Pine Valley’s Most Diabolical Bunker, Explained | The Hole At | Golf Digest

Welcome to ‘THE Hole At’, where Golf Digest’s Ron Whitten (the leading expert in golf course course architecture) breaks down the hidden histories behind the most famous holes in golf. In this episode, Ron dives into the unreachable Par-5 7th hole at Pine Valley Golf Club. From its original dogleg left design, to the creation of its diabolical forced carries like Hell’s Half Acre, to remaining one of the most daunting Par-5s on earth, Ron explores the fascinating history behind one of the game’s most iconic golf holes.

Host: Ron Whitten
Producer & Editor: Ben Walton
Cinematography: Ben Walton & Will Fullerton
Audio: Mike Kelly
Executive Producer: Christian Iooss

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Hello I’m Ron Whitten architecture editor ameritus of Golf Digest Magazine with another in our series of individual golf holes today it’s the seventh ol at Pine Valley Golf Club in Pine Valley New Jersey one of the longtime unreachable par fivs when you look up the term penal architecture in any primmer of golf

Course design you’re likely to find a photo to of Pine Valley and quite often it’s the par 57th the longest hole on the course at 636 yd tight and tree lined it’s a hop over the beach off the tea then a second shot over a Chasm of

Sand that was once labeled the world’s largest sand trap and a third shot over yet another cros Hazard of sand in front of the green with a girdle of sand behind it for good measure what makes it penal are the force carries particularly the second one which long ago was

Christened hell’s half acre although in true truth it’s over an acre and a half while the seventh occupies basically flat terrain hell’s Halfacre sits in a slight depression with its far end on a bit of an UPS slope it’s 115 yds long from front to back and about 75 yds wide

What makes it intimidating is the sand is UNR by players so you could end up in a footprint plus there are islands of broom sedge and switch grass evergreen bushes and even a few stunted Pines you might hit into it and never find the ball or find it in an unplayable line in

1965 Dan Jenkins selected the seventh as one of the best 18 golf holes in America and devoted a whole chapter in his 1966 book of the same name without ever explaining why he felt it was the best seventh hole in the country except perhaps to say that there was no way for

Anyone to reach the Green in two back in ‘ 65 a 280 yard Drive could end up just short of Hell’s half acre from the new back te a 360 yard Drive will come up just short and if you have that in Your Arsenal you’ll only need 270 yards all

Carry to reach the Green in Two Pine Valley was the dream design of retired Philadelphia Hotel operator George Crump who bought a section of New Jersey Pine Barons in 1913 and proceeded to lay out what he thought would be the toughest golf course in the world you’ll note from

This aerial it’s not just the 7eventh hole that plays Hopscotch over Sandy hazards nearly every hole has some sort of force carrier over sand or water or both I term this Steeple Chase Golf and it was a prevailing philosophy of a number of golf Architects at the turn of

The 20th century particularly in Great Britain designers like Tom Dunn were almost militaristic in their designs with defensive bunkers position to let no man proceed down any route without challenge a notable exception to that philosophy was England’s HS Colt considered by some to be the granddaddy of the Strategic school of golf course

Architecture in 1914 Crump retained Colt to review his Pine Valley Plans which were already in early construction Colt did so rerouted several holes and prepared a detailed proposal for each hole you’ll notice in this newspaper clipping that the par five 7th hole was a slight dog leg left and featured no

Forced carries that’s even more evident in Colt’s individual hole plan for number seven but George Crump apparently had other ideas and after Colt returned to Great Britain Crump took Colt’s plan for Pine Valley and red penciled it with his own ideas and the par 57th took the

Shape as the whole is today with islands of Fairway and a green separated by long stretches of white sand this was hell’s Halfacre in the early stages of construction at that stage it took the form of a massive cluster of individual bunkers rather than as a single vast

Expansive sand the finished product was displayed in George C Thomas Jr’s 1927 book Golf Course architecture in America and while some of the pockets of sand seem to be United you can still identify individual bunker shapes note in the caption that Thomas gave credit to both Crump and Colt for the design and

Described this forced carrying hole to be an extremely large artificial Hazard sand was plentiful in the New Jersey Pine Barons so you simply had to dig down and find it but still Thomas considered this Hazard to be man-made not natural in the early 1950s Robert Trent Jones prepared a map of Pine

Valley for Herbert waren win’s book The Complete golfer a map that the Pine Valley Club later reproduced on its place mats and used for decades looking at the diagram of the seventh I noticed that Jones had hell’s Halfacre as a Meandering sand Hazard down the left

