Greatest par-4's under 400 yards...

[Phil_the_Author]

In this time of ever-lengthening par-4's, including one at Pine Needles for the Women's Open that has gone from 413 to 450, I got to wondering what would be the 18 greatest par-4's under 400 yards in the world.

And if a decent list could be fashioned, how representative of a golf course would it make? Could it serve as an inspiration that longer isn't necessarily better?

 

[wsmorrison]

Here are some world-class golf courses with a number of short par 4 holes:

Merion East:  1,7,8,10,11,12 and 15 (12 15 from regular back tees, not new championship tees)

Pine Valley:  2,6,8,11,12 and 17

Oakmont:  2,5,11,14 and 17

Lancaster CC:  2,3,4,5,14,15 and 16 (they aren't all great, but that is one fine collection of short par 4s, which balance the very long and demanding par 4s at LCC)

Kittansett:  4,10,12 and the excellent 17th

Indian Creek:  1,4,7,13,16 and 17

TCC, Pepper Pike:  1,3,4 and 17

Philadelphia Country:  1,2,13 and 16

Maidstone:  7,9 (I'll play 3 steps up),10,17 and 18

Yale:  2,7 and 10

Creek Club:  5,10,12 and 15

NGLA:  1,2,14,15 and 17 (though I'm not at all a fan of this hole)

Newport CC:  3,6,11 and 16

There are so many in the UK for overseas guests, because for the most part we cannot play the back tees on our visits.  So I'll leave out the UK, though the collection of short par 4s there are amazing, even from some of the very back tees!

[Pete_Pittock]

Your openers - Linx edition
1. Prestwick (346), St Andrews (Old)(370) or NGLA (327).
2. Spyglass Hill (349)
3. R. Adelaide (291), Carnoustie (346), Kingston Heath (296)

[Phil_the_Author]

Wayne, that's an impressive list, but I'm looking for those short par-4's that are absolutely unquestionable... The absolutely best 18 of them all.

More than just citing course & hole number, I'm looking for the reasons why certain short holes are fabulous while others are merely outstanding.

By the way, I was very surprised that no mention was made of one out at Riviera... I would have thought it a given.

[Adam Clayman]

Cypress's #9 qualifies for under 300 yrds also.

It's great because of many things;

1) all the options off the tee
2) The natural dunes land that comprises this hole not only provides the intimidation but the colors and textures are amazing.
3) The green size
4) The green shape
5) The elevation change within the green and that lttle tiny spine that cuts it in half up near the top portion.

At 268 yards from the tips it continues to provide the warm and fuzzies when recalled.

[Phil_the_Author]

So we begin...

1- Cypress Point #9 - 268 yards...
2- ??

[Mark_Fine]

Philip,
Make this list fast as many of these holes are disappearing quickly    

As you must realize, this is an almost impossible task as the selection options are endless and what gets posted here will come down to what people have seen.  Even if you went through the best 200 or so courses in the world and thought about the best short fours from each, you'd be leaving out some great golf holes on other more obscure designs (I started to go through my scorecards and gave up).  I doubt a short hole like one from Pitlochry in Scotland will make the list (though maybe one should).  It goes back to that elusive definition of what constitutes great.  If fame and exposure is part of that, forget it  

Mark

[Tom_Doak]

1 - Garden City Golf Club
2 - Pine Valley
3 - Royal Adelaide
4 - Barnbougle Dunes
5 - Royal Portrush (Dunluce)
6 - Pacific Dunes
7 - Crystal Downs
8 - Pine Valley
9 - Cypress Point

10- Riviera
11- Shoreacres
12- St. Andrews (Old Course)
13- North Berwick (West)
14- Muirfield Village or Ganton
15- Royal Dornoch or Teeth of the Dog
16- Pacific Dunes
17- National Golf Links
18- Inverness

I'm sure there are some better choices for a few of the holes, I only took about ten minutes on this.

[Phil_the_Author]

Mark, Tom, Wayne, you are all making the point I was hoping would be reached rather quickly.

Distance doesn't equal great.

I believe these four words should be on every archutect's wall and letterhead. On their wall to remind them that their repsonsibility lies with the quality of what they design and on their letterhead to get across to their clients that what they should be seeking is memorability of design.

If a person walks off a course and then tells his buddy that "I just played so-and-so course... It was brutal and 7,200 yards long..." Then what he is really saying is that the course is greatly lacking.

