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In Search Of A 'Signature'

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By MICK ELLIOTT | The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 7, 2008

TAMPA Unlike political campaigns, franchise restaurant décors and Bruce Willis movies, no two golf holes are alike.

They come in assorted varieties of short, medium and long. They go uphill and downhill. They move left to right and right to left. Water is optional. Shots must fly over valleys, through the woods, in and out of sand.

Like everything in life, some holes are good. Some are lukewarm. For others, the nicest thing you can say is they are green (most days). Then there are the few that blend nature's beauty, color and tactical intrigue into a mix that becomes the golf holes players remember. Among all the one-of-a-kinds, they are the truly unique.

"That's what makes golf special,'' said Dave Stewart, head professional at Tampa's Emerald Greens Country Club. "Every course and every hole is different from another, whereas football fields and basketball courts are all the same dimensions. That's the big part of golf: playing holes that you will remember.''

Thus begins a search for Tampa Bay's best golf holes, to be spotlighted regularly on the Tribune's weekly golf page and on the Internet at TBO.com.

In the Tampa Bay three-county area of Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco there are 135 courses, home to more than 2,600 holes. What differentiates memorable from mundane in this collection ultimately is the eye of the beholder. Nevertheless, the common ground shared by the best in the area is obvious. Premier golf holes are the ones golfers never get tired of seeing.

"The most fundamentally sound golf holes are the ones that emanate from a strong landscape setting and use the natural elements that Mother Nature has to give you - wind, light and topography,'' said Lakeland-based golf course architect Steve Smyers. "We want to put golf holes in dramatic landscape settings and use the property to allow playing strategy to emanate from the property."

A course's most memorable hole typically is no secret. It's the one pictured on the club's scorecard or featured in advertising. Inevitably, it is distinctive, dramatic and serene. In many cases, it is the image that creates a club's identity.

"Everybody has their favorite golf holes on a course," architect Bobby Weed said. "Typically, anything downhill is going to photograph better and probably be viewed as better than an uphill golf hole because you can see more. Think about your favorite golf hole. It's probably one that you can see everything that's there and how it unfolds.''

"Signature hole" is the term commonly used to identify these properties. Identifiable and eye-catching, they inevitably become the public face of a course.

"I don't think it necessarily has to be hard," said Brady Boyd, general manager at TPC Tampa Bay. "But to have a memory the golfer has to have a challenge. And if you can do it and have beauty of the land around you, that's a huge advantage."

It's all about leaving the player something to think about - visually and mentally.

Say "signature hole" to a golfer and he or she will likely think of TPC Sawgrass and the par-3 17th island hole or maybe Pebble Beach by No. 18 along the Pacific coastline. But say the same words to an architect and he might be inclined to push you in a lake he is in the process of dredging.

"I think that's a term marketing people came up with," Smyers said. "To an architect, golf holes are like children. We love them all the same."

With that said, some children grow up to cure diseases, build corporations and improve the lives of their fellow man. Others pick their noses, belch in public and turn into sportswriters. That, however, does not mean both cannot be memorable.

"People in golf seem to equate difficult with good,'' said Emerald Greens' Stewart. "I've played a lot of difficult holes that people say are great golf holes that I think are terrible because they are not fun to play.

"Now there are a lot of difficult holes that are fun. But a hole that's a triple dogleg, par-5 with an island green and a 20-yard-wide fairway? Is it memorable? Yeah, probably. Is it difficult? Absolutely. But that does not necessarily make it a good hole."

The search begins.

Reporter Mick Elliott can be reached at (813) 281-2534 or melliott@tampatrib.com.

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