More great holes – Bigwin’s 9th

Everything is clear from the tee, now can you make the carry?









I had a lot of fun going through my favorite Doug Carrick holes to come up with this one. It brought back some wonderful memories of Osprey valley and other projects I worked on. I think his most famous would be “Cliffhanger” at Greywolf at Panororama in BC. My favorite course of his remains Eagle’s Nest, but I couldn’t find one hole one hole that I considered his best work. In the end the hole that I enjoying playing the most was the 9th at Bigwin Island.

The interesting thing about this hole is this one evolved a lot in the field because the site of the hole was the only good source of sand on the project. They continued to mine it in order to take as much sand as possible trying to limit the amount of barging of sand across to the site. The interesting thing is the cut that sourced all the sand ended up being the feature that made the hole.

The drive is from a high tee looking out over the hole. You are faced with a long carry up the left side of around 240 yards to make the upper fairway. Since the bank is bluegrass, and the green is directly on that line, you almost always have a go at the short upper route. The other option is to play to a nice wide lower fairway on the right where you have lots of room. Either side, you must avoid the pair of deep menacing bunkers that splits the two sides of the landing. From the upper fairway the green is flanked right and left by bunkers, but is clearly open in front and can be attacked since you will hit a short iron. From below, you must carry the right front bunker and hit into a narrow angle of the green with either a mid or long iron. This is a much more difficult shot.

Into the wind the tee shot is very daunting and sometimes you have no choice but to go right. With the wind you automatically have to have a go the shorter route because of the advantage. The most common wind blows across the hole towards the trees on the left of the upper fairway, so you usually have to start the ball over the bunkers. Either way this is a fun hole to play and one you look forward to.