Black Mesa’s sixteenth green is an alien face!

My article on Black Mesa Golf Club in New Mexico will run shortly over at Golf Observer.

In the meantime, I found something fascinating right after I turned it in, so I’ll share it with you.

Click on this picture of the 16th hole, then click on this picture of the 16th Green. Look particularly closely at the green contours. Back already? Good. Here we go, this will freak you out!

The uphill par-5 16th is called “stairway to seven” but it’s more like “stairway to eleven.” From an elevated tee, the drive must carry a desert wasteland to a distant will-o-the-wisp fairway heavily canted towards a penal arroyo which guards the entire left side. The hole looks like 17 at Crystal Downs in Michigan, just substitute canyons and barren desert for the trees. It also has the same cloak and dagger claustrophobia as between the arroyos and and the desert the hazards are numerous, hideous and uniformly cataclysmic. One mistake and it’s a double bogey. Two mistakes and your card is wrecked.

The hole also plays like 17 at Crystal Downs as there are level spots where the player is supposed to land his ball to safely march his way up the fairway. Also like 16 at Crystal, these spots appear hidden from the tee because visual deception, intimidation and temptation are the main strategic defenses to the hole, but upon reaching the green and looking back, the flat areas reveal themselves. Players who are greedy and try to force the issue will find uneven lies and strange angles at best, the penal desert at worst.

Grassing over this narrow neck of fairway and routing back through this knife edge was inspired. There is no hole like it in the world, although Wolf creek and Bully Pulpit have subsequently tried to achieve the same effect. Moreover, it sets the table for a fantastic finish.

Nevertheless, 16 green may have one contour too many. It is all but physically impossible to two-putt this green from front to back or vice versa. Its two tiered with a narrow spine, but it’s also features two hollows as though someone took out a giant rounded scoop out of the face of the main headwall so putts can careen any which way if they are not struck with pinpoint speed just to get close. It’s a murderous green. Your approach or chip must find the correct tier or a three putt will result, maybe worse. “I watched one player try to putt from the top down to a bottom hole location and his ball rolled all the way off the green into some tall grass and we never found it” Spann explains in between chuckles. “You know a hole is tough when you lose a ball putting!”

Now, here is the other joke someone is playing on us – either Eddie or Baxter Spann or both – the green is shaped like the face of an alien. You know those grey ones that have the round shallow eyes and the long thin nose? Look at the picture, it will come into focus with razor sharp clarity. The brow is along the right hand side, the hollows are the eyes and the ridge is the long aquiline nose.

Now think about this; we’re in New Mexico and both Eddie and Baxter want to not only unload the kitchen sink, the piano, the dresser and a couple armoires into the course, but both have a robust sense of humor. “Yes, it does look like that!” laughs Eddie Peck as I mention the resemblance to him. He cackled non-stop for a good two minutes, looking sheepishly like a man discovered. Oh well, I’m glad they find it funny, because most scorecards are not amusing. Stairway to seven? Why not Stairway to Roswell? “Yeah, I guess there’s a little bit of Roswell in Espanada” Spann chirps jovially.