I’ve always relished the drive from Atlanta to Augusta.  About 40 miles down I-20 the Piedmont starts in earnest, and you can’t help but marvel at the rising and tumbling of the pastureland on either side of the highway.  Atypically for Georgia it seems like an almost pine-free zone, although you do start to see more conifers as you cross Lake Oconee and head toward Augusta.

At Madison, just before the lake, two-lane Route 441 crosses north and south and offers a magnified view of the odd beauty you can see from I-20.  As one further point of reference, the magazine Progressive Farmer ranks two of the counties in this nexus in the top 200 for places to live in America (Oconee #3 and Putnam #141 )

Whenever I get out on these roads I’m always looking out the window and imagining golf holes, or perhaps more accurately wishing for golf holes.  Mike Young’s Long Shadow is 2 miles south of I-20 on 441, just past the cows.

As you may have read the front-9 is open for play, with the back-9 to come after spring grow-in.  Long Shadow is vast with no rough to speak of.  It will get very windy.  Getting off the fairway makes you really think.  The greens are such that if you want to make par you need to hit them.

Here are some pictures

Up to the third green.  Par 5, 540 Gold (Black is all the way back)




Several pictures of the par 5 #5, perhaps the most dramatic hole on a course that doesn't over-emphasize drama.

From the tee:




From the fairway:




From a hill to the left:




From behind the green, looking back up the fairway:




#7 green looking back up the fairway:




From the tee at the par 3 #8




Wedge to the green at the par 4 #9;  past the chain is a very steep drop.  The shot is very touchy:




I played the front nine and had a great time.  The back nine looks as though it could be spectacular.  #10:




Two pictures of #12:






Green at the par 3 #13




Looking up to the green at par 4 #14:




From behind #14 green:




#15 green par 4



#16 tee with a forced carry over a finger of the lake dipping in from the right:



#16 green, which looks to be a very tough shot:



I missed Mike's monstrous punchbowl green at the par 3 #17.

Here's the 18th green, viewed from behind:




By the way, Mike looks a little like Dean Smith.

Thanks for those photos. The course looks really nice.

Many of the hazards seem to be "gathering" and would appear to draw in golf balls from distances outside the confines of the hazard thereby playing larger then they appear.

Mike - is that the case and did you build that way intentionally?  

In a word, Bold!

A unique style on a grand scale.  I'm looking forward to see it in person.  

The green contouring looks excellent!

I agree with the above praise.  My father and I were able to play the front nine as it was being finished this past June, and I really liked how bold it was.  Mr. Young has a knack for finding great places for skyline greens.  Number 3 at Long Shadow was a cool hole.  And at Cateechee, #4 required a similarly neat shot to a skyline green (albeit on a par 4).

Mike,

Uphill blind shots to skyline greens over Alps-like bunker, flat-bottomed bunkers with sharp angles, rolling greens and no rough. Mike say it ain't so, you are an Old Dead Guy fan!  

Looks great, what kind of grass is that on the greens?

Long Shadow is going to be a very, very good course.

The photos are great, showing the dramatic fw contours (unusual for a course in this area) and Mike's "Rossnor" bunkering style. But my three favorites were not included. The skyline greens on 2 and 11 and the monstrous punch bowl 17th. Anyone got pictures of those greens?

Don't let Mike fool you about the old dead guys. He's forgotten more about them than most of us know.

I asked him several months ago if his 10th didn't borrow from NGLA's Bottle Hole. Mike replied, "Gee wizz, I'm just a country boy tryin' to figure out this fancy architecture stuff. Tell me again about this Bottle Hole thing." That's when I knew it was time to get in the car and head home.

(BTW, Mike fessed up. His 10th is in fact based on the Bottle Hole. I can't wait to play it. You don't see many of them.)

Bob

 

Gary,

I had already started another thread a few weeks back on this same topic and I am so glad to see that you have done so as well.

Let me repeat what I said in the other thread, this is going to be a VERY SPECIAL GOLF COURSE!

The course is going to be ranked in every Top 100 list from the moment it qualifies and not in the bottom 10 either.

I can't encourage all to get out there now BEFORE the back nine opens in the spring. If you have any inkling that you might enjoy the course design process this is that rarest of opportunities to see what WILL BE considered one of the MUST PLAYS and GREAT COURSES of our era as it evolves.

We sit and argue here about what this architect meant, was that an "Alps Hole" or where was this dead guy at this time... This course is what we wait for.

