Some holes that are considered "great" are practically impossible to miss, like #16 at CPC or #9 at RCD.  But some of these "great" holes pass by in a round and may not go noticed.  Maybe this is caused by surrounding holes or the previously surrounding land...not sure.  For me, #6 at Royal Portrush is one such hole.  I played the course twice, in different winds, and don't remember it being much more than a basic 5 or 6iron Par3.  But I read about others that rave about the challenge of the hole.  Maybe #4-5 at Portrush just overwhelmed me by comparison

Which "great" holes have you missed, or needed to have pointed out to you before/after the hole?

I think I remember that Billy Casper deliberately played short of #10 WFW when he won the 1959 Open, layed up and chipped close for par each time.  Seeing photos of those deep bunkers on both sides, seems like a great play.  Like Mike Young said at Cuscowilla, keep the ball on line and in front of the pin to score well.  Good advice!

Will always remember the '97 PGA more for the 10th than the rainbow.  Had just gotten to Winged Foot on Sunday.  Standing in the hollow.  Els on the tee.  First swing I saw that day and he holes it.  Usual emotional response.  Club in the air and a grin.  

I guess I'd have to say that the 5th hole at Merion East, as beautiful as it is, didn't catch my eye at first. Back then the reason may've been it just might be one of the really great holes in the world with the least amount of man-made architecture to it, particularly that awesome sloped green. Talk about the ultimate in just raw natural landform for a golf hole---that one might take the cake.

OK guys, after two errors, it was the third, par 3 216 yards at WFW that Casper laid up, chipped on and made par 4 times.  Its name is Pinnacle.

As for the par 3 10th's greatness - as with any great par three it's the green.  

Huck, shame on you you hit it in a place where you had an easier shot and you did not look at the green complex, the recovery possibilities and the death that surrounds misses at that green.
 

Great?

Didn't get it?  

Not a hole, but basically, the second nine at SFGC........ sure, # 12 is really great and # 10's pretty good, but where's the beef?  Two holes on one nine don't make a top 15 golf course.  I can think of no better clubhouse to play dominoes, however, even the CalClub.

(I'm sure I'll hear about this one......)

Gentlemen:

Shame on me?  Shame on you, for assuming I didn't get a proper look at the golf hole.  Believe me, I did.  I had plenty of time to do so, as I struggled over two very difficult pitch shots from short right, and waited for Mr. Sweeney to retrieve his ball from the netherlands long left.

It is a VERY difficult golf hole.  The green complex is a nice one indeed.  But hell, it's not even the best green on the course, nor is it really the best par 3 (I prefer #3 and #7 myself).  It's a fine example of a difficult hit the green or else par 3, and to that end it is a very good hole... but among the world's greats?  No way.  The green is nice but it's not THAT great.  Hell #1 green puts it to shame... as does #2.... I could go on.

My point remains that it is a fine golf hole, for sure.  I just refuse to put it with the world's best... and you have yet to give me any evidence to the contrary.

So teach me.  And do so without assumptions about what I did or didn't do, thank you.

 

TH

ps - assessing the golf course as a whole, well... I was suitably blown away and remain in complete awe of the greens as a whole.  I'm trying to make sense of how it fits in with all the courses I've seen but it rises to the very top, believe me.  It's a pure championship test of golf on all levels... and achieves a certain perfection in that.  I just refuse to put #10 up with the world's great par 3s, even as the course as a hole rises to the very top in the world, as I see things.  

Pride cometh before the fall........... (Or something like that.)

Its simply one of the most excitingly wicked putting surfaces that make this game what it is. Looking at Neil's excellent photo from when the course was in grow-in and the sand wasn't even in the bunkers, it just looks terrfying as it sits.

Yes, the 3rd is a tremendously difficult golf hole. So is the 7th. But the classiest of them all is the 10th. It has substance and style.  

Its got game.

That photo of that hole at WFW I'm assuming is in the final stages of construction. I'd love to see some photos of the hole after the course matured to compare that photo to the way it eventually came to "look".

Here's why. That hole, the way it was conceived and constructed obviously plays remarkably well, exciting, intense, all the good and exemplary things about how golf architecture should best play.

However, the look of the hole in the context of an attempt at naturalism---the way it sits on apparently flat land and just basically pops out of the ground in and of itself is an example of architectural engineering in it most blatant form, in my opinion. The actual "lines" of the entire green and surrounds are attractive lines in a natural sense but what do those lines match or tie into in that setting? Nothing that I can see.

