OLD Vs. New: Spyglass' 16th

[Mike Hendren]

Adam and others have mentioned the changes to the 16th at Spyglass, suggesting the former hole was superior.  I thought the current version was a solid, if not spectacular hole.  How was it changed?

Thanks,

Mike

[Mike Benham]

There was a tree on the corner of the dogleg, still visible on the Pebble Beach website, showing the yardage book drawing.



while the Google overhead shows a more current version with the tree gone ...

Spyglass 16th Aerial

[Adam Clayman]

It was more than just the corner tree. There were two others that protected the green, before it was lowered and extended in the front.The tree that was just in front of the left green front bunker. It's limbs all seemed to hang only towards the right, and, it had Spanish Moss hanging from it. It was eery in a good way. I don't remember the tree on the right but the two worked together, gaurding the green, dictating a draw.

As someone who doesn't appreciate dictated golf, this shot was the epitome of impossible, for a slicer like me. Yet, I still found it's appearance to be very cool and it's challenge great.

Several holes in the Forest are quite good holes. #8 is world class and while #9 and #18 can be easily confused with eachother, they were not easy pars. Very RTJ. The back nine starts out strong with the fallaway green on 10. 11 is solid fun, tempting the player to have a go in two. 12 well 12 is Rihc's ace hole so who can say anything but that it's geat. 13 has serious Mojo as does 14. I like 17 because it is so short yet not so easy to make a 3 on one of the severest green on the course.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

Adam you tell the tale well my friend. It is one strong solid golf course.

[Bob_Huntley]

Adam,

Anyone that wants to discuss the merits of Spyglass should speak to you. I've been around the place since 1966 but do not have your feel or knowlege of the course, it is incomparable.

Bob

[David Stamm]

Adam, doesn't it seem to you when playing on the Forest holes that it feels like your playing uphill almost all the time? I know it does go up uphill starting w/ hole 6, but it seems like it plays longer on almost all the holes then what the yardage says.

[Adam Clayman]

The Forest holes only have a few holes that play significantly uphill. 6, 8, 9 and 17. 11 and 13 can, but it depends on the distance from the green, whether or not it qualifies for significant.

More likely, one's ball is not on flat ground. If it's on slightly uphill ground(not significantly), it is easy to come up short because of club selection.

As I said, the awareness level needed, is mostly about what is up, and what is down hill. Both in the fairway and on the greens. This is where Spyglass shines and likely where most of it's mysteries lie.

[Joel_Stewart]

before it was lowered and extended in the front.

Adam:

Fazio destroyed this hole for no apparent reason?   Was there something wrong with the green causing Fazio to lower the green and build it into the hill?

[Gib_Papazian]

I've been playing (more than 50 times) Spyglass off and on since childhood and am in the minority about #16.

Prejudice against Fazio aside, the upper lip and backside of the bunker on the old green had risen resemble the Devil's Asshole. The green was tiny, the trees claustophobic and in truth it was a par-5 unless the perpetually damp fairways happened to be bone-dry.

The hole is improved. And although Todd Hagen - school president of RLS when we were kids - may never speak to me again for this heresy, I like what Fazio did to #11. I did not at first, but after many rounds, the hole does not seem diminished to me.

Spyglass is not the frightening beast it once was. The tees are always forward and much of the foiliage has been cleared away.

I think this has been a smart decision. It got to the point where busloads of Japanese tourists were taking six hours to chop and shank around the golf course.

Nearly every single one of them could invariably be found staggering up the 18th fairway, exhausted and bleeding from every orifice.

I know, because I always seemed to be in the group behind them.

Spyglass has become a resort course and the best and worst examples of the term. If that is the direction management has decided to take, then making it less arduous seems sensible to me.

This is not to suggest we change the green on #4 - a landmark in the game of golf - just that on such a long golf course, we give the middle handicapper a fair chance to shoot a two-digit score.

