6th hole at NGLA

[Patrick_Mucci]

I have maintained that if I could only play three holes for the rest of my life, and they had to be a par 3, par 4, and par 5, and from the same golf course, I would pick
#' 6,8, and 18 at NGLA.

In Tom Doak's book, "The confidential guide to golf Courses", on page 39 there is a picture of the 6th green from the tee.
If someone could post this picture, and perhaps others of the green complex it would add to the discussion and be appreciated.

Unfortunatley the picture looks more like it was taken from, near ground level, than eye level.  Nonetheless, the quadrants or different sections of the green are visible, though the rear bunkers are not, and the camera tends to flatten out the substantial contours, and eliminate the subtle ones.

The wind can make this hole play from a throttled down L or S wedge, to a 5 iron for the better player.

Pin positions offer infinite variety, and penalties for not hitting to the pin quadrant.

The green also feeds into the bunkers, making shots that just miss their mark, pay a steep price.

The recovery shots are also very challenging

Lastly, putting the green is an interesting challenge.

One of the other neat features of the hole is standing on the tee, watching players hit shots into the 5th green.

This short hole resists scoring as well as any I've seen, and with the wind up, scares even the best of players.  

This hole can be played only one way, aerially, but both the preceeding and following holes can be played on the ground.

What are your thoughts and opinions of this hole ?

Is there a better par 3 for every level of GOLFER anywhere ?

[ForkaB]

Patrick

This sounds very much like the 10th at Dornoch.  Of course, the 10th is only the 3rd best par-3 there...........

Rich

[Boothill]

Here I go off topic again.

So, Rich, how would you rank the 3s at RDGC
from best to least good.  2,6,10,13 or 6,2,10,13.

Mine would be 2,6,10,13 but I haven't played it quite as many times as you have.

Patrick, I can't really offer anything on the 6th at NGLA as I not only will never play it, I've never even seen a picture of it.

[TEPaul]

As a putting surface, #6 NGLA has to be right up there in the top handful in the world. There are some wonderful green surfaces in the world but the numerous ramifications (ie: strategies) of this green are bindbogglingly fantastic.

And this on a downhill par 3 of max 141yds. The green surface is very big and in fact is three separate greens within one green. The fourth area of the green is a false green space in the sense it's unpinnable but it's function is to totally highlight the necessity of getting over it (or to a subtle ridge right of it) to the back left green (first green within a green) and to intensify hitting the the bowl (second green within a green) in the middle of the entire putting surface when the pin is there. The right hand portion of the green (the third green within a green) is progressively shallower (and well bunker guarded).

Most people say a green that is this dramatic (some would call it radical) could never be built today. What that means is if you happen to be on the wrong green within the overall green (where the pin isn't) with the speeds the club maintains it is virtually impossible to two putt unless you get very lucky or sink a long to longish comeback putt.

Would golfers of today stand for this  dilemma? If you are on a green and can putt your chances of two putting are minimal. I don't know, but that's the deal on #6 NGLA. If you don't pay attention and understand that three putting is the reality you could easily do much worse than 3 putting (even when hitting the green with you tee shot.

That's why #6 NGLA is so fascinating to me. What other hole with about 8-9,000sf of green space from only 141yds can you say that about?

[TEPaul]

Pat:

A really fun stretch to play at NGLA is #1,2,3,4,16,17,18! I did that last year when I arrived about 7pm. I hadn't been there in about 35 years and that stretch was a sufficient eye-opener--I'll promise you!

[ForkaB]

Boothill

2,6,10,13

Patrick

Since the 10th at Dornoch is 2-puttable from anywhere, I concede.  However, the green is virtually impossible to hit with the wind behind and the course playing fast and firm, as it was 3 weeks ago.  Does that get any quirk points?

[TEPaul]

Rich:

A green that is truly impossible to hit?? That might go way beyond quirk. That might be in the realm of very questionable if there really is no way to hit it even with your best shot!

[ForkaB]

Tom

I did say "virtually."  It's a 2-tier green, with bunkers covering the front, and the only way to stop a shot on a 2-3 club downwind day is to hit your fizziest wedge or sandwedge and land it just on the front tier (about a 2-3 yard margin of error).  I was a yard or two long and a few fizzes short of perfect and the ball rolled smoothly and slowly past the pin and then over the back of the green into a naughty place.  My playing partner got the distance and fizz right and hit it stiff.

Then again there is a 17-inch wide ground game option channel between the middle and right hand bunker, which might just suit a player of your accuracy and nerve......

