[JESII]

Let's be honest...width is great.

It gives us all the chance to make a mistake and not lose a ball or have to dig it out of the fescue etc...which is certainly fine, but...

Unless there is a reason to use the edges of the corridor, however, I hate to say it but, Shivas will have been right all along. He has stated numerous times that the chorus for more width on here is really just screaming for easier golf.

The Travis thread inspired this thought. Interesting fairway hazards are key points along the way. They really do make for an interesting journey but...for me, it all comes down to the green complex.

How many greens really deserve a 75 yard wide fairway?

[Joe Hancock]

Flip side.....

If 75 is too wide, there likely is also a "too narrow" number. Which, apparently, leaves us somewhere with a "perfect width" number. What would everyone have that number to be?

Joe

[JESII]

Joe,

I think the width should have some correlation to the green complex...not a direct correlation of the wider the fairway = the better green...but I think there is a burden to validate the need for a 75 yard wide fairway...and most importantly...that's what I want...

75 yard wide fairways with greens that make you want to use every portion of the fairway depending on the day...

[Joe Hancock]

Joe,

I think the width should have some correlation to the green complex...not a direct correlation of the wider the fairway = the better green...but I think there is a burden to validate the need for a 75 yard wide fairway...and most importantly...that's what I want...

75 yard wide fairways with greens that make you want to use every portion of the fairway depending on the day...

Well put.

 

[Bill_McBride]

It's all about the designed angles, centerline bunkering, and greenside bunkering.  If none of that is integral to the hole design, then the GCA has to narrow the targets to create challenge and interest.

So to me, wide fairways should mean interesting golf.

I for one would rather go to the dentist that look at 14 mandatory straight tee shots.  I'm thinking some of the vintage RTJ courses with fairway bunkers left and right with 25 yards in between, and greenside bunkers left and right.

[Peter Pallotta]

JES-

Shivas IS right about that, and has been all along.

But so what?

From a good player's standpoint, designed well and maintained fast-and-firm, I think such a course would identify the better player as often as a Firestone does. (I'll set aside how rare and lovely it might LOOK).

But speaking of greens, much of what I've learned about Pine Valley's amazing greens comes from you, i.e. how they 'work backwards' to get players thinking off the tee etc.

A question - do you think PV's greens 'deserve' 75 yard wide fairways? Or put another way, do you think 75 yard wide fairways REQUIRE PV type greens?

Peter 

[Joe Hancock]

Oddly, I am trying to think of things in life where narrow is a positive, and where broad is a negative, other than physique.

I think I'll go with broad as a life philosophy.

Joe

[George Pazin]

How many greens really deserve a 75 yard wide fairway?

How many even ask?

I'd guess most who preach width on here are not asking for 75 yards, just not 22.

Also, I know my own personal feeling is that when the width disappears, the thought provoking green complexes seem to get swept out with them.

[Kalen Braley]

Perhaps a slightly different way to look at this, even though its been mentioned before.

What is the goal or reason to golf for the mass majority of those who play?  I.E. Weekend warrior types.  To hack most of thier approach shots at the green from the rough?  Or to have fun and hit balls at the green from the fairway?

I would agree that 75 yards is huge, but is it that tough to at least give us weekend warrior types 40 yards or so on most fairways to work with?  Hitting from the fairway does not equate to easy, it eqautes to fun.

[JESII]

Peter,

You've really put me in a bind here because I have had occassional debates with Pat Mucci and Mike Cirba about the trees at Pine Valley. One faction of my position is that the trees that are now overgrowing the bunkers down there do not actually effect intended play because it is not a course that encourages play down the periphery.

Now...since I have been so honest, let me explain. I think the greens at Pine Valley are the most incredible set imaginable (I am told that Augusta, Oakmont NGLA and St. Andrews compare favorably but I wouldn't know) but I do not think the play of a hole, any hole, down there offers an advantage to using the edge of the fairway from a risk/reward viewpoint...not because of some fault with the green complex, but rather because of the penalty for missing your drive when you were aiming for the edge...it's a full shot almost every time.

No green complex could possibly provide a full shot reward for successfully finding the edge of the fairway as opposed to just aiming down the middle.

JES-

A question - do you think PV's greens 'deserve' 75 yard wide fairways? Or put another way, do you think 75 yard wide fairways REQUIRE PV type greens?

Peter 

Yes!

No!

Pine Valley's greens are so severe and place such high demand on the player that I do not think they should be a model for MOST courses. There is very limited opportunity to actually bounce a ball into the greens there. Even the few that are not forced carries generally have constricted entry ways along the ground.

I think a decent part of the reason for providing width is to provide an avenue for someone to not have to fly the ball to the hole if it is along the front of the green...and then maintaining it firm enough to encourage the use of the ground.

