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DON'T HIT IT HERE
Want to have a chance at par? PAR CAN sometimes be such an easy mark. Knock your drive in the fairway, put it on the green, lag it up close, and tap it in. Ho-hum. Where's the challenge? Of course, some pars are anything but conventional. Some are definitely more dramatic than others. During the 1988 U.S. Open, played at The Country Club, in Brookline, Mass., Tommy Nakajima hit a tee shot at the par-4 17th hole directly up against the trunk of a tree. Taking an unplayable lie, he exercised one of his options and, in accordance with the Rules, dropped the ball behind the point where it originally lay, in this case about 40 yards back, keeping that point directly between the hole and the spot on which the ball was dropped. From there he hit his third shot over the tree but short of the green. But from out of the tall rough he holed his fourth shot for a par. There certainly have been even more bizarre pars than that. But sometimes the slightest miscalculation on a hole can obliterate any hope of saving par. You're in jail. Dead. Buried. Swallow your pride and cut your losses. Here are a few of those places from where, save a miracle, once-in-a-lifetime shot, you cannot make par. Don't even try. Play for bogey and go on. Okay, readers, here's your chance. What holes have you played that fit the category? Let us know.
The 9th at Jupiter Hills There's little room for error at this long par 3, but the real trouble comes on any shot that's more than a few paces short. The tee shot must carry a wide, deep glen that receives little maintenance and is covered with dense Florida vegetation. A ball that doesn't reach the fringe of the green, or the bunker front left, probably will roll back down the slope and into the brush. If a player is able to find the ball -- and this is one of those areas where it's always best to have a club in your hand while you search -- the chances are remote he has an unencumbered swing, the lie is playable, and there's an opening to the green. If by chance all three conditions enable you to have a go at it, run to the nearest lottery machine after the round; this is your lucky day. If you hit your tee shot in this trouble, you're better off hitting a provisional and hoping you hole it.
The 15th at This beautiful par 3 isn't long at all, and although you can err slightly and get up and down for par from short, back, or right, there's no chance if you miss it left. The green is literally perched precariously on the side of a mountain, and any ball that misses left, especially on a fly, has bogey or worse written all over it. The ball will trickle down the mountainside, and if a player is fortunate he may find it against a cactus or sagebrush somewhere near the green. But it's entirely possible, or even probable, the ball will find its way to an area on the desert floor at the bottom of the mountain. If you missed the green from the tee, it's foolhardy to believe you can hit it from here, amid the rocks and vegetation of the desert, and one-putt for three. Hit a provisional and silently repeat to yourself: "Anywhere but left . . . anywhere but left. . . ."
The 8th at Every golfer wants to play his ball whenever possible, especially when it's inside the stakes of a hazard, and if you mishit your second shot just right at Pebble Beach's eighth hole, you can try to do just that. From the side of the cliffs you may be able to see the ball -- sitting up so nice and pretty down there on the beach. But when you think you want to try to be a hero, you ought to remember what you screamed at Norman Bates the first time you watched Psycho: Don't go down there! Don't go down there! If it's low tide, you could wend your way down to the beach -- but doing this and getting back up without delaying play is a chore in itself -- but it's a 70-foot difference from the shore to the green, and after all, you don't practice this kind of shot very often, do you? In addition, there's more trouble if you come up short. So be sensible and play another from the fairway side of the chasm. There are few more pleasant sights in golf than watching your ball land safely on this green, so enjoy the moment -- even if par is out of the question.
The 13th at The 13th hole at Eagle Bend, site of the 1994 U.S. Amateur Public Links Championship, isn't the most difficult hole there. Eagle Bend, in fact, may offer a handful of holes where par is more difficult to attain. But the right side of the 13th hole can very easily frustrate players of every ability and be the one hole that ruins a good score. A forest of birch trees lines the right side of the fairway, and as club professional Bob Veroulis likes to say, hit it in there hard enough and it's "Ricochet City." The same problem can face the player trying to escape the trouble; often the alley trying to advance the ball or get it back to the fairway is so thin, it's easy to start playing pinball with the birches and have your ball carom in any direction, including backward. A player likes to think he can overcome a poor drive by pitching back to the fairway, reaching the green and one-putting for par, but from the depths off the right side of Eagle Bend's 13th hole, that's very optimistic thinking. Not very realistic, but optimistic nevertheless.
The 10th at Pine Valley Golf Club The short 10th at Pine Valley seldom requires more than a 7- or 8-iron to be played to its relatively large green. The trouble lies around this green in the form of bunkers. There are several that flank its left, right, and back sides, but the most penal one -- perhaps in all of golf? -- is the deep pot bunker located front right. A ball will usually come to rest in the very bottom between two steeply sloped sides. A player finding his ball in this bunker will be fortunate, and grateful, in just getting the ball out with his next stroke without much preference on direction. Perhaps the most prudent thing a player could do would be to take an unplayable and play again from the tee. A par is highly unlikely using this method, but the chances of keeping a score down are better this way than trying to play from this bunker.
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