Some thoughts about my first visit to Yeaman’s Hall a couple weeks back. As a preface, I haven’t played many MacRaynor courses, Old Macdonald being my principal comparative. I encourage you to read Ran’s review from January 2018 that started this thread; his comments are of course more thoughtful and comprehensive than mine. As is my wont (though I could not resist the current Mammoth Dunes thread…) I assiduously avoided reading Ran’s review before playing Yeaman’s Hall in order to see for myself.
The first impression is one of anticipation. You cross the single railroad track, enter the property through the guard house and then drive a half mile on a dirt road that crosses the expansive first fairway (golfers have the right of way) to the clubhouse/golf shop area. I’m planning to take a cart, which is not my preference, but it’s my second round of the day and it’s a humid 90+ degrees! However, the assistant pro says, “You might take a pushcart, it’s a pretty easy walking course.” Which I do, and he’s right.
The opening three holes are a great introduction to the course. Particularly, the green sites, greens and bunkering get one’s attention. Perfectly square greens? What’s up with that? A very wide first fairway allows one to swing away freely and leads to a mid iron over a Principal’s Nose bunker to a beautifully restored Plateau green. Pin positions abound. The shortish second hole (Leven) requires a draw around the only encroaching tree on the course to avoid the prominent right side fairway bunkers that are perfectly placed. Again an interesting green complex, skillfully bunkered. The Short third hole has a lovely view of the marsh behind. The center bowl and side tiers make this a blast to putt.
One of my favorite holes on the course is the Bottle hole 4th. There’s a bit more room in the landing area here than at Old Macdonald’s 10th (the other Bottle hole I’ve played), and I think this hole is better for it. A perched false front greensite with a spine and other interesting green contours. There is a (new?) back tee for the 4th hole located behind the 3rd green that must be 100 yards behind the tee I played—must be a beast of a hole from back there.
The “Alps” 5th had me wondering “where are the Alps” as I didn’t see any hill or blindness a la Prestwick. I loved the grass and sand bunkering sprinkled throughout the 5th fairway, adding both interest and strategy. I wish more courses used the kind of grass fairway mounding featured on this hole. The Redan 6th is terrific. Very different from other Redans I’ve seen due to the narrowness of the green but a fun hole to play. The bunkering around the green is really well done.
The last three holes on the front nine and the first two on the back nine (Road (which seemed like a stretch to call it that vs. other Road holes I’ve seen) /Creek/Long/Cape/Maiden) are all solid holes, but none of them except #10 (Cape) made my list of favorite holes on the course. The bunkering on the par 5 9th was well placed, especially the bunker benched into the right hillside on the tee shot. The tee shot on #10 was appropriately “Cape-like”; certainly not as good as the tee shot on Old Macdonald #9 but still requiring some thought. I thought #8 and #11 were pretty similar holes with similar playing characteristics.
There is a lot of interesting golf from #12 through the finishing hole. A refreshingly short par 4, #12 (Narrows) requires thought on the tee shot to attack the angled green. An excellent par 3 Eden follows, and then the par 4 14th to a terrific green (Knoll). The long par 4 15th (Lido) and long par 3 Biarritz 16th are both very challenging holes. I loved the Biarritz, just a blast to try to use the slopes. Similar to the Alps hole, I wasn’t sold that there was much of a “Punchbowl” to the 17th green. The 18th is a fair and lovely closing par 5 back to the clubhouse.
Conclusion: A really fine golf course, one that passes the test of “you could play it every day and not get bored”. The routing takes you on a tour around the playing fields of the property with the generally gentle slopes strategically used. You’ll enjoy the walk and the course won’t beat you up. Just wonderful, really interesting greens and a very thoughtful restoration by Jim Urbina.
Favorite Holes: The par 3s are terrific. The par 4 1st, 4th , 5th 10th and 14th were all really good. Drawback—at least for me, I hit too many of the same club (5 irons) into greens on this course. Also, I would have suspected a couple more lay of the land greensites on this LowCountry property vs. greensites that were elevated. The 8th greensite was an exception, and rightly so as a perched green there would have been very incongruous with the creek/marsh background of this downhill hole. I suppose this was a Raynor predilection but in some cases it seemed unnecessary.