[Tommy Williamsen]

It never seems to fail.  I'll play a course and when I tell someone who has also played it, I'll hear, "What did you think of #13?" or "#5 may be the worst hole in the world."  For years they bashed #9 at Avenal.  

Maybe the hole in question verges on the unfair. Maybe there is nowhere to  land it on the green without danger of three putting.  My courses each have such a hole.  When I get to them I think, "what a dumb hole."

In retrospect these holes do make for conversation and in a masochistic way-fun.

[JESII]

#2 on the Centennial nine at HVCC has to top the list. To an almost unanimous chorus of complaints, I say it's worth retaining as is (or damn close to it) in part because of the controversy you mention.

Wayne Morrison,

If you're still on, can you post an image with brief description?

Thanks

[wsmorrison]

Sully,

I cannot seem to find a good picture of the tee shot on C2.  It is through a chute of trees to a wide fairway with a higher shelf on the right and a flat area to the left.  The tee shot should hug the left tree line for a long uphill approach to a right to left sloping green with a significant amount of slope interplays on the green.  There is a kicker to the right of the green that can be used to run the ball onto the green otherwise a long high iron or lofted fairway wood (22 degree for me) carry to the green about 210 yards away and 30 or 40 feet uphill.

Here's Flynn's drawing of the hole:



Here's a view from the ideal approach angle after a tee shot of 220 yards or so (right, Sully?):



The area to the left of the bridge in the photograph is an environmentally sensitive wetlands so the trees could not be cut down or else a driver could be more of a risk/reward option.  If they can't cut them down, perhaps they can be trimmed down from the top.  There are some trees to the right of the creek that leads to the bridge seen in the photo that should be taken down.

Sully,

You are much more qualified to discuss the hole.  Yet, without a doubt it is the most controversial hole in the district.  More so as presented now than when built by Flynn since the wetlands issues impinge on the setup.  However, what's wrong with a longer second shot to an uphill green versus the tee shot?  It certainly adds a unique element to the golf course.  I love the hole.

[JESII]

"However, what's wrong with a longer second shot to an uphill green versus the tee shot?"[/i]

Well if everyone had as open a mind as yours it wouldn't be controversial, now would it?

I think you nailed the description other than the green sloping right-to-left as opposed to left-to-right, but I'm sure that was just a tyop.

My opinion is that the approach from where your photo is taken is one of the best shots in the district. For a good strong player they have to hit one of their best irons of the day to hit the green. That is reason enough to preserve the structure of the hole. If minor work is done to permit a very risky tee shot to attempt cutting the corner, fine. The only other work I would suggest (although it is not permissible due to the wetlands issue you mention) is drying up the swamp like area beyond the creek in the middle right of your photo. This is a very popular place for all the players that cannot get their drives around the corner off the tee. In doing that, the fairway could very easily be extended back to the creek at the front of your picture which currently is about 50 yards away.

Nothing major, but the opinions others have about what to do to improve it are mindboggling.

How about making it a short par 4 with a straight away tee shot from 75 yards behind your photo position? Useless!

How about clearing all the trees left of your photo so everyone's grandmother can drive it clear up to the base of the hill in front of the green? Give me a break?

Stand up, hit a good 4 iron out to where you can see the green, and then hit the best 3 iron of your life and see if you can two putt. Right?

[Glenn Spencer]

JES,

I am with you here I think. What is the length of the hole from the back? It sounds like something in the 430 area? It doesn't look like you need to make more than 5 here, unless you are 'trying' to. I can't say it looks or sounds unfair to me, but I haven't played it. I like it when a course has a hole that is very tough to par, gives the members something to talk about.

[Jason Mandel]

JES,

IIt doesn't look like you need to make more than 5 here, unless you are 'trying' to. I can't say it looks or sounds unfair to me, but I haven't played it.

Glenn,
You can make more than a 5 on EVERY hole at Huntingdon Valley, they are some of the scariest greens you have ever putted on!  Especially the C nine!

If HVCC hosted a us open with their C 9 and one of there other 9's, people would be talking about how EASY Winged Foot was!

Jason

[JESII]

430 is probably about right Glenn. The real number might be a bit more but would be measured out to the center of the fairway at the dogleg and then to the center of the green. Due to the severe right-to-left sloping fairway I would say a 200 yard tee shot that down the middle (bouncing to left-center) will leave you about 210 - 215 to the center of a green 30 feet above you.

The one thing a player can do to make a quick six is get too aggressive down the left side off the tee. The garbage along the left off the tee forces you out to the center with either an aerial or gound hook to get it into ideal position at about 190 - 200. IF you over cook it left and do not make it to the corner you cannot reach the green with the next. Sort of like hitting it into a lake so early that you have to drop at a point where you cannot reach the green. The aggrivation here is that you just did it with an iron, and secondly, yardage is not what's keeping you from reaching, it's the dogleg and all the junk inside the dogleg.

You'll have to chack it out if you get into the Philly area some time.

