Line #101 Main/BizarreAndImprobableGolfGame


1	[[quoteright:350:[[ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fore.jpg]]]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:Those are the rules, but...]]
3
4	->'''Dale Gribble:''' What happens if my tee shot lands on a bird's back and he carries it out of bounds but then is attacked by a larger bird who grabs the ball and drops it in the hole? Is that still a hole-in-one? Because that's how I'm going to play it.
5	->'''Hank Hill:''' Dang it, Dale! It already happened once. What are the odds of it happening again?
6	-->-- ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'', "[[Recap/KingOfTheHillS6E15AManWithoutACountryClub A Man Without a Country Club]]"
7
8	Whenever there is a golf game in the TV show, one or both of the following effects may occur:
9
10	1. The rules say that the ball must be hit from where it lands, no matter what. [[HilarityEnsues Slapstick ensues]] as the ball goes into the most insane places, such as in the middle of the street or onto moving trucks. This may occasionally be subject to a LampshadeHanging as the other players urge the character, in vain, to take the penalty stroke.
11
12	2. A hit golf ball bounces from several things (such as tree branches) before finally either going straight into the hole or landing right where it started. May be a [[{{Pun}} stroke]] of luck, which ensures that the good guy wins the golfing tournament, or occasionally wreck their effort to DoWellButNotPerfect. See also BizarreAndImprobableBallistics.
13
14	Often the protagonist will be playing against their boss, who expects to win. The protagonist will have to lose in a way that looks natural, and overlook blatant cheating.
15
16	This trope usually makes a golfer play a ball in a place where nobody in the real world would (extremely close to a dangerous animal like a {{bear\|sAreBadNews}} or [[NeverSmileAtACrocodile alligator]] is popular). There are rules that cover this, and usually [[ArtisticLicenseSports the writers are oblivious to them]] (or simply [[RuleOfFunny choose to ignore them]] in the name of hilarity ensuing).
17
18	In the cartoon version, all players must wear hideously ugly clothing (sometimes happens in real life as well) and must wiggle their behinds when setting up a shot.
19	----
20	!!Examples:
21	[[foldercontrol]]
22	[[folder:Advertising]]
23	* Miller Lite's "The First Lite Beer Open" commercial has several. Most notably among them:
24	** Bert Jones' ball lands right in front of a tree. L.C. Greenwood pulls the tree out of the ground so Bert can continue.
25	** Creator/BobUecker hits a ball from the water hazard (the water is so deep Bob is completely underwater, with his hat floating on top).
26	** Creator/RodneyDangerfield hits a ball that bounces off a weather vane, down the downspout of a rain gutter, onto the green and into the hole.
27	* Another Miller Lite Commercial, "Miller Lite Presents 'Full Contact Golf'" shows a bizarre golf game where a golfer has to successfully play a hole while a football defense tries to stop him.
28	* Cigar advert starring Russ Abbot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE3uIrzt0Jg
29	* ''Advertising/{{Cryptoland}}'': In the Bitcoin Cash Super Golf area, Connie hits a golf ball really high into the air, then it bounces off the word "FAST" and a melex, making it fly for a while, and still manages to land in a hole.
30	[[/folder]]
31
32	[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
33	* A chapter in ''{{Manga/Kochikame}}'' when Ryotsu rigs the game allowing his team (using a remote control ball) to win including helping his boss Ohara. The last stroke, Ryotsu has to play fair and square and surprisingly, like Dale Gribble's quote above, a crow took the ball and dropped it in the hole. Each subsequent win, there's a large party hosted.
34	* One chapter of ''Manga/GhostSweeperMikami'' had Reiko dueling a spirit in a golf match on a course with impossible terrain, with both players using psychic powers to control the ball. Amusingly, the match is won by Okinu, who had never played golf before, and was playing the game normally, mainly because subtracting her absurdly high handicap from her absurdly high score put her one point below the enemy's score.
35	* In a brief scene in ''Anime/DragonBallZFusionReborn'', Goten is hit by a golf ball while retrieving a Dragon Ball from a golf course. Angry about the hit, he proceeds to take revenge by dropping the ball into a nearby hole... cut to the old man who was playing being completely elated at getting his first hole-in-one.
36	* ''Anime/BirdieWing'': Not about 'Play it where it lies' in this show. That's small potatoes. Every element of golf in this series is unhinged. Its answer to the question of whether you should hit through a tree or around is to literally ''hit through'' the tree - like, the ball hits a branch, snaps it off and is barely slowed down. Another drive passes, in dramatic slow motion, between train carriages. Some drives merit CallingYourAttacks. Then there's the sinister underground golf Mafia with its secret modular course that can replicate any hole, anywhere. Then there's the golf hole on the top of a mesa with no visible access surrounded by a storm-wracked sea seen in a flashback.
37	[[/folder]]
38
39	[[folder:Comedy]]
40	* OlderThanTelevision: W.C. Fields created a hilarious golf game parody sketch, first in vaudeville and then in movies. Amusingly, thanks to the limitations of performing on stage, this ''didn't even have to involve hitting the ball''. One of his first talkies, ''The Golf Specialist'', adapted this routine, and he gets as far as "Keep your eye on the ball" before something inevitably goes wrong. Again and again. He never does get to hit it.
41
42	[[/folder]]
43
44	[[folder:Comic Books]]
45	* A Chinese Disney comic featured Donald Duck finding Gladstone Gander's hat (which has a FourLeafClover inside it) and getting hole in ones no matter what (at one point, the ball is knocked into a kid's remote-controlled plane, which carries it over to the hole). Donald then challenges Gladstone to a golf match (as it turned out, Gladstone didn't need the hat), and Gladstone's luck pulls through like always (he hit the ball towards the refreshment stand, and it bounced off a guy's raised shoe, hitting a flagpole and landing in the hole).
