[Sean_A]

"Why would you assume that a practice ground should be part of the course?"

Because that is the way it is played on almost all courses I am familiar with, including Peachtree, East Lake, Cherokee,  the Driving Club and Ansley (Town) here in ATL. The old practice ground at ANGC between the 8/9th and 18th was not played as OOB. (The practice ground is now at the other side of the clubhouse.)

Darwin thought the p.g. was "part" of the Hoylake course, hence his criticism as to its artificiality.

Bob



 

Bob


Your experience is different from mine.  Usually the practice ground or range is OOB and certainly not considered part of the course.  Although, it would be interesting if the PG was inbounds and some bunkers on the PG located to "enhance" the hole. 


I any case, its a big stretch to call a practice ground (its all in the name  ) interior OOB.  Reasonable people can disagree, but you are wrong 


Ciao

[Dave McCollum]

We have 2:  one on the “slice” of the practice range and one on a dogleg where clearing a creek and playing down a bordering hole would put golfers in a blind LZ for players teeing off on that hole.  So both are for safety issues.

I really hate this feature on other courses.  One of the worst I’ve seen is a course that “reserved” a large interior section for housing that never got developed.  It’s all rough, weedy ground that has plenty of penalty for hitting it there.

[Kalen Braley]

The practice ground at Cypress Point isn't OB....its just to the right of #1 fairway.
 
Most courses I've played the practice area has a large 20-30 foot fence surrounding it, so its very much OOB.
 
I can see it going both ways depending on the course....

[Martin Lehmann]

Internal OOB belongs to my personal top three of annoying things at a golf course, together with blind water hazards and knee high rough. In most cases internal OOB is the result of poor design or lack of space. At my golf club we have a hole with both problems. In order to get as much length out of a par 4 as possible, the architect designed a dog leg around a par 5 that runs in the opposite direction. To prevent players from cutting the corner, the fairway of the par 5 was made OOB.


This fall we are going to solve the problem with new tees that will make the hole straighter and shorter. It's going to be a nice little par 4, with a water hazard in front of the green and a raised forward tee that will give long hitters the option of going for the green.


In my opinion, the initial problem was threefold: lack of space, poor design and a greens committee that insisted on having a golf course with a certain par and length. It's another example that shows that emphasis on length, rather than on strategy and creativity, results in poor golf holes.


 

[Jon Wiggett]

Duncan,

I am not in disagreement with you but just making the point that the practice ground at Hoylake is not OOB because it is not part of the course. Nowhere is OOB for that reason as areas that are not part of the course are often still in play. At Hoylake the practice ground is OOB as otherwise it would be the obvious place to hit your tee shot thus leaving the second shot much easier.

I have known many courses where parts of the course were also used to practice. Where I learned to play we used to hit across the 1st and 17th fairways which meant players searching for their own golf balls. The course also had an internal OOB on one hole for the first 350 yards to stop players cutting the corner on the tee shot. Not a very satisfying situation but necessary.

Jon

[Jon Cavalier]

Yes, is the simple answer to the question. If it makes other's safe.

Agree.

There is a club in Delaware where internal OB is needed to protect golfers on another hole.

In an ideal world it would be not needed.  Last time I heard, we don't live in an ideal world.   

Joe:

Assuming you're talking about the venerable DuPont CC, which actually has it twice - once each on both of its courses: between the 1st and the 9th on the main course and the 5th and the 8th on the Nemours course (both pairs of which play next to each other in opposite directions).

Better still, both are "one way" out of bounds markers, meaning that there is no out of bounds to the right of the 1st hole on Main or to the left of the 5th hole on Nemours, but there is OB to the right of the 9th and left of the 8th holes, respectively.

It's most definitely safety issue as the corridors made by the other holes provide an attractive and shorter route. But on the plus side, I've never seen anyone actually hit it OB on either hole unless they were aggressively (and foolishly) trying to skirt the OB border rather than playing the hole as designed.

I'd much rather the club solve the problem with a few well-positioned trees next to the relevant tee boxes, but in the absence of that, I'll begrudgingly acknowledge that the current setup is probably for the best.

Engineers in NY has a similar arrangement to the left of the hard dogleg left par-5 tenth hole. They even go one step further and include a sign stating that play up the left side it prohibited and extremely dangerous, and if a member is caught playing through the inside of the dogleg, their playing privileges will be suspended.

