Are 18th Holes More Difficult to Design?

[Ira Fishman]

I have played around 40 courses that have received at least a 7 from one reviewer on the Doak Scale including a number of 8 or above. So mine is not a huge sample, but it is not insubstantial. In thinking about 18th holes, there are only a few on the courses I have played that I consider truly outstanding (Waterville, SS Blue, Brora, maybe NB because of how it fits the course so well). There probably no bad ones (not even CPC). But a couple of my personal favorite courses (Lahinch, Bandon Trails, and probably even PH2) end up on a bit of a down note compared to the rest of the course.


Curious as to the perspective of others and how Architects think about the question.


Thanks,


Ira

[Ally Mcintosh]

Well they are harder because you are trying to play close to a fixed point (the clubhouse) that isn’t often placed with a great 18th as the priority.


Clubhouses tend to be placed on high points, closest to infrastructure and further away from sea or land with significant movement.


Lot of generalisations but yes, you’ve less license with most 18th holes.

[Niall C]

Ira


I think Ally sums it up pretty well, and I say that from a layman's perspective, however I'm interested in your comment that you consider the 18th at Brora as being truly exceptional. Ignoring that it is not the usual tough par 4 finish that seems to be what a lot of "championship" courses go in for, it's still not that exceptional a hole IMO. There are quite a few far better par 3's up in that neck of the woods.


Niall

[Mike Nuzzo]

Artificial constraints would or could impact the quality of an 18th hole.
Sometimes those constraints are to help make the 18th outstanding too.



If you took the same 40 courses how many of the 1st holes are truly outstanding?
How about the 7th or 12 holes to pick 2 random numbers.


peace

[Ira Fishman]

Ira


I think Ally sums it up pretty well, and I say that from a layman's perspective, however I'm interested in your comment that you consider the 18th at Brora as being truly exceptional. Ignoring that it is not the usual tough par 4 finish that seems to be what a lot of "championship" courses go in for, it's still not that exceptional a hole IMO. There are quite a few far better par 3's up in that neck of the woods.


Niall

A good question because of the two others I have played that way, both Golspie and RD have some exceptional Par 3s. I may have slipped into comparing Brora to just other 18th holes which would be inconsistent with the premise of my post. Having said that, I did think it was such a great way to finish the round that there was no sense of letdown which I did feel at some of the others I mentioned.


Ira

[Ira Fishman]

Artificial constraints would or could impact the quality of an 18th hole.
Sometimes those constraints are to help make the 18th outstanding too.



If you took the same 40 courses how many of the 1st holes are truly outstanding?
How about the 7th or 12 holes to pick 2 random numbers.


peace

Very interesting point about Opening holes because I think you are right. But without pulling out my course guides, I can think of multiple great holes on random numbers between 2 and 17. Perhaps the clubhouse location is a constraint on both ends of a course.


Ira

[Tim_Weiman]

Artificial constraints would or could impact the quality of an 18th hole.
Sometimes those constraints are to help make the 18th outstanding too.



If you took the same 40 courses how many of the 1st holes are truly outstanding?
How about the 7th or 12 holes to pick 2 random numbers.


peace

Very interesting point about Opening holes because I think you are right. But without pulling out my course guides, I can think of multiple great holes on random numbers between 2 and 17. Perhaps the clubhouse location is a constraint on both ends of a course.


Ira

The 1st and 18th holes at Oakmont don’t appear to suffer from where the clubhouse was built. I suspect it may be difficult to generalize.

[Ally Mcintosh]

Ira, Tim,


The clubhouse location is a constraint on both ends of the course, yes.


That doesn’t mean that you can’t have excellent holes or even best holes on the course, next to the clubhouse. The best land might even - occasionally but not normally - be right next to the clubhouse.


But it is pretty clear that the more constraints you add in to routing a golf hole, the less often it will be free to be great.


Still, in real terms, all holes on the course have constraints on starting and finishing points because routing is a jigsaw and iterative process. You can’t route any one hole in isolation.

[Tim_Weiman]

Ira, Tim,


The clubhouse location is a constraint on both ends of the course, yes.


That doesn’t mean that you can’t have excellent holes or even best holes on the course, next to the clubhouse. The best land might even - occasionally but not normally - be right next to the clubhouse.


But it is pretty clear that the more constraints you add in to routing a golf hole, the less often it will be free to be great.


