[Joe Hancock]

Marc,

Fantastic. Thank you for the photo illustration.

It makes me want to golf.

 

[Michael Moore]

It is superficial to purely discuss width in terms of an easy-difficult spectrum because it is incomplete - the discussion is about whether width adds interest and challenge to golf. To neglect that dimension is to be superficial.

Philip -

Thanks for the clarification. I still don't see how width will ever add challenge to a given hole. In my estimation the challenge of getting the ball near the hole or even the green from the rough (especially after the rough has shortened a shot) will always be harder than the challenge of hitting to a nice part of a wide fairway.

I am only pursuing this because of the false elitism embedded in the original question. Every golfer I know wants wide fairways, and 95% of them want width because they find an afternoon of "seek 'n' slash" to be too difficult and frustrating. The desire for width does not make one a groundbreaking iconoclastic martyr.

[TEPaul]

As far as I can tell no one has been able to figure exactly why most all the old fairway widths were so much wider than they generally are today.

I think we've identified a number of reasons why fairways were narrowed over the years (not all good reasons in my opinion) but what I've never been able to figure out is why most all of them in the old days were 50-55 yards wide on what seems to be a "standard" (although a few were wider or much wider).

Wayne and I have come across some writing and newspaper reporting from the old days that talks about the "standard width of 50-55 yards".

The question is, if that was true why were most all fairways "standardized" at that width?

Was it just some standard that developed without much thought as to the character and concepts of particular holes, was it something to do with the really large and wide gang mowers of that time or some other combination of factors?

Personally, I feel fairways should be of a variety of widths that fit the conceptual strategies of how holes were originally designed which would mean some should be much wider than they are now and a few might even be narrower.

Certainly it couldn't be that in the old days those architects thought that the strategic concepts of tee shots and other shots should all be contained in the same standardized 50-55 yard width. To me that doesn't say or do much for variety in golf and architecture.

[Brent Hutto]

There are many ways in which discussion here is out of touch with the game as played by the mainstream (largest numbers) of USA golfers. However, one particular way of thinking leads to a large part of that disconnect.

Many discussions here take place with a stated or implicit caveat of the form

...assuming the course has firm fairways and greens...

which is so not true for most courses. Any line of reasoning requiring that assumption is from the get-go out of touch with the experience of 90% of the golfers of my acquaintance.

Let's face it, a lot of "strategic design" features work perfectly on a course where the ball bounces 3-6" high on every approach shot and good players are not able to spin back even a short iron while being completely meaningless on the a course where even middle-aged 12-handicappers have long approach shots squish to a stop inches from their (enormous) ball marks.

Not that there's anything wrong with detailed consideration of GCA for firm-and-fast conditions. It seems to me if we only discussed the tiny subset of GCA that is salient for an overwatered, wall-to-wall green, target golf courses designed to be played never firm, never fast...well, that's an extremely limited context for discussion innit?

[Brent Hutto]

I still don't see how width will ever add challenge to a given hole. In my estimation the challenge of getting the ball near the hole or even the green from the rough (especially after the rough has shortened a shot) will always be harder than the challenge of hitting to a nice part of a wide fairway.

Actually I'm pretty sure it can happen, Michael. But it takes a lot of width and an extreme design on the green end to make it so.

Sometimes a light cut of rough is enough to stop a slightly off-line tee shot from wandering well left or right of the fairway. If the entire (narrow) fairway corridor offers a good angle to the green but a spot, for instance, 30 yards farther right would offer a very poor approach angle then cutting the grass so that a ball can roll that far right might (just might) increase the difficulty.

Of course if the fairway is too soft for that roll to happen it's moot. Or if the rough is long enough to make the approach shot difficult to execute. And of course both of those conditions are actually perfectly normal on most courses so this is a possibility that does not commonly obtain.

P.S. To illustrate the possibility, imagine a dogleg right hole where a shot 30 yards right of the (narrow) fairway has no view of the green but short rough will hold the ball up enough to allow an unobstructed approach.

[Peter Pallotta]

An article written around the time Tillinghast designed Winged Foot talks about how the course(s) were meant to be all about the golf, not the more social aspects of a golf and country club.