46	** Published here too in ''Walt Disney's Comics and Stories'' 668 (2006).
47	** A much older story featured an unusual inversion where Don kept mysteriously winning with increasingly improbable ways, while Gladstone's failures became utterly spectacular, culminating him to swallowing his own ball. At the end it turned out that a man who had been observing them for all the time was a reporter who was going to reward the ''worst'' golf player of the day with a large sum of money.
48	** In another story, Donald wants to practice golf and force his nephews to work as his caddies until he considers his game good enough. Wanting to get out of this, they tricked Donald into thinking he can make a hole-in-one whenever he wants. After they leave, he decides to charge one dollar from each person to let them see him making a hole-in-one. Gladstone Gander shows up and, not believing Donald can really make it, challenges him to a bet. If Donald makes a hole-in-one, Gladstone will give him a dollar; if Donald fails, he'll give Gladstone ''ten'' dollars. Donald accepts the bet and places a ten-dollar-bill inside the pot. Upon being told that Donald won't accept the bet until Gladstone adds his dollar to the pot, Gladstone leaves to find a dollar. Afterwards, Donald tries and fails to make a hole-in-one so he asks for his nephews' help. When Gladstone arrives with a dollar, Donald makes his attempt and the ball bounces off several places including an earthquake that takes place after Donald hits the ball. The ball eventually gets inside the hole… [[HoistByHisOwnPetard but comes out after bouncing off the ball that his nephews placed in there to trick Gladstone]].
49	* An ComicBook/ArchieComics story has the guys turning the entire town of Riverdale into a huge Golf Course, setting various landmarks as their holes.
50	** One hole only — Archie, Reggie, and Jughead played one hole from one end of town to the other, starting in a public park, and ending in Dilton Doiley's rain hat, ''hanging on a hook in his workshop''. Par is in the mid 200s.
51	** One ''ComicBook/SabrinaTheTeenageWitch'' story has Sabrina caddying for the Head Witch Enchantra. And this game is ''really'' bizarre, taking place in the Other Realm, with both players using magic. Sabrina helps by zapping up a set of spell-resistant modern golf wear for Enchantra.
52	* In ''ComicBook/ReidFlemingWorldsToughestMilkman'', Reid and Lena go on a golf date. Reid manages to make one ball fly across town, hitting several buildings and an airplane on the way, and finally smashing into Mr. Crabbe's office in the dairy. Later, he lands in a water trap, and Lena insists that he play it where it lies, using his water wedge. Fortunately for her, his golf bag also contains an umbrella.
53	[[/folder]]
54
55	[[folder:Comic Strips]]
56	* In an ImprobableBallistics example, Roger Fox from ''ComicStrip/FoxTrot'' (who's a notoriously terrible golfer) hits the ball, bounces it off several trees, golf carts, pins, roads, etc.… [[EpicFail only to have it wind up back on the tee]]. In the words of his wife, "I can't tell whether the people behind us are laughing or crying."
57	* ''ComicStrip/{{BC}}'' had its fun with golf. Characters have actually been known to make golf swings while hanging by their feet from a tree branch. For a bonus, there's Bizarre And Improbable ''cheating'' when Clumsy Carp balances a submerged golf ball on his nose and raises it out of the water for a friend to hit, in exchange for a share of the winnings. Another time, B.C. (or possibly Thor) somehow wound up, after his swing, with the ball ''[[EpicFail balanced on the head of his club]]''. Consulting the massive rule book, Peter found a rule that "covers it explicitly," and told the unlucky fellow they had to shoot him.
58	* Creator/CharlesAddams once drew a cartoon showing a golfer grimly prying open an alligator's mouth as his young black caddie pokes around inside the beast with a club attempting to retrieve a swallowed ball; the golfer's partner admonishes him to "just play another one."
59	[[/folder]]
60
61	[[folder:FanFiction]]
62	* In the ''Fanfic/TriptychContinuum'' short piece [[Recap/TriptychContinuumAGoodTrotSpoiled A Good Trot, Spoiled]], this trope is just about the whole of the sport -- purposefully. Minotaurs have designed golf to be ''deliberately'' infuriating, with every inch of the course enchanted to produce the most outlandish and rage-inducing results each time a player takes a swing -- because the goal is to work out stress by sending the player into a state where they finally ''express'' all that anger within the padded pit which makes up the nineteenth hole. Basically, take Bethpage's Black Course, throw in a little TPC Sawgrass, add in the fine manipulations allowed by earth pony, pegasus, and unicorn magic, then dial everything up. This results in a course where your putt swerved right because microridges in the soil told it to, the rough is hidden by illusion, and the wind does in fact hate you -- with every countering element steadily growing stronger as you move towards the end. Celestia silently sums it all up somewhere around the sixteenth hole.
63	-->''They '''had''' to call it 'golf'. [='=]'''Insanity'''[='=] was already taken.''
64	[[/folder]]
65
66	[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
67	* In ''Film/TheIdleClass'', Creator/CharlieChaplin finds his golf ball in the mouth of a bum sleeping on the golf course. Charlie steps on the bum's stomach, causing the ball to fly out, whereupon Charlie hits it in the air.
68	* ''Film/HappyGilmore'' did both, in perhaps one of the most over-the-top examples. First, Shooter [=McGavin=] has to hit his ball off of [[TheBigGuy Mr. Larson]]'s foot, then a tower falls upon the eighteenth green in front of Happy's ball. Instead of taking two strokes to hit the ball around the tower and proceed to sudden death, Happy hits it up onto the fallen tower's pieces, which now act like a mini-golf tunnel-tube arrangement that just so happens to put the ball in the hole, giving victory to Happy in a single stroke. All in the space of ''five minutes''.
