[SteveC]

As a corollary to my earlier post re: practice facilities, can you identify any courses which might be familiar to the masses and which have little or nothing to offer in the way of practice areaa/ Much appreciated.

[Tom_Doak]

A lot of the great old courses had very little in the way of practice facilities, but most have built a big new one in the last 20 years (starting with Pine Valley and Merion).  Cypress Point's is still very meager, as is Garden City Golf Club's, where players on the practice tee have to pause for groups teeing off on #1.  SFGC's is nothing to write home about, unless you carve one over the fence into the neighboring condos.  Riviera's fenced-in range is pretty ugly and short, but reasonably wide.  

[Tim Bert]

Sand Hills doesn't offer much in the way of a practice area.  I'd consider it more of a warm-up area.  It's just about perfect for the course.

At Ballyneal, we hit a couple practice shots off the tee in a direction where there were no holes, but I got the sense that was just temporary.

[Tim Bert]

Bandon Dunes and Bandon Trails also have no practice range, but the one at Pacific Dunes sure makes up for it!

[JSlonis]

There are so many in the Philly/NY metro area that it'll be hard to list them all.

My home course Tavistock has basically a warm up range.  I can only hit an 8 iron max.  It's the one big drawback of our facility.

Some of the top tier courses with poor practice ranges would be:

Winged Foot, very small, limited yardage.  Surprising, given the fact that there is 36 holes spread over a pretty good sized property.

Baltusrol, back of the property, straight uphill. Feels like you never get the ball airborne.  I don't know if has changed in recent years.

Somerset Hills, basically open space to the right of the first tee.  Any club more than 175 yards will travel straight into the 4th fairway.

Many good courses have areas that were just an afterthought and are usually quite limited distance wise.

As Tom stated above, Pine Valley's practice facilities are world class.  North and South tees, with an outstanding short game area.  Merion's is still limited in distance for the longer hitter, although their hitting area for the actual practice tee is huge.

[Tim Gavrich]

Though not in the upper echelons of all golfdom, Caledonia Golf & Fish Club has no driving range.  A couple putting greens and a larger-than-usual chipping area.  Fairly meager, but not surprising, given the size of the property.  It has never bothered me when I've been there.

[Michael Whitaker]

Caledonia has virtually no practice area... only a chipping, pitching, putting area. Nothing for the full swing.

[Phil McDade]

Lawsonia Links has a very good putting green and a pretty crappy driving range -- somewhat cramped, somewhat uphill and blind, with long practice drives ending up on the left side playing corridor of the par 4 6th hole. It's an interesting bit of terrain that Langford/Moreau chose not to incorporate in the routing.

[Tyler Kearns]

This has been one of the reasons so many classic golf courses went under the knife, to accomodate the modern desire for a practice facility. It is a shame that the "Old Dead Guys" (quoting Mike Young) did not forsee the need, it could have helped preserved their work.

TK

[Tom Dunne]

Mid Ocean has a bizarre/awful driving range. Cayman balls launched  across a caged-over road toward an ill-defined patch of no-man's-land.

Of course, this is a forgivable offense--it's Bermuda, after all, and land is at a premium to say the least.  

[Tony_Muldoon]

Most of the classic courses in GB&I lack this facility. Off the top of my head Pennard has a rnge and practice green near the clubhouse but the rest, if they have them, tend to be on a spare piece of land at least 3 holes from base.  E.G. North Berwick,between the 8th and 11th on an out and back routing.

[Kevin_Reilly]

I wouldn't include SFGC in this category...there is plenty of room to hit on the range unless your first name is Bubba, plus there are practice putting and chipping greens.

Two private courses in the Bay Area without ranges at all include Los Altos CC and Orinda CC.  Burlingame's range is the bare minimum of a range...no woods allowed...but with the cost of surrounding real estate, that mini-range isn't going to get any bigger.  Sharp Park and Lincoln Park are two well-known public courses w/o ranges.

[Jon Wiggett]

This has been one of the reasons so many classic golf courses went under the knife, to accomodate the modern desire for a practice facility. It is a shame that the "Old Dead Guys" (quoting Mike Young) did not forsee the need, it could have helped preserved their work.

TK

Tyler,

one of the reasons that most of the "Old Dead Guys" didin't consider practice grounds is that up until the 1940's practicing was looked up on as 'ungentlemanly' conduct.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Until recently TOC.

[Mike Policano]

I believe that Tillinghast wrote that early courses in the US as well as in GB&I were built without practice areas.

Lessons were given out back or on the 18th.

Tilly's first designed practice area was at Ridgewood which included a range, a short game area with bunkers and a lilliput putting course.

When I played the European, Pat Ruddy, ever a gracious host, informed me there was no range because the Irish play not practice. My Dublin friends get a kick out of that line.

[Dan Herrmann]

Highlands Links nas nothin'.

In the "good" category, Belgrade Lakes (Maine) doesn't have a practice area.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

Tim Bandon Dunes has one of the great practice areas on earth. Some of the others like SFGC etc are poor and small but adequate.  The practice area at Bandon is for all three soon to be 4 courses. They also have a par 3 course within part of it. They even have a practice/common area Super. He is a contributor to this site.

[Andy Scanlon]

pebble beach does not have an immediately accessible range.

royal dornoch has a small cage in the parking lot for its warm-up area.

prestwick does not have much of an area in which to warm up -- basically a small area to hit a few pitches before you go tackle the railroad hole!

[Eric Franzen]

In the "good" category, Belgrade Lakes (Maine) doesn't have a practice area.

No, only a net next to the first tee - like many of the courses on the British Isles. Hitting a couple of balls into a practice net before teeing off works fine for me, just to get a bit loosened up.

[Rich Goodale]

Winchester CC just has nets.

Andy

Dornoch has 3 practice areas--the nets, a 150 yard hole a few minutes walk from the 1st teee, and a full sized range a 1/2 mile away in the middle of the Struie course.  You can also play the 1st hole of the Struie for practice if it is empty.

[Steve_ Shaffer]

How about Quaker Ridge in Westchester County, NY?

[Dan_Callahan]

Longmeadow CC has a combination of range balls and dead balls on their very limited range. You are supposed to use the dead balls with your woods, although it is still possible to put it through the range and onto an adjacent if you hit it well.

Belgrade Lakes up in Maine just has a net like you would buy in Golfer's Warehouse and put in your backyard. Better than nothing, I guess.

[SL_Solow]

Among the moderns, the Dunes Club in Michigan.

[Brad Tufts]

Most of the Boston clubs are limited...

Winchester, small range, but nothing over 7-iron if groups are on 18.

Essex, max about 180, effectively 160.

Myopia, turf one side (max 220), small grass area on the other but no max.  Of course on one side is the pro shop, on the other is a member's yard.

Brae Burn's is nice.

Woodland's is narrow, and limited flight balls, but no max.

TCC is narrow, and you cannot hit driver when a group is on hole 1.

Salem CC is good, but only wide enough for 10-12 guys...although it's double-ended.

[Darren_Kilfara]

Practice ranges are for wimps who can't warm up with a few stretches and club swooshes on the first tee and can't fix their swings in transition on the course itself. Even if I didn't mostly believe this myself anyway, it'd be hard to live in Britain, live a satisfied golfing life and not think this. (There's exactly *one* good range I'm aware of where you can hit off of real grass and don't have to fetch your own balls in all of East Lothian, that being at Craigielaw GC.)

Let me ask you this: do you think the difference between British and American golfing cultures might have at least something to do with the absence of a "range rat" culture over here?

Cheers,
Darren

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