Ballyneal, use of perpendicular swales and mounds in the fairway

[JimB]

I played several rounds at Ballyneal last weekend and one of the things I found very interesting (among many others on this wonderful course)was how the perpendicular swales and mounds served to accentuate or lessen the distance differences between players. For me, typically the shorter hitter, I would often land on the upslope of mounds and settle down while my longer carrying partners would of carry the mound and catch the backside and get propelled forward resulting in a hundred yards between us despite what would be perhaps a thirty yard difference on flat ground. Occasionally, and not often enough, the opposite would occur where I would land on the downslope of a swale and propel forward while my partners would fly into the upslope farther on and stop, leaving us with similar distance (13 is a good example). I have not noticed this effect to this degree on any of the other courses I have played. Is this something architects have in mind when designing the holes with this type of land?

[Tom_Doak]

Jim:

On land like that, it's inevitable that you will have some of those effects, so you design to manage them as best you can.

Note that usually, when you are landing on a downslope, that part of the landing area will be blind to you.  Since most architects aim for visibility nowadays, it is a common feature of modern courses that most drives (especially those of the shorter hitters) land into upslopes.  But, on land like at Ballyneal where the direction of slopes changes rapidly, there are also times where if the tee is so far back that long hitters can't get over the top of a slope, shorter hitters will be so far back down it that their NEXT shot will be blind.

I do enjoy it when I find a slope that helps even things out for the short hitters.  There's a great one at Royal Portrush, on the eighth hole -- a guy who drives it 180 yards can wind up right in the same spot as a guy who carries it 240.

[JimB]

Thanks Tom. I was hoping you would reply. It sounds like from your response that you see it is a challenge to mitigate this effect but I actually thought it was pretty cool. I think the distance accentuating mounds might have been more frequent for me because we played the back tees a lot in a tournament situation and I was usually the shorter player. I'm guessing after more experience out there I would be able to find tees that favored the distance neutralizing aspects and would pick those after I won a hole if playing a longer hitter and and find tees that perhaps I could take advantage of the accentuating effects when playing a shorter player. The variety of teeing grounds and lack of tee markers plays right into this strategy. I really enjoyed the added interest of trying to pick a tee to play from that would give our team an advantage. I suppose it might become frustrating if the tee placements were more fixed.

[Thomas Dai]

I do enjoy it when I find a slope that helps even things out for the short hitters.  There's a great one at Royal Portrush, on the eighth hole -- a guy who drives it 180 yards can wind up right in the same spot as a guy who carries it 240.

Tom,
Thank you on behalf of short hitters for this enlightened approach!
All the best

[Jim Colton]

Jim,

 I seem to remember a longer hitter hitting one of those downslopes on ending up in the upside down bunker, much to everyone's surprise.  Aside from 13, the par 5's all have this to some degree. Catching an uphill lie on 8 is a birdie killer for me.

 The lack of tee markers can be a competitive advantage for getting and keeping honors in a match, assuming you know your opponents game and your own game well enough.

[JimB]

 I seem to remember a longer hitter hitting one of those downslopes on ending up in the upside down bunker, much to everyone's surprise. 

Ironically that happened because they chose a three wood to stay short but found found the downslope accelerator and ended up going farther!

[JimB]

 The lack of tee markers can be a competitive advantage for getting and keeping honors in a match, assuming you know your opponents game and your own game well enough.

I really enjoyed that interesting feature of match play there and the distance accentuaters and equalizers really add to the strategy.

[Matt Glore]

Jim,
I played two weeks ago and noticed a few things.  Driving is by far the best part of my game, not for distance but accuracy and I can work it good enough to play a curving ball on command.  I played the first round ever on the course and left thinking similar to you. 
After thinking about it and coming back 3 days later, I decided to really work on tee placement. 
A few holes I noticed: (I'm a new member so take it for what it's worth)
2- never got one down the slope yet.  I hit the last bunker on the left on the slide slope before it runs down.  You for sure need to play the up tees to try to get down that slope. 
10- I think this is the hole with the biggest reward to the long hitters. 
12- huge distance gains by hitting a very straight ball down the left side.  My second round I had it right in front of that mini green side bunker. 
14- hit it right to that bunker dead center.  Can't leak right because it can't roll up that hill and can leave a shot from the lower level of the fairway.  I'd rather hit it short at the bunker than hitting it further up and roll down to the far right side of that fairway.
17- I really benefited from a drive staying left.   I hit it no better the first round but I went down the slope and I struggled.  Left gives a great angle and you still get extra roll.
18- first time took the short cut left, second time went right and that angle was much better.  Probably made the hole longer but the second shot was easier even with a left pin.

[Alex Miller]

 I seem to remember a longer hitter hitting one of those downslopes on ending up in the upside down bunker, much to everyone's surprise. 

Ironically that happened because they chose a three wood to stay short but found found the downslope accelerator and ended up going farther!

I am not a smart man.    You guys have permission to use my name in the future.

