[Guy Nicholson]

[I can't post the image I'm trying to use as illustration. But you can view it here and here via Google Earth.]



Uplands is a nine-hole Stanley Thompson course in Toronto's north end. It was 18 holes for several decades before half its land was sold off for homes — Lorne Rubenstein has written fondly about it several times. Uplands also sits directly next to Thornhill Golf, another Thompson gem where Byron Nelson won the 1945 Canadian Open.

I was at Uplands this week and it’s in rough shape — it’s been under-maintained for years, the tees and greens are chewed up, two holes are bisected by some sort of drainage project and the trees are so overgrown that the 8th, a majestic drop shot to a tabletop green, is barely playable. It’s kind of sad.

Despite all that, the par-4 7th is a little ray of sunlight. It’s a downhill par 4 that I tackled from about 250 yards, but it plays even shorter because of the sharp downhill tilt.

You don’t see many two-shotters at this length, and it could in fact easily get pushed back to 280 or 300 yards if they would maintain the tees and trim a few trees. But it’s a surprisingly engaging little hole to tackle even with irons or hybrids, because of the perfect use of angle and slope, in particular an insidious knob at front left of the green.

The crux is that any tee shot that runs through the fairway left leaves a nearly impossible pitch or chip over the knob to an extremely small green that runs away from that angle. So the more aggressive you get off the tee, the more precise you need to be.

You can swallow your pride and bunt a short iron off the tee, which will probably run down the hill into a fairway hollow and leave another short pitch home. Or you can take a longer club directly at the green to get there in one bold stroke. It truly is a full shot’s advantage to do that, but in order to do it safely, the tee shot has to skirt a stand of trees and find a tiny landing area to avoid finishing behind the knob. Getting up and down from anywhere left is highly unlikely, even chipping. It’s a challenge just to hold the green.

I played it twice. My first tee shot was tugged left, I failed to hit the green and couldn’t get up and down — bogey. My second effort was ideal, a 4-iron that bounced down to the fringe and left two putts for birdie. I’ll be thinking about how to play this hole for a week, and I think that’s exactly what Thompson intended.

[Ronald Montesano]

does you has a photo without the ancillaries? the shadow and trigonometry were quite distracting.

[Andrew Harvie]

One of the many brilliant golf holes at Uplands. The Thompson holes at 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 are awesome. I have a few photos of 7 I can share here momentarily

[Guy Nicholson]

No photos, Ron, but here's another good angle from Google Earth, minus the explanatory notes:


https://www.flickr.com/photos/guynick/50235466072/in/dateposted-ff/lightbox/

[Andrew Harvie]

does you has a photo without the ancillaries? the shadow and trigonometry were quite distracting.

7th tee shot:


https://i.imgur.com/mi1xCAE.jpg


7th looking down the hill:


https://i.imgur.com/0jScgB0.jpg


7th approach:


https://i.imgur.com/OcxtitZ.jpg


7th green looking back from 8th tee:


https://i.imgur.com/Vq4oS2T.jpg

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