That Shackelford guy is at it again, this time posting flyover videos of each hole at Pinehurst No. 2 in anticipation of the forthcoming back-to-back U.S. Opens. For your humble blogger it's a nice trip down memory lane, as Maggot, Colin King, Big Break Anthony and I won the National Country Club Championship there last October.
Shack is posting one hole a day through the Sunday prior to Open week, but your humble blogger is far to lazy for that and will post three or four at a time (yardages are from the U.S. Open scorecard, a course measuring 7,495 yards).
No. 1 - Par 4 - 406 Yards: A relatively gentle opener, most players will likely lay back as the fairway starts to pinch some 225-250 yards off the tee.
Shack makes a good point that this layup area is where we should expect to see issues with the accumulation of divots, the brunt of which would likely be experienced by the ladies.
No. 2 - Par 4 - 503 Yards: A long 4-par awaits the lads here, though the combination of firm fairways (fingers crossed) and the hole playing slightly downhill will make it play shorter. There's a slight pinching of the fairway at about 300 yards off the tee, so despite the scorecard length we'll have to see how many drivers are employed.
Shack nominates this green as one worthy of a deflation, though is good enough to link to Ran Morrissett's review of No. 2 at Golf Club Atlas in which he takes a different view:
Tom Watson considers this one of the best second holes in the world, and he is not alone. To achieve so much character on essentially flat land is an amazing design accomplishment and one wonders why this green complex has never been emulated elsewhere on sandy soil. Local golf course architect Richard Mandell has had plenty of opportunity to study No.2 and says in admiration, ‘What I like about the greens at No. 2 is the way Ross doesn’t just simply open up the putting surface to the middle of the fairway or even to the same spot on each golf hole. He constantly mixes it. For example, the best angle to approach the putting surface of the second green is the far left side of the fairway. A golfer’s instinct is to take the shorter route to gain an advantage and that is the right side in this case. It will take the golfer fifty tries to realize the shorter route is the wrong side to approach the green from. When people talk about the subtleties of No. 2, that is a perfect example: Beating your head against the wall multiple times to figure out that isn’t the way to play a certain shot.
This hole played the hardest in the 2005 U.S. Open, averaging 4.5 strokes. I see no appeal to approaching this hole from the right side of the fairway, but given it's length we take what we're given. There's not a player in the field that wouldn't gladly take four pars before teeing it up.
No. 3 - Par 4 - 389 Yards: This is a great short Par 4, one that Mike Davis will likely consider moving tees up to induce the guys (and gals) to go for. Though for the record, Shack likes it better at full scorecard yardage:
This is Shack's nominee for most improved hole from the Coore-Crenshaw restoration, as it was previously just a sea of green from the tee with no definition at all.
As I recall, even with a short-iron in hand one need to conservative with the approach shot, as there is a vertical fall-off at the back of the green. Maggot actually putted a ball off this green in our final round, and had absolutely no chance coming back. I, on the other hand, hit the longest 4-wood of my life off the tee, which only served to reach that waste area that pinches in from the right. Not a good spot, but fortunately Colin and AC had our backs on this hole.
Moire to Shack's point above about the Coore-Crenshaw restoration, take a look at these before and after photos from Golf Course Histories:
These are of the first hole, and the restored sandy waste areas effectively define the lines of play from the tee. No. 1 wasn't by any stretch the worst, because here there were at least the fairway bunkers to guide the player. But on a hole such as No. 3, even the lines of the fairway were hard to make out. It had unfortunately become a dreadfully boring golf course from tee to green, mercifully restored to its rightful place in the game.
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