Back
One of my favorite par threes is the closing hole at Manchester (Conn.) Country Club, a longish-iron one-shotter with no elaborate bunkering or heroic water carry - just a green, a fairway and a lovely backdrop of the Globe Hollow Reservoir, only in play if you scream your tee ball well over the green. Oh, and an intervening rise in the ground that obscures the green frontage and the bottom third of the flagstick.
Manchester's early architects - Tom Bendelow, Devereux Emmet and A.W. Tillinghast, at different times - did not have the same access to powerful earth-moving equipment that today's architects have. Those from the age of the bulldozer might have leveled that little hill to appease golfers who hear PGA Tour pros praise golf courses that are "right in front of you" and nod approvingly.
Thank goodness the landform stayed. What makes it a brilliant hole is what you can't quite see: a helpfully angled bit of fairway short and right that can help kick a running shot onto the two-tiered green, which falls off on every side but the front. The result is a confrontation with the most maddening golf hazard of all: the mind. Even golfers who've played the hole before, or were clever enough to study it while on the putting green before the round, get nervous when they can't see something that's important. Besides, even at the best of times, a long iron or hybrid shot is tricky. Every golfer has parked a few such shots next to the cup, but also knows how frustratingly few those memories are. Success on this hole hinges not just on overcoming physical obstacles, but mental ones as well.
Comments (6)
I believe I remember a hole on the front 9 at Macrahanish in Scotland, a par 4 where the tee shot to the fairway and the second to the green are both blind. In my view a terrific golf hole.
Also at Cruden Bay, again in Scotland the 15th is a blind Par 3 with a direction pole stuck half way up a hill. It is then followed by another par 3. I have played Tobacco Road in North Carolina.and blind holes abound. What’s the problem?
I'm mostly on board with blind shots, Gerry. I think that it's sensible to provide at least minimal suggestion of where to go if there isn't anything natural (there's a dartboard stuck up in a tree behind the 9th green at the Cascades Course at The Homestead that I love). But I agree - a golfer is by no means entitled to see the target every time.
I think it is a Biarritz template hole and green . The approach used to be maintained as putting surface. ? Emmet would be the guy in my mind who developed the green. Bendelow may have layed out 6 or 9 holes starting at the current 4 th tee area. ( 4-14-15-16-17-3) = six holes. Ending back at #3 green. Tillie definitely did number six green in 1935. Emmet routed current holes #5 (Short!) thru 13. #12 is a second Short hole green with a fanatic thumb print on the right.( the green committee might has done away with the green post 1990)
Other changes include a different/new green on the first. A cross bunker at the top of the rise on #2 , and I think the green has been replaced. I think the hole was a Alps . (Cross bunker with the green surrounded in a sea of sand. Mr. Cornish added a fairway bunker on number three and a bunker on the left approach/green of the green. #8 (punchbowl green) was replaced/built maybe more than once. Same with #9 green I believe was moved across the stream. #10 new after the 1990's? #11 replaced/rebuilt in the 1970's . #14 green similar treatment as number nine green added the pond new green added 100 yards to the hole. #16 green perhaps was built by Emmet. #17 green was is new in the 1970's ? Added 30-50 yards.Al Zikorus and his brothers should be created with most of these improvements.
This is great information, Nick! I enjoy Manchester, but there is definitely a hodgepodge feel to the place. It would benefit big-time from a light-touch but focused effort to get the bunkering all on the same page (probably leaning more toward the Golden Age than Cornish-era). I wouldn't have guessed 10 is a relatively new hole - it's a great short 4. And I would've guessed 12 would've been the Short hole candidate. When I'm up north this summer I'll try and play Manchester again and take a closer look with this in mind.
Cornish was a golden age Architect. Square fronted greens like Willie Park Jr and Donald Ross. Rectangular bunker in the middle of the fairway etc. Back to MCC Ct. #18 I think the hole would be improved by a new tee as far left as possible to avoid the rise in the fairway.
Emmet was related to CB Macdonald they married sisters? Emmet measured golf holes in Scotland (Europe also I believe) so he must have found the burritz in his travels thus #18 at MCC.
Mr. Cornish told me he was playing the Old Course during WWII when there was a air raid and his group kept playing!!
The 10th hole at MCC is the same it's just the green that has been replaced/built. The hole has quite a lot of elevation change but the new balls and clubs have passed by the hole.
Overall it's what golf should be fast ,fun and cheep.