In context (from this post): “The wise player will drive to the larger portion of the fairway away from the bunkers and attack the hole with a full pitch from a level lie.”

In general, attacking the hole indicates a shot played with the intention of holing out. The use of the phrase “attack the hole” identifies positions on the golf hole where the design emphasizes aggressive play.

The usage of attacking the hole allows me to differentiate between shots played to place the golfer in a decent position (most tee shots, for example) and shots played with the intention to score. Using this dichotomy allows for a better understanding of golf strategy, in my opinion. While every golfer generally focuses on a particular target in playing a shot, only the shots played without the intention of holing out show variance in how individuals “see” a golf hole. Once the target becomes the hole, the situation becomes a question of tactical execution and not planning.

In analyzing golf architecture, I work on the assumption that once a golfer feels a shot can be holed, the golfer will attempt to do so. Successful golf architecture creates contexts where the change from setting up an attack to attack is murky and varies based on both skill level and the previously played shots. For example, it is reasonable to say that many golfers begin to attempt to hole shots once around the green, however, situations exist where equidistant points from the hole yield two very different feelings of confidence about holing out. It is also reasonable to say certain holes encourage aggressive play and attacking the hole from excess of 200 yards. While it is not very likely such shots will find the hole, the intent on holing out still exists in some form as the hole/flag is the target.

I hope to explore in-depth this concept with specific contexts as well as discuss the ideas within.

In past posts, I have used an unofficial and up-to-now unpublished style guide to assist in outlining key points about golf. In the interest in consistency, as well as to further develop several of the meta aspects of golf and golf writing, this post will begin to outline several key style points. I find it appealing to set down rules that allow me to probe differing levels of abstraction for the physical and objective challenges in golf. For example, a 200 yard forced carry over a severe hazard such as a lake will inspire great fear in some. The 200 yards over water is very objective, measurable and quantified. However, individual golfers will find these objective points raising varied and strong emotional responses due to past contexts encountered. With this in mind, effective golf writing bridges the gap between the objective and subjective and to hone and develop the tastes of any particular golfer. Furthermore golf writing both begs and answers the question as to why a particular quantifiable golf shot like the 200 yard carry above may work in one context, but not in another. It then becomes possible to make the argument that quality golf architecture can be measured from the quality of the writing inspired by the hole or course.

I hope to use this developing style guide to achieve the end of inspired golf writing. Furthermore, I hope the style guide itself can generate discussion on the previously mentioned meta aspects of golf writing. The rules here are not written to inhibit but instead to provide a starting point for analysis.

While I don’t give too much credence to identifying with a strong brand, I became disappointed with the page name after a Google search earlier today. “Thursday the Twelfth” combined with “Tobacco Road” did not immediately scream “golf” or “golf architecture.” To those that suggested I change the name very early on in this project, I apologize for my stubborn refusal. Your suggestion was not in vain and I now see your point.

Possible new webpage names with a rules of golf theme:

• “The Nearest Point of Relief”
• “Within Two Club Lengths”
• “Through The Green”

I like the idea of taking a commonly heard phrase from the rules of golf for the name. Please comment any other suggestions or likes and dislikes.

Tobacco Road Golf Club is perhaps the crown jewel in the late Mike Stranz’s design portfolio. Located in Sanford, NC, the course is a strategic masterpiece with some of the most ideal golf service in the country. Roughly half an hour drive from the Pinehurst area, Tobacco Road gets much golf vacation traffic in addition to local play. Tobacco Road will see a lot of press in subsequent posts and discussions here and the opener is a worthy feature for this series. 

Tobacco Road's Intimidating First Hole

Hole Description

The dramatic features obscure much of the hole from first look. The guardian mounds covered with Lovegrass dominate the view. The peek of fairway through the mounds suggest the hole turns to the left. The narrow pass is achievable with a modest 180-yard shot, and once through, the fairway expands to a comfort forty yard corridor at 230-yards from the tee. A well-struck, longer tee shot will trundle through the fairway if not played toward the left side. A distance of similar length from the tee to the first pinch point must be overcome to carry a second more modest ridge. However, the first-time golfer is left to guess as to what lay beyond. A cut in this ridge serves as a guide setting up the approach to a back-to-front pitched putting green heavily guarded on the right side by three bunkers. Plenty of fairway cut left of the hole allows for aggressive play.

