[Joe Bausch]

This one is easy for me:  Bethpage Black from the back tees.  Obviously the solution is for me to play from the white tees even when my younger playing partners still for the most part can handle it from the tips.

Joe,

That's more of a decision that each golf makes on the first tee, and probably a universal in terms of being overwhelmed by the challenge, which is primarily distance.

Yes, it is long.  But the narrowed fairways and deep rough make it no fun at all.  The more I play BB, the less I like it b/c of the presentation.

[David Whitmer]

Haig Point on Daufuskie Island, SC.

I didn't necessarily want to quit while playing, but when I was finished I decided I did not want to go back out for another round.

The course is so heavily treed on both sides, that there were many times when I was in the fairway and was blocked out to the green. Once or twice, okay...but it went on for four hours. I just decided it was boring and tedious.

Merion has been mentioned. I have not played it, and I know this reflects the set-up, but my brother played it the day after the U.S. Open as a part of media day. He's a good stick...a 6 or 7 handicap. He started on hole #16, made his first par on hole #9, and shot a 93. He texted me in the middle of the round and said, "I'm glad to be here, but this is so difficult it has stopped being fun. All we can do is laugh at how difficult this is."

[Matthew Petersen]

When I was younger, this used to happen to me any time I wasn't playing well, but I'm much more inclined now on such days to simply appreciate that I am getting to play, be outside, and embrace the challenge of every new shot even if my score is a trainwreck and I lost the match ages ago.

I can remember two courses, however, where I felt the course (and/or setup) was a big part of my loss of enjoyment.

The first is an Arnold Palmer track in Colorado called Bear Creek. Just one of those relentlessly difficult golf courses. Forced carries, sever hazards, etc. over and over and over again.

The second was a round at Torrey Pines North, a course in a beautiful place but one that's not very interesting hole-by-hole. The biggest issue was that the rough was very high and very thick and the fairways quite narrow. Even drives that hit in the fairway often rolled into the rough and it was absolutely brutal. I'm an OK player, but I'm not US Open ready and rough that allows no option but an attempt to thrash it out is no fun at all.

But that said, I have played other relentlessly difficult courses (PGA West, for one) and enjoyed them and enjoyed that challenge. I wouldn't like it on a day-to-day basis, but sometimes, if you know what you're getting yourself into ...

[V. Kmetz]

Oh Jesus Pat, I'll go on and on to the point no one will post anymore but I think the most recent meaningful instance was at:

Oxford Greens in Connecticut in Fall 2008.

Having already been well-sensitized like any good Golf Club Atlas crank, I approached my unusual (in that I never play golf on Saturdays) weekend morning round at this new $90 + 1/2 cart daily fee with Buzz...warily.  These fears were met and even exacerbated by the swarm of gate keepers and errand-runners I met intending to offer "private club service at upper middle class daily fee prices."

Thinking on it now; I literally encountered six demi-employed souls with different staff-logo titles on their shirt before I hit a practice putt.

On to the course...The first two holes were fairly attractive...
-a wide, straight 385ish four with a Road Complex (the road is simply the cartpath with open grass behind and upscale development houses beyond) green.
-a fairly handsome Redan/Cape par 3, downhill into a meadow pond.  Amusing contours at the very front and a broad enough approach area to make the bailout have to play through them

I thought, "This might be fun."  I bogeyed both with shit, unpracticed hands of a rapist type greenside play...but still, there was hope it was going to be fun to play this course.

And then:



a 600+ job with nothing but bank and hillside and fescue and cart paths and sheer exhaustion and like 20-23 minutes to play for a threesome. The small picture doesn't do it justice.  Its named "Scoundrel" (get it) and the thing it steals is your want to ever play Golf again...worse over, the subsequent holes kept up that pitch...

cheers

vk

VK- Oxford really is a torture chamber but the shame is that I thought it had a good set of greens. The housing really is an eyesore with the Del Webb homes piled on top of each other which are all basically the same. This place has truly struggled to attract members and has had more promotions than a traveling salesman.

