Pasatiempo Puzzle

[THuckaby2]

Most Pasatiempo-philes have heard many times the story of how Bobby Jones played the famous 11th hole at the course's opening:  with a hard hook up over the barranca and up the 12th fairway, then a shortish iron up to the green.  If not, well now you have.  

The story has always intrigued me, in that if the huge trees in that barranca didn't exist, this would be a great way to play the hole... one takes a bit of a risk making the carry on the tee shot, biting off as much as he can chew, but the reward would be a straight-in shot up the length of the green, with no more barranca to carry.  The mind-bending choices on the tee would be fascinating... take it up the right half for a safer tee shot but more difficult second (and even then, how far up does one want to go, as has been discussed in here before)... or take the risk and go left?

The fine aerial Scott Burroughs gave us sets out the issues very well.  11 and 12 are in the top right part of the picture.

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forums2/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=3965

So let's assume the powers that be allow us to obliterate those trees, and create this option-filled tee shot.  Obviously the 12th hole as it exists couldn't be played... for safety reasons no way can golfers share that fairway (12 goes right back down that side of the barranca - 12 green is right next to 11 tee).  

Thus the puzzle:

1. Using the existing property only, what hole would you create to replace the current 12?

2. In the end, would the changes be worth it?  That is, would the improvement in 11 and whatever one creates to replace 12 in the end be a net improvement over the current 11 and 12?

I've never been able to come up with satisfactory answers for this - that is, whatever I think of for question 1, the answer for question 2 is always NO.  The obvious answer is to use the current "practice hole" (extra green and tee to the right of 13 green) to replace 12, but that means a total par of 69 - not a good thing for most of the golfing world - a green that is quite different from the other MacKenzie gems at the course to say the least, and a huge hike down from 11 green to 13 tee (which would become the 12th hole).  So I don't buy this solution... and I've yet to come up with any others that work.  A big problem is how the property is boxed in up by 11 green... the area to the right of the current 12 fairway, up there by the tee, is all houses - and for this exercise those can't be removed, as we are trying to deal in at least some form of reality.

So I put it to the great minds here... what say you all?  Can it be done?

TH

[Mike Hendren]

Tom,

Hollins and Mackenzie could not have envisioned the volume of play at Pasa and that 6,7 & 8 would become a shooting gallery.  Same thing for 11 and 12.  

An endearing trait of Doak's Sheep Ranch is the ability to use the entire golf course.  I say bring the trees down and issue a liability insurance certificate similar to the policy at North Berwick

Surely, no one in California is litigious.

Regards,

Mike

[THuckaby2]

 

Actually Mike that's the best answer I've ever come up with as well... then I'd also cut down all the trees between 1 and 9, as well as the whole shooting match between 6-7-8 - which is just how it was initially.  I concur that the volume of play was likely as unforeseen as was how society would become.  

But let's assume that our litigious society does extend out here to the laid-back left coast, and thus such can't be done.

Is there a way to make this work today?

TH

[Mike Hendren]

Tom,

It's merely a matter of civility and pace of play - two things in short supply today.  All I know is that it seems to work at 7 and 11 at The Old Course.  

Regards,

Mike

[THuckaby2]

Mike:

Yes, it does work over there... but their society is different in so many ways...

In any case, for sake of this, let's just assume that it won't work, ok?  I believe that's a fair assumption for American golf, especially high-end semi-private resort type golf like this.  And no, a fair answer isn't to make it private and limit play, either.

Work with how American society is, how this course is, etc. and try to fix this puzzle, with the assumption that 12 has to go.

Can it be done?  "No" is a very fair answer....

TH

ps - 7/11 at TOC isn't a fair comparison, btw.. those cross by the green, and come in from very different directions... in Pasa's case, shots up 11 and down 12 would be hit RIGHT AT players coming in each direction, requiring a level of civility that is just very tough to expect for anyone.  A better comparison would be 1 and 18 at TOC!  And there, it's SO wide, and so open, that all shots are very easily seen, and avoided - another thing that would be tough at Pasa given the severity of the hill.  Civility does exist on crossing holes in CA - witness Claremont CC  - but it has to be a situation where the crossing is more at right angles, and right by a tee or green.  Sharing a fairway back and forth, like Pasa, that I just can't see working here.

