What is a good back tee yardage now?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Sean,

Sean, I am again wondering why seemingly everyone automatically thinks about designing a course for even a top am tournament as opposed to designing a course that is enjoyable for every day play!  Were all the now classics designed with tournaments in mind, or for the top amateurs in their club?  Or for the rest of the players?

I agree with both of you and at my last 18 holer, made a point of designing the middle tees as the closest to the previous green and not even extending the cart path to the back tees.  At least wherever possible.

And, while I know that we waste too much resources designing for the top 1% of players, I still wonder if the average US golfer would find a 6800 yard max course as enjoyable as one measuring 7000+, even though those back tees were merely a rumor to them.  Its crazy, I know, but somewhat true.  But, I would love to build only 6800 yard courses and let the longer hitters migrate to another course if they so chose.

[Chris Shaida]

Aren't there two distinct issues intertwined here: (a) the way length affects actual play from the back tees (affecting a rather small group) and then (b) the marketing or perception affect of having tees (or a 'rumor' of them as Jeff says) at a length of 'x' (affecting a rather large group).  I play at a lovely old course that's 6700 yards and that most member get great enjoyment from BUT most of those (members) also love talking about playing sometimes at other 'long' courses as though 'long' were a given good (and I'd bet a fair amount that few actually play from the back tees, they just talk about playing the course as though they did play from the back).  Similarly, I played at BPB this summer as a single.  When I got to the first tee I told the other three strangers (who had lined their bags up next to the back tees) that they could play from whatever tees they wanted but I was playing from the whites--they were all relieved and moved up to the whites as well but I'm sure they glossed over that fact when later talking about their round!

Which raises the question about the second marketing/perception issue:  beyond a discussion group (this one or others) are there there any active marketing campaigns to 'sell' the idea of shorter courses (like the usga's new campaign to sell brown/fast/firm)?  I think there are a whole bunch of golfers (the one's who actually do or should play the 6200-6600 tees) who are only attracted to 'long' courses because they've been told they should and they need to be able to talk about it later.  For those golfers if there were a competing set of positive/valorizing adjectives ('strategic' 'subtle' thinking man's' -- I don't know, I'm not a marketing guy!) that were generally marketed and then understood to be 'good' things then a bunch of those golfers would be completely happy not just playing but also talking about playing those tees. 

[Ben Voelker]

In most cases, shouldn't the back tee be placed for the top, say, 5% of golfers or something, similar to front tee being placed for the shortest 5% of golfers?  I understand and agree that design strategy (and tee relationship to previous green) should focus on those middle tees that most golfers will be using somewhere in that 6400-6800 range, but unless the site doesn't allow such, why shouldn't there be a back tee at 7000-7300 on those courses unless it is hard enough already?

For the record, I have always had muni courses as my "home" course and have rarely seen people playing the tips that shouldn't.  It seems way more common to me for the high handicapper to move up to the middle tees regardless of the length they play, not the other way around.

Jeff, as an aside, I think your course Highlands in Lincoln, Nebraska has a pretty nifty way of discouraging regular play from the "tips".  As one of the four muni courses in Lincoln, it is the only one with four sets of tees (the others have three) and is significantly longer than the other courses at 7000 yards.  The other three courses go black (tips), blue (middle) and white (front) tees.  Highlands has those three and adds gold tees to the back.  I have played back there once or twice at a 9 handicap, but I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone else back there before.

[Ulrich Mayring]

It doesn't make sense to build tees on every golf course that only 5% of the players are going to use. Instead, it would be better if 5% of the golf courses focused on having those extreme tees.

Most courses would be well advised to go for something like 6300-6700 back and 5000-5500 front. Obviously, extremely long or short hitters would have fewer courses to choose from, but since they are only 5% of the market, I honestly cannot see where the ROI on these extreme tees should come from.

Ulrich

[Jeff_Brauer]

Yeah, the crowd and people I play with usually sit around waiting for someone to suggest the 6300 instead of the 6800 tees and all are relieved when someone admits "they are sore today" or "in cold/wet weather, it will play like 6800" or some such thing and then they all move up.

In the end, its hard to believe that many would play so far back that they can't reach greens with reasonable clubs.  For most of us, hitting Tiger like driver- short iron requires holes closer to 350 rather than 450.

[Sean_A]

Sean,

Sean, I am again wondering why seemingly everyone automatically thinks about designing a course for even a top am tournament as opposed to designing a course that is enjoyable for every day play!  Were all the now classics designed with tournaments in mind, or for the top amateurs in their club?  Or for the rest of the players?

I agree with both of you and at my last 18 holer, made a point of designing the middle tees as the closest to the previous green and not even extending the cart path to the back tees.  At least wherever possible.

