What par 3 holes have been hurt by adding length ?

[Patrick_Mucci]

In the discussion concerning the Eden Hole I mentioned that I thought that the one at GCGC had become too long at 190 yards, especially when the prevailing wind is in your face on the tee, and that the hole would be far more sporty at about
160-175 yards, provided the pins were moved around to challenging positions.

The 11th hole at Westhampton, a fabulous mid range par three with TEPaul's favorite "greens within greens" contouring feature is another hole that was pushed back to almost unplayable yardage.  The hole also played into a considerable wind.

Both of the above holes present a difficult task in just hitting the green from the back tee, whereas at their shorter distances golfers could aim at quadrants or tucked pin locations in sporty fashion.

What other par 3's do you think have been hurt by added length and why ?

[TEPaul]

Pat:

Just so you know the history of that back tee on "the short" at Westhampton, there was a project in that immediate area and there was some left-over fill so instead of paying to haul it away the green chairman (or someone) recommended just putting it behind the back tee instead (and shaping it into a tee). But the club rarely if ever uses that tee and that's from Mike Rewinski when I was standing out there with him! So there's the FACTS!

Next you'll probably tell me you played the back tee there and if you did, Terry McBride was probably playing a trick on you.

If you're going to play Piping Rock soon, though, check out #17 there (their short) and tell me if you think that one is too long! Last time I was there (years ago) it was around 175--but downhill!

Why are you asking anyway? Somebody told me your latest tee lengthening recommendation for NGLA was to put a high roof over the back of #5 green and a tee on top of it for #6 from about 210 yds!

Actually, when I was at Westhampton someone asked if I thought maybe their redan had been stretched a little too much. Did you notice that?

[CHrisB]

Has anyone played Muirfield #13 since they lengthened it to 192?  That green is so tight, and the bunkers so severe, that 192 sounds awfully long to me.

I can't claim the hole has been hurt by the added the 20-25 yards because I haven't played it since they lengthened it.  But I wonder...

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

I'm always happy to correct you  

Mark Resnick, a very nice man who unfortunately passed away after battling Lou Gherig's disease for many years was the green chairman who lengthened the 11th hole.

The tee/dirt should be carted away, so as not to give any future green chairman any bright ideas on why they aren't playing that tee the way it was built and meant to be played.

Thanks for pointing out # 7 to me, I forgot about it.  
But, you're right, it is too long now that than back tee was added.

I commented to my host, who happened to be Terry McBride, and others that I thought their Redan was also too long.
I believe the back tee puts it over the 200 yard mark, and as such negatively alters the play of the hole for most people.
What surprises me is that a good number of members at Westhampton are also members at NGLA and should see the ideal length for that hole, additionally, an inordinate number of Westhampton members play NGLA and should extract the same conclusion regarding the ideal length of the hole.

I believe the Eden at Yale, # 15, was also lengthened, and suffers from tree overhang on the left.  That hole too, should be restored.

With respect to # 5 at NGLA, I'm anxious to return to the site to see if a tee can't be placed down and back, toward the left side 16th tee.

It is very clever of you to deflect attention to the new road/berm covers at # 8 and # 11.  My understanding is that the town of Southhampton now requires, when you play at NGLA, that you register your tee off time, such that the town can have police officers stop traffic while you play those two holes, in an effort to eliminate the many accidents that occur when you bean passing motorists.   In reading the Southhampton news, it appears that local joggers and bicyclists are now required to wear helmuts when you are at NGLA.

[TEPaul]

Pat;

You're getting good at this tee lengthening at NGLA! Play #5 from a back tee on #16?? What a great idea! Would you also have to play the tee shot right over the redan green or not--I never really look at that!

But if you can do that, it would also mean you could play #16 from the 5th tee wouldn't it? We could really get some good length on #16 that way!

This is really great because you could get NGLA up to over 7000yds without changing the architecture this way!

How else can we get some more yardage without too many problems?

I got it! How about after playing #2, then just walk back to #17 tee and play the Alps hole from there? I think that might work OK but the windmill might be in the way but that shouldn't present a problem. Just tell whoever's moving MacD's gate to pick up the windmill on his next trip and just put it somewhere else out of the way of all this creative golf!

[TEPaul]

Pat:

Do you think it's possible to play from #17 tee to #1 green? How long a par 3 do you think it would be? Pretty interesting green orientation from that direction, don't you think!

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

Interesting question, but how about just playing back to # 1 green from the crest of # 2 fairway ?

[Rich Goodale (Guest)]

Tom and Pat

Keep the windmill, but make sure the arms are always in motion and cut a passageway through the middle so that low ball hitters can play the hole.

[TEPaul]

Pat:

Did you know that Shinnecock has removed a good deal of trees?

I got a great idea that might appeal to you! How do you think it would play to tee off on #10 tee NGLA and play to #3 Shinnecock green? Pretty neat, don't you think?

