Hardest set of par-3's in the world??

[John Shimp]

Shinnecock Hills in a non-prevailing wind from the north.

I played Saturday morning in 20mph avg with 40mph gust per clubhouse gauge.

Hole 2 - 221 yds uphill into the non-prevailing wind  Driver to well guarded green. Normally a 3I or so.

Hole 7 - 189 yd Redan.  Very hard to hold the green downwind.

Hole 11 - 158 yd uphill to a small green.  Called by L. Trevino the best par 5 in the country.  Hole played 40 yds longer into the wind.

Hole 17 - 174 yd Eden hole.  A hurting crosswind made the hole play around 195.  Back left pin made this the easiest of the 4 as the wind helped work the ball to the hole.

Overall, Shinnecock is masterfully designed for the prevailing wind off the ocean.  Things really get turned upside down with wind out of the north.  Can't say that the down wind holes were much if any easier though....

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

Pine Valley...even if you only count number 5, it makes it the course with the hardest set of par threes...however, the other three are also disasters wiating to grab you.
Number 14 from the new tee, is not much easier than #5 which to me is the hardest par 3 in the world.

[SPDB]

Portrush.

[David_Tepper]

Royal Dornoch would certainly be a contender in the 175 yards or less category. #2 & #6 are tough targets to hit and VERY tough up&downs if you miss. #10 is shorter and marginally easier. #13 is the largest of the 4 greens, but that does not make it easy.  
 

[John Kavanaugh]

Is there a par three in the world that is the number 1 handicap hole at its course?  What is the lowest that you know.  The 16th at Victoria National is the #10 handicap hole.

Yes, I know that it is not supposed to indicate the hardest hole but the one whose stroke dispersion is greatest between a Banker and C-noter.

[Jim_Coleman]

    #14 at Rolling Green (now 235 from the back tees) is the 6th hdcp. hole.  Even before new tees (201 yds) it's been #6 handicap.

[Rick Shefchik]

#16 at CPC is the 6th handicap hole. The other three (3, 7 and 15) are the 17th, 15th and 18th handicap holes, respectively.

[John Shimp]

Par 3 short distances preclude handicapping them tough.  Crazy... To me hole handicapping ought to focus on the distance of the expected shot into the hole not entire hole length.

On the toughest Par 3 question, what about the effects of wind?  Are Pine Valley's tougher than Shinnecock's when counting on significantly more wind at Shinny?  And in particular when considering the non-prevailing wind I mentioned?  Dornoch and Portrush certainly have a lot of wind.  As great as they are, Dornoch's par 3 holes aren't long enough in my view to rate with Shinnecock's in wind.

[Eric Franzen]

16th at Bro Hof Stadium Course (RTJ II) in Stockholm is #5 hcp hole.

[Jonathan McCord]

I don't have a scorecard in front of me, but I believe the 2nd hole at Kingsley is the #4 handicap hole at just 135 yds. from the Blue tees.

After seeing just about everybody seesaw back and forth on that hole, I'm not surprised.  It is truly a 2 or 20 hole.

[Jonathan McCord]

Come to think of it, the 2nd may be the 6th handicap hole.  Anyone have a scorecard?  Regardless it is one of the toughest par 3's under 150 yards.

[Gib_Papazian]

Winged Foot West seems the obvious one to me, but a good CCFAD choice might be Spanish Bay. That is a breezy corridor on that side of the peninsula; danger lurks when the wind is up, starting with #13, which I feel is the most difficult short par-3 I have every played.

You miss, you die. The target is far smaller than #17 at TPC Florida.

[JESII]

If we are defining "hard" as the highest total score on them over the course of a certain number of rounds, it would be very difficult to beat Pine Valley...each hole has the potential to draw a 7 out of you in no time flat...

I like the three's at Shinnecock better though, and think #17 is a sleeper as one of the great par threes I have played...

[Gib_Papazian]

You can make the argument for Oakmont easily . . . . . get on the wrong side of all but #8 and double bogey looks good.

[JESII]

Haven't played Oakmont, but your words are interesting in that their longest one is similar to Shinnecock as #2 is probably the easiest to par...or recover to in the event of a miss...

[Chuck Brown]

Kingsley #9 gets this emoticon ...

The recent revisions to Oakland Hills South might lend to an argument that those 3's are as tough as a group as any that one might imagine.