And, while I know that we waste too much resources designing for the top 1% of players, I still wonder if the average US golfer would find a 6800 yard max course as enjoyable as one measuring 7000+, even though those back tees were merely a rumor to them.  Its crazy, I know, but somewhat true.  But, I would love to build only 6800 yard courses and let the longer hitters migrate to another course if they so chose.

Jeff

I have absolutely no doubt that the average US golfer could enjoy a much, much less than 7000 yard course, but in some cases I think the only way to find out is to not have 7000 yard tees.  I think more the ideal max yardage is closer to 6500 or even lower than 7000.  6800 yards is too long for most golfers as well.  It would be grand if yardage wasn't mentioned at all like is the case when viisting classic clubs.      

I only thought about yardage BECAUSE you said the top ams would be playing the course.  If the course has no plan for top ams then I don't think yardage is important.  I don't see a problem with goofy pads stuck well back if the owner wants to have them, but the course proper should be designed with the normal tees in mind including those tees next to previous greens.      

Ciao

[Matt_Ward]

Tom:

The back tees are for testing the skill set of the top tier amateur players which Jeff B has now further refined. That's why you have middle and frontal tee positions. The intensity is adjusted accordingly as it should be. Tom, help me out, where did I say anything about score. I simply answered what Jeff asked for. He wanted to know a specific length and I answered him specifically to that point and I also added the fact that if a shorter distance were used -- then the back tees for such a course need to include a few more elements -- such as very testing greens to balance out the reality that these same players will be hitting far less club into such targets.

John M:

The courses you mentioned "hold up" because they have been tweaked substanially so in certain particular instances to do just that. Play them in ordinary circumstances and they yield far lower numbers to better players. Why? The shorter length allows them to zone in with their short irons.

[Garland Bayley]

...  But if our client keeps insisting that we should make these courses 7400 yards, then he is going to stop us from building cool features like those, because those same features won't work at that length ... Which is a terrible trade-off in my view. 

I thought your client was interesting in duplicating the success of Bandon Dunes resort in Florida. Perhaps your client should look at the yardages at Bandon before insisting on building a course for a small minority of the population.

[David_Elvins]

For example, down here in Florida today, I saw two of the coolest and wildest greens I've seen in years, on the course Bill Coore is working on beside ours.  Those rreens are on a short par 5 and a short par 4, where he thought he could get away with them.  But if our client keeps insisting that we should make these courses 7400 yards, then he is going to stop us from building cool features like those, because those same features won't work at that length ... Which is a terrible trade-off in my view. 

Tom,

Isn't this percieved problem - that long courses cant have extreme/interesting features - the real problem?  

If someone was to build a 8000 yard course with out making any allowances for the fact that it wasa long course, why couldn't you end up with somethin special.  For example, you mention that Bill Coore built cool greens on a short 4 and a short 5.  What if someone built a course with the exact same holes but 20 yards shorter and called them a long par 3 and long par 4 (or even kept them the same length and called them a long 3 and long 4).  Surely it could be a great course?  Afterall, a 8000 yard course is probably comparable distance wise to most of what was constructed in the 1920s, allowing for the equipment of the day.

IMO, if someone got their head around the fact that they didn't hae to compromise their design principles to design a long course, and bulit a long course with great green complexes, multiple play  options and limited foced carries for the less skilled golfer, then the could design a great golf course that truly invoked the spirit of golden age golf courses.

[John Moore II]

John,

I may be wrong, but I thought they lengthened Pebble considerably for this years US Open.

Sorry, the listed yardage on USOpen.com was 7040, take into consideration that they shortened #4, it played less than 7000.

Matt Ward-Indeed they have made changes to PV and Pebble Beach, the the fact still stands they they are outstanding tests for the best players. The lowest score at Pebble on Sunday during the AT&T Pro-Am was 68, and according to Yahoo, the yardage was 6838. And without having seen the scores, I am going to make an assumption that the medal scores at the Crump were not very low; and those are quite literally the best amateurs in the world.

My point here is that, even for the best in the world, the course doesn't have to be monster long to be quite challenging. And for the normal amateur, even sub-5 handicap guys, 6800 or so is quite enough.

[Ulrich Mayring]

The problem is you do have to compromise the design qualities of a course when you have a large range of tees. First off, any tee is an eye-sore. Multiple tee complexes look like rocket launching bases or an airport runway. Simply dreadful and not at all what the natural appearance philosophy of the Golden Age entails.

And then there is the issue of playability. Let's take two golfers as an example, the first one a low handicapper, who hits his driver 280. The second one a higher handicapper, who hits it 220. So let's put the back tee 60 yards behind the middle tee, right? Wrong. Both players will end up on the same spot in the fairway, that much is true, but what is the remaining distance? Make it 130 yards and the low marker hits wedge all day long. Make it 170 yards and the average hitter can't reach.

No matter what the yardage is on the second shot, there is no way to cater to the longhitter as well as the average hitter.

