Walker Cup: 3 holes that will shape outcome
The biennial Walker Cup Matches set up shop this
weekend at historic National Golf Links of America
in Southampton, N.Y. In returning to the site of the
first Walker Cup in 1922, the event will
showcase match play on one of the quirkiest and
most interesting of American layouts.
NGLA was designed and built by pioneer course
architect Charles Blair Macdonald, with help from his
protégé, Seth Raynor. Their intent was to adapt
classic British and European holes, which they did
on a sandy, scrubby, windswept parcel of Long
Island’s South Fork alongside Great Peconic Bay.
Immediately upon its debut in 1911, it was hailed as
a living-museum piece and became a shrine for
architects looking to study the history of golf course
design.
Ranked No. 4 on Golfweek’s Best Classic Courses
list, the par-72, 6,995-yard NGLA is a riotous
concatenation of bunkering, extreme slopes and
enormous putting surfaces that average 10,000
square feet. The result is akin to a Surrealist
Manifesto of golf design, where the exaggerated
contours are most compelling. Some of it is playful,
some of it absurd. All of it will challenge these
amateurs during two mornings of alternate-shot
matches and two afternoons of singles play.
Among NGLA's more interesting holes:
No. 4, Redan, par 3, 194 yards
Rare is the copy that’s better than the original, but
NGLA’s fourth hole really is an adaptation of the
much-emulated 15th at North Berwick in Scotland.
The key here is a huge green that’s tipped right
to left and front to back, falling away 6 feet from
beginning to end. A huge cross bunker short of a
hill defends the front of the putting surface, and a
yawningly deep bunker protects the entire left
side. For all the attention on that bunker from the
tee, the right side is actually the most ingeniously
shaped, thanks to an up-and-over falloff into sand so
deep that it leaves you seeing nothing but sky
on your recovery. The prevailing wind, from the
southwest, holds approach shots a bit out to the
right, making it difficult to work the ball close if the
hole is cut back left. The ideal shot is to land an
iron shot on the front edge or just short and let the
slope take the ball the rest of the way.
No. 14, Cape, par 4, 391 yards
This seemingly short dogleg right – a Macdonald
original, not a copy – plays into a prevailing
crosswind from the left and can cause havoc given
the complex nature of each landing area. The
drive must carry a lagoon and flirt with a Bullhead
Bay, leading to a tendency to hit it long or a touch
left and run through the fairway into rough, broken
ground. From there, the green juts out as if at
the tip of hazard-laden peninsula (the “Cape” effect)
that includes a steep falloff, a marsh pond and
bunkering that runs the gamut from a massive wrap
around waste hazard behind to tiny dollops up
front that pinch possible run-up space. With the basic
rule in alternate shot being to keep it in play
so your teammate can play his next shot,
conservativeness likely will rule each morning.
However,
there should be moments of bolder play in the
afternoon, particularly if the ground remains firm
and
the wind holds off or shifts and blows from tee to
green. In that case, the hole is nearly drivable – at
considerable risk, of course – though it’s a calculated
one for a long hitter who is two or three holes
down.
No. 18, Home, par 5, 501 yards
This hole is easily reachable in two, but at some
danger given all the trouble on a routing that plays
uphill and straight into a prevailing headwind. The
shorter path to the green from the tee starts with
a long shot over a deep bunker on the left that
requires a 265-yard carry, often into that headwind.
For those finding the rough, a pitch out back to the
fairway is not an automatic thing given the
pinched nature of the intermediate fairway, the
proliferation of sand and the manner in which the
right side of the upper fairway tumbles up a cliff into
Great Peconic Bay. As for the green, it sits
exposed to the elements on an infinity edge, with a
long, safe runway of firm ground down the
middle for a bounding approach. However, it is
defined sharply by hazardous ground on both sides,
whether sand (left) or the bluff (right). There is a
great contrivance of the elements here, both
natural in the shape of the landforms and artificial in
that the hole passes directly in front of NGLA’s
iconic clubhouse.
ABOUT THE The Walker Cup
The Walker Cup Match is a biennial 10-man
amateur
team competition between the USA and a team
composed of players from Great Britain and
Ireland
and selected by The R&A. It is played over two
days
with 18 singles matches and eight foursomes
(alternate-shot) matches.
The first United States Walker Cup Team, which
in
1922 defeated the GB&I side, 8-4, at the
National Golf
Links of America, is considered among the best
teams
ever and included Francis Ouimet, Bob Jones,
Charles
“Chick” Evans and Jess Sweetser. Many of the
game’s
greatest players have taken part in Walker Cup
competition, including U.S. Open champions
Jack
Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Jordan Spieth for
the
USA
and Graeme McDowell, Rory McIlroy and Justin
Rose
for Great Britain and Ireland.
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