Measuring the yardage of a hole

[Adam_F_Collins]

Let's say you have a hole that's a dogleg - yet it has multiple viable routes to the hole...


...how do you measure the yardage of the hole if the different routes vary in length? Which do you use?

[rjsimper]

Adam,
Do you have a hole in mind that presents equally attractive options, and are you asking for a factual response from a USGA-type angle, or rather an opinion on what we feel is the best way to do it?

[Adam_F_Collins]

A factual type response. How do you go about measuring the yardage for the hole?

[JohnV]

When we are measuring it for a course rating, we would measure to the corner of the dogleg in the center of the fairway and then to the green even if some golfers could cut the dogleg.  When rating, we might adjust the yardage for a golfer based on the ability to cut the corner or possibly not reach it, but the yardage we would use for the yardage reports would be the yardage as measured.

On a par 5 with a double dogleg, we might measure from the tee to the first turn point, then to the second turn point then to the green even though the bigger hitter could cut parts of it off.

This means that the hole is frequently measured as longer than it would play for the very good player like a tour pro.

[Mike Nuzzo]

Typically measurements in planning (not rating) are to the turning points 800 ft for example - which are in the center of the fairways.  The golf associations use 750 ft still - or recently.  Some architects use up to 900 ft.  

As an exercise I took a set of 6500 yard tees and minimized the paths and came up with 6460 yards.

[Peter Pallotta]

"As an exercise I took a set of 6500 yard tees and minimized the paths and came up with 6460 yards."

Mike - that's interesting. If I understand you right (i.e. that you didn't measure the holes via the "centre-line" and "turning points" but via the shortest possible route a good golfer could take), I'm surprised that the total difference was only 40 yards. Did that surprise you?

Peter    

[Mike Nuzzo]

Peter,
Yes it did a little, which is why I did it again and got a 100 yard difference...

[Peter Pallotta]

Thanks, Mike.
There goes my theory that I've been playing tougher courses than the pros do because of all the extra distance I've got  to cover by not taking short-cuts!

Just a hundred yards, huh? That really blows my theory out of the water.

Peter

(Note: I don't want to use a smiley face, so I should tell you that I have no such theory).

[Scott Witter]

Peter:

It may not be so bad after all...Mike made a 60 yard mistake on his first attempt, so perhaps if you play one of his courses it could be say 230 yards shorter ...hey, what can you expect when one of those rocket scientists turn golf architect, suddenly they realize they have a right side of their brain and forget all about the mathmatics  have a good day Mike

[Garland Bayley]

The amount saved depends on the angle of the dogleg. Sharp angles, mean you can save a lot by cutting. Forrest has a table of the relative distances in his routing book.