Golf Random Irritations

IanM said:
That would be Llandegfedd Reservoir.

Woodlake usually has good greens, although the 2nd is the maddest hole in Wales. Even daft in the winter, goodness knows what you do if it's bone hard 😁
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The 2nd is just about unplayable. If they didn’t have a fence in the area just right if the green most balls would end up in the car park. One player in our group putted from about 90 yards out (there was really no other shot on) and still ended up off the green on the right. The par 3s (except for the 14th) are virtually impossible to hold and if your ball doesn’t go in the pond left of the 16th congratulations are in order.
 
D-S said:
The 2nd is just about unplayable. If they didn’t have a fence in the area just right if the green most balls would end up in the car park. One player in our group putted from about 90 yards out (there was really no other shot on) and still ended up off the green on the right. The par 3s (except for the 14th) are virtually impossible to hold and if your ball doesn’t go in the pond left of the 16th congratulations are in order.
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Just to add, it was a 2 from 4 Bowmaker, greens were in excellent condition, pins in sensible places, weather was really nice, sunny and gentle breeze - it was won with 80 points, 78 2nd, 76 3rd.
 
D-S said:
The 2nd is just about unplayable. If they didn’t have a fence in the area just right if the green most balls would end up in the car park. One player in our group putted from about 90 yards out (there was really no other shot on) and still ended up off the green on the right. The par 3s (except for the 14th) are virtually impossible to hold and if your ball doesn’t go in the pond left of the 16th congratulations are in order.
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I’ve played Woodlake a few times. The last time was in a society just two weeks ago. I’m not a fan but majority rules and the rest of the crew always want to go back. The 2nd is just an awful golf hole. The down hill par 3 7th, I just missed the green right and caught the very bottom of the bank. My ball catapulted left across the green and was lost in the undergrowth at the bottom of the hill.
 
srixon 1 said:
Pontypool. Nuff said.
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We were there for a county seniors match. The guy I played in the singles is a member at Newport. From what he was saying not many go to Pontypool to play unless they have to for team matches. I imagine that when the fairways have a bit more give the course will play easier, but yesterday with baked out ground it was impossible. There is a very down hill par 3 at just over 200 yards. My 8 iron bounced over the green and finished on the next tee behind the green. The ball must have travelled nearly 240 yards 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
 
srixon 1 said:
I’ve played Woodlake a few times. The last time was in a society just two weeks ago. I’m not a fan but majority rules and the rest of the crew always want to go back. The 2nd is just an awful golf hole. The down hill par 3 7th, I just missed the green right and caught the very bottom of the bank. My ball catapulted left across the green and was lost in the undergrowth at the bottom of the hill.
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The 6th at the moment is not much better, I had 160 odd in and after I saw the other shots in going over the back, I just chipped the ball 70 yards - still went over the green into the rubbish.
We all blobbed the 7th, because, as you say it’s virtually impossible to hold the green and then balls just basically get stopped by the hedge which is 40 yards or so from the green and 30 feet below it.
The higher handicapper with us on the 8th hit a decent (for him) drive up the steep hill (about 170 ish yards) on the next - it nearly ran back to our feet, we’ll maybe 20 yards in front of the tee.
It’s a shame as it is very friendly place, good food, magnificent views but not a course for a dry summer.
 
D-S said:
The 6th at the moment is not much better, I had 160 odd in and after I saw the other shots in going over the back, I just chipped the ball 70 yards - still went over the green into the rubbish.
We all blobbed the 7th, because, as you say it’s virtually impossible to hold the green and then balls just basically get stopped by the hedge which is 40 yards or so from the green and 30 feet below it.
The higher handicapper with us on the 8th hit a decent (for him) drive up the steep hill (about 170 ish yards) on the next - it nearly ran back to our feet, we’ll maybe 20 yards in front of the tee.
It’s a shame as it is very friendly place, good food, magnificent views but not a course for a dry summer.
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This does irritate me greatly as it shouldn't happen (anywhere near as much as it does) and I've seen it far too much this year. It is often just bad course management - and by that I mean management and preparation of the course.

Courses with steep slopes are/were rarely designed with wide expanses of fairway bordered by fairly short rough running all the way along holes because they are near impossible to play for many (if not most) golfers. They had narrower fairways or breaks in the fairway with rough long enough to prevent these unfair results that are entirely unavoidable except through sheer luck.

