Tougher but fairer

[Mike_Young]

Would it not be fair to say that good short holes have stood the test of time much better than good long holes??

[BCrosby]

Tim wrote:

"Presently, the back tees measure 7,400 yards. The plan is to increase them to 7,800 yards.

If that isn't pure insanity, I don't know what is."

No, that is being rational. If you want a course today to play like a 7000 yard course in 1985, it needs to be 7700 yards. Minimum. Given today's distances vs. distances from 1985, a 7400 yard course today plays like a 6800 yeard course in 1985.

Those are the stark mathematical consequences of the increases in distance over the last 20 years. We all ought to start getting used to them. Courses at 7800 yards are not particularly long for tournament play. Not any more.

Bob  

[Ken Fry]

If you agree with Mike Young's opinion that short holes have stood the test of time better than long holes (which I do), why do you believe that is true?  Could it be the additional creative challenges presented via bunkering, contouring, green angle and green undulation?

[Brent Hutto]

If you agree with Mike Young's opinion that short holes have stood the test of time better than long holes (which I do), why do you believe that is true?  Could it be the additional creative challenges presented via bunkering, contouring, green angle and green undulation?

Hasn't it always been true that the better player looks forward to long holes (Par 5's) because he can gain some advantage on the first shot, some additional advantage on the second shot and end up gaining one or possibly two shots versus par or versus a weaker opponent? Conversely, the better player views a Par 3 as almost a "can't win" proposition in that he only hits one full shot (and that with the ball teed up) so a below-standard shot there leaves very little chance for gaining a stroke on that hole. In other words, three-shot holes are mostly upside for the stronger player whereas one-shotters are all downside.

As a weaker player I look forward to the Par 3's because I'm much more likely to pull off one really good shot than I am to string together two really good shots in a row on the longer holes. So in that sense the short holes have not experienced the widening gap between the big hitters and weaker players to the same extent as the Par 5's (and probably long Par 4's).

[Ken Fry]

Brent,

I may have been jumping the gun a little but my view was toward short par 4's.  I believe a well designed short par 4 can provide the higher handicap player the opportunity to play the hole well while also challenging the low handicap player who feels they should score well.  I've played many short par 4's that succeed in satisfying both kinds of players.  I enjoy seeing a hole the demands creativity out of the player whether it's stategic hazard placement or visual deceptions.  These holes it seems, when designed well, stand the test of time and equipment improvement better than the longer holes.

Ken

[Andy Hughes]

This just illustrates the incredible power of the word "par", in perception.  Take a 250 yard hole with nothing to carry and a tough green, and a LOT of golfers hate it if you call it a par 3, saying it's way too tough... but LOVE IT if you call it a par 4, because then it's a driveable birdie hole.  Nothing has changed except a number on the card.  

TomH, I think you are exactly right, and this phenomenon never ceases to amaze me.
I vividly recall playing a practice round many years ago (without a card) and playing one iron off the tee of a hole I thought was a tight par 5. Turned out it was a tight par 4, and when I found out it was a 4 suddenly the driver was the right play!!  

[Brent Hutto]

I may have been jumping the gun a little but my view was toward short par 4's.  I believe a well designed short par 4 can provide the higher handicap player the opportunity to play the hole well while also challenging the low handicap player who feels they should score well.

That's true. Thinking of my favorite short Par 4 (which is at my home course) it is only 300 yards from my tees and maybe 320 from all the way back but is arranged as a sort of continuously-curving dogleg left around a hillside that is fundamentally undrivable. I mean, John Daly might figure out a way to have a go at it but you can't really get to the green from the tee.

So what you end up with is a hole where a weaker player has to hit a good 3-wood followed by a good 8-iron or 9-iron and then make a putt on a severely sloping green. A strong player has to hit a good 5-iron followed by a good wedge and then make a putt on a severely sloping green. That's about as equal as you can make a golf hole without having one set of tees 100+ yards behind the other. And if big hitters gain an extra 20 yards with every club a decade from now it will still require a good 6-iron and a good wedge.

[Tim_Weiman]

Adam,

It is beyond me how you could feel the golf technology arms race serves any purpose for golfers.

All it does is increase the cost of playing golf.....shouldn't we be pushing for a more sensible solution?

[DMoriarty]

Tom P.

Your post defends the USGA's endless deliberations and stalls while the equipment manufacturers have been stealing away our game.  While I disagree, this is beside the issue raised by Tom D. and in my post.   My post concerned the USGA's activity, not their passivity.

