course toughness and the paying public

[Brad Huff]

I was in the process of blaming my poor wedege play and worse putting on Brauer's greens at Indian Creek when I started to make this comment to him...  then I decided to put it to the masses.  I'm not a GCA, just a simple high school golf coach.   I know all the readings I do on the subject talk about designing courses so that people of all levels can have fun.  I believe the golfer that's in the fat part of the bell curve for frequency of play (not handicap) WANTS a tough course.  I give the following as supporting evidence:

1. I repeatedly see the paying public playing from tees that are further back than their ability.
2. These same people are all playing ProVs or similar tour ball even though it probably isn't the best ball for them.
3. If people don't like the challege of the "tough" course, why are they still packed with play?
4. Golf club manufacturers, magazines, friends, etc... consistently send the message that I'm a better player than my scores show, all I need is THIS club or THIS drill to let my true Tiger come out.
5. Add to this that developers label most new courses as"Championship" courses.

All of these are choices made by the player that make the game tougher, more challenging...whatever phrase you wish.  This approach to the game is rampant among junior golfers especially.  I've found the juniors that are worst about this usually have dads that fall into the above categories.

I think we all inherently think we're better than we are and even though we probably wouldn't admit it to our friends would rather get beat up by a tough course than play well on an easy one.  What's the quote I heard one time?  "I so much better than this, I just never play like it."

Thoughts?

[David_Tepper]

Brad -

I think most of what you say is correct.  Many golfers and many golf clubs have their ego tied into the 'toughness" of their home course or club.  Even if they play a course that regularly beats them up, they are willing to trade that for maybe breaking 80 there from the blue tees once every 10 rounds. That pleasure seems to be worth the pain!

I remember talking to someone (about a 6-handicap) who had just joined a new club in the area where I live. He seemed most pleased that this course had a slope over 140. I remember thinking I would in no way want to play a course that demanding on a regular basis.   

There is no accounting for taste.

DT

[Jeff_Brauer]

Brad,

I think there is a magic point somewhere between the "relentless" on a recent thread and a pushover course for most people.  It probably trends more towards tough than easy, despite many people in the golf industry talking about how golfers hate these tough courses and want easier ones.

BTW, I long ago gave up buying ProV1 balls.  I have tried a lot of them including that Nike Power Soft that CR rated as equal to Tigers ball for $18 per dozen, and recently, Callaway's mid price ball (its in the green box, can't recall the monicker)  I also have a lot of scale maps and aerials of golf courses (mine and others) and have a pretty good idea of how far I hit it - most golfers say they hit it 250 and really hit it 225.  Too bad for my ego I know the truth.  Of course, I am sure that I am thin, good looking, and funny as hell - real life hasn't dimmned my self illusions nearly as much as golf tends to! 

In truth, there is nothing wrong with fooling ourselves into believing we are better golfers than we are....while that career round in the 70's may never come, it would be more satisfying on a decent course than a condescending one, no?  The anticipation of a great round on a good course is similar to the anticipation on Xmas eve, vs. the actual opening of the gifts the next day......the anticipation is almost always better.

PS - Sorry if my green contours ruined your day.....I was designing that course under the influence of "Golf Club Atlas" and the collective groupthink here that modern greens are just too damn flat.......   Nowadays, I respect the laws of gravity much, much more!

[John_Conley]

Brad, Indian Creek is terrific.  I can't wait to play it again.  Tee to green there aren't a lot of places you'll lose balls, so it needs those greens to challenge better players.  I kept thinking it did a great job of rewarding good iron play even more than solid putting because poor iron shots wind up in places where you'll probably 3-putt.

As for your comment about course difficulty and what people want, realize there is no middle ground that pleases everyone.  People base their opinion of a course from the perspective of their own ability.  Some players can't carry it 70 yards while others cover the distance of nearly every hole under 500 yards in two shots.

If Jeff flattens the greens what do you have there?

The winning score in the Players Amateur at Belfair this month was 258.  Two Fifty Eight!  -22 on a par 70.  Yikes!   Yes, the ability of strong players is a consideration for guys like Jeff.

[Jeff_Brauer]

John,

Yeah, its a consideration, but I am getting to the point where those very good tournament level players can't be a consideration.  The problem is that the "magic marketing yardage" of 7000 yards really fits no one anymore.  Good players need at least 7300 yards, and very few other players really want to play at over 6800 yards, I may try to convince the next client to make that the back tee yardage. 

