Cross posting this from the 2013 Emmet Society thread, where it may get more views as time goes on
Thank you to our hosts and Mark to having us out to a wonderful Emmet course. 103 years on this course continues to delight and challenge.
The thing I liked most about Huntington CC is how the holes speak through the ground contours as you see them from the tee then experience them on the course. By this I mean each hole presents a strong look from the tee, sometimes expansive, sometimes rolling, a few times blind, but in each case engaging. While the course has 150! bunkers, and they certainly help accent the story, it's the roll of the land that makes the story.
About those 150 bunkers. The story is that Emmet, Emmet, and Tull reworked the 1910 design in 1929 to bring it up to date. This was a renovation with hole changes, additions, reroutings. The course in place today is largely this renovation, and this is from late in Emmet's career. My feeling was that this is Emmet at his most evolved, though the historians can correct me. There is just so much variety in the bunkers: pots, swirls, islands, a horseshoe, a donut, church pews, an "E", a vase, stair steps, footprints, minefields. The bunkers are confident, present, in play, yet whimsical and playful.
In form the bunkers are flatish with grass faces. As you can imagine from the styles, the faces often wrap around in all directions, not just flush towards the tee and banked towards the green in the traditional "directional" mold. This stylization is reflected in play as great variety in uphill, side hill, and downhill lies for balls in the bunker complexes. Contrast this to the popular sand faced bunker, which is larger in area, but by funneling most shots off the sand faces into the bunker bases result in much less variety of recovery shots.
Huntington's greens are excellent. Why? They work well through a tight coupling of 1.) green surfaces that extend out to 2.)surrounding perimeter features that are 3.) laid across/perched on/built into the topographic contours.
1.) the green surfaces are not "big" but are scaled well for the site and course. In typical Emmet style most of the green surface challenges come from tilt, and subtle internal counters. Tilt spans the compass, and on some holes is obfuscated through deception via juxtaposition: back-front tilt is exaggerated on 8 by building up a green pad on ground falling front to back. On 15, the opposite occurs, as back to front tilt is "flattened" with an elongated green on a false flat following a long climb up from the fairway.
Most of the internal contours are subtle, or gentle, and are part of the green more than an extension of features outside the green. Because the greens fill the footpads, and extend directly out to the perimeter features, the perimeter mounds are often reflected in sideboard type features at green edges. However, unlike Ross at Sagamore, for instance, perimeter features are not used to bring spines or plateaus into the green. The green contours follow their own logic.
Interestingly, 13 and 14 present back to back tiered greens. I don't think of Emmet as a tiered green designer, but here there are two two-tiered greens in a row, very well done. Interestingly, whereas most tiered greens I've seen divide the entire green into tiers, both of these have the tiers come together on one side in a sloping section about 1/8th the green width.
2.) the surrounding perimeter features are excellent in variety and structure, and they are tightly connected to greens. Nowhere that I recall (other than at green entrances fronting crossing bunkers) was there an expanse of non-green between the green perimeter and features. So if there are mounds at the green, the green runs upto or slightly onto their flank. If there are drop-offs the green extends to the drop off point, which continues downward as rough.
The effect of this is that while the greens are smallish, they fill the space as defined by the perimeter features. I think this is what gives them the feel of proper scale.
3.) Generally speaking, Emmet greens lay at grade, or at least start there. At Huntington many greens are truly at grade, but others are built up on one side or another. 6 is cut into a side hill and built up with a drop off opposite the cut. 8 is built up on ground falling away. 7, the road hole, is set in relief with the bunkers the result of carving the green from the land. 15, one of my favorites, extends out along a point bounded by OB and a steep drop, but due to the false flat of the point, feels grounded, not isolated.
Finally, Huntington shows yet again that Emmet's work is sophisticated. His work creates challenge and interest to the golfer. And, I think importantly, Emmet's work reflects a unique sensibility, and Huntington represents a full realization of his sensibilities.
Mr. Emmons is too modest in what he has done to breathe life back into this Emmet creation. This is living Emmet, and I encourage anyone interested in understanding the work of this master to visit Huntington CC.