Jason,
Your aerial version of Lehigh’s #11 is correct! You were just expecting to see “sand” in the area of “Hells’ Half Acre”. At Lehigh, the sand is replaced by a steeply sloped hill that is cut at rough height. Trust me, it is a great “hazard” and serves the purpose well. It also allows for a recovery shot which is nice as well. The beauty of architectural design concepts is that the same concept can be articulated (presented) many different ways!
The same goes for the 17th hole at Cherry Hills. That hole was designed by Flynn to model the design concept of #7 at Pine Valley. At Cherry Hills, Flynn “softened” his version here of the “Hell’s Half Acre” feature. And at the green he surrounded it with a water hazard rather than sand as it is at Pine Valley. Still the same design concept holds at both holes - you need to cross a hazard in the fairway and you need to cross a hazard that surrounds the green.
To Tom Doak, if you look at our MP version for Cherry Hills for the #17 hole, we had the fairway cross bunkers shifted slightly to the right so there was some fairway all along the left (If I wasn’t traveling I would post the plan). A higher handicap golfer (any golfer for that matter) could actually play along the left side of the cross bunkers with a putter if they wanted to and avoid the hazards. We also wanted the entire hole corridor to be wider (we wanted to remove both Cottonwoods on the right to open up that area and allow more width to place the bunkering and mounds). If the membership wants to soften this hazard
, maybe you should propose this approach? I would hate to see them revert to what was there before
At least the trees were removed from the around the island!!
The Hell’s Half Acre design concept is used MANY MANY places on MANY MANY holes. I could literally list hundreds (Carl cites just one example where Tom Doak used a cross hazard that requires a long forced carry at Riverwalk on the 18th hole). Doak used one like that at the 18th at Stonewall New as well.
The secret is not to use the same design concepts over and over again on the same golf course. If for example, every hole at Cypress Point was like the #16 hole there or even the #15 hole (both require forced carries of more than 75 yards to get to the green), the course would be considered terrible by most and totally unfair (I actually hate the word unfair). I would instead just call it poorly designed as there is no such thing as fair or unfair in golf.
By the way, the early version of Pine Valley’s Hell’s Half Acre was mostly sand. They have started to clear out some of the clutter that has grown up in it over the years (I would post a photo if I was at my office). If you can't carry the acre at PV, you just played your next shot out of the sand, so be it, it’s golf and there is often sand on golf courses!
Too many people are hung up on “fairness” and that is sad. The best golf architecture comment anyone ever gave to me was from Gil Hanse. When I was working with Forrest on our book Bunkers, Pits & Other Hazards, Gil told me, “Mark if you can accomplish one thing with your book, I would like to see the word “fair” fall out of use in association with hazards”!
If you read the interview we did with Gil for our book, his thoughts on hazards are quite interesting. He loves centerline hazards of which Hell’s Half Acre certainly qualifies
Mark