As we are approaching late April, I am starting to get the golf bug again. The mild winter mixed with some great pseudo fall weather here in Central Ohio has me excited for the next couple of months. With this nice weather I was looking to get a tee time for this upcoming weekend, the availability is good, but not at Raymond. As I type this on a Monday morning, the first available foursome is 1:47 PM for Sunday.
With the imbalance of demand to supply, golf courses currently have the same the dilemma as corporations, keep the gravy train moving, where we have good cash flow and stay in maintenance mode, or invest the time now for multiple returns later. With that parallel I asked the following questions around this renovation.
Do I think that the value to the consumer will be increased by this change? Uh yeah.
Do I think that the ROI is worth it? Maybe. I think it would be interesting to further dive deep into that also understanding when they need to redo their irrigation as they will need to rip up the turf anyway.
Additionally, the the moment is now to be investing in this - off the heels of Fred Ridley announcing that Augusta National Golf Club is hiring top flight architects in redoing the Augusta Municipal Golf Course, affectionately called "The Patch", it is only a matter of years until this municipal course renaissance will be the next "resort short course" phenomenon (Arcadia Bluffs just announced a 12 hole course this Monday morning coming in 2025).
Okay enough of my soap boxing on why it would be great and why Columbus should do it, lets get into holes 4-6! These holes do traverse existing holes of 6-8, but take advantage of the property better. Below is the current routing of the holes, the topo and the new routing.
This area is pronounced by hole 6 and 7 going up and down the longest hill on the course, respectively. The 8th hole is on a flatter table with a little bit of west to east downhill grade. I find this part of the property really underutilized, so I think that really agnostic of the other updates, this is a small update that can make the property better and can be done independently as it will not impeded on any other areas of the course.
Hole 4: Par 4 - 375 Yards
This current hole is a head scratcher as a 460 yard slightly uphill par 5. With a somewhat artificial tight drive to easily carry a small stream, this shot enables anyone to be able to drive the green on their second shot to a two tiered large green. In an effort to modernize this for the modern game, and free up more space for hole 3, I decided to move the tees up and make this a par 4.
The tee box being pushed up will enable some trees to be removed from 100 yards in, as before those trees were abundant and protecting the longer more errant shot from golfers on the adjacent tee box. Some trees will remain for safety purposes, but it will be more open and show some sight lines in this busy area on the courses (3 greens and 3 tee boxes clutter that area of the course). Also the three tiered green can really tick up the difficulty, with the middle tier being the easiest, then the front, then the back right being the hardest. What used to be an easy par can now be a difficult par based on pin placement.
Also another thing that is in here is a halfway house. With the update to the practice area this will be one place with a bar/snack area and bathrooms that can be used by both 9s.
Hole 5: Par 4 - 474 Yards
This hole was one of the other holes that would always frustrate me. Given how the current fairway cants, it encourages you to avoid the speed slot that the hill provides as you will get the ball into the rough and potentially behind a tree, on a flat piece of property too. To compensate for this, and to take advantage of the drastic drop off that borders the left side of the 3rd hole, I decided to just change the fairway lines here and redo the green. The green sits up on top of a knob, and already has this extreme back to front lip that will favor a run up shot, with long being undesirable.
Note: There is a 30 yard gap here to enable the hole to fit on one page, there is nothing in this except for the cluster of trees protecting the tee boxes.
The way that the hole will play now is the ideal line would be to play it as far as you can to the bottom of the hill as possible, with the farther right you go the closer to the hole you are, but the shallower the green is. This will favor the long hitter, but it you miss your line long, you are down the hill and playing a severe up hill shot to an open green, but a difficult shot that questions your distance control.
Also, the area that the green sits on is the perfect knob that is perfect for a punchbowl green (see crop out below). This area measured is 15,600 sq feet, so enough to build a punch bowl green and the hill will act as appropriate drainage. It will require using more of the flat side in the bottom left of this picture but the right side of the green, which will require some trees to be removed around that green.
This hole will be hard, because of its length, but nothing will be cooler than the anticipation of the blind approach to see where your approach shot ended up.
Hole 6: Par 3 - 230 Yards
Cresting up the hill there is relatively flat land that occupies the two greens of the existing 8th hole. The current 8th hole (well at least the northern hole) gives me Biarritz light feel every time I play it, with two existing bunkers flanking both sides of the green, with a skinny guitar pick green and a bit of some undulation within the green. Towards the back of the green there is a bit of a dip, which I tried to use on a chip one time and it was not as useful as I had hoped.
Overall I think that this green used to be larger, and with normal golf course maintenance it has slowly shrunk in length and width. When thinking about this land and the green itself, I saw that there was room to move the tees back, and open up that green entrance into a classic Biarritz hole.
With the hole playing ever so slightly uphill, this hole will really challenge if the player chose the right tees. Also the large tee box can help the GC maintenance team to adjust the distance based on where the pin is located.
I love Par 3 template holes (you may see a couple more), since Par 3s at times can be really just traversing across mundane land, so when you get to that point a template is a great way to showcase some interest. Templates are also a great way to introduce golf course architecture, as someone can understand its strategic element as it is a repeatable ask from course to course (although there may be some nuance on each course, overall it is a base for the golfer to understand).
Well there is one third of the course, I think that this will be a harder section of the course, which compensates for the first three holes being easier - more to come...
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