Peacock Gap

[Jed Peters]

Suffice to say it's a better hole than it was.
And we must assume they will have markers, eventually.
Yesterday, a range finder worked very well.

Play whatever tees turn you on.
We were one-up, since you would probably ask, because they most reflected the  old course, and they were fine.

I don't care if they'll have yardage markers.

I use a bushnell and if you can't shoot a flag or ANY landform like on 7, you ain't getting a reading. And I'm not pacing off yardages:

1. there
2. in those circumstances

And no offense, but I could care less what tees you played from. (I wasn't going to ask, sorry!)

[Jed Peters]

 

Now, from one tee up, 12 was a big drive somewhat down-wind breeze, and then a hybrid that landed pin-high left, and then a lob over that hump. If memory serves, there is also a bunker somewhat short of the green, providing a bit of an optical illusion. Aside from that, no reason to not go for it.

The hole is nothing special, and wide for the length. Water on the right should not be a factor, so why not swing away?

Possibly the worst tee shot on the course. Over-grown down the right, SUPER narrow in the landing area, have to hit a high hard cut off the tee (I hit it straight, was about bunker high).

In a tournament or if I actually cared what I shot, I'd probably lay up to 200 yards with a hybrid, then 4 wood another 215, then 130ish to the green.

Matt hits is decent yardages (I play with many top NCGA and local mini-tour guys, and matt is about average) and still couldn't get there and he hit that ball HARD.

[Wayne_Freedman]

Whatever works for you.  If your 130 club is the most precise, then play to it. In the old days, it was as long as a driver, fairway metal, and then a wedge.  I like this set-up better.

12 is not the worst tee shot on the course. What's with the negativity? It's one of the easier ones.  It requires a straight, shorter drive at the bunker, or else longer fade away from or over it. 12 still leaves plenty of room to miss, unless you're wild.

From my old man's tees one in front of you, I  swung with both cheeks, made very good contact, and had 216 to the flag, as per my Bushnell, which worked on every hole, including #7 from a couple of spots for my partners. Change modes if you can. Sounds like you need to.  

How do I post those photos?

[Wayne_Freedman]

[quote author=Matt_Cohn
Wayne,
Do you think #7 would be appealing on the 3rd or 4th play? It's a 3-wood or hybrid in the fairway and then a totally blind wedge most of the time. I'm not sure I'd really look forward to the hole. Did you find that the strategic choices were defined enough that you could actually choose between them?

Yes, I think it's always going to be a hole that makes a player think.
I like  mini-alps holes. There  is a similar concept at Metropolitan.
I like 7 because it is not inherently risky. Yeah, you'll make some bogies, but it is a hole I would enjoy playing more than the others.

For members, these  weird greens will create major  home field advantages, if they play well. They need to color code the flags. Those would make the blind shots  more reasonable.

And on 7. reroute the cart path. I  hate any cart path that isn't natural and ruins the lines of a course.  Concrete just does not make it, although it does become handy when teaching a young daughter to drive.

[Matt_Cohn]

Here are Wayne's pictures:

from the lower tee on #7


the 7th green from back-left


a few pictures of #10, the the thumbprint hole:






#14 green with the big trench running through it


#16 green, the par-3 over the lake


#17 from short-right


The controversial 18th green. Our pin position was where the end of the flagstick's shadow is in this picture

[Joel_Stewart]

What? You want to argue?

Nobody wants to argue, its the reason that 99% of the participants on this site leave.

I think a problem is Wayne played a tee which is far different than what Jed, Matt and myself played.  From the back tee, the left is entirely blind which is where Jed and myself hit the ball. If I played it again, from the bottom tee, the entire visual is different.  I don't know if Wayne tried to hit driver onto the green, but I wouldn't try it again from the back tee but I would try from the regular tee.

[Kyle Henderson]

Sorry I couldn't make it out there with y'all. I'll try it the spring hopefully.  

Maybe the rest of us Bay Areaers can set something up...


For those who have played PG: How windy is the site? Would the course play much differently from round to round?

[Matt_Cohn]

I think it's pretty calm by Bay Area standards.

[Forrest Richardson]

Because I share shortness with No. 7, I will defend it.

No options? Who said that?

Scott Clark went for the green, and made it. He missed his eagle by inches from the wrong side of the green. The putt went down, up and away. It was fun to watch. All in his group had completely different angles at the green (Scott was putting, there was a short pitch, a full iron and a recovery shot. How many holes can cough that up in just one foursome?

From the tee:

• With a pin right, your best tee ball is 180 to the right, against the short bunker in the fairway. From there you can see the right green plateau area. The risk is the bunker and the grunkle to the right.

• You can always lay-up. A 5-iron might leave you a full wedge, anything more leaves those perplexing 1/2, 3/4, 3/8, 7/17, etc. wedge shots.

• A full drive left can thwart the hole and manage its way on the green. It can also find either bunker, grunkle or worse lie.

• Even lay-ups are risky becuse the hole is all about precision placement. Laying up CAN be a matter of finding the middle, but when you opt the lay-up shot to the green, it will ALWAYS be blind. A lay-up more pin-pointed will have a better view to the green, but the pinpointed lay-up will bring into play the short bunker or the grunkle grass if missed...even slightly because the pinpointed lay-up is always well right or left.