[Duncan Cheslett]

I am not in disagreement with you but just making the point that the practice ground at Hoylake is not OOB because it is not part of the course.

I would have thought that not being part of the course is an excellent reason for the practice ground being OOB

Nowhere is OOB for that reason as areas that are not part of the course are often still in play.

Generally, OOB denotes the perimeter or boundary of a golf course. If an area is in play then it is clearly part of the course. Being on the boundary of the course is the primary reason for an OOB line. I'm struggling to think of examples where it possible to hit a ball beyond the boundary of a golf course and for it still to be in play. Neighbouring farmers and householders would not normally be impressed.

 At Hoylake the practice ground is OOB as otherwise it would be the obvious place to hit your tee shot thus leaving the second shot much easier. 

Or simply because it has long been designated as not being part of the golf course?

[Jon Wiggett]

Duncan,

if the practice ground were not there and the area deep rough I doubt it would be OOB do you?

There are lots of examples of areas owned by golf clubs that are not part of the course yet still in play. All the examples you gave have a reason for being OOB. What is the reason at Hoylake as the 'historical' wasn't the original reason.

Jon

Jon

[Adam Lawrence]

Duncan,

if the practice ground were not there and the area deep rough I doubt it would be OOB do you?

There are lots of examples of areas owned by golf clubs that are not part of the course yet still in play. All the examples you gave have a reason for being OOB. What is the reason at Hoylake as the 'historical' wasn't the original reason.

Jon

Jon -- a Yorkshire example you may remember is the fifth at Bradley Hall in Holywell Green, near Elland. For non-West Yorkshire folk, it's a downhill par four of near 400 yards, where you have to drive across the corner of a farmer's field. It's about 150 yards to the fairway from the back, I guess, and the field sees, or used to see when I played there, lots of action. The local rule was that it was in bounds if there were no cows in it that day. A dry stone wall separated field and course, and if you were close to the wall you could drop three clubs lengths back. Playing there once with my Dad, who was a member for a few years (I'd have been 16 or 17 I guess) I once hit my drive into the field, while the old man was nicely down the fairway. I dropped my ball away from the wall and decided that, since Dad was surely going to make no worse than five, I needed my third to be a shortish pitch if I was going to save a half. Took an eight iron, made a full swing and caught the ball fractionally thin. It hit the top stone of the wall and ricocheted back, clobbering me above the left eye. Blood started to pour from the cut and ran into my eye. We staggered back to the clubhouse, me wailing, and immediately drove to hospital. They wouldn't release me until all the blood had cleared from my eye, confirming no lasting harm -- a week in hospital. Half an inch lower and I'd have lost the eye.

[Sean_A]

I think OOB for practice grounds generally exists for safety purposes, both to protect people on the ground and the idiot golfer who would walk in front of the practicing golfers to hit     Since the ground is quite clearly not part of any hole and if added to a hole would create a corridor the M25 would kill to have, its a big stretch to say the PG is "interior".  Unless people refer to "interior" as anywhere on club property?


It is more interesting that Bernardo criticised the course for this OOB.  In both cases the OOB is an essential part of the design and if removed would require an unnecessary complete overhaul of two fine holes.  I always assumed the OOB originated from the days when horses were about...golf and horses generally don't mix very well.


Ciao

[Kalen Braley]

Looking at that picture of hoylake....Looks like they should replace the range with water, and use floaters as practice balls.
 
Then they could remove the OB and let the lake govern the play of golfers.  OB is gone.....Problem fixed!!!   

[Mark Pritchett]

Camden CC has internal OB due to a railroad track that runs through a portion of the property. 

[Jon Wiggett]

Adam,

sounds like a very painful experience. I played Bradley Hall quite a few times as a junior and remember well the hole you refer to. My only real memory of misfortune there was playing in their Junior Open one year and hitting my tee shot on the first low enough to catch the ladies tee marker and see my ball ricochet over my head into the field behind the tee which was OOB.

Jon

[Jamey Bryan]

Camden CC has internal OB due to a railroad track that runs through a portion of the property.

Mark beat me to it in pointing this out.  I don't really agree with the way it's played; only the RR right of way is played as OB, either side is in play for play of either of the two adjacent holes.  I've long felt that the ruling should be OB is the stakes AND BEYOND for play of the current hole.  As it is now, a bad shot may be OB while a REALLY bad shot is in play.

