[Tom Huckaby]

Does anyone else find it sad that the owner of the land for the new #5 held out his whole life, only to have his heirs sell out in the blink of an eye? I wonder if he told them it was okay to sell after he was gone. I hope so.

That is a great question.  And the cool thing is, I'd bet anything someone here has an authoritative answer.

I too hope he just wanted that property for his own enjoyment (actually I think it was a "she") and did give the OK to sell post-passing... but perhaps we are getting at the bad mojo on the new hole that Adam mentioned?

I love all things mystical as they pertain to golf.  

[George Pazin]

I kind of thought it was a she as well, but wasn't sure, so I went generic old school.

[Sean Leary]

The front 9 at SFGC is very well renowned for its flow hole to hole.  That being said, there are 2 pretty healthy walks (5 to 6 and 8 to 9).  5 to 6 isn't backtracking, but 8 to 9 is.  How much longer is the walk from 5 to 6 at Pebble? Because you are not turning your back on the ocean, does that make it less of a flow issue?

[A_Clay_Man]

George, It wasnt really a blink of an eye. As a matter of fact, the PB Co. was so F%^k'd up that they almost blew the whole deal at the last.

Jes-

Is the walk from 4 green to new 5th tee any different than the old 5th tee? Yes. The old walk was not a walk at all. Now the the golfer has to traverse a bridge maybe walking 40-50yd.s more than the old. Add that walk back after the new fifth and it's a net net increase in walking.

Do these questions have a place in balancing out a routing question? Now this is a great question. The old fifth was the only uphill Par 3. complimenting the downhill seventh marvelously.A loss of balance if ever I saw one, adding another flat one shotter.

Huck- You really did say a mouth full when you acknowledged "how really neat" the sixth appeared.

[JESII]

Thanks Adam,

Interesting comments.

[Tom Huckaby]

Adam:

Of course I did.  But then again I never doubted that part of it either.  Nor do I think it's really much less neat now.  So one sees the view walking down 5... delayed neatness is not necessarily hugely better than immediate neatness.

One thing we need to get clear - this isn't the copse of trees between 15 green and 16 tee at Cypress we're talking about here... We're talking about an ugly trudge around some guy's backyard, alongside his ugly hedges, and then a very neat view appears.  To me on the whole, that is not any better than how it works now... walking down 5, peeking through the trees at 6, then walking off the green, still can't see it completely, walk up through the trees... only to have the view revealed in entirety when you stand on the tee.  So part of that was against the direction of how you play the hole... Man to me that's a weird thing to complain about.  But to each his own....

 

As for the two walks from 4 to 5, man you must really hate bridges also.  And you are being inconsistent:  you insist on playing the back tee on 6, but disregard it on 5.  The back tee on the new 5 is damn near adjacent to 4 green.  Yes, one does have to walk forward to get to the middle and up tees, and traverse a bridge.  But what do you want to do, defeat the laws of physics?  

Please do note that on the old 5, it was a 10 yard walk or so forward to the middle tee - you must have REALLY hated that.

 

Now as for balancing out the routing, good lord, are there no lengths to which you won't go to support your love of the quirky old fifth?  Yeah, the course truly needs an uphill blind dogleg par three, for balance.  Oh yeah, I really buy that.

The new 5 isn't flat, btw - it's slightly downhill.

The course also has plenty of uphill shots, no more are needed.  11-13-14.

TH

[A_Clay_Man]

you insist on playing the back tee on 6, but disregard it on 5.  

Tom, It's not me who insisits. The Co. does NOT let anyone play that tee, so for me, it never existed. ( I take that back I did see it once in the AT&T)

Huck, I remember seeing the site (from that back tee) cleared, before any shaping was done. In my minds eye, I envisioned this fantabulous hole, requiring the golfer to risk the coast with a draw out near the cove. I think a big part of why I thought that was because of the way the old fifth required a draw.

When Jack put in that cut green it was a real head scratcher.

But once you put on your corporate bean counter hat, the alteration becomes obivous. An inferior hole to assist pace.

Is there no length these people won't go to squeaze-out another ounce of profit?

[JESII]

Not sure if its my place to say, but Adam, how much did they spend on that new hole that you say is purely for profit motives? Gotta question that one.

