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Post by lessthanbread on Apr 10, 2020 14:40:29 GMT -5
Name the worst golf hole around, describe why it's terrible, and what you might do to make it better. Provide pictures/maps if possible.
Let's have a discussion of baaaaaaaad golf architecture.
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Post by joegolferg on Apr 10, 2020 16:25:08 GMT -5
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Post by theduke21 on Apr 10, 2020 16:30:32 GMT -5
I assume you’re wanting famous golf courses here that people would know, so I’m thinking of PGA Tour sites or major venues.
When I think of bad architecture on Tour, I think of Quail Hollow. So let’s just cite any of the forced dogleg par 4’s on that site where you have to hit a hook driver or you have 200 in. Or the 16th hole there which is just an awful looking and awful playing long par 4 with water next to the green.
I also really hate the 18th at Riviera. For how good a course that is elsewhere, it feels like that hole was just plopped down without any effort being put into it.
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Post by AFCTUJacko on Apr 10, 2020 16:57:41 GMT -5
I also really hate the 18th at Riviera. For how good a course that is elsewhere If we were discussing the best hole in golf, 10 @ Riviera would have my vote
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Post by theduke21 on Apr 10, 2020 17:05:12 GMT -5
I also really hate the 18th at Riviera. For how good a course that is elsewhere If we were discussing the best hole in golf, 10 @ Riviera would have my vote Fantastic golf hole. Played as one of the toughest holes on the course multiple rounds this year at the Genesis.
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Post by lessthanbread on Apr 10, 2020 17:18:30 GMT -5
Pffft haha that’s incredible. Whyyyyy???
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Post by csugolfer60 on Apr 10, 2020 22:37:28 GMT -5
Not the worst hole in golf, obviously, but maybe the most overrated simply because it’s at Cypress Point. The 18th is a stupefyingly bad design, with a fairway completely blocked by cypress trees, bunkers on the right side completely surrounded by cypress trees. It’s like someone forgot to delete the autogen trees off of a very nicely laid out hole.
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Post by b101 on Apr 11, 2020 2:46:08 GMT -5
At a local club where I played a few times. Classic case of an 18 hole course squished into land good enough for 12 holes: Only play is to hit a mid iron or 3 wood to a skinny fairway to perfect length and line to be left with a mid iron in - you literally have a 15x15 yard window. If not, you're blocked out. Oh, and at least there's a brook in front of the green so you can't punch out safely. Oh and you can't try to carry the trees with driver due to the trees planted just to the left of the tee. Oh, and the internal OB for no reason (you're dead way left ANYWAY). But at least the bunker makes sense. Oh, wait...
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Post by 15eicheltower9 on Apr 11, 2020 13:41:11 GMT -5
Same principal as b101's example. My high school's home course. There's 3 holes squeezed together, I'm assuming because of wetland. This one is a short par 5. The only drive off the tee in the intended fairway is a mid-iron draw because the tee box is right against the woods. Then you could reach the small elevated green with the best 3w you could ever hit and a gale forced tailwind (left line in picture). Or a layup (I've seen opponents hit as low as 8-iron) which you hit right towards a mound of high grass. The only shot at eagle and your best shot at birdie was to just hit driver into the other fairway and have a 4 or 5 iron in (Right line in picture). There's a longer Par 3 right after this hole with a tricky green. So between people looking for mishit balls that didn't carry the trees on the par 5. Then the par 3. Then the par 4 that we all hit into. This stretch took forever, it was a rhythm killer.
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Post by pozbaird on Apr 11, 2020 15:22:05 GMT -5
Fifteen of the eighteen holes on the Old Course, St Andrews are nothing holes. The 17th ‘Road Hole’ is iconic, and the location of the 1st and 18th holes, set amongst the town itself, gives them a unique character. Taken simply as golf holes though, both the 1st and 18th are in themselves unremarkable. Maybe a controversial opinion, but that only leaves the 17th as a truly great golf hole. What the Old Course has in abundance however is the history, and atmosphere. I visit St Andrews at least five times every year, and it’s a wonderful, interesting town. The area around the 1st and 18th is magical. I absolutely love the Old Course, despite my view on the actual holes, and also thinking that if you could lift it up, and place it somewhere else on the coast of Scotland, no-one would give it a second thought. I’ve played it once, to chalk it off my bucket list, but have no desire to play it again. Just walking around the back of the 18th though, on a visit to the town, sipping a beer, thinking about Seve punching the air, gives me goosebumps every time. If you ever come to Scotland, St Andrews should be a ‘must see’ visit. Great place. Lots more to see than just the Old Course too.
