At left, Gallery Golf Club's gargantuan, 725-yard, ninth hole.
The Gallery Golf Club, a private club that allows limited public play to alternate between its two courses, features the longest hole you can play on an Arizona golf vacation.
It’s the ninth hole on the North Course, a 1998 John Fought/Tom Lehman collaboration, measuring a whopping 725 yards from the tips, one of the longest par-5s in golf.
I hadn’t played the first eight holes from the back tees, but I couldn’t pass up playing the entire length of this colossus. That would be like visiting Philadelphia without eating a cheesesteak. It’s just not done.
The drive requires a carry of close to 200 yards over some extremely gnarly terrain, though the task is less daunting than it sounds because the route proceeds downhill (about 80 feet from tee to green) and downwind.
The second shot calls for an internal strategy session: there is a bunker on the left, two bunkers in the center, two more on the right and a lake that intrudes on the right half of the fairway.
Like any well-designed hole, a conservative play toward the center leaves a longer shot into the green. A riskier, longer second brings the water into play, but leaves a shorter, easier approach.
But even after two perfect shots, par is a struggle because a small wash crosses the fairway 40 yards from a green surrounded by five, steep-faced bunkers.
It took me four shots to reach the green, which quickly put John Daly’s getting home in two during the 1999 Tucson Open into sharp perspective. The Gallery Golf Club no longer hosts the tournament, but its South Course recently became the venue for the Accenture Match Play Championship, part of the World Golf Championships.
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