As to features, I don't think lost balls do much to make the course more championship tough.  For that matter, almost any challenging feature we put in affects the average Joe about 4X from the good player.  Green contours?  If they are stout, they affect the good player and I figure the average guy gets his third put conceded.

[Brad Huff]

John,

Yeah I understand you can't built the one size fits all course.  I guess I was trying to bridge the gap between what we call the "theoretical" and the "actual" in physics.  I read that you guys try to design courses that are playable and enjoyable for all levels but rarely see people taking advantage of it.  It's almost like they feel cheated if they don't get beat up a little.  How many times have I heard the kind of golfer I'm talking about come back from TOC and say it was a goat ranch?

I certainly wasn't seriously complaining about IC.  I LOVE the back 9.  I PM'd Jeff and told him I thought it was the best 9 I'd played in the Metroplex and I've played or been to almost every course in the area.  I'd love the front more if my kids didn't play it on almost a daily basis during the season so I see it ALL the time.

Jeff -

Talking about Average Joe being affected 4x...  I agree.  Why do you think they choose the stiffer route?  I had a freshman that went and bought muscle back blades.  I tried to explain to him how he just made the game harder, not easier.  He said his instructor suggested it!  You used the magic word...marketing.  I'm a firm believer that golf marketing mixed with the "quest for the perfect" that golf brings out in everyone is the culprit for the condition of which I speak.

I see the purity of golf being lost.  I saw it in coaching with the advent of the "select" team.  I loved how skilled kids were when they got to my program in high school, but hated that all they did was play basketball year round.  Parents being duped that the only way to get to college was to be on a travelling team..in 5th grade!!  It's like golfers are being sold the same bill of goods.

Am I overreacting here? 

[Jim Tang]

I wouldn't want to play a course that just beat me over the head every time I played it.  I want my home course to be demanding, but not crazy difficult to the point where I can't score and have a solid round every now and then.

With that being said, I think if you're on a golf trip or visiting a course you'll probably never see again, I think the average guy wants the full measure of the course.  They'll probably play it back, which is fine.  But, this is probably some of the reason why some rounds at public facilities take close to 5 hours.

[Dan Kelly]

PS - Sorry if my green contours ruined your day.....I was designing that course under the influence of "Golf Club Atlas"...

Jeff --

You need some Sarcasma: http://katierush.com/funny/sarcasma.htm


As for your being thin, good-looking and funny as hell: Heck, one out of three ain't bad!

Dan

P.S. I want: Tough but Fun -- No Fun being a series of holes featuring Flanking Hazards (and/or Ball-Eating Grasses), requiring Heroic Carries, and making the Ground Game impossible.

You can make your greens as crazy as your client will allow, and I'll be very happy.

[John_Conley]

John,

Yeah, its a consideration, but I am getting to the point where those very good tournament level players can't be a consideration.  The problem is that the "magic marketing yardage" of 7000 yards really fits no one anymore.  Good players need at least 7300 yards, and very few other players really want to play at over 6800 yards, I may try to convince the next client to make that the back tee yardage. 

Jeff, I'll see if I can dig up something on this and send it to you.  Next time you have a pencil and pad of paper and are working on this, try something.

Let's say you have a client interested in 7,000 par 72.  You would like it to be less for the reasons stated.  Put in one short par 4 per nine, reducing the total yardage about 225 yards.  Go with one short par 3 on the course, reducing it another 75.  Then point out that a player of Andrew's caliber is challenged more by a 430 yard par 4 than a 530 yard par 5...it isn't even close.  By dropping par 2 strokes and reducing yardage 200 yards the course gets harder in relation to par.

Add it up and we are at 6,500 yards, not 7,000.

Now working with your routing and doing the coruse to a total of 6,500 you can have fun.  Par 70 from the back tee, par 72 FROM THE SAME MARKER for the normal tee, and by pushing up a few tees on the longer holes you have something like 6,150 for the Sr/Jr/scratchlady tee.

Less land, less turf, easier daily setup, and testy course.

Almost nobody does this.  Instead I'm seeing 7,600 (course I just played in North Carolina), 7,800 (near Palm Coast), and 8,100 (RTJ Trail I'll see next week).

