Peachtree Golf Club- Holes 10-18

Front Nine review HERE

Holes #10: Par 5, 519/503 yards
This is the only hole on the course that has a feature which can be considered somewhat unfair for lesser golfers but not in play for the better player, i.e. a bad feature. But that will be looked at in a moment. This hole is a generally straightforward par 5. As with many holes here at Peachtree, hole location will determine which side of the fairway is correct. In normal fashion, if the hole is cut front right, the left side of the fairway is preferred. From here the hole differs from the previous holes. Center hole locations are best approached from the right side of the fairway. The right side will yield a straight shot to the center of the green. However, holes cut in the far left portion of the green are very difficult to access with an aerial shot. For this hole location, either side of the fairway can be used, but the left side of the fairway will require the player hit a severe draw to the center of the green and let the fall roll down to the hole; the right side of the fairway will let the player hit a normal draw to the center of the green and, again, let it funnel back to the hole.

The above options are based on the golfer being able to go to the green in two shots and having to avoid the large bunker short of the green and the greenside bunker. The player laying up had better be able to pick a preferred yardage for the approach shot because the bottom of the flag will be obscured from the player and on left side locations, the entire flagstick may be out of view. The shot to the green will likely play two clubs uphill.

 From the tee, the bottom of the fairway is blind to the player. The creek visible in the above aerial is not in play from the tee. The fairway is basically flat and the player will be able to aim down the correct side and not have to worry about the ball rolling into the rough.

From the left side of the fairway, the opening to the right side of the green can be seen. The difficulty in accessing a left hole location can be seen here; were the hole cut far left, the flat would actually be to the left of the clean-up stripe on the fairway.

The semi-unfair feature mentioned in the beginning is the creek that cuts through the fairway. This creek provides no hazard at all for better players. But for average players hitting 225 yards or so off the tee, the creek is a significant hazard in trying to get across. Perhaps this is how Mr. Jones intended the hole to be played in 1948, have distance off the tee determine if the player can carry the creek or not and have a short shot to the green. Either way, in the modern game, this feature provides a potentially large penalty to the average player and virtually no penalty to the better player. This is the only feature this writer would change on the course.

Hole #11: Par 3, 220/180 yards

This is a very simple, though long, par 3. There is the slight chance to roll the ball onto the green, but the slope in front of the green makes that difficult. Overall, on this hole, the player will simply be asked to pick a yardage, pick a target, and hit a shot. This is a good rest hole prior to the difficult stretch upcoming.

Playing through a valley, the roll-up option is there, though is would likely be a difficult shot to pull off in normal conditions.

Hole #12: Par 4, 486/431 yards

This is the longest par 4 on the course and may well be the best. This sharp dogleg must be played different ways depending on how long the player can hit his tee shot. The back tee is located at the single purple spot at the very bottom of the picture below. A 275 yard tee shot will wind up at the double purple dots; a 300 yard drive will end up at the two orange spots. As you can see, if the 275 yard player hits his shot up the right side of the fairway, his approach will be blocked out by the trees. This player must play to the center or left side of the fairway, leaving another 225+ yards to the center of the green. The 300 yard player can hit his tee shot down the far right of the fairway, cutting down to perhaps 175 yards to the green. However, both of these shots will play one club longer due to the approach being substantially uphill. On top of all this, the setting of the green is exceptional.

 This shot taken from the 431 yard tee shows the blind tee shot down to the fairway. The downhill nature of the hole will help the player, but not greatly. If from the back tees, the 300 yard player could play directly down the right treeline, the 275 yard player will need to play directly over the tee boxes or slightly left of that.

Playing uphill to the green, the opening to the green is open enough to accept running shots, but the bunkers are there to provide penalty for shots hit off line. Players will need to take one extra club to get to the green.

Hole #13: Par 4, 470/385 yards
This is a solid and difficult par 4. Length off the tee is always a determining factor in how to play a given hole, but here it is key. Longer players, those that hit the ball out to 290 yards or more off the tee can play to any given point in the fairway and have a simple shot to the green with a middle iron. For these players, the bunkers in front of the green merely force them to guard against being short. Moderate length players, those hitting over 260 or so off the tee, have a different approach shot given that they will be playing from over 200 yards. These players should play up the left side so that they may use the kick-slope on the left side of the green in order to funnel the ball to the hole using ground contours. 

From the middle tee, the plays are simple. Down the treeline will leave the player with a shorter shot, up the left will give the best line if one is trying to use the kick-slope.

From the fairway, the kick-slope is visible on the left side of the green.

Hole #14: Par 3, 183/166 yards
There is little to be said about this hole that can not be seen in the pictures. Hit the green, or very close to is, or you will likely be in the water or playing a bunker shot towards the water. Certainly this hole fits the bill for a Heroic Shot.

