Opinions sought on 18th holes...

[V. Kmetz]

Hello,

Watching Houston yesterday, and reflecting on the well-used trope of WATER down one side (or the other) of a long 440+ yard hole...I was wondering what the current wisdom(s) may be about what the final hole of a golf round should be?

Certainly from a design standpoint, the balance of the course bears on what the final hole is, but in general, what are you disposed to?

A demanding non-water finisher, like Merion, WFW or Oakmont, or Riviera or TCC? (to name a few) that plays more than 440?

A long, "opportunity" hole (520+) that puts birdie in the mind (whether it has water or not)

A shorter  hole, like Olympic or Bethpage B.

I guess I'm asking whether there should be more danger or opportunity in an 18th hole...do you see it more as a last obstacle, or a last chance?

cheers

vk

[Jeff_Brauer]

For every day play?  They tell me they sell more beer in the clubhouse when golfers finish with a birdie (or for them, a good score) so a hole with opportunity.

For tournaments?  Who really cares?

[John Connolly]

All that can be hoped for in a finishing hole is one with sound architectural principles. Every flavor of hole can be valid if its designed properly. Par 3, 4 and 5 can all be good. Uphill or flat. Hard or easy. They're all legit and potentially worthy finishers if developed well. We have a relatively easy uphill finisher - it's a much nicer 19th hole when you don't finish with a double. What's wrong with that? But strong finishers may start creeping into one's mind as the turn is made. That's fine too. Architectural strength wins the day - not preconceived notions of what "kind" of hole it needs to be.

[Brent Hutto]

I have no idea of the conventional wisdom but for my own part I think I'll go Johnny Miller on this one. I do not prefer to have an long, uphill slog of a hole for the 18th. If you need a hole like that to get back up the hill to the house then make it the 17th or something.

If I'm playing badly then having one more disaster hole as the finisher seems to add insult to injury. And if I'm playing well in a match that makes it to the 18th then I'd rather see either me or my opponent "win" the last hole than see one or the other of us "lose" it.

I've played a couple of courses that have a really tough, uphill 17th hole and in match play that seems fun. Two holes to play, put a real tester there and maybe the match gets closed out. One or both players will play it defensively and hope the other guy screws up. Then if the match is still on, you have a less difficult hole to finish. I like that arrangement.

For big-time stroke play tournaments I think with or without water making the guy who's leading play a really difficult tee shot on the 18th makes for good drama. Not sure it needs to be uber-difficult on both shots like the 18th at Houston but I tuess that's fine too. For elite players, playing on TV I mean.

[Rich Goodale]

For every day play?  They tell me they sell more beer in the clubhouse when golfers finish with a birdie (or for them, a good score) so a hole with opportunity.

So that's why the 18th on every miniature golf course swallows up your ball.  I always thought it was a way to speed up play....

[V. Kmetz]

RG: when I read his response, it made me feel that JB was fine with a 50 x 50 yard funnel...the ball disappearing at the end would indeed save on foot traffic and green maintenance, but the number of aces might be a strain on the Hole-In-One insurance balance sheet. Such insurance would cost more than the dues.

BH: One of the things that interests/vexes me is the idea that an 18th hole is only reached in like 33% (tops, in my experience) of all matches... so I see your point about #17 entirely.

JC: I definitely understand the equanimity of "proper architectural strength" for any hole, any course. Still I do not see many holes from 90 - 320 yards as finishers on courses with enduring reputations. In that it seems the balance of the golf world does not follow these precepts. I'm not just talking about on TV/elite player/tournament courses either.  TOC may be the sole exception and THAT has OB...is "Tom Morris" an apt, architecturally-strong finisher in your assessment? Why? or Why Not?

JB: "Who cares?"...the players of the tournament? the hosts of the tournament? the spectators of the tournament? I thought maybe the architect would care, but your response indicates that as long as you get back near the clubhouse with a chance for birdie, the business model is served.

For both and for all: What finishers ARE good? Are there any holes on any courses that make a particularly good finish to the round, improve the experience of the course, elevate the course in its last bits?

I suppose the essence of what I'm asking is whether (bearing in mind, what IS on the most well-regarded courses as well as your druthers) the final hole should more be an obstacle or an opportunity for the player.

And I have the interim notion that a tiny portion of this has bearing on the Match or Medal character of the course.

cheers

vk

[Brent Hutto]

vk,

I guess so many matches (of mine) seem to finish on the 16th or 17th then my preference is almost to treat the 18th as a "playoff" hole for the occasional match that goes the whole way. Thinking about it that way, no wonder I think an easier (or at least not brutally difficult) closer is cool.

