Great Quirky Hole: 17th at Bath

[Paul_Turner]

I posted a photo of this fine quirky hole a number of years ago, but I thought the photos on the club's website were so good and it was worth a new thread.

One of the best holes in the Painswick, Minch Old, Cleeve Hill etc  "ancient earthworks"  mould.  But with the added terror of OB inside the dogleg.  About 300 yds tee to green.

[William_G]

fun

[Bill_McBride]

Painswickian earthworks!

Love the wall.   

[Lester George]

Nice!

Lester

[Bill_McBride]

All those lovely Georgian stone buildings in Bath were built of stone quarried in the Cotswolds and hauled to town.  Was the site of the golf course one of those worked-out quarries from the 18th Century?

[Phil McDade]

Crail Balcomie has a similar hole -- maybe the 8th? -- with an old stone wall hard against the fairway edge right. I should know, having sliced one over the top.

[Emil Weber]

wow, great undulations, strategy, sublety, aesthetics,  looks like a ton of fun!

[Kalen Braley]

To each their own....

I say blow it up...

[David Ober]

My favorite quirky hole is the "short" 15th hole at Lakeside Golf Club in Toluca Lake (Burbank), California. It's a whopping 78 yards, and the members call it "the shortest par 5 in the country."

There are actually two greens, one is down a hill and about 170 yards, but just over to the left is a tiny, pushed up green with two deep bunkers in front and a fall off on all sides with deep rough. It's great to watch guys have NO IDEA what kind of shot to hit in there -- especially under tournament conditions.

Might be my favorite hole in all of golf.

David

[Alex Lagowitz]

Is this hole drivable?
If so it seems to be a very well 'designed' hole.
Also curious to know how well they enforce the wall as OB.
Could see a bunch of idiots hitting it there and jumping over the wall to play it. 

[Adrian_Stiff]

Adam - It is driveable these days, I had a couple of goes years back and ended up once in the hollows and a few times on the practice ground, it was a stupid try really. The shot for most was a 3 wood to the corner and pitch. I think when it was designed no one would have gotten near unless there was a gale behind, the carry is about 240-250. Its a Harry Colt course. The nearby Kingsdown (Sean should check out) is a bit more Painswickean.

[DMoriarty]

Does the ground drop off severely on the left? 

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Bath is a lovely course. Yes, there were stone quarries on this site. I seem to recall a lovely par 3 over a quarry to a green in a corner of the course. The 2nd and 3rd are a bit frightening to a left-handed slicer!

[Bill_McBride]

Mark, is it still pretty much the original Colt course?

[Tommy Williamsen]

Love the mounding near the green.  Looks like great fun to me.

[Matthew Petersen]

Looks awesome to me.

The wall is a fun quirky feature but I think it's the mounding in front of the green that helps it remain a wonderful hole now that it's potentially driveable.

[Bill_McBride]

Looks awesome to me.

The wall is a fun quirky feature but I think it's the mounding in front of the green that helps it remain a wonderful hole now that it's potentially driveable.

Are those mounds, or the reverse, pits?

[Matthew Petersen]

Looks awesome to me.

The wall is a fun quirky feature but I think it's the mounding in front of the green that helps it remain a wonderful hole now that it's potentially driveable.

Are those mounds, or the reverse, pits?

I wondered exactly what to call them even as I was typing! Either way, I love the feature. If you're going for it, you better fly it all the way there. No telling what kind of bounce you might get down in there.

[Tony_Muldoon]

 Hard to buttonhole or typecast Colt.  The 14th at Canterbury also plays uphill and features wild undulations in front of the green. They only exist on this part of the course.
Adrian when did Colt redo Bath, the website on a quick view doesn’t seem to realise? 











 

[Adrian_Stiff]

Does the ground drop off severely on the left? 

Not lots

[Adrian_Stiff]

Tony I am not sure when HC got involved and what he did, didnt do. At a guess Id say 2 is his probably the 4th too and 12 is clasic colt but his stamp might be bunkering of the course rather than routing.
I did a new routing for Bath in about 1994 but it was more ideas and did not get used. The club wanted two nines and could acquire/ or had acquirred a bit of land left of 1 and 2. We came up with a couple of schemes to get two nines (its currently and 11 and 7) and a hole we created we then found out was an original hole from the 40s that got lost, it linked the present 5th to todays 15th. I think the 14th, the one Mark mentions as the quarry hole might be more recent, 11 might be newer, the 6th is different now from when I first played Bath, it used to be a long par 4 dogleg right, now its a 5 doglegging left.