So, to mitigate this situation we need to put the back tee 100 yards behind the middle tee. That would leave both players a challenging, but doable shot. However, the difference between the middle and back tees would be something like 1500 yards. So you have tees at 6000 and 7500 - does that sound clever? Of course not, so you insert more tees at 6500 and 7000 yards - and there you have costs running out of control and your course looks like shit.

Ulrich

[John Moore II]

Ulrich-I understand what you are saying, that is why I would say put the longest tees in odd places, even to the degree of, if 2 holes play at 90 degrees from each other, have the back tees actually play over the preceding green. That way you wouldn't have to have a massive distance for ladies to walk to get to their tees. And for the most part, I say don't print the longest yardage on the score cards or have tee markers out for them. If someone wants to play from all the way back, he must request a card from the shop or something like that.

[Tom_Doak]

...  But if our client keeps insisting that we should make these courses 7400 yards, then he is going to stop us from building cool features like those, because those same features won't work at that length ... Which is a terrible trade-off in my view. 

I thought your client was interesting in duplicating the success of Bandon Dunes resort in Florida. Perhaps your client should look at the yardages at Bandon before insisting on building a course for a small minority of the population.

Garland,

The client has been to Bandon, and both Bill and I have brought up the length of our courses there repeatedly.  But the client is a pretty long driver himself, and he is stuck on the big number mindset.  So, we are probably just going to do what Mr Dye advised me to do many years ago... build it so it works and lie about the numbers if we have to!!

[Tom_Doak]

David Elvins:

Greg Norman keeps trying to build very long courses with very severe features just as you describe.  Most of those courses are just torture to play, and I have not been losing out to Greg on many design awards as a result of our differences.

I mentioned my post to Ben Crenshaw yesterday on the way home from dinner and he agreed completely.  He went further, too, saying if you build a bunch of really long holes with flatter greens then the creative ones look too out of place and you might have to tone them down, too.

If you were to try to play Bill's ninth green here at 400 yards you would scream bloody murder ... just as you do about the difficult greens at St Andrews Beach, which isn't even long.

[David_Elvins]

David Elvins:

Greg Norman keeps trying to build very long courses with very severe features just as you describe.  Most of those courses are just torture to play, and I have not been losing out to Greg on many design awards as a result of our differences.

As far as I know, Greg Norman hasn't designed an award winning course of any length.  I am positive however, that an award winning architect such as yourself or Coore and Crenshaw, could design an award winning long course.  Coore and Crenshaw in particular are renowned for designing some great par 5s.  Put 6-7 of them in a course and it would not be torturous IMO. 

I mentioned my post to Ben Crenshaw yesterday on the way home from dinner and he agreed completely.  He went further, too, saying if you build a bunch of really long holes with flatter greens then the creative ones look too out of place and you might have to tone them down, too.

  Isn't there a long history though, of great long par 4s (or par 4.5s) with extreme greens and greenside features.  A long course could contain many of these.  6 at Merion and 17 at TOC are two examples that jump to mind straight away. 

If you were to try to play Bill's ninth green here at 400 yards you would scream bloody murder ... just as you do about the difficult greens at St Andrews Beach, which isn't even long.

You are misquoting me there.  I have no complaints with the difficulty of the greens at St Andrews Beach.  I enjoy the challenge.  Having played the course with the co-designers many times, I have been informed that there are a few features that don't quite play as you had imagined they would.  I would also suspect that there would be a few other features that did not play as you imagined and therefor the course would be better for a review to analyse how the course plays compared to how it was designed to be played. 

This should not be interpretted as complaining that the course is too hard. 

[mike_beene]

jeff,I like the back tee yardage at Cowboys,especially with the six or so four and one half pars.Conditions and wind make a difference.Gentle Creek north of Dallas is a short 7300 because the conditions are firm and the long holes down wind.I have played a number of 6800 yard courses that felt longer.I just came back from a trip where a number of the mid handicappers hit it as far as the single digits,but not nearly as often.The short game remains the biggest difference between a 5 and a 15 among the people I play with.Equipment has kept our slide into middle age from costing us distance.Wish the battle of the waistline was as easy.

[Tom_Doak]

David,

I do agree with you that some of the best long par 4 holes in the world have very difficult greens -- such as the Road hole, the 16th at Deal, the 9th at Ballybunion, or the 13th at Crystal Downs  Some of them were conceived as three-shot holes; others were reasoned to be the hole that would separate the men from the boys, and I like to include one of those on my own courses.  (I.e. 13th at St. Andrews Beach). Bu t I am not sure I know of any course which didmthat fairly consistently and is praised for it.

