(First in an installment of several great courses in the NJ-NY area. Please excuse the crappy iPhone camera, my digital camera shit the bed)The first rule of any successful counter-insurgency (COIN) is to win the population, and that doesn't--rarely in fact--correlate to direct enemy engagement. Sun-Tzu's
Art of War must be on the bookshelf of our friends at Coore and Crenshaw Design. The book is quoted, "Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting."
At no point in today's excursion at Hidden Creek Golf Club in Egg Harbor Township, NJ, did I feel that I was in battle. In fact the course seemed to offer many handshakes throughout my round. This differentiated heavily with many of the great golf courses I've seen over the past few years. At places like Oakmont, Yale, Bandon Trails, Olympic Lake, and even Crystal Downs, the visuals presented at times are scary to a mid-level player such as myself. This never seemed to be the case at Hidden Creek.
Take the tee shot on #12 as an example.
This is the #1 handicap hole on the golf course. It is a long par-4 that bends right, then left. My host and my caddy warned me about this hole. But with such an inviting and slightly mundane visual such as this, what enemy is here to fight?
The fallacy of this thinking is--of course--that width equals comfort. And on most holes at Hidden Creek, it does. But the devil is in Mr. Coore's details. The enemy rears it's head.
The long approach shot is off a downhill lie, to a green pinched by two bunkers and a large false front. No course I have ever played allows it's hardest holes to be some of the easiest off the tee.
The 12th hole represents what I consider to be the most often confused aspect of many popular modern designs. Width does not equal easy. Just like great COIN operations in the past rarely confront the enemy with direct fire, great golf holes do not require difficulty off the tee to be challenging.
Keeping the theme of indirect attack and confusion going, we move back to the par-4 5th. This is another hole where the tee shot has zero intimidation, and even welcomes the golfer to stand straight and unleash a big swing.
But err to the right of center, and this visual awaits for your second.
This visual--in reality--isn't very intimidating for the average player. But accomplished players would definitely like a better look for their approach. Especially because the green runs away from the player at this angle, or the small false front, or the large ridge on the right edge would be visible with a tee shot to the left.
This brings up the often used by C&C concept of "friendly blindness". Many C&C course use blindness on the tee or approach to great effect. It seems--and especially so at Hidden Creek--that this design firm has gotten very good at clearing corridors for golf holes that leave room for error for the average golfer, yet force score oriented gamers to pick specific targets. Thus the idea of "friendly" blindness. I loved being able to hit to a blind area, knowing that my shot would be in play. The great golfer is challenged by this design feature.
The last irregular warfare tactic employed by the designers--that I'll comment on--is something I have commented on before with Mike Nuzzo's work at Wolf Point. C&C and Nuzzo Design are masters of designing golf holes "at grade", or "on the ground". I was very impressed with how demurely the golf course sat on the land at Hidden Creek. There are a few photos that demonstrate this ability to keep the golf holes at grade with the surrounding land.
#4
#7
#13
#17
All of these golf holes sit on the land with minor tweaks for feature shaping here and there to produce seamless transitions to the terrain off course. Not only is this visually pleasing, it is proof of effective surface drainage principles.
As you folks can see, I was pretty impressed with Hidden Creek. It is a very walkable golf course, that has fun as it's guiding principle. But--subtly--the course can quickly take it's pound of flesh if you get a bit too careless with your game. My scorecard revealed a very surprising 91 at the lunch table. I would never have guessed anything over an 85 until I added the numbers. The courses lulls you into friendship, then takes your lunch money while you're napping.
This is the type of golf course that needs more impostors. I think that we--in this country--have for far too long made difficulty one of the guiding principles of "perceived" design quality in golf courses. The Minimalists have done their part to bring fun and subtlety back into the forefront of the design of courses. But mainstream golf media outlets aren't doing enough to promote fun and forgiving golf courses. Hence my annoyance that Colorado GC--another C&C design--is placed a full 50 spots above Hidden Creek on the GW Modern list. CGC is a good golf course, and so is Hidden Creek. But at no point today did I feel that I had entered a TOUR style slog of golf holes like I did in parts of CGC. Variety, fun, and simplicity were the order of the day at Hidden Creek.
Switching gears but in the same vein, my personal feeling is that the US DoD made a key blunder by focusing on direct enemy engagement for so long in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is only until recently that we have made large strides in winning the population and fighting the enemy indirectly. Our job overseas is to teach and help stand up a functional and regionally relative airpower partner in Iraq. What we are finding is that our job has become exponentially more difficult by the fear--and rightfully so--of the Iraqi's that we will divert our attention away from the population and towards the very small pockets of insurgents that remain.
I don't know if our plan is going to work. But I do know that recently, an insurgent group held up a white flag of truce in eastern Baghdad while some of our medics tended to sick children in their town. Even the insurgents know that they cannot help their own people get food or medical care. And now that we have finally begun to realize that making friends and relationships equals less insurgents and extremists, I believe the tide is turning in a very big way towards stability.
It is with this idea in mind that I heap praise on Hidden Creek. My outstanding host gave me a great day away from the pre-deployment stressors, and helped me learn more about how friendship and indirect warfare can possibly be more effective than a full frontal attack.
(More pics from the course)
#9 approach
#11 tee shot (uphill, blind surface, 112 yards of fun)
#8 tee shot (285 yard par 4)
#8 green (James Duncan's volkswagon in the middle)
#13 fairway bunkering by Jeff Bradley
