What scares you ?

[Patrick_Mucci]

What architectural feature/s scare or intimidate you and your particular game, and why ?

What features would you like to see more of ?

[Craig Disher]

Optionless forced carries. It doesn't matter if the carry is 120 yards to a green tucked behind a pond or 200+ over a ravine off the tee. If there is a safer option, the idea that I have a choice and choose the bold line lets me hit the carry consistently. If there's no choice, I'm much less successful.

Are there courses made up entirely of cape holes?

[Justin_Zook]

Deep Deep Bunkers!!!!!!!!!!

I am not good with the bunkers.  I think it's because my game is just good enough or conservative enough that I don't get in them that often, but when I do, it can be very ugly.  A par 3 like the 3rd or 14th at Bethpage would scare me the most because of how deep the bunkers are in comparison to the green.  

[Dave_Miller]

I'm with CDisher.  Forced carries over water, particularly to a green, with no other option.  It could be 120 yards or 200 yards and it makes no difference.  Just the thought that  you need a perfect shot will cause havoc with most average golfers.

Cheers,

Dave

[A_Clay_Man]

Nothing!

if I think I am up for the challenge I try the shot. But I end up doing more than trying. The greater the challenge the more concentration, the more likelyhood of success.

Now I am not foolish enough to try to play too much outside my expected ability.
But, occasionally 'Risky Business' said it best with "sometimes you just have to say WTF"

I did it three times today in the first rnd of the Pinon Hills Classic, (locals biggest tourny at a public venue) Twice were three woods from the rough with water and bunkers looming, and the best was a draw around a tree to a severe back pin stuck to three feet. I honestly just said wtf and knuckled down.

[Craig Rokke]

Some of green surrounds I saw at Pine Valley would definitely
mess with my head. Even a slightly missed approach shot
could send one's ball careening out of play, or perhaps down
to a difficult lie where pitching it up to the green is no sure thing. For me, anyway, I could imagine a shot that perhaps
just missed reaching the green in regulation, snowballing into a double or triple.

[TEPaul]

I think CraigR really hit on something with the mention of Pine Valley in the "what scares you?" category.

Overall, Pine Valley may be one of the most 1-18 visually intimidated courses on earth, although it doesn't really play that way (or doesn't have to) if you think and can hit the ball half decent, but the visual intimidation throughout is really something even though you come to understand it's actually mostly deceptive! This is probably a good part of the reason that experience seems to mean so much at Pine Valley for almost anyone!

[Michael_Burrows]

I'm with Justin deep deep bunkers
You just feel as if you have to get under the ball just right or else you will be playing the same shot again. As for forced carries I love playing those shots. I guess it depends on part of your game that is the weakest too because I hated playing from the sand.

[ed_getka]

Lob shots over bunkers to shallow greens. I work on this part of my game and do okay at the range, but its one of those confidence things and when its time to pull the trigger on the course I have too many negative past experiences floating around in my gray matter.

The features I enjoy are contours in the greens and surrounds that allow you to use your imagination to come up with a shot to get close to the pin when a direct aerial approach isn't an option due to a  poor drive leaving an undesirable angle in. I think thats why I enjoy Barona Creek, Kingsley, Pasatiempo, Plainfield,etc so much.

[Rob Hallford]

Any sort of forced carry with wind right in my face.  A hint of side-spin and the ball is lost and gone forever.  Number 5 at Bandon got me so worked up I topped it right in the sand.  Well, I kept it under the wind, anyway.

indy

[BCrosby]

Green surfaces that slope away from the approach shot.

More than forced carries, bunkers, hairy gunge, or abandonned strip mines, greens that slope away from me get into my head.

Bob

[John Bernhardt]

I hate forced carries with no real strategic purpose. I also do not like large rolling mounded greens with no sense to them. I generally do not like mounding for mounding(shaping) sake either.

[Jerry Kluger]

The most intimidating shot to me is the second shot with a fairway wood into a hole which turns around a hazard where you can bite off as much as you want.  You see where you want to hit it and the carry really isn't that long but you bail out to the short side and wind up in a bad lie, in the trees or even o.b. The second shot over a ravine on number 2 at Royal New Kent is like that or  I believe it is the 13th at the Dunes in Myrtle Beach; you know where to hit it and if you do it is an easy hole.  The feature which I would like to see more of is fairways bunkers that are penal but fair.  More and more I'm seeing deep fairway bunkers or fairway bunkers with steep slopes and high lips where you must go sideways; I just think that you should have a play out of a fairway bunker other than sideways into the fairway.  

