Doug S. by saying 9/10 missthe green on short 4's, I wasn't implying that you should go ahead and hit - that's just plain stupid. I was implying that even though they have a minute chance of actually hitting the green, they wait for it to clear just in case they manage that career shot.
Sure the same holds true for long par 3's except most people wouldn't even consider laying up on a 3 - hence the reason I don't do many long (over 220 yds) par 3s.
Ted,
Hasn't that always been the case with short par 4s? Whether those short par 4s were 275 yards in 1930 or are 330 yards today.
The problem with short par 4s is not the waiting for one's career drive, I think that's common sense to insure you don't kill someone. The problem is caused due to today's equipment which creates drives that carry much further -- the gains in carry distance have been much greater than the gains in overall driving distance.
If I think back to my really crazy long drives I hit 20 years ago, they generally didn't carry a whole lot further than a more normal drive. They just happened to get some really long roll for whatever reason. For all I know, they were all sprinkler head hits
Today, my crazy long drives have a crazy long carry, I mean like a stupidly long carry that comes out of nowhere that I can't really account for. Did I suddenly swing with an extra 15 mph of clubhead speed? Is there some secret square mm-sized spot on my clubface with an illegal COR? Did my predilection for hitting the ball insanely high put it up into a lower level offshoot of the jet stream?
Who knows, but I do know that hitting into a green I can only reach with a drive I might hit a few times a season wouldn't really be a big deal 20 years ago, because a ball rolling up into someone's ankle isn't going to be a problem. A ball hitting someone on the fly or the one hop probably will, and like you say, its stupid to take the risk.
That said, I really don't think its a big issue. My home course has no driveable par 4s, the shortest being about 370 yards. A couple other courses around here I frequent each have two par 4s that are driveable for me, at least given prevailing winds. Depending on the wind, pin position, tee position etc. sometimes I'll just wait until the group ahead is on the green with the flag out, other times I wait until they've finished the hole.
Obviously that means my group is waiting around, but if we've been waiting on the group ahead for previous holes that means our pace is faster than the pace they (and those in front of them) are moving at, so we should be able to close the gap opened up by my waiting. And we do. I don't really notice any difference in the flow of the course of between my home course with no driveable par 4s and the others that do have them -- and one of those not only has the two driveable par 4s, it also has six par 3s, and six par 5s (and I'm typically going for 3 or 4 of those in two shots as well) And you know what, that course has always been the one with the fastest play!
I'm guess I'm just not sure whether this really affects the overall flow of the course very much at all in the end. I suppose if a group behind us fails to catch up with us when we catch back up with the group ahead its a problem for everyone else behind them, but the same thing could have happened to that group if they lost a ball and spent five minutes looking, or just had one of those holes where everyone in the group takes 2 shots over their norm, so its probably a matter of time before they fell behind anyway.