In 1914, a British family practice doctor from West Yorkshire entered a golf design competition being held by the English lifestyle magazine Country Life. The contest called for an original golf hole that was to be built on a new course in America. The man who won that contest, Dr. Alister MacKenzie, not only saw his winning design built (at the long lost Lido Golf Club on Long Island, NY) but also went on to become one of the most celebrated Golf Course Designers of all time; with the likes of the world renowned Augusta National, Cypress Point, Royal Melbourne and scores of other great golf courses to his credit.

In honor of MacKenzie’s big break, for the last eight years Golf World Magazine and the Alister MacKenzie Society have co-hosted an annual design competition called the Lido Design Competition. This year’s competition celebrated the 100th Anniversary of the original contest. The design brief called for an original par 3 hole that reflects MacKenzie’s design philosophy and uses similar graphics to his original winning entry.

Of the 98 entries received from all over the world, Greengrass Golf Design’s Quarter Wind was chosen as one of the finalists! Here's a link to the results of this year's contest:

http://www.golfdigest.com/golf-courses/2014-07/lido-contest-photos?slide=4#

Following are the elements and inspirations for my design:

A RISK/REWARD TEE SHOT

In a properly balanced risk/reward dilemma, the reward of success should be commensurate with the risk (or apparent risk) that must be overcome. For Quarter Wind, the concentration of pinnable area suggests that the pin (i.e. the reward) is typically found on the lower left deck of the green. To balance the equation, the left side has been designed to present the more risky play off the back tees, both in appearance and in actuality. To wit:

The ground between the tees and the green is almost entirely maintained as fairway and is littered with mounds, bumps, hollows and ridges. These features obscure, obstruct and foreshorten the view of the green, particularly on the left side of the hole, and make distance judgment difficult.
For the longer tees the green surface is at or near eye level and has no backing mounding on the left side, creating an “infinite horizon”. The golfer must consider the possibility that an exceptionally well-struck (or wind aided) tee shot will find an unknown fate beyond the green.
A steep mound to the left of the green ensures that pulled and hooked shots to the left side will have an excellent chance of finding the beach, at least four feet below the putting surface.
A small and deep revetted bunker guards and obscures the left and center of the green.

The right side approach, on the other hand, is much less fraught with obvious danger. The right is more visible from the back tees, is contoured to accept accurate run-up shots and is backed by a large mound to hold long shots. There is also ample open fairway to the right.

ADDITIONAL STRATEGIC CONSIDERATIONS

With repeated play, the observant and experienced golfer may note the following:

Tee shots are far from guaranteed to come to rest safely on the right half of the green given sharp drop-offs to the front and right in addition to a bunker that is graded to catch the timid or indifferent shot.
The right side of the green is contoured much more aggressively than the left, as evidenced by the lack of pinnable locations. Due to this, shots that find the right side of the putting surface will likely require a very long putt over two or three distinct ridges to get home in three.

In contrast, from the back sets of tees:

The left side of this very large green (~16,000 sf) has more depth than it would seem.
With its front-to-back upward slope, the left side of the green is designed to be more receptive to both the aerial shot and the run-up shot than is initially apparent.
From early spring until late fall the quartering prevailing winds can be used to help a right-to-left ball flight land close to the left and center pin positions.

Stretching to 206-yards and typically windy, Quarter Wind requires a constantly changing plan of attack. The key to par is whether or not the player has the ability and the confidence to execute a tee shot that will challenge the lower left deck and upper saddle pin placements.

ACCESSIBILITY FOR ALL

The quarter-circular arrangement of the six tees make the green progressively more parallel to the line of play, culminating in the most forward and elevated tee (A), where the player will have full visibility of the putting surface and the longest axis of the green (46-yards) to play with. The forward tees will give novice and expert player alike the opportunity to experiment with the ground game to try and get the ball close to the pin on one of the green’s three distinct levels. Additionally, with the vast majority of the play area maintained as fairway, forced carries and the annoyance and irritation of searching for lost balls is kept to an absolute minimum for all players.

THE INSPIRATION

Quarter Wind is inspired by a selection of the great holes and golf courses that I’ve been lucky enough to see firsthand. The perpendicular orientation of the green and the single central pot bunker with feeding contours are inspired by the Eden Hole and Strath Bunker (#11 at St. Andrews Old Course) and a few of its direct descendants (#13 at the National Golf Links of America and #2 at Old MacDonald). The deceptively foreshortened green on the horizon line is inspired by hole #6 at Bandon Dunes and hole #15 at Kingsbarns. The fronting bunker that obscures and appears to shorten the putting surface is inspired by two bedeviling short par-threes: #13 at Merion East and #13 at the San Francisco Golf Club. Finally, beach recovery shots are fondly remembered from the outward nine at both the Nairn Golf Club and the North Berwick Golf Club West Links.