Fair’s Fair at Ko’olau
The par-5 11th at Ko'olau Golf Club - Oahu, Hawaii
I think that most amateur golfers can agree on this basic tenet of the game: Golf is unfair.
Golf is unfair when you uncork a beautiful drive down the middle, then fat your second shot 10 yards down the fairway. Golf is unfair when your drive slices right, your second hooks left, your third blades over, your putt lips out. Golf is unfair when you try out an invincible new driver and all the magic drains away as soon as you lay down your $299.
Touring pros, on the other hand, seem to think that there is such a thing as fairness in the game. Courses by Pete Dye are unfair. His 17th island green at TPC Sawgrass is especially unfair. It seems that, to the PGA guys, if any hole punishes what would otherwise be a fine shot, it is simply unjust. But to most of us weekend guys, this is absurd. These pro guys, after all, have forgotten the basic tenet.
Putting on the 17th at Ko'olau Golf Club
When it comes to difficult golf courses, however, amateur players tend to forget what they know about the unfairness of the game. Suddenly, tourists are complaining that the Kapalua Plantation Course is unfair (especially that 18th!). Or it’s the Prince Course at Princeville on Kauai that really sticks it to you. The loudest cries of unfairness, however, come in regards to Ko’olau.
Ko’olau Golf Club on Oahu is one of the toughest courses in existence. Indeed, on the scorecard, it states “The world’s most challenging course.” Now, anyone in the US Open field at Bethpage Black this year might dispute that, but the fact remains that Ko’olau is a brute. The course is cut through jungle. The fairways are super tight. There are loads of forced carries, elevation changes, twists, turns, deep bunkers, trade winds, rain…you name it. But what, exactly, makes it unfair?
At most golf courses, when you finally square one up and really poke it down the fairway, it doesn’t really matter that you pushed it into the left rough. You still have a shot at the green, and you feel good flooring the cart 280 yards out to your ball. But was it a good shot? It went in the rough, right? You spanked it, but it was offline. The course is forgiving, so you don’t notice.
Plunging drive at #15, Ko'olau Golf Club
At Ko’olau, there is no such luxurious ambiguity. Differentiating between a good shot and an almost-good shot is a no-brainer. Sure, you nailed it, but you left it out to the right a little. Is it in play? Probably not. Will you ever even FIND YOUR BALL? Not likely.
One of the most common miscues at Ko’olau occurs in regards to distance control. You pull driver on a par-4 and hit it straight down the middle, but, oops, the jungle-choked gorge that splits the fairway has just eaten your ball. Is it unfair that you’re now playing you’re 3rd shot, or should you have simply consulted your yardage book?
It’s strange that we can be so used to so many of the inherent injustices within the game, but when our decent shots are brutally disappeared we rail against the course that treated us so roughly. We badmouth it to our friends. We write online reviews or blog posts. We pretend that we know what we’re talking about. But we forget: Golf is unfair.
-Bryan Fryklund
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