[Patrick_Mucci]

Boothill,

Hopefully, someone will post some neat pictures of # 6 green.  Doak's picture is neat, but further pictures might shed more light and give one more of a feel for the hole and the green, especially the elevation changes.  There is a public road that passes within 100-200 yards of the green.

TEPaul, I count five (5) seperate greens within the green.

1.  The punchbowl center
2.  Behind the punchbowl
3.  In front of the punchbowl
4.  The penisula right side
5.  The plateau left side

I realize you might eliminate the front and rear of the punchbowl as green sites, but I feel they are brilliantly protected, though rather small in area, requiring a precise shot.

Rich,

Regretably, I have never played Dornoch, and thus cannot comment or offer comparisons.
I wish I could.

There are certain pin positions that are very difficult downwind, and others that are very difficult into the wind making the variety and challenge of the hole unlimited.

Someone out there, post some pictures !!

[TEPaul]

Pat:

You're probably right about five instead of three greens within a single large green. You've played the place a lot longer and more than I have and now that I think about it the times I've seen the course are only the three days of the Singles and the pin locations are obviously the same rotation in the tournament. All I've ever seen is the three disctinct pin locations I mentioned and never really looked that closely at the possible locations in front of and just past the bowl.

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

I can't tell you the number of times that I have hit a good shot, just a hair off, either short, long, right, left, or a little thin, with the result that the ball missed its target by the smallest of margins, resulting in an undesireable putt, or bunker shot to the same challenging pin position.

For a hole that looks easy on the score card and can be disarming from the tee, it is not to be taken lightly.

You and I both know how quickly this green putts today, so why can't greens be built like this today ??

[Boothill]

I may be off topic again, but at least I am going to be talking a par 3 I could play over and over; Patrick's list of pin positions made me flash on this hole.

The 3rd at Preston Country Club in West Virgina has nothing to offer until you get close to the green.  The green is a cloverleaf with four distinct levels representing each leaf and the center.  And though the green is not large, all four sections are easily pinnable. The left and right leaves are at approximately the same level and separated by a two foot rise to the center plateau.  The rear leaf rises another foot from the center and this leaf is only about twenty feet wide and the back falls off to perdition.  No one shoots at a back pin after they have once missed it long.   To the left is a small  pond (it was supposed to be a trap, but the drainage problem was intractable) and immediately behind the green is a run (small creek for those who might not be familiar with WV terminology for running water).  And there is a bunker protecting the direct route  to the center plateau. And the teeing is flexible so that it plays between 155 and 175 yards.

It's a hole that can get into your head with pond so close to the left and the knowledge that if you are more than one section removed from the flagstick, a three putt can be a good result.  

There's no fairway watering at Preston, and so in high summer one approach was to take one less club and hope for the vagaries of kind bounces to carry the ball onto the green.  Alas, they put Bermuda grass in the fairways a few years ago and the run up option isn't always viable.  

It's not in the class of the holes we've been discussing here, but it's a lot of fun to play and it think it's an exciting and innovative use of what was featureless terrain.

The hole was actually created because of a tornado.  The storm blew down several trees which had (so I am told) a straightaway hole of about 125 yards with a narrow opening to green through the overhanging trees.  I am also told there are members who really miss the old hole.

[TEPaul]

Pat:

Who can build a green like #6 NGLA today? Well anybody can if they study it and appreciate it and have some talent. It must just be that the way it is and the way it plays makes many people nervous as far as recreating it or something like it. That really doesn't make a lot of sense to me since almost everyone I know who has seen and played #6 NGLA is enthralled and fascinated by it.

Of course the margins for error are interesting, highly complex and also razor thin, but so what?

Even with the greenspeeds they have today the green works incredibly well, if you can live with the fact that if you get in the wrong place on the green you probably won't make par and could do much worse than that.

So why doesn't someone do something like it today? Probably no other reason than what Lanny Wadkins says now and again; "They just ain't got the guts!"

[Paul Turner]

Patrick

Voila!

[rkg]

Patrick,

Just to let you know it is possible for us to agree!  I think 6 at the national is one of the coolest greens I have ever seen and makes the hole one that you could play 7 days in a row, from the same divot(use a tee)and have a different thought each time based on the pin location. When you get to the green having putts that can provide different putting options are so cool.
Personally I would someday love to have the chance to build something like it.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Paul Turner,

Thanks for the photo.

The neat thing about the hole is how some of the pin positions are subtlely guarded, and how shots slightly mishit are directed such that the next shot, be it putt or wedge, is even more difficult.

Kye,

Here's what I don't understand about the apparent failure to duplicate the hole.

