Dig it or Dig it up... Willie Park

[Mike_Cirba]

Tom Paul;

You just gave every insurance agent on this site an immediate, terminal case of cardiac arrest.

I hope you're proud of yourself.  

Oh..the humanity...and canininty...

[Mike_Sweeney]

Tom,

I dig the hole..I just find the road and its signage butt ugly.

JakaB,

Well you are really not going to like Shinnecock and National where the road goes through two holes on each. Then again you might really like it. You can park your RV on the 12th hole and block play when you are there !!

[JakaB]

Now that the rest of the world has woke up and TeP has sobered up...was the OB really that close to the green in the original design...or was the road simply in play like at someother famous road hole.   I see the approach as close to unplayable with hickories.

[Mike_Cirba]

John;

I'll look at my Maidstone history book once I get home tonight.  I'm not sure that it covers whether the road was OB or in play, however.  

 

[Brian_Gracely]

I see the approach as close to unplayable with hickories.

What would hickories have to do with its playability?  Considering that they wouldn't have been as close to the green off the tee, they would have had a mid-iron into the green, or maybe mid-short from the right.  Considering that Maidstone didn't have any irrigation during the time of hickories (recently added??) and the aerial game was not in vogue, a running approach would have been useful and wouldn't have brought a high bounce off the shoulders into play, and hence removed the risk of OB.  

But then again, this is a great risk/reward hole.  How is this any different than the proximity of OB on #12 at ANGC?  

[Nick_Ficorelli]

Just how many stop signs are too many,these days?

[SPDB]

leave the golf course(s), dig up everything else in that god forsaken part of the world.

[JakaB]

Brian,

I think hickories have everything to do with original design intent and if the road should play OB....The mid-iron hickory shot is a low fade..(modern slice)..with little stopping potential....how can you hit it over the bunkers and hold the green without a large percentage of balls rolling OB.

I have never seen a ball OB on #12 at AGNC in my life just like I have never taken solice in the checkbook of course car driving doufusus....first I hear that if the houses are pretty enough they don't encroach..now the type of car matters.

[GeoffreyC]

This has moved along nicely since last night.

TEP- I'll get Johnny Cochran for your defense team. "If the road and signage fits JakaB deserves the hits"

Question- If this concept for a short par four (much like Riviera #10 as described but on steroids here) works so well and defends technology so well then why isn't it used more often?

Brian-  Still no irrigation at Maidstone.

[Brian_Gracely]

Brian,

I think hickories have everything to do with original design intent and if the road should play OB....The mid-iron hickory shot is a low fade..(modern slice)..with little stopping potential....how can you hit it over the bunkers and hold the green without a large percentage of balls rolling OB.

I have never seen a ball OB on #12 at AGNC in my life just like I have never taken solice in the checkbook of course car driving doufusus....first I hear that if the houses are pretty enough they don't encroach..now the type of car matters.

Did they not know how to hit a low draw with a hickory?  This is getting dangerously close to a FAIR vs. UNFAIR discussion, which I don't believe the hole appears to be UNFAIR.  It offers a lot of opinions, one of which might actually be a mid-iron hickory short of the green and then a solid up & down to beat your opponent that tried to fly it onto the green but has bounced near the OB.    

As far as ANGC, the creek in front and area directly behind the green play as essential the same penalty as OB.  My point is that the margin for error is similar to this approach shot.  

[klangone]

SPDB.........what Willie Park courses in CT would you dig up

I presume using the "across the sound" comment you were directing it at CT.

Which one??

Woodway
Tumble Brook
New Canaan
New Haven

[SPDB]

I would dig up some of the bunkers at New Haven CC, and restore them.

[klangone]

What bunkers specifically?  I know they did a slight restoration the past year or so..........I have heard complaints from some members that the faces of some bunkers were unfair (holes in the rough, balls not rolling back into bunker, etc.)

What are your thoughts?

[SPDB]

Klangone - I just wrote a long piece that got erased, and i don't have the time to rewrite. It was like you said tho. The main culprit was the renovation of the greenside bunkers, specifically the sloping and maintenance of the sides opposite the green surface. It was nearly impossible to get up and down out of them.

[JakaB]

I deserve an answer before I sign off on digging it..was the ob originally so close to the green if ob at all.   When did interior roads start needing to be ob...

[TEPaul]

Barney:

What exactly are you asking about regarding that 17th hole at Maidstone? Is it that stake on the left or the road to the right, behind and somewhat to the left of the green?

The stake you see on the left is a lateral hazard stake. The road to the right, behind and somewhat to the left of the green is OB as it's a public road and not an interior road.

The severe proximity of the lateral stakes and the public roads to the green itself are not a huge issue on this hole as the hole is quite short and off the tee there is an absolute TON of room to the right. I'll guarantee you this is a hole for everyone--I've never known a single golfer who doesn't admire and respect Maidstone's #17 once they've had a number of chances to play it. It's a true match play hole---one of the best of its kind you can find. Frankly #15-18  because of what they are offer some of the most interesting match play opportunities you can find anywhere.

They say in the Maidstone Bowl if you're in a tight match you probably have to eagle either #15 or #16 and a birdie on #17 may be the determination! And if the match goes to #18 you won't find a better match play green than that one!

[JakaB]

What little I know about Maidstone and it is little was that the majority of visiting golfers would love the ocean holes and poo poo the rest....Little surprise to me that this group would see the beauty in the butt ugly strategic core....are any of the ocean holes more than just window dressing..

[DMoriarty]

What little I know about Maidstone and it is little was that the majority of visiting golfers would love the ocean holes and poo poo the rest....Little surprise to me that this group would see the beauty in the butt ugly strategic core....are any of the ocean holes more than just window dressing..

JakaB,  I think you may have confused "the majority of visiting golfers" with Matt Ward's oft-repeated over-the-top undervaluation of the inland holes.  

[Rick Shefchik]

A few of us seemed to agree on the thread about "OB close to greens" that there isn't much difference between OB near a green and a water hazard near a green -- except for the look, and the retrievability of your ball.

[TEPaul]

"Little surprise to me that this group would see the beauty in the butt ugly strategic core....are any of the ocean holes more than just window dressing.."

Would you look at this ultra sophist reasoning on Barney's part! This man has definitely been sniffing asphalt far too long!

He starts a thread on an interior hole at Maidstone--calls it 'butt ugly', many of us defend the quality of the hole and threaten to toss him on both his ears off the top of the treehouse for saying such a thing--then he switches gears and tells us we must think the ocean holes are window dressing because we're defending an interior hole against his Grand Heresy of calling it 'butt ugly'.

I think this man should be boiled in 220 degree olive oil BEFORE we toss him on his ears off the top of the treehouse!

For your edification Barney, I think #9 on the ocean may be my favorite hole in the world and #14 on the ocean is a world class beauty! Unfortunately, it doesn't have nine sets of tees and 500,000 options like that par 3 at VN but what are you going to do?---the poor little thing wasn't designed by Tom Fazio just some old journeyman from Scotland who found himself surrounded by a bunch of Long Island Indians on one side and Steven Spielberg, Alex Baldwin and Kim Bassinger on the other side!

[T_MacWood]

JohnK
We like ugly (and I speak for the entire GCA). see the Victoria National thread and the reference to it being too clean.

[JakaB]

After two days of study and having never seen the course...I can honestly say that in the non-USGA rota courses catagory...."Take away all the rich people and Maidstone is the number one members course in the nation."   The Barney scale ranks it...A blackened filet with a bacon rapped scallop appetizer on the company credit card kind of place.