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Hand up: I am generally not a fan of par 5s.
In my experience, the vast majority of so-called three-shot holes end up functioning more like delayed par 3s. If the golfer is willing to exercise the least bit of patience, he or she can strike two reasonable long shots and be left with, at worst, a mid-iron into an inviting green. That strikes me as a waste of space and a waste of precious time. Many of my favorite golf courses have two or three par 5s.
In my opinion, the 9th hole at the public Stonebridge Golf Club in Rome, Georgia, is a rare superb par 5. Rarer still, it is a superb par 5 with a lot of water.
Water contradicts the conventional belief that the most exciting shots in golf are recovery shots, and there is no recovering from finding the lake that the golfer must negotiate at the close of Stonebridge's outward nine. But what makes it work is that the hazard functions on multiple levels. It is aesthetically pleasing, as the golfer emerges from the hilly, mostly wooded front nine into a new environment; holes 10 and 11 interact with this lake, too. And in terms of the 9th hole's design, the water is not just penal in nature, but strategic as well.
The blocking of Stonebridge's 9th is clever - the view from the tee aims straight at the green. As the crow flies, the hole is only 500 yards from the tips and just under 450 yards from the middle tees, making it tantalizingly reachable for those who dare. But that means the second shot is all or nothing, and must carry water the whole way. The green is perfectly sized to make this decision a tricky one. The golfer who has worked on his or her long-iron and fairway-wood game gets rewarded with the opportunity to push some chips into the middle of the proverbial table.
For the majority of players who will take three shots to get to the green, this hole sets itself apart once again: the layup is a relatively interesting one. From the landing area, the less-aggressive second shot plays diagonally across the lake's curving shore, and there are staggered bunkers on the far side that will catch a poorly-planned bailout. Too-aggressive layups will see the landing area pinch and disappear quickly.
Once again, the hole rewards a golfer with both self-knowledge and a modicum of skill without being too brutish on a slight miss. The closer a layup is placed to the edge of the lake, the more inviting the backdrop for the third shot. If the hole has a weakness, it is that the green itself is fairly mundane, lacking much contour. Such is the nature of much of the architecture of the 1990s, when Stonebridge opened. But a wild green would probably be out of place here; the implication is that getting aboard in two or three good shots should earn a reward in the form of a relatively makeable putt, waves lapping gently at the stone bulkhead.
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