Most hated course design tricks

[Undr Par]

What's your most hated piece of course design?

mine is the gimnick holes....and what I mean by that are the courses where you have a short Par4 with a huge dog leg to the left or right...but the tee shot (if your not going for the green) is roughly only 125yds landing area before the dog leg......and going for the green is almost impossible because of high grass and weeds etc..........making the shot invisible......it's not that you can't take a iron off the tee (that's not a issue), but just causing you temptation......

[wolverine318]

How about when the green is rock hard and its a 185 yard approach and the lay up/front fringe is soaking wet. So you cant land the ball on the green and stop it. And you cant run the ball up either. And I hit the ball quite high with a lot of spin and its not stopping until it hits the rough. This pisses me off. Give me an option, and make it the same for the course. I dont need the next hole the layup hard and the green soft. I like difficult, but I need options.

[uttexas]

Feel free to list your least favorite design elements

I like to play different courses all the time, so I rarely play the same course twice in 3 months. I am also very frugal, so I play very early in the day (read poor light) and cheap courses that often don't have caddies, GPS, or detailed hole maps.

1. Hazards in the middle of the fairway (a big tree, a waste area, whatever) Your goal off the tee should be to split the fairway (especially if pin positions aren't foretold)

2. Blind tee shots on courses that don't offer caddies, forcaddies, GPS, or detailed hole maps. This also goes for blind hazards, such as tiny creeks, bunkers, or ponds not seen from the tee or second shot on par 5s.

3. severely sloping fairways where if you don't hit the extreme uphill side of the fairway, you don't stay on the short grass.

4. I guess this is more course maintenance, but allowing tree limbs to overgrow so that they effect shots from the fairway.

I guess my unifying theme here is, if you hit the fairway, you should be rewarded, not punished.

[denver_nuggs_15]

Very narrow fairways with hazards on either side really get to me. This one hole at a course that I play frequently has a 400+ yard par 4. The distance calls for a driver. However, the fairway is only 10 yards wide where drives land. There is water on the right that goes for 70 yards and a bunker on the left. Oh and then there are trees if you carry the bunker. I have no problem with a narrow fairway, but 10 yards...COME ON!

I like most of the other course designs. I say most and not all because I'm sure there is another one that I don't like.

[mirv]

there's one particular hole on a local course here that i just utterly loathe. it's a par 4, it's about 450 yards long, and 230 yards off the tee is a canal cutting across the entire fairway, and this canal is a good 20 yards across. then you get about 125 yards worth of fairway before you're hit with ANOTHER canal, this one about 40 yards across, that's right in front of the green. and this course is totally flat with no trees, too, so the wind really can get ahold of your ball.

basically, you have two options: carry a drive 260 yards (minimum) into the wind to leave yourself a 190 approach - and if you leave that approach more than 20 yards short, you're in the drink. or you can hit something like a 5-iron off the tee, layup in front of the first canal, then hit the 5-iron again to lay-up in front of the second canal, and just hope like hell you can get the ball close to the pin on your third shot and save par.

[RC]

1. Blind shots
2. Bunkers with no visible lip of sand, so they are hidden
3. Tee shots on par fives that eliminate the Driver as an option
4. Greens constructed in such a way that there are locations from which you cannot reasonable putt at the hole (a flop shot is the best option -- bad design.) Maybe number 7 at Riviera is a historical exception
5. Railroad ties or obstructions that come into play exactly where a very well struck ball should land. Why punish a good driver by creating an unplayable lie and penalty in the middle of the fairway?
6. Par 4s that are played something like mid iron, followed by mid iron through a slot in the trees, or around a mountain, etc. Par fives that are played 4 iron, 4 iron, 4 iron... I don't get these
7. And the worst is a maintenance issue -- last year I played in a tourney where the tee shot from the back tees was completely obstructed by over grown trees so that the only shot was a knock down hard fade under the canopy of limbs.

[MiniMoe]

There are a few holes I have played that I would consider unfair. Sometimes the holes are short, but do not have enough area to hit any kind of tee shot, even if it is an iron. Other times the holes are short, but the green is sloped so much that ball will roll off the green if they have any speed on them at all. One hole in particular has both problems. The hole is lined with trees and the fairway sloped so that almost every ball will roll into the rough. Then the green is bad that if you are not directly underneath the hole, you will putt if off the green into a bunker. The only time I play the hole is in a scramble, so I have some help. We have taken bogey more than once there.

[neophyte]

I hate bunkers that are so hard I can't leave footprints in.
I hate bunkers that don't have enough sand, only have a half inch deep of sand.
I hate over watered greens that anyone over 200 Lbs, leaves deep footprints around the hole.
I hate over watered fairways where they leave the grass cuttings on the fairway and my ball looks like a green hairball.
I hate greens that don't have a line from a ball on the green to a 4 foot circle around the hole.