The putting green itself allows for some margin of error and will funnel shots landing in the approach toward the hole. Two simple putts will find the bottom of the hole on most days.

The second ridge in as many shots (hopefully!)

The putting green - finally!

Strategy and Tactical

Strategy in golf rarely diverts from a series of well-known and accepted rules. As discussed in an earlier post, many so-called strategic features simply emphasize or change the tactical requirements of executing the shot. It is for this reason that these hole profiles include the word “tactical” in the heading. Very few singular holes meld the concepts of tactics and strategy like the first at Tobacco Road. Each strategic choice opens up several tactical decisions. The proper execution of which leads to more strategic choices. While this is a common thread of every hole, the hazards present on this hole demand a great divergence between these strategies.

Divergent strategy is achieved by placing the first pinch point 180-yards from the tee and the next one another 200-yards slightly to the left. The features creating the pinch points and the hazards complementing the pinch points create the strategic decisions instead of complementing the strategy already present. The golfer must first choose to take on the pinch point from the tee and attempt to reach the fairway beyond or lay well back with an opening tee shot of 160-170 yards. For most golfers, this places club selection between a mid-iron and a 3wood/Driver. Choosing the latter forces the line off the tee further left because the fairway ends right of center.

The putting green is reachable in two shots for the golfer that is able to get beyond all the visual intimidation. A 240-yard tee shot will land in a fairway forty yards wide and only 170-yards from the second ridge. From here, carrying a shot 200 yards and favoring the left side (just left of the cut in the second ridge) will cause the ball to trundle down the slope toward the putting green.

The lay-up route is similarly straight-forward. Bunting a mid-iron short of the first pinch point leaves the golfer with a slightly longer second shot than the first. From here, a shot traveling 180-yards leaves a completely blind, but reasonable, 150-yard shot into the green. The second ridge, with more sand than Lovegrass, presents a more tempting target to attempt from any distance than the first ridge. Though the lay-up leaves a 230+ carry for the second ridge, it’s not out of the question for a boldly struck fairway wood.

Regardless of the strategy employed, the putting green favors shots from the left side, and every effort should be made to attack from this angle. The bunkers defending the putting green at the right, while presenting a relatively benign hazard, should never really enter into the equation after solving the first two problems presented by the hole.

Concluding Remarks

A good friend likes to discuss a golfer’s emotions as they encounter a golf course. For many, the first hole is filled with anticipation for the round ahead with any real “work” saved for subsequent holes. This ethos regards the first hole as a tune up with gentle problems from the golfer to overcome. On paper, and after a few plays, the first hole at Tobacco Road fits nicely into this category of opener. However, Mike Stranz managed to inject moments of sheer terror and excitement into actually gentle opener, so much so that a 160-yard lay-up on an opening 550-yard hole can feel exhilarating! This hole is both truly unique and superb for this reason alone.

More than ever, I consider the thoughts and opinions of intelligent non-golfers to be valid and worthy. Too often, golfers lean on the things about the game that appeal in order to cope with many of the issues inhibiting healthy growth and public perception of the game. With this in mind, I would like to present a few thoughts after my round with an intelligent non-golfer.

Identify Bad Customers

Many specialized goods and service businesses have customers that demand more of the company than is profitable. Golfers who consider the availability of alcohol on course, the attractiveness of the service staff and availability of golf carts above the quality of the strictly-golf experience, for example, place demands on the business that deviates from the chief goal of operating a golf course. In a general view, these customers seek to fill the downtime in golf with another activity or distraction as opposed to minimizing the downtime.

The issue as I see it is two-fold. First, the golf facility seeks to fill the downtime with a service that barely breaks even or is categorically expensive to cover the cost of the convenience. Second, the services or distractions offered for the downtime bloat the actual expanse of the downtime causing an even longer round. This increases the cost in time and money of golf to unsustainable levels in many cases.