I agree Tim, the greens were quite interesting...but getting to them or being allowed to use their unique moguls and humps was something else.  I couldn't enjoy them.  Given what you mentioned about struggles to attract a measure of viability, I have to think it's an example of Income First Golf Design, which I don't think has ever worked.  I don't think MM is a poor architect...there's enough there to suggest he's got skills...it's just a shit piece of property for golf outside of 4 or 5 holes.

cheers

vk

[Patrick_Mucci]

Adam,

Certain courses beat you up with a series of jabs, others with a series of haymakers.

Not so sure that anyone can design a hard golf course.

Winged Foot West.... and East, Fenway and Quaker Ridge are four neighbors that are as hard as nails.

Yet, all are quality courses

[Matthew Essig]

Old Macdonald...

It is the only course I have played that the challenge became so tedious that enjoyment was lost and I wanted to quit.

I have played it 3 times now over the past couple of years and it has occurred all 3 times.

[Chris DeNigris]

Uh oh...

[V. Kmetz]

Adam,

Certain courses beat you up with a series of jabs, others with a series of haymakers.

Not so sure that anyone can design a hard golf course.

Winged Foot West.... and East, Fenway and Quaker Ridge are four neighbors that are as hard as nails.

Yet, all are quality courses

Pat,

My only reservation is that what you describe is a one-sided fight; a great course lets you punch back with exceptional, sometimes necessarily bold play...a great course and a fair fight would also let you defend those jabs and punches (in the case of WFE and W, Fenway and QR) with conservative play in front of the green, but at the cost of wearing you down constantly navigating those rolls and  contours for up and downs...you just give out if you're not up to it or you haven't been able to land any blows yourself to get that confidence.

Still, I think (if I may be so bold) that Adam meant that its no great trick to build something hard that can't be parred, or bogeyed for that matter.  I believe I could make a par 3,4,5 of 115 yards that you could never triple-bogey, I know because I played one yesterday and I know just what to do...

The hole has no official name...

Some call it, "Little Round Top"

A GCAers might call it "Volcano"

Most call it "Kilimanjaro" and whatever it is, it is the X-games of Golf



It's is 115 yards of fright and laughable peril.  The second time you play it, (as #13 of an 18 hole round) it is 133 yards of greater fright and more certain doom.  Yes, that is the red flagstick up there near the top right center of the frame, some 50 feet of elevation over you.  30 yards over that big tree/bush/monstrosity right, a little before pin high, it's horizontal OB going right up to within inches of the cart path before it.  Left you can see, is no good for man nor beast - I'm sure even squirrels avoid it. I'm sorry

I can't provide pictures of the green; it is an area rug and one that has been mishapen for years in a basement; yet they have in fact covered over the two rock scalps that used to jut out from the rear of the green and kick balls off in any direction.

A recent local ruling, regarding "environmentally Sensitive Areas" has now been adopted whereby, any ball coming to rest in the craggy volcano

Yesterday I returned to Pequenakonck, the strangest and most quirky place in all of Golfdom.  You want 9-holers still living in the 1940s and 50s? I give you this gem.  This course almost defies description in that it plays over cliffs, bluffs, glens and meadows, with greens on slopes with reverse thumbprints and potato chip wrinkles.  It's clover and dandelions and scrub and rock and gang mowers and out of place shrubs and overgrown trees... and the bunkers...truly an incidental array of gathering spots, run offs, with weeds growing in and around them and none more than 3 feet deep.  All this in about 35-40 acres of property between and atop two steep mountainous bluffs, barberpoling up and down the first, playing an elevated meadow on the heights of the second.

There's a 175 yard Par 4(!!!!) that you struggle to make bogey.

The 9/18 hole plays 193 over a central neighborhood access road, downhill almost 65 feet to the same level that Kilimanjaro's green resides.

There's a 280 yard Par 4 with that same public road (lightly but regularly traveled) running perpendicular to it at the 230 yard mark.  It's blind to the tee; and blind to the second shot, as I learned yesterday when I hit a car ... wedge-bladed right into the running board of an older Mazda SUV, as it rolled into the cross-hairs like an arcade duck out of the left blinds.  The large Italian man was affable and seemed to be quite amused himself, especially as there was no damage to his vehicle, remarking, "I'm trying to get rid of it anyhow."