Example...I might lay up on a par 5 way out to the right if the pin were cut short left so that I could pitch across and use the approach to bounce it in below the hole. There is limited opportunity for that type of angled attack at Pine Valley because the front of the greens are pretty well protected with...#9, #11, #15.

#'s 4, 13 and 16 are the only ones that might offer such a play...

Not sure if that is the full answer, but it's a start.

[JESII]

Oddly, I am trying to think of things in life where narrow is a positive, and where broad is a negative, other than physique.


Joe

Heat in the Winter and Shade in the Summer GrandPa...

[Joe Hancock]

Oddly, I am trying to think of things in life where narrow is a positive, and where broad is a negative, other than physique.


Joe

Heat in the Winter and Shade in the Summer GrandPa...

And that, folks, is exactly why I am relegated to trying to make money with dirt.......

Joe

[Jim_Kennedy]

Wide is only considered as easy if you choose to look at it that way.

Is it easy to hit an approach to a green that falls away to the left, is protected by a deep bunker on its right flank, and has a cup cut 5 paces from the collar on the right side, if your tee shot has used up 37 of the 37 1/2 yds. to the right side of the centerline?




 

[RSLivingston_III]

Technology has eliminated the need for width. With high, soft shots available from every club in the bag - and I wouldn't be surprised if some of these goofy new putters don't do it if you want - fairway placement to reach tucked pins is no longer a consideration.

[TEPaul]

Peter:

In my opinion, the widths of the fairways at Pine Valley never had that much to do with the greens. The fairways were very wide down there and have remained that way because that is one of the few courses in the world that was designed without the use of rough grass. They have relatively narrow strips of rough grass along the sides of all the fairways now but it's there simply to turn fairway mowers on.

[Jeff_Mingay]

Gentlemen,

When discussing fairway width, you have to consider site conditions as well.

Take our Sagebrush project, in British Columbia, for example. The scale of place is MASSIVE. And, the property is very slope-y in spots. It's very windy in the Nicola Valley, too. Moreover, the mandate is to maintain consistently firm and fast fescue fairways. 

So, aside from strategic considerations, we're forced to provide fairways at Sagebrush in the neighbourhood of 75 yards across (at least a few fairways are even wider, in spots), simply to facilitate enjoyable golf for a majority of players; and also to present proper scale. In other words, sticking a 20-yard wide fairway into the frame we have to work with would look ridiculous.

Same goes with the greens.

Scale-wise, many of the greens at Sagebrush have to be LARGE. Two are over 20,000 square feet, in fact. But, it's really odd, they don't look this big because of the inherent scale of the site. Large greens also work well, strategically, with the ultra-wide fairways. Because the greens offer such a wide array of hole locations -- far-right and far-left, specifically, as they relate to strategy -- golfers will genuinely be presented with advantageous angles to certain hole locations by playing down the margin of ultra-wide fairways at Sagebrush...

Just like the good ol' days! 

[Jim_Kennedy]

Also, think of how much fun a wide fairway can be, you can choose to  make it a dog leg any time you want, or maybe you do so by accident. Either way, it will be fun to continue on.

[Peter Pallotta]

JES - thanks for post #9, there's a lot to think about.

In some ways, it sounds like you're describing Prairie Dunes -- wide fairways, real trouble off those fairways (gorse?), great greens, and a chance to run the ball in, at least occassionally.   

In some other ways, it sounds like you're describing a tougher version the 12th hole at Rustic Canyon, with its very wide fairway and excellent green (but not with PV's full-shot penalty/reward for missing the fairway).

I'm not sure those examples are good ones (or even all that accurate); but I understand better what you mean about the burden to validate the need for very wide fairways. 

And if on the other hand those examples ARE good ones, I think they point to the viability/validity of a certain kind of 'shot testing' and a certain kind of 'look' that I find very appealing (and which, in my imagination at least,  can go hand-in-hand with inexpensive construction and minimal maintainance practices).

I'm not asking for that kind of course 100% of the time or even 50% of the time...but when it seems to me that I don't see it 10% or even 5% of the time, then I think it's worth talking about and fighting for, because it's clearly an underdog, and maybe always has been. And it's worth asking and trying to understand why....

Peter   

[Doug Siebert]

Perhaps the archies and supers could educate those of us completely clueless on both fronts as to the costs involved.  I know that irrigation costs would increase with wider fairways, but I was under the impression that new irrigation systems often used more heads for the same area to allow finer control of the water.  So clearly the decision to increase irrigation costs upfront was already made -- and it must be about quality of the product because I couldn't imagine the water savings being great enough to pay for it??