[wsmorrison]

Jim,

Sorry about the green slope mistake...of course it is right to left.  Sometimes I type faster than I think.  Your comments, of course, are right on.  I agree that it is a daunting approach shot but if you pull it off, there are few holes that offer that kind of gratification.  But the one thing we failed to highlight is, and Jason alluded to this, how very tough all the greens are at HVCC as a result of complexities of slope and this very much includes the C2 green.  It is big and bad!  I've pulled off some great approaches only to sully (pun intended) the hole with the dreaded 3-putt.  It is a great green...I'll have to try and find a photograph of it.  I know Craig Disher took a good one.  I hope he sent it to me.

[Tony_Chapman]

Ok, this is from a moron in Nebraska so everyone should take is with a grain of salt. But, I have a question. Why aren't more golf holes built like this?

Sully, the only reason people call this hole dumb is because they can't hit driver off the tee. That's all. It appears to me that Flynn was ahead of his time with this hole, as it is the perfect thing to combat technology.

See, when most players see "430" on the card anymore they invariably think that it will be a drive and a wedge. So, they think this hole is stupid because it's 4-iron, 4-iron. It blows my mind.

We need more great holes like this that require something "other than" driver off the tee and follow it up with something "more than" a 6-iron on the approach.

[Geoffrey Childs]

Yale has always had #18 to stir up controversy.

I think a LOT of the negative views of #18, however, will change when they see what Scott Ramsay has done to create a real optional fairway on the right and by removing hundreds of trees and changing the mowing patterns.

To keep the pattern in line with HVCC C2 - the tee shot on Yale #18 at is also less then a driver (unless you are John Daly in a Nike tour event and blast drive all the way up to the 2nd fairway leaving a 6 iron into the 600+ yard hole    )

[TEPaul]

From BillyVee;

"What about it?

signed,
"Mysterious" Bill V aka redanman"

Hey, Pal, I've heard about identity crises but I think you pretty much take the cake. Who's BillyVee, some rock and roller from the late 1950s? If a cop stops you for speeding, what are you going to tell him---that you're 007?    
 
 

[Tom_Doak]

It is very hard for a golf course architect to work that way.  Even if he has the guts to build a hole that good players will criticize, it's hard to find a client who wants to go there.  And if you do have such a client, it's better than 50/50 that he just doesn't know that much about golf so he goes along, but then he's ready to change the hole as soon as the criticism comes from his customers.

I played Royal Dornoch today.  Does Dornoch have a controversial hole?

[Randy Van Sickle]

There has been much banter about the 16th at Dornoch in the past.  I'm not sure if it would be considered controversial, but there are many who feel it is a weak hole.  I don't think it is a weak hole at all, despite the fact that I have screwed it up nearly every time in the 20+ times I've played it.  I think it has something to do with wanting to avoid the quarry on the left and always heading toward (or into) the fairway bunkers or gorse on the left.

[JESII]

It is very hard for a golf course architect to work that way.  Even if he has the guts to build a hole that good players will criticize, it's hard to find a client who wants to go there.  And if you do have such a client, it's better than 50/50 that he just doesn't know that much about golf so he goes along, but then he's ready to change the hole as soon as the criticism comes from his customers.

I played Royal Dornoch today.  Does Dornoch have a controversial hole?

This political correctness does not sound like the same guy that wrote that book, does it?

I've not been there Tom, but there is apparently a hole at Barnbougle that might be considered controversial. I believe it's a shortish par 4 with some sort of obstacle to carry. I'll go look in the review pages, but perhaps you (or others that have been) could comment.

[James Bennett]

Sully/Wayne

those contour lines on HVCC C2 should be closer together, or is it the outcome of 15 feet intervals - there is a lot more slope and elevation change at the front of C2 than shown (that, and Rolling Greens #8 hole).  Memorable.  I'll check my photos tonight, but I don't think I have a copy of the teeshot on C2.


Tom Doak

re Royal Dornoch.  A separate question using a concept from a thread here last year.  What is Dornoch's 'least best' hole?  For the life of me, I couldn't identify one.  This also helped to explain to myself the concept of a Doak 10, which values the quality of every hole on a golf course.

James B

[Mark_F]

JES,

That would be the short par four 4th hole you are thinking of. Methinks it is not controversial, just not that great.  If the pin is behind the left hand side of the green, and you can't, or are unwilling, to carry a gaping 215 metre bunker on the direct line - perhaps into a 2-3 club wind to boot - you have at least one blind shot to play, and probably two.

The long par four 8th hole is far more controversial.  A split fairway with a high road or low road to a 447 metre par four, and some strange options.

[ForkaB]

I played Royal Dornoch today.  Does Dornoch have a controversial hole?

There are 18 controversial golf holes at Dornoch.  No, make that 19--some love the bar, some hate it.