69	* Likewise the ''Film/{{Caddyshack}}'' movies.
70	* Both happen in the final game in Swedish movie ''Film/TheUnwillingGolfer''. At one point, the ball lands on a truck that drives away, but the protagonist's sponsor calls the driver and pays him to instead park by the green. The bit about attire also applies. The antagonist holds an elitist attitude about "proper attire" on the course, which he follows by wearing tartan shorts, which just looks silly (and the attire is complete with grey suit jacket and a plain cap). Meanwhile, the protagonist's Scottish mentor informs the protagonist that no ''proper'' golfer would wear tartan unless he was a member of a clan with that particular tartan. ''BURN''.
71	* ''Film/WelcomeToMooseport'' ex-President Monroe Cole wins his golf games through cheating, though he doesn't know it -- whenever one of his shots goes into the woods to the side of the course, the Secret Service agents hiding there throw it back onto the green, and he thinks he's just lucky. [[spoiler:He challenges his mayoral candidate and town plummer Handy Harrison to a game of golf, but Cole's demanding ex-wife Charlotte forces the agents out of hiding, and he discovers that without their help, he's completely outmatched.]]
72	* Creator/IanFleming supposedly wanted to show that [[Literature/{{Goldfinger}} Auric Goldfinger]] was truly a CardCarryingVillain by having him and Literature/JamesBond play golf. Goldfinger flagrantly cheats throughout the game, which to a Scot like Fleming is beyond the MoralEventHorizon.
73	* in ''Film/{{Convict 13}}'', Creator/BusterKeaton is a golfer trying to hit the ball out of a lake while standing on a raft... and then diving in for fish to find out which fish swallowed his golf ball.
74	* Nothing strange actually happens to the shot (it's a pretty accurate drive), but Lt. Commander Dodge opening ''Film/DownPeriscope'' by teeing off from ''the deck of his submarine'' as it comes into port, complete with the crew rattling off a firing solution as though it were a torpedo, must surely qualify as bizarre and improbable.
75	** For added [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome awesome]], he damn near scores a Hole-in-one, which prompts his Commanding Officer to chime in on the shot.
76	--> '''Cmdr Knox:''' "Well what the heck, why don't we pull in so you can put out!"
77	* The EstablishingCharacterMoment of Cuthbert Ware-Armitage in ''[[Film/ThoseMagnificentMenInTheirFlyingMachines Those Daring Young Men In Their Jaunty Jalopies]]'' has him cheat at golf twice — once by distracting his opponent during his drive, and once by planting an extra ball on the fairway rather than bothering to look for where his ball actually landed — followed by delight at his father's recent demise because it means that he just inherited the family estate.
78	* ''Film/TheThreeStooges'' short ''Film/ThreeLittleBeers'', which is the natural consequence of letting the Stooges onto a golf course. The reason why their game is so bizarre is evident from the start; none of the Stooges ''know'' how to play golf, and HilarityEnsues as their antics wreak havoc on the course and their fellow players.
79	[[/folder]]
80
81	[[folder:Jokes]]
82	* A joke features a person playing a covert, forbidden game of golf (most commonly, a priest skipping out on Mass to hit the links or a rabbi on Saturday) and making eighteen holes-in-one. The punchline is God, in reply to an incredulous angel, shrugging and asking, "[[ThePunishmentIsTheCrime Who's he gonna tell?]]"
83	* A man playing with his girlfriend badly slices on the 13th and ends up behind a barn. He complains that he will have to lay one off on the runway before playing towards the pin. "Not so," says the girl, "I'll open the front and back doors of the barn, and you can play right through it!" He agrees, but his shot hits her between the eyes as she stands by the open door, killing her. Ten years later, the man is married, and they're playing on the same course, he slices it again on the 13th and ends up in the same spot behind the same barn. He complains that he will have to lay one off on the runway before playing towards the pin. "Not so," says his bride, "I'll open the front and back doors of the barn, and you can play right through it!" "NO!" says he. "I can't do that!! [[SkewedPriorities Last time I did that, I took an eight]]!"
84	* A golfer gets a round in with his buddy. On the first hole, he slices right into the woods and finds his ball trapped behind some trees. The next hole, he slices it and it goes straight into a bunker, buried until he could barely see it. The third hole, he slices it right into a pond. The golfer says, "I should just drown myself to save the embarrassment." His buddy says, "You think you can keep your head down long enough?"
85	* Jesus and Moses come down to earth to play a round of golf. At the seventh hole, there is a water hazard. Jesus takes out a 7-iron and addresses the ball. Moses says, "You can't hit that ball over that water with a 7-iron." Jesus replies, "If Arnold Palmer can do it, I can do it." Jesus hits the ball and it goes into the lake. He turns to Moses and asks, "Um... can you help me get me ball?" Grudgingly, Moses waves his arms apart, the waters separate, and Jesus goes in to get his ball. He sizes the shot up again, and Moses sputters "You cannot hit that ball over the water with a 7-iron!" Jesus says, "If Arnold Palmer can do it, I can do it." Jesus hits and the ball again goes into the water. Moses says, "You're on your own on this." So Jesus walks on top of the water and dips his club into the water searching for his ball. Two other duffers pass by and see this incredible sight of a man on top of the lake. One of them asks "Who does he think he is? Jesus Christ?" Moses sputters "No... he thinks he's Arnold Palmer!"