[David_Elvins]

David,

I do agree with you that some of the best long par 4 holes in the world have very difficult greens -- such as the Road hole, the 16th at Deal, the 9th at Ballybunion, or the 13th at Crystal Downs  Some of them were conceived as three-shot holes; others were reasoned to be the hole that would separate the men from the boys, and I like to include one of those on my own courses.  (I.e. 13th at St. Andrews Beach). Bu t I am not sure I know of any course which didmthat fairly consistently and is praised for it.

Tom,

What was the average yardage of the great courses built in the Golden Age?  6700 or so?  What would that equate to today, given the increased distance that all players hit the ball these days?  Surely a lot of these courses would have been chock full of Par 4.5s and Par 5s when they openned? And they were regarded as pretty good courses at the time.   

[Tom_Doak]

David,

The Golden Age courses were everywhere from 6300 yards up to 6950.  Robert Hunter had an up to date listing as of 1926 in his book, which I referenced in The Anatomy of a Golf Course.

Doing a "yardage equivalent" for the modern day is about as accurate as those 80-year inflation adjustments ... Not very accurate.  If you assume Bobby Jones drove it 250 average and Tiger et al drive it 300, then a 6600 yard course then would equate to 7920 now ... Par 3 holes ought to go up to 300 yards, and a 470 yard hole ought to be 560.  But who the he'll wants to play courses like that?

[Ken Moum]

Dan and John,

As I have posted before, over 7000 works for about 3% of golfers, 6700 or so works for about 16% of golfers.  6300 works for about 57% of all golfers.  5500 works for about 19% of golfers, and <4500 works for about 4-5% of golfers.

To amplify the question, it it worth building every course with tees for those 3%?  Some surveys show that while golfers prefer to play at perhaps 63-6700 yards, they somehow feel the course is inferior if there are not tees over 7000 yards.

However, the old model from the 70's of 7000-6800-6400-5000 doesn't really fit anyone any more.  7000 seems too short for the best players, while the 6800 and 6400 tees suit many.  However, I find seniors start to avoid courses if there is not one tee below 6000 yards (while my dad never would play under that magic number, men today seem to accept their limitations a bit more) and I have found that we still largely ignore the design for women and make the courses almost unbearable for them. I have played three courses this year where the forward tees were nearly 6000 yards long themselves!

Or, do we do like John suggests and build, say 7200, but try other ways to reduce the maintained acreage?  However, as John's post even hints, we just can't seem to get away from the idea that a tour event juuuuuuust miiiiiight show up one day, such as the days snowballs freeze in hell!  I can't count the number of discussions I have had over the years driven by the idea of how tour pros play.  We just can't seem to ditch that thought, even though how they play should affect design of most courses as much as the price of eggs in China.

Your epiphany on the 6,000-yard tees is wonderful.  And while there are a lot of guys like your dad, I find a heck of a lot of resort courses will take the 6200-yard setup and move several of the tees up to the box--giving guys the option of playing the 6150-yard course at 5950...

It's just like the deception of selling people 9*, stiff-shafted drivers that measure 12 degrees of loft and actually have a regular-flex shaft.

Just this week, one of my wife's friends said her best round of the year was at the local muni.  No surprise there, it's almost 800 yards shorter from the forward tees than our club--4612 vs 5403

All credit goes to Bill Casper Golf, who took over the muni a couple of years ago and built a bunch of new tees.  They also, smartly changed them to metallic colors and they are Copper @4612, Silver @ 5267, Gold @ 5855 and Black @ 6188.  I played there Monday, and many of the groups of guy my age were playing off the Silvers, which are where the Reds used to be.

K

[Jeff_Brauer]

Ken,

Golf is funny. If ALL we were interested in was score, we would all play from the 5200 yard tees, but we have a personal perception of challenge and score we want to achieve.

Yes, measuring from the back of a tee, but putting them up nearer the front on the weekend days is a good bit of deception many use to good effect. 

[Matt_Ward]

John Moore:

PB was ramped up considerably by the USGA for the Open. Just see the multitude of train wrecks caused by the 14th green because there was no pinnable area that could be found. Ditto what was done to the greens themselves.

When PB is just set-up for normal play - like the AT&T event -- the scores are much lower and a good part of that is because the greens hold shots and when pros hit them they will have more than their share of good birdie opportunities. The problem w PB is that when you cut such horrible greens too close the resulting bumps and bruises have balls hopping like crazy.

John, keep in mind that an ocean course -- is also heavily influenced by daily winds -- holes can be quite longer because of this element. Something that a parkland course doesn't normally provide players.

[John Moore II]

tom doak-we all know that what you say is true, well every one other than the USGA. but we have seen 300 yard par 3's at the us open and 540ish yard par 4's. what we don't see is monster par 5's. we all know that for pro's a true three shot par five would be in the range of 800 yards. i personally would love to play a 7900-8100 yard golf course; be of greater interest to me than the 1900 yard par 30 i played this mornig.