Great design makes a player walking off contemplating holes they want to play again as soon as possible regardless of the difficulty, not because of it.

We need MORE 6,700 yard courses that should be immediately thought of as possible Top 100 courses rather than less.

I hate to use the phrase but it is true, If you build them we will play them...

I'm on a rant here, sorry... But maybe one of the answers to the technology-driven distance issue is to simply not take part in it. To design great holes that are the equal in beauty, design and memorability of those mentioned above rather than to look at how many 500 yard par-4's and 650 yard par-5's a course has.

Oakmont may or may not be the most difficult course ever designed by the hand of man, but one thing I do know is that for the 2007 US Open Championship it had 5 par-4s that were less than 400 yards in length and the last one seemed to be what decided the outcome...

Sorry for the rant...

[wsmorrison]

BillV,

Wayne did forget to mention others.  Help, I'm talking in the third person!  I just went by memory and know these courses a bit better than Lehigh.  It has been a long time since I have been there.  1 is more than 400 yards, and is a good starting hole, but not a great hole.  Is that a Flynn green?  2 is an excellent short par 4.  Hole 4 is an excellent short par 4 as well, a bit like its longer cousin, the 10th at Huntingdon Valley.   14 and 15 are back-to-back short par 4s with the edge decidedly in 15s favor.

Come on Tom, not a single Merion hole on your list?  Is there as fine a course with as many short holes as Merion East?  That is an interesting topic given how stern a test of golf Merion remains (albeit with tee lengthening, but very little on the short holes).  

I was trying to see why you chose the 1st at Garden City since I do not know the course at all.  The Google Earth photograph of Garden City shows nearly every green to be an almost perfect circle.  How much would green expansions to the original dimensions improve the golf course?  It may be an old photograph, has any work begun to expand the greens?

[Lloyd_Cole]

Just talking to Mike Clayton about 2 of these - both offer multiple options including driving the green.

Kingston Heath 3rd
Royal Melbourne West 10th

[Tom_Doak]

Wayne:

I didn't forget Merion, I just didn't think any of its fine short par-4's matched up well with the competition ... the 8th is not better than the 8th at Pine Valley, the 1st is not better than the 1st at Garden City.  The 11th might have made it, but if you put history aside there and think enough about the first 200 yards of the hole, I don't think it's the greatest, either.

I always pick the 5th at Merion as the hole for an eclectic 18, but it's not a short par 4.

[David Stamm]

I'll humbly mention some ones that I've played that were a joy to play.


10- Riviera

3- Rustic Canyon

4- Spyglass Hill (Some really dislike the hole, I think it's unique)

11 & 16- Pasatiempo

17- Colonial

4- Pebble Beach

2 & 7- Ojai Valley Inn (Present routing)

10- Stone Eagle

10- Rancho Santa Fe

14- Barona Creek

6- Soule Park (Revised)

6- Palos Verdes (I love the green)

10- Sandpiper

13-15 - Pacific Grove (not the GREATEST, but really fun short par 4's)

13 & 15- Pauma Valley

16 & 17- San Clemente (Reasons the same as for Pacific Grove)

[wsmorrison]

Tom,

The 15th at Royal Dornoch over the 15th at Merion?  That is a head-scratcher!  I don't remember the 15th at Teeth of the Dog.  To tell you the truth, I didn't get the accolades for that course.  Very good?  Yes.  Great?  Not to me.

While each of the short par 4s at Merion may not oust your list on a hole by hole basis, but what about the collection of short holes at Merion?  Is there another course with such an outstanding collection?  Possibly Pine Valley and Oakmont.

With the new back tee at Merion's 5th, it looks more like a short par 5!  For some reason, perhaps you can figure it out, the hole looks a lot longer than 506 yards.  It looks more like 600.  I wish they didn't take out the former back tee at approximately 475 yards.  Maybe they can return it at some point.  80 yards between the daily back tee and the championship back tee is excessive.

[Tom_Doak]

Wayne:

Darn near every course which got a 10 on the Doak scale has a set of great short par-4 holes:

Merion, yes
Pine Valley
National Golf Links
Crystal Downs
Cypress Point
Royal Melbourne
Royal Dornoch
Ballybunion (Old)
The Old Course at St. Andrews
Shinnecock Hills

and, unofficially , Sand Hills and Pacific Dunes

I do not think I am denigrating Merion when I say that I think most of the others have short par-4's which are just as good.

