St. Andrews Beach - Gunnamatta Course: A Pictorial!!! (All holes posted)

[Scott Warren]

After spending the opening two-thirds of the round pounding drives to super-wide fairways from elevated tees, I have very little sympathy for anyone who gets cut up about the demands of the 13th (and I was one who was beaten up by the drive).

[Mark_F]

Funnilyy enough, when we played this hole into a slight wind, David Kelly and I both felt we hit fairly good drives up the RHS, only to find we were hitting 4i for our second shot. What say the locals? Is there a slope up there that kills the roll?

Yes, there is, Scott.  But if you two had a 4 iron in, it was also very windy, or they weren't that good a pair of drives in the first place.

8 and 9 are a really cool combination.  8 is going to be either downwind or into the wind, and calls for a very precise tee shot to open up the small green fully.

9 is usually played into a cross wind of sorts, and it appears you have plenty of room to lash out from the tee,  but it is surprising how many drives end up in the bunkers at the base of the slope.  I do think the second one is superfluous.  The second shot, if the pin is at the front, needs to be very precise if you want a simple putt.  Plenty of short game options if you miss.  On a course full of original and unique greens, this might be the best.

Larry Lambrecht took a photo of this hole from behind in the morning, with the valley full of mist and wondrous shadows over the green.  Brilliant image.

The 9th has one of the best green complexes on the course.

Screw that, it has one of the best green complexes in the country.  The National has the views, St Andrews Beach the muse.

[Ben Stephens]

Here is my take of Hole 9 - what a amazing green - wished I knew what was there before I played what I believed was a good shot and the damn ball kicked off down the left run off area!


Tee shot


Fairway


The damn run off area on the left quite a severe slope!


Rear view

Cheers
Ben

[Robin_Hiseman]

After spending the opening two-thirds of the round pounding drives to super-wide fairways from elevated tees, I have very little sympathy for anyone who gets cut up about the demands of the 13th (and I was one who was beaten up by the drive).

Scott

I don't think the blind tee shot was the issue, nor the fact that the ball fell off the fairway, but the fact that it fell off into inpenetrable rough and was lost.  Sorry for introducing 13 to the story too soon!  Don't get waylaid from the sequence.  This is all good stuff and my library of StAB pics is loving it.  You wouldn't credit how often I go to my StAB pics when i'm looking for a good bunker for a photoshop montage. 

[Ben Stephens]

After spending the opening two-thirds of the round pounding drives to super-wide fairways from elevated tees, I have very little sympathy for anyone who gets cut up about the demands of the 13th (and I was one who was beaten up by the drive).

Scott

I don't think the blind tee shot was the issue, nor the fact that the ball fell off the fairway, but the fact that it fell off into inpenetrable rough and was lost.  Sorry for introducing 13 to the story too soon!  Don't get waylaid from the sequence.  This is all good stuff and my library of StAB pics is loving it.  You wouldn't credit how often I go to my StAB pics when i'm looking for a good bunker for a photoshop montage. 

Robin,

I absolutely nailed my drive on 13, an awesome hole - the best of the day and left me a 5 iron to the green. I aimed right of the marker did Brian aim at the marker and went left into the rubbish? As we always say on GCA is all about knowing the course a bit more and where to go on blind shots. As far as I can remember this was the only blind tee shot on the whole course

Cheers
Ben

[David_Elvins]

Scott,

Don't worry, I also vividl remember the 4 iron shot into the 9th from the right side of the fairway.  The target looks very small from back there and all of a sudden you notice how close the trees are to the right side ofthe green. 

8 and 9 are fantastic.  Probably the best back to back mid length par 4s i have played. 

[Scott Warren]

David,

If I were more humble I'd not mention my 4i landed on the front edge of the green and rolled to six inches for my second kick-in birdie in as many holes!

Robin,

There has been a debate on the 13th taking place at one of the Aussie forums for a past week or so, so we are all primed for this tour to get that far

[Matthew Mollica]

Funnilyy enough, when we played this hole into a slight wind, David Kelly and I both felt we hit fairly good drives up the RHS, only to find we were hitting 4i for our second shot. What say the locals? Is there a slope up there that kills the roll?

I smashed driver 3 wood to get there one day. A big north wind makes 9 seem like it's 500 yards long.
Yet, the course gives and takes in equal measure at times. 10's a baby in that wind.

MM

[Matthew Mollica]

Did anyone think that the movement in the 9th green was a little too wild considering the size of the green?
I've heard some critival comment along the lines that as a family of curves, the 9th green feels too compressed.

MM

[Kyle Henderson]

Switching tack yet again (there is a lot of golf to be played in this portion of the property!), the 384-meter 10th heads back to the ridgeline that has been featured so many times already (2nd green, 3rd green, 6th green, 7th tee, 8th green and 9th tee…). The raised nature of the approach shot places a premium on club selection, while the uneven lies produced by the tumbling fairway will test even the best of players.


Landing short of the green will result in a dicey uphill pitch from a tight lie. Right equals bunkers. Long equals bunkers or gunch.

Peering across the 10th green, one views the 9th hole stretching away in the distance.

[George Freeman]

Really enjoying this thread.

Is that whole bowl section green?  Or is it just the small, mostly hidden from view shelf in the top right of the picture?

Either way, the green complex looks awesome!

