Today I played the Shore Course at Monterey Peninsula Country Club here in Pebble Beach CA. This club has two courses Dunes and Shore. The Dunes was originally designed by Seth Raynor in 1925 and was on the Golf Digest Top, 100 but fell off years ago. It is one of very few clubs these days that has a waiting list to join.
In 2003 Mike Strantz re- designed the Shore course and did a magnificent job. Strantz has flown under the Golf Architect radar and you may not know his name, as he spent many years as the chief designer for Tom Fazio. I first became aware of his work at Tobacco Road near Pinehurst NC which is a wonderful collection of fascinating holes. MPCC hired him, not only for his design genius but because gov’t regulation would not allow much dirt to be brought in or moved, they needed a designer who would spend extraordinary time on site. Most golf course designers have several courses under construction at any given time but Mike Strantz worked on one course at a time. In this year and 1/2 undertaking he often spent 60-80 hours on the ground for any given hole directing every detail with the construction crew. He may not have been allowed to bring in dirt but he was not limited on the sand he could bring in and lots of sand he brought .
He sandcapped the entire course laying 6-8 inches of sand under most of the course, giving it possibly the best drainage on the Peninsula, which is important here as Monterey Peninsula gets more than it's fair share of rain.That sandcap tops off nearly 20 miles of drain tile. It also causes the course to be firm and gets lots of roll so it does not seem to play nearly as long as the 6900 yards on the card. Strantz also added several sandy waste areas many of which actually serve as cart paths.
The first 4 holes and final 2 holes could not be rerouted substantially because of the homes that line the fairways but his creativity really shined on the middle 12 holes that come down near the ocean. Many people on the Peninsula think this may be the best course in the area which is saying something since its neighbors include, Pebble Beach, Cypress Point and Spyglass. Unfortunately Mike Strantz developed a rare Tongue cancer as he worked on this course and never lived to see it get its #72 rating on the Golf Digest Top 100.
I shot 88 today which I am proud of. The greens are very challenging running 10-12 on the stimpmeter and very hard to read with their proximity to the ocean. I had 4 three putts which is unusual for me--- had I known the greens better I should have shot 83 or 84. The green side bunkers are wonderfully designed and I had two up and downs from the sand and nearly holed a third sand shot. On #17 I hit my second shot way right and my third shot was almost in a greenside creek ditch. I had to straddle the ditch to hit a delicate chip that, at first, I thought was going to force me to take an unplayable lie. It almost rolled in.
Number 18 is a hole that is not my favorite and quite uncharacteristic of the rest of the course, a steep uphill dogleg right, but I managed a bogie. Another unique thing about this course is it is a collection of 5 par- 3’s, 5 par- 5’s and only 8 par -4s. I loved that because it is my experience that on most courses it is the par- 5s and par-3 that have the most character. that was certainly the case here,
My friend Michael Lach had another smooth 75 and Maury Klemok shot a 78 even while complaining about his bad back and Rick Greenthal shot in the low 80s, we had a wonderful day together
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