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The typical golf course attempts to toe the fine line between “fair” and “challenging,” and pin placement is one of the factors that’s taken into consideration when it comes to tweaking the level of difficulty. However, the track that recently played host to the NAIA Women’s Championship went a bit too far thanks to a hole that forced the organization to issue an apology due to how many competitors it terrorized.
Anyone who’s routinely subjected themself to a round of golf is very aware it’s a wildly challenging sport that can be incredibly frustrating even when you’re dealing with ideal conditions, and the typical weekend hack usually doesn’t need any extra help making the game any harder than it already is.
There are plenty of courses that give players the chance to do exactly that by inviting them to participate in light-hearted “greenkeeper’s revenge” tournaments where they’ll be forced to deal with unexpected obstacles, unorthodox tee boxes, and hole locations that are designed to make it virtually impossible to sink a putt.
Those aren’t the kind of conditions you’d expect to encounter in a competitive tournament at the college level, but the golfers who recently competed at the NAIA Women’s Championship at Eagle Crest Golf Club in Ypsilanti, Michigan got a taste of courtesy of a questionable pin placement during the opening round on Tuesday.
The fifth hole at Eagle Crest is a par-5 with a green that “slopes severely from left to right and has many challenging hole locations,” which seems like a bit of an understatement based on what the golfers who had to putt up the hill on Tuesday found themselves dealing with.
Nice job! @NAIA This is the naia women’s golf national championship. No different than NCAA D3 national championship that had a round canceled. @acaseofthegolf1 @NCAA pic.twitter.com/dzzqqb2d0Z
— Aaron (@UCAarongolf) May 13, 2025
According to Brently Romine of Golf Channel, 155 golfers took part in the first round on Monday, and 90 of them ended up recording a double bogey or worse; there were also 47 bogeys, 15 pars, and just three birdies.
The NAIA addressed the situation in a statement where it acknowledged the mistake, saying:
“We regret to confirm that an unfortunate situation occurred at the NAIA Women’s Golf National Championship. The hole on No. 5 was incorrectly placed in a challenging position.
We take this matter seriously and have taken immediate steps to ensure this type of situation will not happen again. The NAIA is committed to the student-athlete experience.”
A similar scene unfolded at the NCAA DIII Women’s Golf tournament in 2023 that led to the organization nullifying the entire round, although it doesn’t appear the NAIA has plans to go the same route.