86	* A man is going golfing with a priest as his caddie.\
87	On the first hole, he lands it on the green for a par, but misses the putt by three inches and mutters, "God damn it, I missed." The priest reprimands him for taking Lord's name in vain; the golfer apologizes and putts the ball in, landing a bogey.\
88	On the second hole, he again lands it on the green for a par, but this time misses the putt by two inches and mutters, "God damn it, I missed." The priest warns him that if he again takes the Lord's name in vain, [[BoltOfDivineRetribution a bolt of lightning will fall from the cloudless skies and kill him]]; the golfer apologizes and putts the ball in, landing a bogey.\
89	[[RuleOfThree On the third hole, he yet again lands it on the green for a par,]] and this time misses the putt by one inch and mutters, "God damn it, I missed." At this point, a bolt of lightning falls from the cloudless skies and... [[BaitAndSwitch kills the priest]]. The golfer is horrified (and horribly confused), until from the heavens a voice emerges: "God damn it, I missed."
90	* Jesus and Saint Peter are playing golf in Heaven. Jesus swings, the ball goes way to the left, bounces off a tree and into a bird's nest, causing the panicking bird to fly around and drop the ball into the hole. Saint Peter then says "Lord, are we here to play golf or screw around?".
91	* Moses, Jesus, and an old man are playing golf, with the hole being a Par 3 over water.\
92	Moses goes first, and his first stroke lands in the pond. He steps up to the bank and touches the water's surface with his golf club, causing it to part with his ball sitting on the pond floor; he manages to sink it from there for a birdie, and lets the water close back up as he gets out of the fairway.\
93	Jesus goes second, and his first stroke lands in the pond. He steps up to the bank and walks ''[[WalkOnWater atop]]'' the pond, his ball floating up to the surface; he manages to sink it from there for a birdie, and gets out of the fairway.\
94	The old man takes his shot, and his first stroke doesn't even approach the water. Abruptly, a gopher pops up from under the fairway, knocking his ball towards the water. A fish catches the ball in its mouth, only for a bird to lunge out of the trees and seize the fish in its talons. As the bird is flying over the green, lightning descends from the cloudless skies and strikes both the bird and the fish dead; as they land on the green, the ball pops out of the fish's mouth and rolls into the hole for a hole-in-one.\
95	Moses turns to Jesus and says, "I hate playing against your dad."
96	[[/folder]]
97
98	[[folder:Literature]]
99	* According to ''Death's Domain: A Literature/{{Discworld}} Mapp'', Death's golf course is ''designed'' to have bizarre and improbable effects, since it's filled with dimensional instabilities, folds in space-time, and gravitational anomalies, all in an effort to counteract TheGrimReaper's AwesomenessByAnalysis which prevents him from understanding that getting a small ball to go exactly where you want is ''supposed'' to be difficult. It also has a windmill, the symbol of crazy golf everywhere. It grinds the balls very finely. The accompanying illustration shows Death in his normal robes, but Albert, caddying, sports the traditional tartan plus-fours and silly hat.
100	* A particularly memorable one in Creator/JohnMFord[='=]s Franchise/StarTrek novel ''Literature/HowMuchForJustThePlanet'', which features a sign reading "Hazards: Bunker Left, Minefield Right."
101	** "Do you know there are land mines on this ground?" "Well, I should think we'd know. Not going to play eighteen holes without doing our recce, are we? Twelfth at Direidi, best par 4 in the galaxy."
102	** Upon receiving permission to play through, they proceed to do so with ''artillery.'' "They" [[CrossoverCameo being]] [[Series/DoctorWho the Brigadier and Sergent Benton]]. Yeah.
103	* The subject of all Creator/PGWodehouse's golf stories.
104	* In ''[[Creator/RobertRankin The Brentford Triangle]]'', Pooley and O'Malley are barred from every golf club in the county because of their Bizarre And Improbable antics: Flagrant cheating, occasionally getting into fistfights over said cheating, violating the dress-code and generally making a bloody nuisance of themselves. They resort to inventing Allotment Golf, hiding the holes amidst the sheds and vegetable patches of their own and their neighbours' patches. There is a rule book, to which additions are surreptitiously pencilled in as they go along. This serves solely as an explanation for what they're doing at the allotments in the middle of the night to witness the latest bout of Brentfordian weirdness that kicks off the plot.
105	[[/folder]]
106
107	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
108	* Episode "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Golfer" from Marty Feldman's sketch show ''Marty''.
109	* The entire second half of "Tee Off, Series/MrBean" is an example of this trope. Mr. Bean plays on a mini-golf course, but after hitting the ball too hard it flies out of the course and he pursues it around town, into the sewers, on the bus, through a grocery store, etc. Finally he cuts a piece out of the ground where the ball sits and brings it back to the course late at night to finish the hole with a score of 3,427.
110	** Some critics unkindly accused this sketch of being an inferior retread of the Marty Feldman version.
111	* An early episode of ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'' had J.D. joining Dr Cox and Dr Kelso for their regular golf game. This led to a sequence of scenes in which Cox and Kelso debated medical ethics through J.D., apparently unconcerned that he was trying to play balls that had landed in increasingly ridiculous positions.
112	* ''Series/{{Lost}}'', of all things, has featured a number of golf games, due to Hurley's finding clubs in the luggage and building a course. One match saw the Losties betting on whether Jack would sink a putt, [[NoEnding without showing the resolution]]. Another had Kate urging Jack to take a penalty when he hit it into the stream (again, no resolution, as they were interrupted by Mr. Eko carrying a bloody and unconscious Sawyer.) One of the mobisodes centered on Jin missing a putt and throwing a tantrum about how nothing is going his way and how alone he is.