[Kalen Braley]

I can kind of see the merits to that earlier comment.  It does seem like almost every approach is uphill to a partially or mostly concealed green surface/surrounds.

[Kyle Henderson]

Really enjoying this thread.

Is that whole bowl section green?  Or is it just the small, mostly hidden from view shelf in the top right of the picture?

Either way, the green complex looks awesome!

There is quite a bit of green surface down behind the small, raised front section on the right.

[Tom_Doak]

Did anyone think that the movement in the 9th green was a little too wild considering the size of the green?
I've heard some critival comment along the lines that as a family of curves, the 9th green feels too compressed.

MM

Matthew:

I don't really understand this line of reasoning.  The front plateau of the green is a very, very difficult hole location ... at least a half shot harder, and probably almost a full shot harder.  But the rest of the green is essentially a bowl; I don't remember much in the way of difficult putting if you are putting across it from one side to the other.  Maybe I've forgotten something?


George F:

I think the "bowl" you are seeing is the apron of the green ... we planted fescue on the approaches, as a buffer between the couch/bermuda fairways and the bentgrass greens.  [Royal Melbourne recently did the same.]  Anyway, the back 2/3 of the green is a bowl, but you can only see a little bit of it in the picture posted above.  At least half the green surface is hidden behind the raised front plateau.

[Mark_F]

Did anyone think that the movement in the 9th green was a little too wild considering the size of the green?
I've heard some critival comment along the lines that as a family of curves, the 9th green feels too compressed.

Given that you hit and held the green with a 3-wood, MM, I would have thought the answer was obvious. 

[Bruce Hardie]

Ah the 10th. One of the toughest greens to hit on the course in my experience.

I am yet to play in a group where someone hasn't had that tough chip up the hill from the collection area on the left, and then frequently another one from almost the same spot.

Does "get lucky by coming up short between the green and mid right bunker" count as a strategy?

[Mark_F]

Does "get lucky by coming up short between the green and mid right bunker" count as a strategy?

It does if that is the line you attack the green from, Bruce. 

I have played with 12 handicappers who have hit this green with a hybrid, and scratch players who have missed with a wedge.  Kind of like the tee shot at 13 tends to have people worried around now, the 10th green and how to conquer it tends to get on people's nerves around the 8th tee.

[Bryan Izatt]

Some more photos. 

I can say that the gunch to the right of the green is not a pretty place to be.  Add me to the list of those who couldn't hit the green.

For those that have played the course regularly, is the back nine substantially harder to score on than the front?  I went out in 37 and back in 43.  Or was it just heat stroke on the back nine.







The pin position on the right looks to be one of the tougher ones.




Being in the gunch to the right of the green is definitely in gaol.

[Rob Swift]

You can add me to the can't hit the 10th green list 45 times over, by far the hardest green on the course to hit in regulation!!

But still it got me coming back time after time to keep trying, must say something about how good the hole is. (or i was a sucker for punishment)

[Ben Stephens]

The 10th should be called Ned Kelly hole , its a bloody difficult green to hit - id rather miss it to the left but thats still a difficult chip up a steep slope to the surface of the green. Anywhere on the right is a no go area!!!! Here are my pics


Tee shot


Fairway


Rear view - showing slope if miss green on the left

Cheers
Ben

[Kyle Henderson]

The 147-meter 11th features two sets of teeing grounds. These photos were taken from the lower/left tees. The alternate tee boxes are set well to the right


From either set of tees, shots that come up short or left of their target will be repelled. Tee shots coming from the right tees can bounce in off the shaved bank (seen behind the green from this angle).

[Ben Stephens]

I played from the right hand set of tees on the 11th.


tee shot


my friends ball in the vicious rough in front of the tee

Cheers
Ben

[Bruce Hardie]

What you can't see in the photos so far is the massive drop off at the left to almost certain death. My misses down there have been far too frequent and it's too tough a shot back up the 15-20 feet for my modest abilities.

Recovery is frequently complicated by not just being at the bottom of that slope but rolling all the way into the tree line.

Don't miss left. Use the bank on the right.

[Tom_Doak]

I heard from a couple of people who didn't like this hole while I was at Royal Melbourne last week.  I was surprised; I've always thought it was one of our better short par-3's.

Most of the angst comes from people who have gone left ... you can't go left.  But if you go right, you are flirting with the bunker on that side.  If you take enough club to be sure of clearing the bunker on the right, then you're going to face a downhill, cross-slope putt that's really nasty.  And if you lay up to the front edge of the green to take the right bunker out of play, there's just enough of a crown that you are scared where the first bounce might take you.  So, even though there are only two bunkers and you seldom see players in them, the green is pretty well defended on all four sides.

[Matthew Mollica]

Did anyone think that the movement in the 9th green was a little too wild considering the size of the green?
I've heard some critival comment along the lines that as a family of curves, the 9th green feels too compressed.

Given that you hit and held the green with a 3-wood, MM, I would have thought the answer was obvious. 

Mark,

The long accurate approach of mine, and the green curvatures are not intricately linked. Mind you, I'm glad I've got a witness to that shot

I have heard several say there's a lot going on in a small space on that green, and that it might feel better if the same curves swept across a more broad area. Someone of this mind also posed the question of what the green at RMW 2 would feel like if reduced 50% in size, while maintaining the same slopes and curves. I can see what they mean, but obviously don't agree. I'm keen to see if anyone else was in that camp. Doesn't seem there is does there...

MM