I'm completely serious when I say that, "As Is" they could host a US Open there tomorrow and if you could fit all the hoo-ha to cover it, it would be more compelling than any US Open you could imagine.  I'm convinced there would be a handful of elite players over 80 over the first two days (as there always is).

So I do believe that something can easily be made hard when it comes to golf and property design.

cheers

vk

[Patrick_Mucci]

VK,

Is it the site that presents the difficulty or the architects hand ?

Could you attach percentiles to each

[Philip Caccamise]

Watching the group in front of me search for lost balls in waist high rough on every. Single. Hole.

This.

[V. Kmetz]

Pat,

I understand your distinction; but there is a point when the architect's hand IS the site and so many instances of the architects "making something hard" (think, back of Riviera's 10th green, an igloo) that I have to devolve to somethign according to this percentage:

33% = site
66% = architect

"Kilimanjaro" does not have to be the way it is, if that hilltop is necessary for a routing choice, well there's at least a few ways to make that topography play more like a fair "Volcano" than what is there presently.

cheers

vk

[Dan Herrmann]

I buy my golf balls from www.lostgolfballs.com.   But even I get close to the "get me outta here" point after I've lost 10 golf balls.

Fortunately, that doesn't happen very often.

[Patrick_Mucci]

VK,

You're leaving out, and I left out, perhaps the most important element, the owner/developer.

PGA West was intended to be very difficult, ditto Sebonack.

For some reason, starting decades ago, difficulty was equated with quality.

I think remnants of that thinking are prevalent at many clubs where the members take pride in high scores when a tournament visits their club.

I think many lost sight of the element of "enjoyment"

[V. Kmetz]

Pat,

You've never said anything I agree with more than the last remarks about enjoyment being ignored and in the 70s and 80s difficulty ebign equated with quality (besides the man-sized course thing that WF founders wanted, I think that historically got real traction with RTJ's prep of Oakland Hills in Hogan's victory, and just gained ever-increasing velocity as great courses adopted difficult presentations, which in turn led the next batch and the next batch....)

As to Owner/Site Developer, I acknowledge that you're correct, but from a "pure" GCA standpoint, I shed no tears.  There have been plenty of development golf nightmares on display before Ran made us all so smart by making this site; eg; there was a real track record to tell the developers of Oxford Greens that the golf would stink, if the course and playability were made secondary to an economically rewarding (ok...viable) real estate development.

Pequenakonck is not to be considered in this light; it, like so many of the 9-holers in these parts is an anachronism, reflective of a time when people were looking for a happy adjunct to their community or had a bit of extra space for amusement and recreation...something to have in a time when amusements and entertainments were not as voluminous and these suburban areas were much more rural and self-contained.  No one scrupulous was advertising P's course as championship...or PGA-Tour designed...or ever asking top dollar for its use; the fee, with cart the other day was $30 for twice around the 9.  And it was like $12.00 when I was a teenager.

cheers

vk

[David Harshbarger]

Vk, once again you have made me laugh out loud recounting these wonderful courses, that I think of as Doak -i.  The idea that somehow they are architected in any way consistent with the main thrust of GCA is to completely miss the point as to what they are, primitive pieces that enable golf "here" wherever "here" was back when.

[Bill Vogeney]

Trump LA. Probably played it 4 years ago, and it was blowing 30 MPH. First time I played it, I enjoyed it, but realized there were some brutal holes. Those holes brutalized "my hole" the second time around.

There is a course in Forsyth Georgie, Forest River, at is one of these private/semi-private courses. Incredible rolling hills....and a terrible, I mean just terrible routing. I won't go back unless I bring a team of bulldozers and a ton of dynamite

[V. Kmetz]

DH,

They make me laugh too; I'm glad I could share.

Here is a partial list of what's available within a 30 mile drive from my home in Danbury, CT.