113	* ''Series/IDreamOfJeannie'', "Watch the Birdie", featured a golf game where the ball did lots of bizarre and improbable things, but that was because of Jeannie's magic. Among other unlikely shots, Captain Nelson hit the ball from the branches of a tree and shot it in the hole after it had landed in a water fountain.
114	* Col. Blake and Co. had a tendency to play golf on the ''mine fields'' around the [[Series/{{Mash}} 4077th]].
115	* In the ''Series/StargateSG1'' episode "Window of Opportunity," Jack and Teal'c wind up trapped in a GroundhogDayLoop, and in order to alleviate the monotony they engage in a variety of antics, including playing golf ''through the 'gate''. Hammond interrupts to ask what he's doing, to which everyone's favorite DeadpanSnarker retorts: "In the middle of my backswing?"
116	** Also, Jack drives a ball into the gate and asks Teal'c how far away the dialed planet is from their current location. Teal'c responds that it is "Several billion miles,"[[note]]Untrue: the [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale closest star to Earth (apart from our Sun)]] is somewhere around 25 ''trillion'' miles away.[[/note]] to which Jack remarks "That's gotta be a record."
117	* An inverted second type happened on ''Series/{{Entourage}}'' when Ari played a round of golf against a studio head, wagering Vince's role in one of the studio's movies. The exec was coached by Phil Mickelson and it looked like Ari had no chance of winning. It all came down to the final putt which Ari missed. The miracle came when the exec began yelling at Ari, had a heart attack, and dropped dead. A stroke of luck, indeed.
118	* This trope is the entire point of the Leslie Neilsen videos ''Bad Golf Made Easy'' and ''Bad Golf My Way''
119	* The Series/MythBusters did a couple myths regarding golf--specifically, that it was better to hit through a tree than to try and shoot around [[LogicalFallacies because the tree is 90% air]][[note]]Anyone who's tried to hit a golf ball through a chain-link fence, itself 90% air, can spot the problem with that one[[/note]] and that [[Film/{{Caddyshack}} a C4 explosion could cause a ball to fall in the hole]]. Both were Busted. During the testing of the first myth at Pebble Beach, Kari and Grant wore the stereotypical fashion-disaster golf outfits, while Tory (the only one of the three with actual golfing experience) had an outfit more likely to be worn by an ''actual'' golfer (a polo shirt, light pants, and golf shoes). Later, Tory engaged in a contest against Grant's golfing robot (actually an air cannon) to see who could shoot more balls through a tree. [[Awesome/MythBusters Tory won]].
120	--> '''Tory:''' ''[upon seeing Grant and Kari's outfits]'' [[LampshadeHanging I feel a little underdressed]].
121	* ''Series/KamenRiderFourze'' had one of these with the Taurus Zodiarts. Long story short, Taurus is a disciplinarian gone mad who challenges students to contests (even allowing them to pick the contest) and, if he wins, forces them to obey the strictest of rules. After most of the heroes (including Fourze) fall victim to his powers, [[SixthRanger Kamen Rider Meteor]] steps up and challenges Taurus to ''his'' specialty: golf. Yes, a game of golf between a minotaur monster and a HenshinHero. And neither of them uses actual golf clubs, instead preferring their simple staves.
122	* ''Series/{{Chucklevision}}'' had three of these: "Goofy Golfers" from Series 4, "Cousins at War" from Series 13, and "Driving Ambition" from Series 19.
123	* "Hole in One (Or Two)" is a game played on ''Series/ThePriceIsRight.'' How close to the hole you get to putt the ball depends on how well you pick grocery items from the cheapest to most costly. Some contestants will have the ball putted so hard it bounces off the greens barricade and into the hole. (Former show model Janice Pennington actually had that happen when she made a practice putt.)
124	[[/folder]]
125
126	[[folder:Music]]
127	* The video for Dinosaur Jr.'s [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQZmrdwK7YM&feature=related "Feel the Pain,"]] which has them playing Urban Golf all over Manhattan.
128	[[/folder]]
129
130	[[folder:Video Games]]
131	* ''VideoGame/GolfStory'' revolves around this. Among the crazy golf situations include skipping balls across water while avoiding crocodiles, trying to keep mole rats and birds from stealing your ball, freeing {{Human Popsicle}}s by hitting them with special heated balls, and fighting skeletons and wizards by attacking them with golf balls.
132	* In ''VideoGame/RibbitKing'', the golf balls are frogs (and the game contracts "frog-golf" to "Frolf"). Yes, they hop upon landing, and yes, there are all kinds of bizarre and improbable hazards—most of which shouldn't be avoided, since they're usually worth extra points.
133	* Can be deliberately invoked in ''VideoGame/SidMeiersSimGolf'', as you are the course designer.
134	* ''VideoGame/ZanyGolf'' lives up to its name, with hazards that range from lethal forcefields to a bouncing hamburger.
135	* ''VideoGame/GolfWithYourFriends'' makes it on this list if only because of its rather loose definition of the word "ball", which includes but not limited to polyhedrons, eggs, cones, ''cubes'', and hockey pucks (which are much easier to hit than the rest!). Though the game is based on mini golf, many of the levels have structures and hazards that would be difficult or impossible to feature in a real course, such as moving platforms, jungle bridges, and portals.
136	* ''Golf It!'' is much in the same boat as the custom maps can include "Halloween pachinko", incredibly difficult hole-in-ones, and shooting your golf ball out of a pirate cannon into the mouth of the Kraken.
