[Scott_Burroughs]

Today's AOTD has the entrance road crossing the fairway of one of the holes.  I consider this a pleasant quirk of a good number of older courses, built before safety was a huge issue and everyone didn't sue the pants off anyone if something like this caused even the most minor injury.

Modern courses generally avoid these things, for safety and litigious reasons, even for private clubs.  

One modern course off the top of my head is Strantz' Tobacco Road, which has the 18th tee shot hit over the entrance road to the course, albeit the tee is rather elevated above the road.

What modern courses do you know of that have this feature?

[Matthew Mollica]

Scott,

Tom Doak posed a question to us here not too long ago, regarding courses with road crossings. There will be some help there, as some posts included roads which crossed specific holes (from memory).

The first one's that spring to my mind are either old or very old holes such as #1 and #18 at St. Andrews Old, #15 and #17 at Pebble Beach (17 from the back tee only?), and #2 at Pasatiempo.

Hope this helps.

Matthew

[THuckaby2]

Matthew:  #2 at Pasatiempo USED to require a tee shot over the entrance road, but is sure doesn't now and apparently hasn't for many years.

I've been mulling this over and Scott's right, on modern courses this does seem to be avoided unless it's absolutely required, ostensibly for the liability reasons.

There is one example at Todd Eckenrode's Shadow Lakes GC out here - back tee on #8 requires a shot over a street.  I wonder if that tee will be closed once the housing gets more filled in and that street becomes more travelled.... hmmm....

In any case the more I try to think of examples, they all do seem to come from older courses.

TH

[Matthew Mollica]

Sorry Scott - Tom's right.

Thanks for clearing that up.

I bow to your superior memory TH  

MM

[THuckaby2]

Matthew - man, if this is what's required for superior memory, well... where to I sign up to make some money off this?

I live about 40 minutes from Pasa and play there fairly often... I was last there on 12/21.  So no huge memory skills required here!  

TH

[corey miller]

Gleneagles course in Manchester, Vermont has a par five that has a public road crossing through the fairway at a 90 degree angle.  Rees Jones did some work here but I am sure this was part of the original design.

The hazard/road crosses the fairway right where the layup area would be after a poor drive.  They have put in out of bounds stakes on both sides of the road to try to increase safety.

[Rob_Hallford]

Doesn't Stanford's course tee off over the road on #1?  I've been on that road, and it seems that it is too busy for such a shot, but that's what an alum told me.

rob

[THuckaby2]

Rob - correct - #1 at Stanford goes over a VERY busy road.  But you're way up above it, and the way the bushes and trees are, you really can't even see the road from the tee...the visual effect is similar to Cypress Point #1 (though Stanford is higher above its road).

Stanford is also a pretty old golf course, ancient by CA standards.

TH

[Scott_Burroughs]

Beechtree's par 5 #8 has a maintenance road cross at about
400 yards from the tee.

[JohnV]

For a reverse sort of crossing, the landing lights for Moffett Naval Airstation are right in the middle of a fairway at Sunnyvale Municipal.  Then include Highway 101 right next to the same fairway and Highway 237 right behind the green and you might have the noisiest golf hole in the world.  I don't remember which hole it is, perhaps Tom H. or one of the other guys from around there does.

[THuckaby2]

JV - we just did the course rating there last summer.. ah yes, beloved Sunnyvale Muni.  Yep, airport landing lights run right through the 10th and 11th holes, mostly on 10.  And darn right this has to be one of the most noisy golf holes on this earth - you described it perfectly!

Interesting, there was a rules discussion regarding these landing lights...I'm gonna show my rules ignorance here, but there was a problem as to what type of obstruction they would be called... whatever was techically correct was not allowing people to drop far enough from them, such that on subsequent shots lights were being smashed and other mayhem was occurring... the powers that be even asked the USGA about this, and apparently they wouldn't budge... so they just said damn the USGA and put in a local rule which allowed line of sight relief...  Can you shed some light on this (pun intended), JV, assuming my explanation is sufficient?

TH

[CHrisB]

The back tee on the par-4 11th at The Preserve GC requires a shot over a road.  The only par-3 I've played with a road crossing is the 7th at Asheboro CC in NC, again from the back tee.

