The logistics of doglegs holes on open sites

[Matt_Cohn]

So sometimes I go into golf nerd mode and sketch out a golf course. More frequently that I'd like, I realize at some point that one of my brilliant dogleg holes could be more easily played down the fairway of some other adjacent hole and that there isn't a great way to stop this from happening.

So my questions are:

1) Does this situation actually inhibit architects from building dogleg holes sometimes, especially on small and open sites?

2. Are there good ways to work around this, other than putting mounds or trees to block that route from the tee or the dreaded internal OB?

[JESII]

How about a bunker on that other hole that is insiginificant in the playing of that hole...for most people?

[Matt_Cohn]

Works unless the landing areas are adjacent too

What else?

[David_Tepper]

Matt -

Have you ever played Boundary Oaks, the (not too bad) muni in Walnut Creek?

To keep people from playing up an adjacent/parallel fairway on a dogleg par-5, they mark an interior out-of-bounds between the 2 holes. It is a feature I do not care for, but it is one way to protect golfers heading up the adjacent fairway from being hit by golf balls off the tee of parallel hole.   

DT

[Tom_Doak]

Matt:

Absolutely, close-together fairways limit the number of doglegs we build.  You have to make 100% sure that the adjacent hole doesn't offer a short-cut to the green, or everybody since Lon Hinkle will take it.

I made that mistake once myself, and I am very wary of making it again.

[Phil McDade]

Matt -

Have you ever played Boundary Oaks, the (not too bad) muni in Walnut Creek?

To keep people from playing up an adjacent/parallel fairway on a dogleg par-5, they mark an interior out-of-bounds between the 2 holes. It is a feature I do not care for, but it is one way to protect golfers heading up the adjacent fairway from being hit by golf balls off the tee of parallel hole.   

DT

David:

There's a funky course near the Wisconsin-Illinois border that has this feature -- internal OB (which I just can't stand in a course...). I wondered, when I first came across it, whether the course designers didn't figure out the problem until after the course opened, and then had to stake it after initial play revealed the short-cut.

Trees are always an answer.

[Brian Noser]

Just make a local Rule,the ball must be brought back into your own fairway with out penalty...

Lets see where this goes. This is from a DG Favorite.

[Tyler Kearns]

Works unless the landing areas are adjacent too

What else?

Matt,

Having adjacent landing areas is not ideal, and something we try to avoid for safety reasons.

TK

[JC Jones]

One the more recent examples I've encountered is the 3rd and 4th holes at Seminole.  Although not marked as such, our Caddie instructed us (probably because we were guests) to play down #3 as using #4 to cut off the dogleg was "out of bounds."

[Kevin_Reilly]

Matt, I guess a "chute" off the tee works in this situation.

I wonder how well the Hinkle tree concept works today, though.  I remember watching Jamie Lovemark cut off a big portion of the bend on the 16th hole of the Lake course in the 2007 Amateur, and those trees are very tall.  With today's high launching balls and drivers, you have to be fairly close to the tree line to make it a real obstacle.  The trees left side of #3 at Pebble didn't block some players from driving left.

Jamie Lovemark's drive:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqoAbIcq9iU