Most "Outside the Box" Hole You've Ever Played?

[Tim_Weiman]

18 Yale

Good choice. Mine would probably a hole no longer in existence. Was replaced as the 12th hole on the Cashen course at Ballybunion.


First played the old hole with Kevin Frost, the person who hit balls for RTJ during the course design and construction. Was a bit crazy just walking up the sand hill to play it.

[Tim Leahy]

The quarry hole at Fossil Trace with a giant rock wall in the middle of the fairway.
18th hole a Lake Chabot 669 yards par 6 all down hill with plateaus built into the fairway.

[Yannick Pilon]

The Dell hole at Lahinch is a good choice mentionned by a few people, but in my book, the par 5 that preceeds it is much more outside the box than the Dell.


A totally blind second shot over a towering dune played to an area where players from another hole are actually crossing the hole without knowing what's coming their way is what I call thinking "outside the box"! Any architect thinking of building such a thing today would be refered to as a complete nuthead!!


I found the hole fun to play, but I still wonder how that routing can still be in play today!


YP

[Michael Felton]

I'm pretty sure I've never seen another hole like the 6th at Deal. Or the 16th for that matter. Or 17. Or 3.

[Sam Krume]

may be the 2nd at Perranporth..

[Carl Johnson]

No. 14 at Crowders Mountain Golf Club.  This little daily fee course is in Kings Mountain, North Carolina.  The course touts this hole as the hardest par 5 in the world.  I would add, "Also the weirdest."

[Ed Brzezowski]

My interest in golf course architecture began with the 16th at Inniscrone outside Phliadelphia (a Gil Hanse course).

Great pick Joe, what an adventure that was.

[Eric Smith]

I would have to include the 1st at Prestwick in a list of the most outside the box holes I've played. I mean, seriously, can you imagine a modern architect starting one of their courses with THAT hole!


As Judge Smails said, "ah, the NERVE!!"

[PCCraig]

The 5th, 6th, 9th, 10th, and 15th holes at Town & Country Club.

[Joe Hancock]

It seems a high percentage of the responses so far have cited holes that are:

a) In the UK
b) Old

Which makes me ask:

Are those holes really outside the box, or did something bad happen to our imaginations as golf was brought across the pond? Did fairness win the battle over creativity?

[Kalen Braley]

Joe,

The course I mentioned itsn't old...its a home grown course built by a guy, on his property, who had never designed a course before....so that's how so much crazy quirk made its way into the course.

P.S.  Perhaps a KP could go to the Spokane area.  People could play Wine Valley on their way in and way out and there are other courses like Indian Canyon, Circling Raven, and privates like Black Rock or Gozzer that could be worked in with the right access.  On this same trip, perhaps a visit to the course mentioned, Antler Springs could be included as well

[Joe Hancock]

Kalen,

That's why I went with "high percentage" vs. "all". It left a little room for examples like yours.

Sincerely,

Evelyn Woodhead

 

[Kalen Braley]

Kalen,

That's why I went with "high percentage" vs. "all". It left a little room for examples like yours.

Sincerely,

Evelyn Woodhead

 

Damn...you got me Grandpa Joe....you're moving quick today!!   

[Sean_A]

It seems a high percentage of the responses so far have cited holes that are:

a) In the UK
b) Old

Which makes me ask:

Are those holes really outside the box, or did something bad happen to our imaginations as golf was brought across the pond? Did fairness win the battle over creativity?

Joe


For sure...our golf imaginations have become homogenized and codified by the golf architecture profession. The idea that these old funky holes really weren't funky at all...just good golf from a different era....was one of the best things Melvyn Morrow came up with. The best of golf design doesn't change...opinions do.  These days, archies think they are clever and thinking outsode the box if they build bunkers which can be putted 


Ciao

[MCirba]

One of my favorite "OTB" holes is the 15th at Kingsley Club, the long par four to a shallow, elevated shelf of a green much too tiny for the lengthy approach.   

Here's a pic from Ran's Course Review.


 

[Thomas Dai]

It seems a high percentage of the responses so far have cited holes that are:
a) In the UK
b) Old
Which makes me ask:
Are those holes really outside the box, or did something bad happen to our imaginations as golf was brought across the pond? Did fairness win the battle over creativity?

Joe
For sure...our golf imaginations have become homogenized and codified by the golf architecture profession. The idea that these old funky holes really weren't funky at all...just good golf from a different era....was one of the best things Melvyn Morrow came up with. The best of golf design doesn't change...opinions do.  These days, archies think they are clever and thinking outsode the box if they build bunkers which can be putted 
Ciao

I suggest that in the UK in yee olde days, a long, long time ago, folk weren't too keen on using (wasting?) decent crop growing farming land for a leisure pastime like golf so land less attractive to crop farming, like sandy areas and more quirky land came to be used instead. Inland golf this is, not so much links courses.


Atb

[Garland Bayley]

The whole back nine of Milton-Freewater Golf Course.


Pete Pittock did a thread on it, and some of us have played it.
The city couldn't get the adjacent land they wanted, so they built on the land they had.

[RJ_Daley]

I don't remember the hole number, but a par 5 at a little known course called Turtle Lake, near Boulder Junction WI, where the tee shot runs out about 220 into heavy rough, but the tall growth pines hard down the left keep you from trying to cut off anything over the hard acute less than 90 degree fairway coming back to left.  Needs two more shots from well placed tee ball to reach the green, and tall pines prevent any short cuts.  Not a great hole, just OOTB.  Architect, Stanley Pelcher. 

Strantz was OOTB on several/most holes at Tobacco Rd.  1 and 13 stand out.  The pitch third shot onto the green on 13 is unique.

Tom Doak actually stopped for a hit on the silo base sand green at Dannebrog CC?   

[Sven Nilsen]

Two in Chicago, 3 at OFCC North and 6 at OFCC South.

One with a blind drive to a lower fairway and the other a knoll hole. 

[David Harshbarger]

Did the Curley-Schmidt Fantasy Course in Haikou ever get built?

[Phil McDade]

Boat of Garten, a James Braid design in the Scottish Highlands, has a neat little hole called Gully (15th hole). It's 307 yds, so a shortish par 4. Right where you want to hit your tee shot sits an enormous dip in the fairway -- remnants of some excavation work for the rest of the course, it's been said. To drive over the gully requires courage and ability, as BofG is a tight but shortish course where wayward shots are always penalized. You can hit short of the gully, but are left with a shot of 130-150 yards -- which seems awkward for a hole that plays right around 300 yards. Or drive into the gully and leave a blind pitch to the green. Fun, and unconventional.


http://www.boatgolf.com/course/hole15

[Sven Nilsen]

5th and 6th at grey walls.

[Dave McCollum]

My first thought was the 18th at Falcon Crest near Boise, Idaho.  Originally, the fairway ran straight away from the tee with an irrigation lake on the left.  Didn’t really matter what club you hit off the tee, the second shot was a 200 yard carry over the pond to the green.  Almost impossible for most seniors and women.  Eventually they built a narrow route around the lake to the left, but it looks like it requires a series of bunts to keep the ball in play if you can get there from the tees—risky and difficult, at best.  OTB, yes, memorable, yes, heroic, yes, and, for me, the worst hole I’ve seen.  I think the architect was Hans Borbonus, a landscape contractor, nursery owner, and this was his first golf design, but don’t really know for sure.

[Joe_Tucholski]

Mine is probably the par 7 at Gunsan CC.  I made a 10 on the hole and was 4 over for the round.

[Pete_Pittock]

3 and 16 at Astoria (OR). Going in opposite directions, both par 4s are built in a narrow valley between steep dunes.