[Chris_Blakely]

Garrison GC in New York has the entrance road run about 50 yards in front of the green on the 13th hole.  The hole plays 375 yards from the back tees.  Boston Corners GC in New York has the 7th hole play over the courses entrance road.  White Oaks GC has the back tee for the par 3 12th play on the opposite side of the entrance road; but, I do not think there is too much danger here as one can easily see any cars that may approach.

As for older courses, Glen Brook GC in the Poconos (designed by Robert White in 1924) has a very interesting stretch of three holes.  The second hole has its tee located on the other side of an active road.  The thrid hole then has the same active road bisect the hole around 240 yards out.  Finally, the 4th hole's tee is situated on a hill just behind the third green and goes back over this same road for the third time.

Another older course playing over a road is the Grossinger's Little G course in the Catskills, the 9th hole plays from an elevated tee over an active road.

[JohnV]

By definition, the lights are immovable obstructions.  As such, the only relief is for interference with swing, stance or lie of ball.  The player should go the nearest point of relief from those and drop within a club-length.  There is no such thing as line-of-sight relief for anything other than a Temporary Immovable Obstruction and these are certainly not temporary.  So, the club put in a local rule that is contrary to the Rules of Golf, but lots of clubs do that for things like declaring the desert as a lateral water hazard etc.  The only other solution I could think of would be to put short posts around the structure out about 10 yards or so and declare the entire area to be one giant obstruction.  Then you would get relief outside of the short posts. and hopefully be back far enough that you could miss the lights.  Of course, given the average players at SV Muni, I'm sure that no distance behind them (or even to the side of them) is truely safe.

After playing there quite a few times when I was growing up, I definitely am not bothered by noises on the golf course.

[Steve Curry]

Pine Valley, #s 1, 5, 7 and 18.  There is a little 9 holer up here in the Berkshires that actually has 3 holes playing across a local town road.  Granted most of the traffic is for the course, but it is a through road.

Regards,
Steve

[Scott_Burroughs]

Thanks for all of your comments, but the topic was modern courses with road crossings.  I can name a lot of classic c ourses with this feature.

I'm thinking Brick Landing on the north end of the Grand Strand had this feature from the back tee on a par 3.

[THuckaby2]

JV - many thanks for the explanation!  Oh yes, that's exactly how it was explained to me during the course rating, and some of those guys are rules officials also so it was a very interesting conversation.  They each emphatically stuck by exactly what you said for competition - which is the correct rule, after all - but heck, tournament players aren't the issue here... they can take the proper relief and be back far enough to easily miss the lights, for the most part.

The issue was what to tell the course when they asked if they can change this to a local rule, to put on the scorecard... too many lights were being broken by people either taking the proper relief, but lacking the proper skill to then miss the lights, or, not taking any relief at all and just firing balls into the lights willy-nilly (yes, apparently this was happening a lot, as odd as it sounds for health reasons....).

When our NCGA folks told them they couldn't change the rules for this situation, the issue went to the USGA... and they said the same thing.... so the club did just go ahead as you say, and wrote a local rule on the card that is contrary to the rules of golf - they made it line of sight going as far back as one wants to be able to safely clear the lights.

Anyway, this whole thing makes sense, but seems to me to be a strange situation.  To me, logically, if lights are being smashed and injury is being risked, than a little bending of the rules is warranted.  I guess the bottom line is that bending of the rules can't happen no matter what... but darn this is a tough one.

TH

ps - the marking of canyons/brush/etc. as lateral hazards is one hell of an interesting issue also... helps for speed of play, but is absolutely contrary to the rules and in the end causes one to have an artifically low handicap if one plays by these... I guess this is supposed to be corrected by us doing the course rating ignoring these illegal markings, which we do, but I'm not sure if this all balances out.

pss - sorry to one and all for going off on the rules tangent!

[rick lamb]

none modern, but...
The Nicklaus re-design (1983-5) of St. Andrew's GC (1888) in NY has 2 (elevated) tee shots (from the tips) on par-5s over the club/residence road.

Deepdale GC in Syosset has its 18th approach right over the club road -- a very exciting shot.

and, of course, The National Golf Links in Southampton, NY has one approach (11th) and two crucial tee shots (8th and 18th) over the county road around which that great course meanders.

[Scott S]

The second hole at Caves Valley crosses  the entrance road to the club. Fairly modern.

[ed_getka]

Lost Dunes has a hole we teed off across a road (can't remember which one).

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