At 130 to 139 yards it is a short, downhill hole, hence it could probably be built anywhere that a slight elevation change exists, and with today's earth moving equipment, even on the flattest of surfaces.

The green offers such incredible variety, that between the different cupping locations and the changes in the tee, combined with the wind, one could probably play the hole everyday for 365 days, and never have the hole play the same, between the shots to the green and the putting.

So, with a design that creates so much variety, in such a short package, why hasn't this hole been cookie cut all over the place.

Is it the fear amongst today's architects that if they should copy, or restore a hole, that somehow they will be perceived as less than original ?  Do they feel their egos will suffer because they copied or restored a great work ?  Is it a denial of their legacy ?  I am totally puzzled as to why this hole isn't duplicated in numbers, across the country.

In the old days, duplication of great holes was looked upon favorably.  How and why did this change, and what's your take on why great holes aren't copied or restored.

[John_Sheehan]

Paul Turner-
Thanks for posting this picture. It is indeed worth a thousand words. Because it was captured in this light, the slopes are easily discerned.  For those of us who find this type of post interesting, but somewhat confusing, this is a tremendous help.  Tom Huckaby, Dan King and Pete Galea and I were talking about this recently:  Those of us who have not had the opportunity to play some of the courses that are topics of discussion on GCA are somewhat at a disadvantage in really understanding and following the details in these threads.

So, thanks for the photo - I am going to have to get one of these new-fangled digital cameras  

PS - great hole.

[TEPaul]

Pat:

I think you misread why NGLA's #6 is not copied en masse or frankly at all. It's not that today's architects are afraid of being unoriginal, in my opinion. They are simply afraid to copy a green surface like that one. They are afraid that if they gave golfers something like that they would be roundly criticized even if they defended themselves by sputtering; "BBBut, it's just a recreation of the great "Short" at NGLA, one of the most unique and famous holes in the world."

The reason they would be criticized is because golfers would likely not accept the fact that they could hit a green and be faced with the prospect of almost no way to reasonably two putt (and maybe come away with worse than that). To me it's about that simple.

Frankly, in my opinion a good deal of NGLA itself is like a barometer for sophistication in the appreciation of golf architecture. As you know some think the course is just about the ultimate, while others see it as a ultra quirky throwback in time that shouldn't be taken that seriously and certainly not copied! Much of what some golfers see about the place is bizarre and unfair for the way they think golf and its architecture should be.

NGLA may be the ultimate architectural barometer!

[ForkaB]

Tom

I think you've hit the nail on the head.  What architect today has the cojones to build a pitch and a 3-putt par 4?  What owners(s) would accept it, even if he did?

This thread, as all great threads on this site leads me to a deeper question, adumbrated by Patirck Mucci, namely:

Why, since there are so many, many great golf holes in the Old and New/Old  (e.g. the Hamptons) World, have only a very, very small number of them been used as templates in "modern" design?

We've got 3749 "Redans" and 763 "Alps" holes, but where are the homages to the 12th at TOC, or the 4th at Dornoch or even the Dell?

Why is it that thoughtful tribute seemed to stop with CBMcD at NGLA?

[George Pazin]

Looks like it's held up well over the years, too.

Rich -

I think Patrick has already cited on several other occasions the reason for this seeming lack of homage to the classics: ego. Most architects, indeed, most people are looking to receive recognition for their work & don't want anyone "accusing" them of being unoriginal in their ideas. Apparently it's better to repeat boring ad infinitum(who would recognize holes that are totally nondescript) than to be caught copying a classic. :-)

P.S. Adumbrate? You're making me seek out the dictionary yet again.

[George_Bahto]

One of the great pin placements is in the "neck" of the green, front right - hardly any room to stop the ball at all. Seems all balls will just slide off the green. .... i mean you have just about 6 feet to stop the ball. Great pin!!!!

About a year and a half ago Karl Olson continued the bent grass of the green at the right rear, down over the side and down into the bunker - so the ball will just continue to glide thru and into the sand.
The worry here was that you could putt out of the bunker back on to the green but I think they left a pretty good ridge there so you could not do that.

[TEPaul]

George Bahto:

Is the bent grass over the back right (#6)  still that way today? I didn't notice that. I've also never seen the pin directly in front of the bowl (I guess that would be middle front). I wish I had. I think the only pins they use in the annual Singles tourney are right side, the bowl and back left. A pin directly behind the bowl would be something too. On Thursday, before the tourney the pin was on the right side but on the left back portion of the right side and close up against the slope going up to the bowl. We did a lot of practice putting from all the areas to the left of that pin and there was no way at all to get the ball closer than within about 12-15ft of the pin. There is just too much slope coming down to that pin from anywhere to the left of that particular placement.

