The 2nd Hole is 135-meters, over water, with a massive bunker wit
h islands left of the green, fairway to the right and front, and a waste area to the right of the fairway.The green will be long, some 38-meters, have significant contour, and the tee is huge, so the hole will play a variety of distances, and a variety of angles. All this will keep the hole interesting.
Because the hole is short, it will be attacked with short and medium irons, which means divots... lots of divots. Too often tees on such holes are no larger than normal, which is a fatal design error. When the tees are "normal size", the tee never has time to recover, so it is in poor condition much of the year and the shots into the green are always similar.... BORING! In the north, where the golf season can be all year, there is limited growth during the winter season... which means poor conditions come springtime.
If a club feels the tee is too big, it can always cut it smaller, but going back and building a larger tee is always a pain in the ass. It means closing the tee, waiting 12 to 20 weeks for it to grow-in, and usually the club is being pestered by members to open the damn thing and they do... weeks too early, creating another set of problems. I've seen it happen over and over.
For the ladies, there is a tee set along the bank of the pond. (For a related post about the placement of the Ladies Tee, click here: http://guthahuesgolf.blogspot.com/2010/12/about-ladies.html).
Tony Ristola
www.agolfarchitect.com
agolfarchitect@yahoo.com
+1(909) 581 0080
