Isn't golf hard enough?

[Troy Alderson]

Treehouse Gang,

Isn't golf hard enough for all of us to warrant making golf courses easier?  Wide "through the greens", little rough, bunkers that rarely come into play only to penalize the worst shot.  It's not like the majority of golfers are scoring in the seventies all the time.  Most are happy to break 100 or 90.  So why do we insist on making golf harder?  Too many rules, lightening fast greens, narrow fairways, tall and thick roughs, and mostly slow green grass.  Are golfers equating the color green with quality and what the touring pros play as the standard for all golf courses?  This is why I prefer to play the mom and pop courses.  Just the basics, letting mother nature dictate the conditions of play, much like golf before irrigation systems.

Should we be making golf easier for the average golfer?  Should design take this into consideration during the construction process?  What elements of design would help golf become more enjoyable to more people?

Troy

[Patrick_Mucci]

Troy,

Because that's the inherent lure of the game, the challenge, the difficulty.

If it was easy, who would play ?

[ed_getka]

No, courses should NOT be made easier for the average golfer. Lots of courses are easy already if the appropriate tees are chosen. The problem with easy courses is that they aren't very interesting and they get boring quite quickly.
    The key is for a course to be playable for the average golfer. Eliminate 200 yard forced carries, multiple water holes, etc... Jim Thompson and the crew he put together did an outstanding job of making a golf course, Angels Crossing, that can be played by anyone, while still being a very interesting test of golf. The course can be played all the way around with a putter (it took Jim 84 putts)

[Troy Alderson]

The course can be played all the way around with a putter (it took Jim 84 putts)

From which tee set?

That brings up another question.  Could golf be simpler?  Fewer clubs, easier choices.  Have we made golf too complicated?

Troy

[BCrosby]

If you are not intrigued by the difficulties of the game, if you find the challenges off-putting, if high scores as you learn the game (or later) are unacceptable, then you will not be a golfer for long anyway. In fact, you will never be a golfer. Just  someone who plays golf now and then.

It is a mistake for designers to design courses to please such people. It's the worst of all worlds. They are forced to design insipid courses for people with no long term interest in the game.

All of this probably means that the game won't grow as fast a some equipment manufacturers or club operators may wish.  But that's ok.

Golf doesn't owe scores in the 70's to anyone. No matter how much they pay to play or how hard they work at the game. You ought to break 80 only when you earn it. Not when an architect softens things up to allow it.

Bob

[Tom_Doak]

Troy:  A great thread.

Patrick Mucci wondered on another thread why club members are continually trying to make their courses longer and harder, yet here are the members of the treehouse rushing to defend the challenges of the game.  It's all because you used the word "easier", which somehow threatens the ego of the golfer.

Nobody wants to play a golf course that is flat and dull and devoid of challenge, I concur with that.  But most of the links courses I played in the UK this summer were quite a bit easier than the average course I saw in the USA.  They were shorter, more wide open, had fewer bunkers (although these were more penal), and the greens weren't as severely sloped or as fast.  And, for me anyway, it was more fun to shoot around 80 than around 85, and to get around in three hours instead of four.

The key is that those courses were rugged enough to make the game seem stimulating, even if it wasn't so hard.  In America we maintain our courses so highly that we've lost ruggedness and have to compensate with more water hazards, more bunkers, and faster greens.

[Geoffrey Childs]

I agree that this is a good topic.  Many of us are out of touch with reality.

I played a local Westchester County muni yesterday that is 10 minutes form my home. The white tees are 5600 yards.  From what I could see of the Friday groups and those I was paired with, the average player of the game at this facility could not break 100 on their best day from 5600 yards.  They were very happy to have 285- 300 yard par 4's where they had a chance to hit a green in regulation.  More often they would hit it in the woods and lose a ball on these holes too. The interesting thing I also noticed was they all had a good time and are regular players at the course.

[Steve Burrows]

"Golf doesn't owe scores in the 70's to anyone. No matter how much they pay to play or how hard they work at the game. You ought to break 80 only when you earn it."

Quick sidebar:
Isn't this assuming the nearly arbitrarily decided upon standard of par 70-72 golf courses?

[Jon Wiggett]

Tom,

it seems to me another reason could be that most of these courses were set up when matchplay was KING. In the USA strokeplay has always been the basis of GCA and this has the spin off of meaning that satisfaction is dependent on score. If  score is important then rub of the green is no longer wanted and you loose a big part of the fun and challenge of the game. Also with matchplay the course is not as important as the challenger,. How often have we played a thrilling wager on the putting green. What is it that makes it thrilling? the game or the putting green.

Maybe this is just the result of a pint or two too many and an hour or two to little sleep but I believe this is what makes golf interresting.