[A_Clay_Man]

Jes, I'm half kidding, but only half.

The land cost them 4.5m. JN designs recieved ?

[Tom Huckaby]

Adam:

Your distaste for PBGL management is crystal clear.  That's cool.  And I understand it.

I just don't give a rat's ass about it, myself.  My thoughts are limited to how the two golf holes played, how they make me feel, how they work, etc.

And I suppose after all of this, we can just leave it at we agree to disagree.  I don't see the need for another hook on a course where so many are required already, nor do I have anything against how the green is now.  I also find it a large stretch to say that pace of play improvement is what made this hole what it is - jeez if that was the prime motivation they could have done a LOT more - but OK, if you say so.

I still like the new hole better.  And to me it's really not even very close.  The old hole was stupid.  Romanticizing it isn't gonna change that for me.  The funny thing is, I felt that way the first time I played it (age 13), never really did come around to the last time (age 38 or so).  A hook off a par three, aiming at some guy's hedges, well that just took quirk farther than I was ever willing to go.  Make that a cool wall, or something other than forbidden private property, and I would have gotten into the quirk.  As it was, it was always just a stupid hole to me, conveying only how privileged some are and some aren't.  You wanna talk bad mojo?  Here we were on really one of the very, very few truly top of the list great courses in the world that anyone can play - just save up your money - and we get slapped in the face by private property ruining the walk.  You wanna talk about bad mojo?  The old 5 had it in spades, for me.

In any case, this all does kinda bum me out, because I really did expect to be won over.  

But you haven't.  If anything I've become more strong in my convictions.  Which is also kind of a cool thing.

Oh well.  This remains very fun and very interesting, to me anyway.  And of course neither of us is right and neither is wrong, now that we've moved off of the "flow" thing.  

[A_Clay_Man]

Here we were on really one of the very, very few truly top of the list great courses in the world that anyone can play - just save up your money - and we get slapped in the face by private property ruining the walk.  You wanna talk about bad mojo?  The old 5 had it in spades, for me.

Tom, It's reputation was built with that hole in-place.
Which direction has it's reputation gone, since the new hole?

[Tom Huckaby]

Adam:

Good question.
I'm not sure the reputation of the course has suffered in recent times - it rather kinda of ebbs and flows.  But for the sake of argument, let's say it has.  I wouldn't attribute that to the new #5 - man it seems to me the only ones who dislike it are curmudgeons like you, Dan, Geoff Shackelford, you know, the "purist" crowd.  By the way I use "curmudgeon" as a term of endearment - I call my Dad that all the time.  In any case, my impression is the general public loves the new #5.  If reputation of the course has suffered, it's due to increased cost, increased time to play, nickel and diming people, stuff like that.  The course itself sure seems to me to be better than it has been in a long, long time.

Kinda like Pasa.

TH

[Dan King]

TEPaul writes:
Before I answer that why don't you tell me what exactly 'a walk-in-the-park' golf course routing is?

I thought I explained it in the initial post, but maybe not. A walk in the park as I would define it is how someone might try to explore the property if a golf course wasn't there. Imagine you parked the car near the current club house and all you wanted to do was take a look at the property and then eventually come back to your car. The golf holes can take you along a similar route. Generally it means no backwards walks, no back and forth holes, and walks up hills only if there is some sort of view or something to see when you get there.

Do you happen to favor a particular style of golf course setting or design sometimes referred to as "Parkland"?

No, not even close. The exploring aspect of golf can be done regardless of type of property.

Tom Huckaby writes:
There's also just one thing I don't get:  no hole can be visible besides the one you are on?  It seems all of your opinions here are based on that.  So is 18 Pebble ruined for you because you can see it if you turn your head to the right walking up to 17 green?

If I implied such a think, I apologize. Nothing could be further from the truth. I love a view of the course. The view from six was great because you could also see the sixth, down the eighth, some of the ninth and some of the back nine holes. I think all I said was if I was getting a view I much prefer a view of where I am going rather than where I've been. I don't think the current view from sixth has the same impact, because it isn't a sudden view from the sixth, it's a view that you keep getting glimpses of as you walk up the fairway.

