I have lots of old photos and aerials of Cherry Hills (some I have posted here in the past) that are quite impressive. I also agree with Tom Doak about some of his favorite holes after the restoration. #5 might be my favorite as the improvement is huge. The same goes for #17 which before the work I thought was marginal at best. Tim Moraghan and I spent a lot of time out there together prior to the 2005 U.S. Women’s Open and he described the hole as a 0. He was not far off as the hole had become very boring and one dimensional. With the restoration of the cross bunkers and removal of the silly trees on the island, the hole has been dramatically improved and much of the orignial strategy added back to it. I have stated this here before but there are actually three holes at Cherry Hills that are patterned after three holes at Pine Valley - the 7th at CHCC is PV’s 12th, the 14th at CHCC is PV’s 13th and the 17th at CHCC is PV’s 7th. I have photos from all angles of both as well as old photos and the closeness is shocking. If you know Flynn, one would understand why and how this is possible. The Cherry Hills club members were quite shocked when they learned about the relationship.
I still think the biggest change and maybe the most important one was the movement of the 8th green. It was slid back as Tom said, about 70 yards which opened up room for new back tees on the 16th hole and the 9th hole restoring some of the design intent to both holes that had been lost. It also allowed the #5 tees to be shifted to the left (more in their original line of play and with a better view of the stream). This was also an area of heavy congestion during big tournaments and that was improved as well. I remember presenting this idea to the committee fairly early on in the master plan process and most looked at me with concern. I had been stating all along that the last thing you want to do is start moving original greens around on a great old golf course. But we had studied this for a long time. The surrounds of the 8th green had already been changed in the past and were not Flynn. The angle of play had also changed as the original tee was close to #7 near the stream. The club did not want to take yardage off the hole and restore that teeing area and we agreed. Furthermore, to restore the Flynn surrounds would not have worked with the green contours because of the new angle of play. By moving the green forward, the complete green complex could be realigned and restored to fit the new line of play. There was also room to add even more yardage to what was already a long hole (you could make it 300 yards). All the other benefits could be realized as well with this change. I was very pleased when I learned that Tom agreed with all of this and carried it out.
When I was out there during construction, Eric told me that about 70% of what we wanted done got implemented. I think that is great as this was a big step for the club to take and I trust they are very happy they did it. On a side note, I have to say that it was a real pleasure spending time with Eric Iverson. He is a gentleman and an extremely talented guy. It was fun going around the golf course with him, discussing Flynn and the history of the course and talking about what got approved and what didn’t. There were some things I might have pressed harder for but great steps were made as this course could have easily gone another way. They are a great group of people at Cherry Hills and I’m proud that they did the right thing in going the restoration path. Maybe it will set a good example for other clubs of such historic significance to follow.
Mark