How Long a Course would the golden age architects build today?

[BCrosby]

"I think there are a lot of interesting questions that come up if you consider the change from a carry-and-roll game where overall distances could vary with conditions vs an all-aerial game. Length is only part of that discussion."

The different ways the game was played raises many questions indeed. So many I'm not sure where to begin.

When thinking about the differences, note that if good players circa 1930 averaged 235 off the tee (and I think that is roughly correct), a lot of that distance was obtained on the ground as the ball rolled out. People hit the ball lower on firmer, less irrigated fairways.

Scratch golfers today hit it 280 or so, but almost all of that is carry. They hit it much higher on plush, well irrigated fw's. Which means that the gap in carry distances is even larger than the enormous gap in final distances when comparing the game in 1930 vs. 2013.

That, among other things, would call for fw bunker locations that would be even more dramatically different than is suggested by the raw yardage differences alone.  

There is a lot to explore on this topic.

Bob  

[Sean_A]

And again, we are defining courses using the top end of the golfing spectrum.  If we accept that there are more than enough difficult courses to challenge the top end, I would suggest focusing on that group is not the best way forward.  I tend to think guys like Dr Mac and Colt would have agreed.

Ciao

[Jason Topp]

And again, we are defining courses using the top end of the golfing spectrum.  If we accept that there are more than enough difficult courses to challenge the top end, I would suggest focusing on that group is not the best way forward.  I tend to think guys like Dr Mac and Colt would have agreed.

Ciao

The ideal expressed by the Golden Age architects was to provide an enjoyable challenge for all classes of player.  I do not think the characteristics of a high handicap player have changed dramatically in the last 80 years.  Thus, the difference between them and a good player (regardless of whether you define it as a state level amateur or pro) have been the largest change and the focus on how to deal with the good player is what creates an interesting discussion. I suspect that the golden age architects would have either abandoned the idea of challenging all levels through length or built courses much longer than those built today.

[Brent Hutto]

Perhaps one of them would have been opinionated and successful enough to suggest that building 8,500 yard Par 72 courses for elite players is stupid and that elite tournaments should be contested on 7,000 yard Par 66 ones instead. That same 7,000 course could serve as a Par 72 or even Par 73 course for the weekend golfer.

It would be an interesting design challenge to see just how similar an excellent "championship" course with par of 67 or less could be to an excellent "members" course with par of 71 or greater, using as much as possible the same overall length and features. My knowledge of history, particularly in the UK, is very limited but I have an inkling something like this was around maybe 100 years ago.

[Steve Kline]

Don't know if it has been mentioned already, but one of the golf magazines calculated that TOC would have to be over 8,000 yards for it to play the same in the British Open as it did in the late 1800s.

[Garland Bayley]

Steve,

Don't know the TOC calculation, but I have read that Congressional has to be 8500 now to play the same as when Venturi won there.

[BCrosby]

Let's rewind the math on this.

A 7200 yard course today plays like a course of what length in 1930?

It plays like a 1930 course at roughly 5,924 yards.  

Again, you can quibble with my numbers. But however you tweak them, a 7200 yard course today is an incredibly short course for scratch or better golfers in an apples to apples comparison with 1930 courses.

Bob    

[Peter Pallotta]

Jason, you note that: "The ideal expressed by the Golden Age architects was to provide an enjoyable challenge for all classes of player."

That's true I think, but therein lies the rub -- for I'd suggest that it's not the courses that have changed so much, it's the players. I have a feeling that what was an "enjoyable challenge" for a range of average golfers in the 1920s and 30s would be the cause of much complaint amongst their modern-day counterparts. To put it another way: I think some/many of the great Golden Age courses would've been flat out hard for the averarge golfer back then, and hard in a way that the average golfer of today would complain about (if they had to play today's truly equivalent versions of those courses).  

Peter

[Brent Hutto]

Peter has a great point. I'm trying to imagine the early 20th-century equivalent to a golfer like myself (a rather shaky 19 handicapper at the moment, basically a "bogey golfer" through and through) facing Pasatiempo at its original length with a set of wooden-shafted clubs. Assuming he were so foolish as to keep a medal score for his round I'd think the over/under for an average round would be somewhere about 110 strokes.

It's funny, golfers today apparently think it's great fun to go to TPC Sawgrass and knock a couple sleeves of balls into the drink at 17 and in many cases go through a dozen or more total for the round. Yet if you face them with one hole after another of the kind of unreachable greens and intimidating shots that golfers 100 years ago faced on nearly every course extant, they'd never set foot on the course again.

[BCrosby]

This topic has so many different aspects.

Brett's post raises one. I don't agree with him. Bogey golfers in 1930, as with bogey golfers today, will not (normally) play courses from the tips. Playing Pasa in 1930, bogey golfers would have played from tees well forward of the back tees.  

