Ode to the Short Course

[Steve_ Shaffer]

John Steinbreder writes on the joys of "short courses" in the Global Golf Post. He mentions East Hampton (C&C), NGLA, CC of Fairfield, Cypress Pont from the middle tees and Old Course at St. Andrews(6400y for everyday play)

http://digital.globalgolfpost.com/globalgolfpost/20120709#pg29

[PCCraig]

A really nice article. My home course has been described as "short" (at roughly 6400 yards) by many including members, but I love it. It's a fun, quirky, old course which when you play it it makes you "they don't build them like this anymore."

[Kalen Braley]

Indian Canyon is 6200 from the tips, and its a blast to play!

They could lengthen it and probably get another 300-500 yards out of it, but it still wouldn't matter for how long they hit it.  Its current defenses are its fairly narrow fairways and tricky greens.

[Sinclair Eaddy]

Steve, I'm a relatively new member who also belongs to a short course. It's the Country Club of Maryland in Baltimore which was designed by Herbert Strong in 1925 and if stretched is 6,300 yards from the tips par 70. In 2013 the club will host the Maryland Open which is played by the state's best pros and ams. Last year we hosted the qualifying for the MD Open and MD Amateur and the low score was 69. Not bad for a short course.

[Sean_A]

Its getting to the point where I don't even want to look at tees playing over 6300ish yards.  If an archie thinks it takes 6700 yards of course to impress me something is wrong with the design. 

Ciao

[Carl Rogers]

if you hit your drives a max of 230, then these courses are not short.

[Steve_ Shaffer]

LuLu here in the Philly 'burbs is 6387y from the tips. Always fun to play.

[Matt Elliott]

The Everglades Club in Palm Beach is only just over 6,000 yards and it's about has hard as anywhere to go really low.  In a lot of ways the course feels like they took a regular sized course and miniaturized everything (except the slope in some of the greens.) 

[Bill Crane]

My home course Springdale,Princeton,NJ is 6,380 officially,Par 71, and a great walk.  Founded in 1895, it features a charming setting adjacent to Cleveland Tower of Princeton Univ Grad college, Princeton Theological Seminary and undergrad dorms.

Substantially re-designed by Wm Flynn in 1925, we still have 17 of 18 original Flynn greens mostly un-changed but for the effects of time and play.

We hosted qualifyng for the NJ State Golf Assoc Amateur Championship this year.  68 golfers with indexes under 7.0 and low score in the field was even par.  Twenty qualifiers with the high score of + 4.   https://www.ghintpp.com/njsga/TPPOnlineScoring/ResultsStroke.aspx?id=79

I was told that pin locations were not crazy.  The true challenge of the course is hitting the small greens.  Short siding your approach makes par on any hole extremlely difficult.

We added a small back tee on the 126 yard 13th adding 26 yards for competitions.

[Niall Hay]

Yardage can be deceiving. Crystal Downs is only 6500 yards (from the back tees)….it’s the longest and most difficult 6500 you will ever play.

[Niall Hay]

Merion is also in the 6500 yard range and it too feels long enough.

[Rich Goodale]

Great short courses are to great long courses as great poetry is to any great novel--more immediately satisfying and taking a helluva less time to complete.....  Playing Carnoustie from the tips and in a significant wind can be like trying to read the Odyssey in Greek without having had the benefit of having studied Greek at any time in your life.  Alternatively, anybody can read Tennyson's "Ulysses" and pretend that they "know" it, just as any casual visitor playing The Old Course from the daily tees can pretend that they are playing the course, when all they are doing is having fun.

[Jeff Shelman]

I was previously a member at a club that did a significant amount of work in the past decade. Some of the work was good and improved the golf course. But some of it (maybe even much of it) was adding vanity yardage. It was length for the sake of length. As a result, the golf course is now a few yards short of 7,000. But it is also not all that much fun to play.

I am currently a member at a club just down the road that is 6,400 yards from the back tees (par 71). There are people at my former club that look down their nose at my current club. They call it "too short" and "too easy" and claim that you "hit too many wedges."

I find it to simply be a lot of fun. There is certainly a premium on accuracy, but after some recent tree trimming there isn't a spot where you are in the fairway and are blocked out by trees. The greens are much more interesting and there is much more of a premium on controlling your golf ball. I will say that it is much easier to break 80 than my former club, but I wouldn't say it is easy. You can very quickly miss the green and put yourself in a bad spot.

I think the golf course is way more fun. Part of that is because you don't wear out your hybrids on the par 4s, but part of it is also because the holes are simply more interesting.

On Monday, I'm playing at White Bear Yacht Club, another course that is "short." It also might be the most fun course in Minnesota.

Long story short: I'm a fan of the "short" course because I'm a fan of fun.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

I do not call it a short course. I call it playing from the correct tees for your game. I went from 7000 to 6700/6800 and now down to 6000 to 6200. The course has not changed just my distances.

[PThomas]

I got to play Aiken GC in SC this year, 6048 from the tips (and plays longer)...if it was in Chicagoland I really dont think I'd play any other public course......absolutely wonderful

[Patrick_Mucci]

Yardage can be deceiving. Crystal Downs is only 6500 yards (from the back tees)….it’s the longest and most difficult 6500 you will ever play.

Niall,

Bobby Jones called Montclair the longest short course in America.

Some courses, like Southampton, play much longer than the scorecard would indicate.

[Niall Hay]

Yardage can be deceiving. Crystal Downs is only 6500 yards (from the back tees)….it’s the longest and most difficult 6500 you will ever play.

Niall,

Bobby Jones called Montclair the longest short course in America.

Some courses, like Southampton, play much longer than the scorecard would indicate.

Is Montclair as good as Crystal? Are there 2 better 6500 yard course than CD and Merion?

[jeffwarne]

A good article.
He mentions two very famous"short" courses that have one and two par 4' over 400 yards respectively(from the white tees)
That to me would indicate a lack of variety at those yardages for a low handicapper. (despite the fact they're both Doak 9 or 10's)

Interestingly Southampton at 6300ish yards, has 6 "long par 4s" all well over 400 yards, which greatly add to the variety of the course.
Palmetto is the same way.
Short holes short and long holes long goes a long way in the variety and fun department.
If I were going to add any length at either course, it would only be on the long holes.(and perhaps one of the Southampton par 5s)

[Duncan Cheslett]

Surely the overall yardage of a course is next to meaningless...

A course with 6 short holes and only one par 5 is going to be a lot shorter overall than a course with 3 par 3s and 3 par 5s, even though it may have several holes in the 400-450 yard range and 'feel' long.

My home course - along with many built 100 years ago - measures just over 6000 yards. Few would ever complain of it being 'short', though.

Replace a couple of one-shot holes with 600 yard par 5s and it would be a lot longer - and infinitely less interesting...