Golf Club Atlas
GolfClubAtlas.com => Golf Course Architecture => Topic started by: Padraig Dooley on June 03, 2008, 05:45:51 PM
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I played a course recently called The Shire near Barnet just outside London. It was designed by Seve Ballesteros and it has 6 par 3s, 6 par 4s and 6 par 5s.
This is the second course I've played with that configuration, the other was Larvik GC, a couple of hours from Oslo, Norway.
Both courses have only once have holes with consecutive pars 9 and 10 both 4s at The Shire and 7 and 8 at Larvik both 5s.
How many more courses have this configuration of 3s, 4s and 5s? I'm aware of The Berkshire(Red), can't think of any in Ireland.
There were some pace of play issues at the Shire, is this one of the reasons why there aren't too many more courses like it?
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PD
Bransford near Worcester (as in Worcestershire) has the equal three way split of pars, but it isn't a good course. I can recall knowing nothing about the course and starting in an odd spot for some reason. It seemed an eternity before we played a par 4. No, I remember now, the first two holes were par 4s. the next six on the card are not 4s, but we skipped #s 9 & 10 because of slow play and we knew both these holes essentially flowed back to the house after 18 anyway. We continued on 11. So we went all the way to #16 before playing another par 4. It was very wierd playing 12 holes without a par 4!
http://www.bankhousehotel.co.uk/thecoursemap.htm
Ciao
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Spring Hill in Albany OR
Old Course at Homestead
Here is a link to a thread discussing six par 3s, which is not your exact premise
http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,23120.0.html
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Forest Highlands in Flagstafff, AZ.
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Mississippi Dunes; Cottage Grove, Minnesota.
Terrible golf course, IMO -- though its terribleness has nothing to do with its 6-6-6 layout.
The owner mostly designed it himself. Perhaps the Devil made him do it.
The Devil might be in the details -- but God was first. And God had nothing to do with the details at Mississippi Dunes.
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I think Forest Highlands is par-71, with "only" five par-5's.
The only course I can remember playing with 6-6-6 is The Berkshire (Red) outside of London. Based on my experience there, it is a very flattering set-up for a course ... lots of birdie opportunities between the par fives and the par threes. And not enough variety of par fours, for my tastes.
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GCA member Roy Case's new Park Ridge GC in Lake Worth, Palm Beach County, FL is a 6-6-6 course and is fun to play:
Here's the layout:
(http://www.co.palm-beach.fl.us/parks/sports/golf/parkridge/_images/pr_courseLG.jpg)
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haile plantation in gainesville, florida. gary player signature golf course. http://www.clubcorp.com/club/scripts/section/section.asp?NS=PCH&SUBGRP=15&MFCODE=HPGCC
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Copper Mill in Zachary, Louisiana.
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The Berkshire Red is a very good course and no pace of play issues. I disagree with Tom, there's plenty of variety in the par 4s - it's just that 3 or 4 of the long ones are called par 5s. It might be one of the greatest par 68/69 courses around but even moderate golfers find it very easy to make birdies with all those short par 5s. Of course, as we know, par isn't important so I thinkit's just a course with a great set of 2 or 3 shot holes.
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Crooked Tree in Cincinnati has 6-6-6. It is no super course, but certainly playable. It is tight, so the 'advantage' in scoring you might expect from 6 par-5's is somewhat negated.
Doug
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I'm not sure if it still exists after the Myrtle Beach course retraction of recent years, but Dan Maples designed a course there called Sandpiper Bay that had six of each.
Bedford Springs in PA has five of each, and the more amazing thing is that all of them are pretty terrific, particularly the par threes which are among the very best set I've ever played.
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GCA member Roy Case's new Park Ridge GC in Lake Worth, Palm Beach County, FL is a 6-6-6 course and is fun to play:
Here's the layout:
(http://www.co.palm-beach.fl.us/parks/sports/golf/parkridge/_images/pr_courseLG.jpg)
This strikes me as a spectacular idea for a public golf course, because the par 5's and par 3's tend to be much more forgiving for the average golfer.
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Terry
Not only is Park Ridge fun to play, it is unique to South Florida in that there is elevation as the course is built on a former solid waste landfill. The par 5 12th, the par3 11th and the par4 8th are three of the better holes on the course.Pace of play was not an issue on the 2 times that I played there. I strongly suggest a visit if you're in the area.
