There's Something Special About The Two-Shot Hole

[Brent Hutto]

Here's yet another spinoff from the "landing area" thread...

I think there is something fundamental about holes that are reachable or near-reachable with two shots. When I think of playing golf, that is the basic structure which seems to capture the essence of the game. You tee it up and try to hit it such that your next shot is easier. Then you hit that next shot so that your putt or chip is as easy as possible.

Now for a lot of golf courses have the most memorable hole is a one-shotter. It's easier to make a spectacular or thrilling one-shot hole than any longer form. And in our discussions on this forum the Par 5 holes tend to capture a lot of attention. But note how much of that (as well as the interest of better players) centers on the possibility (or not) of reaching those Par 5 greens with two mighty strokes. The longer type of Par 5 seems of interest more because of its oddity nowadays (an "honest three-shot hole") than because of the interest that third shot offers per se.

I believe the challenge of designing courses for a wide variety of players comes down in large part to the necessity of offering as many of them as possible as varied and numerous a set of two-shot holes as practical. If a course is laid out such that the shortest-hitting 1/3 of players only have a legitimate two-shotter experience on three or four holes that's a shortcoming and I wouldn't be surprised if those golfers stay away. Conversely, if only a handful of holes on the course require anything other than driver and wedge for the longest 1/3 of players I'd think many of them would opt for the more challenging course down the street.

Even though I love a great set of Par 3's as much as the next dork...even though I love the strategy that can come into play on layup shots...in the end the courses I think most highly of give me goals to shoot for on the tee of hole after hole in terms of hitting that tee shot well enough to make my second shot matter in response to the day's hole location, wind or how well I'm hitting my irons. A great course is going to have to do that at least four or five times a round.

Regarding multiple tees, I'll say this. If you can offer me that challenge with only one set of tees and still have the course appeal to a broad range of golfers, my hat's off to you. If not, then please go ahead and cheat and put in three different tee boxes on the "Par 4" hole rather than eliminating that particular, crucial form of variety and challenge from my round.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Well said, Brent.  I think if you enjoy shot relationships, the par four certainly sets those up in the very efficient minimum of two shots.  Why have more?  You can have less if its a "concept" shot that is interesting in its own way.

I'll post here rather than on the landing area thread, but no one over there has convinced me that multiple tees to get most players to the main landing zone (can we use that phrase?) isn't the best way to go.  

Why?  

Golfers hit tee balls some pretty typical distances centered on clusters of about 290-260-230-200 -170 and maybe 140 yards, even though tee shot distances go all over the board, both as groups and individually.

I agree that the theory isn't perfect and there will be the occaisional goofy penalty, and the persistent problem that golfers then have differing clubs to the green from the same distance, but there isn't a solution to that, without making almost the entire hole a tee!
 
Since you need enough tee space anyway, building multiple tees approximately those distances is a lot more cost efficient than building one tee and several landing zones - in both construction cost and future maintenance.  

I think the main idea on the single landing zone started early in the GA, and accelerated with Tillie's removal of "duffers headaches" in the Depression.  Jones and MacKenzie followed that line of thinking in using fewer bunkers at ANGC, and only to challenge better players in the main LZ.  I think the theory is that lesser players and those who top or sky their tee shot really don't need further punishment - and rewarding rather than punishing is the hallmark of classic strategic design.

Now, I don't mind variances from the "prescribed" distances by several yards either to guestimate where a tee shot on a particular hole might land after accounting for wind, downhill, etc., or to use the natural features and challenge people who hit different distances, and even the occaisonal bunker to challenge the shorter hitter - after all, he pays dues, too!  I suppose its possible to design the 14 long holes to challenge back tee golfers from distances from 350 down to 220 or so, setting the main hazards at a variety of distances from the tee.

If one of the arguments for not using the perfectly prescribed distance of 290 yards, for instance, is that the golfer doesn't hit it flush each time (which is true) I wonder if varying the distances would really bring the hazards into interesting play more or less?  At least, I can imagine hitting a career 300 yarder when the carry bunkers are at 220, and catching it thin for a 220 yard tee ball when the bunkers are at a more normal (for me) distance of 245-255, thus negating any strategy.

I do think that elongating flanking bunkers (whether in clusters or long strip bunkers like Pete Dye) is an appropriate design repsonse after multiple tees as is staggered bunkers on opposite sides of the fw, which in effect starts to set up both angles of play and multiple strategies for differently abled players.

