Worst Course You've Ever Played

[dmblanch]

I got a real kick out of the guys who thought Malibu was the worst track they'd ever played. Reminded me of the old Groucho Marx joke. Margaret Dumont says, "I've never been so insulted in all my life!" Groucho replies, "You should get out more often."

Malibu is weird and quirky and overly tight, but it's far from the worst in SoCal even. It's about on the order of Monarch Beach -- too expensive, too little land to put a course on, too much attitude for what you get.

I've played that Sun City course (much worse) and Eagle Glen isn't bad at all. River View in Santa Ana is the worst of all of them.

I'm glad to see that a few Air Force base courses got mentioned. As a group, they can be counted on to set the bar very very low. Whenever this question comes up, I usually cite the following 9 hole military course, Frank Skull, as the worst I've seen.

[attachment=2573245:frankskull.jpg]

It does have some grass in spring and a couple of trees. It's biggest hazard is that it's in the middle of a chemical weapons depot and you never know if the nerve gas will leak out and drift your way. No dead possums, however. No dead or living anything for miles.

The worst designed course I've ever seen was the old back nine at Cascades, Orem UT, now mercifully closed. Here's a sample of some of its lowlights.

[attachment=2573271:wtfaward.jpg]

The 11th and 12th holes shot at basically the SAME green complex. You can imagine that clusterf&%k as it basically forced you to hit at the group behind you, who had probably just hit into you as they approached the blind 11th. The 12th hole had yardage markers that were only mismarked by about 40 yards longer than true distance. The 13th hole ran directly under a set of six high voltage powerlines (marked in blue). If you got lucky, your shots would pass through these lines untouched 4 times as it made its way to the green, if you were unlucky, you'd hit them again and again. And the greens at this billy goat course were no treasure either. I had one uphill 14 foot putt on the ninth hole that stopped 3 inches short of the cup and rolled back 18 feet.

Good riddance.

[HoosierHacker89]

Cardinal hills my home course

[dogleg0425]

1. Jacksonville: The Course at Westland, or as we renamed it, The Course at WASTEland.
2. An absolutely superbly manicured course that was totally unplayable as they "fixed" their drainage problems by dumping dirt down the middle of every fairway thus creating a huge hump with marsh or water or traps on both sides. Course is Royal Saint Augustine.

[3mulligans]

Twining Valley in Dresher, PA. Used to work around the corner and it was like $8 to walk after 5.. Wasn't even worth that.

[joshuab2]

Raccoon Run in Myrtle Beach, SC. Once the longest course in SC. Now a housing development.

[WaltonW]

Steel Canyon in Sandy Springs, GA., an executive course

Built on landfill with recycling center next to golf parking lot, so constantly hear trash being dumped in background

Several of the holes have large electric power lines that continually buzz and are low enough to hit

Course conditions can vary but overall layout is poor with intersecting holes (so wear hard hat too!)

[alfriday]

The Cashen Course at Ballybunion.

Robert Trent Jones Jr.'s waste of wonderful links land. I have tried to play it twice and not yet made it a full 18 holes. You have to pay for a round on the course to play Ballybunion. I think it's the only way they can get people to play the Cashen Course.

[duffer987]

^I've not been to Ballybunion since they instituted that policy, but I did play the Cashen course once because why not.
Agreed that it's not great, feel there is a better chance to score just throwing the ball around the course, than actually trying to play golf shots.

[markheardjr]

[quote name='dmblanch' timestamp='1421458304' post='10760981']
The 11th and 12th holes shot at basically the SAME green complex. You can imagine that clusterf&%k.
[/quote]

Double green complexes aren't always terrible. I don't mind them, you usually get two greens with a little isthmus in between. But yeah, the rest of that looks terrible.

[Groundhog]

Clay County CC in Ashland AL, middle of nowhere. It is a bushhogged pasture with closely cut grass for the greens no bunkers. It gets no maintenance whatsoever. It is probably like the first layouts in Scotland.

[Munski]

Fullerton GC.. Southern California complete waste of money

[dmblanch]

[quote name='markheardjr' timestamp='1424388976' post='10987839']
[quote name='dmblanch' timestamp='1421458304' post='10760981']
The 11th and 12th holes shot at basically the SAME green complex. You can imagine that clusterf&%k.
[/quote]

Double green complexes aren't always terrible. I don't mind them, you usually get two greens with a little isthmus in between. But yeah, the rest of that looks terrible.
[/quote]

You'd be right if there were more space between the two as in Britian and they were situated to play parallel to each other. These two were conjoined twins, vectoring in from angles, and you were basically hitting at the group behind you on the par three, who had probably just hit into you because 11 was a blind approach. That makes for fast friends and no repercussions, I can assure you.

