Your best example of getting JACKED on the course (mucho bad luck) ...

[inthehole]

Last night, wound up in the rough about 220 yds out.     About 30 ft in front of me were two big pine trees with trunks trimmed up to about 10 ft off the ground with maybe 8 ft of space between them.       Perfect slot to get through if you can keep it low (ok, maybe if you were Phil Mickelson) & to boot, the slot lined up perfectly with the green way out in the distance ... I love shots like this so I had to try it.

I unfortunately have alot of experience hitting a low running line drive punch shot under trees with my 4 iron, so I went after it.    PURELY struck, cannon ball like low liner then out of nowhere ---- BOOM --- loudest crack I've ever heard on a golf course ... there was nothing there to hit !!     My heart skipped a beat & I ran out for fear I hit someone I didn't see ... I hit the big 4" diameter white & black striped 150 yard pole smack in the middle of the fairway.   Ball shot directly left in the fescue with no shot out.

I felt like I got blind sided in a bar room ... went from elation from the best feeling shot in weeks right between those pine trees to getting totally JACKED !!

Clearly, the golf gods were telling me I should have laid up ...

... anybody else have any bad luck stories about getting pick pocketed on the golf course ??

[Stargaze]

Well I don't have much golf experience so I won't have any great stories but the last time I was out I shot a ball out of one bunker and into another.  I wanted to choke something.

[inthehole]

we've all done that ... like Haney says, if it were easy, they wouldn't call it GOLF

[LeftyTrevor]

Our 18th hole is a short 330 yard par 4. I usually hit 3wood up for a nice shot in. Yesterday I was hitting my driver well so went for it. Perfect shot down the fairway and hit the tree in the center sending my ball directly left OB. Hitting 3 from the tee I again played the driver. This shot did the exact same thing going left OB. Hit my fifth shot from the tee with my driver I went over the stupid tree and rolled out to about 60-70 yards. Wedge to 4' and made my 7. On a side note my two OB balls were within 5' of each other so no loss there.

[BuckeyeNut]

Originally Posted by inthehole

I unfortunately have alot of experience hitting a low running line drive punch shot under trees with my 4 iron, so I went after it.    PURELY struck, cannon ball like low liner then out of nowhere ---- BOOM --- loudest crack I've ever heard on a golf course ... there was nothing there to hit !!    I hit the big 4" diameter white & black striped 150 yard pole smack in the middle of the fairway.   Ball shot directly left in the fescue with no shot out.

Hahaha.....I've seen that happen twice.  Just within the past 2 weeks, my playing partner on my home course hit the very same black/white 150 stick on the fly with his drive and the ball literally bounced back to the 200 plate!!    I did it once myself about 10yrs ago on vacation playing at La Costa.  I hit the pole dead nuts square and the ball rocketed straight backwards..........funny stuff!

I once hit a tee-shot on a par 3 that bounced directly off the top of the flagstick.  The ball bounced 30feet in the air.....over the green and into a bush..........LOL    I broke the plastic wing-nut that held the flag in place and the flag dropped to half mast. (it was one of those sticks that are wider in the middle)....funny stuff!!

[vo-man]

I seem to have the opportunity to hit almost the exact same shot you described in almost every round I play.  Lots of big trees around here.

Although  I've never hit the 150 stick.  My success rate at making the shot or hitting a tree is about 50/50 I guess.  But when I make the shot it's always a good feeling.  I keep my old Ping 1 iron in the bag just for that shot....low and long, like threading a needle thru the trees. .

[trackster]

My first year playing I teed a ball up to the left side of the tee marker.  I smoked a three wood off the tee, the ball then proceeded to hit the Stone hole marker (Not sure what to call it, the thing that lays out the hole.)  The ball then proceeded to shoot back 150 yards and land in the next holes fairway which wraps around the tee box.

[Connorgolfer96]

In one of my high school matches I had 260 in so I decided to lay-up in front of the water, my lay up bounced of a yardage stone and bounced an extra 30 yards and dropping into the water.

[jamo]

One time I was playing a 380ish hole that played well uphill. I hit my tee shot right down the middle but it hit a sprinkler and bounced dead left, behind the front lip of a bunker. The front of the bunker was vertical, so I couldn't go over, I didn't have a swing to hit it out of the back of the bunker, and I didn't have a stance to pitch out into the fairway. As a righty I had to pitch out into the rough, behind some trees with no angle at the green. I had something similar happen on that same course. After one of my best drives ever on a straight par-4, my ball bounced dead right behind a tree. Most of my worse moments are sprinkler-related.

