Mystic Rock

Joe Hardy, John Daly’s virtual stepfather, puts on a good show. His tournament – the 84 Lumber Classic – is attended by the big names in golf during a fairly tough week on the schedule. The 84 Lumber Classic, played at the grueling Mystic Rock course at Nemacolin in Farmington, PA, comes after the last major of the year and the week before the Presidents Cup.

I had the opportunity to play at Mystic Rock a month or so ago. The back tees were closed (in preparation for the tournament), but I was able to get a real sense of the course. On television and from the notes I took, the pros played tees that were only 25 yards longer per hole or so than the tees I played. The blue tees measure 7000 yards and the championship tees measure 7500.

Join us on a picture tour of some of Mystic Rock’s niftier holes (and an inside look at their locker room).

Joe Hardy is an affable fellow. He’s also rich, and his “Toy Store” is one of the more famous stops at the Nemacolin resort. The “store” has no items for sale, but instead displays some of Hardy’s precious (and expensive) cars. Several other buildings around the property house airplanes, cars, and other pricy pieces of machinery.

As you wind your way from the front gate back to the Mystic Rock clubhouse, the massive building that serves as player headquarters appears over some mounds and trees. As Mystic Rock is a semi-private course until next year, it’s not hard to get a peek at the inside of the clubhouse, complete with player names on solid oak lockers, marble chess sets, and quite a few plasma televisions.

If you’re here to play, the next stop is the driving range. I’ve seen a few other PGA Tour stop driving ranges on television, and none parallel this one. With several fake greens, actual bunkers, and weaving strips of fairway, this double-ended driving range offers a wide variety of targets, shapes, and space.

After you’ve warmed up, it’s time to move on to the star of the resort: the Mystic Rock golf course. After an easy opening hole (I birdied from near tap-in range, and Jason Gore eagled the 330-yard par 4 during the 84 Lumber Classic), the course gets nasty fast. Seen here, the par-4 fourth hole, measuring only 373 yards for the pros, but with a very small landing area on the left side above a 45° slope.

If you watched John Daly’s “Playing Lessons from the Pros” (at Mystic Rock) he shares the story of how he told Joe Hardy that he “should put a waterfall or something in.” And so Joe did, and that waterfall resides left of the 592-yard par-5 fifth.

The 7th, a 226-yard par 3 (which played as a 175-yard hole for me), gave the players fits all week. Seen here from the shorter tees, players must carry a bunch of rocks and land the ball softly on the front of the green to have any chance of getting the ball close. The bunkers left are massive and anything short is bound to get lost in knee-high rocks and weeds.

The ninth, a 476-yard par 4 that played only 424 for me, features a narrow and ideal landing area on the left above some water (seen here just inside the left treeline). Unfortunately, the ideal line to the flag also leaves a blind shot. I hit a solid PW from darn close to the water (230-yard carry from the blue tees, 275 or so from the championship tees) to ten feet and birdied, but with the additional 50 yards and the danger left, many pros were happy with pars here.

The tee shot at the 11th is blind, but this 633-yard par 4 was reached with an 8-iron during the 84 Lumber classic, owing largely to the massive uphill-then-downhill nature of the landing area for tee shots. Carry the ridge and the ball rolls down, down, down the hill you see below. Further up on the left-hand side is one of Mystic Rock’s various and sundry art pieces. This one, a square held up by what appears to be a loose chain, reminded me of an insurance company.

The 12th hole, the short and devilish par 3 that gave players fits, is now two greens. A month ago, we were forced to play the “old” green – technically the front-right portion of the old green. The middle was cut out as the lake was brought deeper into the green, creating trouble on three sides (front, left, and right) of the new green, seen here at the left edge of the picture. You can make out the flag towards the right center.

The 13th hole, a 363-yard par 4 that played the same yardage for me, saw plenty of players hitting irons off the tee to avoid the large fairway bunker to the right. Anyone hitting a fairway wood or, heaven forbid, a driver would have to shape the ball with a perfect cut to hold the fairway. Most simply didn’t bother. The green, just past the trees, has two tricky slopes and a large bunker embedded in the front face.

As you step onto the 16th tee, a 526-yard par 5, you can look to the left and see the fifth green – a long, narrow green with a large bunker set six feet or more below the level of the green.

Then you turn and face forward to the troubling 16th. Until you’ve played here, you’re not sure where you’re going with your second shot, and into the wind this hole is hellish. Several players reached the hole easily in calm conditions, but it took a solid drive, a solid 2-iron, and a gentle wedge to get there when I played. The line off the tee isn’t too bad, but the second shot is troubling, as the fairway snakes wildly to the right and the fairway bunkers off the tee are mounded so as to create a blind shot.

The sign you saw frequently during television coverage of the 84 Lumber Classic? It’s mounted on the back side of the lake, facing the 16th green.

The 17th, which played 183 yards when I played and only 158 on the final day of the tournament, is a difficult, narrow green set hard against a lake on the left-hand side. But it’s a breather compared to the 18th, a long, uphill par 4 that will take the rest of your available energy just to climb.

Players drive towards a bunker set against the right-hand side, ideally with a draw, or risk leaving themselves in some very awkward spots (as seen on Sunday at the 84 Lumber Classic!). The second shot, even from the fairway, is no bargain as the green is raised above the level of the surrounding ground, and one tenacious bunker sits against the right-hand side to catch only slightly imperfect shots. The more imperfect ones? They’re cast aside by the slopes, leaving devilish pitch and chip shots.

Though Vijay Singh finished only tied for 13th this year, last year he won, and the leaderboard stays up for the entire year until next year’s event. If I were to take this picture today, “GORE” would be atop the board.