Tillinghast says that "it was impressed upon me that the course for the most part would be played by athletes, men of strength, for most of them as members of the New York Athletic Club have been prominent in various branches of sports"; and then goes on to say that, since the introduction of the rubber-cored golf ball, there have been few holes "calling for the true proportions of brassie play. Holes which called for the use of the brassie for the average player really were nothing but an iron or mashie to the green for the finest golfers."

So he built two golf courses that could play over 7000 yards from the back, but that could also accomodate the duffers who here, there and everywhere actually pay most of the bills. The article notes:

"The two courses, while long, have wide fairways, practically no rough or traps directly in front of the tees, and no severity of trapping except directly around the greens. The effect of this arrangement is to make it difficult for the good player to arrive on the green with a long second on the ten holes of each course requiring two long shots and easy for the duffer to arrive with his third. If the strong player misses his difficult second and the weaker player is careful with his easy third, the latter may walk off with a half."

Nothing all that new for folks here, but I thought it fitted the thread somehow.

Peter

[TEPaul]

Kelly:

That was a very good post. We need to remember that one of the most important aspects of fairway width is not just on the tee shots but very much in those areas of topographical bounce and roll options around the corners of the fronts and sides of greens and also surrounding bunkers and hazard features.

BrentH and MichaelM:

I'll give you a great example of the increased interest and challenge of increased or restored fairway width---ie the first hole at Shinnecock.

The orientation of that fairway to the tee is one really beautiful diagonal to start with.

In the 2004 Open much less than half the field hit that fairway if they were aggressive with a driver. Most were out to the left in the rough where fairway once was and where it was designed to be.

If the pin is on the left back of the green guarded by that left greenside bunker even top pros with wedges in their hand were basically just trying to get the ball on the green somewhere in the middle.

Now if that area to the left of the fairway where so many tee shots went was not in rough but in fairway as was designed it just stands to reason that many more players would be tempted to get a lot more agressive with that back left pin and if they did that and missed long or left they would have a whole lot more to worry about trying to get back on that green and near that left pin from behind or left of the green than if they were just putting out to that pin from a safe approach shot to the middle.

So, in this case it's not just about incremental single shot challenge or difficulty that can seriously minimize temptation it's about increasing temptation by connecting shots to one another strategically. And increased or restored fairway on the left of #1 Shinnecock would definitely do that even with the best in the world and certainly to particular pins on that green.

[Craig Sweet]

TPAUL said

"As far as I can tell no one has been able to figure exactly why most all the old fairway widths were so much wider than they generally are today."


I had a friend spend an evening trying to convince me that the seating in old diners was further apart before the bomb and the cold war....he said the close seating in a "modern" diner was out of fear of the bomb and a subconscious need to huddle together in that fear.  

[John Moore II]

My thing is, at most of the courses I play in Pinehurst, the ones your daily fee players will play, the greens and approaches are very wide open. I can think of only one green at my course that the player can really benefit from being on a certain side of the fairway. All the rest, if you are simply in the fairway, you have a good shot into the green. And most of the courses down here are like that. Of course the elite courses are not like that, but most of our courses are. That is part of my arguement against hugely wide fairways. If they serve no purpose other than to just be wide, why have them?
--Just an idea, if I recall, Oakmont has very narrow fairways and has been like that since opening. Should they expand the fairways?
--Brent--your reasoning about firm fairways and greens rarely existing today is part of why I argue against huge wide fairways. With fairways being so soft today, its unlikely that a ball that hits in the fairway will roll out. And even if it does, a shot into a spongy green will hold even out of the rough. On courses like this (the vast majority of daily fee clubs today) the fairways do not need to be extremely wide.

[Brent Hutto]

On courses like this (the vast majority of daily fee clubs today) the fairways do not need to be extremely wide.

Well, there's no strategic advantage to it anyway. I don't have anything against very wide fairways per se even in the absence of strategery. But a whole course would probably seem too much of a pushover if on every hole you've got a 50, 60, 70 yard wide area of undifferentiated short grass to catch your tee shots.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Some courses rely fairly heavily on irrigation, so a 40 yard width is cost effective in having a double row irrigation system with less water reliance for the semi rough areas. If there is no real irrigation problem, its not crazy money to mow lots of fairway. Cost is quite a big factor in some clubs mowing regimes. Fairways may be cut 3 times weekly, semi rough perhaps weekly, which does put the green fee up a bit.

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