17th hole, Mudgee Golf Club, New South Wales, Australia

Par: 3

Architect: Dan Soutar

Back tee*: 139 yards / 127 metres

Joe Average tee*: 139 yards / 127 metres

Green fee: AUS$89 (approx. £46)

How she looks

Some holes grab you by the throat the first time you see them, others grow on you over time.

At Mudgee Golf Club, the hole popularly known as 'Donga', falls into the latter category.

It takes its name from the Donga Creek, which flows (intermittently, aerial images would suggest) perilously close to the left side of the green. No prizes for guessing the 'Sunday pin' position.

Back-left of the green, meanwhile, is a mound waiting to punish anyone who has overdone the tee shot in their anxiety to clear the water. Bounce your approach beyond that mound and a devilish up-and-down awaits.

Nor is there much respite if you miss right. Some of the trees that frame this hole so beautifully when you stand on the tee, come close to that side, accompanied by hostile undergrowth.

The net visual effect of all this is to suggest a landing area so 'cosy' that it's been compared to the Postage Stamp at Royal Troon. And all this with not a bunker in sight.

As with the 7th at McCall Lake GC, which kicked off this blog, there's a lot going at Mudgee's penultimate hole. Yet none of it yells at you; it reveals itself in the fullness of time.

No wonder the locals love this heartbreaker.

5th hole, Royal Worlington & Newmarket, Suffolk, England

Par: 3

Architect: Tom Dunn

Back tee*: 154 yards

Joe Average tee*: 154 yards

Green fee: £48.50 after 4pm. Handicap certificate required.

How she looks

*Distances taken from club website or, if unavailable there, from Swingu.

 

By the time you’ve skimmed through the reviews of this hole…

·       “Perhaps the greatest one-shot hole outside the United States” – Golf Club Atlas   

·       “…all-world fifth green” – ibid.

·       “Outside of the otherworldly USGA greens prepared for US Opens…the leader-in- the-clubhouse for the par three with the ‘green-most-impossible-to-putt-on’” – Golf’s Finest Par Threes

…you could be forgiven for expecting a cross between Pebble Beach’s seventh and Augusta National’s twelfth.

Which makes Worlington’s fifth a monument to English under-statement. From the tee, it offers none of the wow factor of its aforementioned American counterparts. Its greatness is tactile rather than visual: you must play it to understand.
Before you even address the challenges of the green, you must negotiate its surroundings. Too far right and there's a chance your ball tumbles all the way down the bank into a stream. Too far left, meanwhile...
They say Mog's Bog/Hole/Hollow (I've seen it called all three) was once a water hazard. Were that still the case, RW&N's 5th wouldn't have made this blog, for water would have been overkill and—on this hole—just as vulgar as a bunker (of which there are none).
Instead, it is a deep grassy pit, that you must golf your way out of, with a pitch to a narrow putting surface. 
A better approach, it's said, is to bump-and-run your ball firmly into the slope leading up to the green so that it just bobbles onto the short grass. Part of the folklore of this hole are the many golfers whose shaky short game has led to them chipping from one side of the green to the other and back again.
The green, meanwhile, is a challenge in itself, an undulating 35 yards in length, it rises towards the rear in a series of steps and has been described by one visitor as "one of the most diabolical greens in the world".
Although I think he meant it in a good way.

13th hole, Bandon Preserve, Oregon, USA

Par: 3

Architect: Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw 

Back tee*: 109 yards / 100 metres

Joe Average tee*: 109 yards / 100 metres

Green fee: $50 Nov. 25-Jan. 31

How she looks

*Distances taken from club website

No, you have not misread the yardage.

Shortness does not automatically preclude greatness. Nor does the fact that your principal reaction upon visiting the teeing area is, "What the hell is this...?!"

The latter, in fact, may well be a prelude to greatness. Any golf hole that spits in the face of convention and expectation, is at least off to a good start.

Such is the final hole (yes, even the hole count is unconventional) at Bandon Preserve.

One sentence in the course notes made me opt for the 13th over the 9th*. 'A bump and run or putt down the left side will funnel onto the green'.

I'm struggling to imagine anything that demolishes the paradigm quite like inviting the use of a putter for your tee shot.

Sure, professionals would eat this hole alive and even for you and me, it probably needs the wind dancing around the place to come into its own. 

But then this blog isn't aimed at professionals and according to those in the know, wind is precisely what Bandon gets, more often than not. Topping out at a frisky 30 mph, no less.

So let's say you get the gusts and everyone in your four-ball goes for the conventional pitch shot. Everyone save one maverick who, amid widespread ridicule, opts for a Texas wedge. And winds up 15 feet closer to the hole than anyone else.

Confounding norms and reminding everyone that the phrase 'more than one way to skin a cat' applies more to golf than maybe any other game. 

On a hole you'll all recall with a smile for years afterwards.

This isn't the Best Picture Oscar, where earnestness prevails over comedy. This is Cheap Golf's Greatest Holes, where just being great fun is sometimes enough to qualify.

* I was really close to choosing the 9th hole here, because it's so beautifully balanced. With the breathtaking backdrop comes an exposed part of the site that throws the hole wide open to the elements. Yet despite this, the safety/calamity equilibrium is nicely maintained by a generous putting surface. You might feel challenged on the tee in a howling gale, but you don't feel doomed.