Interestingly, when the USGA plays a qualifier at Camden the tracks and right of way are played as an obstruction rather than OB.  I have a bit of a problem with that in that it's not club property.....

Jamey

[Thomas Dai]

If you've ever been hit or played with someone who's been hit by a ball played deliberately (or accidentally) down the wrong fairway you probably already appreciate why internal OB is sometimes needed.


There are other measures as well, like the famous Lon Hinkle tree.


I have seen a few holes over the years where the OB only applied to one of two adjoining holes, on the inside of the dogleg for example.


Atb

[Jerry Kluger]

Would anyone feel differently about the question if it were designated a lateral hazard as opposed to OB?

[Mark Pritchett]

Camden CC has internal OB due to a railroad track that runs through a portion of the property.

Mark beat me to it in pointing this out.  I don't really agree with the way it's played; only the RR right of way is played as OB, either side is in play for play of either of the two adjacent holes.  I've long felt that the ruling should be OB is the stakes AND BEYOND for play of the current hole.  As it is now, a bad shot may be OB while a REALLY bad shot is in play.

Interestingly, when the USGA plays a qualifier at Camden the tracks and right of way are played as an obstruction rather than OB.  I have a bit of a problem with that in that it's not club property.....

Jamey

Thanks for chiming in Jamey.  Your description is how I remembered it, but I was not 100% sure so I did not mention the specifics. 

[Dave McCollum]

In my own feeble mind, as I commented above, internal OOB should only be used for safety reasons.  Especially so when there is plenty of difficulty for finding your ball and playing some sort of recovery.  I’ve changed external OOB’s to laterals and even brought roads into play in an attempt to remove as many as possible.  I’ve been tempted to remove all the boundary OOB’s (or change them to laterals) as we own the surrounding land, but have been talked out of it because we have tournaments and my staff is worried about pace of play problems.

About the only disadvantage to making these changes is that it will lower your course and slope ratings.  Who really cares about that except the vanity handicappers?  Virtually no one ever scores well enough to challenge our scratch ratings.  And our handicap players travel well to other venues.  I find it amusing when the raters show up.  Typically, they rate the course in the morning, then play it in the afternoon.  Nobody comes close to playing to their handicaps.

[Jon Wiggett]

To me there are three main reasons for OOB internal or external. 1. Club does not own the land. 2. Safety. 3. Strategy. I am sure there are a few more though.

Jon

[Anthony Gholz]

Jon: At Port Huron GC safety comes before all, and I also fault poor planning 65 years ago.


Our practice range is the third in the course's history.  In 1949 when the county road commission decided to build a road through our first, eighteenth, and PR changes were made and new holes built, but not a PR.  The club lived w/o a PR for forty years, the pro gave lessons at the side of the first tee and we "drove" balls into the left rough.  We now have a very nice place to practice surrounded by tall oaks, however it is "only" 240 yards long and in the middle of the course.  Two Charles Alison designed holes were modified to fit it in.  The eighth hole "slid" west and the tenth was "straightened."  Comments about both sacrilegious moves, as well as the original tenth tee disappearing underneath the 1956 dining room, would take a book.  However, our pro was beaned while giving a lesson one day and the answer was OB.


BTW the only way we can remove a tree is to say its a safety issue.
[size=78%]Tony[/size]

[Sean_A]

I think we can all agree that there will always be good or at least necessary reasons to break the no interior OOB "rule" just as we can agree that interior OOB is far from ideal.


Ciao

[Brian Colbert]

If you've ever been hit or played with someone who's been hit by a ball played deliberately (or accidentally) down the wrong fairway you probably already appreciate why internal OB is sometimes needed.


There are other measures as well, like the famous Lon Hinkle tree.


I have seen a few holes over the years where the OB only applied to one of two adjoining holes, on the inside of the dogleg for example.


Atb

I played in a tournament in college every year at Newport National GC in Rhode Island. There were two such holes which were far easier by playing down the wrong fairway.


One of them was a completely blind tee shot into the wrong fairway. I always wondered how nobody got hit, but the way the timing of playing the holes worked out (par 5 first, par 4 second, back to back holes), there was never anyone in the wrong fairway when we hit our tee shots over there. It was always awkward running into another threesome with 6 balls in the fairway. Gotta love Arthur Hills.

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