Insane Hole Location in Iowa Girls Championship

[iacas]

 

Ts & Ps for those harmed.

[boogielicious]

That is just stupid for a location.

[bkuehn1952]

Wow.  That is the worst hole location I have seen in 60 years of playing and I have seen some bad ones. Too bad there wasn't someone who could have stopped this when the first group got to that hole.

[Dunit507]

They wouldn’t do this to the pros… why would you do this to these poor girls!!!

[colin007]

Who sets the hole locations? The association running the tournament or the course superintendent?

[Chris Brooks]

Reminded me of the Ohio high school state tournament last year:

 

 

@iacas is there a standard max grade for a hole placement by the USGA or PGA tour? I thought it was in the 2% grade range but that might be rumor.

[iacas]

14 minutes ago, Chris Brooks said:

@iacas is there a standard max grade for a hole placement by the USGA or PGA tour? I thought it was in the 2% grade range but that might be rumor.

The generally accepted standard is: "the ball should be able to come to rest within a radius of 3-4 feet around the hole."

But it's just a standard, like a guideline, it's not a Rule of Golf or anything like that.

On the PGA Tour they tend to limit it to areas with ≤ 2% slope, yeah. Because a ball will be able to come to rest in such an area.

You don't have to be able to hole a putt from anywhere. There's no rule or even a guideline against putting a hole just below a tier where you have to be able to make the putt from above the tier. The mistake there is hitting your ball above the tier. You see this almost on 16 at Augusta, etc. where you almost get into "unnameable putt" territory, in fact it's tough to stop the ball even within the 3-4'. BUT, you can stop the ball easily and make plenty of putts from maybe 270° around the hole.

[Indy-Archer]

I thought I read that the course was accidentally set for some caddie challenge outing by mistake and that someone mistakenly mixed up the tournament dates?

[iacas]

 

[boogielicious]

Seems to be a dumb trend.

[colin007]

23 hours ago, colin007 said:

Who sets the hole locations? The association running the tournament or the course superintendent?

?

[iacas]

1 hour ago, colin007 said:

?

You know as much as we do. Even in most college events the course sets the holes.

[iacas]

Here it is as a YouTube video:

[Vinsk]

They’d be better off to just pull a Mickelson and save several strokes….😳

[Missouri Swede]

56 minutes ago, Vinsk said:

They’d be better off to just pull a Mickelson and save several strokes….😳

Or better, do what he should have considered doing: unplayable lie. Replace ball at point of last stroke, and get a chance at the putt again.

Maybe would have helped the first putt in the video the most.

Edited May 31, 2022 by Missouri Swede

[iacas]

7 hours ago, Missouri Swede said:

Maybe would have helped the first putt in the video the most.

Yes.

[Sandy Divot]

My father was president of the Washington Metropolitan Golf Association, and was working a U S Amateur qualifier. The USGA official put a hole on , what my father described as, “the peak of a volcano”. There were numerous 4 and 5 putts. A player that played in several Walker Cups had to be physically restrained from going after the USGA official. The official said it was fair since everyone had to play it. My father told him that making it wrong for everyone did not make it fair. This particular USGA official never set up another course in the DC area.

[Vinsk]

8 hours ago, Missouri Swede said:

Or better, do what he should have considered doing: unplayable lie. Replace ball at point of last stroke, and get a chance at the putt again.

Maybe would have helped the first putt in the video the most.

I didn’t know you could call an unplayable after choosing to make the stroke.