GolfClubAtlas.com > Golf Course Architecture Discussion Group
Hope Valley CC (Ross / Silva), Durham, NC -- A Photo Tour!! - Hole 18 Posted
Carl Johnson:
edited
Brad Tufts:
Ditto on feelings that HVCC is very, very good.
The Carolina Ross courses tend to have a certain look, with pine straw, sandy ground, etc., where the Northeast Ross courses tend to be more quirky with rock outcroppings, etc.
HVCC looks very much more like a Northeast Ross than a Carolina Ross despite its location.
Interesting also that HVCC is pretty much a housing course, but being a 1920s housing course is much cooler than a modern planned community, as most of the houses date from that time period and appear as part of the landscape/experience.
A.G._Crockett:
I grew up in Durham and still spend a fair amount of time there; I've played HVCC before and after lots of different work. Common bermuda fairways to hybrid bermuda, the Silva restoration/renovation, and now the conversion from bent to champion greens.
HVCC might be the most underrated course in NC, and well up a list of underrated courses anywhere. There isn't a weak hole on the golf course, IMO, including #1, and several holes are just classics. The original routing is completely intact, I believe, and Silva undid a number of changes that had been made over the years and completely rebuilt the greens.
There is a story that Hogan played an exhibition there and took the club to task for piping a creek (decision of the greens committee, I think, not the city) that runs down the left side of #11 because that hole had been on a list Nelson had made of his 18 favorite holes from the courses of his winning streak. No idea if the story is really true or not, but Silva wasn't able to "unpipe" the creek even if there was any thought of doing so.
Bruce Wellmon:
I'm a big fan of this course. I think the routing is practically the best, if not THE best, of any course I have played.
I have only one complaint with one hole, but we will get to that when the tour rolls around.
Mark Saltzman:
The 4th is one of several long par-4s that is made longer because of an uphill approach.
Thankfully, the green is open in front and very deep, and the back-to-front tilt of the green will help to keep a long approach on the green. Being long of the green, however, is dead.
The 5th is a 400 yard par-4 that plays over a directional bunker. The land tilts hard to the left over the crest of the hill down to a stream that is blind from the tee:
The 200 yard and extremely uphill par-3 6th completes a difficult opening stretch.
Though the green is open in front, a false-front will catch any shots coming up just a bit short:
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