[John Kavanaugh]

Wind, temperature, fairway and green firmness, resting sections of tees and greens, ingress and egress, pace of play, and variety are just a few factors that should be used to determine both tee and pin placement on a day to day basis.  In a perfect world where the staff have no other obligations what would be the best way to achieve the ultimate day to day set up considering all of the above?  Who would be in charge and should any given day or category of member be given special attention.

As a quick example I would rate the important days of the week with 10 being most important as follows:

Sat 10
Thurs 10
Sun 8
Tues 7
Wed and Friday 6

[Kyle Harris]

I'm told that Fridays should be reserved for tough setups and Sundays the easiest.

I think that's hooey.

Is it the missing link? How regimented do you want it John? I've found, doing setup now at 4 different courses, that any sort of system ultimately gets predictable.

Class is about to commence, but there is a link.

[John Kavanaugh]

Kyle,

How do you know it is predictable?  Have you ever considered charting what percentage of your membership played tee A to pin B under a given prevailing wind over the course of a year?  Would you care?

[Steve Kline]

I will say that at my course if you play on the same days  of the week all the time (which I do and probably many others do as well) then you are going to see very similar pin positions all the time. And, the position setting the pins seems to have little understanding of golf. Tees don't move much, which I'm fine with as someone move up or back a set of tees if they want a different length.

[Thomas McQuillan]

what about monday?

[William_G]

Wind, temperature, fairway and green firmness, resting sections of tees and greens, ingress and egress, pace of play, and variety are just a few factors that should be used to determine both tee and pin placement on a day to day basis.  In a perfect world where the staff have no other obligations what would be the best way to achieve the ultimate day to day set up considering all of the above?  Who would be in charge and should any given day or category of member be given special attention.

As a quick example I would rate the important days of the week with 10 being most important as follows:

Sat 10
Thurs 10
Sun 8
Tues 7
Wed and Friday 6

I like it! With Monday as a 5, as we don't close @ ECC.

[Tom_Doak]

John,

Where I learned about course set-up, the expected wind was more of a factor than the day of the week.  If it was a calm day you had to use some of the more difficult hole locations, so you could save the flatter ones for the days when the wind made the greens too fast to use anything else.

I think some superintendents and especially management companies have tried to dumb down course set-up to eliminate errors, but in fact they just systematize errors and make it nobody's fault.

P.S.  Your weight on days is entirely chauvinistic and would probably get you suspended from some clubs in California!

[Ben Kodadek]

John,

Why would Friday get a six?  I would imagine that my club gets as many rounds on Friday as it does on Saturday.

[JESII]

John,

The missing link to what?

I think all o fit matters, but it would seem to require a computer program to manage efficiently and accurately.

[PCCraig]

I've seen many private clubs set up their course hardest on Friday (due to the busiest guest play day of the week) and Saturday's (member play) with Tuesday (Ladies Day) being the easiest. But generally speaking I don't think the average super thinks about daily course set up or cares that much about who's playing the course outside of special evets. For example, how many courses have "pin sheets" on the score card now? Supers just rotate pins once every 7 days...

And I don't know about ranking each day by how "important" they are, but instead would rank by difficulty.  

[John Kavanaugh]

I will say that at my course if you play on the same days  of the week all the time (which I do and probably many others do as well) then you are going to see very similar pin positions all the time. And, the position setting the pins seems to have little understanding of golf. Tees don't move much, which I'm fine with as someone move up or back a set of tees if they want a different length.

Steve,

I do occasionally enjoy playing a game where an individual earns the right to pick the next tee.  The underlying factor is earns because we all have favorite tees that put us at an advantage against our opponents.  The twelve handicap I play against from time to time prefers wedge to a par three where I will pick 4 iron.  I'm playing in a game today where I can win from 6400 yds but would get killed from 7300.  Unless someone wants to pay a vig to pick their preferred tees it can not be left up to the individual.

I would love to see an guy come into the pro shop and bitch that a given par three has played from the same tee to the same pin everyday he has played and the staff be able to pull up a report proving or disproving his stance.  It really is quite simple, in theory, to input a players tee time into a data base of the given tee and pin placements for the day along with historical weather and course conditions.

Victoria National has well over 100 tees and I find it unfortunate that I am the only member who has played from each and every one of them.  There are a couple of holes too long but there is not a hole too short for any member, man or woman.  

[Mike Hendren]

John, I disagree with the premise.  Provided the superintendent is committed to using the entire golf course, I think set-ups should be totally random.

I realize this is a minority (and perhaps totally wrong) opinion as the USGA set-up man at MucciFest talked about matching pin placements with approach shot distances when moving tees well forward or back. 

I like mixing better than matching.

Mike

[John Kavanaugh]

P.S.  Your weight on days is entirely chauvinistic and would probably get you suspended from some clubs in California!