[Patrick_Mucci]

Is noone scared of TIGHTLY mowed grass around the green when the shot calls for carrying a hazard and stopping the ball quickly

[Rick Shefchik]

A short, high pitch (40 yards or so) over water from a wet, soft fairway. I'd rather hit this half-swing lob shot off the tightest lie, or even borderline hardpan, than face the prospect of digging too deep and laying a foot-long strip of sodden sod over the ball -- or fearing the chunk, skulling the ball over the green.

[Mike_Young]

A reachable par 5 with water behind the green....

[Ed_Baker]

The pitch from a tight fairway lie to really fast contoured "pushup' greens. Spin it too much and the ball is right back at your feet, thin it even a fraction and three or four putt is likely, this after two pretty good shots, a "bunters nightmare."

Guess you can tell Merion ate me up pretty good!

The goddamnedest 6100 yards I ever saw, but my new favorite. That's a golf course that you can play when your 80 years old and still have fun! Awesome!

[Scott_Burroughs]

I second that, Rick.  The fear of chunking a lob wedge in wet conditons when you have to go over a pond or creek.  Chunk it and a foot of earth AND your ball end up wet.  

I'll also say the fear of skulling that lob wedge from a tight lie with no green to work with and a water hazard or O.B. long.

[RJ_Daley]

I fear the kind of hole design that comes late in the round and presents you with a realistic way to go for a safe bogey or a high risk situation where serious disaster awaits the mishit attempt at glory.  I am thinking of the 17th at Whistling Straits.  A long par 3 that often has wind, but from no prevaliling direction on differing days.  There is a safe bailout up the right side although over a cop bunker set on top of a huge mound, with ample space behind the cop mound-bunker but a long way from back and left hole positions.  Then there is the left side wall of death.  The pin positions from the mid-green back that favor the left side are enticing candycanes that dare you, yet seem closer than they are.  Drift ever so slightly to the collar of the green left or come up short and you pretty much have defeated yourself and any chance at what ever score you hoped or needed to play the last two holes in.  The options to play the wayward ball all stink as well.  If you look for it and find it, there is hardly any real decent place where you would find it and play it as it lies to have a recovery shot.  There are rarely any decent places to declare it unplayable and have a reasonable drop.  And, to just declare it lost from the tee makes you face the same fearsome shot all over again.  It is the ultimate round killer for the greedy.

[John Lyon]

The shot that scares me most is a short pitch shot to a do or die hole such as an island green with lots of wind.  Worse yet is the second hole at the Kingsley Club which is a short pitch (125-140yds) to a waterless "island" green perched on an exposed ridgetop.  Hitting the deep bunkers on this hole are a blessing compared to the tall fescue.   Funny thing is that this is the 18th handicap hole.  I know of no other 18 handicap hole (or any other on the course) that scares me this much when the wind is blowing.

[Andy Hodson]

Pat

Great topic.

One feature that I feel is overlooked in terms of the fear factor is trouble and punishment behind a green. This is, for me at least, much more fearful than trouble in front of the green. A back pin position with a water hazard behind puckers me way more (with any club in my hand) than a front pin and water in front.

I don't much cotton to the idea of small domed greens where a fractionally missed iron shot is repelled and deflected down and away into swales or collection areas. That possibility scares me too.

[jayc]

Super fast, downhill, downwind lag putts.  Whoa!

[Andy Hodson]

Shivas

I think that is what scared Ian Baker-Finch into retirement (#1 at TOC).

[Patrick_Mucci]

Hod,

At a club in NJ, bunkers and other unpleasantness lie behind the greens, yet, rarely are the far back, premier pin positions on these holes utilized, wasting these wonderful features.

Especially on holes with back to front slopes.

Most golfers rarely go over greens, being short is a common error.  The back pin position, with trouble behind the green, preys on the golfers mind on the incoming shot, recovery shot, or putt.

The 10th hole at Seminole is one of my favorites, especially with a good wind from the north.

Shivas,

I too, find OB on the first hole a little scary.

I also find SUBSTANTIVELY CONTOURED fast greens on the first hole scary.

A bad first hole can set the tempo for, or ruin a round, hence I believe scary features are magnified when they appear on the first hole.

Can anyone name some first holes that have water as a real hazard ?

[Dan Grossman]

The OB / Driving range left on #1 at Pasatiempo (from an elevated tee, no less) scares me to death.  I put it in the right trees everytime.

Pat - I believe #1 at Long Cove has water all the way down the right side of the hole (it is a reverse cape).  There is a big bunker between the water and the fairway, but I think the water is fairly close by the green.