Post by Brighttail on Oct 21, 2015 8:57:59 GMT -5
Hey all I'm crossing the pond this week for this tournament. Well I would normally be crossing it anyway to get to Malaysia if I was playing the PGA, but I think the Czech Republic is nice this time of year.
Timberlake has been a favourite of mine since I played it on the HB community play day. At first it seems ridiculously easy, but after the first 5 or 6 holes this course shows how picking your spots really matters. It isn't a hard course, I think i hit all the Greens in regulation except 1 during my last round, but the greens are well contoured with a mix of subtle breaks to massive slopes. Picking your spot on the green may seem easy but unless you can stick it, you still have to roll to where you want to go and often times the spot you want to get to has some hills and breaks in the way. If you do manage to get it within 10-15 feet, often times you still have a putt that breaks a lot or multiple times.
The fairways are fair and while you have to be creative on some tee shots, it isn't tweakish target golf. If you need to take a lesser club you can do so safely and with some of the doglegs this is the wise decision, lest you find yourself in the heavy rough or worse behind a tree. The course is also absolutely gorgeous.
While I have seen scores of -15 on it, if the winds are up, -6 to -8 would be a good score. To me this is how you make a great course:
- wide fairways with a few choke points at the end of where a driver will land, thus forcing a great drive or offering a bail out option.
- creative doglegs which offer risk/reward options depending on the wind
- medium/fast greens with a variety of slopes and minor undulations to make putting challenging but not impossible
- creative hole layouts, I love the par 5 with the second shot some 60 feet above the fairway
- a fair layer of light rough that will penalize a slightly off shot but not to the point where you have to be dead perfect or end up in the heavy rough
- the ability to fire at pins while still needing to be creative and require skill to be on the correct side of the pin for a reasonable birdie putt
Well done and can't wait.
Timberlake has been a favourite of mine since I played it on the HB community play day. At first it seems ridiculously easy, but after the first 5 or 6 holes this course shows how picking your spots really matters. It isn't a hard course, I think i hit all the Greens in regulation except 1 during my last round, but the greens are well contoured with a mix of subtle breaks to massive slopes. Picking your spot on the green may seem easy but unless you can stick it, you still have to roll to where you want to go and often times the spot you want to get to has some hills and breaks in the way. If you do manage to get it within 10-15 feet, often times you still have a putt that breaks a lot or multiple times.
The fairways are fair and while you have to be creative on some tee shots, it isn't tweakish target golf. If you need to take a lesser club you can do so safely and with some of the doglegs this is the wise decision, lest you find yourself in the heavy rough or worse behind a tree. The course is also absolutely gorgeous.
While I have seen scores of -15 on it, if the winds are up, -6 to -8 would be a good score. To me this is how you make a great course:
- wide fairways with a few choke points at the end of where a driver will land, thus forcing a great drive or offering a bail out option.
- creative doglegs which offer risk/reward options depending on the wind
- medium/fast greens with a variety of slopes and minor undulations to make putting challenging but not impossible
- creative hole layouts, I love the par 5 with the second shot some 60 feet above the fairway
- a fair layer of light rough that will penalize a slightly off shot but not to the point where you have to be dead perfect or end up in the heavy rough
- the ability to fire at pins while still needing to be creative and require skill to be on the correct side of the pin for a reasonable birdie putt
Well done and can't wait.