The Big Finish

[Mike Hendren]

Dye's 18th at Whistling Straits is over the top.  So was his original 18th green at The Honors Course.  Marsh's 18th at Prairie Club's Pines is a bit much. Nicklaus' 18th at Dismal River was quickly truncated. Arguably, even my man Doak succumbed to this temptation at Pacific Dunes' 18th, with a bait and switch penal finisher. 

Are modern architects tempted to design the big finish, even if that means a hole that departs from the previous 17?  Other examples?

Bogey

[JMEvensky]

Recently a guy told me he much preferred WS over the Honors because 18 at WS is much more "dramatic". That was his entire basis for comparison of the 2 courses.

Seems idiotic to me--the best holes should probably get built where they make the most sense. But my guess is that,all other things being equal,developers/owners would like to end with a dramatic 18th hole.

[John Kavanaugh]

Most of us play the 18th for more money than any other hole in the round so it should be dramatic to accentuate the drama.

[Will Lozier]

Arguably, even my man Doak succumbed to this temptation at Pacific Dunes' 18th, with a bait and switch penal finisher. 

Bogey,

Having looped PD probably 30 times and played it another 10, I find the 18th at PD very playable.  There is plenty of room off the tee and for a layup second and the approach is set up to help your ball to most pins.  What do you find so penal about it?  If you regularly hit your driver 30 yards off-line, yes, there are some tough spots.  But, you don't even need driver to put it in play from the correct tees.

Cheers

[Garland Bayley]

Arguably, even my man Doak succumbed to this temptation at Pacific Dunes' 18th, with a bait and switch penal finisher. 

Bogey,

Having looped PD probably 30 times and played it another 10, I find the 18th at PD very playable.  There is plenty of room off the tee and for a layup second and the approach is set up to help your ball to most pins.  What do you find so penal about it?  If you regularly hit your driver 30 yards off-line, yes, there are some tough spots.  But, you don't even need driver to put it in play from the correct tees.

Cheers

This

[Tom_Doak]

Arguably, even my man Doak succumbed to this temptation at Pacific Dunes' 18th, with a bait and switch penal finisher. 

Are modern architects tempted to design the big finish, even if that means a hole that departs from the previous 17?  Other examples?

Bogey

Bogey:

I've been accused 100 times of designing finishing holes that weren't dramatic enough, but that's the first time someone has said we went over the top at Pacific Dunes, of all places.  Stone Eagle or Black Forest, maybe.  But not Pacific.

My feeling is that if you've done well enough at creating a great course throughout, you don't need to reach back for anything more at the finish.  And if golfers think you've reached back for more at the finish, that's probably a knock on the first 17 holes.  However, I am certainly aware of many occasions when a client wanted the 18th hole to be extra-dramatic.  Mike Keiser just wasn't one of them.

[Nigel Islam]

I might get killed for this, but I recently played 18 at Whistling Straits for the first time, and I did not find it nearly as bad as I thought it would be from what I had read. Is it a great hole? No, but other than the ridiculous pro tee I thought it was a decent hole. I do agree that Dye tried too hard on this one, but my thought is that he was trying to create something akin to the Channel hole at Lido at least originally.

[Mike Hendren]

Will, there's nothing low profile (think of the two previous three shotters at PD by comparison) about the 18th at Pacific Dunes.  Maybe the hole fits neither my game (few do) nor my eye, an explanation that makes it a poor choice as an example supporting my premise. I think it is a very demanding tee shot, where a miss gets magnified.  In last year's Kings Putter I witnessed a couple of single-digit handicappers wage a I-Dare-You-To-Pick-Up-First battle with one player eventually doing do laying par with 250 yards left to go.

Tom, one thing about your architecture I find appealing is that it suffers fools (hard par/easy bogey).  The 18th at PD doesn't - it is a very demanding hole that adds insult by injury by being a tough hike late in the day. 

Barney, as an over-the-top individual, it makes perfect sense you relish an over-the-top finisher.

Bogey

[BCrosby]

I'm with Will Lozier on the 18th at PD.  

Neither 'tough hike' nor 'bait and switch penal finisher' came to mind.

Bob

[Mike Hendren]

Who am I to disagree with the likes of Will, Bob and Tom hissownself.  Let's stipulate that the 18th at PD is not penal and move on to the premise:  What are other examples of finishing holes that are over the top? 

Mike

[Matthew Rose]

It is interesting to see what archies do these days for a "dramatic" 18th now that the 445 yard par-four with the lake next to the green has become the cliche that it is.

[Kalen Braley]

I too am baffled at the bagging of 18th at Pacific Dunes.

Not only do i think it is the best par 5 on the course, but I also one of the best holes on the course.  I'm a hack and had no trouble parring the hole in my one play...even if its probably tougher into the prevailing winter wind.

The bunkering is top notch and I felt it had good strategy playing downwind as a go/no go proposition.

[Keith Phillips]

I love the whole Bandon Dunes complex, including PD, but the 18th IS one of the toughest tee shots on the property - I played in a foursome this June (hcps 6, 8, 9 and 13(me) and three of us lost balls on that tee shot!