[wsmorrison]

Tom,

I did not mean to imply you were denigrating the short holes at Merion, nor Merion.  I know how much you regard the course; it is one of the very few 10s you have given out.  I simply put it in a class with Pine Valley and Oakmont as having many great short par 4s on courses that remain a stern test of golf.  I do not know Crystal Downs, Cypress Point, Royal Melbourne and Ballybunion.  Of NGLA, Dornoch, TOC and even Shinnecock Hills (my favorite course), I think Merion's short par 4s are significantly better.  That of course is subjective and maybe ever so slightly biased


BillV,

You decide:

Merion 12



Lehigh 4



HVCC 10

[Peter Zarlengo]

Wayne-
I see a lot of similarity in the way those three holes appear. The deep bunkering on the front right of the green, the bottled approach to the green, and the gradual left to right swing of the fairway all give a similar look. Are they at all the same in the way that they play? What was Flynn getting at?

The Merion hole looks like it plays uphill on the second shot which, in my opinion, is a tougher shot to execute from 100 yards and in.

[wsmorrison]

Bill V,

Did you go to the David Moriarty School of Merion Analysis?  The 12th at Merion is 375 from the old back tees and maybe 410 from the new back tee.  There are times when the daily back tee is on the back tee box.  While Tom Paul may not be able to clear the creek from the back tee box, most can and you don't need to work the ball much at all from the back tee.  From the middle tee, even from the back of it, I hit 3-wood in case I hit it straight so I won't go through the fairway and go into the bunkers and have to hit that green below the pin from such a hanging lie.  

Merion's hole doglegs much more so than LCC and HVCC, though there are similarities between all three.  All have wonderfully offset greens.  However, Merion's green is much more severely sloped than the other two greens, both left to right and back to front.  The fairway slopes a lot more left to right at Merion as well.  From the LZ, they all have about the same rise to the green with the very deep bunkers(s) below the green on the right a real hazard for short shots.  The front opening allows short or high spin approach shots to come off the front of the green much more so than HVCC or LCC.  

[mark chalfant]

1.  Misquamicut   Rhode  Island
3.  LACC   Thomas
4.  NCR     Wilson
5.  Longmeadow  Ross
6.  Pine  Valley
7.  Moraine    Campbell
9.  Brook hollow   AWT

10  Toronto  Colt
12. Oklahoma City      Maxwell
13  Franklin Hills  Ross
15  Royal Dornoch
16  Spring  Mill  
17  Southern  Hills

[jim_lewis]

Pinehurst #2
Third hole

[Adam Clayman]

Few American shrt holes can compete with this pair...

[Andrew Summerell]

For me, possibly the best 'bunkerless' par 4 under 400y is the 14th at NSW Golf Club.

[John Kirk]

Wayne,

While you are busy defending Merion's great par 4s, let's talk about #12.   I've played the hole twice, and both times a poor drive led directly to a bogey and a double bogey.  From the picture, it appears that a drive in the left side of the fairway yields the best angle to the green.  The player must either challenge the bunker at the corner of the dogleg, or hit a power fade right of the bunker.  Is that right?  Seems to me a solid 3 wood (about 240 yards) was about right.

For the second shot, the strategy is straightforward.  The safe play is to the front left of the green, leaving long but uphill putts to other pin locations.  Otherwise, we are challenging the pin, and any shot beyond the pin is a mistake.

I do remember the green has some contouring and subtlety to it, but mostly I remember an extremely sloped green for the speedy bent grass surfaces, where it's damn near impossible to stop a ball going downhill.

Does that really constitute a great design?  To me, this hole is pretty simple in design, but the slope is so steep, it's extremely penalizing when you make a mistake.

In summary, this is an example of an approach shot which has been designed thousands of times, but is made extremely difficult by having greens that Stimp around 12 feet, and I see nothing great about that.  On the other hand, the tee shot is quite compelling.

By comparison, the 12th at Ballyneal offers more variety both on the tee shot and the approach shot, with more chances for heroic and memorable shots.  The green is contoured and shaped unlike any other  I've seen.  I don't think it's even close as to which is the more interesting golf hole design.  #7 at Ballyneal gets all the glory, but #12 is the best short hole there.

