Brookside is a classic parkland type of golf course. Designed by the famous William Park Bell, it features long, narrow fairways with small greens. There are lots of large oaks, sycamores, and even palm trees lining the fairways, which makes the course feel even tighter.
Brookside has been part of what is called the Arroyo Seco area of Pasadena since its first nine holes were built in 1925. One of the great things about the course is that it sits right in the shadow of the world famous Rose Bowl. This time of year, there is a ton of activity around this area. Workers are preparing for the big Rose Bowl game, and float builders have workshops nearby where they are pasting flowers on the floats to be used in the Rose Parade. As we played, there were dozens of people jogging, bicycling, or walking their dogs just outside the fences of the golf course. We even saw a parade of cars from the 1930's and 1940's cruise by. The course just felt alive and part of the community, the way that these muni courses were intended to be when they were built so many years ago. You would never see a development plan drawn up this way in today's day and age. A 100,000 seat stadium with very little parking, a 36-hole golf course right next door, jammed into a little valley up against a major freeway, with multi-million dollar homes sprinkled in the hills all around it? Try presenting that to any planning committee or city government in 2010. This is part of what gives Pasadena and Brookside so much charm.
We played the C.W. Koiner Course, also known as the Number 1. The course stretched to over 7000 yards from the gold tees, so we decided to play the blacks, which measure out to about 6700. The course played extremely long because there were several days of heavy rain in Southern California before we played on December 26th. The course was quite moist, wet, and muddy in spots. It was obvious that the fairways had not been mowed much in the last week. I can understand, however, because there is a fine line that superintendents and general managers have to walk between mowing to please the golfers and ruining the golf course when it is so wet. The air was heavy and damp that day, and there was absolutely no roll for any tee shots or long approaches.
Brookside gives you a chance to start off well, with an easy and short par-4 right off the bat. After that simple warm up hole, you had better be ready to play. There are eight par-4's that measure at 400+ yards, including three in a row on holes 2, 3, and 4. The back nine has two beasts, the 466 yard 12th, and the 441 yard 18th. I am used to hitting a low draw, so I typically count on some of my distance coming from a lot of roll. The conditions and the course design really made it hard for me. My drives were sticking in the fairways at 210-225 yards instead of rolling out to my usual 235-245, which meant that there were a lot of long approach shots to tiny greens.
As I mucked along, I wondered how they played this course in the 1950's and 60's with persimmon woods, old-school blade irons, and inferior golf balls. If I can barely break 90 with a SuperTri, a Pro-V1, and some X-22s, how did Billy Casper shoot a ten under par score of 274 during the 1968 Los Angeles Open? It makes you appreciate how good some of those old tour pros really were.
There were two holes that really stuck out in my mind as classics. Number 9 at 341 yards seems pretty benign when you look at it from the tee or read it on the scorecard. However, the drive can be tricky, as there is a bunker on the right side of the fairway that seems to gobble up a lot of tee shots. The hole also plays uphill, much more than it feels like when you are in the fairway. It is definitely wise to take an extra club or two when approaching this green. In addition, there is a giant tree that sits to the front-right of the green complex. If the hole is located toward the back of this uncharacteristically large green, the tree can absolutely reject shots that are headed right toward the pin. If you are approaching from the right side, it makes the shot even more awkward and dicey. Two of the guys in my group had trouble when their balls came up short and right of the green and had to play around the massive tree trunks just to get their pitch shots anywhere near the hole. It almost borders on goofy, but I will chalk it up to a unique design and call it "classic".
Hole 18 is 441 yards and is the closest hole to the Rose Bowl on this course. It is hard to focus on the tee shot at hand because you can almost imagine the roar of the crowd from Pittsburgh's Lynn Swann's great catch in the 1979 Super Bowl against the Rams, or Vince Young's touchdown run for Texas in the 4th quarter of the 2006 BCS National Championship Game to beat USC. In the 1999 Women's World Cup Final, Brandy Chastain famously ripped off her jersey top after scoring the winning shootout goal to give the United States the win, and there have been countless great memories from USC vs. UCLA football games over the years. You could probably hit a drive into the stadium if you really tried. If you fail to concentrate on golf, this finishing hole can eat you alive and put a large dent in your score. There is a pond to the right of the fairway that catches anything that is blocked, sliced, or pushed. You need a large drive here to be able to get home in two, so there is no way to really lay up. Just like number 9, this hole plays more uphill than it looks, and probably plays more like a 460-470 yard par-4. Most of the greens at Brookside are small and relatively flat. This green has a definite ridge that causes balls on the front of the green to move right to left as they get deeper into the green, In addition, the green is severely sloped upward from the front to the back, and any putt that comes from the front of the green really needs to be struck well to reach a hole location in the back. Making a four here to end your day is quite an accomplishment.
Overall, playing Brookside was a great experience. Everyone should make the time to visit this historic area of Los Angeles and to face a very traditional and challenging golf course.
No comments:
Post a Comment