Why heather is the greatest hazard in golf

[Michael Moore]

1. It looks beautiful, displaying a wide palate of colors over the course of a year.
 
2. Because it looks so nice and because there is a lot of it, your eye, clubface and ball are drawn to it.

3. As you walk to your ball and your feet meet the very dense problem, there is the emotional torment of knowing that you won't find your ball. In fact, the white ball really pops against the dark colors of heather, and one can almost always move forward.
 
4. The ball can be sitting way down but often is perched up nicely "on top of" a clump.
 
5. In which case you might be tempted to try a six or seven iron.

6. Ha ha you always need to wedge it out. I have heard rumors that wedges with bounce are no good and that you actually need to slice through the flora with a pitching wedge, and try for between five and sixty yards depending on the "lie". This difference in distance can be quite meaningful regarding strokes gained depending on how close you are to the hole.
 
Is there a better hazard? The combination of aesthetics, findability, sheer temptation, and strategy seems pretty good to me.

[Michael Felton]

1. It looks beautiful, displaying a wide palate of colors over the course of a year.
 
2. Because it looks so nice and because there is a lot of it, your eye, clubface and ball are drawn to it.

3. As you walk to your ball and your feet meet the very dense problem, there is the emotional torment of knowing that you won't find your ball. In fact, the white ball really pops against the dark colors of heather, and one can almost always move forward.
 
4. The ball can be sitting way down but often is perched up nicely "on top of" a clump.
 
5. In which case you might be tempted to try a six or seven iron.

6. Ha ha you always need to wedge it out. I have heard rumors that wedges with bounce are no good and that you actually need to slice through the flora with a pitching wedge, and try for between five and sixty yards depending on the "lie". This difference in distance can be quite meaningful regarding strokes gained depending on how close you are to the hole.
 
Is there a better hazard? The combination of aesthetics, findability, sheer temptation, and strategy seems pretty good to me.

With regard to number 6, I watched an American pro at Walton Heath in the 1991 European Open learn that lesson on 13 on the New (I think it's 13 on the combined course as well). He hit it in the heather on the right. Had what looked like a great lie. Pulled out about a 3 iron and hit it a yard. Then still had what looked like a pretty good lie and pulled a 7 iron. Hit that three yards. Then he got his wedge out and hit it back in the fairway. Quite the expensive lesson in how to handle heather. Playing matches there I would always hope people would get a good lie in the heather. They always tried to get more than they could. If it was buried or pretty awful, they'd just wedge it back out and it was only one shot gone.

[Stewart Abramson]

I love heather lined courses, but I tend to disagree about "findability". On courses where the thick heather lines long stretches of fairway it is often very difficult to track where one's ball has ended up as there are not many distinctive visual references in the sea of purple. Too much time spent looking for the ball, although not worse than long, thick  fescue found on some links. 


Heather is certainly a better hazard in most cases  than a pond.


Wispy, tall fescue, if not too thick, is often a good hazard. It can provide a wide variety of lies, lots of options for best club and can be visually appealing as well.

[Steve Lang]

    Hey you forgot how bees like to buzz around heather, nothing like a little extra natural hazard!

[Rob Marshall]

Like fescue much more. My experience at Portrush was not being able to find a ball because it would sit under the leaves of the heather.

[Tommy Williamsen]

Hazard is a good term, except that the next shot is often from the tee.

[Carl Johnson]

I beg to differ.  Gorse.  The yellow blooms in late spring look pretty.  But there is no recovery.  Worse than a penalty area (such as a steam or pond).

[JohnVDB]

Ice plant in California shares a lot of the same properties.  Especially how it can full players into trying to hit too much club,

[Ben Sims]

If we’re waxing about off-fairway flora coverage, grazed whispy grass (example: Brora) is where it’s at. If it’s a hazard you want, I still have a lot of fondness for native sand. Not manicured sand, but the variable sand you’d find at Palmetto.



OT—Speaking of Palmetto, send up some positive vibes to the CSRA (Augusta/Aiken). It’s been hit pretty badly by the storm and there’s lots of work to be done.

[Dave Doxey]

Heather is certainly a better hazard in most cases  than a pond.

Not true.  I can get out of a pond in 1 stroke.

[John Kavanaugh]

I play with a ton of WDigs and love the finality of a splash.

