[Sean_A]

Agreed Joe about the discussion, and yes, high tee, low green - way to be specific Kyle.

As with a lot of things, temptation and ego tend to work against a golfer, and often times the most straightforward decision is the best. I like the idea of choosing challenges and the golfer being able to "pick their path" in terms of what sort of things they can over come.

In that regard, this hole is also meant to challenge the learning curve. A wise high handicapper may avoid the approach over the bunker, but another high handicapper may be in the "fairway is always good" crowd. You just never know.  

For those who have played there, the tee shot is a bit motivated by the old configuration of the 3rd hole on PSU's Blue Course.

I had initially sketched this out with pencil and paper, and there is a bit more room over the two fairway bunkers than in my MS Paint rendering.

Kyle

I like the option of pushing the ball further down the fairway for a shorter approach, but probably a more difficult lie.  Is there any chance a guy can drive it to the bottom of the hill?  It seems like it may be 350 yards, but the doability aspect of it is more connected with how severe the slope is.  My only difficulty is with the left side bunkering.  It seems like you made the layup nearly as difficult as the go for it option unless one really lays way back.  Also, and this is just a personally deal, I don't much care for wraparound bunkers.  I would rather see two bunkers created by the green or even just one which would be the rear half of the existing bunker.  

Ciao

[George Pazin]

Any excuse to get out of posting, eh George?

 

Actually, in reading your follow up posts, there are some very significant differences, defining differences, really.

Next week.

[Kyle Harris]

Sean,

Thanks for the comments. In my sketch, there's a bit more room around the fairway bunkers... they just litter the ideal angle and make the golfer think. Easily carried if the golfer chooses the correct set of tees for his game.

Lately, I've been toying with green site and their integration with bunkers, and the wraparound here, to me, was appealing. To me, whether or not one wraparound, or your suggestions are implemented are heavily dependent on the site in question. I'd lean toward your idea on a flatter piece of property and move more toward a wrap around look as the green was more and more benched into a hillside. I can visualize it, but can't quite get it out on anything other than paper, and certainly not on MS Paint.

I am still await Ryan's copy of Photoshop.

I find greensites that are pushed up from their surrounds like the 12th at Merion East to be VERY appealing, and the possibilities with hazard integration are nearly endless, especially as one departs from the oval/circular shapes and looked more toward squares and pentagons with rounded edges.

I think greens are becoming too curved and circular.

[George Pazin]

The winning entry:



I know, I know, someday I'll post mine.

[Kyle Harris]

Why must "Mackenzie" and "needless complexity" always seem synonymous?

Why go left at all? (voluntarily, Doug). I read the description and the questions posed by the golf hole do not mesh with the description, at all. How is the left side easier? Last I checked splashing in the water is far less desirable than finding grass of most any length....

How is an elevated view of the green a reward?

Were any maintenance considerations made?

I know, I'm being Captain negative... but I've played this hole a few times by some of the Ault/Clark people, and maybe Joe Lee or Ron Garl here in Florida.

[TaylorA]

Why would you try and drive the green? It's a 350 yard carry to a shallow green fronted by bunkers and protected along the back by bunkers.

[Garland Bayley]

I'm sorry, but if Whitten picked this entry as he said he would, then Whitten is seriously out to lunch. Kyle didn't even try for the criteria and did better IMHO.

Why would anyone pick route I? The only way it is even slightly feasible is from the 306 tee, which would make the entry an invalid entry when the hole length was required to be at least 340.

[Garland Bayley]

I agree with Kyle about route III. You have to lay back from the ocean on the drive only to have to hit uphill over water. What a reward!

I think they published the criteria wrong. Must have been that only 10% was design and the rest drawing ability.

Yea, yea, I know, sour grapes here.

[Kyle Harris]

For any of the Philly gang that has played Bucks County CC in the past 7 years (with the new holes on the back nine) doesn't that green remind you of the 16th green? (The par 3 next to the water treatment plant).

I know next to nothing about Mackenzie, but the only similarity between this and anything I've seen of his is the coastline.

[George Pazin]

My guess why it won is indeed the needless complexity - that's always what wins these types of contests.

Also, the artistic rendering is pretty solid.

Turn it sideways and it even evokes memories of the original Lido contest winner.

It looks nothing like my design, which is maybe one reason (among many )why I never merit even a casual mention in these contests.

[George Pazin]

Here's another entry:



Still a better illustration than mine.

[Garland Bayley]

Well, Mr. Kemp should have a beef with Mr. Whitten. Unfortunately it was not the Tillinghast competition. So although he did better than Mr. Links, his design did not suit the MacKenzie/Lido design competition.

[Kyle Harris]

Well, Mr. Kemp should have a beef with Mr. Whitten. Unfortunately it was not the Tillinghast competition. So although he did better than Mr. Links, his design did not suit the MacKenzie/Lido design competition.

I'd offer my critique, but like Pringles... once I pop, I just won't stop.

I don't think Tillie would misuse a creek like that.

That's the thing about these competitions... the naturally occurring features are completely subject to the person designing the hole, when it's quite the other way around.

Take away the golf hole and leave the creek/topo and then design a hole and I doubt you'd build the same thing.

Yes, the second design has strategic merit and it has it more so than the first, but it's hardly the most elegant solution to the problem posed by the terrain, and if nothing else, golden age architects had an elegance to their best designs.

