‘What is it that golfers really want from their course’?

[Lyne Morrison]

There are many varied elements that contribute to the overall golf experience – location, length, strategy, conditioning, challenge, the time it takes to play a round, value for money etc etc

I ask of you ‘What is it that golfers really want from their course’?

Can we encapsulate this in a half dozen points? 

I look forward to your thoughts.

Thanks - Lyne

[Patrick_Mucci]

Lynne,

I think they want a challenge that's enjoyable and NOT repititious.

[Joe Hancock]

Value.

As an analogy, think about food. While a fine Italian, French or Thai meal is more in tune to a refined palate, there is a ton more pizza and burger joints because of demand.

Or, are we talking about golfers as in GCA.com golfers?

Joe

[Charlie Goerges]

Joe, all those golfers want to be US, they just don't realize it yet!


Lyne, let me toss out there the idea that a naturally beautiful course is a treat. Just last night I was playing a course of limited architectural merit, but one that was cut through hilly forested land. The effect of the evening light streaming through the young, bright-green leaves of the trees was positively atmospheric.

[ed_getka]

For the average golfer it seems all they want to do is shoot a low number. Flat greens, hazards way out of the way, no thinking required. I even see golfers playing tees up from where they should be. I presume so they can feel like a pro hitting a wedge into a par 4.

For GCA'ers: A course that continues to reveal new things even after a dozen rounds, real hazards that extract a penalty for poor execution or strategy, interesting contours combined with firm and fast conditions such that the objective is not to just hit a set yardage but to actually THINK. Lines of charm and diagonals that keep you on your toes.

Thats a start.

[Bill_McBride]

If this is a home course, where one plays every week with the same group, I think you'd be looking for VARIETY.  The holes should all be different from each other and there should be different lines of play depending on wind etc.  Otherwise it would be BORING!

[Jeff_Brauer]

They want:

* Shoot near their normal score.

* Rarely or Never lose a golf ball

* Great conditions on greens, in bunkers and good conditions elsewhere

* Aesthetics (unless a low handicapper, and then thse mean less than point 1...the higher the handicap, the higher the need for aesthetics

* Good service

* Good "Value" (which can be achieved at private and public at all price levels, its a feeling that you are paying X for a 1.5 to 2 X facility)

* Some design variety.  While golfers may not notice nuance (if they all did, I guess it wouldn't technically be nuanced) they do notice repetition in looks, club selection, and features - especially negative repetition, like too many short or long holes, too many water hazards, too many narrow fw.

By the way, I am proud to say that Sand Creek Station in Newton, KS, won the National Golf Foundation Annual Customer Loyalty Award as having the highest approval rating in 2008 with an 87% rating.  They finished 2nd last year.  The award is based heavily on customer responses to the course’s friendliness of staff, overall experience, value, condition of course, amenities, scenery and aesthetics.  Given the stats come from customers themselves, I guess we should beleve this represents what golfers want at least in a public course.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Lyne,
If it's 'their' course, they want other people to like it.

[Emmy]

Jeff B:

I concur.

You hit the nail-on-the-head, when it comes to what golfers really want from their course. You're on the pulse.

Emmy

[Lyne Morrison]

Thanks all for your well considered responses thus far - appreciate the insight. A client actually asked this question of me and while I do have my own thoughts - it is really good to hear yours also.

We are talking public golf - more pizza and burger than fine dining - however - gourmet pizzas can be an attractive menu item. I'm all for raising the standard of public facilities in order to support community and encourage enjoyment of the game.  JB - I will look into Sand Creek Station further.

Cheers - Lyne

[Sean_A]

I can only respond for myself.

- affordable*
- varied, well thought out design on decent well draining terrain which can be walked in 3.5 hours and one which continues to surprise over many rounds
- lovely setting affording some good views over the course and externally if possible
- tasteful, but not ostentatious clubhouse inviting one to stay a while and selling decent beer and grub
- a bit of history

* I think all of the above should be had for $70-$90 a game public or private though I accept for exceptional courses it may or may not cost more.

Ciao

[Wade Whitehead]

The average player (and I use that term loosely) simply wants to get what he pays for.  This might fit the "value" criteria mentioned earlier.  That's why well-kept, expensive layouts and dirt-cheap dog tracks are generally equally busy.

