reverse tiers

[Pete_Pittock]

Persimmon Golf Club in Gresham OR, designed by the ubiquitous Gene "Bunny" Mason. The fourth hole is a par three
119/185 which has the back half about three feet lower than the front.
The hillish course has a quirky routing; 4 5 3 3 5 5 3 4 4 4 4 5 4 3 4 5 4. How many other regulation courses have more combined 3s and 5s, than par 4s?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Ian Andrew,

No, the 9th is before the halfway house, the 10th is the par 5 that follows, with the false front.

[ian]

Thanks Pat, I stand corrected, and yes you are right it is a great lower pin in the back. In fact, it might be the best green on the course.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Ian Andrew,

I think # 5 is a vastly underrated green because the pin is rarely cut in the back left or right quadrants or near some of the dips and rises.

# 6 & # 7 aren't bad either.  Come to think of it # 12 is rather unique as well.

Hollywood may have the best green complexes in the State.

[ian]

I hope I have the right one. The roll on the 6th, at the front of the green is both unique and a stroke of genius. You are correct there are many fantastic greens worthy of study. If you like these, go play the Country Club of Scranton (with me if you are interested), they are the best Travis greens I have seen by a lot. I have not seen Cape Arundal, but I have seen most others.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Ian Andrew,

Does the name Mike Cestone and CC of Scranton ring a bell with you ?

[ian]

I'll send you a message at this point.

[Mark_Huxford]

I remeber Mike (Clayton) telling me about one in New Zealand - a Bob Charles designed course - where the contractor / project manager read the plan upside down!

 
Which course Mike (Clayton)? Clearwater? If true that's a classic.

[Mike_Clayton]

Mark
It was the par three 15th at Herataunga - the windiest course in the world that isn't on the ocean.
Not even anything that interesting happened at Clearwater.

Have they cut any of that rough at Paraparaumu yet ?

[Mark_Huxford]

Across the stream there, I know it well. The reason I thought it may have been at Clearwater was John Darby & Bob Charles introducing a GPS system into the cabs of the dirt-movers there so they could build it with fewer plans/supervision. How do you reckon they did?  

I will send you an instant message about Paraparaumu later Mike.

[RJ_Daley]

The absolute best example I have seen of this reverse tier style green is #6 at Lawsonia.  I think it is world class.

[Mike_Clayton]

Mark

I played with a guy in the pro-am from the construction company who told me that was how they did it.
It turnrd out exactly the way you would expect - dull and lacking any subtlety. The greens are not terrible but the bunkering is awful .I guess you can't program a machine to build beautiful bunkers.

Still, I guess they are just selling houses.
A few of Doak's boys were over here from Kidnappers recently.
It sounds like NZ is finally going to get a second course worth playing.
Maybe a bit harsh but I have not seen anything other than Paraparaumu which makes the flight over something to get excited about

[tonyt]

I sadly agree with Mike on the pedigree of other top NZ courses. Lots of courses I'd happily love to play if I was in the area, or could get there without too much trouble. I've only played Titirangi, Gulf Harbour and Christchurch because each time, a local had asked me to join him for a hit.

But none other than Paraparaumu or the potential at Kidnappers to make me froth at the mouth and buy a plane ticket. I've been on half a dozen wine touring holidays and no specialist golf holidays in New Zealand thus far. Aah,  Martinborough Pinot Noir.

[Steve Lang]

back on topic

don't forget to add #2 at Oak Tree, one of Pete Dye's efforts.  

Downhill second shot to front tongue of green, sided by bunker right, swale and pond left, feeds down to lower oval level surrounded by water, as I remember.  

[Mark_Guiniven]

Does anyone know of any good (in bold) examples of reverse tiers? i.e. greens where the front level is elevated from the back, rather than the more common front being lower than than back.

I know of one on the 15th at the Dunes, Victoria (a par 5), which works reasonably well.  It makes for an intersting shot when the pin is at the front - with no backstop, and when its at the back, encourages a great range of shots, including a running / skipping pitch.

Whilst not a tier the only other scenario I can think of at the moment that is similar is the 3rd at Royal Cinque Ports, where the green is in a punch bowl lower than the fairway, with only the top of the flag visible.  I remember hitting similar shots to a front pin into the wind - a bouncing shot.  

