"I looked up and there was this huge baboon," says Bates. "And the scary thing was, he had this big grin on his face?which was really a growl, I guess?and he had fangs sticking out of his mouth that were two or three inches long. And he was coming right at me. He was about 15 yards away when I threw my hammer at him and ran."

According to some Zulu workers on site, had Bates wandered another 15 or 20 yards further into the jungle, he would have encroached on the animal's territory. "And that baboon would have been all over me," he says with a shudder.

Given how much travel their job requires, it's no surprise to hear globe-trotting course architects tell of transportation-related perils. Topping J. Michael Poellot's list of close calls was a short hop in a helicopter that turned into a thrill ride he hadn't bargained for.

"In the late '80s we were doing a lot of mountaintop projects in Japan, and this was September, typhoon season," Poellot recalls. "We were picked up at a golf course in Chiba Prefecture, started our flight to Tochigi Prefecture and ran into a huge series of thunderheads. The prudent thing would have been to land, but the owner was so determined to see the site that day, he told the pilot to go over the storm.

"Well, we got ourselves stuck above that storm. We spent two hours trying to find holes in the clouds in order to get down. Occasionally I would catch a glimpse of treetops or mountaintops, then the chopper would zoom back up. Then fuel became an issue and we had to go down. We'd go around one set of big puffy clouds, then get blocked in by the next group. Finally, by the grace of God, we made it down and landed on a little country road."

One day at Alabama's Shoal Creek, Bob Cupp and Morrish?do we sense a pattern developing here??were being chauffeured across the property by the course superintendent in a rental car.

"At the second hole, we came to a stop at a crossing where a huge 988 Caterpillar loader drove past," says Cupp. "The superintendent, Jimmy, began to pull forward. Just about that time the Caterpillar operator mindlessly threw his vehicle in reverse and started to back up. Jay yelled, 'Get us out of here!' Jimmy panicked and thought he put the car in reverse; unfortunately, it had slipped into park and zoomed to about 10,000 rpm before the Caterpillar ran right over the hood. It was horrendous. Nobody got hurt, but we sure were shaken up."

Natural hazards may pose the greatest danger of all. For example, an earthquake once threatened the well-being of?who else?Jay Morrish, along with that of a legendary golf trio: Jack Nicklaus, Tom Weiskopf and Ben Crenshaw.

"We all had top-floor rooms at the Okura Hotel," recalls Morrish. "About 6 in the morning, everything broke loose and all of a sudden I was watching my furniture do the Funky Chicken across the room. I thought, 'I need to do something.' Then I remembered I was on the top floor, so at least nothing would fall on top of me. I just got back in bed, and it lasted about 15 seconds, although it felt like 10 minutes. When it was over, I stuck my head out the door and there were three white faces looking back at me from their doors down the hall."

Ron Fream's adventures include escaping a flood (in Korea), battling heatstroke (in Tunisia) and suffering from frostbite (in Finland, where he's built six courses, including one just 50 miles from the Arctic Circle).

Gary Linn of Knott-Brooks-Linn in Palo Alto, Calif., describes his philosophy toward such hazardous job locales. "I've got a wife and three kids, and here I am in Colombia," says Linn. "My family has watched "Miami Vice" and "Clear and Present Danger," so they have an idea of what these places are like. And I'm wondering, 'What in the world am I doing here?' This job will teach you to trust in God out there, that's for sure."

It doesn't hurt to be packing a loaded derringer, either.