Okay golfers who grab the card and see 6,600 at Homestead and go to the back thinking they can handle it are in for a LONG day because it is just par 70.

[Peter Pallotta]

Brad - good topic, and especially interesting coming from someone like you who sees it firsthand with your players.

For the average adult player, I think it goes back to the Bernard Darwin "rabbit and tiger" analogy. The tigers want to test and prove themelves against tough condition; but the rabbits too, while having more modest goals, still don't to be treated by the architect like the rabbits that they are, i.e. they don't want to be insulted by having their meager skills clearly/obviously catered to, and they still want to be able to THINK they are overcoming tough challenges (at least occasionally). I think that must be one of the toughest tricks for the architect to pull off, i.e. to design a golf course that is in fact playable by and enjoyable to various skill levels, but that doesn't APPEAR to be too easy and doesn't appear to cater to the rabbit (as it would if the bunkers, for example, seemed to by eye candy and nothing more).

Peter 

[Richard Choi]

I think you guys are all over-thinking this.

I believe the simple reason is that most people belive that they are better than they really are. This is a very well know psychological tendency and there has been numerous studies done on it.

Most people have inflated view of themselves where they believe that they are better at (anything) than they really are.

So, people who should really be playing 6000 yard courses play 6500 yards and people who should play 6500 yard play 7000 yard courses. And people actively seek out tougher courses since they believe they are good enough to play them (even if they can't)

This is probably why people have tendency to have lower handicap than what their capability dictates.

[George Pazin]

I think we all inherently think we're better than we are and even though we probably wouldn't admit it to our friends would rather get beat up by a tough course than play well on an easy one.

There is certain a lot of wisdom in what you say. However, I'd add that many - maybe even most, outside of this site - don't even play well on easy courses. In some respects, it almost doesn't matter, so many just go with the flow, hoping for the occasional heroic shot. They can live with not playing well if they have the occasional moment of glory.

Peter P -

I've recently come to the conclusion that the worst thing the Good Doctor wrote was that courses should look hard and play easier. It strikes me that the best courses play harder than they look - they always leave you feeling like you could've played a little better.

[Peter Pallotta]

A good and interesting point, George.

Peter

[John_Conley]

This is probably why people have tendency to have lower handicap than what their capability dictates.

Assuming you follow the guidelines, your handicap is what it is.  It DOESN'T compute any lower than your 'capability dictates' - whatever that means.

By design, you only 'play to your handicap' about one in five rounds.  If you could play to it every time you'd have a different handicap.

And then you'd play to that about one in five rounds.

[Garland Bayley]

...
I think we all inherently think we're better than we are and even though we probably wouldn't admit it to our friends would rather get beat up by a tough course than play well on an easy one.  What's the quote I heard one time?  "I so much better than this, I just never play like it."

Thoughts?

Ignoring for the moment complete definitions of easy and hard, I believe you are  wrong! In part due to financial considerations. people play "harder" courses than they would optimally enjoy. One thing that the majority of great courses have is an abundance of real estate. If the course is wider (uses more real estate) it is easier to create easy bogey, hard par scenarios. I would much rather play Rustic Canyon that has that scenario, than my real estate challenged home course. Therefore, the golfers of SoCal are extremely fortunate to have that option. In my area, there is no course with the kind of width of Rustic that I know of that is priced competitively with Rustic. Therefore, I play a harder course out of financial considerations.
The less real estate a course consumed the lower the cost will be, which I believe correlates to the more difficult to score on given analogous features.

[Garland Bayley]

...However, I'd add that many - maybe even most, outside of this site - don't even play well on easy courses. In some respects, it almost doesn't matter, so many just go with the flow, hoping for the occasional heroic shot. ...

Again, this begs the definition of hard and easy. However, I would point out that a tour pro would eat my home course alive, whereas he would not be able to score as well at Rustic Canyon. The converse of that is that I played Rustic once and scored better there than all the times I had played my home course even though Rustic is a par 72 and my home course is a par 70.

Therefore, I don't agree that people don't play (score) better on easy courses.

[Kirk Gill]

I wouldn't want to play a course that just beat me over the head every time I played it.  I want my home course to be demanding, but not crazy difficult to the point where I can't score and have a solid round every now and then.

