Power Lines as a design element!

[Chris Holcombe]

Kyle: Add Chester Valley to the Philly list. Unfortunately your eyes are really drawn to these nasties.

[Matt MacIver]

Birkdale GC in Huntersville NC (near Charlotte) has high tension wires running across the 10th tee box -- you can hear the crackling and on good days feel the hair on your neck stand up.  

[Scott_Burroughs]

Powerlines (or phone lines) are not uncommon near/through courses, though development courses tend to just have long cart path rides from one hole to the next crossing under the powerlines (Governor's Club and TPC@Wakefield near me), but it's the courses where the powerlines cross fairways that are in the way, such as on the tee shot at the 18th at Ridgecrest in Nampa, ID.

Nothing like the black stripe on a ball that just hit a power line dead on...

[Mike Benham]

Huckaby's Santa Teresa has power lines / towers as does Gib's Poplar Creek.

At ST (the 9th), the towers shape the hole into a slight dogleg right par-4 ...

At PC, the course is adjacent to a substation, so the power lines and towers effect many holes.

[JESII]

The US Naval Academy GC in Annapolis.  Huge radio towers with their support beams certainly effect play on a couple of holes.

[Tom Huckaby]

Mr. Benham beat me to it.

Yes, the beloved and be-hated Santa Teresa has power lines that run through:

#6 - about 100 yards off the tee - but high enough such that 99% of drives go under them;

#9 - right side of the fairway - sometimes SAVING a drive that was going to be worse - but yes, making a lot of people aim farther left than they should;

#12 - about 175 off the tee, crossing, way high up.  These get hit fairly often.

What's neat is that these are the ONLY holes that are effected... I really think they did a damn fine job of keeping the lines out of play.

Same goes for Poplar Creek.  There are lines everywhere there, but you don't feel like they are in play much at all.

TH

[Doug Wright]

The older nine holes at Englewood Muny here in Denver has 'em on a couple of holes. It's the better of the two nines--the newer nine was built on a garbage dump and they didn't cover it well enough, resulting in occasional seepage. Nice course!  

[Kevin_Reilly]

SFGC's 8th hole once had a power line crossing it...IIRC it could come into play off the tee.  Removed/buried 20ish years ago.

[Kevin_Reilly]

#16 at Orinda Country Club in Orinda, CA also has a power line in play.  Here is a brief look at the hole:

#16 at Orinda CC

[MarkT]

Yes, the beloved and be-hated Santa Teresa has power lines that run through:

#6 - about 100 yards off the tee - but high enough such that 99% of drives go under them;

Nice to know I'm not like 99% people of this world  

[Richard Chamberlain]

We're finishing up construction at a new course north of Sydney on a beautiful site squeezed between a lake and the Pacific.
Unfortunately a row of horrible old power poles run up the edge of the site and really detract from the aesthetics of the place. None are really in play but some are pretty close to the edge of the fairways. We've been begging the client for two years to put the power underground but it's going to cost a bomb.
These are some aerial shots which show how close they are but it looks far worse from ground level.

[Tom Huckaby]

Yes, the beloved and be-hated Santa Teresa has power lines that run through:

#6 - about 100 yards off the tee - but high enough such that 99% of drives go under them;

Nice to know I'm not like 99% people of this world  

Mark - hell I too have hit them - it surely can be done - it's just pretty unlikely.  Line-bingings happen WAY more on 12.

So let's put this down to 90-95%.  Watch 10 drives on 6 and I'd bet less than 1 hits the lines.

TH

[MarkT]

Tom,
I didn't eever hit the lines on #12. Banged the tower on #9 a few times but never the lines on #12. I hit a high tee ball and manage to somehow to always hit the lines on #6. I think it became a mental thing for me.

[Tom Huckaby]

Mark - interesting - you definitely must hit a very high ball - and you are the exception for sure.  I've seen at least 10 times more bingings on 12 than on 6.

On 9, it's the tower that gets hit more than the lines, so count yourself among the many there... which of course is hugely important - tower means play it as it lies, line means re-load.  One becomes very adept and discerning the audio difference in a line-bing from a tower-KONG.