I added this thread because I didn't want this to be about the fifth hole at Pebble, but just routing in general. I admitted I probably would have preferred a little trail from fifth green to sixth tee that could have been hidden from the sixth fairway so once again I'd get the impact of the view from six tee. I think we are just stuck disagreeing about the new versus old fifth hole.

Concrete fantasy example:  Pebble Beach.  No houses or private property exists.  You've routed 1-4.  Would you turn #5 inland and up a hill, leaving a beautiful cove unused, just so you can make 500+ yard hole out of #6?

If you knew that tee was going to be as cool as it is, yes, I'd route a hole from the great fourth green setting up to the sixth tee. I think if they had that property from the get-go, they would have just put a tee on the other side of five green and made it a par-4 eighth. They might not have ever discovered the cool view from up on six tee.

Dan King

It is difficult to find a three-shot hole that works well in hilly terrain, because dips in the ground may render the green blind from some approach shots, and Murphy's Law guarantees that a number of players will have to play their approaches from just that spot.
 --Tom Doak

[A_Clay_Man]

Tom, If that were correct, would Ran have written an article entiled something to the affect of one of the ten worst architectural abominations in golf. And golf is a very big world.

Huk, I honestly gave the hole every chance. I too hoped you'd concvince me, but I'll settle for the curmudgeon compliment.thanx

[Tom Huckaby]

Dan:

Gotcha.  I can understand all of that.  And thus this comes down to personal preference.  I kinda dig the glimpses at 6 as you walk along the new five... it's no great shakes to me that we lose the sudden-ness of it... especially because I didn't like the old five (for reasons stated on the other thread) and found the walk from 5 green to 6 tee to be ugly and a downer.

So as to the general, it makes me feel better that you don't take this to the absurd lengths it seemed like you were.

Interesting conjecture about how things might have gone if they had the property all along, also.

I guess I also just don't understand this love and devotion for 6 tee also though... yeah, it is cool... but man put a tee down just beyond 5 green, hugging the coast and we'd REALLY have something - one of the world's great par fours.  And this wouldn't have changed 7 and 8 - why must that become a par 5?

TH

[Tom Huckaby]

Tom, If that were correct, would Ran have written an article entiled something to the affect of one of the ten worst architectural abominations in golf. And golf is a very big world.

Huk, I honestly gave the hole every chance. I too hoped you'd concvince me, but I'll settle for the curmudgeon compliment.thanx

I must have missed Ran's article.  And while Ran does have power, well... I'm not prepared to say he's the voice of the golf world.  

As for the rest, well I knew I couldn't convince you.  

 

[TEPaul]

"I thought I explained it in the initial post, but maybe not. A walk in the park as I would define it is how someone might try to explore the property if a golf course wasn't there. Imagine you parked the car near the current club house and all you wanted to do was take a look at the property and then eventually come back to your car. The golf holes can take you along a similar route. Generally it means no backwards walks, no back and forth holes, and walks up hills only if there is some sort of view or something to see when you get there."

Dan:

That's a very nice and understandable way to put it. I like that. However, an architect needs the land to conform in that vein in various ways with some of the exigencies of a golf course.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Dan King,

How do you feel about crossovers ?

If you don't like the hike to # 6 at PB you won't like the hike to # 13 at Somerset Hills, where you're sometimes better off not having the honor. (medal play)

And, you wouldn't like the hike to # 17 at Roxciticus where I guarantee you're better off not having the honor.(medal play)

[Dan King]

TEPaul writes:
That's a very nice and understandable way to put it. I like that. However, an architect needs the land to conform in that vein in various ways with some of the exigencies of a golf course.

Of course. But too often now it seems that the routing suffers to get to what the architect thinks are better hole sites. Still using Pebble, because so many people know the course, the route from an excellent green site on four to an excellent tee site on six needed to be traversed. I had no problem with a less than stellar par-3 going up the hill. Many architect facing the same dilemma now would just have the golfer hike up the hill, and find somewhere else to put another hole. (assuming they couldn't get the property for the modern No. 5.)