With that being said, I think if you're on a golf trip or visiting a course you'll probably never see again, I think the average guy wants the full measure of the course.  They'll probably play it back, which is fine.  But, this is probably some of the reason why some rounds at public facilities take close to 5 hours.

I know that my own attitude is different on a course I play often vs. a course I'm likely to only play once. Repeat play encourages me to experiment and find the best way for me to play a hole - to "interface with the architecture." Getting my score down is a huge part of that goal.

If I'm just playing a course once, I'm personally going to go for every shot. I remember playing the 7th at Torrey Pines last October, and the pin was tucked front right, a sucker pin, right behind a huge, deep bunker. My scoring instinct said to go left, and leave myself a fairly easy chip.......an instinct that I ignored when I tried to fly one straight at the pin........and failed.

Did NOT play from the back tees, however. I do recognize some of my many limitations.

[Jeff_Brauer]

John,

Yeah, its a consideration, but I am getting to the point where those very good tournament level players can't be a consideration.  The problem is that the "magic marketing yardage" of 7000 yards really fits no one anymore.  Good players need at least 7300 yards, and very few other players really want to play at over 6800 yards, I may try to convince the next client to make that the back tee yardage. 

Jeff, I'll see if I can dig up something on this and send it to you.  Next time you have a pencil and pad of paper and are working on this, try something.

Let's say you have a client interested in 7,000 par 72.  You would like it to be less for the reasons stated.  Put in one short par 4 per nine, reducing the total yardage about 225 yards.  Go with one short par 3 on the course, reducing it another 75.  Then point out that a player of Andrew's caliber is challenged more by a 430 yard par 4 than a 530 yard par 5...it isn't even close.  By dropping par 2 strokes and reducing yardage 200 yards the course gets harder in relation to par.

Add it up and we are at 6,500 yards, not 7,000.

Now working with your routing and doing the coruse to a total of 6,500 you can have fun.  Par 70 from the back tee, par 72 FROM THE SAME MARKER for the normal tee, and by pushing up a few tees on the longer holes you have something like 6,150 for the Sr/Jr/scratchlady tee.

Less land, less turf, easier daily setup, and testy course.

Almost nobody does this.  Instead I'm seeing 7,600 (course I just played in North Carolina), 7,800 (near Palm Coast), and 8,100 (RTJ Trail I'll see next week).

Okay golfers who grab the card and see 6,600 at Homestead and go to the back thinking they can handle it are in for a LONG day because it is just par 70.

John,

You know, I tried that just the other day on a pretty savvy client. After a little hemming and hawing, he thought he would prefer a  par 72.  In this case, water isn't an issue, but I can see par 70 being the wave of the future for reasons you sort of mention.

[Richard Choi]

Assuming you follow the guidelines, your handicap is what it is.  It DOESN'T compute any lower than your 'capability dictates' - whatever that means.

By design, you only 'play to your handicap' about one in five rounds.  If you could play to it every time you'd have a different handicap.

And then you'd play to that about one in five rounds.

"Assuming you folow the guidelines"...

Well that is a BIG assumption.

I constantly see people giving themselves mulligans, three footers, drops on OB shots, etc.  And we are not even counting people who are not posting high scores or fudge low scores...

[Mike Bowline]

I wouldn't want to play a course that just beat me over the head every time I played it.  I want my home course to be demanding, but not crazy difficult to the point where I can't score and have a solid round every now and then.

Here is a scenario I went through several weeks ago that caused me to introspectively analyze my motives and thoughts:

My home course has back tees with a rating/slope of 73.3/134 and I shoot in the upper 70s, giving me a differential of about 3 - 5 for handicap purposes. One day, I randomly met a single on the 2nd tee who was playing the next set of tees forward from the back, so I moved up and joined him for a friendly round. The next set of tees forward are at 69.8/125. I therefore should shoot 3-4 strokes lower from these tees, and in fact, I did so that day, carding a 73.

The reason I am boring all of you with these numbers is to illustrate a point: I had a lot more fun playing from the shorter/easier tees than I would have thought. Shorter irons hit into greens, a few lay-up tee shots vs. the back-tee drivers, etc. It was lots of fun and it opened my eyes to the golfer I had unconsciously become: play it all the way back no matter what!

I enjoyed shooting a lower score despite the easier tees being played. Which confirms that I will have fun playing a course that isn't as hard as it could possibly be if I played the Tiger tees.

