Connector holes?

[Tom_Doak]

Was always told during my Crystal Downs visits that #9 was the filler hole to complete the 18 and diagrammed on paper never visiting the site?

The story I've heard is that MacKenzie thought he'd figured out the front nine, and Maxwell pointed out he only had eight holes -- so they added the ninth, while sitting together on the hill.  It's probably not true, but it's a funny story, and Maxwell's son knew of it.


But there are different ways to think of "connector" holes. 


Sometimes you need to add a hole or two to get up to 18, or combine two into one to get down to 18. 


Other times, you need to get across some very rough terrain from one part of the site to another and "connect" the holes that are easy to build.  This would describe #17 and #11 at the Downs. 


Some might even describe #5 as a connector, as I would guess that was not the first hole MacKenzie gravitated to, but more of a necessity to get to #6 tee.  [But I might be wrong, because the #4 green site had been established by the nine hole course, so he knew he needed a hole that started there.]

[Tom_Doak]

In my new book I do not use the term "connector holes" very often, except for the first course -- High Pointe.


At High Pointe, the 13th hole was the connector on the back 40 acres, after I had found #12 and #14.  On the front nine, it was the 7th, after I'd decided on a position for #8 tee.  And I learned that by making good decisions in planning and shaping those holes, they might wind up among the best holes on the course . . . so, since then, I have rarely used the term "connector hole" because it sounds dismissive, and sometimes they are the most important holes of all.




Every routing involves making a bunch of connections -- in a sense, every hole is a connector hole.  But which you identify as such depends on how you approach the routing and which holes you find first.


For example, the most important hole at Rock Creek is the par-4 7th.  That's the most rugged piece of ground we had to get through, and because we were trying to get to the tee of a par-3 to play across the stream, I couldn't build two par-3's before that to traverse the terrain -- I had to find a longer hole.  But, because I identified the problem right away, that was actually one of the first holes I found on the map.  [The very first hole was #10 -- and that was how I knew I had to get across the creek up in that vicinity.]  So, I would say #7 is a connector hole, but it's actually one of the first holes I set in stone.


By contrast, at Ballyneal, we identified the 8th hole pretty early, and the 7th was a connector to get to it -- you had to come over/around that little ridge to get to #7 tee, and then the green had to be close to #8 tee.  Originally we had the 7th green up near where the 8th tee is now, and the 8th tee further over, but the view on #8 through that little slot to the left was much better with the tee where it is, so I went looking for a different green site for #7 . . . and it turned out alright. 


Routing is full of little puzzles like that, but a lot of times it will be hard to tell from the outside which piece came first, because you don't know what will have drawn the architect's eye.  The book attempts to explain what I saw first.

[Tommy Williamsen]

Tom, do you find that most "connector" holes are over, to use your word, "rugged" terrain, like 17 at CD?

[Tom_Doak]

Tom, do you find that most "connector" holes are over, to use your word, "rugged" terrain, like 17 at CD?

Tommy:


Again, it depends on how you look at them. 


If you sort out all of the easy ground first, then obviously those are the connectors.  If you go right to the problem area first -- which I usually do, because the client wants to know if the course can be great, and that's where it's most likely to fail -- then does that make it the "connector" or not?


I guess it does, but I still don't like the term.

[SL_Solow]

A question re Friar's Head.  One of my favorite aspects about a course that I really love is the way C&C routed the course back and forth between the dune land and the old potato fields.  Par 5's were the holes used to transition back and forth between the different land forms.  Would those holes be considered "connectors" in the context of this discussion?

[Ally Mcintosh]

Tommy,


Sometimes the connector hole is the exact opposite, over the plainer ground between two areas of more exciting ground.


If you think about the weakness of the old  Enniscrone routing (pre the 6 new Steele holes), the connectors in many ways were the 1st and 2nd, two long par-5’s that took you out to the interesting dunes / undulations in as few holes as possible.


But as Tom says, an architect’s version of a connector is a bit of the puzzle that falls in to place to enable a desired solution in other parts of the routing. So it can take many forms.

[James Boon]

Sometimes the connector hole is the exact opposite, over the plainer ground between two areas of more exciting ground.

