Bail out on a par 3 is long - is that okay?

[Jerry Kluger]

We have a really tough par 3 at my club which is uphill and plays anywhere from 175 to 220 yards.  The green is almost a horseshoe with a bowl in the middle and a false front.  There are deep bunkers in front on either side and rough to the side of them.  I have been trying to get the greens superintendent to mow down to fairway height the area beyond the bunkers and around the back of the green.  He has done so for about 3 feet behind the green and I am trying to get him to go even further as further back goes down into a couple of different bowl like areas.  My whole point was that this is a very tough hole because it is long, uphill, firm green and there is no safe play on the hole.  If you hit it in the center bowl it is a very difficult putt up to either corner and sometimes it is impossible to get from one side of the green to the other.  Usually you see a bail out area on a tough par 3 but there is none on this hole.  But I cannot remember a tough hole where the safe play is long.

[Ronald Montesano]

That sounds like a fair play to me. A golf hole that demands that much should have some space from which to recover, and if long is the only appropriate area, it's worth a try. Can you poll the membership after a month?

[Carl Rogers]

Necessary, see CPC #16 & Dormie #7

[Tom_Doak]

Jerry:


It's fine in theory, and will help the short hitters if they can reach the green at all.  The only problem with making a hole easier from behind the green is that a lot of golfers can't get there in regulation.

[jeffwarne]

Like the concept.
It's different for one thing.
Especially cool when green slopes away from the player and the smart player recognizes it's easier shot coming back up the hill from over than from short-especially if there's a lot of slope.




Amazing how dead over usually is

[David Ober]

Yes! I love counter-intuitive holes.

[Tom_Doak]

It should be noted that is often the best way to play the Redan at North Berwick. There is only short grass once you carry the left hand bunker, and you are chipping back uphill.  You don't see that mentioned much in the old literature, though, because before 1925 that was a pretty big carry!

[Jeff_Brauer]

George Thomas wrote of placing a "fair green" i.e., fw chipping area beyond greens, especially on long holes.  He reasoned that a long shot was a better miss than a short one and shouldn't be penalized nearly as badly, hence, a fairly level, fairway lie behind a green is a good thing, at least IHMO.

[John Crowley]

Two par threes on my home course call for a miss long. One is a green perched on top of a steep hill and the other is a forced carry over water.

[Thomas Dai]

It should be noted that is often the best way to play the Redan at North Berwick. There is only short grass once you carry the left hand bunker, and you are chipping back uphill.  You don't see that mentioned much in the old literature, though, because before 1925 that was a pretty big carry!

The Redan at NB was a hole that immediately came to my mind too.
And then I thought about NB's once reversibility, the over-the-back aspects of reversible TOC and wondered about over-the-back considerations at The Loop.
atb

[Tom_Doak]

The Redan at NB was a hole that immediately came to my mind too.
And then I thought about NB's once reversibility, the over-the-back aspects of reversible TOC and wondered about over-the-back considerations at The Loop.
atb

Well, it's got a Redanish green on a par-3 [#4 Red] -- I say Redanish because there aren't bunkers right up against the green, just steep slopes of short grass.  The same green serves as a difficult target for a very long par-4 coming the other way [#14 Black]; there's a nasty waste area 30-40 yards short and right of the green, and then the steep bank to the left which would be off the back of the Redan.