# 11 at The Creek - Is it the most versatile par 3 in golf ?

[Wayne Freeman]

I  think the 11th hole is one of the best par 3's in the country and it's certainly an honor to play the entire golf course.  It's extremely intimidating in that the water seems to be everywhere and it's a long shot- witness the huge number of balls to be seen in the water.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Pete,

Could you cite 5 par 3's that have 85 yards of tee flexibility, and, I'm not counting the forward tees which are another 20+ yards bringing the total over 100 yards.

And then could you cite 5 par 3's that have an additional 80 yards of vertical elasticity in hole locations on the green ?

Have you ever played the hole from the back tees with hole locations distributed throughout the green ?

Any hole location near an edge increases the chances of a three putt..

You seem to discount the difficulty of putting through the swale and across the swale, why ?
That's a difficult putt.

The back of the green was the original green and hole locations are placed there.

Do you feel that any par 3 at 230 yards should have seriously contoured or sloped greens ?   Could you cite 5 that meet that criterion ?

Could you cite 5 that are 200 yards that meet that criterion ?

[TEPaul]

It's very interesting to try to figure out if some of the biarritzes had green-space in front of the swale or were even intended to.

We do know that Yale's always was. Piping's never was. Creek's probably never was but now it is. Westhampton's was an enigma that way to Mike Rewinski but now it has front greenspace. I don't think the biarritz at Mountain Lake ever had a center swale in it but now it does. Fishers Island's never had front greenspace but Donnie Beck was considering it but apparently concluded it was too steep for effective greenspace. Fox Chapel's is also an enigma. There's an early photo of it but unfortunately the photo quality is not good enough to tell if the front was greenspace but now it is. Fox Chapel's biarritz is just about as long front to back as The Creek's---eg over 80 yards long. I'm glad to see Fox Chapel add that front green space and I'd also like to see them restore the front left bunker. They may feel that would cause an access/egress problem but a grass walkway right at the swale would solve that problem, in my opinion.

[wsmorrison]

I think the angle of the front portion of the Biarritz green to the tee is interesting as well.  It is offset about 30 degrees to the line of play and the angle-pin position combinations can create various ideal shot shapes or even a shot demands with wind.

[Jim Nugent]

Any pictures available?  I have never seen the course or the hole and would like to get a picture of what you are all discussing.  

[Pete Buczkowski]

Pete,

Could you cite 5 par 3's that have 85 yards of tee flexibility, and, I'm not counting the forward tees which are another 20+ yards bringing the total over 100 yards.

And then could you cite 5 par 3's that have an additional 80 yards of vertical elasticity in hole locations on the green ?

Have you ever played the hole from the back tees with hole locations distributed throughout the green ?

Any hole location near an edge increases the chances of a three putt..

You seem to discount the difficulty of putting through the swale and across the swale, why ?
That's a difficult putt.

The back of the green was the original green and hole locations are placed there.

Do you feel that any par 3 at 230 yards should have seriously contoured or sloped greens ?   Could you cite 5 that meet that criterion ?

Could you cite 5 that are 200 yards that meet that criterion ?

Patrick,

You've asked a lot of questions there that I won't be able to get to today.  I'll try to address some of them later tonight.  Just to be clear, I'm not talking about a single tee having 100 yards of flexibility, but multiple teeing grounds.  

Jim,

Here is a picture from the front of the tee.