Free advice: Build 12 hole courses

+ Tiger TGL sadness and weekly favorites

Author

Sean Melia
January 17, 2025

Hey Everyone,

This week on IG, I starting posting one picture from every course I’ve played in the quest in the order I played them.

It’s been fun to dig through old photos from nearly five years ago. I’ve posted the first 40 courses up to this point. You can see them here in all their iPhoneXR glory.

If you’re looking to escape the cold, there is still time to sign up for a trip to Hilton Head with The Golf Trip guys from April 10-13. Come play 54 holes of golf, meet some new people, and scrape the rust off your golf game! Details here.

News and Notes:

Michael Thorbjornsen starts hot in the desert: After making a bogey on the second hole in the AmEx, Michael Thorbjornsen turned on the after-burners and carded seven birdies, including four in a row on hole Nos. 4-7 en route to a 65 (-7).

New Mass Open venue: MassGolf dropped their championship schedule and announced a new Mass Open venue - Sacconnesset Golf Club. It will replace Indian Pond CC which was slated to host the event until late 2024. They are still hunting for a Four-Ball host. They also announced a new event - Net Four-Ball. It will be at Waverly Oaks on September 16. Players with a handicap in the 8.1-18 window can apply with a partner who also falls in that same window. The field will be selected through a lottery system that opens May 6. The way my handicap is going, I might be eligible in a year or two…

Have you ever played 12 holes?

Imagine an 18-hole championship course designed by A.W. Tillinghast being transformed into a 12-hole public course.

Welcome to Belmont. A beacon of light in the public golf scene of Richmond, Virginia.

Belmont was once known as Hermitage CC. It hosted the 1949 PGA Championship, the only major championship in the state’s history. Incredibly, it was won by a Virginian - Sam Snead.

Hermitage CC was bought by Henrico County in 1971 and is now known as Belmont. It’s a public course that has undergone quite a transformation over the last decade.

I played it in 2022 with my friend Tung who lives in the area. Richmond was a pitstop on the way to Pinehurst. What a cool way to start an incredible week of golf.

I think about Belmont a lot because it’s one of the most unique public venues I’ve been to.

Why?

In May 2020, Davis Love III was hired to turn the 18-hole layout into 12 holes. They dove into the original drawings of Hermitage CC and recreated holes 7-18. They used the extra land to make a 6-hole short course called Little Bell. It’s the headquarters for First Tee, too. And it has a full driving range and a massive putting green called The Ringer.

Tung and I played 30 holes that day. We looped the 12-hole course twice with a spin around the 6-hole short course in between. It was a delightful day.

Over the last year, news of course closings and “shrinkings” has proliferated in Massachusetts. Toll Brothers is snapping up courses with plans to develop the land. In some cases, the 18 holes will remain, like at Sagamore Springs, and in other instances, like at Easton CC, it seems that 9 holes will remain (Easton will likely have two more seasons of 18 holes to play). The town of Stow bought Stow Acres and is turning Stow North into nine holes, too.

Here’s a bit of free advice for anyone shrinking a golf course:

Turn 18 holes into 12 holes.

First, 12 holes is a dynamite length for a day of golf. Nine holes never feels like enough, but I’ve noticed the pace of play hits a bit of a wall after 13 or 14 holes.

Second, with the handicap flexibility through the GHIN app, 12-hole scores can generate a handicap now. The USGA is normalizing different types of golf in the GHIN program, which is a great step.

Third, from a business perspective, it would create a lot of curiosity. There are plenty of nine-hole courses in the area, and if the development trend continues, we’ll have more in the coming years.

Twelve holes was the original length of courses in Scotland. Prestwick hosted the first Open Championship, and they played the 12-hole course three times for a 36-hole event.

Imagine a 12-hole course with two loops of six holes that both return to the clubhouse. You could have the option for 18 holes by just playing on one extra loop. On some days, 24 holes could be great, especially if the course plays somewhat quickly in general.

On November 1, I played Winchester CC. It was the first day of construction on a couple of holes, so holes 3 and 4 were closed. We jumped from the second green to the fifth tee. After the round, we all remarked about how lovely a 16-hole walk felt.

The golf industry is flooded with smart people, and I hope that somewhere down the line, we see some public courses of different lengths because nine holes can be nice, but 12 holes feel like the sweet spot.

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A quick thought about Tiger Woods’ TGL debut

I wish you all could have witnessed my wife’s repulsion at TGL on Tuesday night. I popped it on, and she immediately called it “hokie” as the players walked through smoke into the SoFi Center to play a “video game.”

Then the death blow: “Of course Tiger came up with this. It gets him out of playing real golf. He just gets to stand there.”

Tiger was the reason I tuned in for the second week. I was genuinely excited to watch him hit shots in this new format. However, I was left feeling sad watching Tiger and my excitement it fizzled quickly. From the semi-awkward interview with Scott Van Pelt to his special entrance to “Eye of the Tiger” to the inclusion of his son Charlie to his stiff gait, it all just felt like a guy holding onto the past. Add in the technology making all the players look pretty bad, and week two didn’t hit for me.

Tiger feels stuck in two worlds, and TGL is the kind of thing that exacerbates that fact. He’s bristled at becoming a “ceremonial golfer,” and now he’s playing “video game” golf in a league he created.

We don’t get to watch other professional athletes compete into their late 40s. Tiger turned 49 in December. He won a major at age 43 and hasn’t really done much since.

For many people, Tiger’s high points over the last 6-10 years have been the moments when he seems human. That culminated in his victory at Augusta in 2019. The TGL coverage on Tuesday made it feel like they were pushing him back into the superhuman category.

It didn’t work.

When I’m not golfing…

I’m reading…

🫢 After 100 pages I figured 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami was going to be normal. But it’s made a turn, and I’m very much enjoying it.

🏃 If you read my newsletter last week about my runner’s knee, you’ll understand why This NYTimes article spoke to me. Fix Your Glutes. Fix Your Life.

🆘 I always enjoy the restart that January offers. When I was a teacher, September and January offered that chance. These 35 simple health tips were good to scroll through.

🗺️ Overlooked No More: Karen Wynn Fonstad, Who Mapped Tolkien’s Middle-earth. A great look into the woman who drew those beautiful maps.

I’m listening to…

🦐 Food on Tour. Skip the first 30 min. of this if you aren’t a golf fan and listen to Keith Mitchell discuss food on the various PGA Tour stops. It’ll make you hungry and might give you some places to visit.

🎼 Digging the new album from Bad Bunny: DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS.

I’m eating…

🍽️ This Thug Kitchen spiced chickpea recipe slaps.

🍕 Frozen Motor City Pizza was very good.

I’m watching…

🇮🇪 We finished Bad Sisters season 1. A very satisfying ending.

Stay warm this winter with some Bay State Golf gear or get ahead with some baseball hats or t-shirts.

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