[Whit_C]

Dan G:  As per the rules of the thread 9 hole munis layed out by the town engineer don't count.  Looking for courses by people who hold themselves out as golf course architects.  Also, worst was amended to disappointing to spark debate.  Finally, the definition of disappointing was left to the poster. Hope that helps.

[eb]

If you think Lincoln Park is bad you really need to play more golf on a low budget.  The bay area is loaded with bad golf experiences.  

Are we allowed to throw par 3 courses in?  I'd nominate Blackberry Farm in Cupertino, CA.  There 3rd hole is a true work of art.  85 yards, slightly downhill.  You tee off of a range matt, although I've seen some people walk through the bushes behind the tee box to try and tee off from some long grass.  The green features a bunker protecting the front, and a shed that can be used as a backstop just off the back.  The routing of this course is the best part.  At any moment you could get hit by a poor shot coming from any one of 3 or 4 other holes.

EDIT:
Okay, according to the post above me that I didn't see, par 3 courses are off limits.

[THuckaby2]

Eb:  we're doing the NCGA rating at Blackberry in a few weeks... funny you should mention it... it's another one of my old stomping grounds.  Hey, hard to put 9 hole par 28's in this category... compared to basically any decent 18-hole regulation course, hell yes, Blackberry sucks.  But among other par 3 courses... well... it's not that bad!

Funny also - #3 is my favorite hole on the course.

TH

[Mike_Cirba]

Dan Grossman;

GREAT pick with Liberty Valley.  It's SO bad that I almost had to bribe the woman in the clubhouse to tell me who designed it!!

I haven't had the pleasure of White Deer, but had it on my list.  Now, it sounds like a MUST PLAY, if only for the novelty!

Of course, in picking courses, here, I tried to stick with Whit_C's original request that the course architect had to be a legitimate, fairly well-known professional.  

In the case of Liberty Valley and at least one of the courses at White Deer, they were done by rank amateurs.

Bob Huntley;

No, no solo disappointments.  Of course, the more I practice the luckier I get.  

[eb]

Tom, give it a little credit, it is a par 29.  Maybe I've only experienced the finest of quality in par 3 courses because I thought it was horrible.  Still though, I'll play anything that claims to be a golf course for 11 bucks.

[Mike Benham]

Funny also - #3 is my favorite hole on the course.

Tom -

Since you haven't had a hole-in-one, I will relate to you a candidate for the all time best hole-in-one ever, and at your favorite hole at Blackberry farms ...

The other design feature of the 3rd hole, is the 25 foot high chain link fence that runs along the left side ... I use to play in an industrial league after work, and this one round I got paired with a guy from our plant who never came close to breaking 40 at "the Farms".  So on the 3rd hole he hits a dead left chilli dip fat shank that bounces off the chain link fence, drops straight down through the bushes, rattles around and pops out into the fringe and rolls across the green into the cup ... $ 125 in the Hole-in-one pool made him a very happy lad, embarrassed about how it happened but the scorecard still said a "1" ... (and no, he did not break 40 ...)

[THuckaby2]

I gotta say that last line of Cirba's gave DEFINITE audible yuks.  Oh man....  

Eb - damn it's been awhile.. I forgot the other par 4.  Yep, par 29 it is.  Hmmm... compared to other courses of that type... well... have you played Pruneridge in Santa Clara? I find Blackberry to be Cypress compared to that... Also, how about Emerald Hills above San Carlos?  Two good holes, the rest silly... and horrid conditions always...

Hey, I enjoy these courses - I play them far too much.  I'm just never gonna say Blackberry is the worst, nor are any of them inherently "bad."  They serve a very usefull purpose.

TH

[Dan Kelly]

Well, at the risk of changing the subject too dramatically here, I can't say that I agree with the Huntley/Huckaby/Crockett threesome.  

I've had both bad sex and played bad golf courses.  Each is infinitely disappointing and one hopefully learns from both experiences.  

Which reminds me of my college roomate's old saw;

Sex without love is an empty experience, but as far as empty experiences go, it's one of the best.  

You've never told us you roomed with Woody Allen!

Maybe I'm in the wrong crowd here -- but bad sex is way more disappointing than a bad golf course. No contest, gentlemen!

[THuckaby2]

Mike:

That story proves that there is a God and he is vengeful and hates me.