[michael wood]

oxbow in belpre Ohio. Played in Ohio sectional state tournament. Not even close.

[swordbird22]

[quote name='dmblanch' timestamp='1421458304' post='10760981']
I got a real kick out of the guys who thought Malibu was the worst track they'd ever played. Reminded me of the old Groucho Marx joke. Margaret Dumont says, "I've never been so insulted in all my life!" Groucho replies, "You should get out more often."

Malibu is weird and quirky and overly tight, but it's far from the worst in SoCal even. It's about on the order of Monarch Beach -- too expensive, too little land to put a course on, too much attitude for what you get.

I've played that Sun City course (much worse) and Eagle Glen isn't bad at all. River View in Santa Ana is the worst of all of them.

I'm glad to see that a few Air Force base courses got mentioned. As a group, they can be counted on to set the bar very very low. Whenever this question comes up, I usually cite the following 9 hole military course, Frank Skull, as the worst I've seen.

[attachment=2573245:frankskull.jpg]

It does have some grass in spring and a couple of trees. It's biggest hazard is that it's in the middle of a chemical weapons depot and you never know if the nerve gas will leak out and drift your way. No dead possums, however. No dead or living anything for miles.

The worst designed course I've ever seen was the old back nine at Cascades, Orem UT, now mercifully closed. Here's a sample of some of its lowlights.

[attachment=2573271:wtfaward.jpg]

The 11th and 12th holes shot at basically the SAME green complex. You can imagine that clusterf&%k. The 12th hole had yardage markers that were only off by about 40 yards. The 13th hole ran directly under a set of six high voltage powerlines (marked in blue). If you got lucky, your shots would pass through these lines untouched at least 4 times, if you were unlucky, you'd hit them again and again. And the greens were no treasure either. I had one uphill 14 footer on the ninth hole that went 13 ft 9 inches and rolled back 18 feet.

Good riddance.
[/quote]

My reaction to that course layout at the cascades.

[attachment=2635745:grief.jpg]

[megatmoe]

[quote name='golfingron' timestamp='1412687785' post='10248521']
Crooked Creek golf course in Indianapolis. We had a work function at the sports complex, one of the options was golf at crooked creek. I will let the picture speak for itself.
[/quote]


HAHAHAHA!!!!

[Ace Underhill]

ANGC. Just didn't do anything for me. Plus I found a weed back in the woods behind 12th green.

[hollabachgt]

[quote name='alfriday' timestamp='1424377315' post='10986655']
The Cashen Course at Ballybunion.

Robert Trent Jones Jr.'s waste of wonderful links land. I have tried to play it twice and not yet made it a full 18 holes. You have to pay for a round on the course to play Ballybunion. I think it's the only way they can get people to play the Cashen Course.
[/quote]

It was Sr. who actually did the Cashen course. While there are a handful of head scratcher on the course It's no where near the worst course. If it was 10 miles down the road rather than right next to the Old course I think people would view it differently. To many times you walk straight off of the Old course onto the Cashen and you immediately start to compare the two.

[cwglum]

For the price we paid ... Arroyo ... the public course at Red Rock Country club in Las Vegas. Horrible routing, seems that they ended up with little pieces of land leftover after the main course and residential construction was completed and threw some golf holes on it. If not, I'd hate to think that it was actually planned out that way. Moderate conditions at best.

Staff was great, pace of play was good ... Course was very underwhelming.

[jmtbkr]

We just played a local track in a retirement community. Golf 18 had them for $23 w/cart. everything else around here is $75+, what with the Honda in town.

So we get there and the place is all 6 floor buildings with the course winding thru. The place looks like an insane asylum. Built in the best south florida '70's sstyle.

58 slope/ 100 rating

11 (!!) par 3's.
2 par 5's - 458yds, 435 yds.

we followed the friday "tournament". These old codgers hit from the 'tips' and hit 50-100 yds at a time. Don't laugh.....they were playing at their ages!

Everytime we approached one of the sattillite pools we were assaulted with the SiriusXM 50's channel. Wifey and I started dancing to Brenda Lee on the fairway and got yelled at for holding up play!!!

The best was when I realized the tee boxes and greens were died green. The faiways were an assortment of crabgrass and weeds, the greens looked mostly to be clover.

so I wound up practicing my short game.

[thesamwise]

[quote name='WaltonW' timestamp='1424375033' post='10986457']
Steel Canyon in Sandy Springs, GA., an executive course

Built on landfill with recycling center next to golf parking lot, so constantly hear trash being dumped in background

Several of the holes have large electric power lines that continually buzz and are low enough to hit

Course conditions can vary but overall layout is poor with intersecting holes (so wear hard hat too!)
[/quote]

Haha love it.

