#10 401 368 325
By the end of this description, the board ought to have a collective boner for this hole as it embodies the conglomerate wisdom of this site -- from architects and morons alike -- as I've known it for more than a decade:
This hole checks most of the the boxes anyone here cares about. You want a hole with playing width? You want a hole that is natural in its setting, constructed simply and maintained sustainably? You want a hole that is not larded with hazard and challenges with landform? You want a hole that translates the merits and restores the credibility of the (sadly diminished) 375 - 425 yard playing distance across a broad field of golfers? Then I give you Seth Raynor's last "Knoll," a straight-path, bunker-less temple climb along Long Island Sound which is such a beguiling mixture of simplicity and beauty, plainness and inspiration so as to be perfect.
As is detailed in our first two editions, one important measure of perfection is that the hole be as close to an equal test for the widest possible range of elite to scratch to single-digits to high handicap golfers. Nothing could be more true of a golf puzzle than this hole, which you could play with DJ or Rory or your best friend on near equal footing... The Reason? EVERY player must eventually tackle the vagaries of this volcano, skyline target, no matter whether ones average drive leaves this sort of 160-180 yard shot:
...or these locations where DJ, Rory or your Thor-like regular companion (you know the type...he can murder it, but has the hands of a rapist and thus is a 13 HCP, hitting it 285) will come to rest... an equally difficult, though shorter shot, calling for a partial wedge, climbing a steep hill in what's often windy seaside conditions. A yardage book, a laser gun, a small bucket nor Dave Pelz by your side is going to help you.
This equanimity comes from BOTH of you knowing that, despite this vast difference in tee length, with a hiccup on that approach you'll BOTH be HERE in two (where again, you and most any player are on as nearly an equal footing as a two footer.
The recent thread on "medium" (4500 - 6000 sq feet) green sizes recalls the wisdom that first and foremost, the target surface ought to first "fit" the character of the hole and the approach play/distance it might ask for. At some 8000 sq feet this rather large green is indeed in keeping with the character of what is a semi-blind skyline target...big enough to fairly receive the longer (170-200) hits that most players will encounter; but also so big as to make the longer tee ball chance to "lose" its approach in the even blind, indefinite vastness of the target.
In an effort to not make the humiliating "short" mistake that rolls back to the previous photo's spot... the partial wedge approach often chooses safety over precision and thus can often end up just as far away from the hole as the longer shot did.
That last image is a bit deficient at capturing the simple perfection of what this large target offers once on the surface. Though the largest greens in Raynor's (or anyone else's) canon would seem to be the ones with the most audacious contours -- whether its a behemoth Biarritz, the sunken expanse of a Punchbowl or the mesa-like profile of a Double Plateau -- here, the large green has far more subtle contours.
Canting with a subtle overall list from (golfers) back left to Sound on the (golfers) right, the front half of the green features two very gentle concave pockets separated by a center spine; at the same time, the rear half beyond those pockets features two gentle convex mounds that shrug off to all four compass points...almost as if the little scoop of fill made to create the two pockets was placed behind them. All four of the features (two concave pockets, two convex mounds) are VERY subtle, VERY low profile, but the entire effect is to make the longer putts and green side chips and pitches a very happy, interesting, engaging, vexing but solvable puzzle for all players. I have had the good fortune to play this course a dozen times, but only once in the last ten years; so I apologize in advance for the crude drawing inaccuracies of my memory, but here is the general detail of it.
The last grace note of this hole I'll detail is that I have barely mentioned its incredible setting along and ultimately atop the whitecapped-windswept green-blue vastness on the tip of an island of Long Island Sound. Even so, a perfect hole cannot rely on its setting, as perfection must be in revealed design before obvious advantages in environmental character can apply. This hole and the golf it presents could find itself in a manicured parkland or sandy pineland; in Los Angeles or Atlanta; in Buffalo or Denver. But it's damn perfect here.
This course has been called "The Pebble Beach of the East," and it's a fairly apt comparison, each having "inland" holes of debatable quality and seaside holes for which everyone is agog. Yet unlike its legendary Peninsula compere, this particular ocean hole is not just its "eye-candy..." nor is it just a golfing terror to gobble up any slice. Consider the legendary stretch of 8, 9 and 10 and you can see how this hole - stirring, monumental, beautifully situated - compares favorably. Can #8 PB exist anywhere but there? Can the principles of its shot sequence be applied to another setting - a blind, semi-lay up tee shot...an imposed second shot carry... a small green receiving that imposed longer carry shot - without severe criticism?
How about PB #s 9 and #10...how can they be perfect in the face of this sea-side hole? If the Pacific Ocean weren't on the right and it was instead an Alabama broken woods swamp, wouldn't they be just two difficult holes -- over bunkered, with small greens for a long shot, no interesting amusing recoveries - - that are made for a Tour player and not you?
So don't plunk down the cost of a new kitchen to go and spend a long-weekend on the Monterrey Peninsula... you won't find perfection there; like you will here...and the other holes ain't too bad neither...one of em might crop up in a future edition of The Perfect Golf Hole.