Sore Thumbs on Golf Courses

[Joey Chase]

I recently saw a thread on Praia d'el Rei in Portugal.  When I saw the thread it immediately reminded me of the awful pond on the 2nd hole.  The pond is well above the playing corridor, except from the tee.  It was so beyond artificial looking that I couldn't get past it, and still haven't.  Although there are several good looking golf holes on the course, the first thing I think of about the course is that hideous pond.  Does anyone have any similar memories of features/holes that stick out like sore thumbs?

[mike_beene]

Pond on 3 at Belair and pond on 18 at Torrey both are out of place and remind you a little of swimming pools.The Belair one is very unnecessary.

[Matthew Petersen]

Almost any pond on a desert course. Particular offenders that jump to mind are on the 18th at Vista Verde, 18th at WeKoPa Cholla, 7th/15th at Desert Mountain, etc ....

[Bill Crane]

The most notable "sore thumb" I can think of is ........................the HUGE Oak tree smack in the middle of the 6th hole at Mendham Golf and Tennis Club (NJ), a slight dogleg left par 4 of 373 yards.

In the past I tried punching a 2 iron under, hitting 3 or 5 wood over always with poor results.   It can force you near the pond just past it on the left in the crook of the dogleg.

The Tree is so old that the hole must have been purposely designed with this feature by architect Alfred Tull when he designed the course in 1959 and added a second nine eight years later.

[Garland Bayley]

I thought this thread was going to be about arthritis.
 

[Joey Chase]

Garland,
Sorry to disappoint you!  One other feature that cought me off guard is the pond on the 17th at County Down.

[jonathan_becker]

#3 at Inverness.  It's completely out of character with the rest of the course.

[Bill_McBride]

Those bloody sheds on the Road Hole at St Andrews!

[Andy Stamm]

Garland,
Sorry to disappoint you!  One other feature that cought me off guard is the pond on the 17th at County Down.

+1

The other one that immediately came to mind was the hole on the front on Sunningdale Old.

[Mike Hendren]

The discussion begins and ends with Donald Steel's pond on The Eden Course.

[Kalen Braley]

This....

Its bad enough it has a ulgy road and sidewalk, but then they went and installed an even fuglier Hotel.

[JR Potts]

Living in Chicago, the apparent water retention capital of the world, I am seeing these more and more as its becoming mandatory to detain thousands/millions of gallons of water if nary a shovel is put into the ground.  I see these ponds at Flossmore, Olympia Fields, Merit Club, Butterfield, Medinah, Butler, Westmoreland, etc.  None of them are horrific....but none look too great either IMO.

[Howard Riefs]

There are a few lousy irrigation ponds at Whistling Straits that get me riled up.

Sticking with Dye... on the Whistling Straits Irish course, there's #17 that wraps around the irrigation pond.

Or the 5th hole on the Straits!

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,51000.0.html

[Sean_A]

Camberley Heath's fish pond is a sore arm!


This discussion can never be finished without mentioning County Down's pond.

Rye too has a shocker on #11 to be capped off with the dreadful huge building in the background.

Ciao

[Scott Warren]

Joey,

I agree that pond at PdR is fugly in the extreme.

The 18th at NSWGC is a massive sore thumb, simply because of how comprehensively out of character it is with the 17 holes that precede it.