Thousands of average golfers played Pasa, PVGC, and PII back in the day and by all accounts they enjoyed the courses enourmously.

Perhaps inadvertently. you raise a related issue. The spreads between the distances bogey golfers and scratch golfers hit it today is much wider than it was in 1930. Which suggests that today's architects have not kept up with the modern increase in distance spreads by matching it with wider spreads between forward and back tees.

Bob

 






 

[Brent Hutto]

Yeah but just how short did the weekend golfer play Pasa back in the hickory days? Was there a 4,500 yard set of tees in common use?

I think "enjoyed it immensely" in those days did not necessarily reference the "what did you shoot?" mentality. But maybe I'm wrong. Golfers today who can't come within a handful of strokes of whatever they think of as their usual score don't enjoy a course at all. But perhaps it was always so...

[BCrosby]

Brent -

It's possible there was less emphasis in medal play in the 1920's. I doubt it, but that's not a question you or I can settle.

It does seem clear to me, however, that the great courses of the GA were enjoyed by a wide range of golfers. And when played at their full lengths many were absolute brutes. I think that would be no less true today, even when tees on modern courses are pushed back to make them equally brutish for the scratch golfer - as long as they retain reasonable forward tees.

Bob

[Peter Pallotta]

Brent beat me to it, Bob -- those 1920 golfers who enjoyed the course might've still have shot 110, and shot those 110s (as Brent suggests in an earlier post) not in the way we might today, i.e. by dumping 6 balls into the water on the 17th at Sawgrass, but slowly and inexorably as they failed to reach one faraway green after another in regulation. (I don't know, but if there were 'forward tees' at the time on most the Goden Age greats, I'd imagine a) that there was only one extra set of tees and b) that, like at Augusta National, the difference between the championship/back tees and the members tees might've averaged about 15-25 yards at most).  
What I'm saying is that "golfers" aren't comparable -- technology and conditining and courses have so altered the expecations of the average golfer so that even a hack would be mad at/complain about/stop playing the long slog that a golden age course would play like today.

Peter

[Brent Hutto]

And that brings us full circle to the idea of building an 8,400+ yard course today with a set of let's say 7,000 yard tees to make it play about like Pasa did for its original membership. If we also use some of the Golden Age features I've seen like ridges crossing fairways in the landing zones and uphill Par 3's, maybe throw in some cross hazards pretty soon we get a course that I certainly would not enjoy even with my Ping clubs and Titleist ball.

I do think a MacKenzie working in 2013 would be stuck with two choices. Build an 8,400 yard Par 72-ish championship course and somehow figure out a way to make it interesting at 2,500-3,000 yards shorter for weaker players (yikes!) or build a course of the usual 2013-era dimensions and figure out some way to create challenges for big hitters without going to such prodigious length of back tee distances. I just don't seem him building 8,400 yard courses.

[Garland Bayley]

Forward tees Bob? In 1930 Bob? Weren't those called "women's tees"? It is just my hunch that everyone played the men's tees and enjoyed it very much.

You don't shoot 110 by not being able to reach par 4s in two. You shoot 85. You shoot 110 by going off course, laying sod over the ball, taking two or more to get out of bunkers, etc.

Vernon Macan ran in the circles of John Lowe, Colt and others before settling in the US. His stated attitude towards bogey golfers not being able to reach a par 4 in two was that is why they get the extra handicap stroke. I think the golden age architects would be building courses that kept up to technology today just as they did back when they were alive. One of their core principles was to route the course so that it could be extended as technology improved.

As a player with over a 20 index, I played Chambers Bay from 7700 yards (not totally from the tips) and shot a 104 (net 75, ESC 101). How is this possible? Because it is so wide that I don't have to worry much about going off course, I can safely steer well clear of bunkers, etc. I would suggest that any GA architect would have built it just as long.

[Andrew Buck]

Vernon Macan ran in the circles of John Lowe, Colt and others before settling in the US. His stated attitude towards bogey golfers not being able to reach a par 4 in two was that is why they get the extra handicap stroke. I think the golden age architects would be building courses that kept up to technology today just as they did back when they were alive. One of their core principles was to route the course so that it could be extended as technology improved.

I find this quote interesting, and really it uncovers another issue, IMO.  Other than for aging golfers, I'm not sure I've ever played with someone on courses between 6,000 - 7,200 yards who is a bogey golfer primarily due to length.  Basically, for healthy golfers 20 - 55, if they don't hit the ball far enough to reach the vast majority of greens, there are other swing/ball striking flaws that are contributing to their higher handicap.

[Brent Hutto]

Well obviously if a tiny little guy like Rory McIlroy is able to propel a ball 350 yards then I would be able to (at a couple inches and 50 pounds bigger) to hit one a lot farther than 210 yards if it weren't for swing flaws and lack of technique.

