 |
unique GOLF HOLES Presented in partnership with E-Z-GO & the American Society of Golf Course Architects |
Seventh heaven
No. 7 at the Golf Club at Chaparral Pines is both stunning and scary.
 |
Golfers pondering their second shot at No. 7 are often understandably distracted by the vista ahead. Photo by Mike Klemme/Golfoto Inc. |
The seventh hole at the Golf Club at Chaparral Pines in Arizona’s high country is a real beaut and a real brute, all in one.
The designer, Gary Panks, ASGCA, describes it as “one of the most beautiful holes I have ever seen. It was created many thousands of years ago. I just discovered it and brought it to a playable condition.”
Class A superintendent Matt Strawser describes it as “a treacherous hole” to play and “very difficult” to maintain.
All that qualifies No. 7 at Chaparral Pines for GCM’s latest
Unique Hole.
 |
Twelve-year GCSAA member Matt Strawser has been head superintendent at the Golf Club at Chaparral Pines since 2001. Photo courtesy of Chaparral Pines |
Intimidating factors
Located near Payson, Chaparral Pines and the Tom Weiskopf-designed Rim Golf Club are the centerpieces of a vast Crescent Community development in the midst of the longest continuous stand of Ponderosa pines in the country.
Chaparral Pines’ seventh hole is both stunning and scary — a double dogleg par 5 that can stretch to more than 620 yards through an ancient drainage corridor flanked by hillside pines, an ever-present high-country wash and topped by a backdrop of the Mazatzal Mountains.
“The hole was a natural in very rough form,” Panks says. “Its main feature is a deep, rocky drainage wash that runs nearly the full length of the hole and crosses in front of the green. The green site — cut into a hill and wide and shallow — reminds me a lot of the 12th hole at
Augusta.”
Panks, who has headed Gary Panks Associates out of Paradise Valley, Ariz., since 1978 and also collaborated with professional golfer David Graham on several projects during a nine-year period, including Chaparral Pines, notes that No. 7 is still the main drainage area for the western portion of the development. He piped drainage under two landing areas and otherwise left it to run along the left side of the hole in its natural state.
While long and intimidating from its elevated tee area where only part of the main fairway is visible because of the first dogleg and the towering pines, Panks made things somewhat accommodating with six — three men’s and three women’s — tee boxes ranging from 504 yards up front to 624 yards at the tips. The second shot is confronted by the menacing creek bed, cross bunkers and a premium on accuracy to provide the best angle for the approach to the green.
“You have to hit three well-thought-out shots,” Panks says. “I think the second shot requires more thought than the layups on most par 5s.”
 |
The view from the seventh green at Chaparral Pines retraces the long and twisting fairway on the tough par 5 that plays more than 620 yards from the back tees. Photo by Mike Klemme/Golfoto Inc. |
The beast in the beauty
For Strawser, who has been at the club for nine years, including the last six as head superintendent, the seventh likewise presents both vista and complexity.
“It’s a magnificent hole to look at, but it’s tough to deal with,” the 12-year GCSAA member says.
Turf maintenance at Chaparral Pines has its peculiarities. The bluegrass/rye fairways and blue/rye/fescue roughs were grown in a soil composed mostly of decomposed granite common to the region. The Southwest’s annual monsoons can bring sudden disease pressures. Plus, the course was the first in Arizona to be diagnosed with gray leaf spot, a malady that Strawser and his staff quickly overcame.
Still, maintaining No. 7 is actually pretty much routine for most of its long, winding route. It’s at the green complex where the work turns truly unique and the most problematic among the property’s 36 holes, Strawser says.
“It’s so shaded that it’s hard to have enough sunlight to keep the bentgrass as healthy as the others,” he says of the looming trees and hillside, especially one majestic sentinel Ponderosa nearest to the putting surface. “Also, most of the walking traffic is funneled to one area from a bridge leading up to the green.”
Strawser’s strategy at the seventh green is to roll out the Toro HydroJect more often, aerify more often, fertilize more often and mow the stressed areas less often. He also tries to detour golfers from walking over and over the same grass.
“We have an ideal climate here, and this year was about the third-best since I’ve been here at keeping that green in shape,” he says, noting that typical warm to mild days are followed by significant drops in temperature after dark.
The green at No. 7, as well as many others in the layout that snake through hundreds of home sites, also suffers from forays by the area’s resident elk herd.
“They’re beautiful animals, but they cause some damage almost on a nightly basis here,” Strawser says.
At Chaparral Pines, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, there is a lot to looking good beneath the surface.
RECENT issues
 |
 |
November |
October |