Where the signature hole idea gets dicey is in the discussion of classic courses built long before the notion was ever born. Given its site, how could Pebble Beach not have a spectacularly snazzy series of holes?But, of course, they’re not just pretty faces. As for memorability, consider the twelfth, thirteenth and sixteenth at Augusta National; Hell’s Half Acre at Pine Valley; the Redan and the Cape at the National Golf Links of America; the par-three sixth with the bunker mid-green at Riviera. "Certainly," observes Doak, "there are iconic"—note the meticulous avoidance of the word "signature"—"holes populating golf courses."
What elevates them so?The combination of how they look and how they play. "Design," says Brian Silva, "is always a balancing act." It’s the job of the architect to coax the most from the land, and when the keenest strategy and the most humbling beauty intersect—as they do, to universal agreement, on the sixteenth at Cypress Point, the eighth at Pebble, the heroic fourth at Bethpage Black—the result is unforgettable. Signature holes?Of course. Who can argue?But that they can be ascribed the same sobriquet used in the brochure copy designed to sell real estate at the latest golf community seems to cheapen the concept entirely. As Adelson concedes, "A signature hole may not be the best playing hole. It just has to be the most visually inspiring."
Certainly every architect worth his salt wants his holes—each of them—to inspire. "A hole should be beautiful to look at," stresses Hanse, "but not at the expense of how it plays." Indeed, architects present a unified front in insisting they would never sacrifice playability just to provide a client with a postcard.
But they do get asked to, and at times they accede, if only reluctantly. The results aren’t always pretty. One designer who’d rather keep the specifics buried in a bunker admits that despite his objections, he was forced into routing one hole at a prestigious club toward an especially scenic landing area. The hole he came up with was beautiful, but the domino effect of his concession had its effect on the next hole, which was shoehorned in and featured back-to-back blind shots. The membership roared, and both holes were soon redesigned—by another architect.
As much as architects groan at the concept of signature holes, they do, however, get a kick out of the debates. "I’m often surprised at the holes they ask me about," says Doak. But at least they’re asking. At ninety-two, Geoffrey Cornish, the dean of the profession, thinks that’s a good thing.
"We’re hungry for golfers to appreciate our art form," he says. "Signature holes stimulate interest. That might get them thinking what else these holes might have besides beauty. That’s a step toward getting them into golf architecture."
That’s precisely our aim in this space, too. Which in and of itself makes this neither a good column nor a bad one, necessarily—but perhaps a signature one all the same.