I have wondered about something for years and nobody has ever given me a satisfactory explanation.

"Why was Spyglass routed like that?"

The clubhouse belongs at the bottom of the hill and the routing should have wandered in and out of the dunes for the sake of variety.

Maybe I am a freak, but can you imagine #4 as the 18th hole?

Wow. That would make a statement.

#17 and #18 are a letdown. I guess #17 has an interesting green, but it needs something on the right side off the tee to give it some visual texture.

#18 is the weakest hole on the course in terms of design originality. I'd be in favor of Fazio jazzing it up a little bit if that is the architect of choice.

Or course, if there is any reworking to do, it ought to be Bobby Jones Jr., or Kyle Phillips or Gary Lynn  . . . or Doug Nickels, who built the Prince Course for Jones.

All and all, Spyglass could use a little facelift, but the danger is that an insensitive designer might change the flavor of the golf course.

However, in the right hands, it could be astonishing again.

Let's start by switching the nines.

[Mark_Fine]

The old #16 used to be darn near impossible (even for the pros).  It was routinely one of if not the toughest hole on the PGA tour.  The was little place to play golf and the tiny green would be hard to hit even as a 100 yard par three.  I still do not like the new tree on the corner   but do think the golf hole has been improved and some strategy knocked into it.  It is still very difficult golf hole.  

Overall, Spyglass is not nearly as difficult as it once was.  But having played it probably well over a dozen times, I still believe it is a solid golf course and I get excited to play it every chance I get.  

[Eric Johnson]

Adam,

I don't recall the 16th green being lowered.  The green area was increased by about 50% during the work in 1996 (that I remember).   I am looking through photo boxes for some before and after pics to jar my memory.  

[Adam Clayman]

Eric, I recall being told it was lowered slightly. If I had to guess, I'd say it was in the back left. There was always something funky, post changes, about the green back there. Maybe it's the draw between the hillside and the green, or on the green itself. But whatever it is, I know there's just something odd going on back there. Truthfully, I only saw the old green once, and, I don't remember my source about the new green. But I was there a few times while the work was being done.

[Bob_Huntley]

All I know about Spyglass could be written on the head of a pin but I do know thta Forrest Fezler, as an amateur,  held the course record from the back markers with a two under seventy that stood for a number of years.

Gib, I think you are right, a Fazio or  Kyle Phillips tweaking would be a delight.

Bob

[Joel_Stewart]

I have wondered about something for years and nobody has ever given me a satisfactory explanation.

"Why was Spyglass routed like that?"

The clubhouse belongs at the bottom of the hill and the routing should have wandered in and out of the dunes for the sake of variety.

Mr. Huntley knows a person at MPCC that knows the answer.  Bob any chance you can ask Mr. Hanna?

[Eric Johnson]

My first attempt at posting photos.......be patient.



Spyglass 16th green in 1996 (almost fully grassed)



Spyglass 16th green prior to expansion

I also recall the pines on the left of the bunkers were lost in a storm and replaced with new pines in the late summer of 1995.  Obviously, they were not replanted in 1996.  I think there is now a bunker front right of the green?  

Regarding the new green being lower than the old, it's hard to tell from the pictures I have found.  Once i retrieve the file, I can post the square footage old vs. new.



 

[Adam Clayman]

Eric, It is hard for me to tell too much from these two photos. However, If I could find the really thick trees in the backound of the earlier photo, I think I could gauge whether or not the entire complex was lowered.

Yes, I hear there is a new bunker on the right. I'm under the impression it has taken the place of the lateral water hazard. That area was a pretty steep slope, so I wonder if that was really possible, or, lasting.

I find the maintenance presentation in the older photo very interesting. Is that a nice low mow collar right of the green? If so, this place was a different Spyglass Hill than the one I know.

Also, on the very far left of the newer photo, that little pot bunker with that tree in front of it, is not in my memory bank. It's probably part of the castle that now resides nearby.