Devilish downhill lies take a toll

Punched the first hole in my 2010 DivotCard this week and was re-introduced to an old nemesis in the process. Blackhawk Golf Club was a favorite haunt of mine when I first moved to Columbus back in 1983. I played the course a lot during the '80s and grew a special appreciation for the difficulty of the third hole, a 431-yard par 4.

As the years passed, I strayed from playing the course for various reasons. But in recent years it has returned to my rotation as a tuneup track because of its association with The DivotCard. This week it didn't take me long to remember why I was always glad to be done with the third hole and why it belongs in my Elegant Eighteen lineup.

The drive from the tee box isn't overly demanding or tight but it does have to be hit long enough to have a real go at the green in two. The problem is the fairway slopes downhill and feeds into a valley where a small brook runs through it. A well-hit drive of 240 to 250 yards almost always winds up with a downhill lie on the side of a hill. And the second shot must be hit over the brook at the bottom of the valley and back up a big hill to a large green from front to back that is basically hidden from view because of the elevation change.

It's very difficult to hit a solid shot from a downhill lie. And hitting one from such a lie for distance and having it climb a big hill in the process is a very tall order. More times than I care to remember, I'd pull or push my the second shot to one side or the other of big hill on the other side of the valley and watch it come to a rest well short of the green. The hill leading up to the green is also flanked by a large tree with overhanging branches on the left side, and a clump of trees on the right side of the hill impedes shots and often knocks them back into the aforementioned brook.

It takes a stout shot to reach the green in two, and even if you pull it off, it is hard to hit one close to the pin because it's basically a blind shot. Most of the time I was 20 or 30 yards short of the green after two shots, facing a wedge shot where only the top of the flag could be seen. If I could get on in three and two-putt, I considered it a minor victory.

Blackhawk, designed by noted golf architect Jack Kidwell, opened in 1964 and plays 6,013 yards long from its middle tees with a par rating of 68.3 and a slope of 110.

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