Hole 11 - "High - Low" - Par 5: 567 - 509 - 435 - 398 - 358 
"Split Fairway, Another Tale"The par-five eleventh hole can only be described as a lot of golf hole. Traversing the entire eastern border of the golf course, the elevated tee shot plays over a valley. A sentinel mound to the right of the first landing area marks the most direct line to the green. Nestled into the base of it is the first of three fairway bunkers. Another rumpled fairway runs along the base of an Oak Savanna ridge along the left before splitting in two directions around a second ridge punctuated by a pair of bunkers cut into the base.
Strategically a mirror image of the par-five fourth hole, the first par-five of the back nine’s more direct line is the uphill fairway to the right. The left side is not as an abrupt route to the green, but one must cover more ground to get there in regulation (or sooner). Sand guards the green along that side as well. The green is a rolling exclamation point to this long dogleg-right. A ridge from the right bisects the front and back halves of the green.
“Just like four, I had the opportunity to create another split-fairway hole by simply uncovering an ideal alternate fairway buried under a mass of vegetation. The shorter route for both holes (lower on four; higher on eleven) is much more narrow and requires negotiating sand bunkers more so than the longer, safer routes.
It is remarkable that we could find two very large-scale holes with split-fairways on the same piece of property. Considering I can’t stop myself from such opportunities, I had to devise a way to differentiate each hole. The feature that accomplishes that task is the natural green location for each. Here, the green sits on the high side of the hole whereas the opposite is true for number four, sitting at the base of the hill.
One other distinct topographical feature about eleven that I love is the large hill that separates the first landing area from eighteen tees. It was the perfect buffer between each hole and evokes visions of Irish links, although I am pretty sure this hillock was built as part of the original 1960 golf course. Nonetheless, it was fun to implement that feature in such a functional way. As visually commanding as the downhill tee shot was designed to be, I added a fairway bunker into the base of the hill during the construction process to visually balance the first and second landing areas as well as protect the shorter route off the tee.”
Hole 12 - "Off - Center" - Par 4: 457 - 389 - 379 - 315 - 230 
"Off-Center May Be Best"The twelfth hole is the one hole on the course that truly demands length off the tee with carries over two ponds from the back two tees yet only one carry over water from the next three tees. As long as this hole may play straightaway, the only way to see the green from the fairway is to play further away from the more direct route. If one chooses the straight route, a ridge that separates the hole from the eighteenth hole to its right will block almost any view of the putting surface. The saving grace for those who do choose to take the riskier, less-visible route is the opportunity to kick an approach off another ridge that rolls directly into the green, avoiding a lone bunker protecting the left side.
“One routing challenge with this site is working golf holes around existing ponds, the existing clubhouse location, and the large hill in the middle of the property. The area where existing ten, twelve and eighteen are located minimized my options to just three parallel golf holes. Safety is a bit of a consideration, particularly with twelve and eighteen playing parallel to each other in the same south to north direction from the landing areas into the greens. Both holes are dogleg-rights, which adds the predominant slice possibility as an additional safety challenge. Yet routing each hole, I was able to transform these safety challenges into two distinct strategic challenges.
Twelve exhibits a very non-intuitive approach to golf course design. The accepted rationale over the past seventy-five years or so (post-Golden Age), leaves most every golfer who plays the game accepting that the center of the hole is always the route to take off the tee. But that is not how the game of golf began.
Rather, the forefathers of the game centuries ago simply tried to find the best route from point A to point B, and that wasn’t always the case found along the middle. That is also not the case for number twelve at Braemar. In fact, the farther left one play off the tees, the better the view and angle into the green becomes. So, cutting the corner or even playing to the middle of the hole, will leave the golfer with an absolute blind approach running against the slope of the fairway. The smart play is the longer route to the far left following a shallow valley with a full view of the putting surface. The strategic challenge of both holes results in golfers aiming to opposite sides on parallel holes (twelve to the left and eighteen to the right).”
