Another potential spill at Chapel Hill

If you roll the dice on Nos. 7 and 11 at Chapel Hill, odds are good you'll crap out on one or both of the difficult par 4s. In a Jan. 4 post dubbed "Going to the Chapel," I explained how the seventh hole can easily become a trail of tears if one isn't on their game. The same can be said for No. 11, but with a twist.

While the seventh hole leaves one with a scary downhill second shot, No. 11 demands a well-placed shot to a mostly hidden green resting on top of a hill. Any shot headed toward the green without conviction risks landing in a bunker protecting the left front of the putting surface or coming to rest in the rough of the slope rising to the green. A poorly hit shot risks a worse fate, rolling into a creek the cuts across the fairway about 20 to 25 yards below the green.

Anyway you slice it, No. 11 belongs in Oldgolfdawg's Elegant Eighteen list. The drive on the 399-yard hole from the middle tees is fun to watch from an elevated tee box. But there's danger to the left in the form of a creek that runs all along the fairway until it crosses it at the base of the hill on which the green sits. Everything hit off the tee box wants to kick to the left so one has to be sure to give the creek plenty of respect. If the drive into a valley below is faded too much to the right, you can end up with an awkward side-hill lie that will make going for the green in two are real gamble.

If you hit a good drive that comes to rest in a level area of the fairway about 240 yards out, you'll be left with about a 160-yard shot that plays longer because you have to hit it uphill to the green. It usually plays about 175 to 185 yards long and any shot that starts to bend left or right from there will usually kick off the bank leading up to the green and end up with a very difficult third shot. I recall many times telling myself not to try to muscle the second shot and still being unable to relax and get the tension in my arms to go away. Which, of course, is not what you want to do in that situation. I guess that's why knowing and doing can be two different things.

Anyway, if the pin placement is near the front of the good-sized green that for the most part slopes from back to front, it is more difficult to get second, third or fourth shots close because there's no margin of error if they come up just a little short. If they come up short, they'll often roll back down the hill, leaving one with another difficult shot.

Though the drive to Chapel Hill from downtown Columbus is about 47 miles, I never regret making it upon arriving. The course easily rates 3 1/2 dog biscuits in Oldgolfdawg's best-places-to-play guide.

http://www.chapelhillgolfcourse.com/