[JLahrman]

I can't take a picture of anyone without a telephone pole sneaking in, so who knows how these will turn out.  I don't know that I've seen pictures of Moraine here before.

The club is currently undergoing expansive brush clearing, which is why you may notice bare areas.  It doesn't affect play much, but once completed it should really open up the course quite a bit.

#1 Approach, 410 yard par 4



#1 Green



#2, 218 yard par 3



#2 green, you can see how pitched it is from back to front.  One of our group wound up in the front left bunker, hit his bunker shot to the back of the green and it trickled to a foot.



#3 approach, uphill and you can see where the pin is tucked



Seen here from the left side, the third green is much deeper than it appears from the fairway.  16 green and 17 tee in the background.



#4 tee shot, this winding par 5 was probably my least favorite hole.  The 7th fairway is coming back to us on the right hand side of the picture.



Here's the approach to the fourth green, believe it or not the shot you see in progress was holed for an eagle.



#5, 156 yard par 3



Approach to #6, 350ish par 4



The 7th green.  Only about 320 yards but the green is very elevated



Approach to #10, a tough 440 yard par 4



The 10th green, the shallow trench visible on the left surrounds most of the green



Approach to #11



The 11th green, shots left short will roll back



The 12th hole, about 225 yards.  The gentleman who holed out for eagle on 4 hit his shot to about 18 inches here.



About 160 yards left here on #13, a 566 yard par 5.



Here is the 13th green.  This was a fun hole.



The 14th is an uphill 445 yard par 4, probably the toughest hole at Moraine and just plain visually intimidating.



Here is the uphill approach, I was about 200 yards out.



And this is what happens to a short approach.  My shot landed about 10 feet short of the green but came back down the hill.  I was able to get it up and in from here for par, probably the highlight of my round.



Here is the approach to 16, a straight downhill par 4 that plays shorter than its listed 408 yards.  Not a green that you want to miss.



From the 16th green you can walk right onto a tee for the 17th (the tees we were playing were to the left from this angle).



The 17th, a short par 5.



The approach to the 17th from the right rough about 100 yards out.



Just like 16 to 17, you can walk directly from the 17th green (on the right) to the 18th tee (a white and blue tee marker visible on the left).  Very cool.



The green at the dogleg right par 4 18th.

[Jay Flemma]

Nice!  I love the roll of the terrain and the cant of the greens.

How is the interior movement of the greens?

Great pics.

[Tom_Doak]

JAL:  I've heard about that course for many years, but those are the first pictures I've seen.

Who is doing the work to the course?

[Wayne_Freedman]

Nice photos for getting a sense of terrain...a better look than the old films, for sure.

Liberal golf cart policy, as well?

[Peter Wagner]

JAL,

It looks like cart paths are really kept at a minimum... are they just on par-3's?
Thanks for the pics!

- Peter

[Scott_Burroughs]

Joel,

Thanks for the pics.   Seems to be a terrific walking course and yet all I see are tons of cart tracks.   It's quite striking how trodden the grass looks.

[JLahrman]

Jay, I would say the fairways had more of the rolling terrain to them than the greens did.  The greens seemed to have slopes that were long and tilted as opposed to rolling.  However, because I was playing in a tournament with a lot of groups, they may have picked the more benign pin locations to keep play moving.

Tom, not sure who is doing the work.  With the tournament going on, there were quite a few players and the staff had their hands full, so I didn't try to speak with anyone about it.  I may have the opportunity to play again within the next couple of months, will see if I can find out.

With respect to the carts, keep in mind:
- This was a shotgun event (the club was generous enough to host a Miami Valley Golf Association event), so lots of carts were out on the course.
- We got some rain over the weekend, so the ground was on the soft side.
- With the work currently being done on the course, carts have to be funneled more than they usually probably are.  Honestly, I didn't even notice the evidence of carts until you guys mentioned it.

Moraine is definitely an old-school place, no there aren't a lot of cart paths on the course.  I think there may be some paths around the tees, but even those are gravel not blacktop from what I remember.  I can say that with how wild I can be off the tee, cart paths OFTEN come into play for me but there didn't seem to be in any in play that I can recall.

[Phil McDade]

Great pics -- NCR its neighbor by any chance? Have you played both? I know NCR has a fan club here on GCA.

Design pedigree? How far back does Moraine date? I like the look of a couple of those "saddle" fairways, a feature I've always enjoyed.

[JLahrman]

Yes, NCR and Moraine are very close neighbors.  As a matter of fact, if one isn't careful one could mistakenly go right from the fifth green at Moraine onto a tee at NCR South.  You can see the tee I'm referring to behind and to the left of the fifth in the picture above.  Unfortunately I have not had the opportunity to play either course at NCR yet (and I understand that the North is worth playing as well as the more well-known South course).

Moraine dates back about 80 years I believe.  It was designed by Nipper Campbell (I believe one of the club's bigger tournaments during the year is known as the Nipper).

Quite a few of the fairways definitely had the saddle effect going.

[John Mayhugh]

Thanks for posting these.  Looks like a lot of fun.  Is the green at 16 as small as it looks in the picture?

[JLahrman]

John, it's one of the smaller greens on the course with a lot of pitch from back to front.  I hit a perfect 3-wood down the middle and then slopped a wedge into the bunker on the right.  Short of the hole is really the only place to be on that green.

[Steve Kline]

I have never seen pictures of Moraine before - but I bet it looks a lot better after the brush clearing. Seeing the broad expanses is very beautiful with the rolling terrain.