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Guys, wouldn't pace of play become an issue, with six par-3 holes? Perhaps Bill Yates can chime in here.
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It is quite a common feature in many of Ballesteros' designs, at least in the ones in Spain
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Guys, wouldn't pace of play become an issue, with six par-3 holes? Perhaps Bill Yates can chime in here.
One of the days at the Shire was a Pro-Am with a shotgun start, the round took 5 hours 45 minutes, so pace of play is a big issue not only with the 6 par 3s and also all but one of the par 5s were reachable for the better players.
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The Berkshire Red is a very good course and no pace of play issues. I disagree with Tom, there's plenty of variety in the par 4s - it's just that 3 or 4 of the long ones are called par 5s. It might be one of the greatest par 68/69 courses around but even moderate golfers find it very easy to make birdies with all those short par 5s. Of course, as we know, par isn't important so I thinkit's just a course with a great set of 2 or 3 shot holes.
Yes, yes and yes. So far the only better 36 holes I experiencedn at one venue is Sunnigdale and the Berkshire is hugely underated. 6,6,6 helps contrast the Red course from the Blue. Go there.
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Our own Jeff Brauer designed one about 10 - 15 minutes from my house. West Ridge Golf Course in McKinney (Dallas area), TX. I haven't been out there in a few years. I need to give it another try.
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Pace of play at Park Ridge is quite good for a public track. The average round take between 3:45 and 4:15 hrs. to play. The course is pretty much full every day. They the course is routed, along with hole sequencing is key to this pace of play. We also provided very generous playing areas with limited bunkering.
I do not no about the other courses mentioned in this thread, but it certainly has work out fine a Park Ridge.
Guys, wouldn't pace of play become an issue, with six par-3 holes? Perhaps Bill Yates can chime in here.
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I think a course with that configuration would be a lot of fun. So many courses have seven or eight fours in a row and it starts to feel like a slog.
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Saddleback Ridge in Solon, IA is another one.
Holes 12-17 are a string of 3-5-3-5-5-3, probably the longest unbroken string of non-par 4s you'll find anywhere outside a par 3 course.
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There's a course in Lincoln, Nebraska I used to play a lot called Mahoney, which is a par-70 course with six 3s, but what was striking about it is that they were all exactly the same length, except for one really short one on the back nine (#12?). I think it was 190, 195, 195, 130, 195, 190.
I got pretty sick of hitting 5-irons.
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I really don't think it matters if the design is good. I could quite see Tom Doak doing this if the ground suggested it.
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William Langford used this configuration a couple of times in his early designs. He had 6/6/6 at at Bryn Mawr CC near Chicago and at Innsbrook CC near Gary, Indiana. Bryn Mawr converted two long par 3's to par 4's and two short par 5's to 4's and now has a conventional 10/4/4 configuration. Innsbrook retains the original routing. Innsbrook is holding a USGA Mid-Am qualifier this year.
Here is a view of Innsbrook today.
(http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f385/troonster/Innsbrook%20Gary%20CC/GaryCCgoogleeh.jpg)
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I'm in the process of reading Seve's autobiography and in one of the chapters called 'Course Design: The Future', he states that whenever he can he designs courses with the six, six, six format.
One of the advantages he claims is that an area of 20 per cent is saved compared with a conventional layout.
Can anyone prove or disprove this claim?
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Slightly different, but Primland's front nine has a 3-3-3 set-up... with the first four holes going 5-3-5-3
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I can certainly see this working if pulled off well. However, the courses where the same par hole only repeats once seems pretty contrived to me. If you randomly assigned hole numbers to these holes, there is less than a 1 in 500 chance that you would only have only one or zero repeats like this. It seems like the architects in this case were trying too hard to achieve this (just like other architects try to hard to avoid back to back par 3's or an opening/closing par 3.
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Mississippi Dunes; Cottage Grove, Minnesota.
Terrible golf course, IMO -- though its terribleness has nothing to do with its 6-6-6 layout.
The owner mostly designed it himself. Perhaps the Devil made him do it.
The Devil might be in the details -- but God was first. And God had nothing to do with the details at Mississippi Dunes.
I second that...