GCAers are an entirely different animal.

WW

[Tom_Doak]

If all golfers want to shoot close to their normal score, then why are so many modern courses 7200 yards long?

[PCCraig]

Golfers...including myself...want to have fun

[JC Jones]

If all golfers want to shoot close to their normal score, then why are so many modern courses 7200 yards long?

Tom, you are assuming these same golfers will be playing by the rules.

[Peter Pallotta]

Lyne -

what Sean described in his post is the "average English course" he gets to play quite often. Besides beng smitten by every one of the "tier two" courses Sean's profiled here, I also recognize that most of them have been around a long time, relatively speaking -- which I guess we can say is one very real measure of success, and proof that those courses are giving the golfer what he/she wants. 

Jeff -

congratulations on the success of Sand Creek Station.  It means you did your job well - and as I get older, I find that's about the highest compliment I can pay a guy.

Peter 

[Anthony Gray]

If this is a home course, where one plays every week with the same group, I think you'd be looking for VARIETY.  The holes should all be different from each other and there should be different lines of play depending on wind etc.  Otherwise it would be BORING!

  Bill,

  My course never changes the tee boxes. I would love to see some variety within the same hole. When you play in the low-ball you have to play from the sey tee so you cannot jump around.

  Anthony

[Jeff_Brauer]

If all golfers want to shoot close to their normal score, then why are so many modern courses 7200 yards long?

Tom,

I think its a perception issue, and it was proven to me the other day again when I heard some golfers discussing two courses. One was 7200 from the tips and the other was 6500 from the tips.  In both cases, the golfers played from tees approximating 6300 yards, but felt the longer course was the better test by far, even with similar features.

99.99% don't want to play the back tees (At Sand Creek Station, 7400 yards, they got 280 players out of 28,000 play the back tees last year), and only about 16% will play at 6800 yards, but they want those tees back there for some unknown reason.  It may not make any sense, but this thread is about what the average golf seems to want, not what makes sense.

[Ken Moum]

Honestly, I am beginning to think that golfers don't know what they want.

Everyone is biased toward a course where they score well, which clearly goes against the trend toward long holes, narrow fairways, tall rough, forced carries, lots of trees and bunkers, and fast greens and tightly mown fairways.

Golfers talk about all those things as being good, but when forced to play a course like that, they shoot WAY over their average, and rarely come away impressed with the design.

I hear complaints about blind shots, "goofy" greens, impossible bunkers, "unfair" obstacles in the middle of the fairway, overly thick rough around the greens, elevated greens  and fairways mowed so tight they can't get a ball in the air.

OTOH, if they play a short course that has little undulation, few trees, light rough, ground-level greens and no bunkers they'll talk about how boring it was.

So... I think the golfers I know want:

A course that is 7,000 yards on the card, that actually measures about 6,300
Narrow fairways but not where their drives land
Rolling topography, with flat spots to hit their approaches from
Lush fairways, that give their drives plenty of roll
Undulating greens, with big level areas for the holes
Soft greens that never get bumpy from traffic
Lots of bunkers but none that collect their golf balls
Holes that play downhill
Lots of trees, none of which are in play for their shot pattern

This should allow them to brag about the great score they shot on the 7,000-yard course with heavy rough, undulating greens, narrow fairways and a slope rating of 189.

Me, I want a course that makes me hit some good shots but doesn’t eat all my golf balls.

Give me SOME chance to recover from my bad shots, and a few bad bounces on my good shots.
 
I don’t want to play on a soccer pitch, nor do I want to be doomed to double bogey or worse every time I hit a bad shot.

Make me think about how I am going to get out of the trouble I am in, as opposed to beating me over the head with a stick for my transgressions.

Favor imagination and guile over raw power on at least half the holes, and you’ll make me a happy man.

[Carl Rogers]

I am a little surprised not to see to many of you mention:

1. a 3.5 hour round

2. no waiting

[Greg Murphy]

Want: Trees. Undulation. Fast Greens. Bang for the buck. Recovery possibilities. Variety. Convenience, i.e., access to the tee; proximity; decent pace of play. Beauty -- usually a visually imposing, sublime, landscape. Interesting and varied but not impossible play from green surrounds.

Don't want: Wind. Wild greens.