Sat 10
Thurs 10
Sun 8
Tues 7
Wed and Friday 6

First of all private courses should be closed on Mondays.

I simply give Tuesday a slightly higher rating because of the rest the course receives on Monday and my belief that members deserve a treat after a mandatory day without play.  I also found that a proper balance can be found in ones life if they concentrate a bit more on work and family at least every Mon, Wed and Fri.  Thursday is just a cool day and deserves special attention.  Saturday speaks for itself and Sunday has its own reward given the relatively empty morning tee sheets.

[John Kavanaugh]

John,

Why would Friday get a six?  I would imagine that my club gets as many rounds on Friday as it does on Saturday.

Interesting.  I thought casual Friday was founded on the belief that you wear jeans to work because you did not have to worry about going out to the course later in the day.

[JESII]

Mike,

I don't think the results that come out are random though...because whoever is setting up the course has some reservations about certain hole locations or even tee locations. Totally random would allow for each set of tees to be set up independent of one another but have you ever seen the back tees ahead of the middle tees?

John,

What would have to go into the program?

[Matt Wharton]

As a superintendent I will tell you that no single day is more important than any other .  Each of those days have their own unique characteristics that need to be considered when making decisions.  We provide a daily pin sheet of our hole locations.  I do not like the "section" systems at all.  I want to put the hole today where I want and not be limited to what some random grid instructs me to do.  My club is closed on Mondays.  Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays are typically played by senior men and ladies.  We will try and accomodate them without making things too diffiult.  Friday has developed a reputation for being the day to bring multiple guests and thus we want to showcase the course but pace of play can be an issue with so many on the course that are unfamiliar.  Saturdays are extremely busy and very hectic.  Sundays are less stressful.  Each day takes on its own personality because the weather conditions are different from one week to the next.  Perhaps we just had a big tournament and we need to spread out the foot traffic a little more than usual.  There are way too many factors to ponder and you just have to do the best job you can to provide quality playing conditions each day.  The job of you the player is to play the course as you find it.  It really is that simple.  

[John Kavanaugh]

Jim,

Given that firmness and stimp are far to political observations given what side of the fence takes the readings, I would start with a simplistic tee location and yardage, pin placement, wind conditions rated simply such a 1, 2 or 3 and temperature.  My thinking is that the program provides historical evidence to improve course set up rather than dictate it.

[Dan Herrmann]

Matt - Very nicely said!

For what it's worth, Tuesdays are very busy at my club for the simple reason that we have 50% off guest green fees.  What had been a dead day is now a real winner.

The tees and hole locations strategy differences from Tuesday thru Sunday are actually fairly consistent.   Worst case, they won't move the holes on a Wed or Thursday if the previous day didn't get enough play to warrant it.

But, JK - I think that day to day corse setup IS the missing link.  To me it's the most important thing a super can do to help realize the designer's intent.  Of course, this goes beyond tees and hole locations - it includes firmness, rough height, fairway roll, etc...  Get it right, and you've got a 10.  Get it wrong and....

[JESII]

John,

Understood - you should be able to plot the histories...the by-product of course would be to dictate more variety.

[Matt Wharton]

Thanks Dan,

I used to play a course during my grad school days with long "runway" style tees.  Every Monday the tee markers were on the back of said teeing ground and moved forward each day.  By the time you got to Saturday and Sunday the course played very short  .  I was told by the club manager it was done in an effort to ease pace of play during busy weekends.

Also, we will utilize "dicey" hole locations whenever conditions will permit it.  In other words, if green speeds aren't up to the norm and thus we can get away with something a little more severe we will in an effort to spread out the foot traffic.

[Kyle Harris]

Kyle,

How do you know it is predictable?  Have you ever considered charting what percentage of your membership played tee A to pin B under a given prevailing wind over the course of a year?  Would you care?

What if one is working off a chart for the setup? The USGA Handicap manual presents a chart, in fact.

[JESII]

Kyle,

What kind of chart?

[Kyle Harris]

Kyle,

What kind of chart?

A hole location chart much like one would see at a daily fee place.

In the Handicap Manual, there is a diagram as to a method for setting up the golf course such that setup can systematically present the golf course in the same yardage range day to day.

http://www.usga.org/Rule-Books/Handicap-System-Manual/Rule-15/

[JESII]

Got it...sort of a Bizarro World version of John's vision.

Do you think it's a positive attribute of course presentation to have holes play differently from day to day? Perhaps substantially different?

[Kyle Harris]

Got it...sort of a Bizarro World version of John's vision.

Do you think it's a positive attribute of course presentation to have holes play differently from day to day? Perhaps substantially different?

Short version: Yes.

[Tags:]

Tags:

[Tags:]

Tags:

Call to undefined function theme_linktree()