Just to remind you, I absolutely loved Merion when I played it, and consider it one of the greatest courses I've played.  I'm encouraging you to explain to me why you feel #12 belongs on this list.

[John Kirk]

Here are a few others I like that havn't been mentioned.

Kingsley #13, 285 yards with a 60 yard deep green.

Kinloch has two short 4s.  The better one is #4, a downhill 330 yarder with two fairways.

Friar's Head #5 is subtle and tricky.

Crystal Downs #17 does not qualify, being the only 320 yard par 6 in America.

Prairie Dunes #6 (390 yards) is really good.

My favorite short par 4 at Pacific Dunes is #2.

Stanford University #9 is strange, but has its merits.  Lots of strategy off the tee there.

[wsmorrison]

John Kirk,

Please notice that at no time did I confer greatness upon Merion's 12th hole.  In no way am I "busy" defending the 12th at Merion.  Yet I do defend the collection of short par 4 holes as great.  You see, my list is a list of great courses with short par 4 holes intending to indicate that some of the very best courses do have several short par 4s; it is part of what makes the courses so great.  For a championship course to have so many short par 4s, the yardage dispersion is usually made up with medium and very long par 4s as well (often it is the same with par 3 and 5 groupings).  At no time did I say that the 12th was a great hole.  I think it is less straightforward than you do however.  

So let's, as you say, discuss the 12th.  For daily play, this hole plays a mere 371 yards.  From the championship tee it plays a few yards over 400.  For most low handicap players this is a driver and a short iron.  The tee shot can be played straight away from the championship tee, though a 270 yard drive will land in the first bunker on the left, a 285 yard drive will land in the middle bunkers and it takes a 310 yard drive to land in the far right bunker at the corner though a 285 yard drive will go through the fairway on that line and land in the rough.  There is a real penalty for hitting the ball straight towards these bunkers as the resulting side hill lie is severely below your feet, as much as a foot or so.  The bold play is to fade a driver around the corner leaving a short shot into the green.  Given how firm and quick the very slopey green is, it is tempting to do so in order to give yourself a chance to place the ball accurately on the green.  This temptation can get you in trouble as it might have gotten you on your two poor drives.  

You say, "I've played the hole twice, and both times a poor drive led directly to a bogey and a double bogey.  From the picture, it appears that a drive in the left side of the fairway yields the best angle to the green.  The player must either challenge the bunker at the corner of the dogleg, or hit a power fade right of the bunker.  Is that right?  Seems to me a solid 3 wood (about 240 yards) was about right."

The safest shot is to hit a 3 wood to a much flatter area.  Is that what you played?  If you did and got penalized for hitting a bad 3 wood, what is so wrong with that?  If you hit it straight, your lie isn't bad and you still only have 145 yards or so into the green.  If you do fade the ball slightly, you have a shorter route.  You have to be careful not to shape it too much or else you have an elevated shot to a green over the large and deep bunker protecting the right side of the green.  While you are hitting into the slope, a ball with too much spin can get into the bunker.  You cannot see the bottom of the standard (can't say flag) from this position.  For a hole with such a short approach to a firm and sloped green, the tee shot demand can be great if you yield to temptation.  If you play it safe, you have to hit a fine second shot.  It is a relatively short one, so the demand that you hit it with the right line and distance isn't too much to require.  You remark that it is, "extremely penalizing when you make a mistake."  You sure are right about that.  On a short hole on a championship design, what's wrong with that?  The stretch of short holes 7-13 look easy on the scorecard, but they often are not as played.  This is one of the interesting aspects to Merion's 3-Act play.

"In summary, this is an example of an approach shot which has been designed thousands of times, but is made extremely difficult by having greens that Stimp around 12 feet, and I see nothing great about that.  On the other hand, the tee shot is quite compelling."

Again, I never said this hole is world-class, though it is excellent.  I don't think the approach shot has been designed 1000 times, but it is perfectly balanced with the tee shot demand.  It has temptation and risk/reward.  The smart play is to try and make a par.  If you get greedy, you end up with the kind of scoring you encountered.  I'm not saying you got greedy.  But there is a real wide scoring spectrum on this short hole for all classes of player.  That is a sign of good design if you ask me.

You go on to compare it to another great short par 4 that you think is better.  That's fine.  Please remember I referred to the collection of short par 4s and not the 12th in and of itself.

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