This is one hell of a ps, huh?  But darn I have puzzled over this for many years and I just can't imagine it working as is, thus the look for a hole to replace 12.

[THuckaby2]

Tony:

That's a possibility I have considered as well, and really the closest one to working - well done!  The only tough part of this is where exactly do you put the tee on the new par 3 #12?  Too far down the hill and it's in the line of fire for 13... not far enough down the hill and it remains in the line of fire for shots coming up that side of 11... It would be a really tight squeeze.  And re 14, unfortunately there's no room to go straight back behind the green or the tee - there is room to go back and to the right of the tee, past where the practice hole green is, but that would mean tee shots going directly over 13 green.  It would make for one hell of a great hole on 14... and each of these golf holes is actually a net improvement over what's there now... I just remain dubious about the safety issues.  I'm also dubious about moving 14 green back, because it's pretty damn good as it is and there really isn't much room to do so unless you clear out a LOT of trees, and then put the people on 15 tee as in jeopardy, as well as ruin somewhat the cool tee shot on 16...

As for how MacKenzie wanted these holes to play, a MacKenzie historian like Geoff Shackelford or Tom Doak or Todd Eckenrode would be better to answer that - I really don't know.  My guess is that given how open the course was initially - no trees at all really - the Good Doctor did intend for all of these choices to exist - and as Mike alluded to, he and Ms. Hollins would not have foreseen 8 minute tee time type crowding and our litigious society.  So my feeling is that if we make the changes you suggest, it does change the nature of 12 and 14 a bit, but not our of character with what the Good Doctor intended... with the only problem being the safety issues.

A way to solve that in a big way is to move the tee UP on 13, making this a shortish par 4, with tee shots now out of the firing line of the new 12.  But that lowers par another stroke, meaning our total of less than 70 is even harder to avoid...

TH

[Tony_Chapman]

Tom, what a great question!!

Does the true answer to your question lie in how Dr. MacKenzie wanted these holes to play. One distinct thing I remember about standing on the 12th tee (after 3-putting 11 from about 8 ft) is all the room out there in the 12th fairway. All the while you think, MacKenzie wanted you to hit it somewhere other than the obvious to get the best angle to the green.

This is the only thing I can think of. Play 12 as a par-3 to the current green. The down effect of this would obviously be the green-to-tee walk. My next thing would be to see if there would 50-60 additional yards behind the 14th green to make this hole a par-5. This would balance the 9s to have three 3's, two 5's and four 4's each.

Even after this thought, I still say trim the trees and leave it. If you want to take the risk go for it.

Regards, Tony

[Tony_Chapman]

Sorry Tom. I found some typos and that annoys me!! I have reposted for you.

Also, the comments RE: 6, 7, and 8 are right on. Man that green on 7 is such a thing of beauty that you don't need all of those trees pinching in hole. A real travesty.

I wish I could make it back out there soon, but it still wouldn't be soon enough.

[THuckaby2]

Tony:  I have this unique ability for precognition, answering your posts before they get here.    See above.

Re trimming the trees and just going for it as is, well... see my answers to Mike above also.  I just don't see that ever working, with tee shots on two holes going right into each other.  But dammit I'd love it if they would give it a try...

TH

[Mike_Cirba]

I like Mike Hendren's solution.

Play the golf course...not the hole corridor.  Just use common sense and decency.  

Tom...great question, by the way.  What are you doing thinking so deeply so early in the day?    

[THuckaby2]

But Mike, Mr. Hendren's solution isn't a solution.  It just plain won't work and you know it.  One might as well say "end world hunger."  

Remember the direction of the golf holes... no amount of civility is going to make this work on a crowded day, and the course is damn near always crowded.  Civility would require that all groups wait at 12 tee until tee shots AND approaches from the left side on 11 are completed... it would take forever... And no group could hit off of 11 tee until 12 fairway was clear... think of the back up on each tee....

Re the deep thinking, well... Mr. Benham and I were discussing this off-line the other day... I am seriously time-killing here given how dead everything is... and not many of the other topics going today either interested me or I felt I could meaningfully add to!

TH

[Tony_Chapman]

Tom - I am working on a little par 4 in Norway. Hopefully its done by the end of the day.  

[THuckaby2]

Tony - can't wait to see that!  As for moi, I had no good answers for that puzzle, nor the means to describe such even if I did.  

