almost never was
By tom doak
The fifth hole at Sedge Valley was not included in the original routing
When designing a course, I am always working to make the green-to-tee walks shorter and more seamless. We will frequently make little changes to make that experience better. Mostly it’s a matter of building a different tee, but occasionally we will move a green on the fly to help the cause.
The fifth hole at Sedge Valley is well beyond that—a creation that benefited from the fact we were trying to address a long walk to a tee box. That act of discovery led to one of my favorite holes on the course.
Original concept
From the start, the current sixth hole, a short 4 playing from a tee on the hillside, was my favorite in the routing. The problem was there was a considerable walk up a hill from the previous green, something I wasn’t happy with that left me looking for other options. Most of the possibilities for moving the sixth tee didn’t make the hole better; in fact, the visibility was worse. My decision was to leave the sixth hole alone—but it left me seeking other options to deal with the break in the routing.
A change in plans
It eventually occurred to me that I could shorten the fourth hole to make room for a new tee, and play up into the little pocket in the trees behind the sixth tee, which was wasted space previously. We could then combine the original par-3 10th and the 11th into a longer hole, which would be the only par 5 on the course. I probably would have never considered doing that on a "big" course, because it gave us three par 3s in a four-hole stretch from the fifth to eighth holes. But with Sedge Valley's concept of a par-68 course, that wasn't an issue.
The final product
The hard part was that the greensite for five was on a fairly steep hillside and we could only build a skinny portion that was flat enough so golfers wouldn't putt off the green. My first thought was to just make a small green, which is the right half of the final putting surface. But that was extremely small, so I extended the green forward and to the left, wrapping around a bunker in the back. The result is the hole on the course I'm most curious to play and watch other people play. The final version fits wonderfully into the land. The team worked really hard to make the golf shot difficult, while giving resort guests a chance of success.