Hole #15: Par 4, 470/411 yards
This hole starts off a fantastic closing stretch. As seen before out here, hole location determines which side of the fairway is preferred. Left hole locations are best approached from the right side; right hole locations are best approached from the left side. The creek visible in the image below is possibly in reach from the tee for the longest players due to the significant slope downhill towards the creek.

The left to right slope of the fairway can be seen here. Hugging the treeline is necessary for those players wanting to hit in the left side of the fairway.

The cluster of players on the green marks the hole location here. The line from the left side of the fairway is clear, avoiding the bunkers. From the right side, the player would be forced to play over the greenside bunker.

Hole #15: Par 5, 577/510 yards
This is a solid par 5 that might be reachable for the longest players, but it right at the range that will have all the better players scratching their heads. The player must have in mind off the tee if he intends to go for the green in two shots. If so, the better play is up the right side of the fairway. If not, the play is the left side of the fairway. The left side of the fairway opens up the second fairway, across the creek, more to the player. The right side will give the player going for the green in two, or trying to get very close, a better angle around the two fronting bunkers.

This fairway slopes right to left off the same hill that slopes the 15th hole. Shots played to the right side of the fairway should be started near the treeline in order to stay on the right side.

From the left side of the fairway, roughly 240 yards from the green, the second fairway can be seen along with the small pond. The large bunker short of the green makes going for the green from this side of the fairway problematic.

This is the view from the right-center of the fairway, perhaps 175 yards from the green. This is roughly the angle that would be seen from 250+ yards out. From this angle, the bunkers can be more easily navigated, but the pond and secondary fairway angle would make the lay-up shot more difficult.

Hole #17: Par 4, 420/391 yards
For one of the few times in the round, the best line of play off the tee is dictated to the player. The green angles away from the player left to right and has bunkers in front, making the preferred side of the fairway the left side. The left side will give the player a longer part of the green to work with and can also yield a run-up option for the player.

The fairway lays out nicely in front of the player. A play right towards the overhanging limbs of the pine tree will be perfect.

From the left side, the bunkers can be avoided and, although uphill, the player can attempt to roll the ball onto the putting surface if he wishes.

Hole #18: Par 4, 420/394 yards
The final hole of the day is one of only three holes with a fairway bunker. However, unlike the bunkers on #1 and #9, the usefulness of this one is not clear. The left side of the fairway does not seem to yield a better line of approach to the green over the right side. As it stands now, the final hole comes in as a hole where the entire protection for the hole is at the green. The green has a huge fall off short and will cause balls to roll back 10-20 yards off the green. This is a great hole to close out the round, giving the player a great chance to close with birdie if he can hit two solid shots.

From the tee, the bunker sits there staring at the player. Typically, that means the preferred angle is near there, but in this situation, that does not appear to be the case.

From over the bunker, this approach awaits the player. The bottom of the flagstick is not visible to the player making the shot more difficult.

The front roll-off area is visible here.

Overall, this course is very, very good. The shot making requirements from start to finish are high but not to high as to keep the course from being fun for the average golfer. It might be noted by the reader that there was little mention of the greens. As a rule, the greens had great features, but not the kind that come out well in photographs. The features were small and sweeping with the majority of the green being sloped as opposed to modern greens where the slopes are huge and bold and the rest of the green is virtually flat. These are some of the finest greens this writer has seen. That coupled with the shot requirements and flow in the round yields a fantastic golf course. 8 out of 10

Individual Hole Length

When looking at long golf courses, often times people obsess over the total length of the course. While total length is certainly a meaningful number to view, individual hole lengths are very relevant. Looking at individual hole lengths also determines if the course is really willing to take the golfer outside of his comfort zone with respect to length. Courses can also use hole length to maniuplate length into whatever they want. And individual hole lengths can also be used to determine the variety of challenge the player will face on the course.

