Just played a round here,
Jeb_LaZagna . I appreciated your publish of The Bull, which is nearby me here in America's Dairyland, so I thought I'd offer some feedback on your new one. I have visited Wind Cave National Park, and really love that area.
Played blue tees, Pin 3, high winds (north), default conditions otherwise.
Hole 1: bunker sculpting is fine, maybe a tad uneven. The textures used are also fine, but the brighter green against the brown is a bit bold. Not a major issue, but not my personal favorite. I drove to the middle of the fairway, 239 yards from the hole, and have no indication of where the green or the layup area are from here. Planting is kind of sparse.
Hole 2: not sure I'm ever going right, unless the wind is high and blowing right at my face. I can reach the left side with ease I'd imagine in most occasions.
Hole 3: the massive false front here is kind of brutal. It's a 200-plus-yard par-3, and there's no way to use the ground game to hit a long iron or hybrid up to the putting surface. Luckily, my pin here is on the back part of the green, which is large and allows for some roll. But if there's a pin just beyond the false front, and I assume there would be, you will have a real hard time getting one close.
Hole 4: I like this hole...I do wish we could see the massive bunker to the left side of the fairway off the tee.
Hole 5: hit a good tee shot with driver on this one, and got rolled into rough near the left fairway bunkers. Kind of penal on a 500-yard par-4. Thankfully it's light rough and I got out of it with no issue.
Hole 6: seems the two center line bunkers here are shapes dropped down? They have the odd rough strip around them. The previous centerline bunker was splined and did not have that rough. Pin location here is not my favorite. Even though this is a short-4, I couldn't hold the green with a pitch as there are yellow slopes 6 feet beyond the hole that rolled my shot into light rough.
Hole 7: not bad at all...pin is kind of in an odd spot, where the green changes from back to front, to front to back.
Hole 8: I think this one's fine.
Hole 9: this is the third par-3 of the front 9, and two have been more than 200 yards long. I've hit the same club into them both. The third one is 185, so it's only a club or so down from that. I also feel this green style has been done a time or two before: left side slopes toward the middle, and the right side slopes off into a bunker.
Hole 10: this hole is good...had a beneficial wind that allowed me to reach in two.
Hole 11: another fine hole, although I am feeling green sizes are slightly too big. This is a short-4, and has a pretty big putting surface.
Hole 12: fairway bunkers are not really visible from the tee. Other than that, another fine hole.
Hole 13: apparently this is the controversial one...I really don't see a huge problem with it. I hit driver to the fairway, had an 80-yard pitch I hit to 4 feet, and made birdie. Perfect hole, if you ask me!
Hole 14: a shorter par-3 at 150 yards, so that's welcome. Again, I feel greens are a bit too large. I'm also noticing more and more of these really dramatic false fronts on the greens.
Hole 15: these centerline bunkers again look like shapes dropped down, as they have the rough around the edge. Also, the play is always to the right of the centerline hazards...the fairway seems narrow enough at driver distance where the hazard there is not really needed. Anything over 290 off the tee clears it anyway.
Hole 16: personally, I feel there are too many greens with red sloped false fronts. This is another. The hole itself is fine...feels like a reversed version of one of the par-5s on the front 9, even though this is a par-4.
Hole 17: odd rough around the centerline hazard again...it's there in some spots, but there are areas around it where there is no rough, too. Another massive false front, too - I hit a pitch left of the pin, it found slopes, and rolled back 25 yards off the green.
Hole 18: was easily able to avoid centerline bunkers by playing right. Green here is again way too large, IMO.
Overall: the centerline bunker technical work was interesting. On Hole 1, you had a centerline hazard with no rough around it...then every one after that had the strip of rough to some degree. Greens here are very large. The par-3s, aside from the one that was 150 yards, had very little variation (they were 185-215 yards in length, which was either a 5 or 6 iron).
I love the setting...although I do wish the planting was a bit more impactful. There really wasn't any undergrowth or anything like that. Just some grasses, ferns, and trees. I think it fits the location, but some more attention to it could have really made it pop.
I just want to be clear - this whole write-up will seem "negative". But the thing is, I think this course is right on the cusp of being something special. The hole variation, the setting, the layout - it's all there. But there are some things I feel could have been done to really make this a stunner.
Bunker sculpting seemed uneven in spots. The light rough texture was kind of inconsistent around the fairways. Greens were a bit large, and centerline hazards were hit and miss. I'd also maybe pull back on using false fronts with 20-30 feet of red slope.
All that said, this is a fun, well-executed course that should see some play. I think your next one will be a killer!
Great work!
Given that it's a short par 5, I wanted to have some kind of subtle twist to it. It's the 1st hole, so the landing area is large and forgiving, but the safe shot in the middle is blind. The open angles to the green (which is almost always reachable in 2 from the fairway) are on the left-hand side past the 1st centerline bunker and along the right side hugging the fairway bunker.