The CSGA Links Volume 6 Issue 1 April, 2018 | Page 18

Players have to find the the right quadrant on greens
to make birdies. Where you hit your tee shot may determine if
you’ve even got a chance to do that.
CHAMPIONSHIPS
CHAMPIONSHIPS
The par-3 4th
Innis Arden: One Big Test in One Small Package
By Bob Carney
I
nnis Arden Golf Club is as old as the CSGA
itself, but the club has never hosted one of the associa-
tion’s major championships.

It seems fitting, then, that the advice members
and golf staff offer to competitors who’ll play the
20th Connecticut Women’s Open Championship is:

“Be patient.”

“You may look at the card and think, well, it’s
not overly long,” says assistant professional Jessica Ca-
rafiello, 2016 champion, and one of the favorites on
May 29 and 30. “But it doesn’t need to be long. It’s got
tons of character.”

Patience is required from the opening tee shot,
and certainly throughout the first nine of the 5800-yard
course, says Carafiello. “If you think of it, you really
have to hit ten straight precise tee shots to start.” And
then there are the greens.
18 | CSGA Links // April 2018

Robert Trent Jones designed the course in 1960.
Ken Dye re-designed it a decade ago, removing many
forced carries, and then re-greened it in 2015. He made
some greens larger, but created hole locations on what
now amount to greens within greens.

“Players have to find the the right quadrant on
greens to make birdies. On some holes, where you hit
your tee shot will determine if you’ve got a chance to
do that. So that demands precision both off the tee and
into the green,” says Carafiello. “On the back nine there
are a few choices. And those choices will determine
what kind of scoring chances you’ll have.”

Head professional Gary Murphy has another
piece of advice, about those greens. “Don’t go long on
any approach shot,” says Murphy. “There’s often out of
bounds over greens. And getting up and in from behind
them, because they are small and tend to be fast, is very
difficult. I think the ability to recover, to get up and
down when you miss a green that will be big.”

President Russ Pruner doesn’t expect any player
www.csgalinks.org
to “own” Innis Arden. “It’s short, but you cannot over-
power it. Short doesn’t mean it’s easy. We had the PGA
men’s championship a few years back and very few play-
ers were under par.”

Some pl