1. Sunset Hills, Brookfield CT.
2. Candlewood Lake Club - New Milford, CT.
3. Vails Grove - North Salem, (Peach Lake) NY. - just 2 miles down the street from Pequenakonck
4. Pequenakonck - North Salem, NY.
5. Harlem Valley - Pawling, NY.
6. The Dutcher - Pawling, NY
7. Highlands Golf Course - Shelton (?) CT
8. Heritage Village GC, (9-holer is public/18 is private) Southbury, CT
9. Washington GC, Washington, CT.
10. Gainsfield Farms, Southbury, CT.
11. Whispering Pines, Poughkeepsie, NY
12. Sedgewood Club - Carmel, NY
13. New Paltz GC - New Paltz, NY
14. Mohonk Mountain House GC - New Paltz, NY
15. Highlands CC, Garrison , NY
16. Doral-Arrowood, Rye Brook, NY


Private 9-Holers:
1. Newtown CC - Newtown CT
2. Rock Ridge C. Lake WaramaugC - Newtown CT
3. Millbrook GC - Greenwich, CT
4. Plesantville CC, Pleasantville, NY.
5. Lake Waramaug - New Preston, CT.
6. Birchwood CC, Norwalk-Westport, CT.
7. Quaker Hill, Pawling, NY
8. Millbrook Golf and Tennis, Millbrook, NY

cheers

vk

[Brad Isaacs]

When the number of punative/ penal holes overwhelm the design balance, you are in trouble with a tedious design. Sometimes it only takes one hole to make that impression if it is a bad enough hole,

[Jason Thurman]

I've never played a course only ever played one course too tedious to enjoy. For me, the challenge generally only becomes too tedious when my game just won't cooperate.

There are some courses where the challenge can become tedious more quickly. I love Erin Hills, but a bad ballstriking day there would be miserable to endure. Courses with extremely thick rough or fairly narrow playing corridors with lost balls likely for a miss also come to mind. On the other end of the spectrum, I've played a few courses where I really struggled but still had an excellent time. Pebble Beach and my first round at The Prairie Club (Pines) come to mind.

On the course too tedious to enjoy, lost balls were virtually guaranteed for every miss. But that wasn't enough by itself to make it unenjoyable. What really made it awful was how "dictated" every shot was. There were no options whatsoever. Landing areas were very well defined and the penalty for missing was severe. On every shot, the architecture would basically say, "Hit a high draw between 220 and 230 yards into this 20 yard wide landing area. If you fail, take a penalty stroke and reload." I played an awful front nine, but actually shot a very good score on the back. There was just no joy in it. I just had to resign myself to do whatever the course said I should. Creativity is a big part of what I enjoy about golf, and being forced to turn it off was pretty unpleasant.

In college, every lame sorority girl had a quote from Sex and the City on her Facebook page that said something like "Some horses aren't meant to be broken. They're supposed to run wild and spirited." If a girl had it on her profile, I knew that she'd probably be really annoying and scream "Whoo!" a lot if I went to a club with her, but she was also pretty much guaranteed to be easy. Anyways, playing that tedious course made me feel like that wild horse that was never meant to be broken. I'm not meant to have shots dictated to me. I'm meant to play wildly and with exceptional, occasionally stupid spirit.

[Steve Kupfer]

Old Corkscrew (FL) immediately comes to mind. As deflating a round as I've ever endured.

[cary lichtenstein]

Not many, but a few were just so hard and so penal, that I couldn't wait for the round to be over. A few I just walked off. One is a great course, Oakmont. I just hated it.

I forget a lot of the names, but courses where the fairways were just way too narrow and the rough way too high. There was a course in a valley in California that was impossible to putt, courses with fairway traps in the middle of fairways, Nicklaus' penal period with his humps and bumps.

[Joel_Stewart]

I can't even begin to count.   Usually I sense something about the 6th or 7th.   By the 11th I'm ready to go, depending on the location of the clubhouse.   

A few years ago I played a new course in Lake Tahoe that was horrid.   I was told the back nine was better than the front so I stayed on.  About the 15th I told my playing partners I was leaving and drove the last few just so I could look.  They did look much better but even a few good holes could not salvage the first 15.

[V. Kmetz]

It might be needle-in-haystacking here, but I think I know that course; I played something like it, with just that pitch in Tahoe in 2007.

My nightmare was on the Nevada, NNE side of the lake...

cheers

vk

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