Laughable shots

[Brock Peyer]

Brock,

I am impressed that you got to name your daughter Palmer! Any chance her brother is named Nicklaus?

Just don't name her sister Player, ok?

Bill, my son's name is Ross.  My wife picked out both names, God love her!!

[Jamey Bryan]

Brock:

My congratulations.......    I found your story the best recounted, your children's names are perfect, and you'd better take very good care of your wife!

Jamey

[Bill Brightly]

My best golfing buddy Joe B tells me this story:

Joe is playing with a guy he has just met, and eventually the topic of holes in one comes up.  Joe has had two, tells his stories, then asks the guy if he has ever had one. Guy replies, "I think so."  Joe is stunned, "whaddya mean you think so, you either had one or you didn't!"

Guy explains that when he was a teenager, he played a round with his brother and their father. Since the boys didn't have enough money to buy new balls, to be nice, their dad took out a new sleeve of Titleists and tossed one to each of them on the first tee...

They came to a par 3 and both brothers hit excellent shots, right at the pin. Because of a high lip on the front trap, they couldn't see how close each one was...

When they got to the green, one ball was one foot past the hole, the other one was in for an ace!  Only problem was they were playing the same number Titleist, and being dumb teenagers, neither had marked their ball! To this day EACH swears that HIS ball went in the hole...but neither one is really sure...

[rboyce]

Playing with a foursome from work, one member of the group walked ahead to look for his ball in the right rough. Sure enough, the furthest player back hits a low screamer dead to the right.

In the fraction of a second the ball was in the air my mind raced through the typical thoughts - "i've seen this before, it will get close, but it won't ACTUALLY hit him."

THUD

The screamer hits him square in the back and he goes down to the ground in the same slow-motion, dramatic fashion that Willem Dafoe went down in the movie "Platoon".

He was ok, so we gave him an honorary par for the hole and kept playing. Pretty sure that he still has a Titleist tatoo on his lower back though.

[Brock Peyer]

My best golfing buddy Joe B tells me this story:

Joe is playing with a guy he has just met, and eventually the topic of holes in one comes up.  Joe has had two, tells his stories, then asks the guy if he has ever had one. Guy replies, "I think so."  Joe is stunned, "whaddya mean you think so, you either had one or you didn't!"

Guy explains that when he was a teenager, he played a round with his brother and their father. Since the boys didn't have enough money to buy new balls, to be nice, their dad took out a new sleeve of Titleists and tossed one to each of them on the first tee...

They came to a par 3 and both brothers hit excellent shots, right at the pin. Because of a high lip on the front trap, they couldn't see how close each one was...

When they got to the green, one ball was one foot past the hole, the other one was in for an ace!  Only problem was they were playing the same number Titleist, and being dumb teenagers, neither had marked their ball! To this day EACH swears that HIS ball went in the hole...but neither one is really sure...

Bill, I have a similiar but different story, I wasn't playing with him but I have a buddy in college who was a drank way too much and didn't know when to stop. He was an awful golfer but loved to play, he had the worst incredahook you ever saw, anyway, he made an ace and never saw it, doesn't remember and couldn't tell you what he hit but there were 3 witnesses.  Cryin shame.

Same guy, probably a 36 handicap (being kind) once made a 50 footer for par to win a bet that he couldn't par three holes in a row.  The members of the group promptly walked off the course and rewarded him with an afternoon at a gentlemen's club.

[Brock Peyer]

Pretty much everyone in my family has injured everyone else on the golf course or with a club or shot.  

I was shagging wedges with a baseball mitt for my Dad and brother when my Dad skulled one and nailed me and took me down, I was 6 or 7.  

My brother made a small practice bunker in our back yard and skulled one, he yelled fore in time for my Dad to turn around 50 yards away (through some trees) to be hit square in the forehead, it knocked my Dad down, the back of his head hit the grass before his feet, I ran inside yelling to my Mom that my brother killed Dad,.... just a concussion and he had dimple marks on his forehead for a week.

My Dad was hit by his brother on the arse fifty yards off the tee and last but not least, I nearly killed my brother.  We were driving in a cart through a tunnel made of corrogated pipe and were goofing around.  For some reason, I threw my ball down the tunnel and it ricocheted right back at us and hit my brother between his eye and temple, we had to stop playing after 12 or so and go to the emergency room for stitches...it wasn't good as he was getting married in a week.

[Mike_Cirba]

Last summer, at the lowest point of my multi-year slump (from which I've miraculously recovered of late...just call me Moe Norman these days!!!   ), my future son-in-law came to visit so I took him out to play nine holes with my future step-son and a friend of his who looked athletic enough and participates on the wrestling and track teams at high school.

Now, my future son-in-law is a serious bodybuilder who has humungous muscles not well-equipped for the flexibility necessary for golf.  He can drive the ball 300 yards, but it's also likely to go straight right and sideways for 200 yards.   And, my future step-son (I recognize all this future family stuff is confusing but understanding isn't necessary for the point of this story) is just learning the game.

Anyways...

We go to a Robert White designed 9 holer called Green Hills which is about 3300 yards with no fairway irrigation and some testing holes and greens.

To make a long story boring....

I'm not sure if it was the alignment of the planets, the total lack of collective skill of the golfers, or some horrible combination of the above, but for 9 holes....