[Andy Stamm]

I have a personal short hand that I use to see if I might like a course that includes the big finish. Basically, a big finish raises a (fairly easily) rebuttable presumption that the course is formulaic. Things like back to back par 3s or a side that isn't par 35 or 36 raise a rebuttable presumption that the course is not formulaic. Of course there are a lot of non-formulaic courses that aren't any good, but I'll take that chance and at least I won't get a McCourse with a gentle opener, a big finish, and 18 signature holes.

[Bill_McBride]

I love the whole Bandon Dunes complex, including PD, but the 18th IS one of the toughest tee shots on the property - I played in a foursome this June (hcps 6, 8, 9 and 13(me) and three of us lost balls on that tee shot!

I have had problems ith that tee shot too.   Although there are acres of safe fairway out o the right, it's almost impossible to avoid trying to hammer a tee shot down the left edge and get into deep caca.  I am about 4/4 in trouble down that unfortunate line of instinct. 

[Kalen Braley]

I pulled up Google Earth and took some measurements.

At its widest, the fairway is just over 70 yards wide, at its most narrow, its still 40 yards wide.  I'm having a hard time seeing how this hole is a killer.  I suppose if you get over-aggressive, there are some poor spots to be in..but you could you say that about almost any hole at the resort.  I'm short by most GCA'ers standards and I hit 3w, 3w, and only had 80 yards left to the green.

[Will Lozier]

I pulled up Google Earth and took some measurements.

At its widest, the fairway is just over 70 yards wide, at its most narrow, its still 40 yards wide.  I'm having a hard time seeing how this hole is a killer.  I suppose if you get over-aggressive, there are some poor spots to be in..but you could you say that about almost any hole at the resort.  I'm short by most GCA'ers standards and I hit 3w, 3w, and only had 80 yards left to the green.

AND...as I said earlier, that green feeds balls to middle and back hole locations as (hopefully) your caddie indicated - asking you to land it short left (at the very left edge of the green).  Yes, trying to skirt the left waste area (that is really what it is) is foolish.  Play a draw starting it at the right edge and you'll be in an ideal position.

Cheers

[Kalen Braley]

Will,

Right you are.  I thought I hit a great approach shot there, my wedge landed 10 yards short of the green, rolled on and past the pin...and all the way to the back of the green.

But I saved the two putt for par coming back to a front pin! 

[Carl Rogers]

The 18th hole's green complex at TD's Riverfront is the largest green on the course and, for me anyway,  represents a kind of summation composite of all the green complexes through the round.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Dye's 18th at Whistling Straits is over the top.  So was his original 18th green at The Honors Course.  Marsh's 18th at Prairie Club's Pines is a bit much. Nicklaus' 18th at Dismal River was quickly truncated. Arguably, even my man Doak succumbed to this temptation at Pacific Dunes' 18th, with a bait and switch penal finisher. 

Are modern architects tempted to design the big finish, even if that means a hole that departs from the previous 17?  Other examples?

Mike,

I think both Tom and Jack wanted a difficult par 4 finisher at Sebonack.

Whether he was influenced by his immediate neighbor or just wanted a more benign finisher, Mike Pascucci opted for a softer par 5 at Sebonack.
Bogey

[Tom_Doak]

Mike,

I think both Tom and Jack wanted a difficult par 4 finisher at Sebonack.

Whether he was influenced by his immediate neighbor or just wanted a more benign finisher, Mike Pascucci opted for a softer par 5 at Sebonack.

Patrick:

You don't have that one quite right.

My original routing for Sebonack had the 18th as a long par-4.  There were several reasons for that:

a)  It played downwind,
b)  It still wasn't clear where #1 green would go, and if there would be room to extend the hole on that end,
c)  There was an environmental area behind the tee, so it couldn't be extended very far back, and
d)  I had the impression that the client wanted a difficult course.

When we got to #18 on the first walk-through, Mr. Pascucci said that he would prefer the hole to be a par-5.  Jack argued that it might be a weak finishing hole, mostly because it was downwind and couldn't be a very long par-5, but Michael said that was okay, he just didn't think the members wanted to walk off the 18th green with a double bogey.  [Which is kind of funny, in retrospect, because he plainly doesn't mind if they make double bogeys on any of the previous 17 holes.]

So, we went back to the drawing board on items (b) and (c) above, and managed to figure out a way to have the hole as a par five that everyone was comfortable with.

The point I'm trying to make is that Jack and I [or certainly I, at least] were not necessarily locked in to having a difficult finishing hole.  We were sure that was the best place to put the hole; we thought a par 4 fit better than a par 5; and we were trying to give the client what we thought he wanted.  Once he told us differently, we re-grouped.

[Tim Bert]

Bogey - I am with you on 18 at Pacific Dunes. It must be a Tennessee thing.

Perhaps over the top is a stretch but I do find it to be the most demanding hole on the course, and this is coming from a guy that birdied it (no idea how) the first time he played it. I have seen more train wreck finishes on this hole (mine an others) than I care to count.  Double bogey or worse is typical for me with a few pickups along the way.

I think it is a brutal finish.