Template Holes of the Macdonald School: The Biarritz

The Biarritz is one of the four standard par three holes used by the designers in the Macdonald School of design, Charles Blair Macdonald, Seth Raynor, and Charles Banks. This hole was typically intended to be the longest par three on the course, sometimes out to 220 yards, a significant distance today much less in the 1920's and 1930's. The idea of the hole is that the green has a large front tier and a large back tier with a fairly deep depression between them.

The idea with this hole is that the player should be face with a long enough shot that he must land the shot at the front of the green and run it through the depression in order to reach the back of the green. Like many of the holes built by Macdonald, this hole style is not used very often in modern days due to the shift of golf from a running shot game to an aerial shot game.

There are two basic types of the biarritz, seen in the images below:

This one pictured above is from St. Louis Country Club and is maintained with the front plateau as part of the green. This allows the club to cut the pin on the front portion of the green and mandate the player land short of the green in the approach if he desires to roll the ball onto the green.

This one, from Chicago Golf Club, only maintains the the rear plateau as green. The front plateau and the depression are all maintained at fairway height. This mandates the player land the shot short of the depression on the fairway cut in order to run the ball back to the hole.

The newest Biarritz built, the 8th hole at Old Macdonald in Bandon, OR, is much shorter than the old standard and is meant to be approached with low running shots using mid-irons. Hardly the hole of year's past. The hole is a solid hole in it's own right, but not the long yardage hole with very long green and deep depression like many might have expected.

Overall, this is a superb hole type. If a hole of this nature were to be built today, however, it would need to be built out to 250+ yards in order to challenge the best players with fairway woods or drivers. Indeed, a Biarritz hole is in play on the PGA Tour, at The Old White TPC at The Greenbrier, and those golfers are approaching the hole with high lofted shots from middle irons, rather than low, running shots from long irons and fairway woods. Perhaps one day designers will take the risk and build another of these holes as it was meant to be played.