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This might be fun. Tell us about the worst most ill maintained, ridiculous course you have ever played on.

I have a executive course right around the corner from my house that they kind of "let go" during the off season which is the summer time here in FL. I guess all par three courses are tee to green but this one is tee to green or else during the off season, if you know what I mean.

On the up side its pretty much unlimited play until dark after three in the afternoon for like ten bucks. On the other hand having to hit lasers from 90 to 150 yards to tiny little greens you couldn't even park a Volkswagen on sometimes makes me think my iron play is much worse than it actually is.

There is a course not to far form my home that you can play 18 holes with cart for $20.00 and play extra 9 for $5.00. This could be a really good 18-hole course if they just had someone to take care of the course properly. There are a couple of long par 5’s 565 yard, and 585 yard and some par 4’s that are over 470 from the whites. The problem is they just do not take care of the greens or fairways. In the spring one of par 5’s has clover in the fairway, in June when this stuff blooms you are lucky to find your ball in the white clover blooms. I just wish they would take better care of the course I would pay a higher green fee to see a better course.

There's a course in Central/Southern NJ that I was "forced" to play about 10 years ago. Every other course had a long waiting time. The name of the course ended in "Farms."

Lousy greens, lousy fairways, no course design to speak of. I swore I'd rather not play ever again than to play that course one more time. A terrible experience.

Maybe I'm just too tolerant, having grown up playing golf on converted corn fields and cow pastures in Ohio; but the only courses I've played that have really been awful were new ones on which the grass hadn't yet covered the fairways, resulting in a lot of shots played off bare dirt, and on which little stones--even bigger rocks--poked up through the dirt, threatening to crease the sole of any club that made contact.

Now, I did play one course last year that hadn't been mowed for a week or so because of excessively wet conditions. That was no fun at all. If the ball wasn't in the fairway, you weren't going to find it easily. And when you did find it and hit it, it wasn't going very far. I really got disgusted, although as much at myself for not keeping the ball in the middle of the fairway as for the excessively penal conditions. Too many strokes and too many lost balls: 95 and 6.

I believe there would have to be 2 on my list, Hat Creek in virginia just below Rustburg
and Defuniak Springs in panhandle of fl. When you take of playing a pasture....welcome to Defuniak Springs, postage stamp greens hard as rocks, better be able to play bump and run

I have 2, both executive types. One is a par 32 in my area(Independence Greens GC). I played it with my mom, built amongst an apartment complex. We couldn't distinguish between the fairways and the rough. Corners of the apartment buildings were in play and there was one par-4 I thought we were playing towards the wrong green....tree covered from tee to green down the fairway/rough... no clear path. It was hilarious. The other is one I cut my teeth on as a teen back in Md.(FWIW, so did Fred Funk, we played there a couple of times together in Jr. High) it was a par 31(Paint Branch GC) with 2-3 drivable par-4s and no fairways to speak of...just a combination of sand, rocks, dirt and some scrub-grass. $3 for 9 was just the ticket for someone in my economic bracket back then though.

To paraphrase something my dad told me when I turned 18. There ain't no such thing as bad....(I will use the word golf course here, not exactly what he said) golf course, just some golf course that is better than others. Sage advice from wise man to his son going off to play ball.

Falkland Golf course without a doubt.

9 holes with the aforementioned white clover covering the fairways.

But the worst thing is the second fairway which also doubles as the local soccer pitch (seriously..) complete with goal posts

Is it possible that our Dad's know each other?

Well I'm originally from North Dakota, so they might have been in the same neighborhood a time or two.

Well, I showed up 20 minutes early one time, to find my tee time given away at a local course. It was a replay of Seinfeld standing at the rental car counter adking if they understood what a reservation was. The course itself wasn't too bad, if you don't mind playing somewhere with no distance markers.

Those in the DC area are probably pretty familiar with Hain's point. Very convenient, and good for beginners. It sits on an island in the Potomac. They have a short nine-hole course for the beginners there that they don't really maintain at all. The fairways are all brown most of the summer, and when it rains the place becomes a swamp, there is nowhere for the water to drain. Its in bad shape, but its one of very few courses in the world where you can tee off on the 8th with the Washington Monument to mark your target line.

The worst was Lake Park GC in Lewisville TX BEFORE it got renovated. After the renovation, it was much better, but I can recall many problems out there:

http://www.lakeparkgc.com

* The Teeboxes were in AWFUL shape. NO grass, cracks, and rock-hard ground with virtually no shape or ability to tee off properly. I can recall teeing off to the SIDE of the teeboxes just to find somewhere to stick my tee in the ground!

* Too much play/ too crowded. Since it's close to town, and very cheep and a VERY easy tract, it gets a LOT of play on the weekend. Impossible to play on the weekends.

* Flat as a bone. While it's easy to score there, it's one of the most boring, uninteresting, and dry courses I've had the (dis)pleasure of playing.

* Hard as a rock. Lies were tight and hard. Balls ran forever, and you could never get any decent grass for a good lie. The fairways felt like a construction site, and the rough was WORSE. Ugh.

* Cracks in the Fairways. It was so dry, there's a lot of areas right in the middle of the fairways which had huge cracks, from the turf drying up, and developing huge long cracks that swallow up your balls that roll in the fairways.

2nd place:

Sleepy Hollow GC south of DAllas. This course has been shut down, and had many of the same problems described above. We played there a lot since it was cheep, and close to town, but I hated this place.

My worst experience with a course was at Big Oaks in Kenosha, WI. The course layout was fine but they hardly ever mowed it. You could lose your ball in the middle of the fairway because of 2-3 inch high grass.

DCGolfFreak: I know what episode you're talking about, and it is quite excellent. Anyway, worst course I ever played was the Best Western/Plantation Inn pitch and putt course. Originally an 18 hole par 3 course, it was converted into a 9 hole pitch and putt course when a new hotel was built next door. The yardages were all wrong (they wanted it to seem longer) the tees were the worst astroturf ever (think a blue version of Veteran's stadium) the greens were tiny, and there were more dandelions than there ever were golfers. It was hideous, but cheap. The course is no longer there, a Cracker Barrel has replaced it, and it's no one's loss.

No offense to any fellow Minnesotans who like the place, but for me: Carriage Hills Golf Course in Eagan, MN. I say this without fear of offending the owner; he wants to sell the property for real estate development. However, a local community organization persuaded the Eagan City Council to keep the zoning the way it is (Public Facility, not Residential), thus blocking the sale. To my knowledge, no local golfers have started a "Save This Wonderful Course" movement.

Part of the problem with the course is that there isn't enough land for it. Some holes at the property's boundaries are squeezed up against streets or fences, making it easy to slice a ball into traffic or someone's balcony. Some holes within the course are squeezed up against each other, with signs marking the other fairway as OB for your hole. A high-tension line is a factor at one point. There are hills that serve little purpose but to frustrate. Two holes have greens that sit atop long, steep slopes. If your approach shot lands short, there's a good chance it'll be rolling downhill back at you for about 100 yards (on one hole, go long and you're rolling down the other side). The course's "signature" hole is a pretty par 3 over water. My most vivid memory of the hole is the day the first guy's tee shot startled the geese on the lake into flight. As they flew over us, they were, um, well, doing what geese do on golf courses. We ran for cover.

I used to go there when I hadn't shaved or didn't care about my appearance or had so little pride that I'd be happy to break 90 on a course with a slope of 107 or whatever it was. Maybe it's improved since I've been there.