Aerial of the Day #75 - 17 Apr 2002

[Scott_Burroughs]

If you haven't figured it out by now, this is Sahalee CC, in Sammamish, WA, outside of Seattle, host course of the 1998 PGA Championship.  It was designed by Tommy N's favorite ruiner of golf courses in SoCal, Ted Robinson, though Sahalee was 35 years ago, before that period.  Rees did do work prior to the '98 PGA.  Shown are the North and South 9's, which is the 18 used for tournaments.  The other 9 is the East.

Sahalee means "High Heavenly Ground" (in what language, I don't know).  For Chip, this is straight from the club's web site.

The club's first head pro was 2 time PGA Champ and "Little Poison", Paul Runyan, who just recently passed.

clue alert:

Vijay Singh ("sing") won the '98 PGA.

"rain" refers to Seattle's famous climate (though not in the summer).

"brewin' " refers to coffee (not beer), Seattle's famous beverage.  "Ground" from "High Heavenly Ground" could also be a coffee clue.

The state reference is "I cannot tell a lie", credited to Pres. Washington, though supposedly he never said it.

"windows" and "Gates" refer to nearby Monolith (monopoly?) company, Microsoft.

Here's a few pics:











from their web site:

http://www.sahalee.com

[Mike_Cirba]

SPDB,

This is at least the third time I've done it, here (i.e. accurately cited Rees's involvement prior to anyone naming the course, or knowing it myself...Atlantic and Bethpage were two others that come immediately to mind, as well as the one's in GA...ACC or East Lake...forget which).

Scott,

Care to back me up?

[Scott_Burroughs]

I will back you up most of the way, Mike.  While there really are only a few holes in this Sahalee aerial that have the amoeba bunkers (like par 3 17th and par 4 10th, middle left, for example), it is certainly true that amoebas (or amoebae) were everywhere in the Bethpage (Black), Cascata, and Atlantic aerials.  But East Lake and Congressional have none of them whatsoever.  What East Lake and Congressional have in common is that the bunkering looks exactly alike at each one from above, though there are no amoebae to be found.

Note that the par 3 17th at Sahalee is pictured in one of the ground pics.

I still think Atlantic's aerial was pretty interesting, though.

[ChipOat]

Scott:

Go w/the website - my source is a bit of an eccentric, anyway.

Was "good grief!" a clue??

[Mike_Cirba]

Scott,

Yes, almost forgot about Cascata.  

In the case of Congressional, Rees created a string of his circular, shallow pots on the par five ninth.

and to fully answer your question SPDB,

The reason I am aghast is frankly because...YES....I can identify them as Rees Jones bunkers from 8,000 FEET!!!  

That's either personally scary, or indicative of stylistic redundancy, wouldn't you think?

[Scott_Burroughs]

"Good grief!" was not a clue, just my expression over the claustrophobia of trees.  Y'all are trying to read into everything I say now, which I guess I can understand.  

[Scott_Burroughs]

I forgot to mention that this was the first aerial shown for the state of Washington.  That makes 29 states plus England represented.

[Scott_Burroughs]

It's funny how the mind works.  It's not "I cannot tell a lie" that Washington supposedly never said, he supposedly never chopped down a cherry tree.  I think.  

[THuckaby2]

Maybe lied when he said he never lied, and never really did chop down a cherry tree but lied about not lying about it.

Whew!

I'm just happy you got my convoluted weird clue, in any case.  

TH

[Dan Kelly]

The truth about Washington is:

That tree he chopped down was an enormous cherry tree hanging over the left side of the fairway on No. 17 at Mount Vernon G & CC.

He got sick of hitting it -- nearly every time he hit his trademark fade off the tee.

He hit it so often that his usual playing companions (Pat Henry, Jim Madison, Tom Paine) starting calling it the "George Tree." They all thought that was a pretty funny name for it.

One day, during a meeting with Martha, George proposed that they just cut down the darned tree.

"Mr. President," said Martha, "you're out of order."

And that was that -- until, in his dotage, The Father of Our Country took matters into his own hands.  

[THuckaby2]

AHA!  Leave it to the esteemed Mr. Kelly to be truly in the know here.

And you thought GCA's discussion group was just a bunch of golfheads.... Hey, we get history lessons here too!  

TH