Most creative shot/ Unique??

[pinhigh27]

Whats your most creative shot(example of skipping the ball on a sprinkler head under a tree to get on the green or something like that)? I don't really have anything spectacular to contribute, just wanted to see what others are.

[wombat50]

I pull my 50 yd pitch a little left on my approach shot to a par five green.
It hits the collar of the green, bounces left , runs down a 14' bank, crosses a cart path and falls over a 3' high retaining wall and rolls down the bank another 10'.
I have been in the same spot before and it is a sick feeling.
So to get back on the green I have to negotiate all that and keep it low because of some overhanging branches.
I have an awkward stance in 8 inch tall grass that is laid over.

First I tell my mates, I'm giving it one go and if I don't get out I'm picking up. I make good contact and it comes out low and clears the wall.
I'm definitely out of this mess even if I did hit it too hard. Shortly, one of my playing partners yells, "Here it comes back at ya." It had hit a railroad tie
retaining wall hard on the other side of the green, recrossed and when I saw it I'm thinking the damn thing is going to roll back down to where I'm standing.
But fortunately it stopped not far from the collar where I had an easy chip back onto the green.
Not spectacular but better then picking up.

[One_Putt_Blunder]

I layed up on a par 5 with a putter. I have also intentionally played bank shots off of rocks and walls.

[pinhigh27]

[quote name='One_Putt_Blunder' timestamp='1284091027' post='2688697']
[b]I layed up on a par 5 with a putter.[/b] I have also intentionally played bank shots off of rocks and walls.
[/quote]

Care to elaborate?

[One_Putt_Blunder]

Sorry posted that one from my phone,

I did it as a joke on #18 at Stoneridge Golf Course in Prescott Az. it turned out to be the best way to play the hole.

As for the shot #18 is a 630 yard par 5 with a totally blind super narrow (maybe 10-20 yards wide) landing area to hit your layup. to make it worse it drops about 60-90 feet down from the level where you hit yout second, so gauging yardage is even harder. I putted the ball 120 yards down the serpentine hill, hit 9 iron to the green and made par. I actually played my first ball to the green since I only had 200 yards left, but I wanted to know what kinda shot to hit if I was not able to reach the green in two. So I busted out the putter and then decided to play that one out as well to see what happened.

Here is the hole in question #18 I putted from just past point B on the map and rolled it down the huge hill into the bunker on the right at the last dog leg. Obviously you cant pick up the terrain change on the map but trust me when I say it just drops straight down apparantley the course was built on tribal indian land and there were some disputes over sacred ground so they had to scramble to reroute 18 to what I now consider to be the worst par 5 in the world.
[attachment=654237:sryardage1318.jpg]

[mat562]

 I can remember hitting the over-the-head shot once, in a club match, back when I was 15 or so. My old club has a few deep greenside bunkers that feature steep back lips which are covered in heather and thus capable of snagging up a ball. On the back nine I put an approach into an awkward spot, on something like a 70 degree slope on the back side of the trap probably fifteen yards or so from the hole. Because of the slope and the position of the ball, perched a good 20" from the foot of the back lip and a similar distance from its top, there was no other shot to play, and because it was a matchplay situation it was worth a go. I'd seen it done previously by a local pro (it predated Mickelson's popularisation of the shot by a year or three) and, as you do when you're young and you see something fancy, I'd gone away and tried it in practice; so I wasn't a total novice at the shot and felt I had a reasonable chance of pulling it off. 

I've no idea what my playing partner's face looked like as I set up to the shot (I was concentrating on the ball) but I can remember what it looked like immediately after I smacked one back over my head, onto the green and to within ten or twelve feet of the hole with my trusty old L wedge.

Great fun.

[mat562]

[i]One Putt[/i], a local course has a similarly drastic elevation change that's led to a couple of questionably-designed holes. A sort of mild cliff runs across the acreage on which the course is built, with the first and 10th tees, the 16th green and the closing two holes on a sort of promontory overlooking the rest of the course.

