What golf hole is most "memorable"?

[Bart Bradley]

Memory – an organism’s ability to store, retain, and subsequently retrieve information.

What makes a golf hole or course memorable?  

I have found that I often associate positive feelings for a golf course or hole based on how “memorable” I found it.  

If I were designing an ideal golf course, I would strive to make every hole memorable.  This is very elusive.  What makes a golfer remember?  Is it the beauty, the good shots, the birdie, the unexpected result, the poor result, the company, a joke someone told on the tee, the smell of  blooming fruit trees, a water feature, an unusual bunker, the sense of history….so many different things might play into this equation.  

And yet, much of my appreciation for a golf venue depends on how I remember it months or years later.  Now, obviously, playing a course repeatedly or seeing it on TV countless times changes the scenario.  I “remember” all of the holes of Augusta National without ever having been to Augusta.  But what about the first time you see and play a course?

Everyone’s memory is different.  My wife can remember every one of her birthdays, her parties and the presents she received.  I can only remember a few details of  my birthdays and of my childhood, in general.  When I see and play a great course for the first time, I still often only remember the specifics of a few holes.  Generally, I will remember the overall feeling of  such a course (the style, setting, ..etc), but only the specifics of those few holes.  What made those holes stand out?  There are innumerable, nameless courses that I have played where I remember very few details at all.  I tend to play new golf courses in bunches…I have taken a weeklong trip, playing 36 holes/day for the past 9 years with three of the best golf buddies a guy can have.  I find that after playing 12 different courses in 7 days that only the truly remarkable holes/courses stand out.  Maybe I would remember more if I just played one new course on my golf trips.  I don’t know.

Despite all the vagaries of memory, I still think that making a golf course MEMORABLE is incredibly important.  What holes are the most memorable for you?  Why?  What can and should golf course architects do to make their courses memorable?

If you find this tedious, just FORGET I ever wrote it.

[Jeff_Brauer]

As I age, I am tempted to say "the last one I played....the others get fuzzy!"

Seriously, if I picked one it would be CP 16 for the obvious reasons.

On normal courses (ie out of the top 100) judging by golfers comments, a hole must be either unusally beautiful, difficult, or unusual for a golfer to remember it.  Or, he has to have made a hole in one on it.

[archie_struthers]

 


I'm gona say.....most memorable is the 5th at Royal Portrush,
for a myriad of reasons.

It's fabulously beautiful .. there's water...gorse ...and all else that is Irish.....and the walk after the tee shot makes you feel like you just entered brigadoon.... that walk...down the right path thru the flora and fauna...is like nothing I've ever experienced in golf...  

[BVince]

The most memorable that I have played would be the 16th at Kinloch G.C.  It is a great hole.  Honorable mention:
10th @ Winged Foot West
4th @ Baltusrol
4th @ Bethpage Black
9th @ Yale
10th @ Chambers Bay
14th @ Waterwood Golf Course

The most memorable that I have seen (but not played) would have to be the 16th at CP.  

[Padraig Dooley]

Seriously, if I picked one it would be CP 16 for the obvious reasons.

No doubt about it.

[Grant Saunders]

This may not be exactly what you are getting at. In the last week I have had the pleasure of playing Royal Dornoch, Brora, Lossiemouth, walking around Skibo Castle and Castle Stuart. Around 4 weeks ago I also played Kingsbarns.

I can now sit here and recall every hole on Royal Dornoch and Kingsbarns with absolutely no effort. I can easily remember each shot I played on both of these courses. I appreciate that these memories are fresh at the moment, however I get the feeling they will not fade for a long time. The other courses, with the exception of Castle Stuart, it requires some effort to sit and focus on which holes are which and usually involves going through the course in numerical sequence.

Is this one of the qualities a course needs to achieve greatness? I cant pinpoint just what it is about these 2 as I found all the courses I visited to have many fantastic golf holes and features. Each was very different in its own way. How you would design a course to accomplish this Im not sure.

[Bart Bradley]

This may not be exactly what you are getting at. In the last week I have had the pleasure of playing Royal Dornoch, Brora, Lossiemouth, walking around Skibo Castle and Castle Stuart. Around 4 weeks ago I also played Kingsbarns.