[BuckeyeNut]

Joe Daley comes to mind........

He stroked the perfect put dead center into the cup....... the ball bounced out because the hole wasn't cut deep enough and somehow the ball miraculously bounced off the hole liner and out..........   this video is from the 2000 PGA tour Q- school......and he missed getting his PGA Tour card by 1 stroke!!

He never amounted to much as a touring pro before he turned 50. On a much brighter note:  he just the Senior Tour Players championship a few weeks ago!!

[phillyk]

At a course I used to play a ton, there were electrical wires running above the course that gets in the way of 1 tee shot a hole and an approach on another.  The par-5 has the wires going through the tee shot, so obviously everybody hits driver.  I was going 2nd or 3rd, I don't remember.  The guy before me hits a good looking drive and hears the sound of a whip as the ball hits the wires and bounces to who knows where.  I go next thinking there's no way in hell I could do it also.  I killed it, nice running draw, and WHIP, hits the freakin' wires.... It would've been the drive of the day for me.  But, course rules say that you get relief from the wires and can re-tee.  So, no harm done in the end... but it was ridiculous.

[celticstanger]

I'll raise ya - played at one of the courses at the Desert Springs resort in Palm Springs a couple of weeks ago, with the wife (who golfs maybe 10 times a year) and she's hitting the ball REALLY well on the range.  We're on vacation, we've had a couple of beers, so she gets all mouthy after playing the long (for her) par 5 first really well.  We're on the tee box of the next hole and she says, "How much if I get in the green in two?".

Well, it's a pretty long par 4, with a big ol' fairway bunker, so I bite, "$20".

She crushes her drive toward the bunker and it actually DRAWS (she NEVER draws the ball, but did so a couple of times on this trip) back into the fairway.  I hit a crappy 5-wood into the hay on the opposite side of the fairway, we jump into the cart and I drop her at her ball and go to find mine.  I find my ball, assess my options and look up just a second after I hear this almighty CRACK, followed by some choice words from my wife.  She'd smoked her approach from around 150, hit the flagstick on the fly (about a foot up from the base of the flag) and the ball bounces hard left, into the greenside pond.

[inthehole]

LOL - I'm glad I'm not the only one with bad luck once in a while ... keep 'em coming

[boogielicious]

I've hit a perfect down the middle drive that struck the damn 150yd flag and bounced 90 degrees right into a bunker 20 yards away.  Just tough luck.  Laugh it off and move on is definitely the best approach.

[jlt73]

I've hit probably every single tree on a course during a round.  I'm sure once of these days I will hit my ball through the trunk of a 60" tree.

Perhaps my true calling in life was to be a lumberjack!

[Nutter]

Number 6 on our course is a slightly downhill par three that plays about 175, and is the only hole on the course that somehow has power lines hanging right between you and the green.  Only time I've ever hit them is when I've got it going right at the pin, more than frustrating.

[kregan]

Originally Posted by trackster

My first year playing I teed a ball up to the left side of the tee marker.  I smoked a three wood off the tee, the ball then proceeded to hit the Stone hole marker (Not sure what to call it, the thing that lays out the hole.)  The ball then proceeded to shoot back 150 yards and land in the next holes fairway which wraps around the tee box.

A guy that does concrete work for me has one bad eye, i asked him what happen and he told me that exact same story but the ball broke out his eye socket and pretty much blinded him in one eye.               .

[Jwat381]

I haven't had bad bounces quite as bad as what you guys are talking about, but I've had a couple that really left me scratching my head.

I crushed a drive off the tee on number 1 with a nice draw on a hole that bends to the left. Went to go find my ball and it was absolutely no where to be found. I saw it land, but didn't see where it rolled to. Never saw it again. It's pretty demoralizing to have to drop a ball on a hole when you smoked a drive, off the first hole to boot.

The only other bizarre luck I can think of was hitting right behind the only tree on a fairway. It was pretty much wide open, very little rough or other obstacles, just one tree up the left hand side and I ended up in a perfect straight line with my ball, the tree, and the cup. Even a foot more right or left and I would have had some option.