When I played the course a few weeks back I got a big kick out of his laughter as a putt that looked straight would break a foot and run three by and then hear him chuckle how, "Wait another two-three weeks when we can cut these suckers! These are really going to move!"

The greens as a group look as if someone had walked to a spot and said, "I think I'll put a flagstick here" and did so. They don't give the impression that they had to be built as much as carved out of the perfect location for the challenge that Mike was trying to present the player with.

Individually they greatly vary in size and are clearly designed to accept proper played shots while punishing the poorly executed ones. They are both fair and 'fun' severe.

The bunkers, Geoff asked if they "gather." No, Geoff, they don't gather, they jump out and swallow the ball down! They have minimal flat areas at their bottoms and so are actual hazards, yet each have ways out, regardless of how the ball may lie, if one accepts the penalty.

The back nine is going to be monumental.

Each hole gets better and better leading to a group of fin ishing holes that every player will one day sit in whattever clubhouse that might be built and laugh with their friends at how they "ate them up" and were still so enjoyable to play.

13 is Mike's homage to the 12th at Augusta, though I believe that it also plays like Augusta's 13th green as well. That is one hell of a statement, but after seeing it in person and rolling a few balls on the green with Mike, I am convinced of it.

The water is a good distance back from the hole (unlike #12) but (like #12) with the angle of the ground and his intent to mow the grass a bit tight, balls with hit just in front of the green and suck on back into the water. You know from the tee that you m for safety and there in lies his devilish rewarding of accuracy as the green, extremely wide is a bit narrow from front to back. If you carry past the putting surface, and the misstruck shot will, what you are left with is frightening!

You can't appreciate from the photos above just how far back the bunker behiond the green are. They are built into a huge swale and so are actually 25 - 30 feet away from the green surface; one that does roll downhill and away from you in two directions around the knob of the front bunker. I can see someone hitting a hot shot that can find itself rolling on down to the water.

The swale behind the hole is to be closely mown and so anyone long has a myriad of choices of play. He can Putt, chip lob... whatever choice is made will take a very deft touch to pull off.

15 is going to put the driver into some players hand while taking it out of others; some will want to see if they can carry the bunkers and get on down in front of, if not actually on, the green, whereas others will see that only accuracy will allow this to happen, not distance. It is a superb driving hole.

16 is visually intimidating from the tee. The player will stand there and convince himself that there is so little landing area that to stay away from the water on the right they will overplay in hitting left. It is only after getting out there that one sees just how very wide the landing area is and how much it runs downhill from the left side to the right; and right is well rewarded.

17 is a monstrously long par-three from the championship tees (240+), uphill into an even more monstrous punch bowl green that will see golf balls rolling in every conceivable direction except maybe the one the player wants. Regardless of the tee the player. Just one look and you'll want to play this one over and over and over again.

18 is going to be a tremendous finishing hole. A long, but reachable par-five in two shots, it is that rarest of holes where the student of the game will quickly learn that he who goes for it in two will make a 6 or 7 while played as a three-shotter makes par or what would be an extremely rare birdie possible.

If, or should I say when, a shot not perfectly played comes into the green, you will pray that it finds a bunker because if not your ball may end up from 15 feet to 50 yards away from the putting surface, and the closer it is the tougher the recovery.

I again can't say enough about this wonderful course... This is that course that YOU will want to be the one to discover and bring friends out and introduce them to it.

It just sits there 40 minutes tops from midtown Atlanta... You have to play this... Raters, get down there, you will all be deeply impressed.

I guarantee that when Mike, far in the future, becomes one of those "dead guys" he talks about, he will be laughing with glee at some of the play and thrilled at champions this course will produce.    

Gary,

I definitely noticed those bunkers on 1 and am still "looking for my balls!"

Hmmmmm

I came back to add something to a previous post and it is gone.

I still like the bunkers........

What is the architects preferred method for maintaining the bunker faces?

John,
Fly mows and growth regulator......

Adam....
If it was up to me there would be no trees....but there is always compromise..few more coming down.....
the lone tree you probably speak of actually was two about 10 yards apart and we kept both until the last minute .......just a few copper nails and we will be ok....

Mike,
The course just looks great; I really look forward to seeing it next spring.  It looks as good as everything that I have heard about it.

Also, really, really cool thread title:

"Mike Young's Long Shadow"

Sounds like you are Bear Bryant or John Wooden ...

I just had another look at the bunkers on #12.  Are those Halloween eyes?  Scarrrrrrry