Duncan, Sean - not to put
too fine a point on this, but:
It seems to me that whenever proponents discuss sub-300 yard holes they nearly always imagine and invoke two mythical golfing characters: the methodical and self-possessed 18 handicapper, and the flat-bellied village idiot.
These two rare and magnificent creatures -- the unicorns of the golfing world, as it were -- are deemed to possess truly remarkable qualities: the 18 handicapper, supremely confident and rigidly disciplined, not only foregoes the chance to try to drive a green and set the stage for an almost unheard-of eagle, but also possesses the skill-set to hit two nearly perfect shots in a row before making an attempt at his birdie putt.
Meanwhile, and at precisely the same time apparently, the flat-bellied low handicapper has a spell cast upon him by a jilted ex-lover and becomes the village idiot: he forgets all that he's learned from the thousands of rounds of golf he's played and all the good scores he has shot and decides that the only way he can stomp this pesky opponent into the dust is by driving the green on the off-chance at an eagle, and he proceeds to try exactly that despite the glaringly obvious fact (to anyone not an idiot) that he is bringing an ugly double bogey into play.
Of course, in this lovely and gentle fairy-tale rife with magical creatures and brilliantly strategic sub-300 yard golf holes and stolidly English middle-class moralities, our humble 18 handicapper (a happily married turtle) sinks his birdie putt while the all-too-foolish flat belly (that two-timing scoundrel of a hare) stumbles blindly into a double bogey.
Ah, yes - if life were only thus. But alas, when I became a man I put away childish things; and I can't honestly remember ever having sighted these two mythical creatures, nor ever having participated in such lovely fairy tale myself.
Peter