Width, Difficulty and the High Marker

[Sean_A]

On the Prarie Dunes thread Jason Blasberg mentioned that losing two balls in a round is demoralizing.  If I am not mistaken Jason is scratch or thereabouts.  I found this comment to be very revealing.  This debate about width has been going back forth recently (Stone Eagle, Prarie Dunes, Errin Hills, Portrush and Beau Desert) on this site and often with vastly different opinions about acceptable width given the conditions and severity of rough.  The comment by Jason was the first I clued into from a good player on this site criticising a course for lack of width not for strategic reasons, but for playability reasons.  

The common refrain from a good player about course difficulty is "hit it straighter" or "don't go in the bunkers" or "get your ass on the practice range".  Of course none of these comments or sentiments are helpful or dare I say welcome.  Jason's comment really hit home about the plight of the 18 capper.  I take a few guys who are well off the charts where handicaps are concerned every year on links tour.  These guys are in a unique position of having played many of the world's best courses, but at the same time average comfortably less than 12 games a year and they don't watch golf.  I don't recall either of them ever saying that a course is too this or too that.  Both accept that they suck and the fault lies with them, not the course.  I and others have interjected from time to time with explanations that some courses are overly penal etc.  Neither of these guys will have any of it.  Both say golf is the same no matter where you play.  Good shots, properly placed are often rewarded and poor shots often punished.  Not surprisngly, both accept and enjoy the element of luck, good or bad.  

Interestingly, both of these high cappers say that good or goodish players almost always think they are better than they are.  Both think many good players whine too much about the course and its setup rather than getting on with the game and enjoying golf for what it is rather than what some think it should be.  They also say that most good players do not change their expectations of performance.  Instead good players usually blame the course for poor play.  I know I sometimes get caught up in the type of thinking dsescribed.    

PS These skycappers carry an incredible number of balls.  When they hit a dubious shot the first thing they do is drop a ball in the fairway near where the ball is lost then take a cursory look.  If they come up empty handed they swing away adding two to the score.

PS II For the record, one of these guys thought the most difficult course he ever played was Co. Down.  The other thinks Carne is.

Ciao

[Mark Chaplin]

I can understand anyone being miffed losing balls from a reasonable shot that just misses the fairway or takes a big bounce when a course is F&F. How ever poor shots deserve to be punished, the problem with the thick hay is it does slow play and take some of the fun out of the game.

At Deal a middle cut of rough has been added to save a few more balls and add to member's and guest's enjoyment of their round. This can quickly be grown out in the couple of weeks leading upto an event to return the course to it's toughest. A firm breezy links is tough enough without hay 3 or 4 paces from the fairway.

Good design of greens and their surrounds can surely take away the need for overly penal rough, by rewarding the player on the fairway with the opportunity to shape a shot to the hole and making it proportionally harder for the wayward player to do so.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Taken together, these two posts might be "post of the year" contenders, if we still do such a thing on gca.

A few thoughts:

Pete Dye and others have said the commerical success of Pinehurst is owed primarily to the fact that you can't lose a golf ball in the pine needles, there are few water hazards, OB, etc.  It is a fact of life, commercial reality, and fine example that you don't need long grass to make a great course.

Mark,

I bet good players will note that Deal is now much easier, since the rough helps hold them in play. Maybe not such a bad thing.  IMHO, having a light rough still makes shots unpredictable, which is penalty enough, no?

Sean,

The "take a lesson, hit it straighter" mentality you mention is not possible for the majority of middle class americans, so I agree with you.  I have said here that I don't like minimalism as an overriding philosophy because I am not designing for the land, I am designing for the golfer.  

Looking at the golf course as a social venue, similar to a pub, rather than as a "strict test of golf" for those 0.1% of golfers who can understand strategy,  certainly changes design philosophy. Your post provides me a moment of clarifity (before morning coffee is complete no less!) that we should all be designing 99% of golf course for the social golfer as we know him/her - group of guys, mixed handicaps and abilities, certainly a lack of practice and desire for same, as well as the aforementioned less than unlimited golf ball budget.

While we celebrate the great designs for that theoretical golfer most of us certainly are not, I don't think we need more than 1% of the worlds golf courses designed to be that (at all costs) while ignoring the reality of how golf is played today.

[Tom_Doak]

Jeff:

Years ago I took one of my associates to play Pinehurst No. 2, and after the round we went in to thank Don Padgett for letting us out there.  He asked how we played, and my associate, who had not played very well that day, said "Well, at least I didn't lose a ball," and Mr. Padgett replied "Son, if you lose a ball on #2, that would be a pretty bad round."

Sean:

You've probably hit on the single biggest difference between Scots golfers (maybe all the UK and Ireland) and American golfers.  The Scots are 100% accepting of the conditions of the day, no matter how thick the rough, no matter how windy or how rainy or how dry.  

Americans just are not accepting of those things.  In fact it has reached ludicrous levels in recent years -- at some of the clubs for which we consult, there is an actual written maintenance standard that covers all of those things -- green speed, rough height, fairway width, etc., as if they should never change from one season to the next.

