[Jason Topp]

What is preferable as the template big event professional set-up in the face of technology?

A 7000 yard, narrow fairway course, in which a pro can hit driver wedge on most par fours, but faces the usual devices to combat scoring, such as narrow fairways, doglegs at prescribed lengths with trees cutting off the distance of a prudent tee shot, high rough, fast greens, silly pin positions, etc.  (Colonial, Southern Hills, Olympic)

or:

A much longer course that makes driver a viable option on each hole, provides options for attacking or playing defensively, difficult green complexes but little rough (Augusta without the rough or the extra trees; Some of the Open courses lengthened but with normal width fairways)

I list this topic because there seems to me to be a contradiction in the discussions about how to deal with increased driving distances.  On one hand, one often hears, "more length is not the answer"  but on the other hand, options and strategic decisions are widely regarded as important to a quality course.  I think a short course limits options.

I really dislike watching pros:

- dink tee shots with irons around the course (without a reasonable alternative of hitting something else)  
- have the design of the course eradicate any advantage a longer driver would have due to his added length (such as doglegs that turn with high enough trees to prevent cutting the corner); or
- have the course turn into a driver wedge contest


I prefer to see a requirement that every club in the bag be tested and that one must make choices in deciding how to attack the course.  I believe it is extremely unlikely that the governing bodies will ever scale back distance technology.

Given those assumptions, to me, it seems like the best way to accomplish that aim is to radically lengthen tournament courses but design them well, thereby forcing the player to make choices regarding his approach to each hole.  For example, some of the courses Bobby Jones played in the 20's were 7000 yards.  Based on technology advances, I would posit it would be necessary to increase distance 20-30% to create the same playing challenges today.

Lengthening the courses requires pros to hit the same types of shots and have the same choices as 40 years ago.  Lenghtening courses places more emphasis on accuracy and angles, because it is a lot harder to recover from an inaccurate tee shot if one has 200 yards into the green rather than 100 yards. Lenthening courses puts Donald Ross' ideal test of a long iron into a par four back into the game.  Lenghtening courses and playing them in fast firm conditions may bring the ground game back into play.  

Imagine a tournament at Royal Melbourne, Shinnecock, The Old Course, Muifield, or others at 8,000 yards (each par four or five 20% longer) with normal fairway widths and normal rough  (or no rough if appropriate).  

I doubt it would be the apocolypse.  I would like to see at least one or two tournaments take this approach and see what happens.  I think it might be an improvement.  I also think that shorter, more accurate hitters might benefit from such an approach because accuracy would be necessary to succeed.

I look forward to the views of others.

[Kyle Harris]

There are several problems with longer courses, most of which deal with costs that ultimately come back to the player.

Longer typically will equate to bigger for pretty much any feature of a golf course as well. Bigger equates to more turf needing to be maintained. Bigger also means more land. Golf Courses already have a fairly large footprint, some would argue too large in some cases.

Also, for our present courses, finding the room to build new tees, or *gulp* new greens could be at a premium.

Geoff Shackelford writes fairly extensively on this subject in "The Future of Golf in America" and the logic behind most of his arguments is quite sound.

In manner of cost effectiveness and to further growth of the game, lengthening courses is not the answer.

[Sam Sikes]

The bottom line is that Tour Pros are good.  They are going to find out how to score on any layout, in any conditions, which is fine.  

However, in my opinion, fast pure greens are a major culprit to low scores.  Likewise, the green contours on tour tracks must be able to accomodate 11+ on the stimpmeter.  Pros today are making more putts than ever from 5-25 feet.  The fact that pins must be in flat locations to be fair at such speeds only exacerbates the ability to shoot low scores.  

Also, the tour places pins in the corners of the green, which at first glance seems like a reasonable way to resist low scores, but IMO it opens up the green for a larger margin of error.  Pros rarely aim at the pin anyway, and with a back left or back right pin, there is a huge area for them to have a fairly straight uphill putt(assuming that most greens slope from back to front) which is much easier than a shorter putt with considerable break.  

