GCA Mock Fantasy Draft II - Dream Course Edition

[Chip Gaskins]

Chip:

I've never actually played Oakmont -- but I've walked it four times, and I'll bet I know it much better than most panelists.  Maybe at a top-ten course like that, they wouldn't let you out there to walk around it before or after you played -- but 99% of courses would, and you'd know them a lot better if you did.

Like Crystal Downs.  I assume that you have only played it once, too, and so you are relying on some of your pictures for your memory of it, because you don't remember it that well.  For starters, the green is one of the most interesting and severe on the course ... it's divided left and right by a rolling spine, and then has front and back quadrants within each half.  Downwind, the tee shot is not so hard [if you don't play it from the back tee, which is 35 yards behind where you took your picture], and you can try to attack the correct quadrant of the green in order to have a birdie try [or at least avoid 3-putting].  But into the wind, which is fairly often, the tee shot is an absolute bear, and if you don't get it to the top of the slope you have to try to play a long iron or hybrid off a steeply uphill lie.

You are welcome to come back and play the hole sometime, and I'll gladly swallow your green fee if you use the word "pedestrian" again after playing this hole.  In the meantime, thanks for making my point about how panelists can't remember things very well.

Tom-

Well, I am smart enough to not try and win a debate about architecture with you, especially on your home course and top of that a Mackenzie course.  I will take your word that #6 is a world class hole.  My palate is simply not trained enough yet.  Also, even as a single digit handicap, I would be lying if I said I can hit irons to quadrants of greens.

I will keep reading, studying, and listening and maybe, maybe one day...The Renaissance Cup!!

Chip

[Ronald Montesano]

Who wouldn't want a long iron or hybrid off an uphill lie?  Lord, that's Heaven on Earth for me!  Sure beats heck out of the alternative.  Sounds like a pretty nice hole, when all is said and done.  Chip, I have to say, when I saw your picture, I thought if the approach and green were equal to the tee ball, then it would be one terrific hole.  'course, that's my two-dimensional brain at work.

[Tom_Doak]

Ronald:

I'm talking about trying to hit a 3-iron off a 15% uphill grade, and probably into the wind [or else you should have driven it up top].  I have hit the shot successfully a couple of times, and thought it was one of the best shots I'd ever pulled off, which is probably one reason I like the hole so much.

[John Mayhugh]

Tough tee shot to keep it in the fairway and get past the trees to the flat area.  Easy green to three putt.

Tom Doak,
Do you like the trees on both sides of the fairway about 150 yards out?  Feels like threading a needle.  Were these part of original design or added?

Some pics of the hole.




On the left side of this photo you get a sense of the steepness of the fairway.

[Chip Gaskins]

Guys-  Do we really need to turn this into a referendum on #6 at Crystal Downs.  I have already admitted Mea Culpa...

[John Mayhugh]

Guys-  Do we really need to turn this into a referendum on #6 at Crystal Downs.  I have already admitted Mea Culpa...

Sorry, Chip.  My intent was not piling on.
I think the hole has a cool green and liked the movement in the fairway.  I just didn't like the trees standing guard on each side of the fairway and wondered what Tom D thought of them. 

[JC Jones]

Guys-  Do we really need to turn this into a referendum on #6 at Crystal Downs.  I have already admitted Mea Culpa...

Sorry, Chip.  My intent was not piling on.
I think the hole has a cool green and liked the movement in the fairway.  I just didn't like the trees standing guard on each side of the fairway and wondered what Tom D thought of them. 

John,

On the two times I've played it I didn't really notice the trees on the left.  I agree, however, that the tree on the right over the bunker is unnecessary.  A drive that challenges that bunker and does so successfully should not have to negotiate that tree.

[Sean_A]

Tough tee shot to keep it in the fairway and get past the trees to the flat area.  Easy green to three putt.

Tom Doak,
Do you like the trees on both sides of the fairway about 150 yards out?  Feels like threading a needle.  Were these part of original design or added?

Some pics of the hole.




On the left side of this photo you get a sense of the steepness of the fairway.

John

Looking at that those pix it seems to me that the biggest problem are the trees left.  That looks as though fairway should be further out tempting a guy too leave his drive too far left.  Sure, the tree right is just plain out of place in terms of the look and maybe it should go.  The more I look at these Crystal Downs photos the more it seems the course should be wider.  Has it been narrowed over the years?

Ciao

[Tom_Doak]

Sean:

At one time, Crystal Downs was all gang-mowed at the same height -- probably 3/4 inch fair/rough.  I doubt that was really the original intent, just a practical solution to Depression finances.

The trees both left and right were there when the course was built -- they were (along with the tree in the corner of the dogleg on "street trees" planted along the old road that went through the property, which was moved around to the east when the course was expanded from 9 holes to 18.  They were reasonably big trees in 1933 -- twenty feet tall at least -- so it's not like Maxwell or MacKenzie just missed seeing them.

The bunkers to the right of #6 are really just eye candy, with the tree there ... you have to either play around the tree, or hit over it, as I've seen a couple of people (including Ben Crenshaw) do over the years.  The trees on the left do occasionally come into play for me when I yank a tee shot to the left, but there's 35 yards of fairway and several yards of semi-rough on either side before you get to the nasty stuff.

[Sean_A]

Sean:

At one time, Crystal Downs was all gang-mowed at the same height -- probably 3/4 inch fair/rough.  I doubt that was really the original intent, just a practical solution to Depression finances.

The trees both left and right were there when the course was built -- they were (along with the tree in the corner of the dogleg on "street trees" planted along the old road that went through the property, which was moved around to the east when the course was expanded from 9 holes to 18.  They were reasonably big trees in 1933 -- twenty feet tall at least -- so it's not like Maxwell or MacKenzie just missed seeing them.

The bunkers to the right of #6 are really just eye candy, with the tree there ... you have to either play around the tree, or hit over it, as I've seen a couple of people (including Ben Crenshaw) do over the years.  The trees on the left do occasionally come into play for me when I yank a tee shot to the left, but there's 35 yards of fairway and several yards of semi-rough on either side before you get to the nasty stuff.

Tom

Hmmm, you didn't say teh trees were good or that you liked them. 

I have no memory of Crystal Downs.  But it looks as though the contours on #6 push tee shots toward a tree either side and if you aren't as long as Crenshaw - well, you know the story.  You probably don't mind trees like this as much as I do, but I am usually of the opinion that on a severe slope the fairway needs to go around the trees if they are worth keeping at all. 

Ciao 

[Sean_A]

The most inspired choices, by owner:

What was yours?  I need to know how seriously to take your comments in the future.   

Carl:  That would be for others to decide.

I did count up that of the 469 (26 full courses plus Matthew's one hole), I had seen all but 35 of them in person.  I wonder if Ran could beat that.

Tom

The 14th at Baltray?

Ciao