We can get Shinnecock to remove all the trees on the left of #3 and that guy who's moving MacD's gate and the windmill can come out to the halfway house and move that somewhere out of the way too so we can get our tee shots over onto Shinnecock's 3rd!

I love this kind of creative routing! Pat, give me a guesstament of what the proper par, rating and slope might be if we teed off on Shinnecock's 10th tips and played on down to say #16 green at Maidstone?

[TEPaul]

Rich:

I like that idea for the windmill! Spice up that staid old club, I say! I'll even bring some paint and I'll paint a face on the front and you can paint a little Dutch Dyke Boy haircut on the back! Now you're thinking! We'll make a sane architect out of you after all!

[Doug Siebert]

The individual holes weren't hurt, but when my home course did some renovations and built some new back tees on some holes a few years back they ended up with all four par 3s playing at nearly the same length -- 201, 207, 199 (to the longer of two greens that are used for that hole), 195.  Previously the 201 and 195 holes were both 175ish from the back tees.  From the regular men's tees the spread is not quite so bad, from 163-185 yards.  The renovations pushed the total yardage just over 7000, I have to think that barrier had something to do with what was done, implications for variety be damned.

I've lately thought about another site for the tees on the 201 hole that would require downing only one tree, that could lengthen it to as much as 230 yards.  Not so much because the hole needs to be tougher, but because the par 3s shouldn't all be so similar in length.  I'm sure there have been days when I've used the same club on all four holes.  The 195 could then be moved up a bit, it doesn't need to be as strong considering the 18th that follows it, and you wouldn't have to wait to play from that tee on players from the short tees on #9 in case they pull or hook it and take off your head!

I see a lot of courses, even newly built ones, that either don't have a really short par 3 like mine, or don't have a really long one, like the other 18 holer in town, which ranges from 145-180 from the back tees.  Like most of us, I tend to prefer courses that might have me hitting several very different shots on the par 3s.  A very short par 3 can either be very challenging due to the design, or offer a bit of a break after a stretch of a couple longer tough holes, but since it is often easy to stretch par 3s by moving the tee boxes around relative to the previous green, some courses are losing their short par 3s.  It may not hurt the hole(s) in question, but I think it hurts the course.

[ChipOat]

Patrick:

Any hole is worsened by lengthening if the green then becomes too small for the club that is required (by mortals).

Your observations about the Short at Westhampton make sense.

However, the 18th green at GCGC seems plenty big enough to accomodate a long iron IMO.  I've never thought that extra length was anything but a plus there.

After all, the original intended shot value was a hickory shafted Mid Iron (i.e. 2 iron).

P.S. While I have no FACTS to PROVE the credibility of your opinions, my BIAS is that they're always worth considering carefully.

[BCrosby]

ChrisB -

I played 13 at Muirfield this summer, a week after the Open. The pin was back edge that day, tucked in a little arch of the green, no more than 20 feet wide.

On the right is a mound ten feet above the putting surface.  The mound is so thick with heather and gorse that I assume it was a science experiment on how densely you can get vegetation to grow in a small area.

The left side drops off into two impossible bunkers.

We hit 4i or 3i from the tee.

Impossible.

Other than 13, however, I enjoyed Muirfield enormously. Of all the courses in Scotland I played last summer it was the closest to an American type monster course. But still fun.

Bob

[SPDB]

Tom - With the current green at Piping, and it's downhill orientation, I don't think the hole is too long. Who lengthened it? Dye?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Chipoat,

I don't think that the original has a heroic carry over water, as does GCGC, nor a clubhouse patio at the right rear.

By the way, those are FACTS, but feel free to express BIAS.

[ChipOat]

Patrick:

By "original" I meant the original shot value on the 18th at GCGC as Travis/Emmett designed it.  I'm also assuming that Lake Cornelia?? was there at the time although the dining terrace most likely was not (why should that matter, anyway?)

Therefore, my post should have read, "the shot value as Travis/Emmett originally conceived it was a hickory shafted Mid Iron".

Assuming that my belief is actually a FACT, it adds credibility (IMO) to my belief that the 18th at GCGC is well served by extra length.  Unless of course, it is determined that the original shot value was too severe for the size of the green.

Let us take a hickory shafted mid iron and some 1.62" balls to the original tee box (in terms of length) and see if we can re-create some FACTS with which to support or disclaim our respective OPINIONS.

[ziggy1]

Has the 18th at GCGC been lengthened since,say 1994?
Was it the length I recall from the early nineties, 180+/-
when it was originally designed? If so, that would be a heck of a midiron in 1899!

Rick Short

[Patrick_Mucci]

Chipoat,

For the Centennial, a club maker made some vintage clubs and donated them to the club.  You could borrow them from the pro shop and play a round with them.

I've heard that certain holes, # 12 and # 18 were difficult if not impossible to negotiate, due to lack of the option to play along the ground and the carry.

Perhaps when you next visit, you could bring some old balls, and I'll arrange for you to borrow the vintage set to test your theory, provided that we can quadruple our bet on the 18th hole.  