TH

[Dan King]

I looked into this whole Bobby Jones birdie on 11 many, many years ago. I even interviewed an old-timer at Pasatiempo who played golf there in the early days.

Part of the problem was that the trees in the barranca were already fairly tall back in 1929. I seem to recall a picture from the Pasatiempo history book and you could see those trees. I’m sure I’ll spend the rest of today, the Day before Christmas, looking through my library for that book.

If I remember correctly…

Both the 10th and 11th holes were par-5s (Pasatiempo originally opened as something like a par 74, with the 2nd, 10th and 11th all then three-shot holes.) The tee for the 11th hole was further back, more between the 10th and 16th green. The idea was to play a shot up the hill on the 11th fairway and then a shot across the barranca, the further up you went the easier your 3rd shot was to the green. With a really good tee shot you could take a chance of going for the green in two but the penalty would have been dropping a shot in the barranca. I'm guessing the trees might not have continued as far up the fairway as they now do, so medium shots up the fairway had a chance of getting over the hazard.

Bobby Jones play on opening day was to hit the shot far left with a big slice so it went around the trees on the barranca, following the 12th fairway. He then reached the green with his second and two-putted for a four. He could be much more aggressive with his second since he took the barranca out of play.

According to the old guy I talked to: the tee on the 12th was moved up to take away that option and also because of the planned road. He wasn’t sure when it happened, but seemed to recall it was the first of the three-shotters to be turned into a two-shotter.

Jones shot was not something any of the membership would have tried because of the difficulty of getting the ball to follow the 12th fairway. It would have had to have been a very controlled power slice, not something a lot of golfers would have had at the time.

Dan King

”I have always wanted to live where one could practice shots in one's pyjamas before breakfast, and at Santa Cruz the climate is so delightful that one can play golf every day in the year, where it's never to hot and never too cold, and if it should rain it usually does it at night.”
 --Dr. Alister MacKenzie

[THuckaby2]

Muchas gracias, Dan - and welcome back stranger!  

That story makes a heck of a lot more sense than him hitting a hook, which never really jived to me.  Yes, a big cut works a lot better, with or without trees.

So any take on the puzzle question given today's realities?

TH

ps - I have tried this route up 12 fairway, once when playing solo late in the day, no one around... I cheated a bit moving way over on sorta behind 11 tee box, so that a chute through the trees was doable... and after several tries I did produce a big slice that left me where I could reach the green in 2... it is a hell of a lot easier shot going up that way, I am here to attest.  Just don't hit another slice.  

[Mike Benham]

Geesh, I don't go into the office one day, a topic that I can comment on, maybe even one that I helped give a life to, comes up ...

Mr. Kings information confuses me slightly ... first, if the original set-up had #2, #10 and #11 as par-5s, was #1 still a par-5?

My question still resides with course boundries and is enhanced with the knowledge of the original 11 tee close to 16 green (and no road at the time).

I like the idea of 11 being a par-5 which brings mucho options and strategy from the tee and approach shots.  However, why wouldn't the doctor continued the fairway further up the hill, which might leave an additional option of pitching across the barranca from a shorter distance.  I believe the answer is that the property line didn't allow for this option.

So where was the original 12 tee in relationship to today's location?

I wish I had more time to discuss this but ...

Happy Holidays to all ...

Mike

[THuckaby2]

Mike:

Yeah, yeah, yeah - property lines schmoperty lines.  That is an intriguing subject in the abstract, but only as to discernment of the Good Doctor's intent.  And taking out the road does mean more room for the tee going back, making 11 a very cool par 5... But that's not reality, just as pushing back the property lines isn't.

Cutting down the trees is unlikely to ever occur, but at least it COULD...

In any case, at least you have seemed to have given up on the wacky idea of putting 11 green on the right side of the barranca farther up the hill.  Good man.

 

BTW, where else could 12 tee have been located other than where it is today?  I'd be very surprised if that were ever anywhere else.

So any further thoughts on how to make the dual fairway #11 doable as things are today?  I gather I shall have to wait until after Christmas....

All the best!

TH

[Mike Benham]

According to the old guy I talked to: the tee on the 12th was moved up to take away that option and also because of the planned road.

This quote from Dan via "the old guy" stated the 12th tee was moved up to the current location ... I guess you missed that part when you were so concerned with my afliction for the boundries of the property ...

