First of Avery Ranch's longer Par 4's

The lengthy fourth hole at Avery Ranch Golf Club presents challenges for my length of play because it faces directly into the predominant South wind, which in Texas typically blows at least 10 mph pretty constantly and in hotter months stretches to a two club wind. If you play with a curved shot this in-the-face-wind exaggerates the curve turning a draw into a hook and a fade into a slice with ease.  Even though the fairway is a generous 35 to 40 yards wide, it takes a good hit to hold the fairway.

The left third of the fairway slopes down to the left as a dry creek (and hazard) runs along the left side. Thus, if your shot drifts left of center, it can roll out into the vegetation lining the hazard and results in more than a few lost balls in my experience playing there. To the right of the golf path are homes whose back yards are out of bounds. The decorative steel and stone fence line is far enough from the path that all but the worst slice will usually be playable – but requires that you find a path through the sparse trees back to the fairway.

The few live oak trees left and right of the fairway can handcuff your progress to the green if your tee shot is mildly wayward. But the hole is so straight that you can generally escape and advance up the fairway unless you’ve lodged up against a tree trunk.

Deceptive bunkers defend the green

The architect guarded the green complex with two bunkers as seen in the blog’s title picture. The right bunker is of the deceptive type that from a distance looks like it’s at the green but instead is 25 yards in front of the green or 50 yards from the middle of the green. Landing in this bunker leaves a rather long green side bunker shot with little chance of saving par. I have landed in the right bunker once when I foolishly attempted a “hero shot” to reach the green with a hybrid and came up short.

The left side bunker is large and if you land in the front lobe requires a distressingly long sand save shot. Because I tend to hit pulls, I have visited the left beach more frequently than the right bunker. The bunker texture, at the time of this writing, is the dense sand found in most Avery Ranch bunkers.

The green complex is large and slopes generally from left to right-front. Although there is not a tier evident, the middle section of the green slopes a bit more resulting in a tricky down hill putt if you hit long. The safe miss is front to front-right. The grass behind the green is typically cut long requiring a bunker-style deep grass dig-out with little chance of saving par.

Scoring method gold star strategy - get the bogey and run!

This hole is ideal for The Scoring Method play for me. Though the fairway is a generous 35 to 40 yards wide, pulling out the driver (not used in months) or 3-wood, doesn’t pay because a 194 yards on average 3-wood still leaves over 190 yards to the bunker infested green. Instead, I play this hole with a stress-free 3-hybrid which plays 175 yards into the aforementioned wind, leaving 210+ yards to the green. A 6-iron layup of 135 yards (wind length) leaves me with a 50° gap wedge to the green. Then I hope to walk away with a happy camper two putt bogey. I have averaged 5.81 on this hole with two pars – one up & down, and another when I pulled out the 3-wood I knew would be helped by the north winds ushered in by a cold front. I hit that 3-wood 253 yards, nearly a record, smacked a 7-iron for a GIR and two putted for a rare “pro par”.

This straight away hole will be a challenge for any golfer as the long approach shot makes birdies rare and walking away with a par a fist-pump victory. I find it a fun hole to play.