[uttexas]

there's one particular hole on a local course here that i just utterly loathe. it's a par 4, it's about 450 yards long, and 230 yards off the tee is a canal cutting across the entire fairway, and this canal is a good 20 yards across. then you get about 125 yards worth of fairway before you're hit with ANOTHER canal, this one about 40 yards across, that's right in front of the green. and this course is totally flat with no trees, too, so the wind really can get ahold of your ball.

That is not cool at all. I have the urge to fill one of those canals with dirt.

I'm thinking its the one 240 out in the middle of the fairway (into the wind)

[Nyper]

Something I can't stand are short Par 4's that are 90 degree dogleg... in which you can't go for the green off the tee.

One hole on the course I usually play is about 240 yards. You hit your tee shot straight towards a pretty wide fairway.. you want to hit it anywhere from 180-220. From there, it's a dogleg 90 left.. with about a 20-50 yard shot to the green. Because of the REALLY tall pines on the left that surround the green, you simply cannot go for the green off the tee. It doesn't matter how high you can hit or how much you can draw it. The hole is simply boring. An iron/hybrid/fairway wood off the tee and lob wedge to the green is just pathetic. Holes are usually like this because they need to cram a Par 4 in as small a space as possible because they don't have room to stretch it out.


Blind shots (tee, approach, anything) are my other pet peeve. Nothing ticks me off worse than playing a course for the first time.. hitting a great shot.. then finding that it went too far and is in the hazard because there was no yardage book or anything and you had no way of knowing...

[NM Golf]

Wow this thread goes back to 2004! I would have to say I can't stand blind shots. Especially blind driving holes. I also can't stand courses that are hard for the mere fact of being hard. We played a course in the Newport Cup called Thunder Hill in Ohio. It had every little dirty course trick you can think of, hidden water, sharp doglegs where you have to hit 7 iron then 4 iron into a hole, false fronts, blind shots, etc. And it was ridiculously firm, it was like playing on concrete. Stupid just stupid.

[flopdarock]

design flaws... hmmm...
little ditches/ruts that are designed to improve drainage but make certain lies unplayable... just make it a frikken creek and call it a water hazard...

design tricks... ummm...
courses with poor risk/reward options... i dont mind a challenge but to make it impossible for a mid/high handicapper to enjoy the course is ridiculous...

the course and corresponding teebox's should play to your handicap... if im playing the right teebox for my index i should in no way be shooting 20 more strokes than usual...

forced carries that are impossible...
bunkers/trees in the middle of teh fairway...
tiny turtleshell greens...

[bflat450]

I'd have to say a Par 5 made unreachable in two by a dogleg at the end. Although this is rare there is one at my course, and after bombing a drive it is nearly impossible to hit the green in two unless you pure one long and high over the trees.

[Fourputt]

In no particular order:

Hazards (including bunkers) that are invisible from the tee. Holes which are out of character for the overall design. Par 3's that are all near the same length. Some designers seem to have gotten stuck on the 200 yard number for par 3's. I don't mind irregular fairways, but they shouldn't look like a VW Beetle graveyard. Greens that are irrationally sloped just to create a level of difficulty that the designer was too unimaginative to build in elsewhere. Not opposed to tiered greens in general. Courses which force a player into the designer's style of play in order to have a chance to do well on the course. I'm not referring to just a course that favors a drawer or fader, but one that generally limits how far you can play each shot on each hole as well. A well designed course should allow the player to use his imagination. I really dislike a course where anything off the green grass is OB, hazard, or otherwise unplayable. The recovery shot is one of the most enjoyable parts of the game for me, and courses which NEVER give that opportunity simply aren't fun.

I'd have to say a Par 5 made unreachable in two by a dogleg at the end. Although this is rare there is one at my course, and after bombing a drive it is nearly impossible to hit the green in two unless you pure one long and high over the trees.

Ya know... that's why they call them par FIVE's. Sometimes it actually takes 3 shots to reach the green.

[misty_mountainhop]

Excessive use of blind shots; I hate them. Definitely a sign of course design that's a bit .

Oh yes, long for the sake of it isn't necessarily big or clever either.

[Kcas77]

I hate greens were its an uphill putt and if it doesn't go in it comes back to your feet.

[Bump-n-MI]

I can't stand par 5's where your only option from the tee is a fairway metal (hazard, severe dog-leg, etc… @ about 250 yards).

[kingofcars08]

I have 2 problems.

1) A local course that I love has a par 3 that plays 230 yards from the tips...into the 10-20mph wind. Now it might by my fault that I dont have the perfect club for this hole, but this hole plays like 250 yards most of the time, with two bunkers front left and front right. I have hit a soft driver, and blown it over, and hit a hybrid all I could and been all over, but mostly in front. It always comes down to a pitch and a putt for par. Ive only seen one guy in my group hit the green with a driver once. If the hole was 200 yards, I would love it.

2) Fescue that lines the fairways is some of the newer style designs, which punishes ANY off-fairway drive. I dont mind long rough, but if I am five yards right of the fairway 280 yards out cutting a dog-leg, and I can't find my ball, it is more than annoying.