Mike Clayton (11)

15 North.

A very poorly designed hole. With the tee shot, the player needs to avoid the bunker on the LHS of the fairway while avoiding the water hazard on the RHS. The tee shot landing area for the average golfer slopes steeply from left to right into the water hazard. Many a well-struck drive will end up in the hazard if they are just a couple of degrees right of where they are aimed.

This is bad enough, but there is an additional problem. The rise in the fairway prevents the golfer from observing the final resting place of the drive. A tee shot that is well-struck but heading towards the RHS of the fairway will therefore not be observable towards the end of its journey.

I have seen many players who have not found their ball, make the assumption that it must be in the water hazard and take a drop near the hazard. This is incorrect procedure. The Rules of Golf state that in order to take such relief, “it must be known or virtually certain that the ball is in the hazard”.

There is a Decision on what constitutes “known or virtually certain” which you can read for yourself, but it basically says that you need to either have physically seen the ball go into the hazard, or alternatively, there is no place the ball could physically be other than in the hazard.

Neither of these applies to this hole. You can’t see the ball go into the hazard, and it is always possible for the ball to be hidden in the long grass and bushes adjacent to the hazard. Therefore, if you’re a stickler for the rules, the correct procedure is to treat the ball as lost and take a stroke and distance penalty.

This is far too great a penalty for a good drive that was hit only slightly to the right of the required line.

18 North.

Yet another badly designed fairway. I have seen a number of strong drivers hit drives well to the right of the fairway bunker, only to have the ball catch the slope and dribble back down as much as 15m into the bunker. Once again, a good shot is punished by the course.