Ipswich Country Club No. 5, Par-3 (pictured above)

Many call this the most majestic – and daunting – water hole on the North Shore as evidenced by the predictable wide-eyed expressions from golfers who emerge from the wooded cart path on the elevated tee and first gaze down at the blue body of water below.

From the back tees this trans-Atlantic voyage measures 211 yards, including a formidable, 190-yard carry over the pond, which wraps around the left side of the hole. The blues play at 191 yards from a lower-tiered tee and the red tees are no bargain either at 142 yards and right on level with the pond.

“It’s an intimidating par 3 and it’s intimidating no matter which tee box you are playing,” said Ipswich’s first-year head pro Chris Mowers of the hole which has been aced just eight times since 1992.

I think it’s a great hole in that there’s always a sense of accomplishment when you find the short grass.”

The flip side, of course, is that a lot of golfers are not that lucky. Mowers and his staff have done their own informal study and estimate a foursome loses on average 2.5 balls each time it plays the hole. When you calculate the fact that Ipswich does between 20 and 23,000 rounds a year, the hole is swallowing up better than 14,000 balls a year.

The only bail-out area on the fifth is to the right side of the green, but that brings two large bunkers into play. Land in those and you’re faced with a very testy shot to a green with water right behind it.

“I don’t think that’s the kind of explosion shot that anyone wants to play,” said Mowers.

Ferncroft Country Club No. 18, Par-5

Measuring a majestic 563 yards from the tips, Ferncroft Country Club’s 18th hole ranks as one of the top finishing holes on the North Shore. Thanks to the large body of water that hugs the left side of the fairway and guards the green, it also reigns as one of the best water holes the area has to offer.

“It’s a really great hole and it’s all laid out in front of you from an elevated tee, and, with the way it’s set up, you’re driving right out of a chute,” said Ferncroft’s head professional, Phil Leiss.

“On your second shot you are forced to make a decision to either go for it or take the conservative route down the right side.”

Even if you choose the latter – as most do – you’re going to have to deal with the water some time. It’s for that very reason that Leiss says divers take a minimum of 10,000 balls from their watery grave on the 18th each year.

Back when Ferncroft hosted an LPGA event each year, that second shot decision was amplified as they moved the tees up and dared some of the tour’s best to go for the green in two.

Even after laying up, a third shot is no bargain as you’re aiming at a green that is receptive, but which also slopes back to front and which is guarded by a large bunker on the front right of the green.

“It’s funny. I was playing with a member the other day and just before her third shot on the 18th she remarked that she hadn’t lost a ball all day … ” said Leiss with a wry smile.

Anyone who has played the picturesque course in Middleton can fill in the rest.

Far Corner Golf Club No. 7, Par-3

Luckily for most golfers they will likely never have to play this demanding par-3 from the tips at 238 yards. That being said, teeing off from the blues (170 yards) or even the whites (140 yards) is no free pass.

“If you are in a medal play tournament, the seventh hole is one hole that is going to keep you up the night before,” says veteran Far Corner head pro John O’Connor who has seen so many promising rounds go south at the testy hole each August in the club’s annual North Shore Amateur.

“If you are going to have a good round, you have to get by that one. It’s a make-or-break hole on the front nine. If you are in the water, you’re probably looking at a double or a triple (bogey) at best.”

The water on this hole comes in the form of a tributary that menacingly wraps around both sides and the front of a steeply elevated green. Simply put, if golfers don’t stick their landing, as it were, chances are that they are rolling back in the drink.

“Sometimes the rough will hold it up, but the slope is so severe that the ball usually finds the water,” said O’Connor who says it’s not uncommon for amateurs to lay up on the hole and play a pair of wedges, especially in a match play situation. His advice?

“Try to respect the fact that the green is bigger than it appears from the tee. Always hit the extra club and don’t try to go right at the flag -- especially when it’s pushed up front.”

Carriage Pines No. 3, Par-4

Whenever club manager Scott MacDonald is running short on balls at the challenging nine-hole track in Rowley, he calls for his favorite diver, Ron Sebastian, and points him in the direction of this treacherous dogleg right. An hour later or so, Sebastian never fails to drop a couple of sacks of algae-coated balls in MacDonald’s office.

“It’s just one of the toughest holes that you are going to play,” says MacDonald. “From the blues you have to hit it 220 yards just to get a look at the pin.”

And when you do get a glimpse of that green,  golfers are greeted with the sinister sight of a large pond that wraps around the front two thirds of the green and the back right leaving golfers with a round-breaking decision.

The safe play is a layup or a longer iron to the left of the green near the fourth tee box, but Sebastian makes his living from those golfers who think otherwise.

One of the most memorable successful second shots to the green came from perennial club champion Mike Fecteau, who eagled the hole from 170 yards out two years ago en route to a miraculous comeback in the club championship.

Kernwood Country Club No. 16, Par-4

The good news for golfers is that this testy par-4, which measures 425 yards from the tips, is beatable. Local golf legend Bill Flynn eagled it en route to the Mass Open title in 1963.

The bad news? Few people can make the type of shots that Flynn was making back in his prime when he holed out a 6-iron as part of an eagle-birdie-par-eagle-par-par finish, which wiped out a three-shot deficit with six holes to go.

One guy who does have that same shot-making capability, veteran Kernwood head pro Frank Dully, takes nothing for granted at the hole which is ranked the No. 2 stroke hole only because it’s on the back nine.

“It’s our toughest hole. For me personally par is the score there,” said Dully, an NEPGA standout who battled current Nationwide player Geoff Sisk right to the bitter end last year at Kernwood in the Mass. Open.

“For average players the hole is all about distance, and for the longer hitters it’s all about shape.”

A large oak, which sits about 100 yards down the left fairway, forces the better players to try to shape a 3-wood around it as a driver will leave them in the right rough. A concern for the shorter hitters, who usually play driver here, is a fairway that slopes off around 215 yards and then flattens out again. Dully notes that you want to make sure that you wind up on either plateau but not get caught on the slope that connects the two. Suffice it to say, you do not want to have a downhill lie when trying to carry the foreboding tidal marsh that wraps itself right around the front and side of a steeply elevated green.

Most golfers are looking at a long iron to an elevated green at best on their second shot and are faced with a similar quandary as the one Kevin Costner’s character in the golf classic, “Tin Cup,” wrestled.

“You really have to make a decision,” said Dully. “If you drive it all the way to the bottom of the fairway, you still have at least 185 yards, and if you don’t do that, the issue becomes a 225 yard shot up hill.”

With a green that slopes severely from back to front with a steep slope that leads back to the water, the only reward for going for it in two is if you can leave yourself below the hole.

Salem Country Club No. 9, Par-4

The only water hole at the timeless Donald Ross classic in Peabody deserves to stand alone.

While there are some 30 yards of landing area past the water and before the green, the sloping fairway and treacherous rough have left many a second shot submerged on the historic hole.

 “You want to hit your tee shot to the right because everything falls to your left. And from the left rough it’s hard to clear the water on your second shot,” Salem’s Director of Golf Kevin Wood advises.

The legendary Ben Hogan in his famed charity match where he teamed with Sam Snead against Jack Burke and the colorful Jimmy Demaret found that out the hard way back in May of 1953.

After hitting his tee shot into the left rough on the harshly sloping fairway where it came to rest next to a small rock, Hogan, who had  Salem teenager Ed Whalley on the bag that day, made quite a splash with his second shot. According to Whalley’s recollections in Gary Larrabee’s “The Green & Gold Coast,” Hogan, with a $50 Nassau riding on the hole, tried to muscle a 4-iron through the rough and to the left of the pond only to see it take a bad bounce and disappear into the drink.

Hogan would pick up from there and the sloping left rough has forever since been referred to as, “Hogan’s Alley.”

Almost a half a century later, the hole served as the finishing hole for many of Hogan’s successors in the 2001 U.S. Senior Open and once again it wreaked havoc with many of the game’s very best. Needing just a par to force a four-hole playoff with eventual champ Bruce Fleisher, a rather self-assured Jim Colbert found the same twisty rough Hogan had nearly 50 years earlier. While he stayed clear of the water, his next two shots would miss the green and end his Open.

“I would say at the Open the water did not come as much into play as the rough did,” said Wood. “It really took its toll.”

Bradford Country Club No. 12, Par-5

Recent improvements have taken a tooth or two out of the bite of this 489-yard par-5 monster, but in our survey this hole was still mentioned early and often.

Bradford’s GM and PGA professional, Peter Vlahos, says there’s no perfect way to play the hole which graced the cover of the very first issue of North Shore Golf.

“What do I like about the hole?” Vlahos asked rhetorically. “Let me see, well, it’s the one hole that I’ll play one day and get a three and the next day get a seven.”

Posting the latter number – or higher – is a realistic expectation for most golfers on the hole which features a large pond some 260 yards off the tees and then a swamp right in front of the green.

From the front of the pond it’s 230 to the green and 175 yards or so to one of the two landing areas on either end of the pond, but before the swamp. When the course was reconfigured a couple of years ago, twenty yards of width were added to the more generous of the two landing areas on the left.

“It used to be a much tougher par 5,” Vlahos noted, “but there is still a lot of trouble. It’s a hole where you really have to make one of three choices.”

Indeed. Golfers can choose to either go for the gusto on their second shot or to pick one of the two landing areas and then pitch to a kidney shaped green. If you choose the larger left side, you can easily find yourself in a pair of greenside bunkers if you come up short on your pitch.

Honorable mentions: No. 9 at Hillview CC No. 10 at Turner Hill GC No. 8 at Beverly G&T No. 16 at Middleton GC No. 14 at Gannon GC Nos. 2,8 at Ferncroft CC No. 4 King Rail GC (formerly Colonial Country Club) No. 9 at Thomson CC No. 11 at Indian Ridge CC No. 13 at Renaissance GC