Still, in real terms, all holes on the course have constraints on starting and finishing points because routing is a jigsaw and iterative process. You can’t route any one hole in isolation.

Ally,


Can you cite three highly regarded courses where the clubhouse site has negatively impacted the quality of the 18th hole?


Besides the Oakmont example, I don’t see how the clubhouse site hurt the 18th hole at Pine Valley, Merion, Pebble Beach, Winged Foot, Riviera, Shinnecock Hills, etc.

[Ally Mcintosh]

Ok Tim, you win… I haven’t the energy to get in to that type of discussion.

[Adam Lawrence]

There are a number of highly regarded links courses where, because of the need to put the clubhouse on or next to a public road, the start and finish of the course is divorced from the good land. Machrihanish is the most obvious; the dunes start about six hundred yards away from where the course starts, and both holes 17 and 18 suffer from being rather flat and boring as a consequence. In truth, the first hole is quite flat too, but the famous drive over the beach compensates for that. Nevertheless, in all honesty the ‘meat’ of the course at Machrihanish starts when you cross the burn on the second hole, and finishes when you go back across it after hitting from the 17th tee.

[Ben Hollerbach]

I would say there are multiple occasions in which the location of the clubhouse has forced concessions around the design or proximity of the 1st, 18th, and clubhouse.

• Pebble Beach and Harbour Town both located the clubhouse near the inland first tee and prioritized the waterside finish over clubhouse proximity. leaving a longer walk from the 18th green back to the clubhouse
• A similar comment could be said for Cypress Point, The prioritization of the land near the 16th and 17th forced a compromised 18th to return near the clubhouse.
• Finishing on a par 3 would be viewed by many as a design compromise, even if they are excellent par 3's. Pasatiempo and Garden City's 18th both would seem to be par 3 compromises due to land constraints.

[Niall C]

There are a number of highly regarded links courses where, because of the need to put the clubhouse on or next to a public road, the start and finish of the course is divorced from the good land. Machrihanish is the most obvious; the dunes start about six hundred yards away from where the course starts, and both holes 17 and 18 suffer from being rather flat and boring as a consequence. In truth, the first hole is quite flat too, but the famous drive over the beach compensates for that. Nevertheless, in all honesty the ‘meat’ of the course at Machrihanish starts when you cross the burn on the second hole, and finishes when you go back across it after hitting from the 17th tee.

Adam


That is all true, especially with regards classic links back in the day when building and ownership constraints restricted where they could put the clubhouse. That is less of an issue now which is why I suggested that when the clubhouse burned down that Machrihanish explore relocating the new clubhouse closer to either the 17th tee or green and that way the 18th becomes the 1st or 2nd. Similar I guess to what they are doing at Dunbar.


As an aside, I just had a look at the new Machrihanish clubhouse on google streetview. Clearly the insurance paid out in spectacular fashion or the crowdfunding went very well !!


Niall

[Adam Lawrence]

Niall

An interesting idea, though I guess building a road to the new clubhouse and providing utilities would still be expensive. My preferred solution to the lack of interest in the 17th and 18th at Machrihanish is to combine them into a finishing par five and to find new a par three in the dunes (there is a perfect spot at the far end of the course, with a green right on the seafront, wouldn't interfere with the walk either).

It would be intriguing to have the famous first as the home hole mind.

Adam

[Kalen Braley]

Tim,

On occasion, I wonder if the 18th at CPC could have been a better hole if it played to the current spot of the clubhouse instead of the awkward dogleg right to its current spot.

[Peter Pallotta]

I wonder how often an architect has picked his 18th hole first? As they walked the land looking for potential green sites and playing corridors, have architects 'seen' a great fairway and green just laying there and thought, "Fantastic! I needed to find my 18th hole -- and here it is already!"?

[Adam Lawrence]

I wonder how often an architect has picked his 18th hole first? As they walked the land looking for potential green sites and playing corridors, have architects 'seen' a great fairway and green just laying there and thought, "Fantastic! I needed to find my 18th hole -- and here it is already!"?

It would have to be adjacent to the planned clubhouse site...

[Peter Pallotta]

I wonder how often an architect has picked his 18th hole first? As they walked the land looking for potential green sites and playing corridors, have architects 'seen' a great fairway and green just laying there and thought, "Fantastic! I needed to find my 18th hole -- and here it is already!"?