I am not too uncomfortable with confusion at any hole. I think confusion in the golfer's mind is a decent defense.

Also, No. 7 at Peacock plays inherently different depending on what tees and what pin placement are at your disposal.

No options...really.  


 

[David_Tepper]

Kyle -

Parts of the course can be fairly windy, especially in the summer afternoons when the wind & fog is coming in off the coast. (Not to imply that the fog ever reaches the course!)

DT  

[Wayne_Freedman]

Matt,

Thanks for posting the pics. Those are not cropped and will look better after working them. Nor are they as nice as some of the images on the CD. I particularly like the black and white treatments. They're excellent and look more classic.

Forrest,

You have thick skin and I admire that. Comes with the territory?

As for me on 7...yeah, I tried to drive the green, and if not for that cart path, would have been even with it.

The alternative, as Forrest indicates, would be to lay back and hit a full wedge into the hole. Any way you play it, 7 will be kind of like a blind date with a difficult, good looking woman.

Personally...I would hit driver most every time because it is too tempting.

Am off to Arizona. Maybe we will see some of you there.

w.  

[Forrest Richardson]

Thick skin? No, I just ignore most comments. Some of your's Wayne...they qualify.  

"...like a blind date with a difficult, good looking woman."

Wow. That is one of the best descriptions I can think of.

[Bill_McBride]

When you say "difficult," do you mean she's hard to get, or a teaser?  This is an important distinction, and one I'm sure Forrest will appreciate!  

[Joel_Stewart]

Wayne and Matt:

I'm completely confused how those pictures from Wayne have different pins then on the day we played it???  I'll assume that Wayne went out again?

The photo of the 18th green from behind the green doesn't really do it justice.  With the pin on the left there is no place to hit it and not have a very odd putt.  I suppose back right and front would be pinable areas?

[Forrest Richardson]

We can set holes at 18 in the front, up the left and behind the curly-Q thing.

[Wayne_Freedman]

Forrest,

I know you know more than me. I know just enough to be a pain to people like you.

That said, you wrote,  "I am not too uncomfortable with confusion at any hole. I think confusion in the golfer's mind is a decent defense."

Well, that confuses me.  

Confusion may work in a home-and-home  against somebody you really want to defeat, but people tend to get angry when they're confused, and I wonder about its effectiveness as a marketing tool.

It must be difficult to find a balance between artistic intent, and pragmatic application. In my business, it is a daily frustration.  

w.

 

[Forrest Richardson]

Wayne — The entire point of the Road Hole at St. Andrews is to confuse and interrogate the golfer. To inflict undue decision-making, struggle and demands. That is what makes the Road Hole so bloody difficult, hard to master and down-right maddening. The player who attacks the Road Hole only once comes away with not a solution, but rather a temporary understanding that may be satisfying, but likely not. It was probably a bogey or worse on this first encounter.

Now, before Ran's web alert meter goes off the scale with posts about how I am comparing No. 7 at Peacock to the Road Hole, let me say that I am not directly comparing anything more than the psychology of the design. Both holes intentionally confuse and set up obstacles, both physical and mental. The Road Hole does this in a stellar environment with a series of odd obstacles, not many of which would ever be accepted anywhere except there. My little No. 7 does this in San Rafael, slightly off the beaten path of the Golf Gods, several of which have never even driven through China Beach State Park.

No. 7 at Peacock is a short, little maddening hole with unusual and downright unique characteristics. I hardly see how you or anyone else could not help but love it to death, for it reaches out with its short and virgin tentacles of newly planted grass, asking not for your love, but for your understanding. It is a tiny and odd hole, but one clearly in need of TLC on your part. For you can control him (her?), but only when you figure out what the hell he (she?) is asking of you. And, that my television-minded RGB and color bar friend, is something you will never figure out until you play him (her?) a few more times and reach your own (more well crafted) conclusion, knowing full well that your conclusion has nothing at all to do with the conclusions of others, as they will develop their own relationship with No. 7 and it will be a matter of great personal triumph to them, just as it will already have been to you.

Now, why did I do what I did there? It is a book. I cannot possibly divulge it all here for that would be a waste of time. Only you and a few buddies would read it, and probably only the juicy bits when I began to make the leap from sex to golf and anatomy to contours.

So, just play it again Sam — err, Wayne.

[Wayne_Freedman]

Forrest,

Good explanation.
And remember, I liked that #7.

So would you care to to explain the green on #11?
I know you like it, and I hate it.
Not only is the approach shot mostly blind,
but then it knocked me unconscious, kicked me in the groin, and took my money at a time when I was feeling fairly flush.

If 7 is that difficult blind date, 11 is that difficult woman you know,
upon whom you spend a fortune to get naked, who, oh never mind.

 

[Forrest Richardson]

Let me get up some courage. By the way, it's pouring in Phoenix at the moment.