[Aaron Katz]

So many of today's big name architects simply refuse to include parallel/semi-parallel adjoining holes in their routings, which inevitably leads to completely unplayable areas just off of the fairway.  There's really no solution to this -- it's pretty much impossible to clear a lot of the underbrush one finds in New England, for example.  Making fairways even wider isn't a great option either because it adds immeasurably to maintenance and construction costs (not every fairway can be 100 yards wide), and in any event hackers will still miss those fairways.  

A compromise position might be to mark all of these underbrush areas as hazards for everyday play, which won't force the hacker to take a stroke and distance penalty and probably will lead him to spend much less time looking for a stray ball.  For those who have played Erin Hills, would marking the native grass areas as hazards for everyday play be any solution?  

[Mark Chaplin]

Jeff,

Your right the better player is finding the course slightly easier and everyone benefits from a slightly quicker round, mind 3 hours is the norm so there's little scope for getting much quicker unless members are required to run between shots....that's a thought for some of Tom's clients, more golfers equals more revenue. Just imagine if buggies went 10mph faster and a set walking/joggling pace was written into the greenfee contract how many more $$ could be made!

On a more serious note the extra cut does give the player a chance but the execution of the shot has to be spot on to achieve the same result a fairway strike would achieve.

As a young promising player growing up on the links, I was  exposed to poor bounces into deep sand traps and thick rough but you learn to accept golf isn't an exact science and get on with it. You also realise you get just as many lucky breaks, many of which you don't witness because of the humps and hollows.

[Scott Witter]

Tom:

Oh, I don't know Tom you may be whining too much...consider this.  I am in the middle of a heated verbal debate, (letter exchange) regarding a bunker project I recently did for a club who have forwarded comments such as this, "The bunkers cannot be too 'sandy' as this will decrease their 'playability'. We would require that the soft sandy condition be no more than 1/4" to 1/2 " deep.  Otherwise a golfer will 'sink' and partially miss-hit the ball"

See, your not the only one having all the fun!

[tonyt]

Losing balls isn't about width or narrowness.

There are a thousand and one ways to punish and penalise a wayward shot without relieving the golfer of his ball.

I HATE with a passion some examples of where the punishment is such that it often gutlessly takes the ball rather than being man enough to try and defend itself against the next golf shot.

[Doug Ralston]

Speaking for we high-handicappers, the loss of golf balls is a part of the calculation when loading your bag. Mine never has less than 30 when I start a round. No; I have never yet lost 30 in a round .... quite. But I have lost a dozen before.

I have a source that sells me used [excellent condition] NXTs and just about whatever others I like short of $3.00+/ball types, for $5/dozen! If I had to buy brand new balls I would not be able to play often.

I like courses where it is mostly not too difficult to find a wayward shot. But I will NOT just play mediocre courses to save balls. My favorite course [Eagle Ridge], is a monster ball gulper; we must help them financially with our 'donations'.

Having trees between myself and the green is acceptable penalty for a wayward drive. But if the undergrowth is cut very low, that is definitely helpful, yet does not completely cancel the 'penalty'.

Certain designers seem better than others at considering what is needed for we 100+ golfers. Hurdzan and Hills [yes, Art Hills!] seem to 'get it', and playing from the front tees does NOT make you miss all the features that make the course worthwhile.  

We still love golf, even from way up in front! Joe: "What do you call a 400 yard par-4?" Doug: "Par-5!"  

Doug

[Doug Siebert]

I don't like losing balls either, but I think Jason's comment should be looked at in terms of his being scratch -- losing a ball puts you in line for a likely double, losing two means two doubles.  Scratch golfers don't figure one let alone two doubles into the equation when they are planning their round.  They may allow for a few bogies and figure if they can make a few birdies they can cancel things out and break par.  With two doubles you need four birdies just to get back to par, and no bogies are allowed for.  The lost balls are basically a round killer for them.  For an 18 handicap, losing two or even four balls isn't the same thing, he's pretty much expecting a minimum of 3-4 doubles or worse anyway.

I've been playing around a 5 or 6 the last couple years, and last year I played a course that's about a 72 rating and 128 slope or something like that, and shot 78.  With 10 penalty strokes.  So I played pretty much to my handicap (well, ESC 77, so I guess a bit better than my handicap) despite all the crazy stuff happening.  Not that I wasn't a bit pissed about "what might have been".  But the higher the handicap, the more breathing room (and hopefully tolerance) you have for stuff like that happening.

Honestly, most of the time when I play with a golfer for whom breaking bogey on even an easy course 'tis but a dream, and we are playing one of those annoying courses where nearly every hole offers some opportunity for losing a ball, hitting OB or finding water, they'll just make sure they have at least a dozen balls (and sometimes buy more at the turn if they find they are running out too quickly)  But on the one or two holes where they manage a nice par or lucky birdie, they are pretty happy with themselves and I guess that's what keeps them coming back.  Plus they are often kinda lax with how they count penalty strokes, which probably helps as well

[John Kirk]

I don't care about losing 2 or more balls per round.  Looking for balls that may be lost can be a pain, though.  I just thought 19 balls into the hay at Prairie Dunes for 4 players over 27 holes was an awful lot of looking around for balls.

I highly prefer courses where the fairways are wide and the number of lost balls is low.

Oh, and nice 77, Doug!  Those are the good kind of 77s.  Lots of good shots in there.