Rick,

I'll try to get the exact date for you.

[Tom Doak]

Rick:  The 18th at GCGC has been at its present length since before I became involved at the club, in 1986.  I believe that tee had been there for at least 5-10 years at that time.

SPDB:  I built the new tee on the 17th at Piping Rock, as part of Pete Dye's master plan, as you speculated.  (We also made the front bunker one hell of a lot deeper.)  I've never felt that it was too long for the shot.

Pat M:  This is a great question.  Nearly every time I've wanted to build a really short par-3, our clients have insisted on putting in a tee at least 150 yards back for some reason or another.  And there have been several clubs where we've insisted they DON'T lengthen a particular par-3 because we think it will affect the playability of the hole too much.  (I'll try to think of a couple of examples later.)

However, I must admit I can't remember actually playing too many par-3 holes which I thought were just too long for the green complex.  The two par-3's you cited at Westhampton were good examples -- one of the reasons I quit consulting there after a couple of years.  (Mark Kessenich was the green chairman you mentioned, a very nice man who was quite single-minded about the course though.)

I would also concur that the 13th at Muirfield is ridiculous at 192 yards -- and the pros had a bit of trouble with the back tee on #4 on Open Saturday, too, didn't they?  I wondered the same about the 17th at Bethpage Black, which is certainly too long for me, but wasn't for Tiger Woods.

[Mike Benham]

Let's throw the 17th at Pebble into this discussion.  At normal resort course tees, it plays 180 at the back tees.  With the prevailing wind, that is a challenging enough shot specifically with the various hole locations.  At the back left hole location it would play close to 190 yards and that "green-within-a-green" is difficult at best when you have to play a long iron/lofted wood into the breeze.

Now push the tees across the road, sharing the tee box with #4, and it becomes 220, but with a green complex not designed to accept that shot, and it becomes, as the USGA wants it to be, a 3.3 - 3.5 shot hole.

At its normal distance, the 17th has a variety of challenge with length, hole location and hazards, which gives the golfer a variety of choices on which shot to play - high and soft to the back left, low and running to the front right.

Yes, they only use the back-back tees during USGA events but I believes it has a negative impact on the hole design.

[FORTSONATOR]

#17 Shinnecock  

The angle they chose for the new tee they built for the '95 US Open is a little too far to the left in my opinion.  If they had built the tee behind the original backtee it would have been acceptable but the new tee is a forced carry over the front left bunker for 95% of the hole locations from over 200 yards.  In US Open conditions which are usually firm and fast it makes the shot almost impossible and one-dimensional.  

FORTSONATOR  

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tom Doak, Mike and Jeff,

You're all right.

I had forgotten about the holes you mentioned.

# 17 at Bethpage, # 17 at Pebble Beach and # 17 at Shinnecock.

It seems to me, with the land available, had the original architect wanted those holes longer, he easily could have done so.  But, he chose instead, what I feel is the ideal length, especially, in the context of the balance with the other par 3 holes on the golf course.

It appears, that clubs hosting USOPENs, PGA's and other TOUR events, lengthen the tees on par 3's for the event, but don't remove or let them go to field after the event, and this syndrome, this adding length for the sake of adding length, gets adopted at local clubs on their par 3's.

Tom Doak,

What I think bothers me most about Bethpage is the lack of balance in the par 3's, from the back tees.

For me, from the back, # 3 is a 2-iron, # 8 is a 2-iron,
and # 17 is a two iron, with # 15 being a 6-7-iron.
On three out of four par 3's I'm hitting the same club.
That seems to indicate a weakness in the design and/or set-up of the golf course.

Yet the trend continues unabated.

More and more courses are lengthening their par 3's, destroying the balance in shot and club selection.

The more I think of it, (and we know my memory has lapses), I can't think of any par 3's that have been dramatically improved by adding length substantive length.

[Mike_Cirba]

Why stop there, Patrick?

How many par fours and fives do you know that have been "dramatically improved by adding substantive length"?  

It's sort of like #18 at Merion.  Yes, the new back tee that stretches the hole to 490 yards, and which requires a 245 yard, steeply uphill carry out of the quarry can make the hole play a bit more "Hogan-like" for Tiger Woods, perhaps, but is it a better hole?  Especially when one considers that Hogan's carry out of the quarry was closer to 200 yards?

I'm not so sure it's "better" in any way.  Playing there with Tom Paul and Rich Goodale, Rich and I both hit the ball really, really well and just made the fairway.  Tom, who is clearly the best golfer among us, hit his normal solid drive and failed to make the carry.

Is that a better golf hole?  

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mike Cirba,

After this thread had run its course, I was going to go to
par 4's, and lastly, to par 5's.  Let's stay on par 3's for the time being.

[Tom Doak]

What was it MacKenzie said?  "Why not make it shorter and get it over with faster?"

Pat:  weren't you all upset about someone's rumor about Rees Jones looking at further changes to Bethpage?  And wasn't the rumor partly about lengthening the one par-3 that isn't already a two iron?