Golf is a good walk where you can see/hear/smell garbage being dumped in the middle distance and never escape the fear of getting cancer from low-hanging and buzzing overhead power lines
--Mark Twain.

[Yanki01]

2 local courses, one was a country club. both have since closed some years ago and are dried up. just yesterday the news had a story that one of them could potentially be bought by a developer to make a 9 hole course with hotels, stores and restaurants. thankfully I didn't pay for either round. I wouldn't even bother going again if it was free. the course was full of weeds and patchy fairways. the greens were spotty and bunkers we're nothing but rocks. worse course and I just wanted to leave. horrible horrible.

[DaveyGolf]

[quote name='JumboJack' timestamp='1413258035' post='10282359']
[quote name='markheardjr' timestamp='1412721899' post='10251695']
I have played plenty of just crappy courses that are ill conceived, poorly maintained etc. But no no, this list is for the courses that are just downright idiotic. Like, you can't pay me money to go back. And that list is:

1. Malibu Country Club
2. Lost Canyons - Shadow Course (May be closed now?)
3. Tierra Rejada

Where to start. Malibu is the most infuriating course I have ever played. Elevated tee boxes to tiny narrow fairways, with internal OB all over the place, back up the hill to blind elevated greens that slope to kingdom come. Blind doglegs. It's terrible.

Lost Canyons Shadow, designed by Freddie Couples...soon to be turned into a housing development instead of a golf course. This course had blind doglegs that curved after the blind spot. Many dogleg rights. There was a gopher hole in the middle of a green. The staff just stopped watering it, hoping people would stop playing it I suppose.

Tierra Rejada, again with the blind doglegs, greens on the side of cliffs. In all fairness I played with a guy wearing rain pants that wouldn't stop walking when you hit and always found a way to make noise during your putting stroke...always. I walked off, in a tournament on the 10th hole and played with the group behind me.

Oddly enough, all of those courses are in valleys Northwest of L.A. Apparently I don't care for that area. Honorable mention for E[b]agle Glen in Corona.[/b] Similar to the others, up/down/side of a valley. Terrible track. No thanks.

I can forgive course conditions for good layout, natural use of land, decent views, etc. But some things are just unforgiveable. Like par 5's where you hit iron off the tee, turn 90° to the right and hit it 350y up hill for your 2nd.
[/quote]

To each his own I guess. I love Eagle Glen.
[/quote]

Eagle Glen is a gem. Not liking target golf is one thing, but saying it makes a course bad is a little silly.

[WestCoastSeminole]

I've played a couple of the courses already mentioned: I played Sun Valley GC in La Mesa in my first ever junior tournament at ten years old. I thought it was a crap hole then so ten years later it's probably even worse. Complete waste of space. I didn't play Goat Hill until very recently, so I never played it when there were junkies in the bushes. The place is still in bad shape, so I can't imagine how bad it was five years ago. But I must say it's improving: I played out there six months ago and it was in bad shape but I played again about two or three months ago and it was in better shape. I've known the head pro at The Goat since I was nine or ten years old so hopefully things will get better and they'll find their niche.

The most ridiculous golf course I've ever played is DeBell Golf Club in Burbank, CA. About 5600 yards and a par 71 I think but some of the weirdest holes ever. The course is cut out of the side of a mountain so there are a lot of absurd doglegs and inexplicable bounces. The 11th green is one of the most severe back-to-front sloped greens I've ever played, to the point where you have to fly the ball all the way to the back of the green in order for it to suck back to the front of the green. Anything landing on the front or the center of the green is going to spin well off the green. Really tight (bordering on unfair) tee shots (I had to hit 9 iron off the 3rd tee of one of the par 4s because the dogleg wouldn't allow me to hit anything longer), a completely blind par 3, and potato chip sized (but stupidly undulating) greens are just par for the course. I mean Emily from one of the recent Big Breaks grew up playing there and had a pretty accomplished amateur career, so maybe there's something redeeming about it that I couldn't find. Oh yeah, I almost forgot: an all-mat driving range dead into the side of the mountain with the ball above your feet on all of the rock hard mats and a practice green with not a single remotely flat putt on it.

I really want to play the golf course that goes around the Rose Bowl in Pasadena at some point. I've tailgated on top of it two years in a row now for the 2013 BCS National Championship game and the first ever 2014 College Football Playoff semifinal game. It looks like it could be a fun track if it doesn't keep getting trampled by tailgaters but they do always have the greens roped off and they look like they're in pretty good shape.

