A course with no bunkers

[OmegaG5]

I played Painswick (Gloucestershire, England) yesterday.... a course with no bunkers! But wow! Well, no bunkers unless you count the huge old stone quarries, and a 2,500 year old Iron Age Fort.

There are five holes in this Iron Age fort.
The 5th (par 3) is in the bottom left hand corner of the fort.
Enlargement below

And from the ground it looks like this!

Ha! It says that it is possible to get a hole in one. In your dreams! The hole is down on the other side in a very deep bowl in the centre of the fort, with a little aiming marker on the top of the hill. (I got a par!)

From the white tees it looks even more daunting.

Once up there on the top of the hill fort, there are 60 mile plus views south, west and north. Awesome!

Lots of phenominal holes like this on the course... and not a single bunker, but acres of trouble.

R.

 

[Hitman]

That looks like it would be fun to play.

 

[Adam Pettman]

Thats one hell of a Par3

 

[SiberianDVM]

I would not want to play it. Can't stand blind shots. Who the heck let somebody build a golf course in an archiological site, anyway?

 

[MGP]

Who the heck let somebody build a golf course in an archiological site, anyway?

The guys who bought the land and dug it up. After they were done digging they said "well, now we got a bunch of dug up land, what are we gonna do with it?"

"Hey, let's put some tee boxes and greens on it and call it a golf course... those crazy golfers will actually pay us money to play there!" :laugh:

I do kinda like it though, but it looks like the kind of place I'd like to play once or twice just to say I've played there. I don't think I'd want to play there all the time.

 

[OmegaG5]

The course at Painswick is well over 100 years old.

R.

 

[demon]

I played a course near my house a month ago because it was cheap. I stated to one of the guys on the 9th green, hey there are no bunkers on this course are there? He laughed and said no. I cant beleive I didnt notice it.

 

[MGP]

The course I grew up playing as a kid had no bunkers on the front 9. Well no sand bunkers at least and no water as well. It was a course designed in 1926 that has very narrow fairways, very small elevated and undulating greens. There isn't a straight hole on it and the fairways are pretty well lined by tall oak trees. The fairways are protected by numerous grass bunkers -- some 10-20 yds. long and 6-8 ft. deep with all kinds of nasty grass (think rough from British links courses). You didn't want to be in them. Sometimes you had no choice but to wedge out a few yards back to the fairway (if you could manage to).

The 2nd nine was added some years later and was more open, parkland style common in the midwest so playing 18 there was like playing two different courses.

I love the front nine on that course, it's still one of my favorite 9's to play and a very tough stretch of holes even though it's not all that long.