3 - A modest mid-iron shot; but the flag can be tucked behind a front bunker.

9 - Not revised in the latest go-round, but before the 1996 US Open a new tee was added that pushed the yardage to something like 220+, against the ptrevailing wind, to a green that Oakmont might envy.

13 - Depending on the hole location, this shortish Par three with a wildly-sloped three-zone green can be easy (front center) or brutal (back left or back right, tucked to the collar or the falloff contour).

17 - Word is already out, after British Open qualifying at the site following the '07 Buick Open at Warwick Hills, that the new pushed-back tee may be too much even for the tour pros.  I don't even know the new yardage.  Somebody here will know.  Some comments from the Open qualifiers were that it was nearly unplayable; long and uphill with a long iron, hybrid or fairway wood to a heavily-bunkered green that is about 15 paces deep with no helping angle or backstop.

[PThomas]

I don't have a scorecard in front of me, but I believe the 2nd hole at Kingsley is the #4 handicap hole at just 135 yds. from the Blue tees.

After seeing just about everybody seesaw back and forth on that hole, I'm not surprised.  It is truly a 2 or 20 hole.

from the blues/140 yds  #2 is the 6th handicap hole Jonathan

personally i think 10 might be even more difficult, but it's listed as 10th handicap from 128 yds

[Gib_Papazian]

This utterance may get me horsewhipped, but I do not find the par-3's at PV all that difficult. I base my feelings on the size of the greens. For a good iron player, you really have to whiff one to miss the putting surface.

PV, in my view, is not about difficulty, but psychological terror. The fairways are wide and the putting surfaces expansive. Oakmont - and Shinnecock - place a higher premium on perfect shotmaking.

#3 is an enormous Redan. All you need do is block-nudge a five-iron somewhere towards the right side of the green and you'll be dancing. Now, the enormity of the putting surface introduces a 3-jack, but I think we are trying to identify par-3's where a train wreck is almost an inevitability.

#5 only requires a 200 yard shot with a draw. Death to those who fan it to the right side, but there is no real requirement for precision, just a good swing that cheats the ball left.

#10 is a simple hole. Pull out your 8-iron, aim it at the DA and don't try to get cute. Hit it. The green is 3X as large as it looks from the tee.

#14 is the same shot as #3. Downhill to a target that is far larger than it seems. The hole plays shorter than the yardage, so all that is necessary is a decent swing to an expansive landing area.

The problems start when the fairways begin to narrow in your mind. The monster is not real - just an illusion. Disasters are wholly self-inflicted at PV for the better player, because the golf course is not that hard. The margin for error is enormous - only a complete shank spells eternal punishment; negative thoughts begin to sneak into your head.

At Oakmont, with the exception of #8, a little, itty bitty miss results in a game of ping-pong between the bunkers and a putting surface faster than glass with more pitch.

[JESII]

I'll have to say, with all due respect Mr. Papazian, you are out of your friggin' mind...To rekindle an earlier referrence of yours...not even Hunter Thompson took enough chemicals to think the 3's at PV are "not all that difficult" and they are "just an illusion"...

[Jim Franklin]

This utterance may get me horsewhipped, but I do not find the par-3's at PV all that difficult. I base my feelings on the size of the greens. For a good iron player, you really have to whiff one to miss the putting surface.

PV, in my view, is not about difficulty, but psychological terror. The fairways are wide and the putting surfaces expansive. Oakmont - and Shinnecock - place a higher premium on perfect shotmaking.

#3 is an enormous Redan. All you need do is block-nudge a five-iron somewhere towards the right side of the green and you'll be dancing. Now, the enormity of the putting surface introduces a 3-jack, but I think we are trying to identify par-3's where a train wreck is almost an inevitability.

#5 only requires a 200 yard shot with a draw. Death to those who fan it to the right side, but there is no real requirement for precision, just a good swing that cheats the ball left.

#10 is a simple hole. Pull out your 8-iron, aim it at the DA and don't try to get cute. Hit it. The green is 3X as large as it looks from the tee.

#14 is the same shot as #3. Downhill to a target that is far larger than it seems. The hole plays shorter than the yardage, so all that is necessary is a decent swing to an expansive landing area.

The problems start when the fairways begin to narrow in your mind. The monster is not real - just an illusion. Disasters are wholly self-inflicted at PV for the better player, because the golf course is not that hard. The margin for error is enormous - only a complete shank spells eternal punishment; negative thoughts begin to sneak into your head.