[Garland Bayley]

Do you notice that the green illustration looks nothing like the hole drawn. Instead it looks like it has been stolen out an existing book. I think I have seen it elsewhere. EDIT. Also, notice the the elevation guide along the side shows a tee ball that doesn't correspond to any of the given options on the hole. Have to wonder if it was stolen too. TIDE I guess I have to take that last part back. On second look it does correspond to option I.

[Garland Bayley]

In Mr. Kemp's drawing the person playing option III hits it 173 off the tee. Then he follows that up with a 155 yard shot off the ground, with a downhill lie, uphill, over a creek, over fairway bunkers to a blind landing area. Must have quite the 155 yard go to club.  

The guy taking option II is quite a genius. Assuming some roll out, he barely carries water with water guarding the right (presumably the most common fault landing area) just to obtain a 103 yard second.

If you assume the series of 4 fairway bunkers are cut into the ridge seen in the elevation to the side, then the person taking option I has hit a blind tee shot to the bare beginnings of a fairway with bunkers left and right. Not a viable option given option IV hits to the largest, easiest accessed landing zone.

In reality this hole is a decision. Lay up short and right of the stream, or hit over it. No one will attempt options I and II. I take it back. Bo's design is better.

[Ryan Farrow]

What do I have to do to get critiques like these past few posts?

[Kyle Harris]

What do I have to do to get critiques like these past few posts?

Do something I don't like.  

[Kyle Harris]

Since the announcement date for the winning entries has come and gone I think it is now time for everyone to post their failures, including you George.

I will start things off with the best par 4 never to be built in Montana:






I guess I was not, "the fanciful, the unorthodox, the ultra-imaginative."

...ehhhhh maybe I could live with that.  

I think this is solid, Ryan. You put the center bunker right where I would have put it (we've talked about this clutter the ideal area).

Not so sure about the bunker on the left of the second fairway and I think you greenside bunker should cover the front of the green more. I like how you used the right side of the hole... would you consider moving the fairway a bit more to the right? I think it would be neat to work that down slope a bit and give the golfer something to think about going the short route in terms of his ball bounding down to the right. Awkward stance but ideal angle... Know what I mean compadre?

It's all tweaking and the strategy is simple and sound. I'd play the hole over and over again given the chance.

[Garland Bayley]

What do I have to do to get critiques like these past few posts?

Draw a bad golf hole! Especially one that does not fit the Lido competition criteria!

Your trouble is you understand and play golf and you have too much knowledge about good and bad to draw a bad one when entering the contest.

I thought the landing area for III might have been too small, but I found your response reasonable.

[Garland Bayley]

Ryan you disguised your faults by not providing enough information. I had always assumed the drive on IV was longer than the drive on II, but then I measured them. They are the same! That reduces your options to 3 not 4. Because of this, I like the middle tee better, which makes the drive to position IV longer and more dangerous than II and results in a definite approach distance advantage.

I guess the other thing I don't get are the distances given for the different tees. They are given as a long range which definitely does not match the drawing of the size of the teeing grounds. Furthermore, the distance given for the back tee goes outside the parameters of the contest.

[George Pazin]

I really like Ryan's hole and greatly prefer it to the others depicted from the contest. I also wish I could draw like that!

I especially love that little pot bunker - it adds a real element of chance and danger to the more conservative drive.

Garland, I disagree with how you're reducing his number of options - just because the drives are the same length does not mean they  do not pose very different challenges.

I would assume the extra distance on the back tee is the back of the tee to the back of the green, going along the fairway, not as the crow flies. Perhaps Mr. Whitten did disqualify him, but if so, that was a real error on his part, imho; it's no different than the fact that the winner had a forward tee well under the distance requirement.

[Garland Bayley]

...

Garland, I disagree with how you're reducing his number of options - just because the drives are the same length does not mean they  do not pose very different challenges.
...

The other option is still there, but how many people are going to take it? It is a longer approach shot and brings the green side bunker into play.

[Garland Bayley]

...
This was the winner eh?  I must say that I like the shape of the green and the hole locations it would present.  However, the double bunkering front and back is not clever.  I see that huge dune down the middle and I think that by creating a double fairway that this great feature is more or less wasted.  
...

Look at the elevations on the "dune". There is no dune there. It is simply a sandy waste area between the lower left, and upper right fairways.

[George Pazin]

...

Garland, I disagree with how you're reducing his number of options - just because the drives are the same length does not mean they  do not pose very different challenges.
...

The other option is still there, but how many people are going to take it? It is a longer approach shot and brings the green side bunker into play.

It is not so much a defined option as it is room for different shots. It allows someone to take the conservative route, but doesn't force him to club down to keep it in the fairway. He could swing away, and if he mishits it short, it's still in the fairway, unlike the other more direct route, where the penalty is more severe, along with the reward being better.

I personally don't care as much for defined options, I prefer allowing the golfer to simply play. It's my own analogy to Sean's letting the terrain speak for itself.

[Garland Bayley]

...
I personally don't care as much for defined options, I prefer allowing the golfer to simply play. It's my own analogy to Sean's letting the terrain speak for itself.

Right then, you ought to like mine. It is nearly as wide as it is long.

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