A golf business must identify and refuse to serve its bad customers outside of the standard expectation for service set by the scope of the facility. In considering this point, one must remember that a reasonable pace of play is an expectation set by the golfer and not the golf course. The ability of a facility to guarantee a distraction free round played in under four hours for a reasonable cost is, by far, the most competitive trait.

Eliminate Scope Creep

Along the same trail as the above point lies the actual services offered by the golf facility. Is the facility in the golf business or the restaurant and bar business? In the former, every customer arrives to play golf. Not every customer arrives to play golf and have a drink or meal after (or during!) the round. Golf facilities with anything more than a modest refreshment stand with a bare minimum menu suffer from major scope creep. The food and beverage element is ultimately subsidized by the golf revenue, placing the cost of a less-used service on every golfer in some form. The restaurant and bar business is tough enough as a stand alone.

Eliminate Discrete Tee Times

This one may raise a few eyebrows. Most every frequent golfer realizes that golf courses typically operate on tee times spaced by either 8- or 10-minutes, with a few facilities even operating on 7-minute times! Each time has four spots. However, the tee time system glosses over what is essentially a capacity and flow issue. For simplicity let’s say a golf facility uses a 10-minute spacing therefore offering six times per hour with a maximum capacity of twenty-four golfers. Instead of asking the golfer(s) to reserve a discrete time like 9:10 AM, et al. ask the golfer(s) to reserve one or several of the dozen available spots between 9:00-9:30 or whenever the case may be.

The advantages to this system are numerous. Foremost, it prevents the feeling of ownership a golfer or group of golfers may have over a particular spot. Nothing will bog down a golf course more than a series of twosomes stacked up one behind the other that absolutely refuse to join into foursomes (On the day with my non-golfer friend, we encountered four twosomes stacked, two of whom got into a heated exchange on the fifteenth tee about playing through the other – at no point did either group consider the mutual benefits of forming a foursome for the remainder of the round, the height of selfishness). This systems allows the golf facility to better manage the flow of groups from the first tee by adjusting and pairing groups according to capacity based in a range of times and not particular times in a series. During busy times, individuals and pairs will join to form foursomes and during down times, the starter can effectively space groups of less than four to help promote a better rhythm and pace.

The system also prevents the backlog caused by a late group or an influx of walkers as the managers can assign late or extra groups to time blocks that are less busy. Furthermore, the system encourages positive social interactions between golf facility staff and golfers while encouraging/requiring golfers to form groups themselves.

Summation

While these are by no means comprehensive nor complete ideas, I believe the thoughts are worth discussion and have significant merit for implementation. The golf industry should assess streamlining individual golf facility operations to provide better management of both time and money spent by golfers to enjoy the game. The goal should be to minimize downtime on the golf course and not to distract or fill that downtime with non-golf activities.

My cup of coffee as Second Assistant at Lookaway Golf Club ends on May 15 and I will start at Streamsong on May 22. I’m leaving Lookaway on good terms and everyone involved understands the Streamsong internship is an opportunity that cannot pass.

I am presently working on new posts for the Opening Hole series, another several Know Your Turf pieces and an opinion piece on the future of the golf industry. The changeover and relocation to Florida should not hamper these updates at all and will open new opportunities for posts.

What is Strategy in Golf?

The manner in which shots are employed on the golf course is the broadest definition of strategy. Since golf inherently requires the golfer to act by playing shots, strategy is inherent to every golf hole in existence. This compulsion to play a shot is an axiomatic part of golf strategy as the shot is the currency in the game. In essence, one spends a shot in order to position the golf ball in a manner which increases the odds of holing out subsequent shots and success is measured by the efficiency of these successive shots to that end. Strategy is the evaluation of those possibilities.

Golf architecture, therefore, can be defined as the manner in which golf features are positioned which emphasize, punish, and negate certain strategies. For example, playing directly toward the hole is the most efficient manner to employ shots as it minimizes the fundamental hazard of the game; namely that the hole is located a distance away from the tee. However, a hole which places some hazard along that path (long turf, water, trees, sand, etc.) may impede or heighten the difficulty of employing this strategy forcing the golfer to weigh the potential risks of the direct route with the cost in distance of avoiding those risks.

