Holes experts play improperly?

[Adam Clayman]

12th At Pebble


10th at Shinnecock


Both holes require some modicum of thoughtful restraint. They don't call for hitting the bomb, or the distance to the flagstick.


I'm sure there are more.


As a side topic since few will be able to answer the original question;


Should those that disrespect the art of architecture get respect?


 

[Tom_Doak]

You'll have to explain what you mean on the 12th at Pebble Beach to me.


It's a crummy hole, they are playing it the only way they can.

[Adam Clayman]

I'm certain of the proper strategy one should have to play the hole. Rarely is it seen.


Perhaps you could articulate why you experts think it's the worst hole in championship golf?

[Erik J. Barzeski]

I'm certain of the proper strategy one should have to play the hole. Rarely is it seen.

It's a par three. The strategy is basically "hit the green."

What do you think is the "proper strategy"?

[Adam Clayman]

Erik, The green is very difficult to hold, so always playing, just to "hit it", is not always the proper mindset. I would share the proper strategy, if I were on your bag.

Tom, Deciding to play away from the hole is often a yardstick for great architecture and thoughtful play, so why not here?

Today, the pros are all over the yard on this hole thanks to some higher winds. They are easily fooled by the wind and they have apparently always been fooled on how to play this hole smartly. Think Jack in '72

[Erik J. Barzeski]

Erik, The green is very difficult to hold, so always playing, just to "hit it", is not always the proper mindset. I would share the proper strategy, if I were on your bag.  

The whole conversation hinges on "the proper strategy," so if you're not going to share it… the conversation goes nowhere.

Given your comments I'm not sure your strategy is the "proper" one. It's a par three. There's not much strategy. It's highly, highly unlikely the best strategy involves laying up.

[Pete Lavallee]

One of highest ball strikers on Tour, Jason Day, showed us how to navigate the hole on Friday: barely carry the bunker, then drain the 60 foot downhill putt from the back of the green. Skill, luck, or a bit of both.

[Adam Clayman]

Erik, Laying up is too general a term.  The exact right play, for the best in the world who can intentionally attempt it, is to hit the kick plate, off the front/side of the right bunker, that will send the ball left to the flagstick.

 The play for mere mortals is JUST short and right, to the apron. A slight miss to the right and you get the kick plate. Technically not a lay-up, but day in and day out, with this mindset, you will avoid the vagaries. You might not get a GIR stat but you will will likely avoid anything higher than par.


As we are seeing today, with the wind, this hole encapsulates how the mood/mojo changes at Pebble Beach at this moment in the routing, where one typically needs to start to " hang on ". 


 It's an under appreciated hole, most likely dissed because few ever get to play it enough to figure it out.


Pebble's final 7 hole stretch is full of little idiosyncrasies, and they all start here. And most of them involve how the holes that go in this direction, play. A little longer than your stock yardage might experience.
 


Pete, IMO, playing the obvious carry distance over the front bunker is the wrong strategy due to the severe slope off the backside of the bunker. It's the sucker play. For that reason alone it's better than crummy. Perhaps that's what was meant when whoever said to Jack in '72 "We are trying to identify the best player".

[Kalen Braley]

 The play for mere mortals is JUST short and right, to the apron. A slight miss to the right and you get the kick plate. Technically not a lay-up, but day in and day out, with this mindset, you will avoid the vagaries. You might not get a GIR stat but you will will likely avoid anything higher than par.

Adam,

I don't understand this part at all.  Even the pros will be nowhere near getting this up and down most of the time, much less the average "mortal".  Now if you want to say you will take anything worse than bogey out of the equation, thats much more in the realm of reality.

[Erik J. Barzeski]

Erik, Laying up is too general a term.  The exact right play, for the best in the world who can intentionally attempt it, is to hit the kick plate, off the front/side of the right bunker, that will send the ball left to the flagstick.

I haven't spent a lot of time looking at the 12th, but I disagree.

The play for mere mortals is JUST short and right, to the apron. A slight miss to the right and you get the kick plate. Technically not a lay-up, but day in and day out, with this mindset, you will avoid the vagaries. You might not get a GIR stat but you will will likely avoid anything higher than par.

What? No. PGA Tour players aren't even going to "likely avoid anything higher than par."

The hole is about 200 yards. From 200 yards, on average, on the PGA Tour, shots played from the tee average 3.12.

And that's on just any 200-yard hole from the tee, not this particular hole, which averages higher than that. In 2014, it averaged nearly 3.4.

The 202-yard 12th hole at Pebble Beach Golf Links was the second-toughest par 3 on TOUR last season, averaging 3.394. … The only par 3 that ranked more difficult was the 240-yard fourth at Augusta National, which averaged 3.409. Only 90 of 218 players hit the 12th green in regulation. When hitting the green, the average proximity to the hole was 40 feet, 9 inches. There were only 11 birdies all week last season, plus nine double bogeys and one other.

https://www.pgatour.com/statsreport/2015/02/10/inside-the-numbers-jimmy-walker-pebble-beach.html

[Tom_Doak]

Erik, Laying up is too general a term.  The exact right play, for the best in the world who can intentionally attempt it, is to hit the kick plate, off the front/side of the right bunker, that will send the ball left to the flagstick.

 The play for mere mortals is JUST short and right, to the apron. A slight miss to the right and you get the kick plate. Technically not a lay-up, but day in and day out, with this mindset, you will avoid the vagaries. You might not get a GIR stat but you will will likely avoid anything higher than par.
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Pete, IMO, playing the obvious carry distance over the front bunker is the wrong strategy due to the severe slope off the backside of the bunker. It's the sucker play. For that reason alone it's better than crummy. Perhaps that's what was meant when whoever said to Jack in '72 "We are trying to identify the best player".