I remeber Mike (Clayton) telling me about one in New Zealand - a Bob Charles designed course - where the contractor / project manager read the plan upside down!  Its a three tiered green falling away from the player and is by all accounts terrible.  I can't remember the name of the course though.

Michael,
I saw your Friar's Head thread so I pulled up your other posts thinking you had just joined. Was surprised to see this one from two years ago. Can you see the irony here with you guys now involved with Heretaunga, the club of the alleged upside down green? I think you should get Clayton to leave it alone for the same reasons Mackenzie left those cross bunkers alone at Royal Melbourne  

[Pete Buczkowski]

Mystic Dunes (Orlando) has one at the end of the par 5 6th...it drops about 8 feet from front to back (and R -> L).  To make it interesting the front tier is only about 10 paces deep!  Interesting concept on a reachable par 5 or 4, since the wrong tier means 3-putt.

I had played the Treetops Fazio course and its slightly more pronounced then that 15th green there.

I really think these fallaway greens are fun.  My old home course @ UNC has a fallaway green if you approach from the left fairway; I'd often approach from the left just for fun, even though it wasn't the smartest move.

Pete

[Mike_Cocking]

Mark,

I can see the irony.

We were over there just last week.  The green isn't nearly as bad as people have made out, in fact its one of the most interesting on the course.

I had pictured not being able to see any of the putting surface from the tee.  But in fact you can see the entire front section (probably 2/3rds of the entire green) from the tee, with just the back 1/3 hidden from view.

If the bunkering was a little more visible and a little less contrived (mounding etc.) the hole would be really good.


Mike

(PS I've been a regular viewer of GCA for some time now, but just don't ever get around to posting).

[Chris Kane]

Mike, is it the 9th on St Andrews Beach (Gunnamatta) with the reverse tier?

[Kyle Harris]

One of my favorite par 3s in the game uses this feature:

The seventh on the Oak 9 at Mountain Valley Golf Club in Mahanoy City, PA.

[Mike_Cocking]

Chris,

Thats exactly right - I was going to add that since I made that post, a great reverse tier was built at St. Andrews Beach (#9 Gunnamatta).

[Marc Haring]

As soon as I saw this thread I thought of #12 at The Berkshire on the blue course but of course Paul Turner beat me to it. Per chance I happen to have a picture showing the hole but all you can see is the top shelf. Behind the pin the green falls away alarmingly. Lovely Fowler swales to the right side don’t you think.

[Tony_Muldoon]

Another candidate for an early use of this feature would be the 17th at Sandy Lodge Golf Club, laid out by Vardon in 1910.  This is a great uphill right to left par 5.  The shot to the pin in the lower rear section needs to be perfectly weighted just to reach the break in the green. Getting it wrong either way will likely cost at least an extra putt. The lower section is invisable from the fairway for the second shot.

Sandy Lodge is a candidate for a hidden gem http://www.sandylodge.co.uk/    The website explains how it's thunder has been stolen by Moor Park next door and has good photo's and a course planner. I will bring my camera when I visit later this summer and look forward to posting more about the club then.

[JLahrman]

Purgatory has one on the 8th hole.  It's a 470 yard hole, so it doesn't exactly help stop the 3-iron that you're probably hitting into the green.  However there is a big collection area behind the green.

[Mike_Clayton]

The 15th was not anywhere near as bad as my 1995 memory of it - as Mike said it's the bunkers around it that don't work.
It is one of the more interesting greens on the course - reminding me of the MacKenzie quote about 'find the biggest idiot in the town and tell him to build them flat'

Lake Karrinyup used to have a massive reverse tier green at the downhill,12th a 150 yard par three.

[Matt_Cohn]

Steve beat me to it with #2 at Oak Tree. The front of that green is tiny and crowned, and it's probably 4 feet down to the bottom-back tier.

A couple that have been mentioned already, to me, don't really count as reverse tiers, at least in their present form.

#14 at Prairie Dunes is more like a swale that runs through the back of the green - there is a higher tier at the back. I suppose it counts as a 3-tier green with the low one in the middle.

#2 at Oklahoma City maybe used to be, but now there's just a big downslope at the front of the green. There's no front tier on which to place a hole location. That course is still notable for the number of reverse-slope greens, which kind of fits this category: if I remember right, 1, 2, 4, 5, and 13, maybe more.

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