What makes a "Short" hole great?

[Niall C]

Tony

Nothing against the holes you mention but no. 6 at NB (as it plays now !) never struck me as being that short. 14 at Crail might be a bit more like it but can't say it fits a template I recognise. The closest I could think of was all the shortish (140 yarders) with an oval green and surrounded by bunkers that Braid used to do but that was after CBM.

Jim

That ones a a whole template of its own. Colt did one at Muirfield before Simpson redesigned it in the 1930's and Fernie built another one down at Silloth which is still there but all were after 1910 and therefore after CBM's time.

Niall

[Jim_Kennedy]

Hanging one off the edge of a cliff is always exciting...  

[Jim_Kennedy]

...and I'm sure this one from Devereux Emmet was.

[Jim_Kennedy]

The shot over a ravine always gets a player's attention:
 

[PCCraig]

How about the 7th at St. Louis Country Club?:

From Ran's Review:

Seventhhole, 155 yards, Shorty; A superb Short Hole with its thumbprint or horseshoe green contours helping to make it more engaging than either the fourth at Brancaster or the eighth at St. Andrews from which the name ‘Short’ derives.


The built-up green complex makes it one of the most fortified Short Holes in the game, though at 7,800 square feet in size, the green is more than a reasonable target.


The true challenge of the hole is best appreciated when one considers that when the course opened for play in 1914, golfers only had a niblick (or nine iron) as the sand iron had yet to be invented. The seventh green was truly a hit-it-or-else proposition as recovery from the nine foot deep front bunker was quite difficult.


As seen from behind, a shot over or a miss right of the green offers no solace either.