[THuckaby2]

I was assuming that was a typo by Dan and he meant the tee on the 11th was moved up... what he says re 12 tee makes no sense.  11 tee would have been moved up to allow for the road, and to take away the possibility of going around the trees in the barranca - as it is today.  It's only possible if the tee is farther back or if you cheat and just hit it from back behind the tee like I did.

Property boundaries are your life, so you remain OK by me, my friend.  

TH

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Tom,
Great post.

Since Pasatiempo is a very dear course to me, and that the 11th still remains an enigma as how to play it in this current day, one has to remember that MacKenzie utilized shared fairways on several holes, 1&9; 2&3; 6&7; 10&17; 11&12. (so much that Bobby Jones likened it to the Old Course) Trees were less, but more crucial because of their nature to the site. So much has changed in the Game--much of it for litigious reasons, although in some cases neccessary--take for instance the person who lost his life on the 9th from an errant shot off of #1 not long after the course had opened. So yes, it is a concern.

Personally, I think moving the 12th just to recover one shot that was made famous from an exhibition at the 11th not really feasable, nor productive, because it takes away from what MacKenzie liked about having the hole in that area--it works because the way the 12th holds to the massive slope of the hill.

I would rather them recapture the green on the 11thh, which hada false front that coud be akin to a bill board, only the green now starts much further back past the original false front. It's all still there, and you can see the green would be totally unfair with the green speeds that havebeen maintaining at Pasa in the past years. Hopefully common sense would one day win out.

[THuckaby2]

Tommy:

I'm with ya bruthah, re this course that is near and dear to both of us.

And that's a great point re all the shared fairways... but all that says to me is that recovering such as a possibility on 11/12 does not go against the will of the architect.  Heck, in a perfect world I'd like them ALL back.  But the only one I see as having a chance of happening in reality also happens to be the one that would yield the biggest improvement over what exists today, and that is 11/12.  Oh, 6/7/8 would also be very cool without trees, as would 1/9.  10/17 has been discussed ad nauseam already, so I won't get into it again.  

In any case, I don't suggest that 11/12 be recovered because of Bobby Jones - he's just the vehicle for people to understand this - no, it's because if we make this happen, good lord what a great hole #11 becomes!  It's already one of the world's greatest in my book, but make that 12 fairway option part of the available choices and we just might have a hole on the very very short list of the world's great two-shotters.

Thus while I too wouldn't want to move 12 green, something about what Dan and Mike B. said has me even more intrigued... picture 12 tee down in the backyard of one of those houses at the corner... that makes 12 a semi-reachable short par 4, filled with even more options, especially if you recover the area in front as hazard, as it once was...  I doubt any of those homeowners are gonna sell to make this happen, but Mike's thought re the property lines is intriguing... might this be where MacKenzie intended a tee to go?  And even if not, damn we might have our answer here... now we just need to buy a couple houses!

Re 11 green, that is very cool to contemplate and yep, it's all still there.  Obviously the issue is just what you said... good lord, it's the patron saint of infinite putting even as it's maintained today... I shudder in horror of how it would be if what you say were recreated.  

But then again, maybe you're right, maybe doing it would cause green speed sanity to sink in permanently....

TH
ps - just when this is getting really good, I'm outta here in a few minutes, not back at a computer till Mon 12/29 most likely.  Have a great Christmas one and all!

[Brian_Gracely]

Tom,

For someone that hasn't had a chance to play it yet, help me understand what the dilemna is?  Looking at Scott's AOTD, it appears that the choice off the tee is that the closer to the baranca & traps you play, the better angle you have into the green.  But if you play away from the baranca & traps, you're faced with either a long right to left shot to the green, or laying up.  I can't really see the height of trees or elevation changes, but is this a decent summary?  

So what is the real problem here?
a) hole is too quirky for today's standards? (sounds like a maybe)
b) trees have become too overgrown to play the hole as designed (sounds like a maybe, but only near the tee-box)
c) the hole just doesn't fit your eye, and you're considering that the proper equipment might be a chainsaw and bulldozer instead of 3wood and 4-6iron?

I really hope it's not "a".  Like Mr.Huntley's discussion about the quirky nature of the trees on 18 at CPC, I worry that we're allowing frustration to remove the strangle puzzle pieces from courses that otherwise present great challenges.  The phrase that I dislike more than anything about golf architecture is, "They'd never let you build a hole/course like that today.." (RCD, TOC, Prestwick, etc.)

