Carnoustie Golf Links
Carnoustie, Scotland
When the British Open was contested at Carnoustie in 1999, the world's top players muttered and clutched their heads like traumatized veterans. They don't call it Carnasty for nothing. There are other terms for it too: in his book about 21st century warfare, Scottish military historian Gordon Lang coined the phrase "Carnoustie effect" to describe the "psychic shock experienced on collision with reality by those whose expectations are founded on false assumptions." Laid out on the weather-beaten shore of the North Sea, the course is so brutal that it forced local golfers at the turn of the 20th century to come up with a new, more powerful way of swinging the golf club. "The Carnoustie swing" spread around the world and is now widely considered the embryo of modern, professional technique.