We seem to be preoccupied with money this week: perhaps it has to do with the time of year, especially now that our tax deadlines coincide with the festive season. Anyway, this little tale is about a golf hole which may be the most expensive in the history of the game.

On June 2nd, 1999, only days before its official opening, the 18th hole on the Ocean Trails course, designed by Pete Dye south of Los Angeles, was swept away by a landslide. With a number of lawsuits pending, nobody is saying for certain what went wrong, but a popular theory is that an old sewer line leaked under the fairway, causing it to slide on a thin layer of volcanic ash.

Word now is that the area has been so well reinforced that not even Niagara Falls could dislodge it. Which is no more than one would expect, given a repair bill of $20 million. And that doesn't include a bankruptcy filing by the development company, several lawsuits and a mischievously intrusive family of gnatcatcher birds.

Dye's verdict on the project? "Without going before any commissions, we could have rebuilt the hole in a month."