The other half of the equation is the ongoing maintenance in terms of having more fairway to mow and maintain, which the supers could help out with.

As a hypothetical, lets take a course that's got fairways from 30-40 yards wide, and see what happens if we increased them to 50-60 yards wide?  Let's assume its standard par 72 7200 yard from the tips, 5000 yards from the front, presumably with no-mow for 50 yards off the tee from the front, so maybe around 3600 linear yards of fairway.

Would it be possible to come up with a ball park figure for an irrigation system for the 30-40 yard course, and how that would increase if the fairways were instead made 50-60 yards wide?  How much would the yearly maintenance costs increase from the additional area to mow, add chemicals, etc?

[Mike Nuzzo]

Doug,
It would be a lot more infrastructure and maintenance.
Which is one of the reasons we went with an older/bigger type spacing of rotors/heads.
It is also because it rains a lot here - even if we don't break 106 year old records.
It is very windy.

I just measured -- about 1/2 of our fairways are ~75 yards wide -- and some of them are double fairways - even a triple - so the close grass is 150 - 250 yards wide in spots.
We do have a bunch in the 30-40 yard range too.

The greens are very, very good.
As for the strategy - we'll soon see.....
Don and I are both a little wild off the tee.   

JES that is a good point about the full stroke penalty not being worth it at times.
Some greens do provide a full stroke however.

Cheers

[JESII]

Thanks Mike,

Sounds like you've got something very interesting down there...




"JES that is a good point about the full stroke penalty not being worth it at times.
Some greens do provide a full stroke however"

Seriously?

You have seen a green that offers a full stroke reward for a tee shot placed properly?

[JESII]

How many greens really deserve a 75 yard wide fairway?

I'd guess most who preach width on here are not asking for 75 yards, just not 22.

Also, I know my own personal feeling is that when the width disappears, the thought provoking green complexes seem to get swept out with them.

George,

I'm not even asking for 75 yards...at some point geometry takes over and the extra width just become waste...but...I am looking for a reason to use the edges of the hole. Whatever hazards border the fairway need to be offset by the reward of that ideal angle.

This can just as easily refer (is that spelled correctly? I swear we used to smoke that...) to approach areas 30 - 75 yards short of a green that will let you play an angle for an up and down par when you cannot reach the green...


As I've thought about this idea, the best examples would seem to be "half-par" holes. The wide approaches would be an alternative when faced with potentially reaching a green, but not certain.

#8 at Hidden Creek is about 300 Yards with a bunker to carry at about 250 or so. This fairly small bunker sits in the middle of a 60 yard wide fairway. The green dictates which side of the fairway might be best if you are not getting all the way to the green, and the realistic spread between two shots trying to get to two different pins migh be 50 yards.

I don't know that this hole takes up any more space than your typical 300 yard hole, but it sure gets more bang for the buck...

[Doug Siebert]

JES,

You are clearly driving the ball much too straight if you think that even a yard of that 75 yards might go to waste.  I'd probably still miss a few fairways there even if I wasn't playing strategic and trying to hit the correct side

I still agree with Shivas' reasoning about people liking them because they are easier.  In fact, all the things that seem to be the common wisdom of GCA (wider fairways, firmer fairways, playable rough, "random" fairway bunkering, few/no trees) make for easier tee shots.  Not that I have a problem with easy drives and more challenge the closer I get to the hole!

But I think that especially with how much the driving game has been de-skilled by modern equipment, requiring players to demonstrate some proficiency in controlling the ball with the driver isn't out of place.  Even though it exposes the biggest weakness of my game...  I'm just not sure that preferred angles of approach is enough of a reward, just like I think that being stymied by a tree or sunk into 6" rough where you can barely find your ball is probably too much of a penalty.

[paul cowley]

....Y'ALL BE THINKIN TOO MUCH ....just play the damn thing...count your score and when you get the chance reflect on whether you had any fun during your endeavor.

[CStrong]

Doug S,

To answer your question from very early this morning, that size irrigation system would have cost my club (CC of Troy) an additional $200K.  The fertility and chemical requirements obviously increase by atleast 60%, which I'm sure you can compare to your home courses budget.

The interesting aspect of your hypothetical situation is how does that impact mowing?  With wider fairways come more equipment and more bodies, but fewer bodies involved in mowing rough.  Rough can be extremely time consuming, where fairway mowing is a relatively painless operation, assuming that these kids show up to work in the summer.

In general, it is my experience that wider fairways equates to great greens designs, particularly in the case of Walter Travis.  Over 50% of our shots are taken around the greens and it has always been majority contention that this is were the game is played.  Why did Tiger win again last week?  Because he is a great putter.  Although I'm sure he especially would appreciate the 75 yard wide fairway.

Chris

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