137	* ''VideoGame/WallaceAndGromitsGrandAdventures, Episode 4: The Bogey Man'' involves a golf game occurring ''through the middle of town'' because ''it was built on top of the Golf Course''. Out of both mercy and arrogance, Wallace's opponent changes the rules after the sixteenth hole so that that whoever is first to finish the last two holes in either order is the winner. Play goes through the sewers, through buildings, and at one point involves a squirrel. Success even involves [[spoiler:using a legendary grip which sends the ball straight up and mailing the ball across town, respectively.]]
138	* The ''WesternAnimation/AquaTeenHungerForce'' golf video game took this to new heights, by combining the merely improbable (such as multiple rebounds) with the flat-out insane (such as your meatball friend absorbing the ball into himself so you can steer where it ends up, Frylock electrifying the ball so it goes further, and the ball being MadeOfExplodium). Courses take place on the Moon, in Hell, and in some kind of bizarre drug-fueled hallucinoland, and some of the holes are actually kart racing. Also, you need to take a chainsaw with you while moving around the course, in case you are attacked by time-travelling robot turkeys, mummies, or machine-gun-toting flowers. Basically, its sole similarity with golf is that getting a ball into a hole is an important step.
139	* ''100ft Robot Golf'' probably counts, simply by virtue of being [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin golf played with hundred-foot-tall robots]]. Whose pilots have free reign to [[EverythingBreaks demolish everything]] between them and the hole.
140	* ''VideoGame/{{Pangya}}'' has, among other things, courses set amongst ''naval fleets'' and inside the netherworld. You can pull off special shots that, for example, turn your ball into a cruise missile that explodes and stays put upon impact or make it shoot straight ahead before launching up to mimic a cobra.
141	* ''VideoGame/WhatTheGolf'' sets out to be this, especially in the levels where your goal is not to get the golf ball to the flag, but the club, or even the arrow that shows you the direction and strength of your shot. Also, the flags will move away from your ball sometimes.
142	* The ''VideoGame/MarioGolf'' series tend to be pretty realistic depictions of golf, other than the characters and the visual effects... that is until ''Super Rush'' and the "Speed Golf" mode, where all 4 characters play at the same time, have to run after the ball after hitting it and all of them can use special moves to either run faster, knock their opponents out of the way while running or having their ball have a special effect when landing as to push the other balls out of the way.
143	* One update for ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'' introduces the Golfer [=NPC=], who specializes in selling golf-related items, meaning that yes, it's possible to make your very own crazy golf course, with feats like putting the ball into a hole at the bottom of a {{Hellevator}}.
144	[[/folder]]
145
146	[[folder:Webcomics]]
147	* ''Webcomic/PennyArcade'' [[http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/05/22/ has a good idea about how to make an improbable golf course.]]
148	%%* ''Webcomic/LabBratz'' [[http://labbratz.com/?id=376 did it with a sandhill crane]].
149	* ''Webcomic/TheWhiteboard'' Doc and Roger [[http://www.the-whiteboard.com/autotwb1530.html go golfing in 2012]], antics include skeet shooting with the balls, bizarre scores, and some [[http://www.the-whiteboard.com/autotwb1542.html rather large divots]].
150	[[/folder]]
151
152	[[folder:Web Original]]
153	* Website/BadassOfTheWeek once featured an article on the rules of Battle Golf: a game played by 4 incredibly drunk people. Each 2-man team attempts to get their ball into the hole while preventing the other team from doing so with BB pistols, butter knives and other weapons.
154	* The online golf game, ''VideoGame/{{Pangya}}'', a game with regular golf physics but with massively chaotic courses, awards a x2 score modifier for that shot every time the ball hits an obstacle but goes in. And by "massively chaotic", we mean that playing on a course made out of multiple ''naval vessels'' is of intermediate difficulty.
155	* ''VideoGame/{{Wonderputt}}'' has a [[http://www.kongregate.com/games/dampgnat/wonderputt similarly bizarre setting,]] with the courses laid out by meteorites, snowclouds, [[AliensStealCattle cows being abducted by a flying saucer]], a submarine stuck in ice and so forth.
156	* ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner'' has Sweet Puttin' Cakes, a mini-golf course based on the incredibly trippy show Strong Bad invented. It exists in its own universe that can only be accessed by talking about mini-golf, the first hole is home to a talking worm, and the 18th hole has a par of infinity.
157	[[/folder]]
158
159	[[folder:Western Animation]]
160	* ''WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones'': Happened in the episode "The Golf Champion". At the 18th hole, Fred Flintstone begins by ricocheting the golf ball off several trees and rocks and into a water hazard, atop a dinosaur's head. The second shot overshoots the hole and rolls into the mouth of a sleeping dinosaur. Flintstone goes inside the dinosaur's mouth to finally shoot the ball in the hole, and win the tournament.
161	* This happens in the opening of the WesternAnimation/WoodyWoodpecker shorts ''The Loose Nut'' and ''Bathing Buddies''. Also the plot of ''Woodpecker In The Rough''.
162	%% * Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents''.
163	* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/RockosModernLife'', "Teed Off", Ed Bighead plays against his boss, Mr. [=DuPette=], and in order to make sure [=DuPette=] wins, Ed's manager has the golf course management launch ''pianos'' at Ed's ball (and [[AnvilOnHead occasionally Ed]]) from many improbable piano launchers, including a KillSat. But Heffer, who is working at the golf course and oblivious to the fact Ed is ''supposed'' to lose, tries to help Ed. At the end, Ed wins, and while Ed's manager is furious, Mr. [=DuPette=] doesn't seem to mind (however, unfortunately for Ed, he doesn't give him the promotion he was hoping for).