My conclusion is that if the greens were slowed so that holes could be strategically located to use the contours of the green rather than the corners, fewer putts would be holed, and scores would not be so low.

If you study the Dave Pelz science of holing putts, this theory would seem to hold water.

[Jason Topp]

In manner of cost effectiveness and to further growth of the game, lengthening courses is not the answer.

I recognize the issues you raise, but for a select number of true championship venues one could set aside cost considerations.  

I critiqued Shackelford's assertions in a thread a while ago.  

Finally, I also recognize it may not be possible to lengthen to the extent I am talking about on existing courses, but that does not change the hypothetical of whether if one could, the courses would be better.

A good example of what I am discussing is the 11th at Augusta.  In my view, lengthening that hole has brought back the Ben Hogan decision as to whether to hit the second shot right.  That decision had been gone when pros were hitting short irons to the green before it was lengthened.

[A.G._Crockett]

No.

[Kyle Harris]

Jason,

I am not wholly opposed to the lengthening of courses. I'd just rather not see it as the first choice or be all end all to toughening up golf courses.

Cases like the 11th at Augusta to me are few and far between though.

The 10th hole at Bethpage has been lengthened to the point of sheer idiocy, and when coupled with the narrowing of the fairways and the twenty yards of rough between the bunkers and the fairway it becomes a boom or doom hole. The PGA at Oak Hill two years ago can also be coupled with the lengthened to idiocy camp.

However, I will concede that there are instances where lengthening the hole has yeilded great results, for example... the 18th at Atlanta Athletic Club.

I'd rather see more variance in fairway contour, tee position and angles of attack than an immediate bail out to distance is all.

[Pete Lavallee]

Jason,

How exactly do you put a long iron in Tiger's hands? We all know that Ben Hogan hit a 1 iron into 18 at Merion in his US Open win. That hole measured 450 yards. To get Tiger just to hit a 2 iron the hole would need to be 300 (driver distance) + 250 (2 iron distance) = 550 yards! Do you really want to see 550 yard par 4's? RM, TOC, SH, and Muirfield have exhausted their room to lengthen; where would they find this extra 800 yards needed to bring their total to 8000? How would this make golf there any better the other 51 weeks of the year?

[Jason Topp]

Jason,

How exactly do you put a long iron in Tiger's hands? We all know that Ben Hogan hit a 1 iron into 18 at Merion in his US Open win. That hole measured 450 yards. To get Tiger just to hit a 2 iron the hole would need to be 300 (driver distance) + 250 (2 iron distance) = 550 yards! Do you really want to see 550 yard par 4's? RM, TOC, SH, and Muirfield have exhausted their room to lengthen; where would they find this extra 800 yards needed to bring their total to 8000? How would this make golf there any better the other 51 weeks of the year?

I am interested in whether 550 yard par 4's would provide more interesting tournament venues.  Most people dismiss the notion out of hand.  I'm not sure you should.

My proposed hole distance ranges would be

Par 5 - 550 and up
par 4 - 390-540 (sand wedge to utility wood approach shots for the average length tour pro (290 yards))
par 3's - same as they are now

My guess is that the result is an 8000 yard course.

I agree that there are practical problems with this approach.  It would be of no benefit the remainder of the year and I don't contend that there is room to lengthen these courses.  Nonetheless, from purely the perspective of what would make the best championship layout, I think that this length might produce a more entertaining tournament that would test today's players without resort to goofy set ups or deep rough.

[Kyle Harris]

Jason,

Just what is a "Goofy set-up?"

[Dan Herrmann]

Look at the early matches at LaCosta for the answer.  Slow down the greens and don't roll them either.

Nowhere does it say golf greens must be akin to a billiard table.

