|
"IF YOU LIKE GOLF"
weekly online golf column
by
Chris Dortch
September 5, 2000
Black Creek Club officially opened all 18 holes on Sept. 2 with a
formal ceremony that featured the club’s four managing partners,
Doug Stein, Gary Chazen, King Oehmig and Clay Crumbliss, striking
simultaneous tee shots on No. 1.
Most of the club’s members came out to get their first look at
the closing nine holes.
The back nine, which opened several weeks after the front, is
actually shorter in yardage, but it’s long on challenges.
In the typical fashion of Black Creek designer Brian Silva, he
tantalizes golfers with risk and reward holes. The 339-yard par-4 10th
presents options off the tee, but it takes a long, straight shot
with a driver to clear two fairway bunkers on the right side. And
anyone trying to drive the green from shorter tees (there are four
sets on every hole at Black Creek) had better beware the deep bunker
on the left side of the green.
The prudent tee shot might be a long or middle iron, which would
leave a short-iron approach.
The back nine also ends with a risk-reward hole, the 527-yard
par-5 18th. A lake protects the left side of the fairway
and is an unforgiving menace for a hooked tee shot. But if you want
to risk a hook and go for a big drive, the green is reachable in
two. Provided you don’t want to tangle with the creek in front of
the green.
In between those two holes, the challenges are frequent. Some
long-time golfers who have faced down the 462-yard, par-4 12th
hole and the 458-yard par-4 13th say that’s the
toughest two-hole stretch in Chattanooga. Length is only part of the
problem. The 12th has a pot bunker in the middle of the
driving area that comes into play from the back tees. And the creek
runs all the way up the right side of No. 12 and the left side of
No. 13. The 12th green—which is also protected by the creek—is
shallow and requires a long, high, soft approach. Try that under
pressure.
Black Creek is a lot of fun to play, a fact that hasn’t been
lost on the Chattanooga golfing community. The club’s partners
were encouraged by opening-day membership numbers, and hopeful that,
now guest play is allowed, word will spread that another world-class
golf course has opened in town.
• Far be it for me to offer any advice about the golf swing,
but a lesson I took from area teaching professional Zeb Patten
recently really hit home. It made so much sense I wanted to share
it.
I’d been having trouble keeping my driver on the planet, even
though I was hitting my other clubs, including the 3-wood and 7-wood
I carry, fairly straight. I knew I was doing something wrong with
the driver, but I didn’t know what.
It pays to have an extra set of eyes watch you swing every now
and again. Patten has been my extra eyes for two years, and he’s a
canny observer of the swing.
After taping my swing with a driver, Patten put it on his
computer screen. It only took a minute or two for him to come up
with the answer I’d been looking for.
Somehow—and with only the driver in my hands—I’d adopted a
stronger-than-usual left-hand grip and a wristy, handsy waggle of
the club. Don’t ask me how.
Anyway, those alterations programmed me to take the club inside
too far on the takeaway, which resulted in a deadly combination of
shots—the sharp hook or the push. We all know how scary it is to
stand on a tee and not be confident of the direction the shot will
take.
After Patten helped me weaken my grip and encouraged me to waggle
with a one-piece takeaway in mind, my shots started flying
straighter.
The moral of the lesson: If all of a sudden you find yourself
hitting stray shots, don’t immediately tinker with your swing.
Start instead with the setup. Often, that’s the root of your
problem.
###
|