PreviousThe prettiest golf holes
WHAT-TO-DO - NASSAU, CABLE BEACH & PARADISE ISLAND - JAN 2005
The prettiest golf holes
Best of the best
It?s surprising how often par threes are listed as the ?signature? holes on golf courses. A prime example is the famed 17th at Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, which hosts the PGA?s annual Tournament Players Championship.
The hole is only 130 yards or so to an island green, but it gives even top professional golfers fits ? if the wind carries the ball past the green, blows it sideways or knocks it down short, it?s an automatic bogie, or worse.
At the Radisson Cable Beach course in Nassau, golf pro Richie Gibson picks the fourth hole, a short par three, as the course?s signature, although some players would dispute this. Hole 14 is favoured by some as the most memorable. It also is a par three over water.
Little room for error
?The fourth hole is only a pitching wedge or a nine iron to the green,? says Gibson, although he concedes that some novices might be more comfortable with a longer club, up to a seven iron. ?It?s just a pretty hole to look at, not too difficult. You have to carry a pond in front and there?s a bunker guarding the left side of the green.?
However, there?s not much room for error. Hit it long and you?re in the bush; short and its in the water; left it?s in the sand; too far right you are in a canebrake. If you are on the green, there?s a chance for birdie, but the green slopes towards the water and there are subtle rolls and breaks on all of Cable Beach?s greens.
Perhaps the most famous or infamous signature hole in the world is the 7th at Pebble Beach, California. It?s only a little over 100 yards downhill, but there is trouble everywhere. And when the wind howls in from the Pacific, even good golfers have been known to hit a long club into the postage-stamp sized green.
Long par four
The signature hole at the Ocean Club, as picked by pro T J Bagett, is also hole number four, but in this case it?s a rather long par four.
?It?s a slightly downhill dogleg right that typically plays into a strong prevailing wind. There?s a large bunker on the right side of the fairway, sort of an ?aiming bunker.??
The second shot is really the demanding shot of the hole, says Bagett. ?It requires a lot of accuracy. The green is protected by the ocean on the right and a large bunker on the left. Good players will hit a mid-iron into the hole.?
While anyone can play at Cable Beach, Ocean Club is reserved for guests at the Atlantis resort complex. However, Atlantis owner, Kerzner International, plans to create a new links-type course on Athol Island by 2006, just to the east of Paradise Island, and it will be open to all golfers.
Another public course, South Ocean golf course, in south-western New Providence, is scheduled to undergo extensive renovations.
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