Anticlimax......

[Doug Ralston]

Dendraphobia running rampant on GCA. Run for your lives! But wait, if you are a tree, you can't run. Sorry, here comes the GCA Chainsaw Massacre!

Doug

[Phil McDade]

I have never played CP, but...

Machrihanish is well-known for having something of a dull finish. Holes 17 and 18 are par 4s (17 medium length, 18 quite short) over very bland terrain, and nothing like the heaving dunes you encounter over the previous holes (even the two par 3s that immediately proceed those, while not set in the dunes, either, are very good, strong par 3s with challenge and strategy.) That the chief challenge on 17 and 18 comes from an artificial source (OB all the way left, separating the course from the adjacent relief course) makes it all the more contrary to the natural demands put on the golfer in the first 16 holes.

[Bob_Huntley]

I have for some time now come to the comclusion that I may be the only one who did not dislike #18 at CPC...perhaps by then I was so in awe of the place that I could see no wrong, but I just dont understand the harsh comments.
It is a stratgically placed tee shot to an elevated green atht requires some degree of precision...the greens bunkering is superb, and the green itself has enough contour to keep any golfer honest....but best of all THE VIEW...awesome...when you walk towrad the green glance left and see that view...wow...I just dont understand the criticism...ever thought Dr Mac intended it that way...that view reminding you of all you have just enjoyed without the extra thoughts of yet another spell binding hole.....to me it is just another example of his genius....but perhaps that is just the romantic in me

Michael,

You are a player of some quality. When younger, I had no trouble with #18, I just lofted a five wood over the tall tree a short way down the fairway in front of the green. I am talking about the average player (18 handicap or so) who has to bunt his ball short right, clip another shot short left and than have a seven iron into the green on a hole less than 350 yards long.

Just last week I hit a driver high, but not high enough and came down in a tangle of roots and grass. I said to myself, "Silly goose" or something like that and trudged up the hill in high dudgeon.

I hated the hole.

Bob

[Tom Huckaby]

Now of course any hole that requires one to trudge up a hill in high dudgeon can't be all that good.  

But Bob gives good reason to reconsider this golf hole.  I too had been thinking about it as if the tree was no big issue - just carry it and get on with it - but if one can't do that - and it is damn high - then the hole does get rather stupid.  It's pretty darn tough to go around or under, that's for sure... especially in combination with its brothers nearby.

So here's a question... why don't they either seriously trim, or cut down entirely - the worst offending tree?

TH

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

Like Tom, I did not consider Bobs reasoning...Bob you do have a good point...I need to ponder this for a while