With the above two paragraphs fertile ground for discussion all their own let us work with the assumption that, all things being equal, the best initial strategy for any given hole is the one that reduces the distance required in playing from tee to green in the most efficient manner. Max Behr’s concept of the line of instinct/charm derives itself from this basic assumption. The golfer will always seek to shorten the route to the hole. The line of charm concept suggests that hazards are placed strategically if they are placed along the direct route to the hole (the line of instinct) in such manner that the golfer must develop a method of overcoming or avoiding the hazard.

The Lack of Sophistication

Behr’s conceptualization drew common threads on several of the best holes in golf at the time while also laying the groundwork for design work to come. As with any attempt to draw common threads, a scheme develops that overuses the basic concept without building upon the idea. What golfers today consider to be strategic architecture lacks real sophistication on the concept of strategy as the effects of strategic hazard in question are only felt “at the shot.” Furthermore, the common occurrence of one bunker on the side off the tee, one bunker on the other side into the green as “strategy” does not particularly challenge a golfer’s strategic vision for the hole.

Much of this lost complexity traces itself to an era when tee-to-green maintenance varied widely and very few standards or expectations for this area existed. A simple look at any older golf course aerial (Pre-World War II especially) will show mowing patterns suggesting that fairways extended well beyond the corridors bounded by “through the green” bunkering. Indeed, the very name “fairway bunker” indicates a bunker in the fairway. With the advent of automatic irrigation and more precise mowing technology came the actual true differentiation between rough and fairway – and the fairway’s subsequent use as a “corridor.” (To this day, rightly so, the rules of golf make no distinction between fairway and rough).

Modernization

This evolution clouded two major aspects of hazard placement. Foremost is the idea of a hazard as something that could be confronted if the golfer so chooses to employ that route. The concept of risk/reward implies that in confronting a hazard the golfer should reap some form of reward. In the case of Behr’s line of charm, this reward could be as simple as being able to manuever the hole along the straight line from tee to green which we assume above is the best strategy for a given hole.

The second aspect clouded by this maintenance evolution is more cerebral. One thing that trips up many is that golf strategy is not a set of discrete paths around hazards to the hole. The question posed is not one of A OR B, but rather one of A THROUGH B (How many numbers exist between 1 and 2? How far from A can a golfer stray before he gets to B?) Therefore, the nature of a strategic hazard lies in how the hazard influences play between the A and B options, not how the hazard influences the risk of employing that option. Risk viewed in the sense of the singular shot is a tactical issue and the fact is, failure to execute a shot or to employ a route with little risk can always be made up with good tactical execution later. A golfer with a keen short game can almost categorically employ a different strategy on any hole than a skilled driver of the ball regardless of hazard placement.

Conclusion

In general, width is likely the sole determiner of a hole’s strategic complexity. In general, the more hazards which exist for the hole, the wider the hole must play in order to allow for complex strategies. Hazards which differentiate between the different routes are more rightly called strategic than those which emphasize risk of the various routes. This is especially apparent on narrow dogleg holes with bunkers inside the turn. While it is fact that cutting the corner/carrying the hazard/playing as near the hazard as possible will yield the reward of a shorter next shot to the green, the hazard’s placement only changes the risk of executing this shot and not the actual strategic complexity of the hole. Take away the hazard and the golfer is still attempting to cut the corner, just with less risk. The strategy remains unchanged, just the possible tactical outcomes change.

No species of turfgrass invokes more polar opinions than Annual bluegrass, commonly referred to by it’s scientific name Poa annua, or simply as Poa. Annual bluegrass suffers from a large amount of bad press in the golf agronomy field that is largely undeserved. However, the large majority of golf courses in the country have putting surfaces comprised mainly with Annual bluegrass including: Oakmont, Pine Valley, and Bethpage Black.

Species Overview

Annual bluegrass (Poa annua) shares a genus name with other Bluegrass species such as Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis) and Roughstalk bluegrass (Poa trivialis), both of which are found in many golf course applications. While technically correct, referring to Annual Bluegrass as simply “Poa” is ambiguous at best, and such usage of the term has perhaps contributed to the black mark Annual Bluegrass has as a turf.

