Ten of the World's Strangest Golf Courses Quiz

Answer: Sinkhole

El Camaleón Golf Course was designed by Australian golf great Greg Norman. It is so named because of its constantly changing views as it winds through three different ecosystems: the tropical Mayan jungle, mangrove wetlands, and the Mexican Caribbean Sea coastline.

A cenote is a natural hole in the ground caused by the collapse of limestone bedrock that may open into a subterranean cave. One of the cenotes on the course is called "The Devil's Mouth" - good luck if your ball goes down there! The course is the home of the Mayakoba Golf Classic, which was the first PGA TOUR event to be contested outside the US and Canada.

Answer: True

Located in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, Fossil Trace was built on a former clay mine and designer Jim Engh left old rusty pieces of equipment alongside many of the holes. A notable feature of the twelfth hole is that three sandstone pillars partially obstruct the fairway, and there is a sandstone wall behind the green, on which can be seen trace fossils of palm fronds and Triceratops footprints.

Answer: It is floating on its own island

Billed by the resort as "the world's only Floating Green," the mini-island can be moved as far as 218 yards through a system of cables and winches. Players get to the green by ferry. "Golf Digest" once described Coeur D'Alene Golf Resort as "America's Most Beautiful Resort Golf Course."

Answer: Helicopter

The tee shot is 400m above the ground on Hanglip Mountain, so players are escorted to and from the mountain via a helicopter that takes off from a helipad located inside the resort. Players tee off from over a cliff and aim for the massive green in the valley below that is shaped like Africa and surrounded by jungle. Because of the difficulty of hitting the green, players are allowed up to six shots each and spotters on the ground help locate where the balls land.

The resort is about a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Johannesburg and includes a complete course that runs through the jungle and on which free ranging wildlife such as zebras and antelope may be encountered.

Answer: A motor racing circuit

The golf course overlaps with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the home of the famous Indianapolis 500 and the Brickyard 400. The course was originally opened as the Speedway Golf Course in 1929 and had 27 holes. It underwent a major reconstruction in 1993 when it was converted to an 18-hole golf course and renamed the Brickyard Crossing Golf Resort.

The course has 14 holes outside the track, along the backstretch, and four holes in the infield. The course hosted a PGA Tour event, the 500 Festival Open Invitation, from 1960 to 1968, as well as the Brickyard Crossing Championship from 1994 through 2000.

Answer: Desert

The club was formed in 1976 in a dry rocky area. Coober Pedy is more famous for its opal mining and the club's website claims that many golfers have actually found opals while playing. Amusingly, signs can be seen saying "Keep off grass" even though the 18-hole course has no grass at all.

The tees are topped with artificial turf and the fairways are maintained by spreading local white sandstone on rough areas, and by rolling after infrequent rain showers. The club has a local rule of "Rock Relief" that if the ball comes to rest on or against rocks so that it cannot be moved, the ball may be dropped at the nearest point of relief, but not nearer to the hole.

The greens are made from "scrapes" that are made of local quarry dust, which has been mixed with waste oil to create a smooth surface suitable for putting.

Answer: The world's longest golf course

The 18-hole course spans 1,365 kilometres (848 miles) with one hole in each participating town or roadhouse along the Eyre Highway, from Kalgoorlie in Western Australia to Ceduna in South Australia (i.e., it crosses two different states and time zones).

The course was built by the Eyre Highway Operators Association, a community organisation, to form a networking organisation to support businesses along the Eyre Highway. Completing the course would take about four days, which encourages players to spend money at local venues.

The actual holes have plenty of grass and the greens are well-kept, so it is not particularly dry, and hopefully is not particularly difficult or dull.

Answer: Browns

The Firestone plantation is considered the world's largest contiguous rubber plantation at over 250 square miles. Located within is the Firestone Overseas Golf Club, which has a nine-hole course that does not have properly maintained fairways but roughs instead. Unable to afford greens either, the "browns" are a combination of oil, sand, and iron ore.

Answer: Land mines

Camp Bonifas is a United Nations Command military post located 400 m from the Demilitarized Zone that forms the border between South Korea and North Korea. It features an Astroturf green, surrounded on three sides by minefields. (I guess most players take a penalty if they hit the ball outside the green.) "Sports Illustrated" magazine called it "the most dangerous hole in golf." There has been at least one incident in which a ball set off a mine!

Answer: Greenland

The championship is held on the island of Uummannaq in central-western Greenland. According to an old Norse Saga, Greenland was so-named by Erik the Red as he thought that people would be attracted there if it had a pleasant-sounding name. However, the place is not noted for its greenery, being one of the coldest inhabited places in the world. Uummannaq contains Greenland's first golf course, founded in 1999 with nine holes, which has the distinction of being reformed each year by moving ice, which determines the shape of the course.

Hence, it is laid out anew each year a week before the tournament begins, weather permitting. Red balls are used for visibility and the holes tend to be shorter and the cups a little larger than on standard gold courses, and the greens are called "whites." For obvious reasons, golf buggies cannot be used, and local rules cover such eventualities as having one's ball stolen by a polar bear!