3 times to cope with the technology...

the same thing happen from 12th 13th and 14th at royal dornoch... probably worse, since the walk from 12th green to 13th tee is waly longer than from 12th green to 14th tee. (probably ean added hole)

[Cory Lewis]

but a question for Cory....are you saying that Silva's work about 10 years ago didn't restore the greens to original width?  It's been 8 years since I last played the course, so the details of green widths isn't 100% in my memory.

In comparing the current aerials to the drawings of every hole in the archives, it would appear to me that some of the greens have lost some width.   I'm no expert, but the shapes in the drawings were not as round as the current aerial on several holes, 15 is a great example of this.  I guess the Silva work explains all the bunkers that weren't part of the original plans.

[Martin Toal]

No big deal. Better than unnecessarily truncating a hole just for ease of walking to the next tee.

[Scott_Burroughs]

but a question for Cory....are you saying that Silva's work about 10 years ago didn't restore the greens to original width?  It's been 8 years since I last played the course, so the details of green widths isn't 100% in my memory.

In comparing the current aerials to the drawings of every hole in the archives, it would appear to me that some of the greens have lost some width.   I'm no expert, but the shapes in the drawings were not as round as the current aerial on several holes, 15 is a great example of this.  I guess the Silva work explains all the bunkers that weren't part of the original plans.

Here's info: link