Modeled after the 7th at Leven Links (pronounced Leave- in) in County Fife, Scotland, “Leven” is a more subtle deviation of “Alps”. Characteristically a short, sometimes reachable par 4, Leven asks the golfer to successfully challenge a daunting penalty area off the tee for a preferred angle into a green protected by hillocks and a sandscape jutting into the fairway. The elevated bunkering obscures the putting surface from view should you find your ball on the wrong side of the fairway.

The genius of Leven can be summed up in one word. Temptation. From an elevated tee, the abundant fairway width and clear view of the green entice golfers to play more boldly than they probably should. A slight misstep places one in the most precarious of positions and scrambling to score. This template can be found at Macdonald’s National Golf Links of America’s 17th and his 14th at Mid Ocean Club in Bermuda. It should also be noted that one of the most famous short 4’s in golf, George Thomas’ 10th at Riviera, succeeds on the same underlying structure of the Leven template.

Size: 20" wide x 16" tall

About the Artist:

Over the past 3 decades, Thad Layton has traveled the planet plying his trade as a Golf Course Architect for Arnold Palmer Design Company. He is a lifelong student of the game and has studied scores of golf’s greatest courses. Along the way, he’s catalogued the journey, filling up piles of sketchbooks with doodles and descriptions that have informed and inspired his work as an architect. Of these, Thad has illustrated a selection of his favorite design studies to share with fellow golf enthusiasts in a vivid series of numbered and signed original giclee watercolor prints.