Archie, Randy, Peter, Adam, John L and the rest of you!
I haven't posted like this on Desmond in quite a many years, and honestly, Ihave a lot of material that would help in this discussion, but it would take hours if not days to scan it and upload it!
John posted that aerial image of Clashing Rocks today. Disappointing for me to say the least-- it now just looks like any other hole. You see Desmond went for the visual aspect and made the holes play like they're namesakes. For instance, and I quote my friend Mike Sweeney:
I hope they fixed that second fairway. I hit more than a few "good drives" off the tee, and then you get up to the landing area and it trickled into the water.
Here is Desmond's description of the hole:
Second Hole, "Ulysses": This hole is named for the hero of Homer's Odyssey. Ulysses was reknowned for his courage and his cunning. These and other abilities enabled him to travel though almost continuous adversity.
The lake which represents Neptune, the God of the Seas and Ships, is Ulysses' principle enemy. The two traps at the 250 yard mark recall the Sirens, the bird -like creatures with women's heads, who drew sailors to their deaths by their magic music. On this hole, they are forcing the tee shot toward the water.
The green is symbolic of Neptune's head, complete with traps in the form of locks, a beard and a trident. Most of the green offers a fair receptacle for a good second shot; the projecting right hand side, however, becomes a peninsula surrounded by water; and when the pin is placed there, the protective ramparts are gone. Psychologically, a very exacting shot is then required.
Those less brave golfer's who go for the dryland part have a nasty downhill putt before them. Only the dauntless few have successfully ogled the Sirens and who then aim directly for the flag are likely to score well.
I believe that on this hole a consistent display of Homeric courage, tenacity and unusual ability, will be rewarded in proportion to the passion shown. Surely this represents the substance and much of the fascination if strategic golf.Missing in this picture, its all mostly on or near the green. Where what once existed a rather interesting spine that ran down the center of the putting surface, separating the left side from the right--requiring an even more daunting task to a right pin placement. Directly in front of the green was a rather troublesome bunker which represented Neptune's beard. Another bunker was situated towards the back of the green and jutted out into the water with a sort of zig-zag shape to it on one side. The left green-side bunker represented Neptune's hair, or in Desmond's words, "locks" and then a crown-shaped bunker towards the very back. You can still see the remnants--the greener grass section towards that back area where that bunker was located.
The hole looks from the air to be very tough in terms of getting to the fairway, you can just see it and with Mike's description--more then adequate, just a tough golf hole. The point to all of this is that Desmond may not have created a fair and playable golf hole, what he did create was a land form which depicted a story--a legendary mythological story and made you, quite figuratively, experience Ulysses plight.
In the Tom Paul
Big World theory of golf course architecture, this is a course to me that is worth studying. Surely not for any classic values, but more artistic, human creativity as a whole.