This kind of putting dilemma is the reason, in my opinion, a hole like this is not copied. I really don't think the reason is other archtitects want to avoid being  unoriginal. If they wanted to avoid being unoriginal why then have they copied the redan and its concept so much?

It seems to me that there is probably only one other green at NGLA that confronts a golfer with this kind of putting dilemma that I've seen and that's #1. It seems also that putts to a mid front pin on #3 for anything coming off the high right side of the green would be almost impossible to stop anywhere near that pin placement.

There may be some others on NGLA that have that dilemma like maybe a few in the mid section of #11 if the pin placment is too close to either the left or back tier but other than those the rest of the useable pin placements at NGLA seem to be doable to get a ball close (even if they are complex and require good execution and imagination).

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

I hear what you're saying, but disagree.
I think it's new age EGO.

Didn't Pete Dye build these extremely difficult courses, which people flocked to play ?  Wasn't there a time when each new course was longer and harder than the next, in order to draw attention to it ??
So I don't think fear to construct difficult holes has been an impediment to building the
short, interesting 6th hole at NGLA on new courses today.

I see the lack of classic template holes in modern day courses as reflecting the need to be original, and god forbid the architect has to rely on an ancient hole of classic design.  EGO Tom, plain and simple.

There is a paucity of duplicates of the holes widely recognized and admired by this group.  Despite what you feel, golfers love challenge.  If the game was easy, who would play it ?  This hole removes brute strength as a requirement, it is playable by every level of golfer at 130 yards, downhill.
Its short length allows it to fit in almost anywhere, yet it ceases to be used as a template for modern day designs.  See EGO.

In golf, it used to be that copying, or duplicating a terrific hole was acceptable,
but.... an Artiste, copying the Mona Lisa today ?

I would submit that putting on # 3 green at NGLA is extremely challenging, with the chance of 3 putts better than 50-50.  
#'s 11, 12, and 15 have to be close behind, especially with some cup locations.  

I think, the more one examines NGLA, the more one appreciates its genius, its brilliant design for every level of player.

[TEPaul]

Pat:

I hear you too, but I think the particular reason that a hole like #6 NGLA is still the radicalness of the putting surface itself not that it's just difficult or that the egos of today's architects make them unwilling to copy it because they would be accused of being unoriginal. Afterall, the redan is still copied in one way or another all over the place today.

And you're right that architects do design long and difficult holes today to draw attention to their designs. But I think you have to look at exactly how and why those designs are difficult.

You're right again that their designs are difficult mostly because they're LONG. I think that is mostly accountable to the original LISTS. The original list of the "greatest" courses in the world was presented to the world as the "200 TOUGHEST courses in the world." What constituted "TOUGHEST" back then and still does today? Course rating did and does. And what determined a high course rating back then to the tune of about 90% and still does today to only a slightly lesser degree?

DISTANCE does!! Do you really wonder why RTJ Jr. and even Dye started building courses that were longer and longer? Do you really think it was all related to equipment and the ball? No way! It was simply a function of the longer a course was the higher its rating was and the higher the rating the "TOUGHER" it was and the "TOUGHER" it was the "GREATER" it was considered! That was the simple and easy way to get attention and get on the lists!

That is one side of the spectrum of difficulty. #6 NGLA's toughness is all related to it's unusual green surface and the fact that if you're on the green but in the wrong portion of it you are just not in the slightest bit likely to two putt and you can do much worse than that even starting with your tee shot on the green.

I maintain that alone is the reason architects today don't copy a hole like NGLA's #6. That is just too controversial and they feel they would be criticized for that. Today's golfers cannot accept the fact that they could be on a green surface with little or no ability to two putt! Simple as that.

Today's holes do get longer and more difficult but the green surfaces usually get faster too and flatter and more uninteresting because of that.

Basically the kind of hole that #6 is is the exact opposite of the general trend in golf today.

But I agree with you that it's too bad it has to be that way today. There could be some architect ego involved but I think doing a hole like #6 is more about fear of being criticized!

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

The shot to the green is no pushover, for even the best of golfers, especially with a little breeze.

The variety of pin positions coupled with the changing location of the tee makes the shot into the green more than challenging.

I have seen many a good player walk off the green with bogie, double and higher, and putting wasn't the culprit.

Do you think that if the 6th green was lost or changed dramatically 30-40 years ago, that NGLA would restore it today ?

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