[Mark_Fine]

I unfortunately know Forrest pretty well.  He gets a little wacky on a golf course and left on his own, it shows in his designs.  At the same time, he is getting a little older and his mind is starting to unravel.  If you think #7 at Peacock Gap is maddening, you should see what Forrest wanted to do at our project at Mira Vista.  I remember him standing on the one hole saying, "If Donald Ross were here today, he would have done this and done that” and on and on he went with this long harangue about Ross (kind of like the one in his post about the Road Hole above).  Kevin and I couldn't get him off his soap box (you know he likes to talk) until we reminded him that we were working on a “Robert Hunter” design, and not a Ross course.  His only comment back to us was, “They are both dead aren’t they.”    I am sure everyone knows I am joking about this (at Forrest's expense of course)

Actually Forrest is not afraid to take chances and vanilla architecture gets boring after a while.  I admire his creativity (most of the time)  

Peacock Gap is going to be a great success!

[Wayne_Freedman]

As I stated at the beginning, Peacock is much improved.
If one purpose in designing a golf course is to make it a memorable and discussable, then Forrest has succeeded. But, that discussion may also include an occasional and hearty deleted expletive.

It's not difficult. Just befuddling, in places. I think the criticisms point to PG's  new, manufactured nature. Well...Forrest had to manufacture something because  Peacock used to be a fairly bland,  eventless, and mostly featureless flat course. Instead of working with or around terrain, Forrest had to create it. Any debate or questions deal with how he did it.

I would have liked to see more movement in the fairways to match the greens, but maybe he did not have it in his working budget.

I do worry about drunks losing their balance on some of those greens.

Just kidding.

This is all subjective. Art and criticism go hand-in-hand, with both sides learning from the give-and-take.

Re: photos---I took them that morning, before the staff moved some of those pins.

Rain? No. Say no. You going to that event, Forrest?

[Forrest Richardson]

Wayne, I will watching my daughter dance in an event today, so — no — I cannot make your speech. Please enjoy wet Phoenix/Scottsdale today.

Wayne says, "I would have liked to see more movement in the fairways to match the greens, but maybe he did not have it in his working budget."

Unfortunately, Peacock Gap lies at -2 to 2 feet compared to "0", sea level. When you dig down just a few feet, you hit water. The approach was to leave the Bell fairways (yes, flat) and to de-water the course with a series of sump vaults that pump water to the lagoon and out to the Bay.

The bunkers and green complexes for the interest, as do many of the mature trees that we opted to retain.

Movement in fairways would have required importation of massive quantities of material which was voted down on two accounts:

(1) It would have raised the base elevations (to stay out of the water table) and this would effectively change flood limits for all of the homes surrounding the "Central Park" course. This was not do-able.

(2) It would have changed the nature of the old marshland / meadowland, and, even if we could have overcome (1) above, we felt the land should remain in the flat nature it always has been.

I suppose budget is a third, but moot when you look hard and long at just (1) alone.

 

[Forrest Richardson]

OK, No. 11...

We left the hole where it is, adding one far back tee. This was among only a handful of places that the tight site (95 acres) would allow length addition. The green is slightly shifted back. It is also a long (front to back) green.

The fairway was widened, although I know you will not believe that. The cart path down the right (only place for it unfortunately) was shifted right by 20-30 feet. The only restriction was the re-building of the fairway bunker — now wider and with significantly more teeth. Short of the bunker and beyond it is a wider, although still narrow, fairway.

The old green was shaped like a mango. The new green is shaped like Marilyn Monroe less her head and legs.

The old green was not guarded by any bunkers, but there were a few in the general area. Today we have a bottlenecked green with two rises and a short bunker (well short) to the left and a tucked bunker to the right.

Yes, it is a very demanding golf hole. length, carry and accuracy are all at play.

Hard par — easy bogey. Unless you are a scratch player (which, my God I cannot believe seeing just a few of your executed shots ["executed" may be taken a few ways here] as I followed you around Peacock) I really don't think you have a leg (one of Marilyn's perhaps) to stand on about the hole's difficulty. Matt Cohen had difficulty with the hole, but he managed to card a 69 on the round.

No. 11 also has options. The player can give in to the bogey early on, avoiding both fairway bunker and the front greenside bunkers. Hit a simple pitch (which will easily find the correct portion of the two-lobed green) and take a 2-putt bogey — maybe a 1-putt par. Nothing wrong at all with that. The alternative is to play with the intruding fairway sand, play again with the greenside bunkers on the long approach, and perhaps start a massive brush fire in the inner circles of the golfing mind.

Yes, the green is hard to hold when the hole is at the back, fall-away portion. For that hole position one needs to hit just the right part of the front green and allow the ball to release. I got into a discussion with someone about this, their position being that the better golfer spins the ball. To which I argued that "The better golfer should be able to spin, not spin or plan on a run..."

That argument got me nowhere, but at least I tried.

I like No. 11, but I would also dread playing it if there were 17 others just as mean spirited. Fortunately that is not the case.

[Matt_Cohn]

This picture of #7, from PG's website, show's how much the mound blocks the view of the green

[Wayne_Freedman]

Forrest,

Excellent explanations, and thanks.
Now the fairways make sense.
 
In defense of my cranky swing, I must advise that it provided birdies on 6, 10, 14, and 15.

We won't talk about 18.