A green and architecture like that in that natural setting to which it does not seem to remotely match (looking like it was simply airlifted and dropped onto that site) is probably a very good example of two interesting ideas and practices of that earlier time---first, the whole theory and practice of the so-called "scientific" application in golf architecture at that time, and, second, the increasing controversy of using plasticine models to create architecture!

In my mind "scientific" architecture of that time was probably mostly an American concpetion utilized by the likes of Tillinghast, Wilson, Flynn, Macdonald and Raynor and a number of the other early great ones for the purpose of placing and arranging features in an architectural sense to best create truly interesting and challenging strategies for all. And in that sense "scientific" architecture was probably a remarkable breakthrough in the evolution of golf architecture.

Athough many of those early architects spoke of their strivings for naturalism in architecture, the way some carried it off and others didn't is a very wide spectrum, in my opinion, and that photo (even if the hole was in the final stages of construction) is some of the best proof of that I think I've ever seen.

This is not to say that holes like that do not play remarkably well---they've proven they do but the way they look in a natural sense is another matter altogether, and that's obviously why the use of plasticine models in design became so controversial.

What this says to me, again, is that Alister Mackenzie (probably due to the finer points of his ideas of camouflage in golf architecture---eg completely tying in his archtiectural "lines" to the natural pre-exisitng "lines" of  natural settings) took the art of great strategic design AND the APPLICATION of a highly NATURAL look as well to a whole new level, perhaps not matched at any pervious time.

This may be additional testimony of how and why Cypress Point G.C. really was the complete pinnacle of the Golden Age!

The 6th at Seminole. Hogan's favorite.

The 14th (Foxy) at Royal Dornoch.

Both good holes. But great....?

Bob

I think it also depends on how you played the hole. If, for instance, you sort of get lucky and hit everything on the screws, and one putt, you might be inclined to say to yourself, "what's the big deal?" I think, invariably, people are more inclined to respect a hole if it kicks their ass then if they tamed it.

An example I can think of from personal experience is PVGC #13, which I birdied on my first go around. Subsequent trips in different conditions made me think otherwise, but the first go around the greatness of the hole never occurred to me.

Huckaby

#16 CPC is beautiful and clever and was always there.
Favorite, or best?

You're a dead straight hitter of the ball.

What's the green like at CPC #16?  
Compare it to #10 WFW.

What's the scenery like at #16 CPC?
What's it like on WFW #10?

Best on the planet?  How is it to have
played them all?
Chacon a son gout or is it game?

I believe that the "Pro from 52nd Street" and one of golf's greatest gentlemen said the following about WFW #10:

"It's a 3 iron into some guy's bedroom."

- Dave Marr

The beauty of #10 is that the hole rewards great shots while punishing the off line hit.  Casper's strategy at WFW was to miss far side (If hit did miss the shot) to avoid short siding himself.  The best fun is watching the "Beach Volleyball" as people go back and forth between the two bunkers in front/right and side/left.  Very similar to #8 Left at PVGC!

JWK

If the quote is not David's, and is someone else, please let me know.

redanman:

On the Old Course we agree - legends are made
there without a doubt.  I have a fine deuce on
#11 that my kids are already sick of hearing about.
 

And well... let's just say that a certain shot of mine on 16CPC
sure has provided great argumentative fodder here...
the day I so foolishly went for the green
into a 3-4 club wind when the obvious
proper strategic choice was to lay up... the fact that I made it
over and made a three not negating the fact that I so
obviously made the wrong play, in the mind of one
other player anyway.

In any case I believe you're wrong about 16CPC.  What's
the first question anyone asks when you return from
playing the course?  I'd bet 9 times out of 10 it's "how'd
you do on 16?".  Why?  Because it's such a soul-stirring
shot, one that every golfer has seen in pictures, but
so few have played.  

Seeing it in person only heightens the soul-stirring...
Maybe it's just me but I was week at the knees playing
it, each time.  On #10 WFW, I just figured it was a tough
shot with a 4iron but when I inevitably miss the green, well...
whatever... just another missed green at a brutal course...
no knee weakening, no soul stirring, just more resignation
that this course requires more game than I have.

BTW, getting up and down out of greenside bunkers
for pars on 15 and 16 at WFWest is a pretty fun thing
also.  My kids don't know WF enough to care about this
story though... not YET, that is... just wait until we see
it on TV again....

TH