The course is inspired by Strantz’s work at Tobacco Road but first hole is eerily reminiscent of number one at a different Strantz masterpiece. Royal New Kent. Like RNK the first at Black Mesa wakes you up with a thunderclap. A great first hole must set the tone for the round by showing the player the course’s identity; some call this the “statement of place.” Black Mesa does that as admirably as any course in the country. A V-shaped fairway is set blindly behind the shoulder of a long ridge turns 90 degrees left to the green fronted by a deep bunker. The direct route form the tee box is no good as a huge rocky dunescape wasteland runs the entire length of the hole on the left.
Spann knew that some might criticize his wisdom in making the first shot of the day semi-blind and a forced carry to a diagonally placed fairway but it adds to the flavor of pure adventure and has its basis firmly in the great architecture of Alistair Mackenzie. Moreover it serves a functional purpose as cutting through this gap in the 1,600 yard long sandstone ridge was the only way to access a corner of the property which contained the best terrain from the front side. Another nearby gap in ridge lines would return the golfer to the clubhouse for the 8
At the third a short par-5. Spann once again deftly blends his dual roles as golf course architect - scientist and artist – by deftly employing a dry wash that runs in front of the green then curves back around creating a de facto hundred yard carry for player on the right side of the fairway. It’s brilliant: even though Spann could not touch the wash due to environmental restrictions he angled the fairway so that it has a strategic impact on play the hallmark of the most skilled designers.
This was the first hole to bite the castaways. This 600 yard par-5 is a bloodthirsty Allosaurus. Gilligan hit a flare left into the desert and took three with a pitching wedge to escape a juniper bush - holy frijoles what a horrid lie. He then hauled out a wood to try to reach the green. I tried to shout a warning. “Gilligan! Wait! There’s a cross hazard up there!” The reply came not from Gilligan but from Kevin Sniffen. “Don’t worry he found it.” I found it too. Even The Skipper found the hazard and between the three of us we may have taken twenty-five shots. Smiling nonetheless as we saw with amazement the wave-like contours running through this wide but shallow green we applied band-aids and bactine to the teethmarks and pressed on trailing blood the rich Honduran flavor of one of The Skipper’s Bolivar Belicosa No. 2 cigars providing a much needed elixir.
Kevin Sniffen hit the shot if the day in our group on the par-3 fourth. After slicing badly into the hills he had a totally blind chip of no less than sixty yards back to the green. With nothing to aim at his ball finished six inches from the cup for a stellar par.
In fact the short par-5 sixth and short par-4 seventh are your best scoring ops on the front side. Seven is particularly short – I play it 4-iron. 8-iron but it’s loaded with trouble; tight with bunkers and scrub covered hills everywhere you can drive the green but the angles are all wrong to contain a driver. Like architect Jim Engh. Spann agrees; he’ll give you a chance to reach in less than regulation but he sure won’t help you do it. The green is draped precariously on the hillside making downhill putts impossible to stop and requiring the player to be on the correct tier to earn a two-putt. Nevertheless six and seven are the first place on the course where the player can hit the gas.
Of course the minute I say that one of our group hits it over the green and takes seven. Even The Skipper took bogey needing four to get down from greenside. But that’s Black Mesa. You think you’re safe; then suddenly with a rustle of grass and the flash of a steely talon you’re bleeding profusely.
Starting on the par-3 eighth a two club wind suddenly blustered from out of nowhere. Wind makes every golf course play differently but it especially affects courses where there are no trees and canyons act as wind tunnels. It howled and screamed in our ears in varying degrees for the rest of the round – the roaring forties the furious fifties the screaming sixties and so forth - but no one was complaining. This intrepid crew knew the howl of the wind is the clarion call to golf. “I like it” said Mrs. Howell smiling. “This is the way it’s played in the U. K. so it’s good practice” she added cheerfully as she scraped a good par with a long putt. Well schooled on the finer points of golf design she tacks her way around the course intelligently.
Gilligan also had issues his second shot was greenside in a swale pin high but after hitting his first chip short and watching it roll back to his feet he hit the next one too far left the ball veered left and rolled all the way down to the front of the green. “I hit two good shots and was pin high and now I have a 90 foot putt for bogey!” That’s just one more reason why Black Mesa is such an intelligent design. The greenside hollows contours and swales make the ball swerve in unpredictable directions. Lose concentration for just one shot and the ball can end up further away than when you started or back at your feet.
Everyone loves the beautiful birdie op at the short par-4 fourteenth but remember the shorter the hole the more sex appeal the great designers add. Here the fairway is bisected by a huge scrub covered hill. I hit fairway metal just short and left for an easy wedge to the green. Gilligan tries to drive the green but ends up in the scrub on the mound. The Skipper showing us what home field advantage does here bounces his drive off the back of the mound and onto the kidney-shaped green. The ball ended five feet from the cup. He missed the eagle putt.
The green here also defends par admirably. Like seven at Crystal Downs. (which is kidney-shaped instead of the hourglass shape here) and six at Riviera (with its bunker in the middle of the green) the contours built into the green allow for a putt played wisely and with the correct spin to ride the contours around the rough cut of the green to reach tucked hole locations without chipping and taking a divot out of the green. Both Spann and Peck nominate it as one of their favorite holes. Spann said. “I am partial to short drivable par-4s. Number fourteen is maybe my favorite hole I have ever designed.”
After negotiating “The Mounds of Venus” - two humps in the middle of the green named for the lump of flesh located below one’s thumb – every player stops dead in their tracks upon reaching the visually arresting par-5 sixteenth. Called “Stairway to Seven” by the staff the fairway rumbles uphill to the gap where the ridgelines end. The left side is death; anything missing the fairway is in a deep arroyo.
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