Please enlighten me on what I'm missing.

[THuckaby2]

Brian:

You're really not missing anything, other than those green blobs in the aerial are VERY VERY tall trees, such that going up the fairway on the left (which is the 12th fairway today, coming back down) is impossible.  What I am contemplating is making that possible as a choice again, as it was for Bobby Jones, who did it as Dan says (the trees were there from the start, but the tee was farther back).

Re how the hole plays today, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it at all - I find it to be a very great hole and it's not "too anything" - so there really is no "problem" at all.  The contemplation is to just take it to that next level, into the world's best category.

The enigma as it is today involves how far one wants to hit it straight up the fairway and how left one dares to leave it.  its also an odd visual in that straight out looks very short, and thus tempts the unwary into hitting less club than they ought to... It's farther than it looks and plays very much uphill... Most people end up laying way too far back, wondering why all of a sudden their 2nd shot is 200 yards uphill on this 380 yard hole.

It's been discussed many times in here, because it is so puzzling and has such a great history.

I don't think anyone's ever asked the questions I am today though...

TH

[Dan King]

Yep, my bad, typo saying the 12 tee moved back when I meant the 11.

Originally 1 and 2 were both par-5s, with the first tee up where the current cart barn (there is a practice putting green up there now) and the second tee being just behind the first green. The stretch from nine to 11 was three straight three shotters, with the 10 tee being close to the first tee, a lay-up before the barranca, and the 11 tee between the 10 and 16 green.  Jones’ shot would have been a power slice over the 12 green and following the left to right (from below) contours of the 12 fairway. There is a reason it is still talked about today… it was an amazing shot, not a shot tried by mortals.

Personally I like the 11 and 12 the way they are now. When I was into scoring, my goal around the 10, 11 and 12 was to play them in 14 shots or less. A par and two bogies and I felt like I did a good job there. Sometimes I make a par on 10 or 11, and sometimes birdie 12, and I figured I played really well. I like the par 4.5 aspect of 11. Make a par there and you should be proud of yourself, make a birdie and you’ve done something rarely done. Congrats Shivas!

I remember one time I pared both 10 and 11 and was feeling read good until I made double bogey on 12. Still I should have been happy with my 14.

I’ve played Pasatiempo perhaps 50-60 times. Every time I finish playing 11, I look back and decide  I’m going to try something different next time, trying to hit it as far up the fairway as I can. Almost every time I get on the tee I wimp out. When you are up at the end of the right side fairway you see you have all kinds of room up there. But from the tee it looks like you have to be very careful, it looks like there is no percentage in hitting it further, better to keep it toward the left side. I have a lot of trouble convincing myself that it is all an illusion. The hole is not nearly as doglegged as it looks from the tee.

If you really wanted an alternate fairway for 11: Eliminate the 12 hole, move the tee to the current 13 hole somewhere on the hill to eliminate a shot over houses, probably making the 13 a two-shotter hole. Eliminating the 12 hole and making golfers hike from 11 green to 13 hole would be a bad idea. Then make the one-shotter new 13 right of the current 13 green, between the 13 green and 14 tee. Eliminating the 12 green could allow you to move the 11 tee closer to that area, giving golfers a more realistic choice of fairways, but move the tee too far left and nobody would ever choose the right fairway.

For those that worry about par you are going to have a strange configuration:
4-4-3-4-3-5-4-3-5—35  4-4-4-3-4-3-4-4-3—33 –68 (New configuration)
5-5-3-4-3-5-4-3-5—37  5-5-4-5-4-3-4-4-3—37 –74 (Original configuration)
5-6-3-4-3-5-4-3-6—39  5-4-4-5-4-3-3-5-3—39 –75 (Jones’ score on opening day.)

Dan King

”Many good golfers consider the second nine holes at Pasatiempo the finest in existence. The short holes are specially good, and I think the sixteenth hole is the best two-shot hole I know. I certainly do not know of any hole which gives so great an advatantage for length and accuracy.”
 --Alister MacKenzie

[Bill_McBride]

I'm a little confused by the statement that #2 and #3 were shared fairways.  The 3rd fairway, such as it is on that par 3, is quite a bit higher than the 2nd fairway.  There is a steep slope between the two fairways which is currently heavily wooded.