Golf Club Atlas
GolfClubAtlas.com => Golf Course Architecture => Topic started by: Jonathan Cummings on February 21, 2022, 08:29:16 AM
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Say a golf course is going to lose real estate and has a solution to reduce an opening or ending par 4 to a par 3. Or maybe reduce an internal par 4 to a par 3 making a pair of consecutive par 3s.
For this well traveled DG, what are examples of this out there for full size golf courses?
Lytham starts with a par 3. For years Congressional ended in a par 3 (no longer). And Cypress has to have the most famous internal consecutive threes at 15/16.
Any other examples that you can think of out there? Curious.
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If the holes are good holes that fit the land available then the order of the pars should not matter much. I prefer to end a 9 or 18 on a par 3 as opposed to starting with one. Definitely have played more older courses with oddly placed par 3's then newer courses.
Close to my house there are three courses that were designed with both 9's ending with par 3's. Hershey CC - West (Maurice McCarthy 1930 - original routing), West Shore CC (original 9 ? - taken to 18 by Ed Tabor '40s) and a public course called Fairview GC (both holes are similar downhill shots with a lake between the greens - it's an awkward area around the clubhouse that would be tough to get two holes away and two holes back to - this is a solution that seems to work and given the footprint they had to work with I'm not sure there was something better).
Basking Ridge CC (Alec Findlay - in New Jersey) ends with a cool long par 3 with a massive green.
I have played one course where both 1 and 18 were both par 3's, Greenspring Valley Hunt Club. Original 9 by Bendelow taken to 18 by RTJ in the '50s. Both holes are on the clubhouse's back yard while the other 16 holes are on a property across the street. It's a pretty neat set up all in all.
All of these examples work well because
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Brora ends with a tough 3. Golspie has consecutive 3's at #16 & #17, two very good holes. Tain also has 3's at #16 & #17.
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8) Pensacola CC's 18th is a one shotter, nicely situated between the Clubhouse and the bay, from Jerry Pate's post hurricane redesign. Bill McBride was very fond of it when we played there with him, and I agree, a great closer!
Link off their website
https://youtu.be/ppze6Xl80mk
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Are you just looking for famous examples of this? (Not specifically an example where a club was forced to re-route).
There are many good examples if the former. For consecutive par-3’s, high profile ones that come immediately to mind are Ballybunion, Pacific Dunes and West Sussex
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The Tree Farm will start with a par-3. My original plan had it as a wild par-5, but we didn’t think that hole was the way to start off the course, and when I suggested we could break it up into a par-3 and a short 4, Zac jumped at the idea. It will double as a 19th and a gambling site in the evenings. He might need lights!
The only other time I have suggested a par-3 to start or finish was at Stone Eagle, because there was a really good one just laying there once you got up the hill. But the client could not be convinced to start or end with a par-3, so it wound up as the 19th hole.
I have built two sets of consecutive par-3’s - at Pacific Dunes and Rock Creek - so I know it won’t hold back a course in the rankings, if the two holes are sufficiently good and sufficiently different. Sedge Valley will also have consecutive par-3’s.
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Kilspindie begins with a Par 3.
Pasatiempo and Hope Valley end with one. The latter is reminiscent of Brora’s 18th.
Crail Balcomie has consecutive Par 3s (13 and 14) and finishes with a Par 3.
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Southport & Ainsdale starts with a par 3. Berkshire Blue starts with a par 3 whilst the Red course ends with a par 3.
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Manchester CC in Connecticut finishes with a longish par 3 with a quasi-Biarritz swale fronting the green. Then again, that course has back-to-back par 5s in both nines, and opens with a short-ish par 4 with a fairway that cants toward the water hazard that runs the entire left of the hole.
Tom Bendelow and Devereux Emmet with redesign work by Tillinghast.
I think any axioms about routing that get in the way of just finding the best holes available to be found are probably more trouble than they're worth.
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CC of Farmington in Connecticut finishes with a par three that was changed decades ago from the original par four to allow for Route 10 to pass through. The hole works well and those that don’t know the back story probably wouldn’t realize it wasn’t original.
Paramount CC flipped their nines but regardless both 9 and 18 are par threes that are well placed in the routing. The 9th(original 18th) is one of the few versions of Tillinghast’s “Reef Hole.”
Two other finishing par threes that come to mind are Misquamicut and Boston Golf club. Both are well suited to the land and beside playing nicely provide a good location for spectators to watch the conclusion of a match.
York Golf and Tennis starts out with a stout 210 yard par three and allows the golfer to move out closer to the north side of the York River where a good portion of the holes are located. Though no gentle handshake it’s a solid hole and fits well in the sequence.
