Have you ever built your own rough hewn course?

[Tommy Williamsen]

Seeing the MacKenzie course in Wales that was rediscovered brought back memories of summers I spent at my Mom and Dad's house. It was built on thirty acres of relatively flat terrain with a creek that ran in the back of the property. There were almost no trees but there was long grass i had to cut. Every summer I would stake out an area for four greens, tees, and fairways. I'd cut the grass and play the little course with my Dad, wife, and son. It was great fun. I made it so we could play about six different holes. The longest was about 320 yards. The shortest was 60 yards to a little island in the pond. We'd have to take the row boat to putt out. Of course the greens were about four on the stimp and we chipped more than putted. The holes were about a foot in diameter. The pins were sticks with bit of rags tied to it. You can play golf almost anywhere.

[Mark Kiely]

In high school I lived next to a seldom-used greenbelt that also included a lit walking path. I configured a 9-hole routing out and back where the the base of the lamp posts served as "holes." Most shots were only in the 30-50 yard range. Lots of fun and good memories. And my short game was certainly stronger back then.

[Thomas Dai]

Done it a few times including in a field, in the desert, in some sand dunes and in an area pretty similar to that at the Rhayader ‘course’.
Picking the most appropriate tee spots, green sites and playing lines minimises upkeep (there’s likely a lesson from history here).
If golf ball specs were different so that a ‘strike’ wouldn’t cause damage or injure someone such as-hoc course layouts even within public access areas could be more frequent.
Atb

[Ira Fishman]

Fortunately, the statute of limitations lapsed many years ago. When I was a kid, I read that bent grass was stronger than normal lawn grass such that you could build a putting green in a backyard. So our intrepid foursome headed out to our local public course where we took rather large divots from the greens when no one was looking. Our bags weighed a ton. Our backyard “green’ was maybe eight feet square, and trimming it with scissors grew old quickly. Not long after, an article appeared in the local paper about our escapades.


Not as crazy as when we hit punch shots at the trucks on the highway, but thankfully it was a more forgiving and innocent time.


Ira

[archie_struthers]

 


After we built Twisted Dune I got on a sand pro and built a sand green twelve hole golf course on the Atlantic City beach for a charity event. It was a bunch of 30-70 yard holes that were fun to do. Reminded me of the chip and putt course we used to play at night under the lights when I was in high school...that place was called the Golf Farm.

[Daryl "Turboe" Boe]

When I was growing up a young lad in a small town in South Dakota, I was convinced I was missing out on all the fun and frivolity that the people in the big cities and tropical climates were having.  As I have aged I realized I may have had it better than most.  One of the fringe benefits was walking out the back door of our house and looking at nothing but unobstructed views of miles and miles of prairie.   We were the last house on the edge of town and not another house before the grasslands started.


There was no golf course in my home town so I wasn't blessed with growing up around the game like some.  But my dad worked helping orchestrate estate sales and he often came home with items from them.  One day he came home with a set of golf clubs.   What do you do with a set of golf clubs when you have no golf course?  you make do with what you do have in abundance.  My friends and I's first attempt at a course encompassed just my "backyard" which was ½ a block wide and a block long (excluding the footprint of a small shed and my dads workshop) which we worked holes around.  There were some unique hazards.  We used empty soup cans sunk in the ground as holes, with some fiberglass poles with flags my dad had in the workshop, and since I was in charge of the lawn mowing anyway, I just put the mower height down low for our "green sites".   We started playing with the plastic whiffle balls because the course was short.   We eventually got to thinking that the prairie grasslands behind our house were not fenced off for another ¼ - ½ mile before fenced in pasture land started with the nearest farmer, so we started cutting down "fairways" and greens in that field behind our house as well.  That gave us much more yardage to our course and allowed us to use real golf balls.   But we lost a lot of them in the tall prairie grass.


We made the 18 mile trek to the nearest larger town/"city" that actually had what they called a golf course (not much by todays standards) a few times to play on the real course, but never having any real formal training those early days were pretty bad.   Eventually my backyard course lost out to other interests, but I bet we could still go back and reclaim it.  I know the guy that lives in my childhood home, I think he'd let us tee it up one more time...