It is rather easy for courses to climb to monsterous yardages. 7200 yards used to be considered extraordinarily long, but in reality, 7200 simply amounts to 18 holes averaging 400 yards. Certainly 400 yards is not a long hole. Bump the average up to 450 yards and the total length becomes 8100 yards. Once again, 450 yards is not an exceptionally long hole. But in many ways, courses seeking to be long simply for the sake of being long fail to realize that long is possible while also retaining variety. One of the newest courses on the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail, Fighting Joe at The Shoals Golf Club, manages to stretch out over 8000 yards, but does so with limited variety. Consider what is a "comfortable" yardage on a give hole. On a par 3, perhaps the comfort zone for golfers off the back tees is 150-235 yards. Par 4's probably range from 400-500 yards, while par 5's range from 500-625 yards. The Fighting Joe manages to reach close to 8100 yards, yet it has only one hole that falls more than slightly outside those comfort zones, that being the par 5 12th hole that plays 716 yards (the 5th and 9th holes are 236 yard par 3's, but 1 yard isn't a vast distance). Why is this? Why does this course feature such monsterous length, yet not require the better player to approach a par 4 with more than a 4 or 5 iron? How does it get that long and not require the better player to hit a 3 wood (or even a driver) into a par 3? Truth is, the course does very well and keeps the golfer inside their comfort zone on virtually every single hole. Never is the golfer asked to hit a 3 wood approach on a par 4; for golfers with any business at all playing a course of this length, that hole would need to be 550+ yards long. Never is the golfer asked to hit a driver into a par 3. So, it would seem that courses take great pains to make sure that hole length does not reach outside the normal comfort zones; even The International outside Boston, one of the longest courses in the world at 8325 yards, has only 6 holes falling outside the comfort yardages.

By keeping the individual holes within these comfort yardages, most specifically the lower limits, clubs are able to more easily determine the targeted total length of the course. It is difficult for a course like Pebble Beach to attain what many would consider  to be long yardage because the course has 9 holes that are very close to the bottom end of the comfort zones. However, the course rating is 2.7 strokes over par and the Slope is very high at 143. What so many courses miss in the quest for length is variety in hole length. But again, having holes top out at yardages near the lower end of the comfort zones makes it more difficult for courses to have top end yardages near the current "long" standard of 7200 +/- yards. This seems to be what most courses view as an acceptable yardage from the back tees. But the strange thing is, many courses fail to see that the best modern courses manage to test both the lower limits and upper limits equally, making the golfer uncomfortable by giving them long shots to greens and short shots to greens.

Here lies the key negative in keeping hole lengths within the safe areas. In order to do that, variety has to be sacrificed. A look down some of the best courses in golf, Oakmont, Pine Valley, Pebble Beach, The Old Course,  shows that the best courses have the length necessary to challenge the best players in the world, but also have significant variety in the shots required from the player. On these, and other great courses, players will find par 3's ranging from the 106 yard 7th at Pebble Beach to the 288 yard 8th at Oakmont, par 4's from the 294 yard 7th at Olympic (Lake) to the 505 yard 9th at Pebble Beach, and par 5's from the 476 yard 10th at Cypress Point to the 636 yard 7th at Pine Valley (or the 670 yard 16th at Olympic (Lake) if members are allowed to play that tee). Bottom line is, most of these courses certainly meet any need for difficulty, even if they may not meet some target yardage. And most of the time, shooting for a target number simply yields a boring golf course.

Courses can go about searching for yardage all they want, but the truth is, golfers want variety and they want interest. Interest does not come from having 10 par 4's all play between 410 and 455 yards. It comes from having one play 295 yards, one play 535 yards, and 8 others scattered in between. Same with par 3's and par 5's. Variety is the key to having a greatly interesting and high quality golf course. Sadly, in the quest for length, many new courses disregard that thought. Perhaps one day these courses will get back to top quality variety coupled with top end length.

Mike Strantz & the C.B. Macdonald Template Holes

Mike Strantz is viewed by many in the golf community as a revolutionary designer. Some of the things he produced on golf courses were visually stunning and unlike little that had been seen before. But once you start digging a bit, get past the shock value visual features, there seem to be some definite old style golf features and even some of the Macdonald School template holes. Now, to be sure, these holes do not look like the simple, yet elegant, templates that Macdonald, Raynor and Banks crafted, but the visual features and playing features are there and show up far too often to be simple coincidence.

The most well known of the Macdonald School holes are the Biarritz, Redan, Punchbowl, Sahara, Cape, Road, and Alps. All of these holes show up at least once on Strantz courses, some of them more. Certainly Strantz went and put his own unique touch on these holes, but the strategic features are still there.

All images, with exception of Bulls Bay images, taken by and used with permission from The Buffalo Golfer: http://www.buffalogolfer.com

Bulls Bay images taken by and used with permission from S. R. Arble.

Biarritz
This is a hole that Strantz created twice. The basic feature of the biarritz hole has been described here before, but generally the hole is defined by a large depression in the middle of the green running side to side. The player is given the opportunity to bring the ball in low, landing it on the front of the green, and rolling to the back.

Tobacco Road, Hole #3, 152 yards

Here, the green starts just beyond the front bunkers, dips down, and rises sharply to the back level. Perhaps not a true Biarritz given that the back level is above that of the front, but the depression and two tiered green is there.

Royal New Kent, Hole #7, 197 yards

This hole is a biarritz/redan hybrid. The depression with two tiers is there, but so is the right-to-left angle and the front kick slope. Strantz used the creek bed in lieu of a bunker as the fronting hazard and put the two pot bunkers in as the rear hazard. The bunkers short of the kick slope are traditional redan features.

