There’s a hole on one of my favorite local courses where success has eluded me for years. For me, it’s the hole from hell.
On paper, it’s not particularly difficult. A par 3, it has two sets of tee boxes; one to the left of the green and the other to the right. From the tips on the right, it measures 180 and change, while from the other, it’s around 160. The large green is shaped like a ski slope, falling steeply from a height in the rear down to a pond on the front edge. The pond is probably forty yards from front to back and extends well to the left and right. The far edges of the pond are surrounded by trees, so any shot must pass over the pond and through the gap.
Neither of those two distances represents a problem for me. The previous hole— the par 4 sixth – has a green which is guarded by a front greenside bunker. On that hole, following a decent drive, I generally find myself in the fairway a hundred sixty yards out. And on nearly every occasion, a seven iron is sufficient to fly the bunker and land deep on the green. I’m also quite proficient with a five iron or a hybrid from 180.
But on the par three seventh, my usually reliable clubs never deliver predictable distance. From 160, a seven iron invariably falls short, landing in the pond. So does the six. And the five. My hybrid-four always has the distance, but on that hole for some reason slices the ball into the weeping willows (a quite appropriate tree for that hole). And Old Man Willow, of course, dumps the ball unceremoniously into the pond.
When I’m not dumping the ball into the pond, I’m hitting a ballooning shot that lands on the near shore. Or, knowing that my tendency is to fall short, overswing and top the ball fifty yards down the fairway.
The hole had gotten so frustrating that at one point, I adopted the strategy of hitting a three wood off the tee, driving the ball past the green into a stand of trees. From there, I could chip it back and try for a one putt – assuming that I hadn’t parked the ball adjacent to a tree trunk.
It’s the water, I suppose, that is the source of my grief. While I know – intellectually – that the pond should have no effect, the fact that I’ve lost so many balls there weighs on my mind. When I get up to the tee, I immediately start thinking that I shouldn’t’ start thinking about losing my ball.
The good news, though, is that I birdied the hole last week. I hit a pure seven iron off the tee (with a junk ball I had found under a leaf on the previous hole). It landed above the hole, and rolled down to within two feet. After a short tap, the ball was in.
So maybe the jinx is broken. Or maybe it’s just that the ball I found was a lucky one.
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I can definitely relate. And a lot of golfers that I have talked to struggle on the par 3’s. It is definitely a mental thing even when there isn’t a pond in the front.
One thing that has worked for me is to take one more club than the distance calls for and really try to slow my tempo down.
I will go a little long sometimes, but generally I’m not short and wet.
Good luck with it.
David Stargel
The Golf Nut
My hockey sticks hole comes on an average length par 4 at my home course. It’s very tight with trees on both sides, and it’s a sharp dogleg right. Considering I’m a lefty that can’t draw the ball to save my life, I usually either end up with a very long approach (by playing it safe off the tee with a long iron) or am near the left treeline after hitting a driver. Last week, my second shot was 20 yards left of the green, behind a bunker (I’m almost never on this green in 2). So, I hit a nice pitch shot, it flies the bunker, lands perfectly on the green, rolls for 20 ft, and, just as it looked that it would stop, rolled right into the hole for my first birdie on No. 3.