The 10th is a near 90-degree dogleg left of a par 4. The hole goes straight away for 220 yards or so and then turns directly left, going straight down a slope that, in the wet, is steep enough to have you slipping and occasionally losing your footing. After 170 yards or so of ski jump ramp there's a green at the bottom. As the crow flies it's probably only 300 yards or so to the green, needless to say downhill, so a driver would be an option, but there's a stand of tall, mature pine trees all the way down the left that makes it a very dicey option, plus the area around the green is so small as to make it very likely that the ball would be lost if you had a cut, forecaddies or spotters perhaps excepted.  I've had a couple of goes with a driver, getting it over the trees both times, but both balls were lost in the bushes near the green and, needless to say, I hadn't a inkling of where to start looking as the shot's totally blind.

The stock shot is a 3 or 4 iron to the top of the hill and then something (a putter would probably work) to the bottom. A crafty option, if you can manage it, is to hit a stinger with a long iron, taking it as close as you possibly can to the dense treeline at the very apex of the dogleg with a bit of hook. If you get it [i]just right, [/i]it's possible to sort of get around the end trees and catch the start of the slope and, in hard conditions, get it right down somewhere by the green. I've managed it twice; one just off the front edge and another time about ten yards short. Great fun when it happens, but you have to be so exacting in where the ball lands that you run the risk of catching the end trees and having to chip out sideways - albeit even that shot, if it catches the slope, has a chance of going all the way down to the bottom of the hill.

On the back nine, the huge slope comes into play again on the 16th hole. It's an uphill par 3 of about 170 yards with the space between the green and the front of the green composed almost entirely of about seventy-odd feet's worth of the same slope. It's an absolute killer to walk up it, even taking the path that takes a circuitous route up a less severe bit of slope to one side. Needless to say, a ball that pitches short is on a hiding to nothing as the entire slope is basically fairway height and hardpan, with the odd tuft or area of thicker, longer grass poking up. Presumably the greens committee have a sense of humour. I've seen several shots, and hit two or three of my own, that flew 165 yards and ended up taking all of 30 seconds or more to come to rest, finally, about 25 yards from the front of the tee. Needless to say, there's much mirth and mickey taking whenever[i] that[/i] happens and for the last two holes you're the brunt of some ribbing.

[pinhigh27]

sounds like some interesting holes! good stories so far! The only thing I've done really is bounce shots off the cart path to stay under trees and stuff like that.

[Goinlow333]

The most creative shot I've hit was at my home course on the 425 yard Par 4 7th. I hit my second shot with my 9 iron poorly, it ended up short right in the fairway, about 15 yards off the front edge of the green. There is a nasty slope/shoulder just short right of the green, and of course, the pin was front right with about a flagstick legth of green to work with. And to add to the difficulty there was a sprinkler head right in my way about a couple yards off the edge of the green. I had no chance of flying the slope and keeping it anywhere near the pin since the greens were running pretty quick that day. So I took my 9 iron out again and was planning to try a low bump and run and let the ball take the slope and roll near the hole. So I stepped up choked up a bit and leaned my hands forward and hit a low chip that landed about 6 yards short of the green it rolled up the slope, around the right side of the sprinkler head and rolled onto the green down the hill right to left and into the hole like I had just putted it.

It may not seem too spectacular but It was really good feeling to picture the shot I was trying to play and executing perfectly.

[hemihotrod402]

probably would have to be on hole 3 on my home course. It's a 580 yard par 5 and I started completely crappy. I chunked my tee shot, which went about 90 yards. Than I hit 3 wood and ended up being about 280 out. The fairway carries about 190 yards before it goes to a creek, and then there's the green. There was a tail wind so I hit my 6 iron. When I hit it I pulled it a tad and it looked like it was headed straight for the cart path. Somehow it landed in the rough and had enough spin that it caught the cart path and rolled....and rolled....and rolled some more, over the bridge going over the creek, and plopped up just off the green.

I hit my 6 iron 260 yards.

The great thing is with as bad as I started, I managed to chip on and then one putt to save par.