Lost Dunes is a respected and (apparently) difficult course, yet its powers-that-be are planning to add length at the suggestion of the USGA.   Moreover, their goal is to make the course more attractive to the USGA by conforming to implicit USGA tournament site standards.

To put it mildly, this trend of stretching our courses to absurd lengths is not in the best interest of the game.  Yet the USGA is apparently out there counseling courses to do  just that.  

Also, the USGA implies the very same message through its US Open course selections and setups.  Hosting our national championship is probably the greatest honor a U.S. course can receive, so naturally the rest of the golf community assumes that the event represents not just the best golf, but also the best golfing conditions.   As a role model, the USGA is failing the game.  

So even setting aside equipment issue, it is hard to see how the USGA is acting in the best interest of the game.  Throw in the equipment issue and it becomes impossible to seed how they are acting in the best interests of the game.  
_______________________

Now turning to your post . . .

Your apologist approach would have been much easier to swallow ten years ago, when the writing was on the wall but before things got so out of hand.    

Tom Paul said  . . .

We live in a complicated world and the regulators of golf and the manufacturer's of golf equipment are definitely not on the same side of this distance issue. It's like a tug of war with the manufacturers on one side and the regulators on the other. In the middle is what both of them are trying to win---the golfers of this world. The manufacturers are very good at seducing the world's golfers with what just may be the most seductive thing of all about golf---distance!

It is not just the golfers, the courses are in the middle as well.   As expained above, the USGA has quite a lot of power regarding what happens to the courses.  Dont believe me?  Remember that a suggestion by a few lowly USGA volunteers may result in the lenghening of Lost Dunes, even over the designer's objections.   Shouldn't the USGA work defend and preserve the great courses as opposed to encouraging their surrender?

There is a very real danger today that if the regulators don't properly convince the world's golfers of these dangers and just simply continue to pay occasional lip service to the problem, the manufacturers very well might just forego conforming to the regulators rules and regs altogether and sell completley non-conforming balls and equipment to the world's golfers and then where would golf and architecture be in the future?

The USGA is supposed to lead, not follow, and sometimes leaders must risk their position and even their existence to do what is right and necessary.  

If the USGA ever steps up and starts acting like leaders instead of lackeys then they'll find that they have quite a lot more power than you describe.  Think about it . . . they control all our national championships (including our most prestigious tournament),  have close connections to many of our greatest clubs and courses, and have been widely acknowledged and accepted as the ruling body of golf for around a century.  As long as the PGA, Augusta, The R and A, and the clubs would stand with them, the equipment manufacturers would have no choice but to fall in line.  

And if the equipment manufacturers choose to betray the game, then the hell with them.  Ignore them.  And ignore the cheaters who choose to use their cheating equipment.  Dont give them handicaps, dont let them in tournaments, dont accept them in your clubs or foursomes.

The equipment industry needs golf a whole lot more than the golf needs the equipment industry.  

It'd be in a whole lot worse place than it is today, that's for sure! The regulators of golf balls and equipment may not be doing a good job of controlling the manufacturers and increased distance but they defiinitely are not 'shills' of the manufacuturers no matter how much you mght like to think that.

Tom, our championship courses are fast approaching (and surpassing) the  7500 yd mark; the distance gap between similarly skilled long and short hitters has grown to a six or more club difference (well beyond the point where it is possible to appropriately accomodate them both on the same course;) our greatest courses are either being modified and lengthened again and again or set up so severely that they make a mockery of some of the greatest holes we have;  long courses built less than a decade ago are becoming obsolete; a fourteen year old girl consistently drives the ball farther than John Daly did in his prime.

I just dont see how "it could possibly be a whole lot worse place than it is today."
______________________________

As for the shill comment . . .  

Through their apparent satisfaction with and involvement in corrupt systems, 'shills' dupe others into being swindled, tricked, or manipulated.  While those running the USGA may be  unwitting shills, they are shills nonetheless.

[Tom_Doak]

Ken and Mike:

I used to prize good short par-4 holes because they resisted technology, but nowadays they are becoming long one-shotters for some players, which is not a good trend at all.

Crystal Downs has some of my favorite short par-4 holes, including the 5th, 7th, 15th and 17th.  On all of them, until recently, good players generally played an iron from the tee for position, sacrificing their distance advantage and putting them on an even footing with the accurate short hitter.

