St Francis Links offers an interesting variety of tee boxes, and on this visit I pegged up on the back “pro” tee on 18 for the first time. An easterly was blowing, so this formidable par 4 was playing in a favourable right-to-left crosswind. It’s 405 metres from this tee, but it’s at such a high elevation from the very top of a hill that my playing partners only needed 9-iron for their approach shots after taking the tiger line over the edge of the water hazard (I played more conservatively). Playing from this tee is a blast (one of several exciting tee shots on this course), but I’m told that Jack Nicklaus wasn’t in favour of using it because he disliked the fact that the main road past the estate entrance is in plain view.