The plant is identified easily by the boat-shaped tip of an uncut leaf. This is unique amongst most turf found on putting greens. Annual bluegrass appears in non-uniform stands as bunches of lightly colored turf growing relatively upright compared to the turf (usually bentgrass) around it. The plant persists in high traffic and shaded areas on putting greens where other turf is grown, especially in areas frequently used for hole locations. In fairways, Annual bluegrass is often found in areas where surface water drains or in areas frequently pockmarked with divots.

In general, Annual bluegrass is a cool-season plant (C3 pathway for respiration) with an annual life cycle that produces viable seed after overwintering. The seed sits in the thatch and germinates in the fall. The plant then overwinters before repeating the cycle again. Seed production is most noted by golfers in the mid-Spring as the putting surfaces comprised of Annual bluegrass become bumpy and puffy as the short seedheads flower.

Annual bluegrass has a bunch growth habit, which means several leaves tiller from one initial crown without the development of extensive stolons or rhizomes. This growth habit mitigates the development of grain on the greensward. As such, Annual bluegrass generally relies on seed to perpetuate itself though proper conditioning can develop a reliance on vegetative methods of propagation.

While comprised of many biotypes, two are noteworthy in golf course applications. Poa annua reptans demonstrates a more perennial nature developed through selective pressure from use on putting greens. Because of this perennial nature, Poa annua reptans is capable of developing a limited stolon structure and produces limited seedheads in the Spring. The second biotype, Poa annua annua, is mostly found on the golf course with Annual bluegrass that germinates in early spring in bare, or compacted turf. Seed is produced by this type all season when conditions dictate and the type comes under severe stress during the heat of the summer – rarely surviving. The seed from this biotype can persist in the soil for up to six years.

Golf Course Applications

Arguably, Annual bluegrass is the most suited turf for the closely-mown areas found on the golf course. The high tolerance of low heights of cut, bunch growth habit, and persistent nature of its propagation methods allow for a turf manager to provide a smooth, fast and easily recovered putting surface under ideal conditions. The issue arises in finding these ideal conditions and it is only in the extreme northern climates that Annual bluegrass will survive the summer stresses without considerable assistance from turf managers.

Annual bluegrass is found in all areas of the golf course from putting green to low-maintenance rough. Annual bluegrass selected for tee and fairway areas present considerable demands on the turf and turf managers, especially with water and other resources during the high-heat of the summer. Golf courses with high traffic will find considerable difficulty in keeping large areas of the plant alive during these conditions. While under considerably more stress during the heat of the summer than fairways or tees, the localized nature of putting greens (typically three to five acres for an eighteen holes with a practice facility) make for a more economic use of Annual bluegrass as the resource requirements are limited to a smaller portion of the golf course.

Why the black mark?

The stigma against Annual bluegrass comes from the difficulties in maintaining the turf through the summer. As soil temperatures increase, the plant loses root density and the ability to take in water and other nutrients. Furthermore, the C3 respiration pathway becomes extremely inefficient at air temperatures exceeding 88 degrees F. In order to mitigate these natural setbacks, a turf manager must constantly cool and irrigate the plant in order to keep it alive. Such frequent irrigation not only diminishes the golf course’s playability but also taxes the soil structure, requiring cultivation efforts such as topdressing and aeration that further hamper playability during times of cooler temperatures in the spring and fall.

However, in the century or so since turf research first produced reliable data, turf managers have developed many effective techniques in mitigating golfer pain with regard to maintenance of Annual bluegrass as a golf turf. While seasons like the summer of 2010 still present large challenges to turf managers, Annual bluegrass has become a manageable turf in the same traditional climate zones as other cool-season turf, such as Creeping bentgrass. Research and practice in maintaining Annual bluegrass as a putting surface will further serve to remove the stigma of Annual bluegrass as a desirable putting surface.

Last week’s topic of general setup guidelines begs a few questions, especially on definitions for difficulty. Golfers constantly encounter hole locations or course setup nuances that are quickly labeled as “unfair” or “difficult.” Seeking a fair examination of one’s game is in the nature of many who play the game, therefore analyzing the concept of difficulty in course setup is fertile ground for both learning about the game, and the particular strengths and weaknesses of an individual’s game.

