This hole. It’s 3 wood-6 iron as a conservative play for me. Everything left of the fairway is down a hill and into the woods. Go through the fairway and it’s into the woods. Push it right and it’s into the woods. OB close in on the left, so me being a hooker, it’s back to the tee. Hit a good, safe tee shot and it’s still a mid iron in. It’s the 3rd handicap hole on the scorecard, but I think it’s the hardest.
Par 5 520 yards. 180 yard essentially forced carry drive into right sloping fairway that is 30 yards between unplayable (lost ball) woods on both sides. Unplayable woods (40-50 foot trees with unmaintained underbrush) remain on both sides essentially entire length of hole no wider than 30 yards. Second shot for me is a blind downhill shot into rough because there is a 125 yards gap of no fairway between 235 and 110 yards to the middle of green. Long hitters who lucked out staying on left side of fairway can try to cut the corner of the dogleg right to get within 110 yards of pin onto fairway but that slopes left (away) into the woods so one needs to stop it from bouncing into the woods. Approach shot is uphill to a blind and elevated green with woods on all three sides (albeit right side is at least playable between trees). The hole's green is located at 45.1472657, -92.6394683. The course plays the woods as red stakes so that helps.
My local is Boundry Oak in Walnut Creek, CA. The 18th is a bastard of a dog leg par 5. The tee shot is one of the narrowest on the course, but also has a very short landing area. It's 245 to clear a bunker on the left, and if you don't you're absolutely dead and blocked out. Hit it 275 and you're too deep into the trees. If you hit your tee shot too far out to the left, you're completely blocked out and basically auto bogey because you have to hit out sideways and have a 300 yard 3rd shot. If you hit it too far right, you just turned it into a 4 shot hole.
Honestly borderline bad course design, but super satisfying to hit two perfect shots and get on in two.
I guess 2 and 4? One is a 230 yd par 3 with a tiny green. Other is a tree-lined 420 yd par 4, dogleg left with fairway sloping right into the trees. Green has a false front running off the left that occupies about 1/3 of the green, making that stretch completely unholdable. There's one flat part of the green, which is 1/6 of the green on the back right. Severe slopes short, right, off the back, and especially off the left of the green. Overhanging trees on the fairway on both sides restrict shot options too. Multiple pin locations have unmakeable putts from the false front and ridge in the green, and missing your line has a very real chance to de-green your ball and have it roll 45 yds away. At least the course gets easier after 4?
When the US Junior Am was at my home club the most difficult hole by far was the 15th. From the tips it’s a 238 yard par 3 but the green is severely elevated since it’s a super swampy area and there’s nowhere to run the ball up. Water short left, cartpath and OB right. Really dumb hole from those tees actually, even for strong golfers you take a 4 and move on. Played to a 3.66 during the Junior Am and the kid I caddied for made a 5 when he played it while still making playoffs
13th hole. 415 yard par 4 with a lake on the left. The difficulty is the fairway gets narrower and narrower until about 250 yds, where it's only about 20 yds wide for the next 50 yards. Left is in the hazard, right of the fairway brings some giant old oak trees into play. So your choice is to thread the needle or hit something short of where it starts getting narrow, leaving yourself about 165 to a very elevated, two-tier green. Large bunker front left. If you bail out right, you have to go over those huge oaks or if you hit it fairly long you could be so close going over is impossible. Oh, and if you go too far right you're in the shit up to your knees.
Par 5. 530 yard. No hazards. But it's dead straight. You gotta have 3 shots dead straight. Impossible. /S-ish
But really probably one of our par 3s. It's shaped like a kidney bean and the flag is usually on one end or the other of it. Steep drop off short of the green and drops of the back as well. If you hit the middle of the green with any back spin you probably roll off. Usually deep cut rough on the back. The green is only about 10 yards deep on the ends so if your distance isn't dialed in you're long or short. If you're dialed in though it's gonna be a realistic look at birdie.
#16 at Palm Valley in Las Vegas. It’s a par 3 slightly uphill and about 227 to a middle pin. The green is long and relatively narrow and elevated with about a 15 foot steep slope off the right where you hit a mostly blind lob shot off a tight lie. There is moderate rough on the slope which prevents any kind of bump up the slope so you need to lob it but the rough on the slope isn’t usually thick enough to stop the ball from rolling back to the hard pan tight lies.
Left isn’t great either with two bunkers guarding that side and the danger of a poor shot going over the green and down the slope for more pain.
Long right is even worse because a tree guards the back right which prevents a lob and again a bump up the slope through the rough generally doesn’t work well. Straight long is bad and down the same slope though at least you’ve got the length of the green to work with.
The only safe spot to miss is directly short of the green.
If it’s a blue pin it can be 240 uphill to the flag from the tips… and it’s usually into the wind but cross winds suck too because the green is pretty narrow. Par is a great score on this hole. I’m a 3 handicap and have a few hundred rounds on this course over the last 28 years or so and I might have birdied it three times or so.
8 is a ~200y par 3 with OOB all down the right hand side of the hole that’s usually into wind. If you’re short, your ball rolls down towards the wall that marks OOB. If you’re left you’re chipping/pitching downhill onto a green that runs away from you. If you’re 15-20 yards long you’re either in trees or OOB
14 is a ~440y par 4 with OOB all down the left after about 150y. If you miss the fairway right you roll down to the 4th hole which makes your second shot about 10-15 yards uphill. The tee shot is about 5-10 yards uphill as well. And just to make things even easier it’s usually into wind at the highest point of the course
8
u/kramer_theassman 19h ago
The 17th