There's a buddy of mine with whom I sort of alternate home-and-home matches on about a monthly basis. And I've got to admit that his home course has a great match play finish. The last five holes are a short (for him) Par 5 that he almost always wins, then a very short Par 4 where anything can happen, then really tough 16th and 17th holes that usually decide the match. Then the 18th is a downhill Par 5 that isn't all that easy but it sure seems so after playing 16 and 17!

My own club's course is more conventional probably. The 14th is a long Par 4, then the 15th is a longer Par 4, then the 16th is a brutally tough long Par 3 and it closes with two more really long Par 4's. For my game, the five hardest holes on the entire course are that closing stretch. That's a little more like something you'd see on TV for a Tour venue but in match play it puts a whole different dynamic on finishing out the match. Basically just keep ramping up the length and difficulty until one player or the other starts making big numbers!

[John Connolly]

I suppose the essence of what I'm asking is whether (bearing in mind, what IS on the most well-regarded courses as well as your druthers) the final hole should more be an obstacle or an opportunity for the player.

Interesting concept, this "obstacle or opportunity". Is it fair to suggest that an obstacle is an opportunity? And that a relative paucity of obstacles (be them length, hazards or the like), provide even more of an opportunity for the player? If the answer to those two questions is "yes", then either easy or hard should be OK, if the hole is architecturally and aesthetically sound.

[Jason Topp]

I have enjoyed par 3 finishing holes on the few courses I have played that feature them.  When you are playing with multiple groups, they provide the best social environment for sitting around and watching the finish.  I have also had quite a few interesting finishes to matches on par 3s. 

Overall - long uphill finishers tend to deliver a final kick to the midsection.  I would rather get that out of the way earlier in the round. 

[Tom_Doak]

I guess so many matches (of mine) seem to finish on the 16th or 17th then my preference is almost to treat the 18th as a "playoff" hole for the occasional match that goes the whole way. Thinking about it that way, no wonder I think an easier (or at least not brutally difficult) closer is cool.

Brent:

In older times this was the thinking.  You see a lot of older links in the UK where the 18th hole is a drivable par-4 [Prestwick, North Berwick, Elie, St. Andrews], because it was only a tiebreaker and not a backbreaker. 

Meanwhile, Bernard Darwin wrote that "it is the duty of every golf course to have a good seventeenth hole," because he was thinking about how many matches came to their conclusion at the 17th.

I prefer not to have a preference locked into my brain about closing holes.  I think lots of different types of holes can work, depending on the situation.

[Mark Pearce]

I still haven't played an 18th hole I enjoy as much as Kington.  Like TOC, Elie, Prestwick and NBWL it's a short par 4 but very easy to make bogey if you get out of position or get greedy.

[Sean_A]

VK

I like shortish par 4 finishing holes sitting in front of clubhouse windows that can throw up eagle opportunties.  There is a certain self imposed pressure to get the birdie...even from handicap players.  I still haven't played a finer finishing hole than Kington's.  One must be accurate; luck also plays its role, but making the putts is more difficult than it seems it should be.

Ciao

[Thomas Dai]

The 18th at Kington ticks a whole load of boxes. Not just the hole itself, very fine hole that it is with it's opportunity for so many possibilities to occur, but also because of the ability of others, golfers and non-golfers, to watch play on the hole whether they be higher up in the 1st tee/roadway/pro-shop area or in the clubhouse or on the patio behind that thick 'glass' screen. Bit like the 18th at TOC 'spectator' wise.
atb

[Peter Pallotta]

VK -

I've never really understood thinking of the 18th in terms of it being an obstacle or an opportunity, or whether it was better for match play or medal play. What I would like is simple: I want the 18th to be amongst the very best holes on the course.  I want it to be/feel like a culmination, and leave me with a good impression and a pleasant memory (independent of how I scored.)  

The 18th will be the last hole that day, and it might be another week or two before I play again -- so I want it to be lovely and to make sense and to challenge and to charm; ideally, I'd love it to allow my playing companion and I to play it completely differently: me hitting a good drive to the right side, leaving a great angle in, and he hitting a bomb way past me but to the left side, from where he has to come in over a bunker to a green that runs away; and then me taking something off a long iron and coming in low and having the ball run onto the green and up a tier to a back pin, while he hits a towring wedge that is just a titch too long and finds a back bunker etc etc.  

In short, I want the 18th to count, i.e. to do as well as or better than any other hole on the course all the things a good golf hole should do.


Peter

[Ken Moum]

Personally I am sick of "good" finishing holes.