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Wow - thanks all. Some I'm hitting myself in the head for not remembering. Pac Dunes....duh!
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Omni Homestead Cascades course in VA and Old White TPC just across the border at Greenbrier in WV both end on par 3s as well.
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Oak Hills Country Club in San Antonio (Tillinghast) finishes each 9 with a par 3. Both holes are fairly similar, playing over a pond that sits well below the tee and green and is not really in play. Based on where the club house is, the corridor to get out into the property is fairly narrow. I would not say either are great holes on what is a pretty solid course.
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14 and 15 are par three holes at Watertown GC in CT. 14 plays 200 and 15 plays 160. You cross the road after the 12th hole and then zig zag your way back to the house with 13 and 14 playing Southeast, 15 and 16 playing Northwest and 17 and 18 back Southeast again. Despite the parallel holes the finish is solid and two par threes fit well.
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Omni Homestead Cascades course in VA and Old White TPC just across the border at Greenbrier in WV both end on par 3s as well.
Old White 18 is the only Tour Course that finishes on a Par 3.
At least since Congressional years ago which has been an awful hole as 18 or 10 in all of its iterations. It may win the award for most times redesigned unsuccessfully. Perhaps the new version overcomes its history.
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Burlington, Kawartha, Oshawa, and Terra Nova's Twin Rivers course are all in Canada's Top 100 and end on a par 3. Haven't played a couse that begins on a par 3.
Pasatiempo ends on a pretty good par 3!
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The Tree Farm will start with a par-3. My original plan had it as a wild par-5, but we didn’t think that hole was the way to start off the course, and when I suggested we could break it up into a par-3 and a short 4, Zac jumped at the idea. It will double as a 19th and a gambling site in the evenings. He might need lights!
The only other time I have suggested a par-3 to start or finish was at Stone Eagle, because there was a really good one just laying there once you got up the hill. But the client could not be convinced to start or end with a par-3, so it wound up as the 19th hole.
I have built two sets of consecutive par-3’s - at Pacific Dunes and Rock Creek - so I know it won’t hold back a course in the rankings, if the two holes are sufficiently good and sufficiently different. Sedge Valley will also have consecutive par-3’s.
Have you decided whether to keep the par 3 finishing hole at Sandpiper yet?
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Here in Southern California, two Fazios come to mind with back-to-back par 3s – Pelican Hill Ocean South and Rams Hill.
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Pacific Grove has this twice. 1/2 and then 9/10 which are total opposites. Love this little course as a sub 6000 yard par 70.(https://www.californiabeaches.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Map-1000x631.jpg)
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5-6-7 at Painswick.
1-2-3 at Church Stretton.
atb
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Aren't 9 & 10 at Quaker Ridge 3-pars?
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Here is a thread from years ago on the subject of consecutive par 3s.
https://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,11875.0.html (https://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,11875.0.html)
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Manchester CC in Connecticut finishes with a longish par 3 with a quasi-Biarritz swale fronting the green. Then again, that course has back-to-back par 5s in both nines, and opens with a short-ish par 4 with a fairway that cants toward the water hazard that runs the entire left of the hole.
Tom Bendelow and Devereux Emmet with redesign work by Tillinghast.
I do not have a lot of experience with Devereux Emmet designs, but the two I have played both include a par 3 18th. Are Garden City Men’s and Pelham (and Manchester) anomalies or was this an Emmet calling card of some sort?
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Blackhawk CC in Madison (WI) has consecutive 5s (12-13) and finishes 3-4-3. The 16th is across a road from the rest of the course and sits above Lake Mendota. It also has three sub-300 par fours on the back nine. The whole routing is a bit unusual.
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Gil Hanse's new Caprock in Nebraska ends with a par 3.
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Town & Country Club (St Paul, MN) has both back to back par 3s (#2 and #3) as well as a par 3 finishing hole.
Perhaps the most interesting part, though, is that the last 5 holes are 3-5-5-5-3.
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Was reminded of another instance of this in Southern California when I got an opportunity to return to The Saticoy Club (formerly Saticoy Country Club) this week. Nos. 9 and 10 are both par 3s; nine plays significantly uphill, ten next plays even farther downhill.
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If all the various oddities folks seek examples of on this site, par-3 opening holes seem to be the rarest.
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If all the various oddities folks seek examples of on this site, par-3 opening holes seem to be the rarest.
Talk about rare. The East Course at Belleair CC for years ended in a par 3 and a par 3! #17 and #18 were both 1 shotters and this for a full size course.
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If all the various oddities folks seek examples of on this site, par-3 opening holes seem to be the rarest.
