[Tim Gallant]

For a bit fun, I thought it might be neat to hear everyone's worst golf shot at a course that might be discussed here! No rules really, just thought it might be nice to add a bit of humour to the board


So I'll lead off: Royal Portrush 3 years ago. I flew that morning from Edinburgh, and arrived at 12pm for a 3.30pm tee time. After an EXTENSIVE tour of the clubhouse and lunch, I went to the range (something I never do) to put in a session that lasted 2 hours. I hit every club in the bag, I went to the chipping green, the putting green...I even practiced my bunker shots!!


I went to the first tee to be paired up with two Canadians, who each had caddies. The starter waved us away, and I teed my ball. Nice take back, and straight over the top chopping wood. I barely made contact and it went about 16.5 yards straight left into the deep fescue!! 'Tee another' says the starter. 'No', I reply, I'd rather play the ball as it lies.


I walked to the ball, 'Ok Tim, just get this back on the fairway. Iron for safety. Nice take back, and to my horror, I looked up to discover I had hit a hozzle rocket that was bounding for the members car park!! Drop please!


The game appeared not long after that, but after the hype of playing such a nice course, it was devastating (and a little humorous) to start that way. Oh well, that's golf


What are other bad shots that fellow GCAers will own up to on a course of GCA significance (I just say this so it seems a little on topic!).

[Tom_Doak]

I doubt it is the worst shot I've ever hit at a great course - there are a lot of rounds I've forgotten by now - but the one that sticks in my mind is my tee shot on the 7th at The Old Course, the year I played in the Dunhill Links Tournament.


The day before, downwind, I'd hit a terrific tee shot up between the bunkers and actually putted for my second shot.


The fateful day, when scores counted, I was quite out of my element being in the first group off the first tee.  [I'm not used to playing with galleries!]  I scraped it around the first six holes, and when I got to the seventh, with a strong wind quartering into us from the left, I got nervous about losing the ball in the whins.  [My professional playing partner had just hit his tee shot OVER the whins, and was about to re-load when I reminded him it was probably in play over by the 11th tee, and indeed it was.]


So then I stepped up and double-crossed a dead pull across the left of the 7th, and all the way across the 12th fairway, very close to the boundary with the Eden course!  Luckily there was no one coming up the fairway at that moment, but it took a while after I'd slunk over there to have a chance to hit my second, because of groups playing the 12th and 11th.


After that I recovered pretty quickly [turning downwind, I made birdie from two feet at the 8th], and played pretty well for the next day and a half, before Carnoustie ate my lunch the last day.


A month or so after the event, I received by UPS a large, framed aerial photo of St. Andrews, that traces out all of my shots on the day, as well as those of my partner.  I guess one of the scorers had a GPS unit and was keeping track, unnoticed by us all.  So it's hard to forget my tee shot at the 7th, because its path is memorialized on the wall in my office.   

[Eric Smith]

 
Great stories. Mine’s just terrible.


Topped it into the water just in front of the tee on 16 at Cypress Point and the photo I asked the boys to take was immediately deleted. Epic fail!

[Matthew Rose]

My whole front nine at Pebble Beach was pretty bad, but ultimately the worst and most disappointing was my tee shot on #8.

I've waited my whole life to play that hole, and when I got up there, I pulled my drive way left and never found the ball. All I wanted to do was play that hole properly from the top of the cliff and hit that famous shot.

I ended up dropping a ball on the left side of the fairway and played three from there. I hit a nice, solid 6-iron to about 15 feet and two-putted for a five. It was still a huge thrill to hit it but it would have been so much more satisfying if I'd been able to actually drive it in the fairway and have a chance to make birdie.

[Bill Raffo]

After making birdie, par on 11 and 12, I pull hooked the tee shot into the woods left on the 13th at Augusta National and blew up Amen's Corner in the only chance I'll ever have to play it. 


Oh well. Stuck the tee shot at 16 at Cypress. You take the good with the bad in this game.

[Ira Fishman]

Brora 18. I had played very well for me: seven regulation pars in a row in middle of round with chance at breaking 40 on the back. Both my wife and I hit good tee shots on 18 that snuck a peek at getting all the way home but lingered and then meandered down the hill to the bowl on the front left. There really is only one play which is to hit high lob from a tight lie over the bunker to the top of the bank left of the green.


You can imagine the denouement. I dead bladed my wedge over the green up against the fence protecting the practice green or net (I forget which) for a triple. My wife hits a perfect lob wedge that trundles down the bank for a kick in Par.


We go up to the bar for a beer and bite. A clearly long time Member stops my wife to say he has never seen her before but she must have played Brora often to pull off that shot. He could not bring himself to look at me.


