WTF?

[Ryan Farrow]

Post Your favorite WTF? moments in Golf Course Architecture.

Here are mine, within about a 50 mile radius.

[Jason Topp]

I can't figure out how to post these images off of google maps, but if this is the hole I recall, the line off the tee is over the houses on the right:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&t=h&msa=0&msid=203928586269626854353.00049b8b7098dbacca6d2&ll=33.71824,-111.66755&spn=0.002642,0.004458&z=18



This hole is 280 yards with the land sloping downward from the tee to the canyon, so your choices are to hit a 120 yard layup to a downhill lie or to drive the green:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=203928586269626854353.00049b8b7098dbacca6d2&ll=31.36792,-110.857297&spn=0.002712,0.004458&t=h&z=18

[Adam Clayman]

My all time greatest WTF moment was at Desert Mountain. I think it was Geronimo about the 12th hole (?), but could easily have been the 15th or 16th. There's a wonderful natural promontory with a diagonal cross carry moving from short left to long right. In other words, the risk of carrying farther right versus shorter left off the tee shot was delicious. That was until you realized the hole goes left. What a waste of a natural feature.

[Tom Yost]

<big sigh>

The 50 mile circle includes my residence...

Pics #4 and 5 are from Spaulding's favorite course.

Pic #6 is actually not an awful course but does have some WTF holes.

Pic 8 is a mom and pop that serves a market for budget golf, and is not really bad, but I've never played the pitch and putt course that is routed around through the trailer park manufactured homes.

The others have a familiar feel to them...

[Jim Colton]

[Tom_Doak]

My favorite recollection of the one time I played Boat of Garten in Scotland was when I got to the 15th, or "Gully" hole.  You could only see about 125 yards off the tee before the hole went over a bit of a hill; looking at the card, and seeing the hole was only 304 yards, I decided to hit a 3-iron to be safe.  Then when I got to the 125-yard point, I discovered the Gully, a deep ravine that starts about 175 yards off the tee and goes to +/- 240 yards.  I had laid up right into the bottom of the Gully!!

It is actually an interesting hole strategically, once you know what's going on.  Someday I will have to go back and play it a second time with a bit more local knowledge.

[Sean_A]

I have a lot of WTF moments. 

#7 at Rye - no place to play to downwind - can't believe this is the short hole most applaud on the course


#10 St Enodoc - a classic argument for ignoring par


#16 Camberley Heath - Koi pond in middle of fairway when the fairway is one of the high points of the course - plus it was done very poorly


#3 Edgbaston - photo says it all


A great wtf was at West Cornwall
From the tee


Discovered futher up fairway


Anotehr superb wtf moment, #10 Temple - yes, there is a green out there


Ciao

[Jim Colton]

Although BWR is one of my favorite courses, the 13th is becoming more and more WTFish.

[Anthony Gray]

  Excellent routing on that first set of pics.

  Anthony

[Adam Clayman]

Had another one. At Bayonne. The 16th. Drove it into the right side fwy bunker. Had 205 to the hole. Decide to play smart and hit 7 iron leaving me 65 yards or so in. Come to find out there's no fwy there. Just marsh and reeds. WTF?

[Tim Bert]

Although BWR is one of my favorite courses, the 13th is becoming more and more WTFish.

+1 except for the part about the course being one of my favorites.  Also, I think this is the par 3, but there is a short par 4 that looks almost exactly like this if you look at the direct line from the tee to the green.  WTF there too?

Also, WTF with Colton liking this golf course?!?  He's never heard that from me before.

[Ken Moum]

Here's a nice little risk-reward par four that's about a mile from my house:



This is par five has an in-the-air OB.  There's a flagstick in the fence on the corner of the OB and if you ball flies to the right of it you are OB, regardless of where it lands.



Here we have another par five with in-the-air OB. The flagpole is in the left rough, and if you hit it left... you're OB.  If it weren't people would play to the left, over the previous green and up the previous fairway, which would be pretty dangerous.



One more in-the-air OB, this time on a very short par four. Go left of the flagpole, and reload.