The other thing about multiple tees is that with players averaging 4.5 hours and 90 shots, or about 3 minutes a shot, if multiple tees don't allow players to reach the par 4 in two, we may add up to 42 minutes per round, on length alone.

I would love to hear a neat and different solution that really addresses the length variation problems more efficiently than that, so keep talking!

[Mike_Cirba]

Brent,

Sorry I missed this earlier.

Don't you think the "two shot" hole evolution has more to do with technology and acreage than any special magic about two shots and two putts?

I say that for a couple of reasons.   First of all, throughout most of the history of golf, this was almost certainly not the case.   I recently had the pleasure of playing the nine holes that are left of the Philadelphia Cricket Club that hosted the 1907 and 1910 US Opens.   One of the primary hazards on a number of holes (in the 370 range) were cross bunker schemes about 40-50 yards short of the green.

Why do you think they were there?   Simply because hitting the ball that far with two shots was about right at the limit of what a player might attempt.   Similiarly, the second hole had a cross bunker coming in from the left about 130 yards from the tee.   Challenging that bunker successfully would have reached "high ground", from where the second could be launched at a better angle and with less overall carry.  

Even today I would argue that that vast majority of people playing the game have no idea what you mean when you call a hole a "two shot" hole...not as relates to their own games, anyway.

Instead, the vast majority of golfers don't hit the ball with anywhere near enough consistency....and many without enough length, to look at a hole that's 395-430 yards (from the middle tees), or 330 from the front tees, and think to themselves, "driver, mid-iron".

No, instead they play a game that's all over the place.

It seems to me that from an architectural standpoint, rather than trying to deal effectively with that very untidy and unpredictable variable, and try to make our courses interesting for those folks so that they keep coming back, we instead say, "ok...let's create challenge and strategy for those golfers who are say, maybe 12 handicap and below, and who hit the ball a somewhat predictably long distance (hence the whole concept of the "landing area", and for the rest of the unwashed masses let's just try to leave enough room for them to pass through the pearly gates in 3 or 5 or 7 strokes without impeding them."

There's nothing special about the two-shot hole for the majority of golfers.   I watched my dad through his 70s get shorter and shorter from the tee until the idea he could reach almost any hole in regulation was mostly a fantasy, yet I still don't see why the best we can largely offer that level of golfer (or worse yet, a junior), is an "architectural free pass", which is really about as much fun as walking into your SAT's with 800 points already spotted to you.

[Brent Hutto]

Jeff,

The long fairway flanking bunkers are probably a good compromise but they are only flanking hazards. It's much harder to provide a really fun layup/carry/sidestep choice when driving distances are all over the map yet for my part those are the best bunkers of all. I'm thinking of the kind that reach partly across the fairway from one side or another, especially when they work with a side-sloping fairway. But even with three or four tees any one bunker like that is going to be a non-factor for maybe half the players of various kinds.

Mike,

I guess my take on this is entirely within the context of my own experience of the game. I can't really imagine how I might have felt differently in an earlier era. Don't you think  in the time frame you were describing there was still at least a plurality of holes on the great courses that were played as two full shots to the green?

For my purposes, a 390-yard hole with a cross hazard 40 yards short of the green is still a Two Shot Hole (tm) in most cases, just a very difficult one for short hitters making a layup of some kind the wise decision. I'm one of the short hitters you reference, my tee shots are usually 200 yards and I need to be close to the 150-yard marker to go for the green if there's trouble thereabouts. But when I'm faced with a steady diet of holes such as you describe even if I manage my layups and putt well enough to score acceptably I end up feeling that the experience wasn't what it should have been.

So maybe if I were born 50 years earlier I'd have a different set of expectations but the most rewarding holes for me are definitely the ones that I can reach in two shots, even if it would be two 99th-percentile shots that I wouldn't necessarily count on pulling off in a stroke-play tournament (i.e. smart play for me is a layup).

[Mike_Cirba]

Brent,

I understand what you're saying but my point is that back then a 370 yard carry in two shots was something of a challenge for US Open contestants.

For the average guy playing pre-Haskell, the "two shot" hole had no meaning.

That was also true at The Old Course.    That's largely why the bunkers there today seem "random".