Crossover holes in the routing

[Tom_Doak]

The Old Course at St. Andrews, famously, has a crossover at the 7th & 11th holes, although one rarely hears anyone mention that in discussions of the course.


I used to think it was a feature unusual enough that I would list any instances I saw in The Confidential Guide(s).  Claremont in California has a couple of aggressive ones, and many of the Irish courses have at least one hole where you hit over the previous green. Royal Worlington & Newmarket has a few of those within the space of nine holes!


I'm told that Greg Norman wanted to have a crossover in his routing for the Moonah course at The National in Australia, but the club's lawyers wouldn't consider it. 


I figured resistance to the idea would be pretty standard on modern projects, so I have not offered up crossovers as a solution on my own projects as often as I see the potential for them.  But I've done it once or twice, notably at Tara Iti where the 4th hole turns inland from the shore and then the fifth tee shot plays 90 degrees across in front of the third tee to head back to a green near the beach.  Again, hardly anyone ever comments on it, and I'm sure a fair percentage of people don't even notice since the course is not all that busy.




On my trip to India and Sri Lanka a few years ago, I saw crossovers everywhere, and I was amazed at how well the traffic worked itself out.  Royal Colombo in Sri Lanka has a shared fairway for the 1st and 18th holes, which is no wider than a standard fairway, but I found it working great on a busy weekend afternoon . . . players on both tees would wait until the fairway cleared, and then both would drive into the same area, and say hello to each other on the way to their tee shots!


So, I've become a fan of crossovers, and you can expect to see more of them in my future work.  There will be one or two of them at Punta Brava in Mexico, and at Cabot Highlands in Scotland.  We had one in the plan for Sedge Valley, too, but wound up taking it out, because the walk to the "normal" tee made more sense once we moved the previous green site.   We have fiddled with several plans that would have par-3 holes crossing in mid-air, where the foot traffic would then go behind the other tee to avoid danger [unless someone tops their tee shot].




Where have you all seen crossovers in your travels?  What was the most ingenious, and/or the most dangerous?  Do they bother you or fascinate you?

[Thomas Dai]

Stourbridge has two. Lytham has 16/18. Painswick has to many to count. Minch Old has 16/17. Adrian’s Stranahan has 2/17.
That’ll do for now.
Atb

[Sean_A]

Of course Painswick has a lot of cross overs and for the most part they make sense.

One of the coolest cross overs I have seen which makes perfect sense is OL and LO at North Wales. The Eden Course has cross over 3s as well, though perhaps it is less elegant than N Wales'.

Recently played Otway and it has several cross overs.

Ciao

[Padraig Dooley]

In Cork GC, the first hits over the 15th fairway, the back tee at the 2nd hits over the 17th tees, the 11th hits over the 10th green and the 15th hits over the 14th green and first fairway.

[Ian Andrew]

Nairn's 4th and 5th works very well.


Best I've seen is Glendale's (Hamilton, Ontario) 15th and 18th. A mid-length par three play across a valley to the other side with a long the par four crossing directly underneath. The two holes cross in the middle of each - and it works

[Jeff Schley]

Lahinch has a crossover that we realized for my only play there. We thought we were finding stray ball and it ended up being the guys playing on the 18th.

[Enno Gerdes]

I have played two: 16/17 at Reddish Vale and 8/9 at Toxandria here in the Netherlands. Neither works very well, probably because both involve an awkward walk-back from the green.

[David_Tepper]

If I remember correctly, the par-3 10th at Bel-Air plays over & across the 18th fairway.

[Matt_Cohn]

Not far from Claremont, Sequoyah has one. Oddly it’s on consecutive holes. There’s a 200 yard walk from 15 green to 16 tee; the tee shot then flies over the middle of 15 fairway. Realistically that makes it feel pretty clumsy, although there is the benefit that you’re very aware of where following groups are, and therefore less likely to have a safety issue.

[Kalen Braley]

Tom,

Do you see most crossovers more in the area of: the architect didn't make enough effort to figure out something better?
Or...
A method to work in features that are too good to pass up otherwise?

P.S.  Would you count the hike from Pac Dunes 11 green to 12 tee as a "cross over" given the direct path is in front of the tees for 5?

[Chris_Blakely]

Blink Bonnie GC in Sorrento, Maine is an old 9 hole course right along the coast and has several beautiful water holes.


  The 4th and 5th fairways make almost a perfect “x” crossing.  Up until this course I had not witnessed this done in person.


Chris

[Jeff Schley]

Also who doesn't love the Sacred Nine?  A couple crossovers there with the par 3's.

[Tom_Doak]

If I remember correctly, the par-3 10th at Bel-Air plays over & across the 18th fairway.