This was eye-opening for me and I think it relevant to the original post.

[Jim Tang]

Mike -

Good post.  Plus, playing the up tees on your home course every now and then makes you hit different shots that you normally would hit and thus, probably makes you a better player.  Playing up will bring into play different bunkers or hazards that might not be in play from the tips.  You have a totally different way of thinking about the hole and how to play it, which is a good thing.  This, of course, applies to a golf course that has been well thought out and designed.

[Bill_McBride]

John,

Yeah, its a consideration, but I am getting to the point where those very good tournament level players can't be a consideration.  The problem is that the "magic marketing yardage" of 7000 yards really fits no one anymore.  Good players need at least 7300 yards, and very few other players really want to play at over 6800 yards, I may try to convince the next client to make that the back tee yardage. 

Jeff, I'll see if I can dig up something on this and send it to you.  Next time you have a pencil and pad of paper and are working on this, try something.

Let's say you have a client interested in 7,000 par 72.  You would like it to be less for the reasons stated.  Put in one short par 4 per nine, reducing the total yardage about 225 yards.  Go with one short par 3 on the course, reducing it another 75.  Then point out that a player of Andrew's caliber is challenged more by a 430 yard par 4 than a 530 yard par 5...it isn't even close.  By dropping par 2 strokes and reducing yardage 200 yards the course gets harder in relation to par.

Add it up and we are at 6,500 yards, not 7,000.

Now working with your routing and doing the coruse to a total of 6,500 you can have fun.  Par 70 from the back tee, par 72 FROM THE SAME MARKER for the normal tee, and by pushing up a few tees on the longer holes you have something like 6,150 for the Sr/Jr/scratchlady tee.

Less land, less turf, easier daily setup, and testy course.

Almost nobody does this.  Instead I'm seeing 7,600 (course I just played in North Carolina), 7,800 (near Palm Coast), and 8,100 (RTJ Trail I'll see next week).

Okay golfers who grab the card and see 6,600 at Homestead and go to the back thinking they can handle it are in for a LONG day because it is just par 70.

John,

You know, I tried that just the other day on a pretty savvy client. After a little hemming and hawing, he thought he would prefer a  par 72.  In this case, water isn't an issue, but I can see par 70 being the wave of the future for reasons you sort of mention.

What John suggests is done quite a bit in the UK but in reverse.  From the yellow (visitor tees) a 460 yard hole is a par 4.  From the white (medal tees) it's a 485 yard par 5.  The par is 70 for the shorter tees, 72 for the medal tees.  (This is North Berwick West Links).

That doesn't really solve your problem, does it? 

[Tom_Doak]

Brad:

Pete Dye is entirely in agreement with your conclusions.  He used to tell me that people did not play Pebble Beach because it was beautiful, they play it because it's damned hard and they want to be challenged.

Clearly, it's possible to go too far on that end of the spectrum, but a course that doesn't challenge has no hold on potential return visitors unless the service and conditioning are exceptional.

[Jason McNamara]

By dropping par 2 strokes and reducing yardage 200 yards the course gets harder in relation to par.

John -

Downfield in Dundee is like this.  The tips are something like 6800 par 73, but the other tees are on the order of 6200 / par 70 and 6500 / 71.

[BCrosby]

Darwin makes similar points in a number of essays about how weaker golfers love difficulty.

He talked about a survey at his club where you could vote for course changes. You signed one list if you wanted the course toughened, you signed another if you wanted it less tough.

He was surprised - at first - to note that almost all the signatures to the "tougher" petition were, in fact, the club's weaker golfers. The "less tough" petition was signed mostly by the club's better golfers.

So Darwin (as only Darwin could) pondered this paradox. He concludes that weaker golfers hate to be patronized. It is a thrill to escape from tight spots or skirt the edges of them. He suggests that it is humiliating and dull for weaker players if courses are designed to make things too easy for them.

I think he was right.

One of the theories as to why Ross built so many "topshot" bunkers is exactly this.

Bob

P.S. My guess is that when Darwin talked about "tougher" he did not mean more forced carries, more water, more o.b., more trees, etc. That is, Darwin was not thinking of the kind of things most modern US architects think of when they try to make courses tougher.

[Tags:]

Tags: