Claudia Laurent

Golf writer, Golf Handicapp · 11 September 2026

135 yards along the top of a railway viaduct. The old track bed has been laid to turf from parapet to parapet, so the hole is played down the deck of the structure itself, mown in stripes with a cart path running along one side and a low stone parapet between you and the drop on both. The arches march away beneath you the whole length of the shot, and through the gaps you can see the valley floor, a stream and the fields either side of it. The green sits on the deck at the far end with one bunker cut into the turf and the parapet running past it on both sides, and beyond that the course carries on across open parkland. What makes it awkward is not the number, because 135 yards to a green with a bunker short is an ordinary shot anywhere else. It is that the target is the same width as the thing you are standing on, so there is no such thing as a miss that stays on the golf course. Left and right are both a parapet and then a long way down. There is nowhere to bail out and nothing to feed a ball back, which turns a stock eight iron into a shot people steer. Aim at the middle of the deck rather than the flag, take the club that gets you comfortably to the back of the green, and make the same swing you would make on the range. The parapet is lower than you would like and the ball does not know that.

This hole is not real. Like every hole in the collection it was conjured with AI, a golf daydream rather than a course you can go and play. The thousands of courses in the Golf Handicapp app, however, are very real.

This one is make-believe. The thousands of courses in the app are not.

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About the author

Claudia Laurent · Golf writer, Golf Handicapp

Claudia writes about the World Handicap System, golf scoring and getting more from every round for Golf Handicapp. She is a mid-handicap golfer who logs every card, the good ones and the ones she would rather forget.

This image is AI-generated. Published 11 September 2026.

The Viaduct

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The Falls Edge

The Scala

The Shallows

The Precipice

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