#3 is 195 from the new back tee and is not that difficult until you get to the green. You can certainly have a train wreck there.

#5 calls for more than a 200 yard shot. A 200 yard shot will leave you with a 20-30- yard chip to a green that is SEVERELY sloped back to front. Half the battle is getting to the green and then you have to putt. It is the hardest par 3 I know (and I have played a lot of places).

#10 is short to another difficult green.

#14 is 225yards over water and in front of water. There is no bail out left, not much right, and nearly none short. It played into the wind last week and was scary hard. I can't think of 4 better, more diverse par threes around and hard too.

[JESII]

#3 does provide a nice sideboard up there to throw the ball into, and assuming you can hit it fine, just tell me how the sq.footage of that side board compares to these little itty bitty targets at Oakmont? Of course there are a couple additives here; miss your sideboard to the right and you ain't gettin' on with the next one, and hit it, but with the pin in the back and you're still making four most often. Forget about the prevailing wind from 2 o'clock and you've got every chance of seeing the left bunker, which fortunately is the one bunker on the course that let's you think about a par...to a front pin of course.


#5 - I'll just quote you, it was just about good enough...

#5 only requires a 200 yard shot with a draw. Death to those who fan it to the right side, but there is no real requirement for precision, just a good swing that cheats the ball left.

Add to that the toughest green on a real long hole I've ever seen...unless #15 counts as a real long hole!


#10 - Three very distinct greens within this one rather large (for an 8 iron) green. All seamlessly poured together but clearly separated by 2.5 - 3 putts. this fact alone increases the challenge exponentially from what you see as "a simple hole" to one which could reach up and grab you by the nose if you forget for just one second where you are...

#14 - Most mundane of the lot, but at 207 to the front as it was on my last playing with a strong wind from the right it was anything but "a walk in the park Kazanski..."

[Gib_Papazian]

First off, there are not Mr.'s here . . . . . just Uncle Gibby and an Apple laptop.

However, I really don't think those par-3's at PV are nearly as brutal as Oakmont - again - because of the sheer size of the targets.

Another set of par-3's I want to nominate are at Bandon Dunes.

On #2, that crossways trudge to the tee does not appeal to me, but if you play the boxes on the hillside terrace, #2 is a whole lotta whole lotta.

The real problems begin on #6 - try whistling a 4-iron to that target in a nasty crosswind. Any miss - especially to the right - leaves you hacking the ball out of the brush and dunes. There is no margin for error because the green just sits out there alone, sticking its tongue out at you.

#12 is not that difficult per se, as long as you chicken out to the right of the green. Any miss left - don't forget the wind - finds the pot bunker from Hell. Most of the time, you get to come out sideways - or backwards to deal with a ticklish little pitch over the same abyss of snowman.

#14. Wind again. This is an impossible hole. I simply lack the necessary skill to escape without a double-bogey or worse. The front bunker goes all the way to the center of the earth, right is death, left is over on the other tee because the wind catches it . . . . .

Last time I played there, I was one over standing on the tee and crawled off as shell shocked at Van De Velt.

Naturally, I layed the sod over my sand wedge on #16 and stuck it into another pot bunker, but that is a weepy story of failure and humiliation for another day.

As for the Hunter Thompson line . . . . . at least you remembered it.

 

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

Mr Papazan..
I have to agree with my esteemed competitor JESIII
YOU ARE SMOKING SOME SERIOUS CRACK...we must be playing a different Pine Valley!
A200 yard draw on #5?
what about the next 35 yards to the hole?
Number 14 a large green...are you kidding me...I think we differ very much here.

[Gib_Papazian]

Jim,

And the two times I played PV, the yardages were quit a bit shorter and we were not playing the tips. If we are going to use the tips of every hole as the measuring stick, then I will be the first to admit the par-3's at PV got more pussy than I got Johnson.

And #5 at PV, that was a typo, although I just whacked my 3-wood to the left side the last time I was there and hit it to 3 feet. . . . . missed the downhiller though, almost missed it coming back.

And "crack" was never my recreational drug of choice. I went to 154 Grateful Dead Shows and never even saw any blow, let alone crack.

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

Sorry...Uncle Gibby....I hope you know I mean the good kind of crack......that which can be found while hunting for your ball after missing the geens on Pine Valley's par 3's