[Leo Barber]

Great question

I am involved with Paraparaumu Beach Golf Club.  A course that has ranked as high as 71 in the world (dont get me started about rankings!), has hosted 12 NZ Opens, sits on Tom Doaks list of 14 favorite links courses world wide (travel and leisure mag) and is situated in a country that has 420 golf courses for 4 million people (2nd only per capita to scotland).  Membership costs $1200NZD ($700US), it is a private club accessable to daily fee players ($30US), it is 100% playable all year round (when many of the regions clay based courses are sopping), superbly maintained with rich history and a pleasant club atmosphere and variety that only a links can offer each time you play yet..............

We ask ourselves this question daily because we struggle hard in an environment where we compete with courses of substantially less architectural quality, indifferent maintenance practices, poorer soils, more expensive fees (and lesser fees) and yet these other courses are deemed more desirable by many in the grand scale of the region.

I liked the food analogy.  The NZ golfing fraternity enjoy their burgers.  It is really hard because do you lower your restaurant to meet the burger lover and thus whore your product or do you place a premium on your flavour and yet serve empty tables?

 

[Kalen Braley]

As I play almost all of my golf on public daily fees and munis, my experience for what golfers want usually isn't tied into architecture. In my informal poll taking they want the following, not neccessarily in order.

1)  A place to play close to home.
2)  A course that won't break the bank.
3)  A cart to ride in.
4)  A course that isn't too tough, in general the easier the better.
5)  To enjoy just being out of the house and hanging with buddies.

My attempts to engage architectual discussion are greeted at best with indifference and a shrug of the shoulders.

P.S. The vast majority of them don't care much about pace of play because it just means they get to play/be out of the house that much longer.  As was stated in the UK/US thread, I really do think golf is becoming more and more of an escape here in America.

[Joe Hancock]

So, you guys are starting to understand that we're nothing but a group of 1500 freaks...right?

 

[Ben Sims]

This is as subjective a question as we've had in awhile here.  I think everyone agrees that Pine Valley is the pinnacle in many ways, and Tin Cup's driving range is lowest and everything in between is various shades of gray.  Also, lets not use the term "golfers" to apply to any of us.  Let's be honest here guys, its not like the views on architecture and course quality espoused on this site are representative of the general golfing population. I'll compare myself with my father-in-law, who seem to be quite different in what we want on courses.

Father-in-law wants:

1) Value for the money.  He understands that Pebble is $495 and would pay it, but that's once in a lifetime for him. He would rather stay in the $25-$75 bracket for weekly play.
2) Green, and lots of it.  There is no excuse for a brown course in his opinion.  Greens must hold anything 5 iron or shorter and if they don't, they should be watering more.
3) Fairway bunkers in the fairway?  Unfair!! It's inexcusable that someone could hit one down the middle and have to contend with--gasp--sand.
4) Par 3's over 200 yards with any type of green protection are unfair
5) Flowers and fountains add to the overall experience.
6) It's okay to have 3 inch jungle bermuda rough, as long as it's plush.
7) Clubhouse that small and user friendly, with domestic light beer on tap and plenty of hotdogs and peanuts and interesting characters.  He and I agree on that one.

What I want from a golf course:

1) Width and recovery.  For two reasons a) I suck and love the proposition of getting par on some holes where I shouldn't b) It creates more avenues for thought and tactical shot making
2) Firm conditions. A 5 iron shouldn't one hop and stop unless your name is Tiger. Sorry, but greens and fairways need to be hard enough to force the player to consider what is in front of and beyond the target.
3) Undulation.  I get bored with flatness.  I need to contour to keep my head in the round
4) Options.  I want a golf course, at least twice per 9 holes, to make me agonize over shot shape, club selection and target. 
5) A clientele that is happy with walking.  I am not cart averse.  But I like seeing and feeling the ground.  Any course with a membership or regular clientele who thinks walking makes the game slow, didn't walk Stone Eagle with me and Peter Ferlicca in under 4 hours. 
6) This is a bit nit-picky, but I like a practice area that is somewhat above average. For most people, it's the first thing you see other than the clubhouse at a golf course.  More often that not, it's a precursor to what type of quality you'll be getting on the course.  And it gets your mind right for a solid round.
7) Read #7 above.