In fact, a few weeks ago I was about to start a thread on the worst finishing holes I (we) have played.  That plan was prompted by playing Superstition Springs GC and Ocotillo Golf Resort in Arizona. Both of them have finishing holes that are almost guaranteed to leave their patrons with a bad taste in their mouth.

At Ocotillo, all three nines finish with holes that have carries over water, ranging from challenging to downright horrifying for the kinds of golfers I play with at resort courses.

I've played there a handful of times, and less than a quarter of the players finished the hole in any kind of fashion that would have allowed them to write down a real score.

The finsher at Superstition Springs is less intimidating, but no still beats down all the "regular" golfers I've seen play it.  Again, only a few of the people I've played with finished the hole without completely ignoring the rules.  In this case, playing it successfully requires laying up short of a creek that crosses the fairway twice.

From the 6,000-yard tees I play, I have a choice of hitting it 14 yards to a 30-yard wide fairway, leaving 200+ in over two creeks, hitting it ~190 to a 20-yard wide fairway still behind the creeks, or hitting it 260 to a 30-yard diameter patch of fairway between the creeks.

I just cannot understand why a course designed to handle a lot of daily-fee traffic would be set up to create havoc for so many of the golfers.

My home course in Kansas is a Ross, and the 18th is a 310-yard par four that leaves most players either 100 yard out at the bottom of a hill with a semi-blind shot, or hitting off the upslope.  The green is steeply sloped from back to front and there's a bunker in front.

It yields a lot of birdies, but when we ran scoring differentials for stroke allocation several years ago it had one of the highest on the course.  Average-to-bad golfers have plenty of trouble with it, and even good golfers can find it tough if they get greedy.

BUT... it's almost never because of lost balls, penalty strokes, etc.  It entices everyone and gives them all the feeling that it could have been great.

That's my idea of an ideal 18th hole.

Ken

[V. Kmetz]

Hello again,

For me, it's interesting to read these comments; thank you for engaging. Though there's only a dozen or so entries besides my own, and nowhere near the full range of voices to constitute a broad consensus, I do see a few principles creep up:

1. That it is somewhat more desirable to have the 18th hole be, as TD said it, "a tiebreaker rather than a back-breaker." I like that characterization much more than my own "last opportunity/last obstacle" - it says what I meant and says it better.

2. That for the true architect (not the phony Walter Mitty-type like me, who do it in their imagination on fictitious ground) the character of 18th is not a special priority. It seems like the only requirements for the 18th from a practical design standpoint, is that it:

a. get back to the clubhouse
b. maintain the character/continuity of the course before it; not to alter, or to far exceed that character with any uncommon attention.

3. That, in tangent to #1, the hazard/lost ball/steeplechase-y/gimmick aspects of an 18th hole are best muted - because such elements tend to be those that cause an X or a similarly "sour" end to the day.  Such an end is bad for the golfer, for clubhouse "business" and perhaps, the lingering reputation of the course.

4. That, summarizing much of this, an 18th hole is best realized as simple fun, rather than a complex challenge

As I said, interesting...

Further inquiries...

1. Is it the finish at Pebble Beach that has inspired so many of these 18th holes we see on (admittedly) tournament courses, with water down one side of the hole? Is this an effort to adapt "Cape Hole" values to these finishers?

2. While a handful of 18th holes on well-regarded, well-studied courses are indeed disseminated here, I rarely, if ever, have encountered discussions about the 18th hole(s) at NGLA, Oakmont, TCC, Cypress, Fishers here in the States, and near-complete silence of similarly reputed courses in GB&I or Europe...or Austral-Asia for that matter...why is this, do you think?

cheers

vk

[Carl Rogers]

Not much discussion on the design of the hole .... just the type.
At Riverfront 18th green complex, TD & Team, created a huge huge green with a multitiude of themes, variations & features seen through out the previous 17 green complexes, that for me, becomes a design summation for the entire course.

[V. Kmetz]

At Riverfront 18th green complex, TD & Team, created a huge huge green with a multitiude of themes, variations & features seen through out the previous 17 green complexes, that for me, becomes a design summation for the entire course.

I can see this description; and while I don't know from where I got the notion, this post makes me recall that I used to think of 18th holes in that way...that they were somehow a thematic conclusion of sorts to what had come before...not quite a "Greatest Hits" but an ending that contained the character of the course in discernible relief.

cheers

vk

[Brent Hutto]

Aberdovey Golf Club seemed to me to have an 18th hole that sums up, if not the entirety of the course, certainly the essential nature of its Par 4 holes. It's almost but not qute straight, it features ditches which are at best semi-visible from the tee and the tee boxes are oriented so as to bring the ditches as much into play as possible. Finally its green is large, fairly flat in overall character but with plenty of subtle movement making some long putts not as easy to get close to the hole as one might expect.