However, this summer Fred and I played with Ian Baker-Finch, who is not a long hitter compared to today's top 50 players, and Ian took out driver on 7, 15 and 17 and left himself a pitch (or chip)-and-putt birdie on each of them.  This was not an option for many players ten years ago on holes of 310-330 yards with a lot of trouble around the greens; but modern pros with their drivers are so much longer and so much straighter that they don't worry about making X's with aggressive plays.

I believe this is a real cause for concern, more so than the general trend toward all approach shots being hit with short irons.  I used to criticize Jack Nicklaus for not building any short par-4's between 320 and 390 yards; I am starting to become afraid that he had a valid reason.

[TEPaul]

DavidM:

I'm not exactly defending the USGA as you seem to suggest. What I'm doing in my post to you is explaining what I believe to be the realilites of the USGA's postion today as well as the manufacturer's position. You said the USGA is a "shil" to the manufacturers and that's not even remotely close to the truth!

If the manufacturers happened to decide to produce golf balls and equipment that completely disregards the USGA's I&B rules and regs you think the thing to do would be to just ignore the manufacturers? That's just flat dreaming David. The USGA may not be efficient and effective in protecting the game as well as it should be but, again, if they cease to exist or are rendered irrelevent in I&B regulation the game of amateur golf we've always known and the extent they've actually held I&B together all these years would go by the wayside in no time at all. You think what's happening today with distance is sad? Wait until you see what it'd be like without the USGA.

[DMoriarty]

Tom,

What factual support do you have for your doomsayer prediction that amateur golf would not stand with the USGA?  . . . I've a feeling that you rely on the faulty presumption that average golfers would necessarily be hurt by a rollback and/or a hard line limit.  

Besides, the USGA has come close to rendering itself irrelevant now.   What good is a ruling body which is too timid to actively protect the game?    And what good is a ruling body which implicitly and explicitly encourages acquiescence to the manufacturers.

Tom, all of golf is desperate for a leader other than the manufacturers.  The infrastructure of golf, including Augusta and the Tours, would stand with the USGA.   The amateurs would follow, especially if the USGA came up with a solution which allowed them to gain back some of what they have lost relative to the very skilled golfers.  

You think what's happening today with distance is sad? Wait until you see what it'd be like without the USGA.

I've been seeing this for years. . ..  But do you know what I would love to see?   A USGA acting for the good of the game.  

[Ken Fry]

Tom Doak,

You played with the guy that hit it out of bounds LEFT on the 1st hole of TOC and he was able to get driver near 15 and 17 at Crystal??  I'm sure the pressure was a little lower, but that's still an impressive shot.

I'll use two examples at Lost Dunes to support shorter holes.  I've been with guys who have tried hitting driver on holes #1 and #14.  Even if they pull those shots off and clear the trouble to the left of #1 or fit into the fairway near the green on #14, neither of those greens is going to be friendly because they're closer.  The beauty of those particular short holes and the greens that go with them.

Same with the #13 hole at Kingsley Club.  Can players drive that green?  The strong players can but they better not miss.

So many options exist on well designed short holes from the tee shot to the approach shot to the putting.  Even with the advances in technology, I don't think great short holes will ever go out of vogue.  I'm sure #1 and #14 at Lost Dunes were not holes they were looking to add length to.

[Doug Siebert]

If you agree with Mike Young's opinion that short holes have stood the test of time better than long holes (which I do), why do you believe that is true?  Could it be the additional creative challenges presented via bunkering, contouring, green angle and green undulation?

Par 3s are less sensitive to hitting it further, both because the new equipment has helped iron distances less than driver distances and because hitting a 6 iron rather than a 4 or 5 iron isn't a huge advantage in terms of making birdie or avoiding bogey.

Short par 4s likewise, but for a different reason.  When longer drives bring short par 4s that aren't quite as short into drivability range, the gain is pretty small, even tossing out wild hitting netting 5s and 6s versus the safe play.  Even if you take a dead flat and straight 330 yard (pick your favorite distance) par 4 with no trouble around it, the number of eagles will be tiny, simply because getting close enough to make the putt not only requires a superbly straight drive, it also requires amazing distance control with the driver (or, for us mortals, pure luck) to get it close.  You can leave it just about anywhere on the green or the fringe and probably expect to average birdie from such a place.  But if the hole was made longer or you used the equipment of 10 or 20 years ago (same difference) you could still hit driver on such a hole pretty close to the front edge, and still have an easy chip or pitch that anyone with a decent short game should be able to convert into birdies.  Maybe not a guaranteed birdie for the short game most of us have, but its not a big difference.

