Going to meet The Furrows is like a blind date with a legendary long-lost mate’s younger sister.
Which brings us to the actual design philosophy of The Furrows …
Cocking, like his partners, is acutely aware of the type of shots that make great courses great. If you give him five minutes, he’ll make you a compelling case that almost every hole you’ll remember as a classic will ask you questions from 100 metres in.
“The 2nd, 12th or 18th at St Andrews spring to mind, but we’ve got so many examples in our back yard on the Sandbelt. There’s a couple of great approach shots you’re required to play at the 3rd and 4th at Woodlands, and the 3rd on Royal Melbourne West is one of the best possible examples with a green that tilts away, but a strategic rise right before the green itself.
“Then there’s another classic just a couple of hundred metres from The Furrows if you think to the 3rd green on the main course – just making your choice and then having the pressure on to make a precise shot.
“These holes are some of the most enjoyable and thought-provoking in the game, so we figured we would do our best to make nine of them and put them on the one short course.
“The basic idea is that we didn’t want players just to mindlessly grab a wedge and putter knowing all the holes were roughly the same length. We wanted them to look at each hole separately and know – after playing it a couple of times maybe – that to get close to wherever the hole is cut, you’ll have to play a series of different shots.
“Kingston Heath is famous for them. If you think about the 7th, for example … if you’re 100m out and the pin is at the front, you might bump something low and through the swale at the front; you could hit it soft and just carry the front and run it up; or you could hit it hard and try to spin it back down the hill.
“There are a few holes (on the main course) where you can’t necessarily fly the ball on to the green, so you have to figure out how to play it on the ground.
“And even when it’s apparent how you need to play a shot, the precision required to play it effectively is at a premium.
“They are some of the great short shots on the Sandbelt, or around the world for that matter. Even though they might only be from 100m, they’re complex and confounding shots – and you have to choose the right option to get it close.
“Our thoughts with the short course was to put that same premise on these 100m shots. Ideally, we’d provide four or five different ways to play each hole, even though they play at similar distances.
“They should provide challenges for the accomplished player, yet also a way for newer players to find a path to the hole.
“Usually, the short grass extends all the way back to the tee, so there are some holes when you could just as easily grab a putter and whack it along the ground.
“There are formal tees, but you can really play from where you feel comfortable, especially if you’re practising a specific shot.
“Regardless, the key is generally to be able to manipulate the ball on the ground on approach and be wary of the tilt of the greens (rather than just fly the ball at the flag).
“You really want to land the ball short – sand wedge and putter wasn’t the point of it.”
To this end, Cocking says he and his colleagues have been pleasantly surprised by the reception the new course has received from members, even those who were originally sceptical of the project.
“There have been some pleasing comments, some from who you might expect, but some from people who voted against it, but have since gone out and played and loved it,” he said.
The greens are generally very large to create these options and one of the alternatives that has permitted, if desired by the club, is the prospect of having two distinct holes on the larger greens to encourage different tactics for individual players.
An example of this could easily be the gigantic 5th green that is essentially in a “figure eight” shape lying across the direction of the tee shot with grand bunkering at the front where the green narrows.
It’s one of the shorter holes regardless of which side of the bunker the flag might be, but if it’s left the hole becomes infinitely easier with an ability to run the ball on to the putting surface; if the pin’s right, it demands centimetre perfect distance control to conjure a birdie putt.
The 6th also has two distinct alternatives with the vast majority of the putting surface behind the front right bunker. Yet even in its relative infancy, the members have already nicknamed the position for the tougher pin at the front the “pimple” because it’s on a peninsula of land jutting out and surrounded by sand. That part is approximately only 60 metres, but trust me, it’s a brute.
“(Hole) 5 changed,” Cocking explained. “Originally it was going to be a double green from two different angles, hence the figure eight shape, but we were lucky to have that freedom to change during construction and we now have essentially two options – the easier pin on the left and hard one on the right.
“The left side is inspired by the 2nd hole at St Andrews that you have to bounce the ball up use the contours.
“The 6th, though, was always a double green – but through construction we were looking at grassing lines … and then started thinking back to an amazing short course called the Bad Little 9, built by Bob Parsons in Arizona, which has incredibly hard and tiny greens, so we made another change.
“Geoff (Ogilvy) played there and had eight on the first.
“That’s really an element available in short courses where you can have a couple of pins that are really hard and keep the good player engaged, interested and trying to hit quality shots.
“So, we thought, `Why don’t we put that little peninsula out there?’. It really does stick out there, but it’s such a fun shot to hit.”
And then comes a hole of which Cocking is passionately proud.
The 7th, to an untrained eye, perhaps looks like a couple of others on The Furrows, but if you’re an aficionado of Kingston Heath, you’ll soon realise that it’s a fairly faithful replica of the short 10th hole on the main course.
Cocking said that 10th hole is one of his favourite par-3s in the world and has been repeatedly bewildered by it being deleted from tournament play because of routing preferences that mean the 19th hole regularly becomes the 2nd and the 10th left unused so as not to create traffic flow issues.
“It’s the ultimate insult at major tournaments for me,” Cocking said, only half-joking.
“You’ve got one of the great holes and it has a hot dog stand on the tee.
“I couldn’t let that go and when we had a flat bit of land and were already thinking there should be one green surrounded by sand, then we had that idea.
“And once you start down that path, you either go all in or make it look completely different.
“We checked levels, width, sizes and everything really – so it’s a pretty accurate replica with only a couple of very small differences.
“It’s my hot dog revenge,” Cocking joked.
It all adds to that feeling of familiarity, even though the course is brand new.
“That’s the intention,” Cocking said.
“It often comes down to not the overall hole plan, but more the small details – the use of native grasses, bunker edges, use of paths, all those things make it as good as it can be aesthetically, but also give it that feeling of belonging.”
And if that’s the ultimate goal, The Furrows certainly delivers.
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