I would suspect that this is, at least in part, due to pace of play issues with tee time intervals.
It's a subject of great interest to me right now because UNC Finley (Cobb/Fazio) is going to undergo a major project beginning in October by Love that will, among other things, have the current par 3 12th hole become #1.
As an experiment, I kept a clock on my group the last time I played there; three of us, all single digit. My two partners both hit the green; one made birdie, the other had a tap in par. I missed in the fringe, and had a relatively easy two putt par. So a total of 8 shots, 5 of them with a putter. Nobody in the deep bunker on the left, nobody in the hazards on the right or behind. It took us exactly 8 minutes. So that's good, right? We were two minutes below the 10 minute intervals between tee times...
Now imagine a foursome in which nobody hits the green, and their tee shots DO end up in bunkers and hazards, and each player has to hit a second shot with a club other than a putter. I think it's possible that it could take that group close to twice as long as it took us to play the hole, and that's probably a much more typical outcome, especially on the first hole of the day, than what happened to us on our 12th hole of the day. And we won't even get into groups that are going to hit two off the first tee.
Get a handful of foursomes that take in excess of 10 minutes to play a par three opening hole, and your tee times are screwed up for the entire day. So I suspect that a par 3 opener would only function well at a course that didn't get a lot of play to begin with, and/or doesn't have tee times at all.
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Victoria Golf Club (the one in BC designed by AV Macan) has consecutive par 3s at 8-9. And they are pretty spectacular along the Pacific Ocean with views of Mt Olympus in Washington state. Jeff Mingay would know more of the back story.
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Ira, its not a closing hole but apropos of your comment about Congressional Medinah 17 is a challenger for the greatest number of redesigns. We shall see how the latest iteration fares.
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Just played Bradenton CC. Ross 1924, redone several times since. Very enjoyable course with particularly interesting putting surfaces. It currently ends in a par 3, in fact, it has quite an unusual ending - par 5,3,5,3. Not sure if that is original - I suspect not.
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Cullen has so many par 3's that some of them are bound to be consecutive but haven't a scorecard to hand. Not that it really matters. It works OK provided there is variety - that's variety in design and not just whether its a different par. Of course, Cullen has no pretensions to be a championship course and has nothing like the amount of land required to be so, and in my book it is all the better for it.
Someone provided a link to a previous thread on the subject and Rich mentioned his home course Aberdour which starts with two 3's. They are two distinct par 3's and are what you really remember about the course. The first sits on a spit of land below the clubhouse and is crying out for a golf hole to be placed on it, while the second plays across the beach/shore to a perched green. There is no way you wouldn't want to use the spit of land for a golf hole and once you make that decision I can't think of any easier way to incorporate it into the routing. Thankfully par sequences weren't a big thing back in the day.
Niall
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Close to my house there are three courses that were designed with both 9's ending with par 3's. Hershey CC - West (Maurice McCarthy 1930 - original routing), West Shore CC (original 9 ? - taken to 18 by Ed Tabor '40s) and a public course called Fairview GC (both holes are similar downhill shots with a lake between the greens - it's an awkward area around the clubhouse that would be tough to get two holes away and two holes back to - this is a solution that seems to work and given the footprint they had to work with I'm not sure there was something better).
Jim,
The first nine holes at West Shore were designed by Scottish emigre George Morris, nephew of Old Tom.
Let's play some golf this year.
Mike
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Ira, its not a closing hole but apropos of your comment about Congressional Medinah 17 is a challenger for the greatest number of redesigns. We shall see how the latest iteration fares.
Shel,
Congressional is 10 minutes from our house. I have played it in a couple of configurations. Neither put it high on my list despite the incredible conditioning of the greens. I have heard good things about the renovation. I will have to bug a friend for a round one of these days.
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Played another of these last weekend: Shadow Hills (South course - Lee Schmidt) in Indio, CA has consecutive par 3s at 16 & 17.
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Love the back to back 3’s at Newport CC
#13 and #14
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North Fork Country Club on the east end of Long Island has 2 pairs of sequential par 3's. 6 &7 and 13 & 14. Holes 6 & 7 were designed by Donald Ross and holes 13 & 14 were designed by Deverreaux Emmet 10 years later.
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It seems Donald Ross wasn't afraid of back to back par 3s. I just played Beverly (Mass.) Golf & Tennis Club (Ross, 1910), and it's 11th (245 yards downhill) and 12th (196 yards uphill) holes are really stout, excellent par 3s that play in opposite directions. The 11th finishes right at the clubhouse; I don't know if the routing has changed; theoretically that could make the starting and finishing holes par 3s...