As usual, I got a little carried away when thinking about this topic. Some self-reflection reveals that I'm rarely disappointed with a new golf course I've played. I seek an adventuresome spirit, and I can usually find it in just about every course I've played. Most of my surprises over the last couple of years have been pleasant: the unparalleled quality of golf courses I played in England; the unbelievable variety of the public courses in the Philly area; my aforementioned new love on 2000s Nicklaus courses; a Fazio course I ACTUALLY LIKE at Galloway National; and so on. So I decided to dig deeper and challenge myself: what holes have really disappointed me over the years? I came with an eclectic 18: the All-Disappointment 18. These holes fall into one of three categories: holes deemed "great" by others that didn't measure up in real life; poor holes on great courses; and decent holes on land that could be so much better. Without further adieu...
1. Sandwich – 440, Par 4. Pat Ward-Thomas picked this as his best starting hole in the world. Me? I played it twice, and it wouldn't make my top 25 openers. I played at least a dozen in the UK that I liked more. The green is neat, but completely unreasonable for a hole of its length. I might say it is the worst hole on the golf course.
2. Dornoch – 165, Par 3. I'd always heard the toughest shot at Dornoch is the "second at the second." My second shot was a 40-footer for birdie. Yes, the greensite is penal, but it is also massive, and a short and straight miss will never go wrong here. The hole is a decent one, but it doesn't get my juices flowing like 6 or 10, which happen to be better variations on the same theme.
3. The Country Club – 440, Par 4. Okay, I know this is supposed to one of the great par fours in golf, and I'm really trying to get myself to love it. Everything is there: the dramatic tee shot over the cliffs and the long iron second are tremendous, and the hole is about as natural as it gets. Still, I can't help but wish there was something more here. I think the problem is the green, which is featureless and devoid of interesting surrounding contours. For clifftop drama, I'll take the second at Dismal River any day. I also prefer the next four holes at TCC to this one.
4. Oak Hill (East) – 570, Par 5. There were so many choices from Oak Hill's East Course, my home course for so many years. If you ask me the two main flaws with this layout, the answers are 1) It's too narrow, and 2) Fazio. This one falls into category number one. Robert Trent Jones improved the tee shot by moving the tee to the right of the 3rd green to create a heroic dogleg right. Yet the hole is completely devoid of strategy due to trees and mowing patterns. Bail left? No way, because anything 5-10 yards left of center will either catch a branch 80 yards off the tee or end up in the maintenance area. Try to cut the corner right? Sure, but your reward for carrying the bunkers is a 40-yard-long swath of gnarly rough. Throw in a field goal kick of a second shot and a shrunken green, you get my most disappointing non-Fazio hole on the East Course.
5. Prestwick – 200, Par 3. I LOVE Prestwick. The blindness, the quirk, the great links terrain and wild greensites all do it for me in a big way. But the 5th, the famed "Himalayas," is the one hole out there that could be so much more. First, cut a bunker into the mountain to create some high drama. Second, build a green that matches up to the character of the rest of the course. Like it, but don't love it like I should.
6. Woking – 420, Par 4. Ask anyone: I'm a big fan of Woking. But the 6th doesn't quite make the grade. The diagonal creek should yield gold here, but there is no tradeoff on the tee shot to make this feature interesting. Moreover, the green site doesn't fit the bold, bombastic mold you see on the rest of the course.
7. Country Club of Rochester – 210, Par 3. After seven years of caddying here, this is the one golf hole at CCR I can't appreciate. Gil Hanse's work improved it, but with the severe green and the overhanging trees, the only shot here is a high, baby cut three iron. And to think Hanse could have built a legitimate Redan with a creekside green here? Oh, what could be…
8. The Addington – 410, 4. I've hashed and re-hashed this one here. Most of Abercromby's risks paid off at Addington, but this one did not. Two less-than-perfect shots and you make a 7. It's awkward as hell. This hole sucks.
9. Deal – 445, 4. All the British GCAers know this one, and it sits as another question mark on a really phenomenal course. It's the definition of anti-strategy. At least the green is pretty neat.
10. Mill Creek – 350, Par 4. Mill Creek is actually a pretty neat Paul Albanese layout, with some cool alternate fairways and wild greens. The clubhouse sits atop a drumlin (another name for a small mountain), and the holes playing around it are the course's millstone. The 10th is the worst of them all, running out about 190 yards and then falling sharply downhill to the left. You can't hold the green from outside of 50 yards. The hole is awkward, strange, contrived, or whatever substitute for stupid you want to use.
11. Merion (East) – 370, Par 4. I know about the greensite. I know about the history. But where is the decision-making on this hole? Come on, Merion: you're better than that.
12. Garden City – 190, Par 3. Garden City is another one of my faves. All sorts of original concepts flying around this low-profile design. Its best stretch of holes is 8 through 11. So what do we get with the 12? A built-up, manufactured, seen it a million times par three designed by the anti-quirk, Robert Trent Jones. UGH!
13. Lancaster – 510, 5. I guess this hole still has some fans out there, but this shoehorned piece of schlock is the black eye on an otherwise standout golf course. Any hole where you are 100 yards out from the green, in the middle of the fairway, and have absolutely no shot is fundamentally flawed.
14. Twin Eagles – 400, 4. What do this hole look like? Hell, I don't remember. Twin Eagles was supposed to be a good golf course, hosting a Senior Tour event for several years. I can't remember anything about it. This is the forgettable old Nicklaus, well before the engaging new Nicklaus.
15. Oak Hill (East) – 180, Par 3. Here's category two of flaws at Oak Hill. George Fazio ruined this par three when he moved the green down the hill to a swampy area. After the green kept sliding into the (manmade) pond, Tom Fazio and sidekick Marzloff rebuilt the green in 2010. Now, you walk off the 14th green and get transported to Atlanta Athletic Club. The six-foot-high stone wall that holds up the green really fits on a Donald Ross classic
16. Oak Hill (West) – 470, Par 5. Trees, trees and more trees. This hole was listed in several golf books as one of Ross's great strategic holes. With Ross's bunkers never being built, the hole lost some of its potential. But the real issue is the trees that require golfers to hit a moon ball on any shot over 200 yards. The club decided to take down all of the trees on the inside of the dogleg a few years ago--except for the one tree that was main problem in the first place. This hole could be a great hole so easily, but as it stands its the worst hole on the West Course.
17. The Ocean Course – 195, Par 3. The cliche choice here, but seriously, Dye couldn't figure out a better 17th hole than a penal par three over water? Completely unnatural and out of place.
18. Camp Creek – 450, Par 4. Here's the issue with Fazio: he can take a great piece of land and build a mediocre golf course better than anyone in the business. I enjoyed a few holes at Camp Creek, but some were just vanilla bland. After neat greensites at 16 and 17, CCCC ends with a whimper, a long four with no semblance of angles or strategy anywhere. Barf.