[Jason Topp]

Kyle:

My definition of goofy set up:

 - 7 at Shinnecock
 - Carnoustie in 99
 - 18 at Olympic in 98
 - The day at the Australian Open (I believe a year ago) when they cancelled play because the first green was so fast balls would not sit still on the green
- narrow fairways
- pinched fairways
- pin positions 3 steps from the edge of the green (I could be convinced that this makes sense)
- Fairways that good players cannot reach from the tee (Bethpage 10 & 12 in 2002)

We see these devices more and more often in response to technology.  It may be better to just make the courses longer and bring back similar shot challenges.

[George Pazin]

No.

I agree.

[Jason Topp]

No.

I agree.

Why?

[Dan Herrmann]

Then again, who cares if they shoot 55?  The game is all about getting around in the fewest strokes.

Exactly when did 'defending par' become our mantra?

[Matt_Cohn]

If we had 500-550 yard par 4's, the scoring on those holes should be similar to the scoring we see on 500-550 yard par 5's currently on tour.

But aren't those the holes that we consider the least likely to identify the great golfers? A typical viewpoint is that any long hitter can birdie a bunch of par-5's, but only the top players can consistently play par-4's well, because Par 4's are simply more indicative of skill. (Just for some proof, compare these two lists of par-4 and par-5 scoring on tour last year:)

Par-4's
Par-5's

So this kind of confuses me. On one hand, yes, it would be great to see pros hitting long irons into par-4's. On the other hand, there are obviously a lot of 500-550 yard holes on tour already, and they don't seem to be very good at identifying the great players.

What does this all mean?

[Tommy_Naccarato]

To answer Jason's original thread starter:

NO!

[Steve_ Shaffer]

No. See 2003 Canadian Open at Hamilton G&CC. Bob Tway at -8 was the winner on this classic H.S. Colt course.

[peter_mcknight]

I don't think, under fast and firm conditions at Augusta no. 11, the old Hogan question of what kind of shot do you hit will necessarily be relevant--the big and moderate to big hitters will still hit 8 and 9 irons into the hole anyway.  Tiger has hit driver and 9 iron into the hole; same for Vijay, etc.  Fuzzy even hit an 8 iron back in the 1979 Masters when it played 455 yards.

If we are concerned about the top tour guys, let's eliminate 2 par 5s per each par 72 course on tour and have 2 500+ yard par 4s on each tour course.  I don't think the networks will find that too appealing if there aren't any birdie holes on a back nine to bring some interest, etc.

In terms of the low scoring, I believe it was both F Hannigan and D Fay who have said that tour courses have moved closer to US Open conditions, while conditioning for US Open courses has remained relatively constant over the year.  The most notable aspect of that is green speeds--for quite awhile, it was only the US Open that would have 11 stimp speeds; now that is commonplace and the Open has moved its overall number to the 11.5-12.5 range (depends on the course).

I have always believed course set-ups need to allow the top guys to hit drivers, and, if they put it on the fairway, they will be justly rewarded.  However, I also believe that courses should have a "correct" position to attack a green from the fairway when set up for tournament golf, but, when relaxed, isn't that big a deal wherever on the fairway for standard member and/or public play.  Augusta is a prime example of this--if fast/firm, need to be on the "correct" side of the fairway--during normal member play, when relaxed, one is generally rewarded if in the fairway.

In sum, length isn't the answer and serves no real purpose except for tournament golf.  Length in and for itself just increases the overall cost to golf and doesn't help democratize the sport.

[Tom_Doak]

Jason:

The most interesting events always seem to be had at the shortest courses they play.  You may not like watching them hit irons off the tee, but at least they have to think about what they're doing.  If I wanted to see them hit 14 drivers, I'd go to the practice range.

If they would just take the equipment back to where it was thirty years ago, then you'd get to see the players hitting the shots you yearn for.  It may be unlikely to happen ... but it's more likely than having a bunch of modern architects building courses as good as Muirfield, Merion, et al.

[Tim_Weiman]

Jason,

A far better solution would be to ban professional golf......everywhere, not just the United States.

[Tom_Doak]

Tim:

I wish it was just professional golf.