[Troy Alderson]

Tom D.,

You are understanding exactly where I am coming from.

Jon,

You are making a very good point about this thread.  Maybe it's not the design of the course or the course itself.  It may be the difference between stroke and match play.  Match play is far more fun to watch IMHO.

In the early days it was about the game, now its about the golf course and how it looks as opposed to how it plays.

BCrosby,

I enjoy the challenge of the game and strive to become a better player.  I agree the game should not be easy, but are we making it too hard?  

Troy

[Voytek Wilczak]

Troy - I am of the opinion that a chance of a recovery shot following an errant shot should be afforded to a golfer as much as possible in the GCA.

Therefore I dislike too much water and too much OB on the course.

One of my fondest golf memories is an "impossible" recovery shot I somehow managed at Ballybunion.

My playing partners' "How the hell did you do THAT?" was enough praise for this 18 handicapper.

If I were in the drink instead of a knee-high grass with a severe downhill lie, then I'd likely miss this little personal highlight.

[Jim Thompson]

Troy,

It was from the forward tees at about 4900 yards.  Quite a treat actually!

Cheers!

JT

[Troy Alderson]

Jim,

A "friend" of mine played Hangman Valley GC's 18th hole (342 yards) with a putter and parred the par 4 from the middle "white" tees.  The tee is about 100 feet above the fairway with a forced carry over Hangman Creek, maybe about 150 yards.  Knocked the second shot onto the green and two putted.

I encourage all to play a round of golf with limited clubs and have fun.  5 or 7 clubs are lighter to carry than 14 and the bg is smaller.

Troy

[BCrosby]

Count me as unconvinced that we are making the game too hard.

But let's at least ask the right question.

We are making the game too hard compared to what?

One measure might be the kinds of courses we revere from the Golden Age. We've all seen the drawings, the topos and the aerials.

Is there any serious question that the best of those courses were less forgiving, rougher, rawer (per the designer) than courses designed today? They were much harder on the mediocre golfer than modern courses.

When was the last top shot bunker built? Egan's waste areas at Pebble, ditto for ANGC, the sheer nuttiness of Ross's, MacK's, Crump's, Raynor's green contours and green surrounds. You'll only see them in faded pictures. Somebody today builds something like MacK's 5th, 7th or 17th at Crystal, they're fired on the spot.  

I could go on.  

Virtually all of that wackiness and rawness is gone now. Bunkers have been removed, contours smoothed out, unpleasant surprises minimized. There is a tendency to forget that the Golden Age was an age of edgy, bold, hardass golf courses.  

Worse, when Golden Age courses are restored, whatever else may get rebuilt, that edginess, the rawness, the unpredicability of the old courses is almost never restored. Something much more domesticated - as in "tame" - is built in their place.

I can cite example after example. Just last week at The Broadmoor there were pictures from the 30's of the Ross course. The first thing that strikes you is how wild the greens and bunkering were. Wacky green angles fed into ten foot deep bunkers. Crazy stuff.

The second thing that strikes you about those pictures is that there is no way on this green earth that any club today will have the guts to restore those golfing challenges. It won't happen. And they certainly wouldn't pay to build a new course with those sorts of thrills and spills.

But this is the funny part. Notwithstanding those brutal, unforgivng golf courses from 80 years ago, golf was never healthier. It's growth curve was a rocketship to the moon, cut short only by the Great Depression.

Golf can be boring. There are too many golf courses today that have lost the edginess and unpredictability that were the stock and trade of the Golden Age. That is a much, much more serious threat to the future of the game than new courses that are too challenging and full of nasty surprises.

Bob

[Patrick_Mucci]

Troy:  A great thread.

Patrick Mucci wondered on another thread why club members are continually trying to make their courses longer and harder, yet here are the members of the treehouse rushing to defend the challenges of the game.  It's all because you used the word "easier", which somehow threatens the ego of the golfer.
Tom,

Easier doesn't threaten the great number of decent golfers I know.

NGLA is easier than Shinnecock, and I wouldn't call Sebonack a pushover.

I think there are distinctions in the form of the challenge.

Making golf courses easier connotes dumbing down the architectural features, or at least altering them toward mediocrity.

Pacific Dunes is fun and a challenge, but, I bet you'd be in an uproar if a new owner came in and wanted to make the golf course easier, especiallly if his intent was couched in the terms of attracting more "beginer" golfers

Nobody wants to play a golf course that is flat and dull and devoid of challenge, I concur with that.  But most of the links courses I played in the UK this summer were quite a bit easier than the average course I saw in the USA.  They were shorter, more wide open, had fewer bunkers (although these were more penal), and the greens weren't as severely sloped or as fast.  And, for me anyway, it was more fun to shoot around 80 than around 85, and to get around in three hours instead of four.

