Roads in modern design?

[paul cowley]

....Tom....by jove I think [or begining to think] you've got it !!!

Design [and strategy] is all about options, without which you are dead.                                                        

[TEPaul]

"Design [and strategy] is all about options, without which you are dead."

Paul:

If I get too aggressive with some of my options on your wall hole I just may end up dead!    

But I'll tell you one thing--if I ever do get to that hole I'm definitely going to try a wide variety of wall bank shot! And if you start to snicker I'll just pretend you're the flag and I guarantee you eventually I'll either nail your ass with the golf ball or at least I'll have you hopping and skipping all over the lot!

[paul cowley]

Tom....if we ever get to that hole , there will be a bottle of fine merlot and one glass sitting on the wall.....it will be the reward of sudden death to the victor  

[paul cowley]

...it's interesting in a way while I'm looking at the hole, to realize that in 70+ years , when the bunker lip accretes and everything ages, that some might think this is a classic old school example of wherever we happen to be now....it really is a very good hole.

[TEPaul]

"....it really is a very good hole."

Paul:

It looks like it. It's sort of hard for me to tell on those three photos but what I think I see and really like about the hole isn't just the wall and the way the green is and is angled but the way it appears both work together with that bunker to create good risk/reward strategies. Maybe I'm wrong since I can't tell that well from the photos but it looks like the easy front pin (in the photo) that isn't guarded by the bunker is really guarded by the relatively small distance differential to the wall on that right side---while the distance differential to the wall over the left bunker to the rear or left of the green is much greater as it logically should be. In other words, it looks like the angle of the wall balances everything else about the hole really welll  

[paul cowley]

Tom ...you are right, push it long and 5 yds to the right , you are OB...enough to make one think while on the tee...the angle of the wall dictates all...and BTW, caps are cool..I feel empowered  

[Daryl "Turboe" Boe]

Maybe I can even get some additional pictures in the next couple days (albiet dormant grass) that shows this hole from some diffferent angles/locations (provided I can get a good picture from ground level, with the lighting etc.).

If so, what direction would you want to see Tom....

[TEPaul]

"If so, what direction would you want to see Tom.... "

Daryle:

I think if you stood about fifty yard short of the green and somewhat over to it's right I could see just perfect how that wall angles from front to back off the orientation of the entire green. Thanks very much for even asking and offering!

[Doug Siebert]

They still exist, just not on the big dollar layouts.  I can think of one that was built maybe five years ago in eastern Iowa.  Can't remember the course's real name, its nickname is "The Badlands" and everyone calls it that.  Its a scruffy little low budget 18 holer in the middle of nowhere (since most you coastal types would think anything in Iowa is already in the middle of nowhere you gotta understand just how far into bumfuckland it must be for a native Iowan to refer to as being in the middle of nowhere!)

The last 5-6 miles to get there require driving on gravel roads, and one of the gravel roads is quite uncomfortably tight against the entire length of the par 5 first hole.  OK, it isn't a well travelled road, but probably that road that abuts Maidstone's 7th  isn't either.  I don't know how they got away with it liability-wise.  If I had to guess I'd say they probably don't have insurance against it and would just bankrupt the place if a lawsuit every resulted.  It isn't hard against the green (there's maybe 20 yards to the right IIRC) but there's essentially only a drainage ditch between the right edge of the narrow fairway and the road itself, and there's plenty of reason not to want to go left off the tee if you intend to hit it far enough to have a chance at reaching it in two.

Despite how bad I make it sound, the course does have some redeeming features, like quirk up the wazoo and plenty of interesting land.  But you better be real damn accurate, and on some holes you have a 25 yard wide landing area for your tee shot or approach with OB or impenetrable forest on both sides, so it'll never make any "best of" lists.  I wonder if Evan Fleisher has visited it, since its not much further from him than from me?

[Scott_Burroughs]

Similar to The Patriot which Dunkin' White Boy Turboe
showed earlier, Mike Strantz' sometimes-maligned Tot Hill
Farm has a road featuring very closely with 3 greens there.

At #9, this skyline and also false-front green has the road on the back left very close:



#17 is the best example.  Here, the road is just steps away
on the right.  The green narrows to a point in the back, and
the pin back there (not shown) is treacherous to go after, as
the wall and road are tight right, and there is a steep fall-off
to the green back left ("false back left?").  Obviously a big
false-front as well....:



The same road for the third time is hard left (fence) to the false-right green at #18:

[Daryl "Turboe" Boe]

Tom,

Here are the promised pictures of the 7th at Patriot from today.  Paul was nice enough to let me tag along with him for a little while.  He was onsite to review and tweak some bunkering on the course.

As I feared the light condition at that time of day were not optimal for the front right view you asked about.

Here is a view from 30-40 yds out in front of the green.


Up near the green Paul is pacing a distance.


Front right of the green from as high above as I could get.


This view from behind the green looking back and down shows a pretty good feel for the green orientation in relation to the wall, the bunker, and the line of play from the tee in the distance.


We talked about the interesting shots that could manifest themselves via the wall so close to the back edge of the green.  Well after hitting two balls from the tee this is where my shot finished, this is not staged.  I hit a wedge that landed about 2" on the back edge of the green one hopped to this location.


Tom, in honor of your earlier comments, I played my shot as a richochet off the wall.  I must admit it took me proably 5 tries before I got the results that I wanted.  Landing the ball on the green just right to catch the slope and feed it over to the hole.  Again not staged, I promise.


A fun little hole, and we havent even talked about the "birdbath" depression in the back left of the green as you look at it from the tee.  This small area of the green is probably 10ft in diameter and is a few inches worth of depression in the green.   Another neat little unique feature of this hole.

[paul cowley]

...thanks Daryl...but man, hitting a couple of wedges from the back at 155yds is strong!

[Daryl "Turboe" Boe]

You know something Paul, I think I must have overlooked the back tee.  I think I must have been in front of there.  Unfortunately I can tell from my pictures looking back from the green.  Do you have to walk backwards from the cartpath to get to the back tees?

I guess maybe I will have to pay closer attention next time.