Contrast that with the 450 yard par 4s we used to fear 20 years ago where any more than a tiny mishit off the tee meant you probably couldn't even hit the green in two, versus today where even a gross mishit leaves you with ample chance to get home in two (unless you mishit into deep rough or trees, of course, but that's a problem equipment has yet to solve)

[A_Clay_Man]

It is beyond me how you could feel the golf technology arms race serves any purpose for golfers.

All it does is increase the cost of playing golf.....shouldn't we be pushing for a more sensible solution?

Tim- As I understand what you're calling a race, isn't a new one, and, it's beyond me how, or why, anyone would want to stifle future growth. Especially if it's just for 250 of the world's elite, and especilly when all you need to do, is to make their implements ill-suited for the task at hand, by turning off the spiget.

Ask yourself this, before sattelite linked, palm piloted irrigation systems became the vogue, did every golfer not strive to be better? To play outside their past abilities and progress to a new level? Now, they've done that, and it's the equiptments fault? Who are you worried about? the joe schmoe who doesn't fix his ball marks and walks a round while you're trying to sink a birdie putt? or the typical pro?

If it's the courses you worry about? I may be slightly jaded, having just crossed the vastness of the state of Idaho for the first time.

Your issue truely seems geographically influenced and dominated by existing markets, with little regard for the future, past short-term.

The solution is easy, caviet emptor! If the powers that be at LD want to buy into a fad, won't they seem foolish in the long run, if it is a fad? But, if the trend continues, with more and more distances required, inorder for the top players to come and golf their venue, won't they seem more foolish when they don't bother coming, anymore, at all?

[Tripp_Davis]

Until the USGA, and other govering agencies, require the player to play a ball with a higher spin rate, we can expect players to hit too far to allow the strategy to work for holes built as recently as five years ago.  As Tom Doak said, designing a set of tees for a small part of the golf population should not be necessary, unless the course has the hope of hosting a large group of that small percentage for tournament play.  The game has changed dramatically over the last five years for competitive play and unless we change the ball, the courses that host competitive play on a regular basis must account for designed strategy changing.  

This being said, this is not the case for 99% of the courses in the game.  Really good players, including the best amateur's in the country, hit the ball significantly further today than five years ago.  I play with the college kids every summer in about five tournaments and I am amazed at how far they hit the ball.  Even some of the mid am's can move it.  I played with Trip Kuenhe last summer at the Sunnehanna and watched him hit driver - 2 iron to the 600 yard +, uphill, par five 9th.  

Again, this being said, I do not think a good test is one tested by how few players broke par, but how challenged they were to think and execute great strategy.  When that strategy is made irrelevant, I would suggest the test is not as good.  Is length the answer?  It does not have to be and I would suggest it should be used as a last resort.

[A_Clay_Man]

Your question DOES make me realize another reason I've stood against the proliferation of multiple teeing grounds on golf courses ... if you are trying to build a tee to accommodate every player, then you have to accommodate the longest-hitting player in the world on every course, which is a waste of valuable real estate.

Tom, Thanks for your reply. I would tend to agree that trying to make a golf course playable for every level, today, is darn close to futile. Maybe in the 1920's it was a noble and doable goal, but, with the proliferation of the sport and the subsequent advancements, made on many fronts, that need, seems to have been made obsolete.

A "waste of real estate" is a bit harsh but... if Tim Finchem came calling tommorrow, and asked you to build the "design of all designs", specifically to ultimately challenge the "new" distance pros, wouldn't it have less irrigated acreage, than most courses built to accommodate the 36 handicaper?

If the answer could be yes, couldn't a 10k yard course cost less to maintain than these 7700 yd CCFAD's?

[Ken Fry]

Adam,

Of course your question is hypothetical, but who would be paying to build the course?  More importantly, who would be paying to maintain it the other 49 weeks of the year (assuming a tournament the size you are describing would take the course for three weeks)?

The double edge sword exists because the top players need more of a challenge than "normal" players, but the "normal" players are looked upon to support the course in the long haul.

Could an architect design a course with specific landing areas thus eliminating the need for more maintained turf?  Sure, but what happens in ten years when the top players hit it farther and make the course obsolete??