To me, the definition of a great course is that the more you play it the more your opinions about it's components ebb and flow.  I have had a 20+ year battle with a very good friend who knows Dornoch as well or better than I do about whether or not the 8th hole should be played from the new medal tee or the old one.  Finally, I seem to be winning this one......

Great golf holes never completely reveal themselves to you at first glance, and the greatest continuously change their shape in your mind like the Greek god Proteus as you play them over time.

The 3rd at Dornoch is currently (last 5->next 5 years--things move glacially in the North of Scotland) controversial.  Some want to add an additional bunker at the end of the string down the right to put the essence of the design of the hole into the minds of the long hitters when they stand on the tee with the wind behind.  Others have no sense of design or creativity and want to keep it as it is.

The 7th is always controversial.  A new tee is being built at 495 or so to make it a "modern" "par 4.  This is a good idea for the better golfers, as current technology has turned a minor slope at 250 or so into a "turbo boost" for the big hitters.  That hole wasn't meant to be approached from 120, except on one's third shot.  Of course, the shorter hitters willnow find it impossible to even think of hitting the green in two, and shorter hitters are people too!  No?

Vive les differences!

[Sean_A]

Rich

Dornoch is one of the least controversal great courses I know of.  I wouldn't be surprised if 25% of the folks on this site who have played it think it is the best course in GB&I.  While this is no consensus, it is about as close as it comes considering how many candidiates there are.  There isn't nary a hole which is remotely controversal.  Your examples are from pissed up old boys who don't want to go home and fall asleep in the big chair so they create controversy.  Dornoch is way too good for controversy.  

I don't know of a more controversal hole than the 17th at Pennard.  I will say it is interesting and perhaps one of the most difficult 488 yard par 5s one is likely to see, but is it a good?  If controversy is the definition then it is decidely so.  However, there must be more to good golf than merely controversy - something to chat over the third jar.  I ebb and flow on the merits of this hole.  Unfortunately, I never flow into the purely positive.  

Ciao

Sean

[ForkaB]

Sean

You miss my point, but that's OK.  It's a great big world of golf out there, as TEP far too often says........

[James Bennett]

Wayne, Sulli and co

I found that I do have a photo of the tee shot on C2, but didn't have one of the approach to the green.  Huh - must have found it to tough to take the time for a photo, or the camera didn't click when it was told to .  Yeh, that must be it.  Anyway, here is the teeshot on Huntingdon Valley C2.


Here is a photo that I must have put through photoshop.  I couldn't show this till I left the country.  Hopefully people have a 'dry' sense of humour about this one.,    Controversy indeed - I didn't think the irrigation system was used at this course (LOL).


A similar hole to HVCC's C2 is just down the road at Rolling Green.  I've posted a photo of the tee-shot, the approach to the green (it is as uphill as C2 is, with the false front as strong).  I've also added one of Wayne's copies of the Flynnn drawings, because it shows the strategy and distances.  It is a really tough second, and gets tougher the further left you go, and longer the further right (and lay-up) you play.  There is a photo of #8 tee  and of the second shot.  It is a steep climb to this green!

The Flynn drawing of Rolling Green #8


The teeshot on RGGC #8.  It is visually difficult to pick your line and length.  The creek plays with your mind, and it appears reachable (especially right).  That is one of the Philly legends   in shot.


The second shot to RGGC #8.  The further left, the shorter the second shot can be, but the more the bunker comes into play.  And, there is no difference between a shot that is 1 foot short and a lay-up 50 yards short of the green - both shots will finsh right next to each other.


James B

[JESII]

Well done JB, but one Mr. Anderson may be arriving at your doorstep shortly to confiscate that photo of the irrigation demo. He was actually just clearing the pipes from the winter, no actual irrigation intended. Truth be told, we only use the sprinkler heads to tell us how far we are from the green.

[Forrest Richardson]

I agree.

[JSlonis]

Basically, the entire "C" nine
is controversial if you ask a
lot of the local amateur players.  
The large majority of guys don't
care for it one bit.  In fact in some
circles, it has another nickname...
I have often heard it referred to
as the "K' nine.

I've always been somewhat
of a contrarian, so naturally,
I have a fondness for the "C" nine.  
When it was played in the tournament
rotation for the Lynnewood Hall,
I liked to think I had an immediate
advantage over many of the other
players, because they disliked it
so much.  The "C" nine was in their
head...and they were already beating
themselves before they even teed it up.

The 2nd hole on the "C" nine is quite
odd, given the fact that you can
definitely have a longer 2nd shot
than your tee shot.  I would imagine
that when the hole was originally
constructed, that the tee shot
could be played over the creek,
but with the growth if the trees
and the wetlands issue, this option
no longer exists.  In my view, I do
think it would be a better hole if
the original option still existed.

[Kyle Harris]

Jamie,

You're definitely right, in fact - that creek could be one of the best uses of a center-line hazard in the country if it could be restored to the original design intent.

Now, it's just annoying lateral hazard.

Still love the hole all the same - and get to see it every day.  

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