Architecture Glossary - Postage Stamp

The message of great, strategic golf course architecture is clear. The actual words used to describe those golf courses, however, are many. The Architecture Glossary column will examine more precise terms and concepts that one will find when exploring golf course architecture. Hopefully understanding these terms, and why certain architects employed them, will help you to better understand the golf courses you play…and maybe even improve your scores!

Today’s term is ‘Postage Stamp’.

Greens have continued to get bigger, both on new courses and newly-restored courses, as architects look to celebrate putting and placement in the tradition that their influencers followed. There’s certainly precedent—the same fact is recycled at every Open featuring St. Andrews: The Old Course’s average green size is an astonishing 22,267 square feet.

Good golf design, however, is a study in diversity among holes. Such is where the iconic, and even notorious, reputation of the “postage stamp” green comes into play.

It is natural and necessary to begin this conversation with “Postage Stamp,” the eighth hole at Royal Troon’s own Old course, which both inspires many of the greens discussed here, as well as lends its name to them.

Royal Troon No. 8: A small carry to a small green, complicated by lurking bunkers and linksland winds...the stuff of legend (Photo credit: Gary Lisbon)

This par three measures just 2,635 sq. feet (compared to an average of 6,000 sq. feet on PGA Tour courses), and it should be noted that any comparisons made to actual postage must be done to the more elongated version, rather than those that veer nearer to squares in their shape. Troon’s “Postage Stamp” is nearly three-times longer than it is wide, making it all the more challenging a target. Five bunkers dot its near-three sides.

Due to both the tight target, and the strong winds that tend to occur at linksland locations, “Postage Stamp” is appropriately the shortest par three on the Open rota.

Whether “Postage Stamp” actually serves as a direct influence for the other greens listed throughout this feature is ambiguous. Not ambiguous, however, are two relatively-consistent themes that run between them: They are short and the greens (generally) mimic the shape of their Troon namesake.

“Short” is relative, however, to par. The notion of a “postage stamp” green has more-often been associated with par fours than with proper short holes in the United States.

Pine Valley No. 8: The left green at Pine Valley was intended to test the championship player's mettle...a short shot to the tightest of targets. (Photo credit: Top100GolfTraveler)

The most notorious example comes, like many notorious examples, from Pine Valley Golf Club. Many know the club for its exaggerated hazards but exaggeration runs both ways…the green at No. 8 is perilously small. This hole serves to test a player’s nerves when taking a brief, frightening approach. There are bunkers along the fairway (as everywhere at Pine Valley), however the landing area is wide open and the hole a mere 325 yards.

The challenge comes at the second shot, where players shoot toward a green that’s just 2,900 sq. feet. Although bigger than Royal Troon’s target (not a high bar), players will also be hitting slightly uphill, and over a gaping bunker. Similar sand hazards sit left and right. To make matters worse, Perry Maxwell later added a slight false front, so even approaches that look promising might end up in the pit. It should be noted that the right green on this hole was added nearly 70 years later. It is, to quote Golf Digest editor Jerry Tarde, “nobody’s favorite [of the two].”

Many architects from nearby Philadelphia provided insight to George Crump throughout the construction of Pine Valley. One was A.W. Tillinghast, who has been credited for his influence on the club’s “Hell’s Half Acre” hazard. Whether he had an influence at No. 8 or took influence from it is unknown, but he certainly created his own holes that emulated its concept.

Ridgewood (Central) No. 6: Tillinghast may have taken a page from Pine Valley's book when designing No. 6 at Ridgewood's Central course. (Photo credit: The Ridgewood Country Club)

Perhaps the most popular is No. 6 at Ridgewood Country Club’s Center course. Although the previous hole at Pine Valley may be too much for big hitters to even consider taking a swing at, this par four measures a tempting 277 from the back tees. Such a shot would require a consummate fade, however, as the green is perhaps four-times longer than it is wide. Those who miss in any direction will likely find one of the green’s six bunkers, and those who come up short will be lucky to have a good lie in the rough on the hillside.

This hole adds a layer of challenge in that the tee shot must be carefully considered by the conservative player as well. Those who hit their first out to the right will not have an ideal angle into this thin green, but a bunker sits along the left at about 200 yards from the tee. Unlike the open tee shot at Pine Valley, nothing comes easy here.

The ideas for such holes go further than those who served at Pine Valley, of course. Donald Ross tried his hand at many styles of par four, and a short one with a tiny target was certainly among them. Perhaps the most dramatic of these is No. 13 at Franklin Hills Country Club, which plays at 325 yards and features another tiny target.

Franklin Hills No. 13: A large teebox or a small green at Franklin Hills? It's in fact the putting surface for No. 13, which is smaller than its fronting bunker. (Photo Credit: Franklin Hills Country Club)

Once again, players will have a wide-open tee shot for their drive. The score will be determined on the second shot, where players hit up over a large bunker to a putting surface that, by our estimate, measures just below 3,000 sq. feet. The uphill nature of this shot is enough that it might be compared to both Macdonald’s Knoll template, or even a two-shot variant on Ross’s own “Volcano” par three.

It’s notable that the current size of the green may or may not quite reflect Ross’s intended intensity. His notes suggest making the green “75’ long and 50’ wide,” which — while still a compact 3,750 sq. ft. — is still larger than players’ current targets.

For all of these par fours that incorporate the original “Postage Stamp”s green into their design, it’s worthwhile to note that perhaps the hole’s most literal conceptual cousin does not share that shape. It does, however, comply in being a course’s shortest hole, and accordingly comes armed to its teeth.

Although there are many instances of architects creating short, well-defended par threes, nowhere is it codified better than by Tillinghast, who named his take on the hole “Tiny Tim.”

San Francisco No. 12: A short shot made even shorter by the drop from the teebox, to a green that seems to be made even smaller by the bunkers surrounding it. (Photo credit: Larry Lambrecht)

He only applied the title to one such par three, the current No. 14 at Bedford Springs, but the concept began appearing at many of his championship courses, including No. 13 at San Francisco Golf Club (surrounded by large bunkers) or No. 4 at Baltusrol Golf Club’s Lower course, fronted by water and surrounded by sand. The latter has been, in years since, extended to nearly 200 yards from the championship tees. “Tiny” Tim, indeed!

Much has been made about how golf courses have grown to contain more advanced golf technology. It’s nice to know that at least one challenge has remained constant: the test of hitting the postage stamp’s small target.