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Post by b101 on Apr 11, 2020 16:57:09 GMT -5
Could not disagree more with 15 of the 18 being nothing holes - there's a reason the principles you find at St Andrews are cited as a major influence on just about every golf architect going. I'd also argue that 1 has its place as an easy opener for the non-scratch player, which in tournament play becomes a must birdie - therefore effectively being equally challenging to the high handicapper and the pro at the same time. No other opening hole on the Open rota does that. Now, 18 I can agree with you on as being underwhelming as a golf hole (when you take the mystique aside), but hard to follow what many would argue is the best hole in golf.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 11, 2020 17:18:11 GMT -5
The worst golf hole is no longer a hole (luckily) - but it was located in Norway and Randsfjorden and was the 18th hole on Randsfjorden Golfklubb - now known as Land Golfklubb.
I have no pictures of this hole, so it needs to be described. This hole is downhill 203 feet par 4. It is 300 yards long surrounded by trees and is very narrow, 24 yards across at the widest part and not all of that is fairway. The only landing zone on this fairway is a little circle of flat land halfway to the hole with ca. 3 yard radius. The hill do not run towards the green, so any ball running down the hill is going into the forest and is lost. The hole has a slight dogleg right, so the usual path of the ball is out to the left forest. The green itself is 15 yard wide and long with forest on both sides. We used to name this hole the "ski-jump hill" - because it looks like that and has nothing to do with golf. The usual play on this hole was to hit the forest, drop on the landing site, and hopefully hit the green. (I believe there was a local rule to use that tiny flat landing site as a drop zone).
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Post by ezzinomilonga on Apr 11, 2020 19:01:53 GMT -5
I don't think this is the "worst" hole in golf..for sure is not..but i think that the beautiful par 3 hole 15 at Oak Hill East has been ruined forever and in such a stupid and nonsense way that i realized i just won't play that course anymore. It was such a great hole, a relatively small and slightly longitudinal green with a pond on all the front/right side (to play with a middle iron from I8 to I6 generally, depending pins and wind), making the shortest pins a great adventure everytime and the longest approaches really, really satisfying. One of those holes in which if you don't risk, you can't score. I just loved it! Now..the pond has been drained, the green resized and every charme of that hole is just dead and gone. Is just ridicolous..cause i can't really see any improvement in this move. Now is just an anonymous par 3 with not a soul. As a side note, of course i know i'm too ignorant to judge the technical side of this work properly, but the worst part of all the story, in my opinion, is that actually almost ALL the renovation work at Oak Hill East made by Andrew Green is just and simply a f***ed rape. Looking at the old FABOULOUS design of this historic course (Donald Ross design, renovated in these years by giants like Trent Jones Sr and Tom Fazio, an architect i don't love too much but at least he knows how to pay some f***ed respect to a great work) and then looking at the new design, my only feeling is..i don't know..as if Andrew Green wanted just to delete EVERY TRACE of the work made by Ross. Not only when i look the design as it was before and as it is now, honestly i can't find a single renovated hole in which i can say "wow, now is better!". But he also changed a lot of greens and other littke things that were simply perfect, with the very recognizable touch of Ross, making them simply ugly. I would to invite all of you guys to check both the layouts, every hole, every green, and at least you will see if i'm just crazy or not. The only good move of this clown has been to create that new hole 6 using the fairway of the old 5 and the green of the old 6. But all the rest is just a reiterated sexual violence agajnst a golf course. I never saw a renovation work less respectful. Seriously. A$$hole!!
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Post by theduke21 on Apr 11, 2020 19:24:40 GMT -5
Could not disagree more with 15 of the 18 being nothing holes - there's a reason the principles you find at St Andrews are cited as a major influence on just about every golf architect going. I'd also argue that 1 has its place as an easy opener for the non-scratch player, which in tournament play becomes a must birdie - therefore effectively being equally challenging to the high handicapper and the pro at the same time. No other opening hole on the Open rota does that. Now, 18 I can agree with you on as being underwhelming as a golf hole (when you take the mystique aside), but hard to follow what many would argue is the best hole in golf. #1 is a great hole. I actually like simple tee shots to open a round, especially in pro golf. And the second shot is extremely unique and tricky if there is a front pin location. 18 green is a great complex as well, and with it becoming close to drivable with the right wind, it's become really interesting as players try to get up and down from below the hole in the swale compared to guys laying back for a full wedge. Personally, the only holes on the course I'd call unremarkable are 9 and 10.
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Post by lessthanbread on Apr 11, 2020 19:29:15 GMT -5
Huh, never thought St Andrews would be brought up as an example of worst golf holes, much less most of the course. Admittedly, I don’t have much knowledge of the holes themselves but I do know many architectural principles are taken from St Andrews as Ben said. Also it’s one of the last remaining old courses that has gone mostly unchanged throughout history so the original design has proven to stand the test of time as the game has changed so much
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