Side with the right side in Turf since he was extremely accurate in his depiction of pine Valley’s other holes on his plan I presume he is accurate here as as well although I’ve yet to find a photograph to verify it I can only speculate why hail’s Halfacre was

Partially filled in I don’t think it was in sympathy for high handicapped slicers I think it was probably to give Fairway mowers a land mass on which to Traverse from one Island Fairway to the next if they tried to go around under the trees chances are they would have gotten stuck

In the native sand artist Donald Moss’s depiction of Pine Valley 7th in Jenkins 1966 book showed hell’s Halfacre fully intact again but you’ll note there was no Force carry over exposed sand off the tea this was true even in the 2015 aerial of the hole found on Google Earth

The hazard wasn’t present until 2016 corresponding with a major Remodeling and reuning carried out by architect Tom faio and his team when I last played Pine Valley I was held up on the seventh te waiting for of all things a guy raking the sand that told me two things

First that enough players must be hitting into that bunker just off the front teas of seven that they complained about bad lies and Footprints and two that Pine Valley officials decided they should ease up a little on the penal nature of their course there still aren’t any rakes in the bunkers but they

Do now occasionally have crewman smooth out the sand the third thing I noticed there was a sign directing cart traffic I didn’t even know they allowed carts at Pine Valley the architect aw tilling EST a Philadelphia boy himself had been a close friend of George Crump who died before Pine Valley was

Completed in 1922 in the May 1933 issue of golf Illustrated magazine tilling ass gave him self credit for conceiving hell’s half acre I was one of the first to walk the property with him telling Hast wrote and the fact that George Crump finally Incorporated two of my conceptions

Entirely the long 7th and the 13th will forever be the source of great satisfaction there’s no other proof other than tilling has word unless you examine the number of Sandy cross hazards tilling has subsequently build on his own designs he didn’t call any of them hell’s Halfacre but rather a great

Hazard the one he did at the 17th hole at the lower course at ballis roll in New Jersey in 1922 certainly resembles the original version at Pine Valley in 2020 architect Gil Hance restored lower baldis roll and relocated the great Hazard farther down the Fairway nearly 400 yard off the te

Tilling has great Hazard on the par 57th at Philadelphia Cricket club’s Wiis aickin course was restored about a decade ago by architect Keith Foster a few years ago Foster also restored the great Hazard at tilling has Brook Hollow in Dallas all these cross bunkers are authentically tilling has which is sort

Of curious because Tilly late in his career campaigned against what he called Duffer headache bunkers bunkers that punished only poor golfers and he went around the country recommending that clubs fill in such bunkers I reviewed tilling has reports of those travels and I’ve never found an instance where he

Recommended filling in one of his great hazards then again I can’t find that he was ever summoned to review a course that contained one of his great hazards in George Thomas’s book Golf Course architecture in America he graphically described the difference between penal and strategic design and of his example

Of compulsory carries doesn’t look exactly like the seventh hole at Pine Valley on the right was his recommendation on how to turn that hole into a strategic one you could still feature great Hazard type bunkers big bold ones but you should give the average golfer bailout options along the

Way that they can use to avoid any compulsory carry note how much HS Colts 1914 plan for the seventh at Pine Valley resembl Thomas’s strategic hole subsequent generations of golf Architects have adopted the idea of creating great hazards but leaving room to play around them Pete D did that at

The 16th hole at the ocean course at Kiwa in South Carolina Mike strance did it at Monterey Peninsula Country Club’s Shore course in California Tom Fazio did it at Monteray peninsula’s other 18 the dunes course Corin crenchaw use a great Hazard to pose a bite off what you dare

Option at stream song Red in Florida Ron garl moved it to the outside of the dog leg at wooden sticks in Ontario and where garl created a compulsory carry on another hole at wooden sticks he made it as narrow as possible so even a high handic Capper has a chance to clear it

Most modern Force carries over sand are done off the tea where golfers have the added advantage of picking their lie and teeing it up but recently I’ve noticed a return to the Pine Valley style hell’s Halfacre Gil H did it on the par five 11th at oh hoopy match Club in Georgia

But that’s a private club dedicated to match play so it’s under understandable that he might pose one really daunting carry during a round but Hance also did it on the par five ninth hole at pineur number four a course he remodeled in 2018 number four is a resort course

Where presumably all range of handicaps will Tee It Up so how does this Hazard differ from hell’s Halfacre at Pine Valley the answer is it doesn’t the moral I take away from this is that it’s okay architecturally to occasionally Force every golfer even high handy

Cappers to Loft a ball in the air for 100 yards or so at the risk of Landing in sand or a clump of tall grass or a bush a little bit of penal architecture is acceptable but a little bit goes a long Ways