Cut The Sails

Welcome to Cut the Sails, perched along the New England coastline. Two routes, two mindsets: There’s safe harbor down the leeward speed slot on the left—ride the rolling hills and you’ll tumble close, but you won’t quite reach the putting surface.

Or take on the risk, fly a cut shot blind over the bunker, trim the sails, and let the slope feed you forward to reveal the green. Miss it too far right and you can kick toward the bay and the sailboats on the horizon.

Lacking no shortage of variety, this hole turns breeze and bravery into a potential birdie opportunity.

Hole Strategy

Hole designer: Gil Hanse

Gil Hanse talks through the design of Cut the Sails and discusses how the teams may approach it:

Gil says: "Every architect wants to design drivable holes, where you give players the option to take it on. But there are different ways to go about it and I think the best drivable par 4s really ask some interesting questions and lead the golfer into making decisions that they're not quite comfortable with.

"The way this golf hole is set up off the tee, with the green hidden behind a dune, you really have to trust your line. Is your line straight over the dune and down into the green that sits in a bowl? Or are you going to go out along the left-hand side and let the ball feed down the slope?

"Or, are you going to lay up short because you don't want to take on the trouble? If you don't lay up properly, you're going to be feeding the ball in front of the dune, with a blind shot into the green.

"There are multiple options and different ways to play the golf hole. Hopefully we get lots of drama and we get the guys pulling driver out on the tee box."