The rote methods discussed last week carried a common theme of balance of course setup. In fact, it is almost inarguable that the chief measure of a successful course setup is this notion of balance. However, balance carries much weight and many facets of a golf course setup can be balanced, often at the expense of balance in other areas.

Balancing Difficulty: The Fundamental Approach

The largest portion of balance in a golf course setup is actually outside the scope of daily setup. Golf simply defines playing a series of strokes from a tee to a hole. Therefore, a natural inference defines the major hazard and difficulty of the game to be the distance overcome by the playing of successive strokes. Balance in this aspect comes to us from the golf architect, for whom it is the responsibility to lay-out the starting and ending points of the hole. Designing a golf course that is biased toward longer shots hole-by-hole will rarely feel balanced as the challenges are repeated again and again. With design as in daily setup, various methods exist to maintain balance, generally tied to the concept of par, but even these methods require skill to effectively implement on sites where terrain, legal restriction or even the client are limiting factors.

Daily course setup can seek to preserve this design balance through the method of ensuring the card yardage remains maintained from hole to hole. However, this often comes at the cost of designed flexibility which was explored in the example of the fourth hole at Huntingdon Valley and brings the begged question of what is difficult back into the picture. The nuances of the shot values explained by the example exposed the idea that hole locations that may appear difficult can actually be attacked through thoughtful play and benign looking hole locations are more likely to expose the faults of careless play.

Measuring Difficulty: Is score the ultimate metric?

The USGA Handicap System answers the question of difficulty by assigning two values to each golf course meant to represent the difficulty for a scratch golfer and bogey golfer, both of which are defined under the USGA Course Rating here. These values are known as the Course Rating and Slope Rating, respective to their target golfer and are measures of both the relative difficulty of the golf course to other golf courses AND the relative difficulty of the golf course for golfers of varying abilities. The USGA method accepts score as the ultimate measure of course difficulty since the posted score is the chief component for using course rating and slope to calculate handicap.

However, certain skills are marginalized by this method; and the intelligence or breadth of shots required to score are, at best, abstracted by the two ratings. Course rating and slope also abstract the variances in difficulty offered by daily setup. For example, how does a hole like the fourth at Huntingdon Valley rate on a day when the putting green is tantalizing within reach for the longer hitter as opposed to the day where all players would be wise to exercise caution. The defined scratch and bogey golfers “play” the hole the same way regardless of the setup, so these subtle nuances get lost in the measure.

What makes for difficulty?

Evaluating difficulty in golf requires a more thoughtful approach than simply looking at a “tucked” hole location or the card numbers. Furthermore, simply balancing any one aspect of difficulty at the cost of another will ultimately detract from the multi-dimensional aspects of the sport. The actual difficulty of a golf hole combines the elements described above; including a balanced set of distances, how various “stock” golfers could play the hole, and how the features of the golf hole seek to confound, tempt and highlight shots selected and executed.

The following list contains a few guidelines that should help frame the concept of difficulty. No list can be definitive and exceptions to the rules should always be sought – and even encouraged. However, an established epistemology assists the critic in evaluation of difficulty and other aspects of golf design and setup.

1. How much of the putting green is available for an uphill putt to the day’s hole location? Putting uphill is widely, and correctly, accepted as the most effective way of simplifying the short game. However, most golfers accept a hole located behind a hazard such as a bunker or pond as challenging despite the fact that a substantial portion of the putting surface lies downhill from the day’s location. A wise golfer simplifies the hole by playing away from the hazards to the large portion of the green below the hole and then attacking the hole through easier putting.

2. How much room exists on the opposite side of the putting green from the day’s hole location? Golf architects and superintendents often create bailout areas to aid the wise golfer in the strategy in the above described situation. However, in concert with the above question, these bailout areas often compound the difficulty with locations above the hole.