164	* ''WesternAnimation/CowAndChicken'', "Comet!". Dad's golf ball lands on Chicken's beak, and thus both ball and Chicken are flung through the air.
165	* ''WesternAnimation/TheDeputyDawgShow'': "Diamonds In The Rough" was Deputy Dawg assigned to find and arrest a diamond smuggler when a seemingly errant golfer hits his ball into DD's office ("I slice badly," he says). It is then deduced the golfer is the smuggler and the diamonds are hidden in the golf balls.
166	* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'' featured this on the eighteenth hole of a round of golf designed to settle a fender-bender between Grandpa Phil and Big Bob Pataki. Phil is forced to play a ball from a diner's quiche, and Arnold needs to make up a rhyme so that he can hit it. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHC4wy1BhB0&feature=related Found here.]]
167	* In the Disney cartoon ''How to Play Golf'', WesternAnimation/{{Goofy}} takes "play where it lies" too far and ends up shooting the ball off the nose of a sleeping bull. What follows is one of the zaniest chase scenes ever, with Goofy running for his life while keeping the ball in play. At one point he misses the ball and runs back to hit it, narrowly avoiding being trampled by the bull.
168	* In the ''WesternAnimation/DangerMouse'' episode "Afternoon Off With the Fangboner", DM hits a ball so that it lands directly into the hole and then bounces off to the next one. He almost accomplishes an eighteen-holes-in-one, but the ball unfortunately misses the last hole. After he leaves, the ball miraculously goes into the hole. Apparently, this isn't even the first time it's happened:
169	-->'''DM''': I sometimes wonder if that round-in-one at Gleneagles was just a fluke.
170	* Some characters seem to indulge in this merely for the property damage. Gosalyn does this with a hockey puck in the first episode of ''WesternAnimation/DarkwingDuck'', from the nose of a gangster. In a following episode, she is about to whack the ball off of her own father's bill before he calmly asks, "Have I ever told you the story about the little girl, the golf ball, and the ''firing squad''?"
171	* One ''WesternAnimation/BugsBunny'' cartoon ("My Bunny Lies Over the Ocean") has him playing against a Scotsman. Needless to say, he fudges the rules a bit, like digging a trench to lead the ball into the hole, for instance.
172	* Related to the WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes repertoire, "Raw! Raw! Rooster" has Foghorn Leghorn visited by his showoff college roommate Rhode Island Red. In a bid to outshow Red, Foggy substitues regular golf balls with exploding balls for Red to hit as Foggy runs for the hills to place the flag. Red hits the ball, but it doesn't explode until it hits Foggy. Confused and flustered, Foggy takes a swing at a ball and it explodes on contact.
173	* The ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'' short "Tee for Two" turns into this as Tom proves to be a horrible linkster. He fudges his score card with a score of 2, but when Jerry shakes his head shaming him, Tom grudgingly changes the score to 32. The cartoon even opens with Tom busting a sinew trying to shoot his way out of a bunker.
174	* The ''WesternAnimation/JimmyTwoShoes'' episode "Way Below Par" involves Jimmy participating in Lucius' blatantly rigged and excessively lethal golf tournament. The two are abysmally awful at the game, but with Heloise and Samy respectively helping them cheat, HilarityEnsues.
175	* ''WesternAnimation/ThePenguinsOfMadagascar'' episode "Mr. Tux" had a plot centered around this. And made no apologies for the obviously physics-defying shots. Apparently Mr. Tux is really just so good at mini-golf that he can bend physics to his will.
176	* The last event of a ''WesternAnimation/LaffALympics'' episode ("Grand Canyon/Ireland") was a golf game where the object was to score a hole in one. Cindy Bear wrote "18th hole" on the ball ([[VisualPun she took addressing the ball literally]]) and used an umbrella for a golf club. She hit the ball at the wrong direction and it hit several random things until falling into the hole. Cindy won the game.
177	* Miniature golf doesn't get much more improbable and bizarre than in ''{{WesternAnimation/Futurama}}: Into The Wild Green Yonder.'' First of all Leo Wong builds the universe's largest miniature golf course, and plays golf on it. Then Amy Wong, pro-golfer, plays it with the Planet Express ship, while being chased by Zapp Brannigan on the Nimbus. It should be noted that the course in question is "mini" in name only - in that it isn't a "professional" course. The ball is easily 50' in diameter, the "club" is a canon, the ball return is a black hole, and the entire course covers a full arm of the Milky Way galaxy.
178	* In ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'', they turn the alley into a replica of a Country Club's signature hole. At one point, Bill apparently had hit the ball into a garbage can. He tries to play it where it lies, but predictably doesn't get anywhere.
179	* ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'': In "Put that Putter Away", the boys build an improbably over-the-top miniature golf course, with plenty of crazy trick shots along the way.
180	* WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants, being a LiteralMinded {{Cloudcuckoolander}}, once played a game of indoor golf with Patrick. HilarityEnsues because, well, you have to play the ball where it lies, right?
181	* In ''WesternAnimation/MenInBlackTheSeries'', K's hobby is taking a bucket of balls to his "personal driving range" -- a rooftop in midtown Manhattan.
182	* WesternAnimation/{{Beetlejuice}} plays a round of golf in the Neitherworld in the episode "Caddy Shock" to save Claire Brewster's hide.
183	* The WesternAnimation/HeckleAndJeckle cartoon "Goony Golfers." The two birds are caddies for Chesty the bulldog but only to drive him crazy.
184	* ''WesternAnimation/DanVs'': "Dan vs. Golf", unsurprisingly, culminates in Dan trying to win a golf game against Chris. The game ends with Dan winning because, [[WeirdnessMagnet through some of the usual improbable circumstances that seem to strike Dan]], the course was filled with birdseed, everyone was attacked by birds, and one carried Chris' ball away.
