I posted this under a thread about government support of Cabot Cliffs. It deserves a thread of its own.
I spent last week at Cabot Links with Mike Whitaker and Mike's friend Andy Carter, in company with Paul Jones and Charlie Gallagher of GCA. Rod Whitman's course is a work of art, with a routing that makes it from one end of the property to the other in the first nine holes, and all the way back, around the first green and home with 17 and 18. Along the way he uses a central hillock for four greens and tees, much in the way that Dr. Mackenzie used central hills at Royal Melbourne, the Valley Club and the Meadow Club. There is a great mixing of lengths in the par 3, 4 and 5 holes. The second must rank very high on the world list of exhilarating and desperately dangerous par 5s. The first is an incredibly vexing par 4, a short one with a blind tee shot over a ridge toward a green where one's second shot, which could be chipped, pitched or putted, disappears over the back of the domed green.
The par 3s are as varied a set as you've ever seen, from the 240+ yard Biarritz 7th to the 100- yard 14th, a delicate downhill pitch to a slippery green with the sea hard behind.
The par 4s are equally varied, with short ones at 1, 5, 8 , and 15. The latter has as daunting a Lion's Mouth bunker as you've ever seen. #8 is a dogleg right, played into the teeth of the wind, with death short, left and right into lost ball wetland cat tails, and a mound directly front left of the green, sort of a mini Friars Head tenth hole look.
The long par 4s are best played carefully. #11 is a long dogleg left into the prevailing wind with Inverness Harbor directly behind the green. 3, 4, 9, 11, 16 and 18 all require two well thumped shots to get near the green, although the silver tees allow shorter hitters to have a chance to get home in two.
An immense double green has #4 on the right as a difficult par 4, and #13 left, an engaging par 5 with a blind uphill second played along the cliff's edge.
The fun never stops at Cabot Links! The wall to wall fescue is growing in nicely. And the ocean is always in view!
Mr. Whitaker took a raft of photos our last day, and I'm sure will be presenting a photo tour shortly.
The Cliffs course will be the cherry on the Cabot sundae. We had a brief ride around and it looks to be terrific golfing terrain.