My apologies to Roberto.
Yesterday I was playing the Mountain course at the Broadmoor.  I get to tjhe 15th hole.  The card says 168 yards from my tees.  I look at the distant green and it sure looks father than that.  I decide that the yardage must be off a bit.  I give them the benefit of the doubt and hit my six iron on the button and it winds up thirty yards short.  My wife has about 115 yards.  I tell her that the yardage is all wrong and that she should hit her driver.  Wham she takes a mighty blow and hits it fifty yards left of the green.  "What the heck is that,"  I query.  "You told me to hit the driver and I just airmailed the green"  I had aimed at the wrong green.  From my tee tall grass hide the view of the correct green so I hit it to the 17th green.  We both re-tee and play the hole.  I had never hit to wrong green before.

I bet I am not alone.

Tommy

I did the same at Mt Gambier  (halfway between Adelaide and Melbourne) on the original course as a teenager.  #17 was a short, drop shot par 3 whereas #15(?) played perpendicular to #17, as a par 3, finishing some 30 yards long and right of #17 green.

I hit a 5-iron (or two) playing as a single, both on the wrong green, strolled off the tee muttering about how long the hole played given the yardage and the downhill nature, and lo and behold, then saw #17 green below.  I quckly returned to the tee and reloaded with perhaps an 8-iron, and then retrieved my errant shots on the wrong green.

Fortunately, there weren't other golfers around.  How embarassment.

James B

Bill

you reminded me that my host played to the wrong green at Pine Valley on #9 par 5.  The flag was not visible from rescue club length (it was hanging limply) and we all 'imagined' the hole was cut on the right hand green (caddies and players included).  No, no, no!  It was on the left hand green!  As we discovered perhaps 100 yards later.  Our host had an equitable solution to such a good shot, which none of his guests would disagree with.  Perhaps not 'rules of golf' compliant, but neither are mulligans.

PS  it had been raining, so the group(s) in front had pulled out, so no clues from them as to where the pin was!

James B

At St Andrews Beach I drove from 17 tee to (from memory) the first green! Tom, if you are reading, it was a great looking hole from the tee box!!

A groundsman on a lawnmower on 18 fairway waved me in the right direction

Cory Lewis and I played Morgan Hill on a blustery February day in 2006. After stepping to the 18th tee I lined up a shot down the first fairway and wondered to myself why someone would put the hole sign directly in line for the back tee.

Cory point about 50 yards right of where I was aimed and told me that was the 18th fairway...

At St Andrews Beach I drove from 17 tee to (from memory) the first green! Tom, if you are reading, it was a great looking hole from the tee box!!

A groundsman on a lawnmower on 18 fairway waved me in the right direction

Here is the #17 tee at St Andrews Beach (Gunnamatta).  The #17 fairway is to the right, although there appears to be some alignment of the tee to the left of this line.  To the left is #18 fairway (#18 tee can be seen on the hill in the left of the picture).  Beyond #18 fairway is the #1 green.


Following the GCA golf day at St Andrews Beach (March 2006 with Mark Ferguson), we discussed on GCA the opportunity to play from #17 tee to the holes such as #1, or perhaps #8 or #10.  Matt, you are the first that I have heard that actually played this hole.  Hope this brings back memories.


This is the view from #18 fairway looking back up to #17 tee.  The shot would be taken from under Matt Sullivan's inadvertent flight path of his drive.


Best regards to Shane too.

James B

I've heard stories where golfers played from 9 fairway to 18 green and later 18 fairway to 9 green at Shinnecock Hills.  I think the approach from 9 fairway to 18 green would be awesome!  

Photo of 18 fairway (foreground) to 9 green uphill towards the clubhouse

Actually the only time I played nine at Ladera GC in Albuquerque I played the front nine and hit to the 18th green. #9 is a dogleg left with a pond to the right and beyond the landing area. The 18th green is on the other side of the pond straightaway from the tee about the same distance from the fairway as the 9th. I stuck a wedge to the 18th about 3 feet from the hole, hit a second ball as I was just out practicing, then noticed my green off to the left somewhere.

I putted out and went home

Roberto's original quote (ill-transcribed by almost all) was:
"What estupid I am," not "What a stupid I am."  estupido is how stupid is spelled in Spanish. No Spanish word begins with "s" followed by a consonant. So what he wanted to express was "Que estupido soy." Which, when translated into English would be "How stupid I am."

Tommy Nacarato help me out here!

What you say makes sense, and I thank you for pointing it out because I had never deconstructed it that way.  Nonetheless, he still made a grammatical (and scoring) error that is fun to playfully quote.

At Brora in 2000, I ran into a member who was also a single and looking for a game.  In addition to reducing my green fees from 30 GBP to 5, he introduced me to Stableford.  I was having quite a good day and late in our second round I lined up my tee shot at the directional post on 14(?).   Getting over the top I hit my shot left of left into a herd of the cows doing their greenskeeping chores.  While the ball didn't strike any of them, it apparently startled them enough to send them mooing and bawling on a mini stampede.  My opponent/host then said in a perfectly clipped British accent.  "That's the most appalling shot I've ever seen, even the cattle are turning away in disgust."
I laughed but then protested, "It's not that bad, only about thirty yards off line."  It was then that he pointed out I had chosen a directional marker for one of the holes on the front nine.  I was a good sevently five yards off line and I somehow managed to make a par out of the whole mess.

On a course I have often called home, Preston Country Club in Kingwood, West Virginia, the second hole is a dogleg right but the green for the sixth hole is visible and so framed by a line of trees it is easy for unexperienced golfers.   The story goes that years ago on a foggy morning, a  foursome of golfers at Preston for the first time played from the second tee to the sixth green and  holed out without realizing their error.  They then went to play holes seven through nine and found themselves back at the clubhouse where the pro complimented them on how fast they had played the front nine.  I don't know how or even if they straighened that one out.  Nowadays there are more prominent and numbered hole diagrams that would make it difficult to miss most of the front nine.

Once playing at Cape Arundel with two other first timers, I, after a lengthy discussion among the the three of us, selected the wrong fairway.  It made for a damned long and unsuccessful recovery on that occasion.