To me I have to walk there anyway, so I'd rather walk while playing golf than just walk. Maybe the issue is with some you only get 18 holes so they all should be outstanding. I think I'd like courses to have a more varied number of holes. I think I'd really like 17 hole courses, 19 hole courses or whatever. I loved Pacific Dunes so much as a 12 hole course, that I've never really given it the same love as an 18 hole route. Perhaps if you are married to only 18 hole concept you by nature are married to the idea of 18 signature holes. Anything less and you would then feel cheated.

The walk in the park might also be why I have trouble with the modern obsession with all holes going downhill. If I was walking around a property, I'll occasionally hike up a hill to see a view, but I'm not going to hike up 18 mounds just so I can go down the other side. I'm going to walk around the mound.

The routing has lost its primacy to finding the best holes. I just feel the routing is much more important than any individual hole. There are some/many? who disagree with me. They prefer the best 18 holes be found and let the golfer worry about how they get from hole to hole.

Tom Huckaby writes:
So as to the general, it makes me feel better that you don't take this to the absurd lengths it seemed like you were.

Huh?

Dan Curmudgeon King

I think that [Alister] MacKenzie and I managed to work as a completely sympathetic team. Of course there was never any question that he was the architect and I was the advisor and consultant. No man learns to design a golf course simply by playing golf, no matter how well. But it happened that both of us were extravagant admirers of the Old Course at St. Andrews and we both desires as much as possible to simulate seaside conditions insofar as the differences in turf and terrain would allow.
 --Bobby Jones (on his collaboration with Dr. MacKenzie on Augusta National)

[Tom Huckaby]

Dan - what I meant by that is a lot of your thoughts prior to the last few posts implied that you'd have to hate 18 Pebble, because you can see it from 17 green.  That would be an absurd length to take this to.  I was happy to read that you didn't take it that far.

TH

[Dan King]

Tom Huckaby writes:
Dan - what I meant by that is a lot of your thoughts prior to the last few posts implied that you'd have to hate 18 Pebble, because you can see it from 17 green.  That would be an absurd length to take this to.  I was happy to read that you didn't take it that far.

I can't imagine where you got that implication from since it is nothing I've ever believed. I love seeing other parts of the course while I'm playing golf.

If I said anything that left that impression, my apologies. I sure didn't intend that.

Dan King

I am a journalist and, under the modern journalist's code of Olympian objectivity (and total purity of motive), I am absolved of responsibility. We journalists don't have to step on roaches. All we have to do is turn on the kitchen light and watch the critters scurry.
 --P.J. O'Rourke

[Kyle Harris]

This could be part of the Tom Paul "Puzzle" theory of architecture, where once you change one aspect of a golf course, you'll start fiddling with others.

Doesn't all this talk of the location of the fifth and the break up in rhythm through the round preclude that the 6th should remain a par 5? I asked awhile ago (having never played the course or seen it, except on TV) how would 6 play as a long par 4 from a tee right behind the fifth green?

[Tom Huckaby]

Dan:

I got the impression from your vehemence that #6 is somehow ruined, or at least lessened, because you see parts of it now as you walk down 5.  It was a natural extension to at least ask how far you take this.

Hopefully you can understand.

Kyle:

I've postulated several times about exactly that.  6 surely could play as a GREAT par 4 from such a tee - or at least I think so.  And absent some documentation stating otherwise, how do we know that wasn't the initial intent, that is, what they would have done had the coastal property been available?

Of course it remains very arguable if such a hole would be better than the current #6 - which is a GREAT hole as it is now - though less and less of a par five for the big hitters as time goes on - and also if the course as a whole would be better.  I'm not really sure.  I just do know it is a viable concept...

TH

[Sean Leary]

Tom,  

If 6 played as a par 4, would the hill be carryable? It seems like you would be hitting into the hill, no?

[Tom Huckaby]

Sean:

I'm pretty sure the hill would be carryable.  The hole doesn't work if that can't be done.  If it can't, we move down until it reasonably can.  But remember the famous Tiger Woods 7iron in the most recent open?  That was 192 to the center, from about the bottom of the cliff - and that's with an angle going over the ocean, straight at the green.

Go to google earth, look at the right side of 6 fairway, below 5 green... seems to me a tee could be put down there just about at the end of that beach you see that not only makes the cliff carryable going left, but gives a TANTALIZING option of trying to cut the corner over the water.

TH

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