Ira

[Tommy Williamsen]

Maybe not my worst shot, but certainly my most embarrassing shot. Thirty-five years ago my wife and I went on a three week, 25 course trip to Ireland and Scotland. For months I had dreamed of playing the Old Course. In my dreams I'd birdie the Road Hole, drive the green on eighteen, and break par. I think the Lord of humility saw my visions of grandeur and had a different plan. I showed the starter my handicap card, four. My wife showed hers, eighteen. I hit first and promptly hit it so far right it went OB, to which the starter remarked, "You hit in the Lady's putting green!!" I quickly teed up another and topped it about a hundred yards. I did go on to shoot 77, but that first the embarrassment of that first shot still lingers. I've never been back.

[Pete_Pittock]

1982. Flew from Oregon to the Dominican Republic and Teeth of the Dog. Can't remember which hole, but the first time I had water on the right I hit three or four consecutive laterals. At something wrong at lunch and  forgot all about the screwups.

[James Brown]

In August, I hit the worst blue darter pull hook I have probably ever hit off the 16th tee at the Old Course and had [size=78%]to hit my 2nd shot with one foot on the gravel road on the other side of the 3rd hole.  I just measured it and it was 78 yards left of the Principals Nose bunkers!  [/size]

[Garland Bayley]

Played a Stableford after Buda with drinking Joe and a Royal North Devon member. I played well, birdied the first, and our threesome easily outscored the foursome of Buda participants that played that day. However, knowing of TD's reverence for the 9th, my relatively long ball, and my ability to hit a low running lefty cut with a fairway wood had me  chomping at the bit to play it. Unfortunately,  chomping is probably a good description of how I played it. Picked up after 7 on my way to 9 or worse.

[James Bennett]

Tom Doak
you were channelling your Reverse Course experience at The Old Course on #7 - it is a fearsome shot from there out on #12 fairway.
My 'worst shots' - playing at the Valley Club with a generous host, and I couldn't hit the ball.  No matter what I did, I barely topped the ball for the first couple of holes. Suddenly it dawned on me - in the hype of getting ready to play, I'd forgotten to change to my golf glasses.  The multi-focals were playing havoc with my depth perception.  The day improved thereafter.
James B

[Scott Warren]

When I played National Golf Links in 2011, I was about a 7 handicap and playing to it fairly regularly.


Something about the day I just hit my groove and was piping it — almost holed it at Short (6th), par after par after par, even when I carved my drive right at  Bottle (8th) it hit a tree and rebounded 40 yards left into the fairway.


I came to Narrows, the 15th, at two or three over par, smoked a drive down the middle and had a mid iron left to a back pin.


Our caddie was a complete figjam and for whatever reason, he chose this moment to completely headfuck me.


“This is the single hardest shot on the course,” he enthused. “There is nowhere to miss here. Honestly, the area you’ve got to land this is about the size of the hood of my car. It’s tiny. You’ve basically just got to hit the perfect shot.”


So of course I proceeded to hit one of the most horrific shanks I have ever seen in my life, 50 yards right of the green. From where I ended up, all I could do was carve it into the green side bunker, and then got down in three from there. Double bogey.


I managed to pull myself back together and par in for a 75 or 76, but I still think about that shot, and wonder what the fuck that caddie was thinking, at least three or four times a year.

[Scott Champion]

I'll own up, as Tim you were present for one of them. I have a knack of hitting the hosel on the first shot of the day! On my 2 month trip through the UK, I recall hitting three shanks. All off the first tee and all at courses with OB right.



The first came at North Berwick where I proceeded to shank one onto the beach.

The second playing with the Secretary at Sunningdale (Old). After running late to our tee time due to London traffic, I was already conscious of a bad first impression and followed it up with a shank into the houses.

And lastly, at Boat of Garten after the drive down from Dornoch, I hit one onto the railway tracks.

I'm not sure which was the worst...and I'm not sure any shank is better than another! Only glad that I managed to find the fairway at Prestwick...

[Tom_Doak]

I still think about that shot, and wonder what the fuck that caddie was thinking, at least three or four times a year.

He could have been a relative newbie, knew you had a great round going, and was trying to warn you to play conservatively there.


Or, more likely, he was betting against you with the other caddies.

[Tom_Doak]

Tom Doak
you were channelling your Reverse Course experience at The Old Course on #7 - it is a fearsome shot from there out on #12 fairway.

Yes - indeed, I knew the position, having played the reverse course once previously.  The trouble was, with players also starting on the 10th tee that morning, I was swimming against a steady stream of golfers!  By the time one group would get off 12 tee and safely past me, another would be coming up on 11 green ...