Like the old 7th at Royal Dornoch 
Cheers,
James

[Tom_Doak]

A question re Friar's Head.  One of my favorite aspects about a course that I really love is the way C&C routed the course back and forth between the dune land and the old potato fields.  Par 5's were the holes used to transition back and forth between the different land forms.  Would those holes be considered "connectors" in the context of this discussion?

Shel:


It's interesting you mention the par-5's at Friars Head.  Bill Coore talked about them in his Foreword for my book.

[Tim Rooney]

Probably the most well known filler at The Golf Club would be #13 with wood dykes/planks liberally utilized and a unique green site with an elevated lake.

[Tom_Doak]

Probably the most well known filler at The Golf Club would be #13 with wood dykes/planks liberally utilized and a unique green site with an elevated lake.

. . . which quickly became the signature hole . . .

[Doug Bolls]

Jeff - Whenever I play Tangle Ridge I think of #7 as a "connector" hole.  Just an OK, bland par 4 that gets us from an interesting par 4 #6 to a more interesting par 5 #8. 


It seems to me to be just there as a way to get headed back to the clubhouse.


Am I thinking correctly?

[Tim Rooney]

Tom,#13,preceded and followed with an excellent par4 and a Great 3 shot par 5.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Jeff - Whenever I play Tangle Ridge I think of #7 as a "connector" hole.  Just an OK, bland par 4 that gets us from an interesting par 4 #6 to a more interesting par 5 #8. 


It seems to me to be just there as a way to get headed back to the clubhouse.


Am I thinking correctly?

Doug,


I never really thought about it that way. To be honest, I thought that routing came out pretty well, with no really bad holes you would call connectors or throwaways.  The worst feature is probably the driving range.  At the time, we figured we could pipe the stream that crosses, but it still hasn't happened.  The least good hole, IMHO, is probably the 13th, the dogleg par 5, but it's a dogleg, but not really a dog hole......And I wanted 14 to be longer and more straight away, but there was a little wetland there, and also an 1800's family garbage dump, which was deemed historically interesting, and we had to move the green right into that low area, and it has struggled ever since.


If anything, 7 and 8 came about because I often start looking for holes near property edges, knowing that on average size sites, I will probably end up there.  And 7 is a good place for a long par 4, and that just happened to fit.

[Tom_Doak]

Tom,#13,preceded and followed with an excellent par4 and a Great 3 shot par 5.

I can't recall the 12th, except I'm pretty sure that is the hole where Mr. Dye told his client he needed more land for either the tee or the green. . . he only had 300 acres!

[Tim Rooney]

Asked for 100 more yards and was given 50 acres by Fred Jones.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Yes, legend has it that Pete often thought in terms of connector properties......

[Tim Rooney]

Well said!

[Ira Fishman]

Legend has it that Colt found the Par 3s first and then designed to make them work. Is the legend true? Do other architects have analogous “formulas”?


Ira

[Peter Pallotta]

Tom,#13,preceded and followed with an excellent par4 and a Great 3 shot par 5.

I can't recall the 12th, except I'm pretty sure that is the hole where Mr. Dye told his client he needed more land for either the tee or the green. . . he only had 300 acres!

What's up with this -- is it partly/mostly showmanship and marketing? It reminds me (on a much smaller scale) of Thompson having a huge parcel to work with at Highland Links but insisting that the government expropriate private land/farm land so he could build the best golf course possible. Really? It's a golf course; maybe he should've just tried harder and took more time figuring out how to best use what he had instead of disrupting the lives of local farmers in pursuit of his 'vision'. What's next - bringing back to life the 5000 Egyptians who lugged 10 ton stones across the desert to build the Pyramids?

[Forrest Richardson]

I think we've all faced the "connector hole" at one point of another. The key is to make that hole work on its own, so perhaps it never gets the reputation of being "just a passageway" from here to there.

My most recent (and overt) example was the par-2 'Wager Hole' at Mountain Shadows. Long story, but it is there to amuse from 17 to 18. Turned out that it also is the site of a massive amount of bets and money changing hands