It was a wonderful day getting back out to Pasa Tiempo after 39 years. Last time I played there was in the Western Intercollegiate 1986. I played that event 4 times in college so with a practice round and maybe playing there another 4 times randomly I’ve probably played there 20 times. I’m familiar with the golf course.
I’m going to talk a bit about the course, the changes to design and maybe with a level of maturity I would not have had as a teen or early 20 something.
Getting the obvious out of the way… I hit 15 greens in regulation… and only missed one fairway.. that being the first hole about 3 paces into the right rough. I played it as a par 71, which was the old way, shot 73, a couple three putts that were just pace related due to not playing a round in almost a year. Actually felt like I was rolling it pretty well, just pace as a bit off.
The greens were properly paced… not too fast or too slow. On a course like this I would prefer the greens be on the slower side as this would be consistent with the original intentions. People love to forget that these classic tracks built in the 1920’s 1930’s or even courses built in the 1960’s were times when the greens were MUCH slower. So putting in big undulations was a reasonable thing to do depending upon the hole, approach shot characteristics and pin placement options. Setting up Pasa Tiempo with many big undulations running at 11 or 13 on the stimp meter is just juvenile and I won’t participate in that. Today, Pasa was fine. No complaints.
The greens actually looked a bit faster to my eye than they were… my pace got better as the round went on.
Having not played in a while, my objective was to just hit fairways and greens take the birdies as they come…. only one today on the ninth hole…. but I did have a few good looks.
Playing persimmon and blades (1951 Tommy Armour Silver Scott 985’s) I’ve really gravitated toward the 985’s. I feel like having played nearly every classic blade under the sun, I really like the 985’s and the MacGregor VFQ with the triangle faces. No doubt it’s really fun playing different blades from time to time and I might get back into doing that if I and find the time to start playing more golf.
Before leaving the house, I did a light set of about 10 reps of the core Hogan Modules, then once at the course, I hit a few wedges on the range just to get a feel there as it’s wedges and pitch shots that are most difficult for me when I haven’t played in a long time. I hit one driver just to see where my body was after a two and a half hour car ride down the Santa Cruz…. the ball drew a bit as my legs felt a bit lethargic so I just too took that feeling to the first tee. Drive then was slightly over compensated really making sure the toe of the club didn’t get out in front and hit the ball slightly to the right into the right rough.. just a few paces. From there, I had a good feeling the rest of the round as far as where the leading edge of the clubface was through the strike. Same with the irons… just focused on making good swings and trying for good contact.
The driver was solid all day… alternating between the driver and 2 wood. I use the 2 wood when I need to work the ball right to left.. but anything left to right is going to be the driver… because I pretty much play a lower trajectory bullet fade off the gama fire insert. The reason I hit the two wood for draws is because the extra loft gets the ball started up a bit so when it turns over it’s then got the right trajectory I like and not too low.
Now Pasa Tiempo is a pro ball strikers golf course designed for persimmon players using a higher spinning ball. This course is all about positioning the ball into the correct part of the fairway and then playing an appropriate iron shot into the green to keep the ball below the hole if possible.
When played correctly with persimmon, you will be required to hit several long irons into par 4’s. This should be embraced and enjoyed and you get to use all the clubs in your bag. Wonderful!
What I keep finding when I play a real quality golf course is how inferior the modern plastic golf balls are to the high spinning balatas. I have to keep reminding myself of this when I play because my entire career through junior, college and pro golf was played with the proper golf balls for these kind of courses…. rubber balata balls. With the modern plastic inferior golf balls, I have to remind myself that I am limited in what I can do …. so fortunately I had enough awareness of this going into the round and just had to play accordingly. I cannot shape the ball into tight pin placements with the proper trajectories that we were once able to do. It’s a horrible situation for someone like me, but it is what it is. I can still hit decent golf shots into the greens and just have to play more green centered. I can’t attack pins like with the balatas through curvature and spin. So again, knowing this, today was just hit fairways and greens and take the birdie looks when they present themselves.
With all the extreme bunkering all over the course, I stayed out of the sand for the entire round… both off the tee and into the greens…. so that was honorable I suppose.
The three greens I missed were the par 3 third hole.
The par 4 eleventh hole and the par three 18th hole.
All three of those misses were essentially the same shot. I played or aimed slightly left of the green to play away from short right big trouble.. (deep bunkers etc) Since my “miss” is usually short right based upon how I have designed my swing and set up my gear, I have to take that into consideration. Two of the shots were stuck reasonably well and basically ended up where I was aiming. The 18th I just made a bad swing, hit it a bit heavy and came up short left… but got it up and down.
Hole 3 is a long par three… playing 210 and uphill with bunkers all over the place. It’s a two iron or 1 iron shot. As the hole is playing now, I don’t care for it. Trying to come into that green with a lower trajectory long iron into an elevated green with bunkers all around.. seems a bit silly. However, I do suspect that when the hole was designed, the shot Mackenzie intended was a run up that would hit the left to right contour hit and bounce right… and then skip onto the green. I see that with the shape of the hole and there is enough opening there for it to be reasonable if you execute that shot. That is pretty much the shot I was trying to play, but now they have rough up there on the left and the ball won’t run down like I suspect it should have (intentions).
On a few of the holes, this one included, they have constructed “modern” tees way back… to try to accommodate for the super golf era.. which is just silly. This course (for a good player)… needs to play played with persimmon and blades to really get into what is being presented properly. It’s a real gem of a golf course for high end players.
The 11th hole is (was) one of the great par 4’s on the planet. Tee to green it’s a great hole.. but the redesign of the green is just a complete abomination. Coming into this green with a mid iron, or if you lay back a longer iron… you CANNOT have elephants buried into the green, especially with it being an uphill approach. The problem is that if you come into that green with a 3 or even a 4 iron and your ball hits onto backside of an elephant slope, you can’t stop the ball and it will spit your ball over the green and leave you completely dead. This is not good design, and no way was this MacKenzie’s intention. You should be rewarded for a good shot into the green with a long to mid iron… not punished because your ball hit some arbitrary down slope that was never in the original design.
I’ll show pics of this in the next post…
to flim it for you.