3. How much of the ideal angle to the putting green is contained by the fairway cut? Often times, the putting green is sloped to favor one side of the fairway over the other. Often times, well-meaning golf course managers have narrowed the fairway to the point where the ideal angle is contained wholly within longer turf. While a discussion for another post, the idea of width in golf course setup is a major factor in difficulty.

4. What percentage of short grass areas are “usable” and “ideal” for play? The fallacy that wider is easier applies here.  A fairway measuring ninety yards in width often falls under the “easy” category, but if examination of the terrain shows that only a small portion of that fairway offers the golfer a clear advantage on the next shot the difficulty may not be as apparent.

This list obviously does not identify some of the more apparent difficulties in golf like depth or amount of bunkers/water hazards, etc. Difficulty can often represent much more subtle challenges in the game that are easily lost in the quest to quantify and compare. Interesting setup often requires scratching the surface of apparent challenges to inject more subtle difficulties that identify skillful golfers.

Bethpage State Park developed out of the ashes of the Lenox Hills Country Club during New Deal era public works projects. The Devereux Emmet design at Lenox Hills contributed elements that became the Green Course while A.W. Tillinghast designed three new golf courses for the park, named Blue, Red, and Black. During the 1950′s a fifth course developed by Alfred Tull split Tillinghast’s eighteen at the Blue into today’s Blue and Yellow. Today, aspects of all three designers remain with various touch-ups to the Black Course by Rees Jones and the park for the US Open in 2002 and 2009. While the Black is unquestionably the centerpiece of the facility, each golf course is a worthy companion.

Two common sights at Bethpage: The Red Course first hole and golfers waiting on slow play

Hole Description

Golfers walking to the Black or Green courses at Bethpage must first pass this opener on the way from the professional’s shop to either first tee. In a word, the hole is LONG. The exposed shoulder emerging from the far woods at the base of the approach to the green stands as the most distinguishing feature.  The fairway extends from the base of the tee-side hill as a ribbon toward this exposed shoulder. Upon reaching the shoulder, it narrows to the right flanked by a single tree extending up the far ridge to the green. The bunkers on the closing holes of the Red and Black Courses present a wide frame to the overall picture that suggest width to accommodate errant play.

The green is perched in a small depression on the far ridge with little distinguishing characteristics and a slightly obscured right side. Interestingly, when the turf is dormant in the winter, this view does not suggest the presence of a golf hole.

Strategy and Tactical

The natural tendency for play from the tee is to split the difference between the base of the exposed shoulder and the lone tree to the right, essentially in the area of the group pictured on the hole above. While not apparent in the above photo, the forward tee obscures a large portion of the fairway from the middle and back tees which serves to further emphasize this strategy. The length of the hole also suggests the golfer should make every effort to ensure as much fairway is usable for a run-on approach to the green on the far ridge.

Close examination of the green, especially apparent after subsequent play of the hole, exposes a nifty use of misdirection as the green is much more accommodating to the long approach from the left side of the fairway, playing directly over the shoulder.

The open approach from the left. The Black Oak on the right confounds play from the right side

The photo above suggests that extending the fairway a few yards left could further rewards this strategy and that an extension several yards right would further punish careless play. The  lone Black Oak in the photo is well in play from the right and serves to draw aggressive approach shots into the shoulder left.

Upon reaching the green, the golfer putts across a fairly benign surface with only a general contour matching the surrounding terrain and none of the internal contour found later in the round. The subdued challenge of the green complements well the difficulty presented in playing to the green and does not overly frustrate the player who hasn’t unlocked the strategy of the hole.

Concluding Remarks

In many instances, the opening hole sets the pace for a round of golf: however, opportunities to take advantage of special terrain in the area of the opening hole should be encouraged. This opener accomplishes getting the golfer to the topography most utilized by the Red Course that happens to lay an awkward distance from the starting point. Despite the 471-yard card yardage, the tee shot plays significantly downhill and does much to cut some of the length. Even modest drives will grant the golfer an executable approach shot by taking advantage of the left side. The key to this hole is for the golfer to use the first two shots to place themselves in a position to get down in the subsequent two. With a wide open approach, this can patiently be accomplished with a well-placed Driver and mid-iron shot.

Looking back to the tee, with the green subtly sloping toward the left side of the fairway