Spyglass Hill - why is it so freakin' hard?

[Tom Huckaby]

Hey Tim - no need for new topic, we've had a few already on each course.  I can sum it up like this:

Black Horse - oddly shaped bunkers all over the place are annoying, and some of the greens may go a bit over the top in terms of wacky contour.  However, they took a funky relatively unkempt shortish course and made it one with GREAT conditions, which can now challenge the big boys and still be fun and interesting for the rest of us.  I think I like it better now.

Bayonet - I pretty much hate everything they did to it.  But I have riffed on that too many times before.  I've played it twice since re-do.

In the end, if I go back there - and I likely will, either for tournaments or if I can get some discount or something - I will choose to play Black Horse.  Pretty sure from this point forward I play Bayonet only if forced to do so.

TH

[Anthony Gray]

  Tom,


 Dont you always have an approach that is greater than a club difference either uphill or down hill?

  Anthony

[Tom Huckaby]

  Tom,


 Dont you always have an approach that is greater than a club difference either uphill or down hill?

  Anthony

I assume you mean at Spyglass.. and yes, there are a lot of each type - good call.  Judgment is difficult for sure.

[Mike Sweeney]

I have played it twice and liked it a bunch. I am the oddball that prefers Spanish Bay but I don't remember it being that hard. It was a long time ago so maybe I was just excited to be on the Monterey Peninsula and forgot the pain.

[Pete_Pittock]

Huckabee
You being a purist and all, were you getting a head start with v-shaped grooves.
How much roll did you get on the drives? Was this normal?
5 greens + 1 3 putt = 86, without any up and downs. It looks like this was one of those 1 mistake = 1 shot type of days. For you talent level, fugedaboudit.
Plus you were probably overswinging trying to keep up with the big dogs. 

[Andy Troeger]

Ironically even though I agree Spyglass is a challenging course, when I made a trip to the peninsula in 2007 my best round was at Spyglass (79) from the second set from the back (blue?). My next best round was the tips at Pebble Beach where I bogeyed the final three holes for an 80. Contrast that to Pasatiempo, where I struggled mightily except for a birdie at 18. My other three rounds were somewhere in the 80's as well I think.

Every course on that trip was challenging, including the three mentioned. None of them are even close to what I would consider the five hardest courses I've played. Off the top of my head, that list might start with Butler National, Conservatory at Hammock Beach, Pete Dye Course at French Lick, The Concession, and Painted Valley at Promontory (Utah).

I don't think Spyglass gets nearly enough credit from some members of this board. I think its rated pretty accurately as a borderline top 50 course in the USA.

[Bart Bradley]

Ironically even though I agree Spyglass is a challenging course, when I made a trip to the peninsula in 2007 my best round was at Spyglass (79) from the second set from the back (blue?). My next best round was the tips at Pebble Beach where I bogeyed the final three holes for an 80. Contrast that to Pasatiempo, where I struggled mightily except for a birdie at 18. My other three rounds were somewhere in the 80's as well I think.

Every course on that trip was challenging, including the three mentioned. None of them are even close to what I would consider the five hardest courses I've played. Off the top of my head, that list might start with Butler National, Conservatory at Hammock Beach, Pete Dye Course at French Lick, The Concession, and Painted Valley at Promontory (Utah).

I don't think Spyglass gets nearly enough credit from some members of this board. I think its rated pretty accurately as a borderline top 50 course in the USA.

Andy,
I liked Spyglass a lot...but don't you think that the pacing and rhythm of the holes is a letdown?  I certainly couldn't put it as a top 50...For me, it would be more like borderline top 100.

Now as to its difficulty, the main causes have already been outlined...but I will say that, for some of us, the difficulty is the ICE PLANT.  UGGHH, stay out of the ice plant.  I shot a smooth 88 with a lovely 10 after finding the ice plant and thinking I could play out of it.  What a mistake.

Ran once told me that anywhere with ice plant couldn't be all bad...I agree as long as my ball isn't in it!

Bart

[Stan Dodd]

Bart,
99% of ice plant is gone, replaced with native grasses and waste bunkers.

[Bart Bradley]

Bart,
99% of ice plant is gone, replaced with native grasses and waste bunkers.

Stan:

Say it isn't so... .

I won't be able to go back and relive the "dreaded ice plant incident".

Bart

[Andy Troeger]

Bart,
I like trees and the type of golf that occurs during the last 13 holes at Spyglass. Sure, it might not compare to the first five, but I guess I don't see that as the big letdown that others do. I could be very happy playing a course with 18 holes in the forest if they were good holes--and I think Spyglass has many. There's a good mix of the really tough holes surrounded by holes that are a little more friendly.

