![]() ![]() ![]() Sixteen through 18, playing back and forth across a former pasture cut by Betty McGee’s Creek, are similarly confined to a tight area but because of the land’s openness they don’t feel as restricted. In this case you can, and the aggressive play shortens the hole and opens up the best angle to the green. Where do you drive the ball? The high-low fairway option is more clear upon closer inspection. Can you trust that he’s accommodated for your courage if you take the hard line? This is the view on the par-4 10th. The 10th presents first a confrontation - what the hell is this? - then a question - can you trust what you see? Gamble a shot over the wall or play left to the safer, more visible but longer fairway? It’s a fascinating visual dilemma where Strantz is testing not just your faith in your own ability but more importantly your faith in him. The routing of holes 10-13 in a low, flood-prone section of the property is especially strained, though the par-4 10th is elemental Strantz design.ĭriving from an elevated tee, the fairway - what you can make of it - is bifurcated high/low, with the upper level hidden behind a rock wall about 220 yards away before it cascades into a massive, multi-level green. It’s a butchered routing that produces holes like the sharply uphill par-4 9th with a blind, narrow skyline green that’s much too small for the shot played to it. ![]() In a number of places the routing gets stuck with holes that feel wedged in and stolen from the land, and there’s far too much backtracking from green to tee for this course to be exceptional. It would be difficult to envision golf holes on this dark, rather remote property if they didn’t already exist. More monochromatic and rigid, the holes are laid out through heavy forest and several pastures on an incredibly rocky and uneven site straddling the Uwharrie National Forest. Tot Hill Farm is sculpture too, though in this case done in hard stone, with hammer and chisel. The green at the par-3 13th offers numerous levels, including this near impossible pin placement on a tiny, protected left shelf. The spacious site, pliable sand soils and healthy construction budget allowed Strantz to mold and massage the features like a sculpture in luxuriant clay. Though they share similar DNA, including the aspects listed above, the courses illustrate how outcomes can vary dramatically based on different projects, properties and budgets.įor all the idiosyncracy, Tobacco Road still looks like the golf courses we see lustily objectified in magazines with long dune grasses of contrasting textures and colors, choppy blowout bunkers and voluptuous ground movement - along with some jarring non-sequiturs. Two of the nine courses Strantz designed or re-designed before he died in 2005 are in North Carolina: Tot Hill Farm and Tobacco Road. The golf courses of Mike Strantz, designer of Tot Hill Farm, should come with signs cautioning this is unordinary golf recommended for players open to new experiences and appreciative of artistic license and no small amount of rub o’ the green. If they don’t, then this stuff will drive them mad.Ī famous sign posted at Bethpage warns that the Black course is extremely difficult golf and recommended only for “highly skilled” players. If they do, the disguised and oddly shaped fairways won’t bother them, nor will all the rocks and boulders, nor will the curiously oblong putting surfaces that melt like American cheese over the hilly landscapes. Hopefully people playing Tot Hill Farm outside of Raleigh know what they’re getting into. The par-3 15th gives a full taste of Tot Hill Farm’s rocky, forested property. ![]()
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