[younghitter]

I once chunked my chipshot and it bounced off the path to about a foot

[PGAMBR2007]

My favorite is the hooded wedge out of a buried lie in the bunker, especially when someone is saying "oh you are screwed, no way you're getting that one out"!!!

[hawaiiandude]

I hooked a drive up against the out of bounds fence (chain link).
Since the fence defined the out of bounds, I scaled the fence and from standing on the other side, I took a full swing and hit the chain link fence that my ball was up against and the ball went 50 yards back on the fairway.

All within the rules.
I ended up parring the par 5 hole.

[mat562]

[quote name='hawaiiandude' timestamp='1284420511' post='2694921']
I took a full swing and hit the chain link fence that my ball was up against 
[/quote]
I like it.

Thinking about it, I must have done the old St Andrews [i]Wall Shot[/i] three or four times over the years; either the snooker version where only the ball hits the stones or the Jiménez/Sandelin version where the head of the sand wedge makes a clack too. Provided the wall's not too 'lumpy' (brick is best, whilst drystone is always more dicey) it's usually possible to have some sort of idea where the thing's going to end up.


I doff my cap to your chain-link fence effort though. That's a shot with which I'm unfamiliar.

[One_Putt_Blunder]

Mat, your post got me thinking about the hole I was talking about.

It is theoretically possible to hit a 450+ yard drive on the 18th at stoneridge by hitting the shot you were describing on the par 4. We played the back tees and even though we both hit 335 yard drives and we were about 30 yards away from catching the slope. I would assume if you played the next tee box up and hit a slinging draw/hook around that corner you could catch the slope and it would end up as darn near a 500 yard drive by the time it stopped rolling down that cliff of a hill.
Something I may have to try next time I am up there, Then I would be able to officially compete with the big hitters on the wrx:secret:

[razorbird]

Last week I hit a left handed shot [i][b]from right up against a chain link fence[/b][/i] with a right handed 7 iron from about 70 yards out. Bounced up on the green to 10 feet but missed the birdie. The whole time I stood over the approach, 3 crazy dogs were [i][b]trying to get through the fence to take my head off[/b][/i]...one was a three legged mongrel. Maybe not the most creative shot, but the scenario was funny.

[razorbird]

[quote name='razorbird' timestamp='1284426419' post='2695092']
Last week I hit a left handed shot [i][b]from right up against a chain link fence[/b][/i] with a right handed 7 iron from about 70 yards out. Bounced up on the green to 10 feet but missed the birdie. The whole time I stood over the approach, 3 crazy dogs were [i][b]trying to get through the fence to take my head off[/b][/i]...one was a three legged mongrel. Maybe not the most creative shot, but the scenario was funny.
[/quote]

Hawaiian dude would have had a tough time with his method there!

[HackerPratt]

About 12 years ago I was playing in my club's member guest event. Hole 9 of the West course at Belfair, is a par four that dog legs to the left and has water left of the fairway all the way to the green. To the right in the landing area are some 300 year live oaks. Anyway, the smart shot is a solid 3wd just to the left of the oaks. That day I tried to sling a driver around the corner and get within wedge range...well I bailed on the driver right and I caught the first of the oak trees, about 160 yards out. The area under the trees was mulch and my ball was about 4 feet from a tree on the opposite side of where the fairway would be, so I had three options: 1-hit it backwards into rough that would leave me 185+ and would have to get the ball up quick if I wanted to hit the green. 2-hit is farther right with a limited swing to get close to the cart path which was about 25 yards away, problem was that the OB markers were 3 yards on the other side. 3-Hit something low, under 10 feet, that would fly through the air 40+ yards and then hopefully run towards the green.

So, my playing partner hit the green in two, so I figured I would try the crazy shot under the oak trees. I didn't really know if I could keep a 3 iron in the air that long and that low.....so I pulled out my trusty Ping Pal and took a full swing. I don't know if I could ever pull this off again, but it flew about 6 feet above the ground for 50 yards, caught the fairway and ran onto the front of the green in regulation. I then 2 putted for a par (story would be better if I sank the 30 footer), I was pretty impressed with my 3 Putt from 160 yards.