The total score of the foursome....for nine holes...

was 257 strokes.  It was the absolute worst display of collective golf I've ever seen.

We were in the "zone" alright....the zone of hell.  It was comical in that there was not a single shot played by any of us in nine holes that was even remotely decent.   Comedy of errors....from Dante's Inferno.

Thank god we were about the only ones on the course that afternoon.

[Joe Hancock]

Mike,

So I can fully grasp the horror of the day...what did you shoot?

I'll guess the remaining three shot an average 71.6 strokes......am I close?

 

[Mike_Cirba]

Or perhaps I should tell the story of another more visible lowlight from my slump...

The day I played 18 holes in a twosome with Jamie Slonis, with Tom Paul walking as observer.

Jamie shot something like 67, making it look easy.

Me, petrified to be playing with a Jedi Master, likely had something around double that.  

I just tried to stay out of his way, and then even comically birdied the 18th hole with a shot out of the woods to 10 feet.

Did I mention that I'm back to shooting in the high 70s, low 80s these day??  

Damn...I don't even want to say that and jinx myself  

[Mike_Cirba]

Mike,

So I can fully grasp the horror of the day...what did you shoot?

I'll guess the remaining three shot an average 71.6 strokes......am I close?

 

Joe,

I had a smooth 58, with 5 shots OB.

I take pride in my fastidious scorekeeping.  

[Adam Clayman]

Combining the "architect's humor" and maybe the "impossible shot" thread into one, and probably introducing some new ideas too....what have been the most laughable shots you've ever played or observed? Was it born of an architectural feature, or ineptness, or some other outside agency?

Certainly all tese laughable anecdotes are the most. On a day in day out basis, however, it's the wind and firm turf that bring constant chuckles. Evidenced today, when Mayor Daley finally got to play his beloved Wild Horse. It was a blow'in 30+ steady. Hole after hole (27) I found myself chuckling at predicament after predicament.

[Doug Siebert]

I just saw this one today.

I was standing around off to the side of the fairway while my playing partners were hitting their approaches since I was in the fairway in front of them.  Since they were messing around figuring out how far they were and trying to decide on a club I was amusing myself by watching someone else playing nearby, as I often do.

So there's this guy who is about 50 yards from the green with some smallish trees in his way.  He can't go over them since they are too close but he can play a low shot and go between them -- I've been where he was on a few occasions, its not a terribly difficult shot.  Point is, he doesn't have to swing that hard, its like a really long chip with a 4 iron.

He hits the shot, the ball hits the maybe 3" wide trunk of the one of the trees, comes straight back at him and hits him where it counts.  He grabs his crotch and doubles over, and the guy he's playing with starts laughing his head off.  Since it wasn't a full swing, the guy recovers in 15 or 20 seconds, takes aim, and does it AGAIN!  This time the guy drops to the ground (I guess he was tender from getting hit there the first time) followed about 0.8 seconds later by his friend falling down to the ground because he's laughing so hard.  At this point I had to turn around so he wouldn't see me laughing from the other fairway.  I had to play my shot at this point so I didn't see if he was able to manage three in a row, or if maybe his buddy took pity on him and let him move his ball away from that tree!

[Bill Brightly]

We are playing in a town golf outing at a local public course. The field is mostly guys from our Sunday softball league, occasional golfers out for the beer and the laughs.

Pace of play is brutally slow, two groups on every tee. Now I am in a foursome with the few decent golfers in the event. We finish putting out on a downhill par 3, and rather than just go wait on the next tee box, I suggest that we stand behind the green and "watch these bozos try to hit the green."

So we wait behind the green, but our buddy on the tee waives us away, I guess he was afraid of hitting us, or maybe embarrassed to have us watch. We just stand there. He waves us again, and we all fold our arms across our chest as if to say: "we aint moving." So the guy gives us the middle finger, takes his stance and takes a swing at the ball. He launches a high shot that lands directly in the hole! No bounce, straight in the jar! We are stunned, and don't move or say a word. Finally, one of our guys mutters, "let's go" and we just sidle over to our tee...

The guys on the tee are going bonkers! Congratulating the guy who hit the shot, but also relly giving it to us: "yeah, you guys better run away!" and "next one we aim at your head!" etc., etc.

[Garland Bayley]

My best golfing buddy Joe B tells me this story:

Joe is playing with a guy he has just met, and eventually the topic of holes in one comes up.  Joe has had two, tells his stories, then asks the guy if he has ever had one. Guy replies, "I think so."  Joe is stunned, "whaddya mean you think so, you either had one or you didn't!"

Guy explains that when he was a teenager, he played a round with his brother and their father. Since the boys didn't have enough money to buy new balls, to be nice, their dad took out a new sleeve of Titleists and tossed one to each of them on the first tee...

They came to a par 3 and both brothers hit excellent shots, right at the pin. Because of a high lip on the front trap, they couldn't see how close each one was...

When they got to the green, one ball was one foot past the hole, the other one was in for an ace!  Only problem was they were playing the same number Titleist, and being dumb teenagers, neither had marked their ball! To this day EACH swears that HIS ball went in the hole...but neither one is really sure...

Neither had a hole in one. Each is penalized for not being able to identify their ball. Therefore, both balls are lost and they must return to the tee and hit their third stroke for the hole.

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