[mike_malone]

   I think #8 at Glen Mills shows much thought in the design of the back of the green. The hole is a short par four with an elevated green. The green is quite shallow and quite wide at the same time (hope that makes sense---litttle room front to back; much right to left). Then there is a 3/5 foot hill in the back. After that the ground falls off quickly. However there is an undulating rough collection area of ten yards width before it falls off again .

    The shallowness of the green is the most challenging feature of the hole even though you have a wedge in your hand. What I like is that the inevitable long shot is not hopelessly gone but can rest on the rough collection area in the rear or be stopped by the ridge directly in the back. It needs to be said that the greatest fear is to avoid the embarrassment of rolling back down when you come up short.

    Bobby Weed didn't stop thinking at the green. Thank you for that!

     Other examples of "designing for the back of the green" ?

[Mark McKeever]

From what I was told by one of the guys working there, the 8th green was an afterthought, once the green was unable to be built down the hill and to the left. (due to environmental reasons)  The original thought was to hit a tee shot right in front of where the green currently sits, then hit a downhill pitch to the left slightly to a small green. 

As it plays now with the shallow green I like it a lot.  It makes you nervous abotu spinning a wedge off the front of the green and back down the hill.  With the length of the hole, thats what you should have in your hand after an ideal tee shot.

Mark

[Jason Topp]

1.  I would like to see more holes where the back of the green is the safe play and the player gambles by trying to hit it close.  Front to back sloping greens would be the prototype of such a hole but there are others. 

2.  I also like bunkers at the back of the green, particularly on one side that capture an overly agressive tee shot.  I got killed by one of those twice in an event last weekend. 

The hole was a simple 144 yard par three with a hidden bunker hard against the long left side of the green.  In the first round, I thought I made a hole in one, but the ball landed a yard left of the pin and bounded into the bunker.  In the second round, I just hooked one.  In both cases I could have used less club to the middle of the green and had a 30' putt for birdie but because I was close to the cut line, pressed and made bogies.  Such a hazard is perfect in that it punishes the good player's mistakes while hardly being noticeable for the average player that leaves it short.  It also leaves a difficult choice on a tee shot with a tempting birdie opportunity.

3.  For the reasons discussed in number 2, I think water hazards at the back of the green can be pretty effective hazards as well, particularly if they are accompanied by an open fronted green that allows very conservative play on the approach. 

[Michael Huber]

Seems to me that most of the time, the back of the green is either A.) an afterthought or B.) The edge of the abyss

It makes me wonder about amateurs' propensity to never take enough club.  If there was more things going on beyond the green, would the amateur take more club? 

[Wade Whitehead]

Amateurs generally don't miss long.  That's why most of them never see what's behind any given green (and which may explain why many holes are generally featureless in those areas).

The eighth at Glen Mills has always stood out as a bit of a question mark for me.  The challenge is certainly in hitting the correct shot on the approach.  I remarked the last time I was there that a bunker shot from behind that green would be terrifying (if such a bunker existed).

As to your question: Lester George built a wonderful bunker complex behind the 12th green at Ballyhack.  The hole is absolutely unique; for longer hitters, the approach can be blind, while for someone who lays back, the green is in full view.  For the shorter hitter, the array of bunkers long can be very intimidating, though they aren't as in play from further out.  For the longer hitter, they aren't in view but are much more of a consideration.  This brilliant feature - which permits a more visual challenge for a shorter hitter but more of an actual one for a bigger hitter - really makes the hole special.  This is to say nothing of the tee shot, which presents the flag in full view, a good 40 yards left of the preferred line.

WW

[Doug Siebert]

My local strategic favorite (Saddleback Ridge) has a hole sorta like this, the 6th.  Its a 360 yard par 4 that's fairly level off the tee, then steeply uphill the last 60 yards or so, to a green that's very wide but not particularly deep, that's cut into that steep hillside (which continues up the hill further to the top of the ridge for which the course is named)  Thus there is some bailout in the back as you can miss a bit long and still be OK thanks to the backstop the hill provides, which is tightly mown - thoug if you go more than about 20 feet long you get hung up in some seriously gnarly fescue!  Miss short and your ball is probably going to roll about 30 yards down the hill.  Because the green is cut into a hillside, providing a bit of an optical illusion, from the back it looks like you are almost chipping uphill.  The green actually runs away from you pretty good, which you figure out the first time you get fooled by that, hit too hard, and your chip rolls through the green and 30 yards down that hill

It usually plays mostly into the prevailing wind, which makes the shallowness of the green less of a factor, but when there is little wind or has a bit of a helping wind distance control is at a premium.  My personal strategy for dealing with this is playing well out in the right rough, about 30 yards right of the right edge of the fairway, leaving a wedge from a 45* angle into the green.  Now that I'm playing more along with the 'width' of the green, I have a lot more margin for error distance control wise, along with having more room long the further I hit it (useful for those times when you hit that OTT wedge pulled left long)  Since the rough on this course is rarely allowed to get longer than about 3.5", it is not really a factor for wedge shots - the extra room lengthwise I'm creating more than makes up for it.  Plus I'm safe from the disaster that awaits a drive missed left of the fairway

The fairway is actually fairly wide, perhaps close to 50 yards wide at its widest point, but this is certainly one hole that would benefit from some real width to help more players recognize this strategy, and perhaps make it less of a tradeoff for those who are not as strong (i.e., guys playing from the senior tees at 300 yards might drive where I drive, but won't be hitting a wedge or finding that rough as trivial as I do)

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