How Exactly Do We Determine Candidate Holes For Buffalo’s Best?

Thanks to our viewers, we’ve received a bit of feedback and more than a bit of uncertainty as to how we determine our 4 public and 4 private holes for each week’s “Buffalo-Niagara’s Best Nth Hole” votes. Valid question for a transparent website, so here’s the answer. Strap in!

There is a fallacy in golf, that difficult equals great. It doesn’t. It equals difficult. There’s another fallacy in golf, that difficult plus severe equals great. It doesn’t. It equals “I’m giving up this stupid game.” A long time ago, wise dead old guys (WDOGs from here on out) determined (while still living) that holes that could be played from tee to green with a putter (no matter how many strokes) were fair holes to all. These WDOGs then set about the construction of playable hazards (meaning, not water/H2O nor out of bounds/OOB) to challenge golfers of greater skill. These challenges included holes that bend (doglegs), sand bunkers, grass bunkers and rumples in fairways and greens.

BuffaloGolfer.Com is truly enamored of these types of holes. A hole, in our estimation, can be considered great if it is playable by all levels, yet still a challenging par or birdie for the most adept ball-strikers our area can claim. While water hazards may look pretty, they irrevocably seize strokes from golfers, in a way that sand, rough or declivities do not. The same goes for OOB. What good is a fine drive that leaks slightly OOB, forcing the golfer to slump, head down, shoulders bent, to the tee and mutter “hitting three”? No good, say we.

In 2008, our traveling circus made the rounds of northern Michigan. One of the courses we played closed with a terrific, downhill par four…that played its final 180 yards over a wide pond. No alternate route to the green was planned by the architect; it was all or nothing. Tell us what the sense is in that? You want heroism? It’s never planned. Nor is anything in golf heroic, unless it involves the saving of a life. Would you ever brag about how many balls you dunked in that pond? No, you wouldn’t. You’d swear the course off for life, is what you would do. Who wants that?

Trust us when we say, a small water carry (even a medium one) is fine; a large one is acceptable when alternate routes to bogey are available. As always, should you have questions, opinions, insults or lawsuits, convey them to us in the comment window below. We value your thoughts and request them at your most frequent convenience.