Whiskey Creek, located in Maryland, is one of numerous upscale courses to have been birthed in a rural setting and employed a minimalist approach to architecture, allowing the holes to follow the contours of the land, and bolstering the layout with supreme conditions. Unfortulately, while the premise succeeds at other courses in the area, particularly Worthington Manor, Whiskey runs dry (I couldn't resist).
A links style topography succeeds by following the elevation changes to some extent, but allowing for playability by providing sightlines that frame the nuances of a hole and avoid excessive blind shots or forced carries. WC employs elevation changes on every hole, taking a concept vital to the layout and making it redundant.
Holes #1, #2, #6, #10, #17 all were uphill par-4s which required semi-blind approaches with an abbreviated swing. Being my first time at WC, I was disappointed I had approaces with no knowledge of the countours of the greens or hidden hazards/traps that could be easily reached or served as collection areas.
Additionally, while the course conditions were excellent, the greens were slow, which I reason was due to an attempt to keep decent playability while under the duress of 150-200 daily rounds. Had the greens been cut shorter, more unfixed ball marks would have been exposed. Unfortunately, in addition to being slow, the greens were inconsistent, as shaded areas led to slower putts.
As heralded as the 18th is at WC, holes of greater shot value were #8 and #12. #8 is a shortish par-4 that sweeps downhill to the left and has a landing area that shrinks as the distance increases. From the landing area the player receives a view of the green in its entirety, and must avoid a fronting bunker and mounding long to reach the putting surface. #12 is another dogleg left, but differs in that the drive cannot be hit with a Driver, as a creek juts across the fairway from right-to-left at a 45' angle 300 yards out, and the tee shot is downhill. A long iron leaves an apprach to a somewhat elevated green, separated from the fairway by a hollow, and two tiered, requiring an exacting shot from 180-150 yards for a makeable attempt at birdie.
WC has a good premise, but fails in the execution.
2 comments:
Please don't tell me that these new courses you play have all 18 holes named. That's a trend I'm seeing. "Sanctuary". "Round the Bend". What a waste of freaking time.
You bring up a fantastic point. An absolute waste of time/effort. If holes are going to be named, I suggest they carry a common theme:
1.) Sexual positions ("I couldn't carry the hazard and made double bogey on 'One in the Stink'").
2.) Villanized sports figures, with the hole number possibly matching the jersey number (although that would rule out Roy Tarpley, unless holes were numbered sequentially on a three course complex).
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