One of my buddies made a similar ace at Sunken Gardens (another fine par 29, recently rated by yours truly and his NCGA brethren):  #5 there - one of the world's few dog leg par 3's - blind, over a hill... My buddy hits one so far left it hits the condos next to the hill, over a fence.  The ball at one point is literally 30 yards out of bounds, on this 100 yard hole.  You can guess the rest.  Off the roof, off the hill, into the jar.

God at the very least has a strange sense of humor.

TH

[eb]

The only other courses I've played near San Jose are Sunken Gardens (slightly better par 3 course, IMO), Shoreline and Sunnyvale.  I didn't really like any of them, mostly because of the ridiculous pace of play on all courses in the area.  Shoreline has to be the soggiest (if that's a word) "links" course of all time.  

Whenever we wanted to have fun playing golf we'd make the 75 minute roadtrip from Mountain View to Pacific Grove.  Even with the time spent on the road it seemed like PG made up for it in pace of play.

[Dan Kelly]

I do hope the bad episodes were not performed solo!

Woody Allen again: "Don't knock masturbation. It's sex with someone I love."

ENTIRELY COINCIDENTALLY, a reader of mine just sent me this link: http://delphion.com/details?pn=US05501650__

[Jeff Goldman]

Only course I ever walked off is the Bog, in Saukville, WI, about 25 miles from Kohler.  An Arnie design that borders on the ridiculous because of sharp turns and pinched in fairways ("you've got to land it in the 20 feet between the shed and the woods"), and, most of all, the regulars and clubhouse folks are incredibly snobby.  We walked off after 10 holes vowing to put it on our never-again list.

Jeff Goldman

[THuckaby2]

Eb - you are speaking my language.  I used to live in Mountain View and I was quite the regular at Shoreline.. and oh yes, Sunnyvale was/is in my repetoire... Your comments are right on the mark re both!  As are they re Sunken Gardens, likely the Augusta of SoBay short courses.

Lots of very basic golf in my home area, that's for sure.  Still, I don't call any of it bad.

And I never went to PG Muni much, primarily because I could never get a tee time!  That continues to this day.. damn it seems harder to get a time there than Pebble.  These days if I go south and plan it myself, it's usually Bayonet.  Haven't done much of that anyway in awhile.. my golf seems to be full time either tournaments, ratings, or other outings.

Pace of play here is atrocious, you got it.  My home course Santa Teresa is the home of the six hour round.

I live in golf hell, yes I do.

But somehow I still manage to have fun!

In any case, hopefully you can see where my perspective is, and where I have a hard time calling courses "bad" that others do here...

TH

[Dan Grossman]

Ok - so I didn't read the original post very clearly.  My bad.  I also meant to have a smiley face after "golf snob."  It wasn't meant as an insult.  

For "name brand" architects, I will nominate Art Hills' Brandywine Country Club, in Toledo.  There are a number of holes that are doglegged so tightly, that you need to hook a 5 iron to keep it in play.  It must have been one of his first, because I believe it was designed in 1966.

The Cupp Course at Palmetto Hall (the geometric one) is pretty bad too.

Mike Cirba - have you played Majestic Ridge in Chambersburg?  That is another course that is SOOO bad its funny.  Rather than routing like Donald Ross (from ridgetop to ridgetop), it is routed over the ridgetops so you have both blind tee shots and uphill approach shots.  I have never seen that many driving pins on a course built in the 1990's!

[eb]

Tom, I've played over 50 rounds at Shoreline and I've NEVER finished in under 5 hours.  I've learned a lot about playing in the wind and how to deal with waiting 20 minutes in between shots on that course.  I've also mastered juggling and all kinds of stupid games like that to keep me amused because of all the long waits.  I eventually just gave up on golf in the area and realized that making road trips were worth the effort.

[TEPaul]

"Relative to its potential? Old Head."

Hmmm--what's Old Head's potential--200 foot high cliffs and instant vertigo surrounding the course on three sides?

I'd say firstly, the routing latitude on that site had to be pretty limited. And secondly, I'd also bet that the golf course probably had to sort of be laid down pretty gently on that site seeing as the entire site and golf course was the home of the original humanoids in Ireland---the Eireann people. talk about history! That's how old the civilization right on Old Head is. Thirdly, I cannot believe anyone got permission to build a golf course on Old Head and I bet they didn't let a D-8, D-4 or D-0 within 50 miles of that site--but you never know in Ireland these days.

But potential or no potential Old Head isn't even remotely close to the worst course, in my opinion--and it's got some of the best of that great non-architectural feature to be found anywhere that so great with golf---real wind--not just some over-anxious zephyr that's trying to be real wind when it grows up.

