Unfair fairways. When will it ever end!

[ForkaB]

Last week I split the middle with a drive and ended up on a tight lie on the downslope of a little bump, with 217 to the pin.  My playing partner was 5 yards behind, sitting up on a tuft of grass.  What a bummer!

I had to decide on a number of possible shots to hit and then execute the one I chose.  All my partner had to do was gently waft his 5-iron onto the green.  Do you call that "fair?"

[Ryan Crago]

your partner "gently wafted" a 222 yd 5-iron?

[ForkaB]

He was an animal.  A rational animal, to be sure, but an animal nonetheless.

[Matt MacIver]

I DO believe there is such a thing as unfair fairways.  

I played a course last fall (Hunter's Oak, MD Eastern Shore), designed to replicate a links- style course.  Nice look and feel, no trees so it played very windy they day I was there.  Overall had a lot of fun.  

But it's pretty flat on the eastern shore, so they clearly moved a lot of earth to get the desired dunes separation between holes and rolling fairways.  One hole in particular (late front 9 -- maybe #5?) was "too rolling".  There was no evidence that this fairway would be materially different from the rest, nor was it apparent there was an over-abundance of "roll" in it from the tee.  

Got to the fairway to find my ball 50 yards short of "where it should be", off in the left rough.  The fairway had no rhyme or reason to it, complete randomness.  Hit it ONE INCH left or right / long or short and you get a COMPLETELY different outcome.  

Note that I am a BIG FAN of center pot bunkers, and this course had some.  But at least I can see them, or know that they're there.  But TOTALLY random (and manufactured random, at that) I'm not sure I get.  

[Dan Kelly]

He was an animal.  A rational animal, to be sure, but an animal nonetheless.

Best laugh of the day.

Oh, and Rihc -- How'd you handle your shot?

[ForkaB]

Dan

Got just enough of the 17 degree rescue club to get the pelota airborne enough to clear the larger and more unfair humps in the fairway.  As Dan Rather might have said, it scuttled forward to the green like a Nashville cat that found itself in Memphis after a debauched night of eating the dead rats in the bin behind the medical research facility and then realised that there's no place like home.......

[BCrosby]

Rich -

Great stuff.

Those sort of things happen to me all the time. You'd think there would be a rule.

In my case, however, the pelota ends up stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis blues again. Sometimes its wasted and can't find its way home.

Bob

[Tom_Egan]

Rich --

Please define "unfair" and comment on how "unfairness" has no place in golf.

Tom Egan

[Mark_F]

Rich,

Were the said fairways natural, or man-made?

[Steve_Lovett]

Quit complaining about your unfair lie.  I was working last week!

[ForkaB]

Steve

What would golf be without complaining?  PS--I was working last week too.

Mark

Natural

Tom

"Unfair" is anything untoward that happens to my golf ball or anything toward that happens to my opponent's ball.  "Unfairness" is a fact of life and even of golf, but that doesn't mean one has to lie back and enjoy it......

Bob

From now on I'm going to call any unraked bunker I get into "Mobile" and any manisfestation of unfairness "those Memphis Blues."  Thanks.

Rich

[Peter Pallotta]

Mr. Goodale,

may I say, along with Dan Kelly, that your "he was an animal.  A rational animal, to be sure, but an animal nonetheless" was the laugh/line of the day.

If there's any justice in the world, that line alone should make you the preferred scramble partner at your home club, and at clubs world wide.

Peter

 

[Jim Nugent]

Rich, if he is an animal, and you out-drove him by 5 yards, what are you?

[ForkaB]

Jim

His drive pitched into that little hump and stopped dead.  We counted at least 3 dead nematodes in the impact crater.  My ball landed on the downslope of an earlier hump at 240 or so and trundled on another 70 yards.  That was a fair result--from my point of view, at least.

[A_Clay_Man]

 
Rihc,

Hit'em to where you can make'em, or, in your case, pray your opponent doesn't. Either that, or lay back to a more ideal spot.
 

No matter how horrible one's perdicament, couldn't it have always been worse?

 

[paul cowley]

I'm with you Rick....I can't tell you how many times I've stood out there contemplating the irony of these things we call 'fair'ways.....but what can we do?...it makes me feel so small and helpless at times......

[RJ_Daley]

Still playing those "runrig" riddled courses, are you?