Thanks for the explanation, Black Aces. It's kinda what I suspected but it seems I was getting a less than stellar "interpretation" of the rules from the person I play the most with. Since he keeps score for us, I guess I'll just mentally note the number of lost balls from now on.

I concur with your assessment! Plan is 36 a day for two days at Gamble, each course each day. Then 18 at Couer d' Alene, then 36 at Circling Raven the last day.

You bet, I'm a giant golf and rules dork so I love talking this stuff. And it could be correct! Possible that the course has the woods as a red penalty area. I played a local course in a tournament and it has several native areas and I emailed them that it would really enhance pace of play for those to be red penalty areas, and they said they officially are, even though it isn't staked or on the scorecard.

What is that logic by the golf course, "Officially they are" but basically only by word of mouth

Haha, exactly! I was quite nonplussed.

flying through spokane? been up to grand coulee country but not to GS since it opened

I need to ask. The woods here are impenetrable. Not to mention full of snakes and other critters. Last time I stepped in i got stung by a wasp.

98 (51/47) Nothing really bad or good. Just scrambling. No hole over 7. Lost 1 ball. Only 1 GIR. 1 3 putt.

Oops, wrong thread. Sorry.

Flights not booked yet, but yes, that's the plan!

I don't see any red stakes, but this is exactly the kind of thing that should be a red penalty area IMO. I would ask the course for sure. Or frankly at this point, play it as red and keep grinding and improving!

So, I took a better look at this. There aren't any red stakes but there are red painted lines along the edges of the jungle. Does this change anything?

Red painted lines means the jungle is designated as a red penalty area, so one of your options is to drop within two club lengths of where it crosses into the red penalty area, no closer to the hole, for one penalty stroke.

Think this is the correct place to ask... recently retired so looking to fill my days, buddy says I should volunteer as a marshal at the course by my house. He said all they do is monitor pace of play and maybe make sure tee times are adhered to, but Googling said you should be familiar with the rules of golf in case of questions.

I am a hack, golf maybe once every two years and don't have a good understanding of the rules. Should that even be a factor?

Never once have I seen a marshal at a course needed for rules disputes. Just another example of AI slopping out bad information, hate it. 100% you should go for it!

Dig it, thanks!

So my friend and I had seen a Fried Egg video about this absurd layout in Cincinnati and had a long talk about it. We had a long weekend in Cincy/Lexington and decided to get eyes on it. The wind chill was 5 and so it was closed and also that meant we of course could get out and walk the whole layout. Absolute insanity and amazingness. Obv is area where you are in the fairways of 1, 7, and 9 at same time. 2-6 are all par 3 btw. Not visible on map is giant Indian mound with a bush on top which completely blocks view of 3 green. So a 185 yard completely blind shot with OB 5 yards long and another tee box 10 yards right of the green. What could go wrong?

Well, they do not use marshals, so I asked what they use volunteers for, was told "Cleaning carts, washing range balls, picking up range balls"

So not sure that sounds as enjoyable

That's insane.

Uh, yeah, not so much.

There is also a 180 yard par 3 that is basically a dogleg. There are giant trees between the tee box and the green like 40 yards short of the green, no way to go over them. So only way to hit the green is a 20 yard cut, and if you miss the green right, drop off into oblivion. #5 on the map above.

Aces - that layout reminds me of this post from a bit ago
and a buddy of mine wrote this describing it
http://www.chriswilsonrealtor.com/blog/?p=4360

This is great! My friend and I actually compared it to the original Sheep Ranch while we walked it and for extra synchronicity I was wearing a Sheep Ranch hoodie.

If we're doing absurd layouts, I'd like to nominate hole 15 and 16 on Corballis near Dublin, Ireland.

Here the holes do not just have crossing or intersecting fairways, they're played on the exact same fairway and against the people coming from the other hole.

As you tee off on 15, you have the green for hole 16 to your right. And when you tee off on 16th, you have the green for 15th on your left. You play the same fairway, with tee and green being on the opposite sides of that fairway for each hole.

Here's the flyover from hole 15 where you can see the green for hole 16 on the right as you tee off:
https://corballislinks.com/hole/hole15

And playing 16 you're going back the same fairway for hole 16 (again, seeing the green for hole 15 on the left) :
https://corballislinks.com/hole/hole16

First time playing it, I've rarely been more confused on a golf course than having teed off on 15th and suddenly seeing 4 people come walking straight towards us on "our" fairway.

hell yes, why not

Bombs away baby

I upgraded from my Garmin R10 launch monitor to the Rapsodo MLM2PRO. I plan to use it mainly on the range but also indoors when I'm hitting on the TrackMan simulator at my golf course. Having video is important to me and while Garmin showed me that, it was too buggy. On top of that, this is more accurate. Does anyone have experience with it and if so, what do you think of it? I'm in Michigan so it's going to be a while before I can use it at the range!