[Eric_Terhorst]

Well Sean that's just it... I didn't miss a single tee shot. 

Methinks it is just a difficult test of iron play and short game. 

I think you've hit it on the head there Tom.  I once watched a guy shoot 75 or 76 at Spyglass--he made putts from all over the place, and got up and down from some spots that had double written all over them.  The par on 17, up and down from a front bunker with a 25- or 30-foot bender is still memorable.  We were calling him "Seve" at that point. 

[Tom Huckaby]

Eric - I really do think that's it.  My round yesterday included no penalty shots at all caused by tee shots... in fact I hit or came close to hitting every fairway - I didn't have a single shot out of the trees.  But poor iron shots got me an X on 4 and a double on 11 (ball in lake)... relatively good iron shots that were just not good enough led to damn near all the bogeys.

It's a very difficult second shot course.  But hell, damn near every green is raised, relatively small, and surrounded by very deep bunkers, so I feel like a fool for just noticing this NOW after a dozen plays.

BTW this is not to say errant tee shots can't hurt... on the trees on the forest holes and the dunes on the dunesy holes are not happy places - but I think it is true that the greens and surrounds exact their toll as well... perhaps more in dribs and drabs (bogey after bogey) but the tolll is taken nonetheless.

[Adam Clayman]

Spy has much Mojo. Local knowledge is important for every approach shot and putt, if low scoring is to be had. The greens are not small but their sections, or the proper placement on approach, plays small. It's a course where you need to be very aware of everything, and that's why local knowledge is key. Many times on those greens it is not what you see but what you know. Also, It's proximity to deep deep water gives it some extra gravity, in spots.

One of my greatest thrills was going even par starting on 6, only playing the front, through the 5th.

[Tom Huckaby]

Adam:

Well... I sure was not fooled by any shot yesterday... and I have played it quite a few times.  I don't doubt that a little more local knowledge would help one go low - but going low is not the issue here... no lack of local knowledge caused me to struggle to break 90.  I putted decently, missing none I should have made.

One thing I should clarify though is that we did get insanely difficult hole placements.  That sure didn't help matters.

But I have played it with easier hole placements and fared not much better.

I do think it comes down to the greens are just plain tough to hit, and when missed, tough to make up an downs from off of.

TH

[Tim Bert]

My two round average at Spyglass Hill is 98.5 from the gold tees.  Both rounds were played as a 10-12 index.  It's a beautiful course and about as much fun as I can imagine shooting that poorly.  For me, there aren't the same kind of blow-up opportunities out there (the 8s, 9s, and 10s) that sometimes kill my travel golf.  Instead, it is a series of double-bogeys that don't feel all that bad while I'm making them until I add up my score when I'm done.  I never made so many easy double-bogeys as I did at Spyglass a week and a half ago.  The difficulty starts with the consistent long, uphill approaches that I face after my moderate distance off the tee.  Compounding that problem is the fact that those long approaches are always being played out of the rough - the corridors are plenty wide there, but the short grass is pretty narrow.  The final straw is the difficult and rather quick greens - I rarely found myself in a position to one-putt even though I wasn't hitting the greens in regulation.

[Lou_Duran]

I want to be Tom Huckaby.

SH has killed me both times I played it- mid-80s the first time 25+ years ago, in the 90s in 2005, but I really like the course and long to play it again.  It is just a hard driving course for me, and if the wind is up like it was in 2005, the two par 3s in the front can be score killers.

[Tom Huckaby]

I want to be Tom Huckaby.

Sometimes, yes.  You would have wanted to me be (or Steve Pieracci) a few days ago.  Comped golf at each of Black Horse and Spyglass is a wonderful thing.

But most of the time?  No.  That is, unless you have a burning desire to be a house-husband more than any other role, and spend your life as kid chauffer/sports coach/fan.

As for Spyglass... misery does love company.  I am pleased I am not alone in getting my ass kicked by that course.

Note also, though.... I have yet to opine on how much I like the course - I do like it a lot, truly I do.  I'd play it again today if life was perfect.  I just was quite quizzical at how it kicked all of our butts the other day, on a day that it really seemingly shouldn't have.

TH

[Matt_Cohn]

1. Yeah, the elevated greens thing is tough.

2. The greens are tough and people don't talk about that much. It's hard to make many putts there because they all break 3 feet, and likewise hard to chip it close when there's 2 slopes and a crown between you and the cup. So basically, you don't get up and down much once you miss all those greens.

3. I don't care if it's 6,950, it's long. All those uphill approach shots mean no roll on a lot of your drives either.