One Man's Treasure Is Another Man's Trash

[Mike Hendren]

Why do we praise this:



... and villify this?



Mike

[George Pazin]

That bottom image doesn't do the hideousness of that hole justice, at least not from TV observations.

Can't comment on playability, obviously.

[Mike Hendren]

George, your post is a lobbed softball if I've ever seen one.  I just like you too much to go yard!

Mike

[Scott_Burroughs]

The top hole is a long par 4 with a blind tee shot (and a fairly
generous fairway) and the 2nd is a par 5 (or is it a par 4 for
PGA Tour?), but I haven't played the 2nd one to compare.

[Mike_Cirba]

I don't much care for the double bunker concept at Olympia Fields either.

[Bill_McBride]

I haven't played either hole so no comment is possible.  But I sure do like the shaping and contours of the green at Torrey Pines - that "donut" or whatever you call it is superb.



It reminds me of the green on the Short hole at Mountain Lake, same design, which I nimbly four-putted in January.  

[George Pazin]

Mike, I will say this much - the one Rees course I've seen in person looks markedly better from the golfer perspective, versus the overhead aerial. I thought the same viewing the TV broadcast when the Walker Cup was at Sea Island a few years ago as well.

Still, comparing those two images is like comparing some of my drawings to those of renaissance masters - sure, you can tell both are female, but that's about the extent of the similarities.

[Mike Hendren]

Mike,

What about the three stepped bunkers protecting the right side of the 11th green at Spyglass?  Admittedly, they're a little more stylistic - appearing as a single bunker from the fairway.

Sorry, couldn't get the image to post from PB's web-site.

Mike

[wsmorrison]

Without playing either one, just from the brief description and the drawing/photo, neither one appeals to me very much with the pinched in front and bland and repetitive step bunkering into the hillside.

How does this look for an uphill hole with bunkers in the hillside?  I like the fact that there is a wider opening to the green.  Even though it is steeply uphill (more so than appears in the photo), there is some ability to run the ball up, though an aerial shot is better attempted.  The Torrey Pines hole has rough on the upslope and a very closed front.  The Olympia Fields has such a narrow opening

[Brent Hutto]

Wayne,

From my lefty-slicer perspective, the thing I like about the hole you posted is that there seems to be some ground beyond the first pair of bunkers on the left. So it's not just a stack of two or three bunkers one right after another but rather separate hazards greenside and well short of the green.

So a weaker player could legitimately play for a shot that gets safely past the short-left bunkers but stays short of the green and doesn't take on either of the greenside bunkers directly. And just as a bonus the resulting little wedge or running shot has to contend with the interesting sidehill contouring of the apron and the green.

I think that's a neat hole, what is its length from the middle tees? At about 360-390 yards uphill it would be a fun one, for my game at least.

[Chris_Clouser]

Michael,

Are you looking for something other than the built in bias towards the ODGs that seems to exist on this site?  

Other than that, I guess we feel that having five bunkers fronting the green is a bit of overkill when three will do the job.  

[Tommy_Naccarato]

See, this is what I've been trying to explain to all of you about Hillbilly Inbreeding. The first thing that goes is the mind. You all know what I'm talking about. Just like that movie Deliverance.... In fact, I can picture Hillbilly Hendren right now, sitting on his porch playing the banjo with that last tooth sticking out of his mouth. You can smell the gingivitis from this keyboard.

Mike, The 13th has to be seen to be believed. It is a blight on golf architecture, as far as stylistic architecture is concerned. To explain better, it is just how constructed one hole feels compared to the other, in relation to how it is best used for the land at hand. Not that the original hole was anything to shout about, but it was a rather memorable hole for the course. (whose entire routing was suspect anyway)

That rather deep dip used to be fun to negotiate though. You just can't tell it in these images. The worst thing about the hole just isn't the ridiculous Rees Pieces bunkering, but more the containment mounding that was added in the drive zone.

You take away that ocean view and Rees Jones has no reason what-so-ever to ever even think about getting involved in this upcoming ridiculous charade of a US Open. (Because that's what it is.)

[wsmorrison]

Brent,

The tee shot might just fit your lefty slice.  It is 375 yards from an elevated tee, through a chute of trees, which doglegs left then decidedly uphill.  The typical approach distance is 150 yards or so as you can hit a driver through the fairway towards a creek if you don't draw it (or in your case, slice).  The green is two-tiered.  There is beautiful bunkering on the right, which you cannot see in this photo.  There is plenty of room between the first bunkers on the left and the green.

To the club's credit, they took out some constricting trees on the left at the corner.  To their detriment, they put them back in.  Huh?

[Kyle Harris]

I am willing to bet that no Rees Jones green comes close to the sophistication of a Willie Park, Jr. green.

Willie Park, Jr. didn't really care about much tee to green. I think one of the reasons he never really built a "bad" hole was that his greens are categorically superb.

[Phil_the_Author]

George,

You observed, "Still, comparing those two images is like comparing some of my drawings to those of renaissance masters - sure, you can tell both are female, but that's about the extent of the similarities..."

C'mon now, Leo & Mikey weren't that bad as artists. Some of their "females" look pretty good!  

[Mike Hendren]

Tommy, as you point out things are not always as they seem.  To wit,  you know perfectly well that I'm no fan of the work of Rees Jones.  Second, Billy Redden played the part of the inbred banjo player in Deliverance despite the fact that he couldn't play a lick. Redden also appeared in Tim Burton's The Big Fish doing what else? playing the banjo as he welcomed visitors to the quirky town of Spectre.

This has been your Hillbilly moment of the day.

Mike

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