185	* A [[WesternAnimation/RockyAndBullwinkle Fractured Fairy Tale]] tells how golf was originally called "goof."
186	* ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017'' features both these things, though the first type was offered to change, as Glomgold insisted that Scrooge just take the penalty in a conventional game. But Scrooge, ever proud said, "A true scotsman plays it where it lands", landing them in "Druid Golf", where type 2 starts happening with Dewey making improbable shots.
187	* ComicStrip/{{Popeye}}, Brutus, Olive and Wimpy participate in a rather unusual game of golf in "Golf Brawl." Olive can't sink a putt, Wimpy can't hit the ball, and Popeye and Brutus as usual compete against each other under the mantra "Play the ball where it lies!" Brutus gets a literal birdie [[note]](One under par from tee-off to hole in regulation golf)[[/note]] when he hits a hawk's egg by accident and the chick hatches and attacks him.
188	* WesternAnimation/TopCat plays a round of golf in the alley (episode "Rafeefleas") as he tells his gang to keep an eye out for a jewel thief who robbed a museum. The others make sure that every shot T.C. makes is a hole in one.
189	* The golf episode for ''[[WesternAnimation/TheCattanoogaCats Motormouse and Autocat]]'' was "King Size Caddy." Autocat's attempts to disrupt Motormouse's round of golf end up in usual failure: after a catapult results in Autocat getting his head planted in a hole:
190	-->'''Motormouse:''' Hey, Autocat...what kind o' club are you usin'?\
191	'''Autocat:''' A mashie...what else?
192	[[/folder]]
193
194	[[folder:Real Life]]
195	* A famous [[http://www.concordmonitor.com/article/mickelsons-major-meltdown 18th-hole meltdown]] by Phil Mickelson in 2006 featured the ball bouncing off of numerous obstacles, but rather than going in, it just kept going farther and farther away, making this more like the first type than the second.
196	** Also in the first variety of "playing it where it lies"--when played at Carnoustie, the British Open has featured a number of these where the golfer tries (and fails) to play the lie rather than take the penalty, most famously Jean Van De Velde's meltdown on the 18th hole in 1999, which was repeated almost exactly with Padraig Harrington in 2007. The difference, of course, was that when it happened to Harrington, he was spared by Sergio Garcia also bogeying the 18th hole, forcing a playoff which Harrington won.
197	** Bernard Langer once climbed a tree to play a shot, after his ball landed in it, rather than taking a penalty stroke.
198	** There is also an unsubstantiated story of a golfer landing a ball in a water trap, then taking his next shot from a rowboat when the ball miraculously floated.
199	* Then there's the story of the golfer whose shot [[https://wildfiretoday.com/2010/08/31/golfer-shoots-out-of-rough-starts-fire/ started a wildfire.]]
200	* Kevin Na suffered through a 16 on a par 4 in the 2011 PGA Tour after he played a ball out of the woods. The issue appears to be that, once he attempted to play it out, he could no longer take the penalty and move to the previous position, as that previous position was also within the woods.
201	* Vijay Singh hit a ball of the 16th tee at the 2009 Masters, it skipped about 5 times off the water hazard, hit the berm, bounced onto the green, took a curve to the left, and rolled right into the cup. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg9GOMAB31Q Watch it here.]]
202	* During UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, an ObviousRulePatch was supposedly adopted throughout Britain which would allow for a delay without penalty for the players to take cover during air raids, and allowing them to disregard the "play it where it lies" rule if a golf ball should land in a [[BombDisposal bomb crater.]]
203	* Nothing beats Alan Shepard's [[http://youtu.be/1yNIMtagHck Golf on the Moon]] during Apollo 14.
204	** Creator/StephenColbert joked that with NASA preparing to return to the moon, they should remember that Shepard’s golf ball was still “in play” and had to be hit from where it landed.
205	* People who live next to golf courses seem to have problems with trespassing golfers whenever a stray ball lands on their property. [[https://notalwaysright.com/a-hole-in-one/77903/ Here's one story where the homeowner decides he's had enough]]. (The golfer in question is a {{Jerkass}} who doesn't even realize his ball is out of bounds ''despite having to hop the homeowner's fence!'')
206	* Rory [=McIlroy=] had a shot [[http://www.golf.com/tour-and-news/rory-mcilroy-makes-par-tour-championship-after-drive-lands-spectators-pocket bounce off a tree and land in a spectator's pocket.]] Play it where it lies?
207	* There is a golf course that [[https://www.hagginoaks.com/blog/shark-infested-golf-course/ has sharks.]] [[UsefulNotes/AustralianWildlife It is, naturally, located in Australia.]]
208	* In a 2019 Pro-Am at Pebble Beach, Tony Romo's tee shot on the fifteenth hole sailed way right and landed in one of the hospitality tents. Instead of taking a drop, however, Tony Romo chose to play it where it lied. His ensuing shot [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome landed on the green right next to the hole.]]
209	* Sergio Garcia once hit a tee shot that ended up stuck in a tree, about 10-12 feet off the ground. After he climbed the tree to find his ball, he had his caddy hand him his club (the announcers suggested that he use a [[{{Pun}} tree iron]]), to the delight of everybody in the area. He then proceeded to hit the ball, ''one-handed and backwards'', and have it land '''''within a few yards of the pin.''''' [[https://youtu.be/10jORLiU7Ak Watch it here. He even sticks the dismount when he jumps down from the tree.]]
210	[[/folder]]
211

Context Main / BizarreAndImprobableGolfGame