Redan

Strantz also crafted this hole twice. The standard Redan has a green that is angled roughly forty-five degrees right-to-left away from the player. Traditionally, the hole has a deep bunker fronting the green and another bunker behind the green to catch shots going long. The hole is also marked by the front to back slope, allowing the players to roll the ball to the back of the green, and the bunkers that are typically short of the front kick slope, bringing distance control more into focus for the player.

Royal New Kent, Hole #7, 197 yards

--Profiled above

Bulls Bay, Hole #7, 180 yards

This hole features the standard Redan shape and the front slope into the opening, However, it lacks the cross bunkers and rear bunker.

Punchbowl

This is a hole that Strantz used a number of times. The basic idea of the Punchbowl is that the green is located in a natural bowl or depression. The slopes of the depression can either be part of the green or part of the surrounding area.

Tobacco Road, Hole #13, 573 yards

This green is most certainly located in a bowl. Much of the green is obscured from view when approaching from the fairway. Options could be incredible if the bowl walls were maintained with shorter turf rather than high love grass.

Bulls Bay, Hole #14, 190 yards

Here, you can see the entire rear and both sides of the green sloping down towards the center of the green. In this case, a portion of the surround is maintained as short turf. This gives the player the chance to use the slope to get a shot closer to the hole...or might improve the positioning of a poorly played shot as well.

Stonehouse, Hole #5, 431 yards

The features are fairly obvious here. Slopes coming into the center from all directions. This might be the most traditional of the punchbowls shown.

Cape

This hole has become something different than it originally was. The original Cape played as a dogleg but the green was located on a peninsula surrounded by water. The original hole has since been altered and today the Cape is typically defined as a dogleg hole where the player is given the option of picking a more or less aggressive line off the tee, typically cutting over some type of hazard. This hole concept is possibly the most copied hole in golf and Strantz made good use of the concept himself.

Tobacco Road, Hole #12, 419 yards

This hole bends significantly to the left around the bunker. The green is farther around the corner, not in the image. The player is able to play the tee shot as far out to the left as he dares.

Tot Hill Farm, Hole #5, 535 yards

While difficult to see in the image, the fairway here runs from right to left, away from the player. Inside the dogleg is a deep depression filled with small trees and shrubs. The most agressive line on this hole is towards the peak of the hill/mountain in the distance.

Royal New Kent, Hole #9, 407 yards

Here, the player is given the chance to pick his line over the creek that is just shy if the fairway. In prior years, the creek also served to separate the fairway on the left from a second fairway on the right. The bunkers await through the fairway to catch golfers getting a little too greedy on the conservative line.

Bulls Bay, Hole #5, 406 yards

This is the first of the Cape holes that really play over a water feature. The marshland must be carried here in order to reach the fairway and the player is able to play as far out right as he feels comfortable doing.

Road
As the name suggests, this hole is patterned after the Road hole 17th at The Old Course. The green typically is narrow and angles right to left. There is also normally a bunker short of the green, ideally a pot bunker to mimick the Road Hole Bunker and some type of hazard long of the green to represent the road itself.

This hole bears more than a passing resemblance to the Road Hole, even if it lacks the bunker short. The tall grass short provides the Road Hole Bunker feature and the wall long, there to keep balls from going onto the public road located about 10 yards beyond the hazard, provides the Road feature.

Alps
The idea here is typically to have some type of large hill feature obscuring the view of the green. Sometimes the player is given the chance to play to a disadvantaged side of the fairway in order to avoid it, other times that is not the case.

Tobacco Road, Hole #1, 558 yards

This from about 210 yards from the green, no sight of the green. The green sits about 75 yards beyond the mound in the center of the picture.

Royal New Kent, Hole #14, 344 yards

This hole allows the golfer the chance to see the green when playing to a proper location. Golfers who play tee shots to the flanks of the fairway will likely not be able to see the flag. This green is also located in a punchbowl.

Sahara

This hole plays up and over a dune or some type of sand feature that also prevents the player from seeing the ball come to rest in the fairway.

Tobacco Road, Hole #18, 432 yards

From the tee, this is what the player sees. The fairway begins directly over top of the hill but the vast majority of it is out of the player's view.

There are other examples that could be used for these hole type, certainly the Alps feature is one that Strantz uses with semi-regularity. Same with the Punchbowl. Also, you may note that no holes from True Blue and Caledonia, Strantz originals, or Monterey Peninsula (Shore) and Silver Creek Valley, Strantz redesigns, are mentioned here. I simply lack familiarity with those courses and am unable to determine if any of those holes fit into the template mold.

If you think I've missed any, and I probably have, feel free to let me know.