Dougal's Fancy

[Rich Goodale (Guest)]

This is the name of the 10th at Muckhart.  The forward ('casual") tees measure 173 yards while the medal (competition) tees are 109 yards.  The casual hole is a straight away shot over a burn to a slightly elevated green.  The medal hole has a tee well ahead and off to the right which requries a blind shot over a glade of trees.  I understand that they are considering a similar concept at Friars Head (i.e. a significantly shorter "Championship" tee with a different angle) on what I call the "Thimble" hole (the one that has a 60 foot conical outcropping between the tee adn hte green).

Any other examples of this creative routing?

[George Pazin]

Rich -

That is indeed interesting. I've often thought that some courses could make themselves more "difficult" in a scoring sense by using a forward tee to reduce par on a tweener hole - i.e. use a forward tee on a hole that the back tees might have in the mid 300s, with the forward tee mid 200s & make it a brutal par 3. Similarly this could be done (& is done by the USGA) with higher 400s par 5s, making them par 4s. 'Course, this is all predicated on the golfer only caring about score. I think Tom Doak even mentions a similar approach by Rye, where it is easier to match par on the longer course, because it affords one the opportunity of a reachable par 5.

I would also be curious to know if anyone else used the method you cite.

[RJ_Daley]

Rich, I may be mistaken, but I think that the concept of a shorter yet more difficult angle requiring a designation of championship tee may be at 17 Kiawah Ocean.  Isn't the shorter distance to center of green tee from the far right point with all water carry and bunkers directly behind, considered the tougher tee than the more distant one coming in from the back left of direct angle to the front of the green, with near run up and onto the green qualities?