“All Great Golf Holes Involve A Contest of Wit and Risk”
-John Laing Low

It was a good sports day yesterday. The Whatever They’re Calling It Now at the Riviera is a favorite tournament of mine, and the Super Bowl is always a big event.

The Riviera’s Tournament doesn’t always attract the biggest names, but I love to watch because I love the course. It looks terrific on television, and the camera shots of the finishing hole, in particular have left a great impression on me. You also can’t beat that clubhouse.

Looks aside, the Riviera attracts my attention because of the strategic thinking it requires. The announcers never tire of pointing out how architect George Thomas created a course with lots of strategic options, and opportunities for risk and reward. And they’re right. Thomas himself once wrote:

The spirit of golf is to dare a hazard, and by negotiating it, reap a reward.

The 315 yard par 4 tenth at Riviera is a great example. It’s drivable by many—if not most—tour players, and an Eagle is a real possibility. But so is a double bogey. Put the ball on the wrong side, and you’re toast. Rocco Mediate said:

“If you miss anywhere to the right, you can’t put the ball anywhere on the green from 50 yards. If you hit it in the right greenside bunker, it’s hard to keep it on the green. Even with a sand wedge in your hand you are going, ‘Man, where do I hit this?’ And if you hit it off line, it’s over. Remember, the green is maybe six to eight steps deep.”

Nicklaus has called this one of the best par fours in golf.

The short par 5 first is another fine example. Starting on a tee that’s 75 feet above the fairway, it seems easy but for an out of bounds left and a gully crossing the fairway. Those design elements are what makes a player think twice before pulling out the driver. As with the fourth, an eagle is possible, but so is a nine.

Both of these punish aggressive play and make recovery difficult. Whereas lesser designers try to protect their courses with additional yardage, Thomas made the space between the ears the most important distance at Riviera.

With a bunker in the middle of the green, the par 3 sixth is as famous as any hole in golf. It’s humorous, but also a great strategic element. Hit to the wrong side, and you’re facing a very difficult putt - or even a chip from the green. In this, it reminds me of the whimsical, but deadly design of the University of Michigan’s Alistair MacKenzie design sixth.

It’s these sort of design elements that makes Riviera such a refreshing change from so many of the PGA Tour venues.

The Riviera Country Club is one of two or three courses on my bucket list. All I need is an invite and I’m there.

Indiana University Golf Course Review

Grade: B
Teacher’s Comments: It’s essentially a municipal course, owned and operated by Indiana University. Nice enough, but it was in very poor condition on the day I played.

This past summer I was able to sneak out of Boy Scout Camp near Bloomington, Indiana to play the Indiana University Golf Course. It’s a nice course, but somewhat short of the standards set by the University of Michigan’s “Blue” and Michigan State University’s Forest Akers, the other Big 10 courses I have played. The word that keeps coming back to me is ordinary.

In fact, overall, the course has the feel of a nice municipal, on a par, perhaps with Ann Arbor’s Leslie Park or Jackson’s Cascades. It’s cheap—the general public pays just $24 to walk—and open to all. I simply walked up, and walked on. The first couple of tees were jammed, so the starter drove me out to the tenth and I started there. Very friendly.

The muni feel was reinforced for me by the old timers with whom I was paired. By their account, there aren’t a lot of courses in the area, and the U’s track is the local favorite. Ahead of us were a guy and his elderly mother hacking their way around; ahead of them were two groups of women who apparently were Wednesday morning regulars. You don’t see that sort of thing at the University of Michigan’s course.

An interesting story I got from the two guys I played with: Apparently a few years ago, Indiana University toyed with the idea of taking some spare acreage and building a semi-private course for the athletes and faculty with a big name designer. The idea was shot down by the conscientious citizens of Indiana. They apparently weren’t going to put up taxpayer dollars for a course that wasn’t open to all.

Good for them.

So the old course remains.

The Indiana University course plays to a par 71, thanks to a par 35 back nine with eight fours and a three. It’s not short, though; from the blues, it’s 6,813 yards. It also has a relatively unusual layout in that the ninth does not return to the clubhouse. That’s because a few years ago, the original clubhouse was abandoned, and a new one built. The new location required a change in the routing so that the tee nearest the new facility was designated as the first.

The eight par fours on the back make it a hard course for The GolfBlogger. I simply don’t have the length to hit driver-short iron into a long four. To score well, I have to take advantage of the threes, and fives (driver, three wood, short iron). But even the threes at Indiana University were tough, measuring 226, 210 and 218 from the back. I had to hit a three wood into all of them.

From start to finish, the course is hilly, tree-lined and demands accuracy. Compounding the difficulty are the numerous dog legs, and several blind shots. But if you hit the ball straight, you won’t find any real trouble. I suspect that once familiar with the course, decent players can really go low on this track.

I heard another interesting story about the building of the course—confirmed by the school’s website. It was constructed on University land in 1954 from a design by former IU golf coach Jim Soutar. Soutar was traditional in the design of his layout, finding the holes as dictated by the land, apparently moving very little dirt or trees. Soutar would walk the land and sketch out his ideas, when then were detailed by University draftsmen. The entire course was built for $175,000, with former coordinator of Indiana University’s athletic facilities, Paul “Pooch” Harrell often manning a bulldozer.

Best of all: not a dime of taxpayer money was used, with all expenses paid by University student fees.

At the height of summer, the course was not in good shape. Terrible is a better description. Grass in the fairways was alternatively dead from too much water in low spots or from a lack of water in the high and rough. Greens were patchy.