[larrybud]

194 yard par 3. Blocked it right into the trees. Rattled around ,and I was 40-50 YARDS short. Rough under the trees was pretty much hardpan. I grabbed the putter, gave it a mighty whack. The ball rolled out of the rough... well that's good. Ball roll through the fairway into the front edge of the green.. Wow, pretty cool! Ball still had some speed, holy crap, it's going at the hole, IT'S IN!!

[MtlJeff]

there's a course around here with a 140yd par 3 downhill, and the grass is cut pretty short. One day i played it and the wind was so strong in our faces i basically putted onto the front fringe with my 19 degree hybrid. I thought that was pretty cool

[Jimbud]

I played a round with a friend and on the 1st hole after a nice drive he pulled out a 8 iron and set up for a shot in to the green from about 145. He hit the ball thin skulling the ball which ended up being a line drive that never got higher then 10 feet off the ground. The ball flew over the green hitting a golf cart parked at the 2nd hole tee box 15 yards behind the 1st green. The ball ricocheted off the cart onto the green hitting the pin and into the hole for a eagle.

[Cicero]

Well before I even sniffed breaking 100, I was playing a hilly course with pretty undulating greens. Well, my ball ended up in the rough about 2 feet below the level of the green, short sided, downhill to a flag about 3-5 paces on. The rise was shaved, but since I was in the rough, I couldn't putt it. And there was no way I could pull off any kind of high pitch; it would have landed on the downslope and run 15-20 feet by, not to mention I didn't have that shot. After looking at it, it dawned on me to chip the ball right into the slope to kill the speed. I hit it to 2 feet and made the putt.

For me, at that time, that was the best shot I'd ever hit, because I wasn't thinking about my swing, or about technique. I figured out the shot I needed, and I pulled it off. When you are a hack, that is a big deal!

[BadBilly429]

course I play in SE michigan quite a bit, springfield oaks, 400 + yd #10 is a par 4, pull yanked a drive left, smoked a tree, rocketed off tree forward onto cart path 3 huge bounces, up onto the green and rolled out to about 2 inches lol, almost had a hole in 1 on a par 4!

My dads best friend was playing in a charity outing here in Mi in 2002, hole in one hole sponsored by GM 160 yds elevated green protected by bunkers and trees, pull yanked a 6 iron into left trees, hit the trees went on green, in the hole, won a 2002 Tahoe lol, GM was peeesed off!

[bordenms19]

[quote name='hawaiiandude' timestamp='1284420511' post='2694921']
I hooked a drive up against the out of bounds fence (chain link).
Since the fence defined the out of bounds, I scaled the fence and from standing on the other side, I took a full swing and hit the chain link fence that my ball was up against and the ball went 50 yards back on the fairway.

All within the rules.
I ended up parring the par 5 hole.


[/quote]

I will have to remember that, could come in handy.

[golf playa]

i was in a school match and the hole was a dogleg right. drew my driver to under a small pine tree. no direct shot into the green. right side of the tree trunk was aiming to another hole and left side was aiming to the next tee box. took a 4 iron. played it really back in my stance. took it back and just powered through while closing the club face. ball took off low and drew about almost 90 degrees. rolled up to the back of the green.

[DieHard519]

I'm sure I've had a few I can't remember, but one I do happened just 3 days ago. On the par 5, 7th hole of a local muni, I was still 110 yards from the green hitting my 4th shot. I was on the right side in the rough, under a tree with two more trees in my line to the hole so going high wasn't an option. There's a bunker on the front right and the green is elevated with a big right to left breaking hill on the right side. I decided to hit a punch with my 4 iron and try to run it up the front edge through the rough between the fairway and bunker (1 yard wide) to slow it down a bit so it didn't run off the back of the green. I hit the shot almost perfectly.....it was low and running fast, it caught the rough and ran on the green catching the right to left break and ended up 5 feet from the cup. I wish it had a tiny bit more speed because that 5 footer was a right to left break downhill. But I made it to save par. I love saves like that.

Shots like that that really make you think about the variables just escalate my passion for this great game!!