It would have to be adjacent to the planned clubhouse site...

Obviously.
 
Or at least presumably, since today we can easily shuttle golfers back to the house.

But more than one golf hole can end at the clubhouse site. Some or several -- the 3rd, the 6th the 9th, the 12th, say in a planned routing with three hole loops -- could all end roughly adjacent to the clubhouse.

Ira didn't ask about /refer to 9th holes, but on non-links courses with returning 9s one might think they'd have the same inherent 'issue' as the 18th holes

[Tim_Weiman]

Ok Tim, you win… I haven’t the energy to get in to that type of discussion.

Ok. I think it is an interesting topic. By the way, I debated whether to include NGLA as an example of the 18th hole not being compromised by the clubhouse location. However, as you may recall, we had a thread not to long ago which suggested the original clubhouse site was not where the clubhouse stands today.

[Tim_Weiman]

Tim,

On occasion, I wonder if the 18th at CPC could have been a better hole if it played to the current spot of the clubhouse instead of the awkward dogleg right to its current spot.

Kalen,


I expected someone would bring up Cypress Point. In the 1970s, Golf Digest called CP the best 17 hole golf course.


I happen to like the 18th as an emotional cooldown after the excitement of 13-17. But I accept most people don’t view it that way.


Anyway, if the debate is about the clubhouse compromising the design of the 18th hole, it seems only fair to ask (1) what about Mackenzie’s idea of building a bridge and tee on the rocks behind the current 18th tee and (2) what if the 18th green had been sited below the clubhouse.


Neither alternative came to fruition and maybe neither were ever realistic, but I’m not sure that says the clubhouse itself forced a design compromise.

[Jim Hoak]

With regard to CPC #18--
--The bridge to the rock idea was Raynor's, not MacKenzie's.  It was in a 1925 Golf Illustrated article.
--Early drawings from MacKenzie had the green below the Clubhouse, so the location of the Clubhouse did not affect the final green location.
--Many people (including Bill Coore, and in a lesser-valued opinion, me) think that #18 is not just an OK hole but truly an exceptional hole.  It is one of the best match-play finishing holes anywhere, with many possible outcomes.

[Kalen Braley]

Tim,

I need to take another look at what Geoff S wrote about 18 in his book, but as I recall, 18 in its original form was pretty good.

Seems to primarily be an issue of tree over-growth on 18, and 17 for that matter, but Going to take a look tonight, and craft a follow-up response.

[jeffwarne]

I wonder how often an architect has picked his 18th hole first? As they walked the land looking for potential green sites and playing corridors, have architects 'seen' a great fairway and green just laying there and thought, "Fantastic! I needed to find my 18th hole -- and here it is already!"?

Zac Blair wanted an extremely driveable 18th at The Tree Farm,so the concept was there, so he and Tom D. wanted to find a location that had both that hole and desireable clubhouse location-though both moved slightly down the hill a bit after Tom's initial routing.

[Tim_Weiman]

Tim,

I need to take another look at what Geoff S wrote about 18 in his book, but as I recall, 18 in its original form was pretty good.

Seems to primarily be an issue of tree over-growth on 18, and 17 for that matter, but Going to take a look tonight, and craft a follow-up response.

I agree with your comment on tree over-growth. I suspect there is a reluctance to touch them.

[Ally Mcintosh]

I wonder how often an architect has picked his 18th hole first? As they walked the land looking for potential green sites and playing corridors, have architects 'seen' a great fairway and green just laying there and thought, "Fantastic! I needed to find my 18th hole -- and here it is already!"?

Zac Blair wanted an extremely driveable 18th at The Tree Farm,so the concept was there, so he and Tom D. wanted to find a location that had both that hole and desireable clubhouse location-though both moved down the hill a bit after Tom's initial routing.

To answer both these points, it is pretty rare that a course gets routed before a clubhouse gets placed. Or to put it another way, the best clubhouse location more often than not trumps the need for a specific 18th hole location.


To Peter’s question, quite often, precisely because the clubhouse is placed already and you have to start somewhere. Everyone has different habits when routing courses but often I’ll pinpoint a couple of interesting parts of the site that I want to make the most of and then fully understand all the best options around the 1st and 18th. The orientation of those two holes are quintessential in how the routing will play out.