As the "home course" of Bernard Darwin, let me say it also has a very fine 17th hole! But I think the 18th is probably a better hole and it does excel at VK's ideal of summing up the course's character.

[Jamey Bryan]

Brent:

Remember that Camden does not now play to it's original sequence.  Ross's 1938 routing ended with a long 4, mid-length 4, and a mid-length but brutal 3.  It wasn't until the early '50's that the clubhouse was moved to it's current site, necessitating resequencing of the holes.  I've often wished 12 was still the finishing hole......

Jamey

[Brent Hutto]

Jamey,

It's already embarrassing enough play the 12th with the rest of your foursome watching. A bunch of rubberneckers hanging out on the clubhouse porch would make it downright mortifying!

Was there ever a point in time when the 16th was the last hole? One thing I really like about Camden's modern-day routing is the ability to dart inside for a pit stop before hitching up your pants and taking on the last two holes. Or on at least one really windy day in February I walked off the 16th green and didn't stop walking until I was at my car in the parking lot.

[Carl Johnson]

Brent:

Remember that Camden does not now play to it's original sequence.  Ross's 1938 routing ended with a long 4, mid-length 4, and a mid-length but brutal 3.  It wasn't until the early '50's that the clubhouse was moved to it's current site, necessitating resequencing of the holes.  I've often wished 12 was still the finishing hole......

Jamey

Interesting question.  Like Camden, my Ross home course in Charlotte has had its hole sequence changed.  The hole that was originally 18 is now 14 (then and now a par 4), a fairly short hole and the only flat one on the course, but with a green that's tough to hit for the average recreational player.  It's been modified since Ross's time, so hard to tell how it used to play, but my sense is that it would not have been a difficult hole.

Our current #18 (a par 4) is not long, but there are serious but not insurmountable water issues that make it a good risk-reward hole in my opinion.  A short drive with a carry over water on your second, probably the low handicappers' choice, or a longer drive to a narrow landing area and a short shot to the green, probably the higher handicappers choice.  You can come to 18 and make a birdie, par, bogey or worse depending on how you choose to play it and how well you pull it off.  I think this is relatively true for all handicap levels.  It requires focus.  In short, a lot can happen on 18, both good and bad, which for me, as recreational player, makes it a very fun finishing hole (and fun is all I care about).  It is harder mentally than physically.

Granted that I don't know how either current 18 or former 18 (now 14) played after the original Ross design, and granted that 18 now finishes into the sun in the late afternoon (which 14 (old 18) does not,  and that the clubhouse used to be just past the 14 green (old 18), but is now past the 18 green, so there is a lot going on with other things, my sense is that, all in, I thinks our 18 is now a better finishing hole than current 14 (original # 18).

[Tom_Doak]

Not much discussion on the design of the hole .... just the type.
At Riverfront 18th green complex, TD & Team, created a huge huge green with a multitiude of themes, variations & features seen through out the previous 17 green complexes, that for me, becomes a design summation for the entire course.

Carl:

I do not recall thinking of that green as being a "summation" for the entire course.  We started with the idea that we might incorporate the practice putting green into the green, a la Garden City or Oakmont.  We had given up on that by the time we had finished shaping, but that's why it started out so big.  We were trying to build a variety of green sizes at Riverfront; as you know, some like #5 and #9 are quite small, and others like #3 and #12 are pretty big.

[Carl Rogers]

Not much discussion on the design of the hole .... just the type.
At Riverfront 18th green complex, TD & Team, created a huge huge green with a multitiude of themes, variations & features seen through out the previous 17 green complexes, that for me, becomes a design summation for the entire course.

Carl:
I do not recall thinking of that green as being a "summation" for the entire course.  We started with the idea that we might incorporate the practice putting green into the green, a la Garden City or Oakmont.  We had given up on that by the time we had finished shaping, but that's why it started out so big.  We were trying to build a variety of green sizes at Riverfront; as you know, some like #5 and #9 are quite small, and others like #3 and #12 are pretty big.

Tom, thanks for the response.  I was just expressing my own thoughts and observations developed over time.  The 13th green is quite small ,also.
The contrast and impact of the 18th green is heightened by the fact that the design and context of the 17th green is more modest.

[Tommy Williamsen]

Rather than thinking about 18 as a single hole I like to,think of it in the context of the finishing three or four holes.  How does it fit within these holes?  At Musgrove Mill 15 is a short par four birdie opportunity. 16 is a shortish par five with water down the left. Birdied and double are possible. 17 is a difficult uphill par three and 18 is a strong par four. It has good balance and when I play them in even par or one over I feel good.