In Season 2, Episode 11 of “The Charlie Rymer Golf Show” on ESPN2, “The Big Timer” concludes his playing tour of Mike Strantz’s signature masterpiece at True Blue by taking on its par-4 18th hole. See what playing tip he has in store for you!
Ah, take a deep breath, soak it in. This is one of the best finishing holes you’ll find anywhere. It’s absolutely beautiful. Most players can pull the driver and blast away, the line is a far right edge of the clubhouse. Now, if you’re a little bit longer off the tee, you might think about taking a three wood because that fairway does run out pretty quickly on the right hand side. There is a ton of slope, both in the fairway and at the green that you have to deal with when you play this 18th hole. Here’s how you tackle that. So there’s a couple things going on here in the 18th hole, let me go over them for you. First and foremost, this whole fairway tilts from right to left, that’s going to want to make the ball work to the left.
As you may have noticed, there’s some water left of this green and that’s never good. The other thing that’s going on is the green itself, as Johnny Miller always talked about, has sideboards, there’s a lot of slope up there working from right to left. You got to pick up on stuff like that. What I’m going to do is aim this ball out 50, 60 feet right of the hole. I’m going to let this slope here in the fairway get that ball moving right to left, and then I’m going to let the slope on the green help me get this one in close to the hole. Come on, give me that big kick. There we go. I love it when a plan comes together.