Sean - I bet this is going to be good, but I was taking another long look at your Elie tour last night and it's gonna take some doing for Woodbridge (or any course!) to knock it off the perch for me: my goodness, a course with 16 Par 4s (long, short, and everything in between), only 2 Par 3s, and not even a single Par 5, so therefore no banal ones -- golfing heaven on earth!!
Pietro
Woodbridge is good, but Elie is special.
WOODBRIDGE TOUR CONT
There is a bit of a different look on the 5th. A bit less space for the tee shot, the hole legs strongly right against the lay of the land. The approach suggests the green flows against the terrain as well.
There is great visual deception on the 6th. The bunkers are placed to look quite close to each other when in fact there are dozens of yards separating them. Below is the approach.
A relatively new hole, the short 7th was built in the late 60s when the house burned down. The club used this disaster as an opportunity to move the clubhouse and thus eliminate the old 2nd hole (a par 3) and move the green for the 17th from across an inceasingly busy road to the current location. The current 18th was the 1st hole and the current 1st green was the old 3rd green.
Left of the green...it isn't very wide.
Not a long par five, the challenge for the 8th is supplied by the dogleg shape of the hole and large bunkers which nearly cut the fairway in two. We played a forward tee this time which effectovely makes the hole a par 4 yardage and brings the bunkering into play on the drive.
The green isn't without interest.
The side finishes with a downhill par 3 which looks pretty, but isn't special.
The back nine's total yardage reads very similar to the front nine's 3038 yards, but par is cut by two shots to 34. We immediately get a sense of the added difficulty on the down and up 10th which measures 420 yards.
The long, uphill approach is tightly guarded by bunkers left and right.
More to follow.
Ciao