[JLahrman]

Steve, this was the first time I'd ever played there myself.  The two guys my partner and I were playing with said that prior to the work every hole was isolated.  I think it will look great, I barely noticed the bare spots today and it didn't interfere with play that much.  I can hit some wild tee shots and I only had to drop out of it once today (it's playing as ground under repair).

[PThomas]

thanks for posting JAL...i enjoyed the course quite a bit

the work might very well be in house .....the club hired a nice young man (I forget  :-[his name)
to be the new head super ...he told me how the club was going to be doing tree removal, etc.

[Mike_Cirba]

The land for Moraine look terrific and the features seem well utilized.

Thanks for sharing the pics!

However, I know I'll get in trouble for saying this but that bunker work seems...

to be really set back to offer that much grass and that little sand.

[Scott Witter]

JAL,

I agree with others, this is a very good site for golf and if the putting surfaces complimented the terrain with more movement as opposed to tilts...

The brush clearing is interesting....was there really that much BRUSH all over the course?  Do you know how they intend to treat the cleared areas, fescue maybe?

I also felt the site had a good scale/proportion about it, but the bunkering didn't seem to fit well, too little sand and the lines were not at old school looking enough for me to match the period of design.  Many bunkers appear to be lost and not integrated to the green sites.  I also noticed that there appear to be very few FW bunkers, though from the pics, plenty of good locations for some.

In the right hands, this place has great potential

[JLahrman]

Scott,

Here is Scott Burroughs' aerial of the course, you're right - not a lot of fairway bunkering

To clarify the routing, 1-5 run north to south down the right hand side of the aerial.  6-9 run fairly parallel back up.

10-12 run crossways at the top left.  13-15 run down the far left hand side of the shot, with 16-18 coming back up parallel to 13-15.

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php?board=1%3baction=display%3bthreadid=70

Regarding the brush, as I said this was my first time at the club so I can't speak that well to what type of vegetation they had.  Maybe the term 'brush' is misleading, but I would need someone else to better describe what was there (not sure if someone on this site could comment).  The two in my group who had played the course mentioned honeysuckle plants.  According to them, it was fairly thick stuff.  I believe they are planning to jut grass it in.

[Doug Braunsdorf]

JAL,

  Thanks for posting these. I remember seeing the course on television on TGC ( I think it was the '45 PGA highlights) and it looked like a fun course to play.  I also like the big contours of the terrain.  The greens seem to fit in, they appear to "lay" on the land very well.  I love the look of that sweeping fairway up and over the hill. 

In reviewing the pictures a second time, I concur with Scott Witter that the bunkering could be improved upon, integrated better with the rest of the course.  Perhaps it's green expansion? 

There doesn't seem to be a lot of chatter on here about this course.  Is there any record of other architects coming in and making changes at any point(s) in time?

[Scott_Burroughs]

Joel,

The shotgun tournament expains the abundance of cart tracks.

Just posting the aerial directly:

[JLahrman]

JAL,

There doesn't seem to be a lot of chatter on here about this course.  Is there any record of other architects coming in and making changes at any point(s) in time?

Doug, not sure about that.  I don't have much detail about any rework or changes that happened since the course was originally laid out.

[noonan]

I played in the same tournament in the PM.

We started on 11.

If you started on 1, it would be possible if not probable to 3 putt the 1st 3 holes.

I was disappointed at the condition of the greens. Not that I would have made any more putts. But in the PM they were slow and bumpy due to recent punching.

There are places if you miss a green it would be impossible to get it up and down.

I left a birdie putt from 20' short in the jaws on 14   

[JLahrman]

Jerry, the only place I really noticed the recent aeration was on #5 and #15 but perhaps in the afternoon it was more noticable.

I actually managed to get up and down on #2 and #3, but I agree that those pins were among the toughest.  The player in my group who got up and down from the bunker on #2 had to play his shot ala Tiger on 16 at the Masters.  It was an unbelievable shot.

[Mark Manuel]

Had the pleasure of playing Moraine last year and it is a great golf course.  I didn't recognize some of the holes without the fescue, they took a whole bunch of it out and it does look better.  Hopefully I will get a chance this year to play it again.

My understanding is that the work was done in-house by the new Super.  All kinds of rumors about how it was funded and how much.  Heard everything from some folks that few members footed the bill, but don't know that as a fact. 

Anyone who can play Moraine and NCR South in the same week is in for a treat.

[Criss Titschinger]

I should keep up on Miami Valley Golf Association events, seeing as my "Club Without Real Estate" is in the Greater Cincinnati Golf Association.

Looks like more pics from that event, and ones where you can see some clearing are here:
http://miamivalleygolf.smugmug.com/gallery/4876045_Cfas3 and http://miamivalleygolf.smugmug.com/gallery/4876026_GWjV3

Moraine's one of the few courses in the Ohio Valley I haven't seen pics of.  Looks very interesting.

[noonan]

The MVGA runs the 2 man Met.

This year it is at..................NCR South on 9/19

Application here:

http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/view.php?id=430548&da=y

I will put this up for debate:

What course is better.....NCR South or Moraine.

My pick is NCR.

Moraine is a great track but there are a few weak holes.....#4, #6, #7, #11, #16

#4 is could use the woods to the right cleared out and maybe a redesign of the driver landing area. I hit 4 wood off the tee to the center of the fairway only to watch it roll 10 yards right and 20 yards back.

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