[Peter Flory]

The one that comes to mind for me is one that my brother hit on the 18th hole of Prestwick.  They were having some sort of get together with the gentlemen at the club with their coats and ties, etc, so there was some activity in the parking lot and in and around the clubhouse.  My brother drives it into one of the fairway traps on the right, about 280 off the tee.  For his approach, he has that awkward 90 yard shot out of the sand and that is not a shot that he has ever pulled off in his life.  He of course skulls it and sends it line driving straight toward the parking lot and the clubhouse (which was 140 yards away).  As he was screaming 'fore', it was like it was in slow motion as we held our breath and saw the ball take a huge hop off the pavement and head straight to the bay windows.  Miraculously, it hit stone just beside them and ricochets straight back toward the cars, rattling between them with the greens committee (or whoever they were) covering their heads in horror. 


While it was a walk of shame for all of us in the group, we were all incredibly relieved that there wasn't a clubhouse window shattering and settlement negotiation.   


Other than that, it was a delightful day. 

[James Reader]

A huge block slice off the Road Hole tee at the Old Course. So far right that it hit the top of the hotel and bounced even further right.


Played that day with two members of the St. Andrews Golf Club. One also hit the hotel on 17, but ricocheted it back onto the fairway.  The second did the same off the New Club clubhouse to the right of 18.  Local knowledge!

[Brian_Ewen]

and played pretty well for the next day and a half, before Carnoustie ate my lunch the last day.

I remember a great Texas Wedge from through the back of the 10th green   

[Kyle Harris]

In order to get up and down from the pumphouse left of the 11th green at Lancaster CC one must first hit one there.

[Bill Gayne]

Definitely not my worst shot but recent and memorable. It was last summer playing in the St Andrews Golf Club 175th anniversary competition on the Old Course. On a rare Sunday morning that golf was being played I proceeded to slice my opening tee shot OB. I re-tee and open up the round with a triple. My worst set of shots may have been the four putts on the ninth green. I guess my consolation was knowing that a few years ago Jordan Speith had four putted number eight costing him an opportunity to win the Open. Despite those weak efforts I enjoyed the walk.

[David Davis]

Mine was definitely the Old Course. It was my first ever golf trip and I wasn't even that excited for it being so green. I had arranged the trip for a good friends father who was retiring, had always been a huge golf nut and member of a high end private in Lake Forest, IL. He had never played abroad and his dream was to play in Scotland. NOT MY DREAM.


All the golf was easy to arrange and included Muirfield, Carnoustie, Kingsbarns, North Berwick and Gullane 1. Old Course was not and I woke up early from the B&B where I was staying and made my way down to the starters hut. Back then the new building didn't exist (this was circa 2006), so you had to stand out in the cold. It was the end of March and it was terrible cold. I arrived there at 5:30 am and was 6th in line. Waited a few hours till the starter arrived, my friend's father had a suite in the Old Course Hotel and he stayed in bed. When I finally spoke to the starter it was quite tough for me to manage to convince him to put my friends's father on the list but he did. He told us to show up at 10 am. I went back to the B&B for breakfast then made all arrangement, went to the hotel to tell him then went back there to wait around. About 12 pm my chance finally came. I was frozen, had not warmed up and the time it took standing around had allowed the moment to get to into my head. There were literally 100's of people standing around and I was dreading that call on the loudspeaker of "Now on the tee!"


Inevitably it came, I think it was the first time I'd ever been nervous on the first tee of a golf course and that combined with the cold and standing around for hours stiff as a board I was a car wreck waiting to happen. I stepped up and thinned and sliced a 3 wood hard right. Far enough that it ricochet off some kind of fence post and bounced quite a bit towards the middle but left a very long shot in that I proceeded to put into the burn into the wind. I don't think I warmed up the entire round. I sure didn't hit a single good golf shot and the icing on the cake was breaking a window in the Old Course Hotel which I didn't know until I walked around the corner and saw my ball inside on the floor in that total glass room that was there on the corner.


Happy to say that the 4x I have been back since then have become much better with each go.

[Dave McCollum]

My worst wasn't at a great venue.  I played the worst rounds of my life showing Tom Doak our golf courses.  He played pretty well as it was during a period when he was seeing lots of courses.   

[Niall C]

As someone who tends to scramble there way round a golf course, a round without a seriously shite shot is a rarity. The walk of shame is therefore something that I'm somewhat inured to. Nonetheless, one that comes to mind is standing on the 16th at NB and skulling my teeshot and seeing it rebound off the wall to end up on the Redan green just as the group behind was approaching.

As you can imagine, I got plenty of sympathy from my fellow gca'ers who I was playing with (yes, you know who you are, shame on you !).

Niall

[jeffwarne]

First tee Tenby Golf Club-9 am Saturday morning (after a Friday night that had run well into Saturday...)
The Secretary had come out to welcome us to the club.....
I failed to clear a rather large dune located about 40 yards in front of the tee

[MCirba]

Let's just say that if I wasn't left-handed my tee shot off the first tee at a certain course in Ardmore, PA would have likely killed several members and their guests dining on the patio. 

Instead, it almost killed several on the putting green that was created behind the 14th tee.

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