[ryanoldroyd]

West Ridge, UTah. Was like a desert. But heard they remodeled the whole course.

[cdnrockies]

Bali Hai.

They could offer to payme to play and I would still go elsewhere. Worst headache I've ever had on a golf course by hole number 6 and I wasn't even hungover....lol.

By far, the most over priced, over rated course that I've ever been on. Worst part is....I've played it more than once....haha.

[raholland71]

Any muni in south Texas in late July

[JumboJack]

[quote name='DaveyGolf' timestamp='1425100966' post='11045687'][quote name='JumboJack' timestamp='1413258035' post='10282359']
[quote name='markheardjr' timestamp='1412721899' post='10251695']
I have played plenty of just crappy courses that are ill conceived, poorly maintained etc. But no no, this list is for the courses that are just downright idiotic. Like, you can't pay me money to go back. And that list is:

1. Malibu Country Club
2. Lost Canyons - Shadow Course (May be closed now?)
3. Tierra Rejada

Where to start. Malibu is the most infuriating course I have ever played. Elevated tee boxes to tiny narrow fairways, with internal OB all over the place, back up the hill to blind elevated greens that slope to kingdom come. Blind doglegs. It's terrible.

Lost Canyons Shadow, designed by Freddie Couples...soon to be turned into a housing development instead of a golf course. This course had blind doglegs that curved after the blind spot. Many dogleg rights. There was a gopher hole in the middle of a green. The staff just stopped watering it, hoping people would stop playing it I suppose.

Tierra Rejada, again with the blind doglegs, greens on the side of cliffs. In all fairness I played with a guy wearing rain pants that wouldn't stop walking when you hit and always found a way to make noise during your putting stroke...always. I walked off, in a tournament on the 10th hole and played with the group behind me.

Oddly enough, all of those courses are in valleys Northwest of L.A. Apparently I don't care for that area. Honorable mention for E[b]agle Glen in Corona.[/b] Similar to the others, up/down/side of a valley. Terrible track. No thanks.

I can forgive course conditions for good layout, natural use of land, decent views, etc. But some things are just unforgiveable. Like par 5's where you hit iron off the tee, turn 90° to the right and hit it 350y up hill for your 2nd.
[/quote]

To each his own I guess. I love Eagle Glen.
[/quote]

Eagle Glen is a gem. Not liking target golf is one thing, but saying it makes a course bad is a little silly.[/quote]
I would say it is one of my favorite tracks in SoCal..

[longballjs]

East orange golf course in nj

[duffer987]

[quote name='cdnrockies' timestamp='1425202952' post='11052231']
Bali Hai.

They could offer to payme to play and I would still go elsewhere. Worst headache I've ever had on a golf course by hole number 6 and I wasn't even hungover....lol.

By far, the most over priced, over rated course that I've ever been on. Worst part is....I've played it more than once....haha.
[/quote]

LOL! Work conventions commitments? I've not played it, but from all I've heard it sounds like it must do a lot of corporate stuff to keep the tee sheet full, as rarely do traveling golfers praise it.

[T-MAC]

Old Carolina in Bluffton (just off Hilton Head Island) SC. It's (now) a 9-hole course and you can't tell where the fairways end and the greens begin. Dirt, weeds, sand, rocks, and a little grass here and there.
The worst part is, about 13-15 years ago it was an awesome, very well maintained and nicely laid out 18-hole track designed by Clyde Johnston. During the housing boom, the neighborhood around the golf course was selling homes faster than they could build them. They offered a special deal/membership (called The Paddock Club) of free golf for 25 years to people buying a "Club Fairway Home" that included no membership fees, no green fees, no cart fees, and 25% off merchandise at the Pro Shop. Well, the housing boom continued so strong that the developer decided to close 9 holes and the driving range to build more homes and condo's on. After the housing bubble burst, the golf course went to hell and the people who purchased those "Paddock Club Fairway Homes" got screwed royally.
Sad to see what that course turned into.

Another dog track I've played is called Country Lakes in Naperville/Aurora Illinois (Chicago 'burb). I lived in a T-Home there when I was in my 20's and I used to play it after work sometimes. It was a weedfest, covered with Canadian Geese (and their poop), and it seemed like they only cut the grass once a week. Had apartments right along a couple of the holes that got so beat up from golf balls, people used to hang big bullseye posters on their doors and windows for target practice. Some holes were so bad I used to just pick up my ball and go to the next hole. I think they were the last course in the country that finally got rid of the 3-wheel golf carts too. No roofs on them so we would get cooked in July and August, plus they ran like crap. Sometimes they would tip over and we would just leave them there and walk in.
Those were the days!