Still, I had fun. And it gave me an idea for another GolfBlogger series: Courses of the Big Ten. I’m definitely going to have to get to Columbus next year.

You can see a photo tour of the Indiana University Golf Course here.

I got it into my mind to create a list of Halloween-Themed and scary golf course names. Here are a few I’ve come up with, but I’d really appreciate your contributions.

Pumpkin Ridge (Oregon)
Purgatory Golf Club (Indiana)
The Devil’s Claw (Arizona)
The Blue Monster (Florida)
The Monster (New York)
Hell’s Point (Virginia)
Devil’s Lake (Michigan)
The Dream and The Nightmare (Michigan)
Sleepy Hollow (Ohio, New York, West Virginia, Kentucky, Alaska)

Sublime is the only appropriate word to describe Arcadia Bluffs golf course.

Set high on bluffs overlooking Lake Michigan, it’s a links golf fantasy. Sand, dunes, scrub and wind define this course. But there’s also something more—dramatic elevation changes that challenge your sense of distance. With 3,100 feet of Lake Michigan shoreline, every hole at Arcadia Bluffs has a view of the inland sea. The course is beautiful. Unreal.

I played Arcadia Bluffs twice in less than 24 hours: once at twilight in a calm with the sun setting over the lake, and again the next morning under cloudy skies and in a furious wind. The difference was compelling. I think you could play this course a hundred times and still not unlock it’s mysteries.

Designed by Warren Henderson and Rick Smith, the layout is tough, but fair. There are hazards aplenty, but the fairways are wide, and from the correct angles, the approaches are easy. The course rewards planning, shotmaking, and creativity. At every instance, I had to think carefully about what I planned to do, for the designers clearly left good and bad strategies for every hole. And those strategies change with the shifting of the winds.

I played well on both days, but worked as hard as I ever have on a golf course.

The par five third is a good example of the top notch design. Here, a sharply elevated tee faces the lake. On my evening round, the wind was calm, and I was able to carry a mound and waste area left, play a solid second to just below the elevated green, then use a wedge to lob it up. In the morning, that strategy clearly wasn’t going to work. In the face of a 30 mile-an-hour wind, I couldn’t carry the trouble left. There is, however, an out—a much wider and closer landing area right. I aimed there, but even with a strong swing didn’t go very far. At that point, I realized that a three wood would risk putting me into a couple of fairway bunkers positioned center right. I laid up short of those, even though it left me a long iron away from the green. Again, the wind prevented a direct approach to the green; if it fell short (as was likely) my ball would fall into a steep trap. Fortunately, Henderson and Smith left yet another out. The fairway splits at those bunkers into an upper and lower tier. The upper tier runs straight and flat into the green. So I hit a short iron up to the upper level, then pitched toward the green.

I ultimately took a seven on that hole, but very much appreciated the way the designers offered options at every point. And indeed, every hole offers a myriad of choices. There always seemed to be risky options, safe approaches and a dozen ways to play each hole. The key is assessing what you can do, and what club you’ll need depending upon the weather.

My favorite hole (and it is very hard to pick a favorite) was the par four tenth. It starts on an elevated tee, facing the lake and then threads its way down a winding ravine before rising again to an elevated green. In ideal conditions, the tee shot will carry a rise extending into the ravine and land in the wide expanse of fairway beyond. A pole on the ridge provides an aiming point. On both days, I was able to lob my tee shot over that point. If I had missed short or left, it would have cost me an extra shot. On the second shot, it all depends upon distance and angle. With an approach from the left, you face an abyss of a bunker, with a sheer greenside face that has to be twenty feet tall. From the right, the approach is easier, as the fairway leads smoothly, though steeply upward to the green.

If you’re left and long—as I was on both days—the choice is painful (as you can see from the photo on the right). I could try to make the green, but risk hitting the bunker face, or play right and take an extra shot chipping it up to the flag. I tried both. Even with no wind in the evening, I fell short and had to play the bunker shot of my life to get out of that monstrosity. On the second day, with the wind roaring up the ‘holler, I headed right, then had to pitch it up to the hole. I shot a five on both days.

Another memorable hole is the 190 yard par 3 thirteenth (third photo, left). Running parallel to, and adjacent to the lake, the tee is situated on one side of a 200 foot deep ravine, while the green sits on a narrow strip on the other side. It’s the one hole on the course that really doesn’t have an out. If you’re going to miss, it had better be slightly long, and into the backing mound. With the elevation, the chasm and a high wind, it’s just this side of terrifying.

The wind was both fun and frustrating. I hit a 370 yard drive on one hole (as measured by my gps) hitting with the wind, and a perfectly struck 120 yard drive on another into it. I swear that at one point, the ball was heading straight back in my direction.

I would love to see photos of the land before the course was built. The entire thing looks so natural that I have a hard time believing that there was much in the way of earth moving. Holes follow what appear to be entirely natural land forms, winding behind dunes, down ravines and over mounds. The elevation changes are often so dramatic that they could only be the results of natural processes. The natural look also extends to the bunkers, waste areas and rough. It all gives the impression that Arcadia Bluffs was found, rather than built.

I’d also love to be able see how the course has changed fifty or a hundred years from now. I suspect that many of those sandy dunes will have shifted with the winds, creating an entirely new look.

Course conditions on the days I played were immaculate. The staff was friendly. Pace of play was excellent. The clubhouse food was tasty.

Arcadia Bluffs also is walkable, which sets it apart from many other high-end courses. With the elevation changes, the trek is not always easy, but a reasonably fit person can—and should—give it a go.

I can’t wait to go back next year. And the next. And the next.

You can see more course photos here.