I can now sit here and recall every hole on Royal Dornoch and Kingsbarns with absolutely no effort. I can easily remember each shot I played on both of these courses.

Is this one of the qualities a course needs to achieve greatness? I cant pinpoint just what it is about these 2 as I found all the courses I visited to have many fantastic golf holes and features. Each was very different in its own way. How you would design a course to accomplish this Im not sure.

I think this is what I am getting at....And I do think that months and years from now, you will look back more positively on the courses that you remember the holes.. the sequence, the shots...IF a course designer can help create this for people, there is no doubt in my mind that the course will achieve greater fame and standing among the golfing public.  But I don't know how to do it....I can remember nearly every shot I hit at Pebble Beach, The Old Course, Turnberry...but not so much at Dundonald (although, I remember I thought the course was pleasing and solid).  I think to be great, a course and its holes must be memorable.

[Joe Bausch]

I've got couple of '#4 holes', both pretty obvious:

#4 Pacific Dunes
#4 Bethpage Black

[Peter Zarlengo]

I hear often in both golf design and in my landscape architecture classes about creating memorable places. In my semester long research project on George Hargreaves, a L.A. whose unique look is derived largely from interesting earthworks and artistic elements in the landscape, stated that his concept in the design of the Sydney Olympics landscapes was to use memory as a driving principle. He focused on the crowds and people that occupy the huge event to be remembered by the users after the event was over. To do this he created lage voids to create a scale appropriate and visual trigger of the crowds.

As a critique of the design puts it, "The solution that emerged was not to employ gagetry or symbols to create the memorable image, but use the crowds themselves as the image."

To relate this to golf, I think that memorability is largely SITE SPECIFIC. Site largely dictates how one percieves and REMEBERS a landscape.

For example when I had the opportunity to play Ballyneal ths summer with my dad (not a golf or golf degign nut) he couldn't get over the bunkers and how they were just dug out of the sandy soil. I think Ballyneal really draws well from this site specific feature, with a lot of emphasis placed on the sandy site. It does this by blending it bunkers out into the dunes and affording views to exposed sandy soil where bunkers would not be found on a more traditional layout (a la the sandy expanse found behind the 7th tee and (I think) the 16th tee. It seems that wherever you turn your view, you are constantly reminded of the unique sandy soil which the golf course is sited on. Its the first thing my dad mentions when we talk about it or tell someone else about it.

[David Lott]

I played a lot of rounds at The Old Course nine years back while living in St. Andrews. Here are the holes I remember best.

1—The psychological effect. How can a tee shot to the widest fairway in golf be so intimidating? Small green and water risk on second shot adds still more pressure
5—Interesting second shot, amazing green where pin placement can be three cubs difference
8—So deceptive, so much harder than it looks, especially if pin is short and wind following
9—Great risk/reward hole for low to mid handicapper, with penal fairway bunkers and drivable (if wind is right) green
10—The challenge of getting second shot near the pin on the huge green
11—Fabulous framing from bunkers, difficult tee shot in any wind, world class challenge in chipping and putting.
12—The hidden challenge (for we mortals off the tee) of the invisible reverse bunkers; the difficulty of holding the narrow green; amazingly interesting chips if you miss the green.
15—Hell Bunker, wind problems, embankment before the green, hard to putt for a seemingly flat green, since so hard to get it near the pin
17—Fascinating off the tee, more so on the approach and chipping. (Again we mortals play to the right on the second shot and chip.)
18—Holiest of holies, Swilican Bridge, the amphitheatre of the buildings, the Valley of Sin, the omnipresent gallery of townies and tourists.

These were the most “memorable” holes by actual scientific test, as they are the holes that I can immediately visualize like my home course(es), in detail. The rest of the holes I have to think a bit to summon them up. What’s the common thread of memorability? Seems to me there are four factors: visual appeal, uniqueness and variation, challenge and difficulty of strategy and shots, and emotional impact.

Your Results May Vary, as the ads say, but ten immediately memorable holes from nine years ago is one hell of a golf course.

[Adam Clayman]

I'm going with the chaulk on this one. JN's favorite the 8th at PB. The approach alone is a most thrilling feeling.