It wasn't until moving to Latrobe, PA after college that I really consider that I got "formally" introduced to the real game of golf.  But my friends and I had some great childhood matches out on that backyard course.

[Matthew Rose]

We mowed about half the vacant lot across the street and would sink old Cool Whip containers in the ground for cups. We played with wiffle balls with duct tape over the holes.

Hitting over the street from the front yard was the "water hazard"

[jeffwarne]

Had an 18 holer in my backyard with sand greens-super fast and true. Swept to hardpack daily.

7 greens -multiple angles.
Had water hazards on 6 holes and bunkers in play on 8 holes.
Previously the backyard had formal gardnes(gone fallow) complete with multiple irrigation spigots, perfect to feed the lazy river and created water hazards.
Large serving Campbell's soup cans for cups, Green grass welcome mats adhered with railroad spikes.
Used to have weekly events, complete with mini tour like purses in middle school.
A buddy of mine would steal beer from his dad and sell it during the event-he was always the leading money winner.


I was eventually suspended for promoting "gambling" events in school, but that just became more practice and earlier start times.


Those who didn't participate paid an entrance fee for the series of underground tunnels(covered with planks, the soil- and revegetated) or hung out in the 5 story home made treehouse.


There wasn't a lot of parental supervision in my family.
We broke at least one window a week between golf and and full scale fast pitch baseball games.(I learned how to replace and was on a first name basis at hardware store)
The only parental intervention I can recall was when my next door neighbor, donned in a football helmet, lost his nerve going over our picnic table without front legs set up as a ramp(it was the era of Evel Knievel) to propel us over the lazy river. He slowed down and just plopped over the edge-headfirst.
Turns out mom WAS watching...


At Sleepy Hollow,we built an 18 hole pitch and putt in the grassy church vacant lot next door, where we held parent child events with 80-100 competitors .Same thing-water hazards and bunkers, and a walk mower for the greens.
It's now a wonderful short game practice area for the club....Ours was better -or at least far more creative

[Greg Hohman]

Neat thread. Anybody have photos of their venues?

[Tommy Williamsen]

Jeff, sounds fun, but I'm glad you weren't my kid!! you'd be expensive. The only windows I broke with with a baseball. My son only broke one window. He was practicing hitting his wedge into the couch and blade it through the window.

[JLahrman]

We mowed about half the vacant lot across the street and would sink old Cool Whip containers in the ground for cups. We played with wiffle balls with duct tape over the holes.

Hitting over the street from the front yard was the "water hazard"

We used margarine cups, but same idea. On a quarter-acre suburban lot, and with parents who actually paid attention to us, we could only fit in two holes. Instead of the traditional out-in links layout, it was more of an out-in-out-in-

out-in-out-in-out-in-out-in-

out-in-out-in-

out-in-out-in-

out-in-out-in concept.

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After we moved, when I was about 9 years old, a neighbor had a yard more suited to backyard golf. He had maybe 7 different holes cut, and we laid out several different courses. Had Augusta National with a par-3 12th across the driveway to a very small target. The 13th swung left to right instead of right to left, but was very hard to hit in two.

[Thomas Dai]

Another version is cross-country golf.
Start at point A, finish at point B, play across, over or whatever all the terrain in between. Infinite length, infinite width. Then play back to point A or some other location.
Usually best played with old clubs and balls.
Atb

[jeffwarne]

Jeff, sounds fun, but I'm glad you weren't my kid!! you'd be expensive. The only windows I broke with with a baseball. My son only broke one window. He was practicing hitting his wedge into the couch and blade it through the window.

There were more than a few that were barred from hanging out at our house....
Amazingly, no real injuries, though I did whack a kid in the head(6 stitches) with a putter by accident sneaking in behind me when punching under the trees across the basketball court.(little higher finish than he expected)
We did pay for all window repairs ourselves-dozens of breaks.


That said I did have a long orthopedic chart myself-3 broken arms, multiple broken wrists and many, many fingers. Broken nose and cheekbone from a wooden stilt being thrown at me by my brother(out of school for month with that one)-good times. Injury recovery was how I developed my short game.