Some of the worst holes I've played recently include the 3rd hole at Wells (which now has netting all the way down the right to catch balls), the 3rd hole at Tiverton (>90% of players will end up with their ball on the path down the right hand side at least once, assuming the boards & fencing stop it going into the canal), the 4th hole at Knowle (the ball returns 100+ yards back down the hill with the top forever being out of range for short hitters), the 18th hole at Knowle (only luck can prevent a ball from going into the ditch; a situation made more ludicrous by a temporary local rule making only the beginning of the ditch GUR), the 8th hole at Clevedon (just a bad golf hole with great views from the tee).
 
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There are a fair few virtually unplayable holes out there with these ground conditions with balls being lost or completely unplayable from sensible drives. We had this recently at Henbury on 3 or 4 holes.
Clubs will need to look at semi and rough length in various areas as well as summer fairway cut heights if this sort of a summer becomes more frequent.
In a chat with our Head Greenkeeper yesterday, he said it would be good to invest in a seed company as some courses will have large expanses that will need reseeding.
 
Dunbar is pretty similar just now, fairways are mostly brick hard, only played half a dozen holes due to various circumstances but did drive to within 25 - 30 yards of our 18th, admittedly it was from the yellow tee but its still 421 yards, good job I let the yanks in front play their thirds before I teed off, might have killed one of them !
 
Some of the lies I ended up with today from fairly decent shot. The dried out conditions are giving very little control of where the ball finishes.
 
There's a good case for preferred lies at many places at the mo. Today I ended up in some dead bits/divots that were no fun at all.

Several holes on Roman Road were getting silly. My second to the par 5 9th was a good straight shot to the right side of the fairway. It rolled sideways about 60 yards left down the hill into the left semi!🤣
 
Not sure preferred lies helps much if there is nowhere better to place your ball within 6” - getting to clean the ball isn’t much of a benefit at the moment.
We have a couple of courses who have moved mats onto their tees as they are unplayable otherwise. Apparently one course locally is considering compulsory mats on fairways.
It’ll be interesting to see the recovery, rough and semi is no problem but some fairways and green surrounds are so bare and worn that they’ll need reseeding as rain will just turn them into mud.
 
Imurg said:
We have PL on 2 fairways right now...no point though as the ground is the same wherever you are....
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We also have PL on two holes. Can't understand why - those two holes are no worse than many others.

Our greens are pretty good, but the aprons have suffered badly from the wet winter followed by the dry spring/summer. Growth has been very poor. Chipping is a bit challenging.
 
The closer course in town was on preferred lies until about a month ago.....just no decent fairway growth. Then they had PL only on the worst fairways 1-2-3+7. Now they have taken them off and the fairways are a lot worse than they were when the whole course was PL. Yeah yeah....now here come the comments about "You think you know more than the greenkeepers?" In this case....yes. I think there are decisions being made by the powers-that-be that result in things like this. One of the guys I play with sits on a committee and he says that their recommendations are usually just ignored. Whenever that really dry summer was (7? years ago)....took over a year for the grass to grow back in decently in places and I think we are getting close to that kind of damage now. Granted....I'm not sure there is much anybody can do at this point. I'm just hoping storm Erin makes it's way across from the US and gives the whole country a good dump of water.
 
We’ve stayed PL all year, unless we see some consistent rain and growth I see it all year simply due to no growth in spring. I back the green keepers, it’s the same for most corses.
 
KenL said:
My random golf irritation is just golf. I’m playing so badly at the minute. Driving great, putting fine, everything else is back. 😡
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Mine two. Had four really good knocks in last five rounds…and with a medal coming Sunday I should be feeling +++ve, and I should be able to get my HI down to 6.0, maybe even 5.9…and that would equate to my best ever handicap (looking at what medal PH it would give me at my previous club where I had that lowest ever).

But the dark cloud of dire inevitability hangs over me…so must try and dispel it.

A Saints win over the Red Lichties on Saturday will help, plus I must view every day on the golf course as a privilege, not an entitlement, and be grateful for that, and indeed all that I have in life. There…feel better already 👍🙂

Nb…betcha nobody outside Scotland will know who the Red Lichties are and why.
 
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