Tom, you're forgetting a few items.
The wind, the rain, the cold.
Get a bad day and a 5,500 yard course becomes difficult.

In many cases, wonderful features are dumbed down, homogenized in order to appeal to the lower common denominator.

Think of how you'd feel if all of your courses were altered to make them "easier"

The key is that those courses were rugged enough to make the game seem stimulating, even if it wasn't so hard.  In America we maintain our courses so highly that we've lost ruggedness and have to compensate with more water hazards, more bunkers, and faster greens.

In some cases.
Certainly sites like Bandon, OR, Mullen, NE and Southampton, NY don't need those additives, the elements provide more than adequate challenges.

In some cases, visuals are being sold rather than architecturally sound designs.

[Rick Shefchik]

Tom,

it seems to me another reason could be that most of these courses were set up when matchplay was KING. In the USA strokeplay has always been the basis of GCA and this has the spin off of meaning that satisfaction is dependent on score. If  score is important then rub of the green is no longer wanted and you loose a big part of the fun and challenge of the game. Also with matchplay the course is not as important as the challenger...

This is an excellent point. We talk about match play being the standard game at most clubs, but is it really? And when do you ever see a beginner or a group of high handicappers out for a day of "golfing" play match? They're always keeping score, which is why so many of them eventually quit.

If we threw away the scorecards tomorrow and began approaching golf as a game to play head-to-head with a member or members of your group -- or, as someone suggested here recently, as a series of 18 individual matches against the course itself -- the game would be far less discouraging for the majority of people who play it.

Rule of thumb: You don't need a scorecard until you can keep your score in your head without one.

[SB]

There's a disconnect between what people say they want (or are led to believe they want) and what they really want.  People (particularly magazines) talk about challenge and shot values and tall fescue rough.  People still vote with their feet, though, and for 95% of the facilities that I've seen with 36 holes or more, the easier course gets the most play.

[Troy Alderson]

Rule of thumb: You don't need a scorecard until you can keep your score in your head without one.

Well said Rick, really all we need to remember is where we are in comparison to par in stroke play or playing against another golfer remembering who is up or down.

An individual match play against the course is interesting.  You may need a scorecard for this though to view your handicap holes to play against your handicap.

This is what I am referring to gang, we have made golf too difficult.  Make the playing of golf easier, not the course.  I know it sounds like I am changing my tune, I suppose that I didn't realize what I was asking.

Troy

[Rick Shefchik]

Troy --

I think you're on to something about easier courses, too.

In the StoneRidge (Minnesota) thread, a number of posters familier with Twin Cities daily fee courses disputed my high ranking of Rush Creek. I played it again after that thread got started, and liked it even more than I remembered. It's probably easier (in its everyday setup) than the other courses that were mentioned, but that's a relative term. The fairways are wide and the greens are not severely contoured, but there's trees, water, sand, hills -- all the stuff we supposedly need to have a good time on the golf course -- it's well conditioned, and it all fits my eye nicely. A lot of it has to do with a comfort level on the tee; on most holes at Rush Creek, I feel as though I have at least one comfortable option.

If the primary requirement of a good golf course is that you feel uncomfortable, and the features are routinely penal, no wonder golf isn't growing.

[Tom_Doak]

Jon Wiggett:  I left out the fact that I played all of my golf in the UK in matches against my associates and interns; of course, I play a lot of my golf in the USA that way, too.

[Scott Szabo]

Golf is definitely hard enough.  Take it from one low handicapper - once you've developed a HOOK, there's no going back!

[Patrick_Mucci]

Scott,

Have you tried a stiffer shaft and a weaker grip ?  

[Patrick_Mucci]

Until someone shoots 72 for 72 holes, golf will remain a challenge.  For this reason, golf courses do not need to be made harder, and can be made substantially easier, with no damage to the game.  It is my view that if golf were significantly easier, it would actually enjoy greater popularity.  

Specifically, and in detail, how would you go about making golf courses easier ?

[Troy Alderson]

Mucci,

That is what I am trying to find out.  I will not attest that an easy golf course is featureless.  But, I think designers can develop holes that have an easier route, moderately hard route, and a difficult route into the hole.  Those types of golf courses with every hole as such would demand a lot of land and increase the cost.  A hole that is designed difficult should have an easier route for the high handicappers.  Unfortunately, most high handicappers do not recognize the easier route and try to follow the low handicappers.

As a result, golf could be made less difficult if people would learn the game of strategy, routing, the swing, and etiquette to better understand how the game is played.

Troy

[Scott Szabo]

Patrick,

I've tried EVERYTHING!  I 've been told my grip isn't overly strong, and when I try and weaken it a bit, it feels terrible.  

I'd give anything to go back to a little baby fade....