Yesterday we (the five W&L golf team members who will be playing in the NCAA Championship this year, plus our coach) journeyed the 65 miles from Lexington to White Sulphur Springs, WV and The Greenbrier for the second time this spring. The team played the Greenbrier course (original Macdonald/Raynor course completely renovated by Nicklaus in 1977-78; hosted the 1979 Ryder Cup), as we did a few weeks ago.
Both times we've been there, I've been blown away by the elegance and beauty of White Sulphur Springs and the Greenbrier itself. The Old White Hotel looks from the outside as grand as the Carolina at Pinehurst (I've heard similar things about The Homestead; hopefully we'll get there at some point in the coming weeks); it's an impressing edifice to say the least. The clubhouse area is beautiful as well, with Sam Snead and Ryder Cup memorabilia all over the place. But enough preamble...
Unfortunately, my camera ran out of battery juice frustratingly quickly (even after new batteries, it was a no-go on the 7th tee), so I didn't get to snap too many photographs. But here's what I have; I'll comment on the rest of the course as best as I can without pictures (captions below each hole's picture
).
Hole 1 is a ~420 yard par four which gets the course off to a somewhat stern beginning. The right hand fairway bunker is an pretty imposing feature: large and so deep as to make the lip a concern if your tee ball rolls to the end of the bunker. A tee ball placed closer to it will afford a more straightforward approach to the two-tiered green. It is difficult to judge the distance to a pin located on the upper level, which gets the juices flowing immediately
Hole 2 is ~400 yards and is probably the toughest tee shot on the course. Both the presence of the pond and the fact that the round is young fuel the tension as one stands on the tee. I am sure that the hazard steers a lot of drives to the left rough and trees, where a worse fate (OB) lurks. The approach is to a long, narrow green set at an angle to the player, requiring a precise iron shot. The front bunker is the main defense of middle and rear hole locations, with the pond guarding the front of the green.
Number 3 is one of three short par fives (plus two longer ones) on the Greenbrier course. It is an uphill, very reachable 475 from the tips, but the player needs to hit his drive down the right half of the fairway (there is lateral hazard right in order to have the chance to try to reach the tiny, well-protected (as the third picture shows) two-tiered green in two shots. A pretty good par 4.5-4.75.
Number 4 begins a set of what I believe to be quite solid par threes. It requires a 5-7 iron through a narrow chute of trees to a small, diagonally oriented, elevated green. The second picture shows an interesting feature of the fourth green. However, it does not do much justice to the abruptness of the mini-amphitheater slope behind the green. It makes for a dicey, speedily downhill chip if you're long.
Hole 6 is a par four of about 445 yards. The drive is pretty wide open, but the green sits hard by that front-left bunker, making it difficult to judge how far onto the green the hole is. Very boring, gently pitched (right-to-left) green.
That's all the pictures I was able to get. I wish my camera would've waited a little longer before dying.
Hole 7 is a charming (even though the $3.77 they charge for a bottle of Powerade at the snack bar behind the green is far from charming) downhill par three with Reverse Redan characteristics, but a depression dominating the left side of the green. This means the player must hug the front-right greenside bunker in order to bounce the ball towards a middle or rear hole location.
Number 14 is an uphill, ~300 yard par four; a Nicklaus interpretation of a "Sahara" hole. It possesses perhaps the most interesting green on the golf course. The main feature is a miniature "buried elephant" that guarded the rear hole location very well and rejected wedge shots that came in with too much spin.
Hole 15-- a 438 yard par four "Biarritz"--features the deepest green on the course and a Biarritz-like swale (pretty shallow and gradual and not terribly awe-inspiring) separating the front and back sections.
The final hole is an interesting par five of about 540 yards (uphill) whose green is open in front to allow for the possibility of one of my favorite shots in golf--the driver "off the deck." I have not let the 460cc Age deter me from trying this shot on occasion, and while my attempt on Greenbrier #18 failed miserably, I appreciated the invitation for the shot.
The Greenbrier course is an interesting one. In doing my research about it on this site, the main criticism of it is that the greens are fairly mundane. I would agree to a fair extent, but that is not to say that the golf course is devoid of any interest on and around the greens. Holes 3, 4, 9, 11, 13, 14, and 18 all have green complexes that I could spend a good amount of time fooling around on. What I appreciate most about the Greenbrier course is that while it is not an extremely difficult course to hit a lot of fairways on (save for the first two, as I mentioned), it puts a premium on good iron play with many small, multilevel greens, healthy rough and deep bunkers.
Cheers.
--Tim Gavrich