A Crabapple report

[BCrosby]

I've played Crabapple 4 or 5 times. With the exception of a couple of holes (more on those holes below), it is a classic Fazio layout. Big, beautiful bunkers that never seem to come into play. Dazzling green complexes that are eager to yield to any moderately well hit approach shot.

In short, the tried and true Fazio formula of a beautiful course that looks hard but that plays pretty easily. My two best scoring rounds of the summer were at CA.  (There's a comfort zone I get into on Fazio courses. I've played 10 or 12 of them. After a couple of holes I just know that a big number just isn't going to happen, anxiety levels drop, and boom, you are in the zone. It seems to happen every time on his courses. Strange.)

Given my history at the course, seeing it on Friday was a revelation. Because it hasn't rained here, everything is extremely fast. Greens and fairways are hard as rocks. You want a sense of the green speeds? Try putting on your kitchen floor. Without exaggeration, it is about the same speed. (They watered things Friday night. Speed is about the same but approaches are now holding.)

Between those green speeds (on greens contoured for much slower speeds) and the bermuda rough, you can reign in scoring at the PGA level. It works. Like a charm. A lot of bitching and moaning, but it works.

Of course, if it had rained at any time in the last two weeks, the leading score would be 26 under. It's not a formula mother nature will always let you get away with. But AmEx got lucky.

Now for the exception holes. There are four. They are very good holes.

- No. 8. Wide open fairway. Green perched on a ridge. A half volcano green, if you will. Steep run-offs front, right and rear. Terriffic approach shot options. The green has a Donald Ross look from the fairway.

- No. 10. Narrow landing area. Reverse Road Hole green. Run-off back edge. I saw Haas hit what I thought was a perfect approach. It was 5 yards too long, ran off green back right, leaving a 40 yard chip. Tiger pulled his second out of the rough on Friday, was lucky he did not catch the "road" (read, carpath) and had to sink a 10 footer to save bogey. A very good green complex.

- No. 14. Downhill, 480 yards. I watched Love drive it 400 yards on Friday. He barely made par after a good 80 yard approach shot. Why the struggle? A great, great green. A Biarritz that narrows in the back. Run-offs left, ridgeline right, but no greenside bunkers. THIS is the way the biarritz concept should be used. Tryng to find the pin with a short iron is enormously challenging and fun to play. Especially when the greens are like linoleum. Biarritz greens are wasted at 220 yards. No. 14 at CA is an object lesson in why.

- No. 15. Hard to tell from the TV but this hole as a lot of Eden in it. The complex is elevated about 25 feet. There is a false front. A couple of extra swales, but the basic Eden concept at 220 yards.

None of these holes are normally found in the Fazio pallette. The $64K question is what David Egger might have had to do with them. Am I seeing Egger's hand on these holes? Can anybody shed any light? Or has Fazio turned a corner and begun to actually use some Golden Age features? Or are these holes just the happy (but accidental) by-products of trying to build pretty holes?    

But the bottom line for me is how this mild mannered course was transformed into a monster this week. Amazing.

Bob

[A.G._Crockett]

Bob Crosby

"But the bottom line for me is how this mild mannered course was transformed into a monster this week. Amazing."

Absolutely true.  I also had one of my better rounds of the summer there the second time I saw the course.  I had predicted to all that would listen that they would shoot the lights out this past weekend, and even with the somewhat bogus par of 70 factored in, it just didn't happen.  I would have lost a bundle if I were a betting man.  

The whole thing has given me a new respect for the possibilities of course setup.  I also agree, though, that there was a huge element of luck involved.  I'll always wonder about what the scores might have been if we'd had significant rain in recent weeks.

What did you think of the comments by various pros in the AJC during the week?

[Robert "Cliff" Stanfield]

I think many of the pros comments were spot-on.

[BCrosby]

A.G. -

I read the pros' comments. They pretty much trashed the course and the set-up. I have no sympathy.

The fairways were not especially narrow. Maybe 10 yards less than for member play. (And these are very wide fairways.) But the firm conditions meant lots of balls rolled off into the rough.

Bermuda rough is interesting. A little goes a long way towards unplayability. It plays like gorse in Scotland after a rainy summer. You aren't going to advance it very far if you are in it.

But the fairways were wide enough to allow players to lay back with some assurance they would stay in the short grass. That would have meant - heaven forbid - hitting middle irons into par 4's. The option was there.