Not quite; the bridge is just behind the 18th green, and the tee shot for the tenth plays just on the other side of the bridge.  I suppose someone may have somehow hit a ball onto the 18th green, but a shot pulled to the left would be much more likely to hit the bridge abutments, so it would have to be a weird pop up to the 3rd base dugout.

[Tom_Doak]

Lahinch has a crossover that we realized for my only play there. We thought we were finding stray ball and it ended up being the guys playing on the 18th.

I almost mentioned that one in my opening post, but it would have disturbed the point about how it's easier to do crossovers on par-3 holes, because the traffic flow is more predictable.


The one at Lahinch is actually pretty dangerous . . . players coming off #18 tee are crossing the fairway of the 4th hole, and players on the 4th are hitting blindly over the Klondike sand dune toward random other groups.  And the holes are far enough apart in the routing that the traffic situation is unpredictable. 

[Tom_Doak]

Tom,

Do you see most crossovers more in the area of: the architect didn't make enough effort to figure out something better?
Or...
A method to work in features that are too good to pass up otherwise?

P.S.  Would you count the hike from Pac Dunes 11 green to 12 tee as a "cross over" given the direct path is in front of the tees for 5?

To your p.s., no, because you can easily walk around it if there's anyone playing the other hole.


As to how crossovers happen, I believe that in a lot of cases, it was a question of lengthening the course after it was built, or putting in a "back tee" that winds up being the primary tee because it's not that dangerous the way the two holes interact.  For example, the 4th tee at Ballybunion -- a tee that wasn't a crossover, to the left of the green, would be more in play from the 3rd than the tee behind the green, and by the time the players on #3 tee get to the green, the group on #4 has hit and moved on.


But I don't think it's a matter of a lack of effort, at all.  It's a matter of not settling for less.  I think it's that everyone believes the one hole is more interesting from a tee that creates a crossover, and they decide it's safe enough they can do it.  And I think it's cool that some clubs are not afraid to defy convention in order to make their course better.

[Mike Erdmann]

Salem Golf Club (Salem, OR - 1927) has a crossover at the par 4 2nd and the par 3 8th.  It's a tight, sub 100 acre site, and gets a bit dangerous as players coming off the 2nd tee have little visibility of play on the 8th without venturing into the line of play.

[Charlie Goerges]

I find myself curious about the etiquette, especially in the Indian examples where there are frequent occurrences. How does it work so well?

[Ben Stephens]

Brancaster has numerous crossovers


1st yellow tee and 18th hole


2nd and 17th holes


4th and 5th holes


5th green to 6th tee you have to cross the 7th fairway at its landing area point


12th green almost breaches the 7th fairway.


4th and 14th greens are very close to each other


Never really had an issue with this when playing Grafton Morrish foursomes with the course full

[Jim Sherma]

I'm not sure that I consider teeing off over the preceding green a true cross-over. It seems to be a simple way to add yardage and tends not to produce too many headaches if pace of play is moving well. I always thought of a cross-over along the lines of TOC 7&11.

[Jason Topp]

Teeing off over the prior green seems fine as long as the tee is in a safety zone.  The back tee on 8 at Sand Hills works well.  Not sure it would be as good if the 8th were a par three because of the increased wait that sometimes happens on such holes.

[Colin Sheehan]

Bayonne's 2nd and 8th holes have tee shots that cross over. It is almost never a distraction.

The only newly-constructed deep tee that Yale Golf Team requested is on hole 6, taking the original line from the green to the 340 tee (which was the back tee upon opening) and continuing up into the high ground short left of 5 green so the golfer is once again driving towards the corner hazard and not parallel to it, and over the front bunker of hole 5, very Worli-style. It will be an excellent, special-occasion tournament tee that works without any issues since hole 5 is a par-3. Groups walking off that green will require almost as much time to play their shots as a group waiting on the tee. And then they each start walking to their tee shots at about the same time. It would be fun for players to watch their teammates (unless they are the fifth and final pairing in a wave) to have a side mezzanine view of the approach to the par 3 as they take take alternating turns from the two tees.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/8zKHML3R7QqMtR8U9

Following the renovation, that sixth hole has the chance to go from one of the weakest on the course to one of the strongest on the front nine.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/PLMiUcCwkRuZrLCC8
 

[Ira Fishman]

At Crail Balcomie, the approach to 8 crosses in front of the back 9 tee.

[Joe Zucker]

At Cullen, the 9th crosses the 8th and 10th holes.  While these holes at the back of the property aren't the best there, it does allow them to make the most of the land there in my opinion.  It's nice to get the 9th against the sea and then allows for the added length on 10.

[Will Spivey]

9 and 18 at Old Town cross, albeit, near the tee box. The blue tees used to be one wide teeing area for both holes, but in the last couple of years we've moved to separate teeing areas, which cross. This creates a more interesting tee shot on both holes.

[Adam Lawrence]

Colt wrote that he felt crossovers were generally less dangerous than parallel holes.