A short walk to to the right of 12 green on a pathway through a gorse forest takes you to the 13th hole, another long par 4 over 400 yards but playing down wind still.
After walking through the gorse forest, the 13th tee is in an amphitheater surrounded by dunes. Golfers on the surrounding dunes are on the Annesley Links course. That course appears to share some of the good links land on which the Championship course resides.
The player is confronted by what I think might be the most exacting drive on the course. From the guide you can see that the fairway snakes around the right side dunes, which are much higher than the picture depicts. The dune on the left side descends precipitously to the edge of the fairway and is covered in impenetrable gunch. My sense on the tee and walking down the fairway was of playing down a walled-in channel. As the guide suggests the best place to drive the ball is down the left edge, near the dangerous dune side, to open up a view of the green.
This shot looking back down the hole from the elevated 14 tee gives a better sense of the fairway snaking between the dunes, but then expanding enormously after the right side dunes.
From the right side of the fairway, the green is completely blind. From the centre of the fairway some of the green is visible and part is hidden behind one of the hairy bunkers. There is no sense of the expansive area of fairway and approach out to the right behind the dune.
From further to the left, where I drove the ball there's a good view of the green, but still no sense of the space to the right. Being cautious of the unseen right approach, I pulled one a bit to the left and ended up in the bunker. A second try out to the right showed that there is a large kick plate out there that will help trundle the ball onto the green (and in my case, through to the back fringe). In retrospect, I think the a second shot over to the right and running onto the green is the best approach. The blind shot from the right side of the fairway seems more possible knowing that there is a large safe area over the dune. There is a bunker and gorse over there but there is also plenty of room to run the ball in if you can get a good line.
From short left you start to get a sense of how much room there is around this green.
A picture looking back across the green. The contouring of the green is not obvious in the pictures but it is there and this is a large green. Approaches from around the green can be accomplished with a putter as the green blends seamlessly into the surrounds.
This hole appealed to me a lot. Perhaps it was the exacting tee shot, or the mystery of the green surrounds, or that the second shot was more playable than might be imagined, or that the green site surrounded by gorse covered dunes is very tranquil (it must be beautiful in the spring when the gorse is in bloom).