Interesting.  I usually just played the layup to the right, since I can't carry the bunker with a high enough shot to stop it; I never thought about the possible kick.  The shot straight to the middle of the green is very difficult to hold, that's why I thought of the hole as no good.


Do you really think certain players are aiming for the kick?  I think it would happen at random every once in a while, but they wouldn't want to be in the right-hand bunker, so they have to hedge toward the middle of the green.  Unfortunately, that wouldn't show up on ShotLink, because it only records where the ball wound up and not how it got there.

[Erik J. Barzeski]

Do you really think certain players are aiming for the kick?

As I would wager you know, Tom, PGA Tour players are not aiming at an area 8 yards wide from 205 yards away. 

[David_Tepper]

"The exact right play, for the best in the world who can intentionally attempt it, is to hit the kick plate, off the front/side of the right bunker, that will send the ball left to the flagstick."
Adam C. -  Out of curiosity, how large an area is the "kick plate?"  DT

[Peter Pallotta]

Adam has spent a lot of time at Pebble, and at many other great courses as well. And if what he is "seeing" is not the heart of the matter, it should be. Every once in a while, among the  tens of thousands of threads and millions of posts here that are ostensibly about golf course architecture, comes one that actually is. IMHO.
Peter

[SL_Solow]

Regardless of how it's stated, I think Adam is talking risk/reward.  His calculation is that the best ratio involves a shot to the front right.  He hasn't suggested aiming at the kick plate, noting that it provides some margin for error.  I suspect that the pro's and their caddies, particularly those who have played Pebble for a number of years, have come to their own calculus and that their risk/reward analysis depends in large measure on the strengths and weaknesses of their individual games.  It's an interesting question but they have a lot of cash riding on getting it right.

[Tim_Weiman]

Adam,


Played a Pebble about 5 times. Never liked #12. Always just tried to hit a really high shot. Pulled it off at least once, maybe two times. Never saw another way to play it. Would have been happy to just write a 4 on my card and not bother playing it.

[Sven Nilsen]

Top 4 guys on the leaderboard were a combined 5 over on the hole today.

[Carl Rogers]

So, if the front bunker was removed and replaced with short grass, then the hole would be ok?  Or are other alterations required?
The telecast never shows the amateurs tee shots.  A comparison might be informative.

[Adam Clayman]

Shel, Thanks that's a closer interpretation than I was able to spell out. Thanx. I know these pros and their caddies are not the Kachem Gadola they think they are.


Even if one does get into that green side right bunker, going for the kick plate, you are left with the entire length of the green to recover. The bunker is not that deep or that arduous an extraction. 


As with most under appreciated holes, it takes time to recognize their virtues. In this case, I fear people's score, is what most affects their opinion.


What's really mind boggling is the answer to the question is starring you in the face. The apron. Most ignore it opting to man up and go for the flag. Suckers.


Sven, Thanks for the data. I'm interpreting it as making my point. If these guys that are on their game can't figure out how to successfully play a 200 yardish hole well enough avoid bogey or worse, the hole has merits.

 Carl, if the bunker were removed and the opportunity to play the kick was removed, the hole would suffer greatly.


Tom, I don't think they are aiming for the kick, but, I am suggesting it. I think it is pretty cool that you played it properly because you kept your abilities in check. It is pretty straightforward the first time you see it. It has screamed at all those that can't carry 185 to play for the right side apron for 101 years now. So, if a non professional can take one look at the hole and figure out the best risk reward ratio for the shot, because of their acceptance of their limitations, and the pros can't help themselves from thinking they are better than they are, it's a pretty cool hole if only for psychological reasons. 

[Pete Lavallee]

Just curious if the 12th green has been rebuilt yet. It seems somewhat like the 17 before it was restored; a little too small for the shot involved due to green shrinkage and rather one dimensional.

[Thomas Dai]

Billy Casper didn't aim for the green in all 4-rounds of one particular par-3 at Winged Foot one year ...... and won himself a US Open.
There's a chapter about this kind of thing in Tommy Armours book, 'How to play your best golf all the time'. Worth reading.
atb

[Adam Clayman]

Pete, I don't know if the hole has been disfigured yet.


Thomas, And Hogan use to play for the bunker at Merion. Casper use to hit putter on 7 at Pebble down the path to the front bunker.


All this illustrates how the modern game has evolved into dictated shots and dictated expectations. Which has led to inconsequential statistics like GIR.

[A.G._Crockett]

Over the years, I've had the opportunity to go to a number of professional events; I was at the '86 Masters on Sunday (yes, that one!) at the PGA at Atlanta AC when Toms won, at the Tour Championship at East Lake, and most recently at the SAS tournament on the Champions Tour last fall.  I don't follow golfers when I go; I find a place where I can see two or three holes at once.
And the most striking thing about it to me has always been that EVERY player is trying to play the hole pretty much the same way.  There is a side that they do NOT miss to.  There are pins that they do NOT get above.  There are times where their preferred miss is a bunker rather than greenside rough or short siding themselves, and so on.  Watching them play, it seems as much a part of what they are doing as their swings or equipment or anything else, and I've often wondered how much of that is an intuitive gift and how much is devised strategy.
But my takeaway is that if you see everybody playing a hole a particular way at the professional level, that IS the way to play the hole, at least that day.  It may be because the other options are no good, or the risk is too great, or because it's a birdie opportunity, or because double bogey looms.  But it's NEVER, except perhaps in the case of Phil Mickelson , done for the wrong reasons.  We might not get it without being there in person, but if we don't, they're right and we're wrong.

[Pete Lavallee]

Adam,


The 17th green had shrunk to half its original size. The recent rebuild isn’t quite as big as the original but does in my opinion restore the options Neville and Grant intended. Is going back to the original design disfigurement?

[Adam Clayman]

Thanks David  See next page.