[Thomas Dai]

Another version would be beach golf ..... where the course has to be adjusted depending on the state of the tide.
Also dog golf. Person hits ball, dog runs after it and brings the ball back.
atb

[Dónal Ó Ceallaigh]

I did two on my own and another that was a joint effort with a few friends at my golf club.

The first course was in my uncle's field next to our house. I was about 9-10 years of age. The field was grazed by cattle and the grass was lush and green and about 4-5 inches in height. I cut four greens about 6 feet in diamater with a hedge clipper; not electric, just a manual one. It was a great clipper and you could cut really smooth greens to a height of about 1 cm. The only problem was that the cattle would walk over my greens when I wasn't there, so I came up with the idea of protecting them overnight by laying large concrete building blocks (they also helped to flatten the greens). It worked really well, but I never could manage to deter the cattle from shitting on my greens.    The holes varied in lenght from about 40 to 90 yards.

The second course I build was a joint effort. It was during our club's (Gweedore GC) Open Week (more like 12 days). As the course was going to be very busy that week, someone in the club committee suggested that the youngsters be given a lawn mower and cut some greens and tees in the sandy dunes behind the clubhouse. This was a perfect place for a pitch and putt course, and we build 4 or 5 holes. We just cut greens and tees; nothing else needed to be done. We played there the whole week and organised competitions ourselves.

The third course I build had 3 holes playing to 2 greens. It was located on a side hill site amongst gorse and some rocky areas. I gave the course an American sounding name and called it "Rocky Ledge". It was not a great site; quite restricted but I worked on it over a summer and built 2 greens from scratch. I seeded them and again I used a hedge clipper to get a better surface than one would achieve with a rotary lawn mower. I had just seen a golf tournament from Walton Heath/Sunningdale on TV (European Open in 1981-1983?), so I was inspired by the heather banked bunker faces, so I did the same myself with one of my bunkers. It was so cool looking. The holes were very short; only 15-20 yards long, but it didn't matter. I just loved making the course. I even put in back tees; I was always fascinated by the idea of having back tees, as only proper courses had back tees . I got some old tin cups from the golf club and made my own flags (I think I may have also put the club insignia on the flags ). I made a few score cards with the layout and all the relevant details (par, index, local rules, etc.)

[Matthew Rose]

We used margarine cups

I think we might have had a couple of those old Country Crock containers along with the Cool Whip

[Chris Clouser]

I had a four hole course where, as a kid, I could play a full wedge or nine-iron depending on the wind with lawn dart rings serving as holes.  You actually had to hit draws and fades around trees.  It really developed my short-iron, wedge skills which was the strength of my game from my youth until adulthood.  Any shot under 100 yards I was more than confident I could get it within one-putt range except in the most adverse situations.  Actually hitting the putt though was another matter.  Putting was always the worst part of my game and I couldn't really do it on the hardscrabble of our back yard.

[Mark Smolens]

Another version is cross-country golf.
Start at point A, finish at point B, play across, over or whatever all the terrain in between. Infinite length, infinite width. Then play back to point A or some other location.
Usually best played with old clubs and balls.
Atb

At Northwestern, we called it campus golf. 7 or 8 idiots with wedges hitting balls from the southwest quad, thru the east quad and across Sheridan Road (with an obligatory stop in the  Bernice Miller Crocus Garden), past the Rock, back to Sheridan to get to South Beach. . . with mandatory drinking

[Steve Lang]

Created neighborhood/school yard course with Bud...


Let's not forget  Some Guy’s Backyard (Brough Creek National)  , gotta love the road hole!
 

[Quinn Thompson]

I once built a decent par 3 in my folk's backyard, when I was young, on my Pop's small plot of land on the Southwest Side of Chicago. My buddies and I had just inherited the game and we would play with a whiffle golf ball on the way to Christ the King School 5 days a week; across the yards and over the streets, until the neighbors started complaining about divots, which in hindsight, is quite understood.


One afternoon, after the 3:00 bell, the buddies and I hit whiffle balls back to Bell Avenue. "Why should this game end ?" we must have thought. Both of my Parents were Teachers and they worked late hours, and so the lads and I had access to the garage and the lawn mower. True story:


We set the the old Honda mower to it's lowest height and burned a green in my Pop's backyard, a measly 20 yards from the back door. Realizing it was still "bumpy", the buddies and I watered the now scalped grass and then pulled a panel of plywood out of the garage and laid it on the now wet burnt bluegrass and then jumped on it in unison ! To iron out he bumps in the "green", I guess.