[DF-SDGA]

As I was leaving the office I started reading this thread and immediately I knew the course I had to nominate.  Gary Koch's Mystic Dunes near Orlando was one of the strangest courses I have ever played - I left the property feeling I had played about three holes each from six distinctly different courses (one worse than the other).  From a way too low wetland par 3 to a climbing par 5 through what I can only describe as time-share condo canyon every hole is uniquely odd!

At least Tehama maintains a common theme throughout - I like to tell people "It's nice, but they built a course where they shouldn't have built a course."

[JohnV]

The best thing about an overrated lousy course is that anytime you play some other course that isn't very good you can say, "I like it just as much as _____" and nobody will every know how much you hated it.  I have a couple of courses that I can use that one with.  One, in Southern California, was played with Tommy, Redanman and Mike Golden and I'm surprised that my long lost twin brother didn't mention it.  The other is in Oregon and was designed by the state's favorite son.  No, not the one that a poster on this board is a member of, the other one he "designed".

Yes, I'm going to be circumspect and not mention names, just so I can continue to use them.

One of the "architects" mentioned above tackled an exhibitionist at a major once.  The other one won a major on the same course, which we will be seeing later this summer.

But, a close third would be Rees Jones' Talamore in North Carolina, it was too bad they didn't still have the llama caddies when we were there, they might have made it more interesting.

[Whit_C]

I'd also nominate Charleston National for this distinction.  I'm certain my memory is affected by my experience but there there about 44 forced carries over marsh in 18 holes.  The course almost caused my father-in-law to give up the damn game.

[redanman]

This is my kind of thread, I must admit.

OK, Bro..........................

-PGA West Norman (Desert rough is over-run with shitty little blue-flowering ground cover that is only good for hiding golf balls, slowing play, wasting time and infuriating my twin brother.) And that's not the half of it.  Sand in the bunkers whiter than the laser job on the Shark's teeth.

Johnny-boy hit the same quack-quack on two consecutive tees and made birdie and 8 respectively.

quack quack quack quack

I love my brother as he is the only other guy I know (Except Fred Couples who I don't know) who can hit a block fade 280 yards and 100 yards off line just like I can!

The final proof that we are twins.

A really bad dog track woofwoofwoofwoof that NLE was Coyote Point.

Anyone here miss it?

It was still better than no golf.

-JFK Municipal in Denver
-The Bouders in Arizona (Courtesy of Mrs. redanman boy did she hate that one!)
-Park Hill in Denver   (Also courtesy of Mrs redanman, but just another dog track $12 muni)
-Lake Arbor in Denver (Not tree-lined, condo-lined but still better than a gun in your mouth-a real sh*t-hole)


-Cypress Creek in Colma, CA  In and out of the cemeterys

There we go....still, not that bad

But Jasna Polana did have 3 grown GCA.com men giggling like little children.......

[Tim_Weiman]

Whit C:

I used to visit Charleston fairly often and have played Charleston National 4-5 times. You are right, there are quite a few forced carries, far more than one probably needs for a "resort course". But, in fairness to Rees Jones, CN was a casualty of Hurrican Hugo and was originally intended to be a high end club for better golfers.

[Scott_Burroughs]

JohnV,

OGC?  I can see why you might want it under wraps, familial-ly speaking.

[Paul Richards]

Worst course I have ever played that has made a Top 100 list?


that's easy.


The Links at Spanish Bay.

[mike_beene]

Gleneagles Kings in Dallas.von Hagge?I think.Clown's mouth carries,forced layups,jumbled real estate layout,carts required,the worst group of par 5's I have ever seen.Although not my favorite,the other course is much better even though same designer.

[ForkaB]

I am in deep remorse for having contributed to this thread, as I started another thread about a year or two ago which posited that there was no such thing as a "bad" golf course.  I was right then and wrong now.  Pasadera fans (and designers...), mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

I am also astounded as to how many courses listed here I have played, NONE OF WHICH I ever considered "bad" when I played them.  The list is impressive:  Sunnyvale, JFK Muni, (The Other California) Cypress, Talamore, Shoreline.  Sunnyvale was even my "home" course for a couple of years and a letter from their Secretary was enough to get me onto Muirfield in 1979.......

I'd be very interested in hearing more about Dan Kelly's "bad sex/bad golf" comparisons, even if he has to plagiarize Woody Alen to do so.  That might even draw JakaB onto this thread......

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