Holes where I found there was definitely an advantage to being longer beyond the expected yardage gap:
2, 4, 6, 10, 13 (510 tee), 16 (bowl of achievement), and 17

Holes where I kept hitting the upslope or had to lay back so I was even with my shorter playing partner:
1, 7 (hit into the upslope before the green 4 times. On the green once), 8, 9, 13 (from 430 tee)

[Mark Bourgeois]

Jim,

I love this feature and think it is a great distance regulator (regulates: boosts and retards):
http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,35972.0.html

[JimB]

Jim,

I love this feature and think it is a great distance regulator (regulates: boosts and retards):
http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,35972.0.html

Thanks for the link Mark. I was hoping to get more examples. Ballyneal seemed to have more than I have ever seen on one course. While thinking on this topic I came to the conclusion that the swales or half pipes as you describe this one really are the regulators as you say, and the convex ridges act more as the separators. Of course it all depends on where they lie in relation to the distance players are hitting it.

[JimB]

Jim,
I played two weeks ago and noticed a few things.  Driving is by far the best part of my game, not for distance but accuracy and I can work it good enough to play a curving ball on command.  I played the first round ever on the course and left thinking similar to you. 
After thinking about it and coming back 3 days later, I decided to really work on tee placement. 
A few holes I noticed: (I'm a new member so take it for what it's worth)
2- never got one down the slope yet.  I hit the last bunker on the left on the slide slope before it runs down.  You for sure need to play the up tees to try to get down that slope. 
10- I think this is the hole with the biggest reward to the long hitters. 
12- huge distance gains by hitting a very straight ball down the left side.  My second round I had it right in front of that mini green side bunker. 
14- hit it right to that bunker dead center.  Can't leak right because it can't roll up that hill and can leave a shot from the lower level of the fairway.  I'd rather hit it short at the bunker than hitting it further up and roll down to the far right side of that fairway.
17- I really benefited from a drive staying left.   I hit it no better the first round but I went down the slope and I struggled.  Left gives a great angle and you still get extra roll.
18- first time took the short cut left, second time went right and that angle was much better.  Probably made the hole longer but the second shot was easier even with a left pin.

Matt, yes indeed choosing the correct line is very important as well as you describe nicely here. Sounds like you hit about the distance I do. Longer hitters can take some aggressive routes I think. For sure staying left on 17 is a plus because right is down in what I call a Doak depression (think right side on 11 at Rock Creek), it's blind and a tough angle. Half shot penalty?

[David_Madison]

Jim - Great observation about the course. Since there are no set tee markers, and the player(s) with the honors can go anywhere to start a given hole, pretty much every slope or hill can be a booster or a retarder, and that can differ player by player and shot by shot. And then when you combine hazards in front of or behind the slopes, you can either dramatically exaggerate or truncate each player's ball carry ability and ultimate teeing distance even more. #8, for example, could be set up for one player to have sand wedge for his second shot while players unable to fly the bunker complex were left totally out of range with a true 3-shot hole. That created a 150 yard difference. But play the tees back, where the bunkers serve as a speed limit for everyone, and we all ended up within 10- 20 yards of each other.

Overall, I don't think I've ever played a course where there was so much interaction with the architectural features. This applies in many different ways, from teeing ground selection and all the strategy that was involved just in that, to then actually confronting all of the various ground features while playing the shots. Throw in the mounded greens and surrounds and all of the imagination required to negotiate those, then add a healthy dose of wind, and every hole became an architectural feast.  

[Matt Glore]

Jim,
I played two weeks ago and noticed a few things.  Driving is by far the best part of my game, not for distance but accuracy and I can work it good enough to play a curving ball on command.  I played the first round ever on the course and left thinking similar to you. 
After thinking about it and coming back 3 days later, I decided to really work on tee placement. 
A few holes I noticed: (I'm a new member so take it for what it's worth)

12- huge distance gains by hitting a very straight ball down the left side.  My second round I had it right in front of that mini green side bunker. 

Matt, yes indeed choosing the correct line is very important as well as you describe nicely here. Sounds like you hit about the distance I do. Longer hitters can take some aggressive routes I think. For sure staying left on 17 is a plus because right is down in what I call a Doak depression (think right side on 11 at Rock Creek), it's blind and a tough angle. Half shot penalty?

Agree on 17 my second go around I hit it left and ended up rolling down to that second set of bunkers, still had a great look at the back right flag.  I easily gained 20 yards over the Doak Depression area where all three of us hit the first go around.

12 was nuts how much distance I got by staying left.  I think that landing area is very hard to hit.  For me 12 and 17 are the two most critical driving holes for that reason.  Civilian golfers nearly always miss right off the tee.  Both these holes require a laser shot down the left with little or no curve. 

[Tom_Doak]

Civilian golfers nearly always miss right off the tee.  

Civilian golfers?  Did you play at West Point?

[Matt Glore]

Civilian golfers nearly always miss right off the tee.  

Civilian golfers?  Did you play at West Point?

I figured amateur golfer didn't do it justice, as many top amateurs can point and shoot bombing drives working it either way.
While most fight a slice.   

[Ben Sims]

Matt,

Trust that us commissioned golfers fight a slice as well!

While on the subject of the driving features of Ballyneal, I'd like to point another one out.  I've never had so many poor left-to-right tee shots stay in play as I've had at BN.  However, many of those shots very nearly take you out of the hole because of blindness, bunker placement, lie, etc.  BN keeps slicers in the game.  But with little hope. 

[John Kirk]

While on the subject of the driving features of Ballyneal, I'd like to point another one out.  I've never had so many poor left-to-right tee shots stay in play as I've had at BN.  However, many of those shots very nearly take you out of the hole because of blindness, bunker placement, lie, etc.  BN keeps slicers in the game.  But with little hope. 

The architecture shall accommodate that shit.