And I don't agree that well hit long/medium irons couldn't hold greens at the Crab. Evidence? Look how well people were able to hold well hit 4i's into the 15th.

So I have little sympathy with their bitchin'.

My take is that if you get lucky with the weather - that is, no rain for two weeks preceding your tournie - you can hold down the scoring. Even on a fairly milktoast course.

If you aren't lucky with the weather there is pretty much nothing you can do.

My other take from Crabapple reaffirms what I have argued elsewhere on this site - that courses won't play long for these guys unless they are 7700 - 7800 yards (at a par 72). There isn't a par 4 at Crabapple on which these guys needed to pull more than an 8i. That's not just Tiger, that was true for David Toms, everyone.

Somebody's got to have the guts to design/set up courses that address honestly the distance issue. Once you do that you won't need to worry so much about turning your course into a huge skateboard ramp.

Bob

[ACR]

I have played Crabapple a number of times and I agree completely with your assessment of the good holes. #14 is unlike anything I have seen Fazio do and adds a great deal of strategy to the approach shot.  #15 is my favorite hole on the course and I think all of the par threes are pretty good.  #3 offers some very interesting options, although none of the tour players seemed to want to try them (the only way to get close to that Sunday pin was to land it way short and right, but I never saw anyone attempt it).

I generally enjoy the course, but it does have some typical (or stereotypical) Fazio features.  Most notably, there are a huge number of (huge) bunkers that never come into play for a decent player. All those bunkers in the middle of #12 come to mind, but there are other examples all over the course.  These bunkers do, however, make the course much tougher for a mediocre player.  I am not sure how to assess this feature.  Is a bunker useless or unnecessary, if it only catches bad players?  Does that mean that a bunker complex 260 yards off the tee is now "useless" since every tour pro can knock it over?  

Finally, I already believed that technology was ruining the game, but now I am even more convinced.  The places the long hitters could drive the ball at Crabapple were totally unreasonable.  Sergio knocked it on the 7th from 379! That is a good little hole for mere mortals, but if you can hit it over all the trees and trouble then it is a joke.  Same with #11.  I find that fairway tough to hit and I usually then have to carve a 7i into a narrow, diagonal green.  Tiger, on the other hand, had 74 yards left and hit an L-wedge.  Can you make a course long enough to stay interesting for those guys?  Does every par four need to be 515?

[A.G._Crockett]

ACR
I also liked the 7th at Crabapple, and saw Tiger hit it to the front edge yesterday, going directly over the trees (and those are pretty big trees!) rather than worrying about the dogleg and how much to try to bite off.  In many ways that is dismaying, but he and Vijay both ended up making 4 there, as Tiger was unable to get up and down, and Vijay drove into the rough.  From one perspective, it was kind of exciting to see them pull out the driver and go for it.  

I also feel that the routing of that course is such that it plays shorter than the yardage would imply.  #17 for example, doesn't play nearly as long as the card says, and the same is true for both of the driveable par 4's, #5 and #7.

Finally, I am really curious about what the club selections would have been if the course had been softer.  I know that it was a much different place than the times I saw it, but I'm not going to get the opportunity to play it under the current firm and fast conditions, I'm afraid.

[ACR]

I agree.  I have always found that it plays much shorter than the yardage and I knew the pros would overpower parts of it.  Still, a few shots were remarkable.  The new tee behind the cart path on #12 makes that shot unplayable for most average hitters.  It is 270 to carry the hazard and 322 to carry the left bunker.  Tiger and Sergio just knocked it right over the bunker and hit middle irons into the green.  I think that hole would be more interesting if those next bunkers could come into play somehow, but that would mean taking out the left fairway and making it a par 4.

Seeing Tiger hit 3-wood, wedge into 18 was also a shock.  If I hit a great drive on that hole, I usually find myself staring down at the 205 sprinkler head.

I think Crabapple is fun and has some good holes, but in terms of design it is sort of headed down the wrong path (in my opinion).  To build a course with virtually no trouble and then try to just make it long enough to challenge the pros is a losing proposition.  If they can swing away with driver, then there is no way to make it long enough.  I guess the rough and greens added some "trouble", but it was not enough to take driver out of their hands very often.  Nowhere on that course is a player really forced to shape a tee shot.  That seems to be the only feature that really slows down the big hitters.