Reflecting back on my last weekend of golf (all the way back to the Nebraska Golfapalooza get together in early October) I keep thinking of one of my favorite holes at Wild Horse, the very short par 4 15th. We played in a one man scramble (2 kicks at the cat) format tournament, and I hit my first tee shot in the greenside bunker, but in a virtually unplayable lie. My second tee shot was a lay-up past the fairway traps that you must carry to take a more left-ward angle off of the tee for a better angle into the green.
I executed this iron shot as planned, but the unexpected extra roll yielded an approach for me in the terribly uncomfortable range of around 70 yards. Had I known better (it was my first go around at Wild Horse), I may have taken a bit less off of the tee to get a more full shot into the tiny, well-guarded green, as was done by my wise playing partner Doug Wright. Doug layed-up farther back off of the tee (and a bit more to the right) and had a full wedge/SW shot that he could spin and stop on the small/firm green, and stuck one tight. If I had taken the preferred leftward angle off of the tee, but attempted to lay farther back, I would've flirted with winding-up in a fairway trap I believe, so the challenge to that tee shot is sort-of an inverse lay-up. The typical lay-up you try to hit just short of a hazard as close as you can, but in this case you would try to hit over the trouble, but keeping it as close to it as possible to have an approach of the desired length for many golfers (around 100 yds). I don't recall ever playing a hole with this type of strategy off of the tee.
BTW, Doug made a nice birdie, but I hit two pretty poor pitches and managed to walk alay in shame with a par. Bogeyed the shortest par 4 on the course with 2 cracks at every shot (to eventually lose the tournament by a shot to boot).
I think that's a testimony to the quality of this 300yd-ish par 4.
Are there any other noteable examples of this design strategy?
Brad Swanson