This past weekend they had a small marketing event at Stone Eagle.  Al Geiberger came up with two of his sons, Brian who is a local club professional, and Allen Jr. who is 17 and playing for his local high school team.  When the younger one was asked by the developer whether he hit his drives 300 yards, his response was "Geez, I hope so," like that was nothing.

The boys then launched drives of approximately 330 yards off the first tee.  [Twenty feet downhill, but zero roll in the dirt.]  Luckily there was just enough fairway to contain them before it narrowed up between the rocks.

[Jason Topp]

Jason:

The most interesting events always seem to be had at the shortest courses they play.  You may not like watching them hit irons off the tee, but at least they have to think about what they're doing.  If I wanted to see them hit 14 drivers, I'd go to the practice range.

If they would just take the equipment back to where it was thirty years ago, then you'd get to see the players hitting the shots you yearn for.  It may be unlikely to happen ... but it's more likely than having a bunch of modern architects building courses as good as Muirfield, Merion, et al.

I agree that many of the more interesting tournaments are at shorter courses now, but I would contend that is because the courses are better in the first place.  Royal Melbourne is probably my favorite course on which to watch a tournament, but it certainly is not the fierce test it was at one time.  To me, the ideal would be to restore that test, either by rolling back equipment (which I think is unlikely) or designing new courses of similar quality at much greater lengths.

I also want to see players make decisions off the tee, but I think it would be possible to design a long course for today's players that forces them to make those decisions.  I would be very interested to see it happen.

[Tim_Weiman]

Tom Doak:

I feel like I've learned more about this issue - how technology is nothing but a corrupting influence - from two visits to Pelham Country Club in the last few years than anything else I could do.

On one visit I made my way out to the 4th tee and noticed an expensive looking tee box built way back and up on a hill.

Before long the course superintendent came along intending to throw me off the course for trespassing. Managing to strike up a conversation I asked him why the tee was built way up the hill......as if I had no idea!

So this fellow explained it was needed because driving over the hazards has become too easy....."the hole needed to be updated".

Great accomplishment, I thought. Lots of money has been spent and all that happened was to take things back to where they already were in 1965.

How can we be so stupid?

[Bill_McBride]

Tim, this parallels the 4th tee at Oakmont which has been built 60 yds behind the previous back tee and apparently much higher than the surrounding terrain.  I haven't seen a picture of it yet and really don't want to -- hard to imagine anything more out of place at Oakmont, which is very natural otherwise.

[Doug Siebert]

Jason,

The problem isn't merely that they are hitting the ball further, they are carrying it further than the total carry + roll used to be 20 years ago, which changes a lot of the equation in terms of what does or does not affect a player's ability to hit driver successfully.  IMHO, one of the big reasons that FIR is no longer important (and they even admit it!) is because drives have so much of their distance as carry that landing in the rough still leaves a reasonable shot.  If you think of yesterday's good drive as being 250 carry + 35 yards roll versus today's of 290 carry + 10 yards roll, think about how much difference that 40 yards extra you get when you hit into the rough makes for your decision about whether you care about hitting in the rough.  If today's 300 yard drives were 265 carry and 35 roll, I don't think you'd see such an indiscriminate use of driver among the top pros and Tiger would have done much worse (perhaps even snapping his cut streak) considering his abysmal FIR percentage in 2004.


Dan,

This isn't about "defending par", this is about making the game interesting and challenging.  I don't care if pros start shooting 60 if they are forced to hit a variety of shots to do it.  I don't want to see pros hitting wedge on most par 4s, even if crazy tough greens or single file wide fairways leave them still shooting +2 for the winning 72 hole score.  We are at the point now where I'd bet perhaps 85% of the 2nd shots on par 4s are with a short iron (8i or higher)  I'd love to get hold of Shotlink's raw data so I could test that belief.  There are maybe 4 holes (3 par 5s and 1 par 3) on the average tour course where the average tour player has to hit a long iron.  But it isn't quite the same challenge hitting a long iron when missing the green still leaves you with a chance to get up and down for a birdie!

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