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Hole 5 St. Andrews

• Thetruth67 158 Posts

  Thu, Feb 25 2010 1:48 PM

  Just wondering....what the hell is the thing protruding from the middle of the 5th fairway?

   

  And has anyone hit it yet?

• WGTniv 1,788 Posts

  Thu, Feb 25 2010 2:15 PM

  Those are actually ancient yardage markers believe it or not.  The markers are over 300 years old and since they are historical they can't be removed.

  They do cover them during play because they are a safety hazard due to balls smacking into them off the drive and ricocheting into other fairways and walkways. 

  You can't hit them yet, but it is a subject of debate... *evil grin*

  *edit*  Found this interesting article regarding the markers.  Scroll down to the August 5th entry almost all the way down the page.  http://www.lpga.com/content_1.aspx?mid=2&pid=12017

• Snaike 3,678 Posts

  Thu, Feb 25 2010 2:29 PM

  From Niv's link above....

  lpga.com:

  A couple of times I ran across these tombstone looking things in the middle of some fairways. I figured they were yardage markers but I was wrong. I stopped to ask a volunteer and he told me that they were field boundary markers. I guess the Old Course was at one time a field and these tombstones marked the boundaries of the field. He also said that on some of the markers one side has a G and the other side and R. The G stands for golf and the R for rabbits. Very interesting.

  They are field boundary markers.

  Peace.

• TomFetner 34 Posts

  Fri, Feb 26 2010 6:16 PM

  I think I hit it once because the ball landed very close and took a huge, crazy bounce.  It is definitely something to avoid.

• JulioMoot 76 Posts

  Sun, Feb 28 2010 7:49 PM

   i've been told they could be plaques stating where certain persons have holed out from.

  after looking on the web, i found them to be March Stones.

• bifferskipper 76 Posts

  Sun, Feb 28 2010 9:11 PM

  I thought it was a tombsone of some poor soul who caught a hearattack after holeing his shot from there...thanks for the actual answer of what it really is

• Joeyola 1,210 Posts

  Mon, Mar 1 2010 12:44 AM

  I hit a drive that went straight through the middle of it.  

  Joey  

• lvietri 3,326 Posts

  Mon, Mar 1 2010 8:53 AM

  I was curious myself ... so I took the liberty of magnifying the headstone and lo and behold .. look what I found.

   

  

• brandi35 295 Posts

  Mon, Mar 1 2010 9:08 AM

  OMG....too funny Lou....LMAO!!!