[Mark_Fine]

It is one of many excellent hazards but best when it is thin and wispy with minimal loss of golf balls and slowing up of play.

[Ally Mcintosh]

Michael is talking about heather. Some of the rest of you aren’t.


On his point 6, I agree a pitching wedge works better than a gap, sand or lob wedge with bounce.

[Brent Carlson]

Heather is a great hazard.  I also prefer thinner rather than thicker heather.  Overall though I think a well presented southern California barranca is the best hazard.

[Tom_Doak]

It is one of many excellent hazards but best when it is thin and wispy with minimal loss of golf balls and slowing up of play.

Thin and wispy grass is NOT heather.

[Mark_Fine]

My bad, I was talking about thin and wispy fescue.  Sorry.  By the way I hate ice plant.  Getting back to heather, I definitely would not say it is the best hazard but it truly IS hazardous 😊

[Thomas Dai]

Heather might be a candidate but I suggest the biggest hazard in golf is to rephrase Mr Jones, the 5” between a players ears.
Atb

[Sean_A]

I will go with old school whispy grass over heather. Far too often heather is kept way too high for golf. Even when kept short, it usually means a hack out. It looks pretty, but I prefer it used sparingly or with very wide fairways or patchy.


Ciao

[Buck Wolter]

I recently posted a podcast (The Cookie Jar) with Ryan Noades from The Addington. He seems to be a heather expert (he looks for seeds to reestablish it The Addington). He mentioned other courses where they 'allowed' it to get to dense and basically unplayable and the options once it got there were very limited. Seems a unique plant.

[Niall C]

I've been a member at several clubs with links courses that had heather. At one of them they didn't seek to protect or promote the heather and as a consequence it got largely trampled down in the areas that got a fair bit of play and therefore was fairly patchy in those areas. That meant the type of lie you got was pretty variable from a ball lying in the open, to sitting nicely on top of a thin covering of heather to sitting down in slightly thicker stuff. Each presented a different challenge but you found the ball readily enough.


At another club they looked to protect and encourage the heather by banning anyone going in to look for balls while trailing their caddy car behind them. As a consequence of leaving the heather to its own devices and limiting the type of traffic going through it it grew to be quite thick and tall with stems/branches that were quite "woody" and gnarly. Finding your ball was a challenge but getting it back to the fairway was even more of a challenge. Eventually the club realised that things had "perhaps gone too far" and started cutting the heather with a mower. While it reduced the height, it was generally the woody and gnarly stuff below that remained. I haven't been down for a couple of years so can't say what it's like now but hopefully a good bit more traffic will have helped sort it out.


Niall

[David Kelly]

I know that the health and growth of heather differs at every course and also at the same courses year to year but the best presentation of heather that I have seen in England has been at West Sussex, both times I have been there. Both the locations and presentation of the heather were just about perfect.

[Mark_Fine]

Best or at least most notable for me is probably at Royal Ashdown Forest.  No sand bunkers makes it really standout. 

[Niall C]

I tend to think that heather shouldn't be presented, it should just be ! 


Niall

[Mark Pearce]

I've been a member at several clubs with links courses that had heather. At one of them they didn't seek to protect or promote the heather and as a consequence it got largely trampled down in the areas that got a fair bit of play and therefore was fairly patchy in those areas. That meant the type of lie you got was pretty variable from a ball lying in the open, to sitting nicely on top of a thin covering of heather to sitting down in slightly thicker stuff. Each presented a different challenge but you found the ball readily enough.


At another club they looked to protect and encourage the heather by banning anyone going in to look for balls while trailing their caddy car behind them. As a consequence of leaving the heather to its own devices and limiting the type of traffic going through it it grew to be quite thick and tall with stems/branches that were quite "woody" and gnarly. Finding your ball was a challenge but getting it back to the fairway was even more of a challenge. Eventually the club realised that things had "perhaps gone too far" and started cutting the heather with a mower. While it reduced the height, it was generally the woody and gnarly stuff below that remained. I haven't been down for a couple of years so can't say what it's like now but hopefully a good bit more traffic will have helped sort it out.


Niall

Was Silloth the second of these?  I'm there on Friday and will report back.....

[Sean_A]

I tend to think that heather shouldn't be presented, it should just be ! 


Niall

Agree, but it should never be allowed to get long.


Ciao