[Brent Hutto]

Could an architect design a course with specific landing areas thus eliminating the need for more maintained turf?  Sure, but what happens in ten years when the top players hit it farther and make the course obsolete??

To play the devil's advocate for a moment, if you design a course with a specific landing area which ends at 270 yards from the back tees (with a waste area or something from there to the green) that pretty much fixes the play of that hole permanently. If players gain another 20 yards one day down the road they may be hitting 4-irons into that landing area but that's how they are going to always play the hole.

Not that I'm saying it would be a good design. At most you might imagine one or two holes like that on a course. But OTOH haven't there been courses built in the desert that are basically a string of small irrigated landing areas surrounded by native scrub and sand? How do those courses hold up given the changes in distance for stronger players today?

[TEPaul]

Tripp:

I think it's fantastic that you propose the USGA/R&A rewrite the I&B rules and regs to require a ball that has a higher spin rate. That, in a nutshell, may put the necessary and significant cap on distance and/or perhaps significantly roll-back distance!

These good young players today certainly do hit the ball unbeleivable distances. How do they do it? They do it with very low spinning golf balls that launch off the face of their drivers about 3-4 times higher than the old high spinning balls all the good strong players used only up until about 5-7 years ago.

It's no secret that trajectory is the key to real distance. In the old days when a gorrila like Nicklaus smashed a driver his golf ball's trajectory looked something like a Lear jet taking off. The ball would fly out real low for about 150 yards and then climb like a Lear jet on take-off. That's not the trajectory of real distance at all---just the opposite, in fact.

I had a special tour of the USGA tech center this spring with John Ott and the really good tech guy explained to us the five tested and controlled factors of golf ball conformance. I asked him why spin rate was not one of them and if it would have an effect on controlling distance. He thought about that for a moment and said he felt they didn't control that factor simply because they never had---but that, yes, it certainly would have a limiting effect on distance.

Tripp Kuehne hit the 9th at Sunnehanna with a drive and a 2 iron??? Jeeeesus---that's both impressive and depressing. I played that hole last week and I hit a drive in the middle of the fairway, a low skanked 3 wood up to the top of the hill from which point it rolled all the way back down the hill from which point a hit a good 2 iron and a good 60 degree wedge to the back pin!  

Tripp Kuehne is an interesting case. I don't know that I've seen more than a handful of golfers in my life you have as perfect fundamentals as he does and who hit the ball as hard as he does without exactly appearing to.

I primarily followed him in all his matches at the Walker Cup at Ganton last year and I don't know what kind of ball he was using but he appeared to be about the only one who hit the ball with a fairly low or flat trajectory with occassionally that somewhat steep rise half way out---very reminiscenct of the old high spinning trajectory. But it sure didn't seem to limit his distance in any way, shape or form, and I assume that's so simply because he just might hit the ball harder than anyone these days. Basically no one at the Walker Cup could hit it the distance he did even with his comparably low trajectory compared the the rest. In my opinion, he probably used way too many 2 irons off tees at Ganton for his own good. His 2 irons also had that very low boring trajectory.

On the 7th hole at Ganton ( a truly beautifully designed dogleg right of about 440 yds) in his first match he took out his driver and hit the ball way right over a virtual ocean of gorse. When he hit that low boring drive the crowd gasped; "Oh my God, he's hit the ball 100 yards right of where he should" but when we all got up there his ball was 40 yards right in front of the green. The next day I walked off that line and he had to carry the ball 320 yards on that line and obviously the ball rolled another 50 yards or so.

But that's the key to distance control in my opinion, Tripp. They simply need to limit the minimum amount of spin-rate on the ball and that old trajectory will be back and distance will be effectively dialed back compared to how high these strong players today are launching their drives off the clubface, which again is the total key to real carry distance---and the USGA is well aware of that.

[Ken Fry]

Brent,

A great point.  My perspective was building a course to handle top level tournament golf now.  In ten years if technology continues on its current path, the course I'm suggesting will be obsolete for what it was designed for.

Will it force the strong & long hitting player to lay back?  Certainly, so based on what the USGA, R&A and PGA Tour have been doing the last handful of years, you must lengthen a course to make it challenging and accomodate the new distances.

My point was if you build a course now to accomodate top level golf ONLY, who will support it and what will happen when it no longer can accomodate tournament golf?