Once the "green" was settled, I went in the kitchen and grabbed a kitchen knife to cut a hole in the Chicago soil. We put a dixie cup in it's place with a tent pole behind it for reference sake. And then we swung away...


I'll never forget the sound of my Father pounding on the dining room window when he got home from work that evening, watching us curious clowns destroy all that he had mowed for...


" Quinn !", as the divots flied, " use a tee Goddamit ! " True Story.

[Daryl David]

I once built a decent par 3 in my folk's backyard, when I was young, on my Pop's small plot of land on the Southwest Side of Chicago. My buddies and I had just inherited the game and we would play with a whiffle golf ball on the way to Christ the King School 5 days a week; across the yards and over the streets, until the neighbors started complaining about divots, which in hindsight, is quite understood.


One afternoon, after the 3:00 bell, the buddies and I hit whiffle balls back to Bell Avenue. "Why should this game end ?" we must have thought. Both of my Parents were Teachers and they worked late hours, and so the lads and I had access to the garage and the lawn mower. True story:





We set the the old Honda mower to it's lowest height and burned a green in my Pop's backyard, a measly 20 yards from the back door. Realizing it was still "bumpy", the buddies and I watered the now scalped grass and then pulled a panel of plywood out of the garage and laid it on the now wet burnt bluegrass and then jumped on it in unison ! To iron out he bumps in the "green", I guess.


Once the "green" was settled, I went in the kitchen and grabbed a kitchen knife to cut a hole in the Chicago soil. We put a dixie cup in it's place with a tent pole behind it for reference sake. And then we swung away...


I'll never forget the sound of my Father pounding on the dining room window when he got home from work that evening, watching us curious clowns destroy all that he had mowed for...


" Quinn !", as the divots flied, " use a tee Goddamit ! " True Story.

Great story. Exactly what my dad would have yelled!

[Dave McCollum]

This explains where you guys came from.  I didn't play much golf as a kid.  Too many other American sports:  baseball, football, basketball, track, swimming, and any odd game that came along like pool, ping pong, and bowling.  We thought golf was for stuffy old people like our parents.  When not doing sports we doing our farm chores or hunting and fishing. 


Unlike most of the above stories, I had a crazy dad who wanted to build a golf course.  He started buying land when I was in high school and started building his course after I finished college.  I helped him for a year when he built the first nine.  Came back 20 years later and redesigned a couple of holes on what was by then an 18 hole course.  So, virtually my entire contact with the game for my first 45 years was on the development, construction, and operational side of things.  I knew how golf courses were put together before I learned how to play.  The last thing I did was learn something about golf architecture and the history of the game.


I guess I took the ass-backward journey to rough hewn aesthetics and minimalism.  I got to fool around with real dirt moving machines and build a Trent Jones era (well '60-'70's at best) course, and then spend a bunch of years figuring out what we screwed up.  One thing is certain: all golf courses evolve and require continual maintenance.         
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[Quinn Thompson]

To each their own Dave: I never considered swimming a sport, nor buying land an opportunity...none of those pasts were in my story.

[Dave McCollum]

Well Quinn, I guess you were never on a competitive swim team.  Miserable sport with lots of boring training.  Imagine swimming 3 miles back and forth across a pool.  I didn't last long, but think I completed a season. 

[Steve Lang]

   Not yet, but in the next couple months, something is gonna happen on our 10 acres in northeastern Kalkaska Co, MI, near Blue Lake.   


Master plan so far: 1) Survey property with golf buddy (he's Prof Surveyor) to confirm/mark property lines and define existing two track paths meandering through the acreage, 2) clearing/grubbing/towing out some fallen trees and odd timber with chain saws, Jeep, and winch, 3) borrow cousin's tractor or have him help to move some sandy soils around to set up short gaming area and shooting range, 4) check out paths becoming draw/fade practice alleys, 5) go swimming and play golf as needed...