16 @ CPC ain't too shaby neither.

[Patrick Kiser]

I must be one of the wackos on this forum.

Call me sadistic but here goes...

From my "Makings of great short par 3's" thread from a while back.

"I think for me it's the wolf in sheep's clothing thing.  Innocent enough from a distance but will bite your you know what in a hurry if you're not careful.  And even if you are and come up short,  long, or wide with the opportunity to recover you're in for an easy double or triple because the solution is not obvious.

But even more than this is discovering all the possible ways you can screw up and how those ways don't easily reveal themselves up front.  Like a date that makes you come back for more and you're wondering why.  Just when you think you've figured it all out, you'll find out some new way to make a mess of things.  

And yet it's all right in front of you for you to see ... but full of surprises.

Unfortunately, I can't say I've played too many of these.  Wish there were more out there."

That to me is what makes a hole memorable.

[Roger Tufts]

#9 at Royal County Down.... walking over the ridge where you first see the fairway... pictures don't give that sight justice.

#14 at Royal Portrush... #5 as well there. 14 is a BIG TIME par-3. It takes a very, very good shot to make par there. Nicknamed Calamity Corner for a reason. 5 for the same reasons stated above... its just a great hole.

#18 at Kapalua Plantation. The hole is just a MAMMOTH.

#9 at Myopia Hunt Club - What a green.

#18 at Essex County Club - Played for the first time when I was young... great tee shot, great finishing hole. Great use of elevation change.

#9 at Salem Country Club (Played as #18 when they hosted the US Senior Open) - Another example of WHAT A GREEN. The slope is nuts. I'd go with #13 here as well, as it is a great golf hole and one of Ross's own personal favorites.

[Bart Bradley]

18—Holiest of holies, Swilican Bridge, the amphitheatre of the buildings, the Valley of Sin, the omnipresent gallery of townies and tourists.

So this is mine as well.  I think I can remember some of the faces that were watching my approach to the green, just missing my birdie and tapping in for a 3rd straight par.

Now, I don't think GCA can replicate the feeling of this hole but if I can remember their hole as well as I can playing 18 at TOC, it will be a fabulous experience.

Bart

[Jordan Wall]

Even though I've never played it, its gotta be this one..great picture James
 

[Tom Huckaby]

I think shivas is right.

But I also think that while the golf hole is
not the most memorable, for exactly the
very logical reasons he states, those same
reasons could be more evidence for it's
greatness.

So... in terms of a very memorable golf hole,
the one where I can conjure up every nook
and cranny, even in with my rapidly
failing brain cells... put me down for....

#18 TOC.  

TH

[Tom Huckaby]

shivas:  I do get your point, and I think you're
very correct.

The hole does blow one away to such an extent that
details are necessarily overlooked.  Thus it's not
particularly "memorable."

And greatness in real time and memorability are for sure
two very different things.

TH

[archie_struthers]

 


hey guys ,,,,,answer the question   you're most memorable hole....not a bunch of good ones...not the toughest...but one that you remember most succinctly

again for me given the question ...the 5th at Royal Portrush did it for me...for the blending of history ...beauty  ...and the surreal it's right out of  Golf in the Kingdom"

[Rick Shefchik]

Shivas, I'll accept your challenge.

There is no false front on #16 CPC; I walked up to the front of the green to look. And if memory serves, the green is deeper on the left than the right, though I admit I could be wrong about that. I remember very distinctly discussing with my group that the green itself was unremarkable in terms of slope or contour. By far the flatest on the course -- but we also agreed that a tricky or dramatic green on that site would have been overkill. The setting brings so much sensory overload that you might pop a bolt trying to get your mind around a multi-faceted green.

I was much more impressed with the green at CPC #8. I stopped to study it for a minute after we finished, because I was so jazzed by everything that was going on there. I think it's the best green on the course, but I think it would have been a terrible mistake to put a green like that on #16.

Is #16, then, the most memorable hole I've ever played? It sure is crowding everything else out right now, but I think your premise is valid: At some point in my golfing life, there may well be another hole the details of which I'll remember better -- and maybe not because I found it all that enjoyable. Yet #16 CPC is the best answer I have right now to the question posed.