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The Championship course at Tanglewood Park, about 10 minutes from the central North Carolina city of Winston-Salem, hosted the 1974 PGA Championship, and is a regular fixture for the Senior PGA Tour. Designed by Robert Trent Jones, it is a fiendishly long course made longer still by its rolling terrain, uphill fairways and huge greens.
In addition to the elevation changes, the fairways are quite narrow, especially for a public course like this one. Straight driving is required, to keep the ball out of the rough, the fairway bunkers that protect many of the doglegs, and to permit a clean approach to the undulating greens.
The closing holes offer no relief to a weary golfer with high scores. The 15th is a shortish par four, but there’s a nest of fairway bunkers to avoid left of the landing zone and the sand-surrounded green is but 18 paces wide. After the uphill par three 16th, there’s a bear of a 580-par five 17th, a three-shot hole is anyone’s book, with the green sitting behind a sea of sand. And the closer, 435 yards, bend to the right, with sand everywhere and a multi-tiered green.
Tanglewood is a public park, with another golf course, and to play here costs less than $50. Quite a bargain for a golf course with both pedigree and sharp teeth.
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