Here is what we saw from the tee box area earlier this year:
I’ll repeat (without his permission) what Brad wrote about what we saw and thought about that day.
“At one point, the five-person committee sat along a ridge overlooking the likely site of Macdonald’s famed Short Hole - a modest par-3 to a complicated green.
We were simply looking around until Urbina got up, drew a diagram in the dirt and asked if we were sure that the high handicapper could find a safe path to a well-guarded putting surface.
There began a discussion that an architecture junkie lives for; 45 minutes worth, of No. 11 at St. Andrews, No. 6 at National Golf Links and No.3 at Yeamans Hall. It was detailed talk, about the depth of the little depression and the falloff to the rear, as well as the way in which the green would look big but play to a series of small targets if properly tied together. We sat there, variously drawing with sticks and fingers and boots. Satisfied that we had made some progress, Urbina, with a single sweep of his foot, erased a graduate seminar’s worth of work and simply said, “Next hole.”