This one is harder to see, but those lines down the middle of the fairways are gravel cart paths.

[Alex Miller]

Wow. I've never heard of in the air O.B. before, but it seems almost common there!

[Ken Moum]

Wow. I've never heard of in the air O.B. before, but it seems almost common there!

All three of those are small-town nine-holers in South Dakota, and I actuall know of one other that used to exist, but I looked at the Google Earth images and couldn't figure out if they still do it.

It is not allowed in the ROG, but one of those courses it was the only way to make the hole play at all. Tree planting will help it.  Another one would have people driving their ball over a schoolyard, so that was out.

All three of those are small-town nine-holers in South Dakota, and I actuall know of one other that used to exist, but I looked at the Google Earth images and couldn't figure out if they still do it.

It is not allowed in the ROG, but one of those courses it was the only way to make the hole play at all. Tree planting will help it.  Another one would have people driving their ball over a schoolyard, so that was out.

The same course also has that school's ball field, football field and running track in play:




K

[Mac Plumart]

Can I include an entire golf course?

Golf Club of Georgia Creekside.  Wow-zers! 

[Joel_Stewart]

The good, first time I saw the 2nd hole at Pine Valley



The bad WTF, renovation of Olympic Club, architect Bill Love.

[Doug Siebert]

I've never heard of in-the-air OB either, but I'm sitting here trying to decide whether that's worse than a big ugly fence on the teebox enforcing essentially the same thing.  I know I'd feel safer as a homeowner with the fence, as I'm sure there are some yahoos who ignore the local rule (assuming it is clearly posted on the teebox so they can't claim they don't know) and go at those over the houses.  And the kind of people who would do that are probably the kind who would hit bad enough shots to occasionally hit the houses!

[Ken Moum]

I've never heard of in-the-air OB either, but I'm sitting here trying to decide whether that's worse than a big ugly fence on the teebox enforcing essentially the same thing.  I know I'd feel safer as a homeowner with the fence, as I'm sure there are some yahoos who ignore the local rule (assuming it is clearly posted on the teebox so they can't claim they don't know) and go at those over the houses.  And the kind of people who would do that are probably the kind who would hit bad enough shots to occasionally hit the houses!

The worst part if it is when you and your fellow competitors get into an argument over whether or not a shot passed on the correct said of the pole.

I have played in tournaments at all of these courses, and usually it's not a problem, but I did get into it once with some guys we were playing a two-man scramble event.  We ended up dropping the argument and making a birdie with the one they wanted us to olay anyway.

K

[Tom Yost]

Another Arizona gem.  Who can spot the line of charm?

[Ken Moum]

Another Arizona gem.  Who can spot the line of charm?

Tom,

For a minute I thought it was this one, just down the road from my Mom's in Mesa

[Jason Topp]

This was a wtf in a good way when my father's caddie told him to hit it next to the gorse on the right.  (20 years ago).

Seeing the massive bunkers and being truly surprised by them was one of my favorite moments on a golf course.

[Tom Yost]

Another WTF moment from Arizona.

[J Sadowsky]

I posted this in another thread, but the Iberostar Bavaro (a new PB Dye course) has the following par 3:





Note not only the garish starfish green, but the sand cutting across the other fairway, right next to fairway bunkers.

[PThomas]

I posted this in another thread, but the Iberostar Bavaro (a new PB Dye course) has the following par 3:





Note not only the garish starfish green, but the sand cutting across the other fairway, right next to fairway bunkers.

very Desmond Muirhead-ish!

[jeffwarne]

I've never heard of in-the-air OB either, but I'm sitting here trying to decide whether that's worse than a big ugly fence on the teebox enforcing essentially the same thing.  I know I'd feel safer as a homeowner with the fence, as I'm sure there are some yahoos who ignore the local rule (assuming it is clearly posted on the teebox so they can't claim they don't know) and go at those over the houses.  And the kind of people who would do that are probably the kind who would hit bad enough shots to occasionally hit the houses!

the first hole-par 4  at North Wales has an in the air ob to keep people from hitting into the players on the green
an unusual way to begin the right off the plane round