But none the less I can't make a ball go farther than that no matter how long the course might be playing. A course where every single Par 4 green is farther away than I can hit a driver and fairway wood, where a couple of the Par 3's are farther than I can hit driver, where at least one of the Par 5's is unreachable in my three best shots...that course is a long, boring slog no matter how many strokes I'm getting.

And how about if I'm taking my 19 handicap and playing against a guy that's a 22 handicap? What good are those handicap strokes doing then? I'm still going to be making a metric buttload of extra swings over the course of a round trying to finally get a chance to putt for net whatever.

[Garland Bayley]

I don't think the course has to be a boring slog just because you can't reach in regulation. I played many of the par 4s at Chambers Bay as three shot holes, and Chambers Bay made me think about where I was going to hit my second shot so I would be better off for my third. That said, it is well known that #8 at Chambers Bay is a long boring slog with little room for error.

[Andrew Buck]

Well obviously if a tiny little guy like Rory McIlroy is able to propel a ball 350 yards then I would be able to (at a couple inches and 50 pounds bigger) to hit one a lot farther than 210 yards if it weren't for swing flaws and lack of technique.

But none the less I can't make a ball go farther than that no matter how long the course might be playing. A course where every single Par 4 green is farther away than I can hit a driver and fairway wood, where a couple of the Par 3's are farther than I can hit driver, where at least one of the Par 5's is unreachable in my three best shots...that course is a long, boring slog no matter how many strokes I'm getting.

And how about if I'm taking my 19 handicap and playing against a guy that's a 22 handicap? What good are those handicap strokes doing then? I'm still going to be making a metric buttload of extra swings over the course of a round trying to finally get a chance to putt for net whatever.

I agree with you Brent.  I think it's folly to think a bogey golfer gets a stroke, so therefore it's fine he can't reach the green.  

[Brent Hutto]

Garland,

I'd find a course with seven or eight Par 5's a long slog even at that. As for the "boring" part, it takes a lot to make a three-full-shots hole interesting. To make several three-full-shots holes interesting on a single course is a tough ask.

It comes down to the multiplier or knock-on effect that extra full shots produce for the guy with swing flaws and bad technique. If you make one bad swing on a Par 4.5 then you end up with a long third shot which has its own likelihood of a poor swing. That's why weaker players stereotypically like Par 3's and hate Par 5's. It's not just that I'm more likely to make one good swing and have a birdie putt than make three good swings...it's that the Par 5's might end up giving me four or even five chances to duff one, as each poor swing leaves me still out of reach of the green.

[Garland Bayley]

Brent,

Do the players you typically play with hit it as short as you do?

We come from two very different experiences. Par 5s are great for me and the high handicap guys I play with, because they give you the extra shot to catch up with. One bad shot on a par 3 and the shot is lost forever.

[Brent Hutto]

I am generally about the shortest hitter in my group but the majority of them are maybe one club longer with the their irons than me. A few are roughly my same distances with most clubs. Almost nobody except the old (75+ years) guys are shorter than me.

[Garland Bayley]

Brent,

It seems to me that you are an outlier on who the architects design for.
Among the GA architects, certainly Macan would put par fours out of your reach.

[DMoriarty]

A course where every single Par 4 green is farther away than I can hit a driver and fairway wood, where a couple of the Par 3's are farther than I can hit driver, where at least one of the Par 5's is unreachable in my three best shots...that course is a long, boring slog no matter how many strokes I'm getting.

At least some of the golden aged guys believed very much in variety of challenges for the golfer and a key component of this approach meant a variety of lengths of golf holes.   So using their model, many of the par fours would be easily reachable with a driver then fairway wood or less, even for short hitters.  For example at NGLA in 1911 the "Regular Course" measured 6342 yards and the Short Course 5810 yards with respective distances from shortest to longest, with the par 4s in blue:

125  160  185  261  305  311  315  358  376  380  385  405  410  416  456  467  484  525
120  125  165  239  248  283  295  338  345  350  355  362  372  386  438  450  454  485

There was tee space to play the course a bit longer than this (for example the Alps hole is listed at only 376 but was described as playing 411), and the distances are a bit deceptive because they were straight line distances (so they underestimate a bit on doglegs), but you get the idea.

[Brent Hutto]

David,

Thanks for posting the details. The NGLA Short Course plays to pretty much the same overall length as my home course does from the forward tees I use. Of course that would have seemed longer 100 years ago but then again they probably didn't water the hell out of the fairways like we do!

But using that for comparison, the stretch of holes you have highlighted in blue have those four holes in the mid-high 200's that don't exist at my club nor at the vast majority of courses nowadays.

It makes me wonder if maybe some of the pre-1960 courses that are still extant might have originally had a bit more variety at the shorter end of the Par 4 length range but over time those seemed to someone the "obvious" holes on which length could be made up to take an old "short" course to modern "championship" length. To my mind, if one wanted to take the hole length distribution you listed and make it 300 yards loner the "obvious" thing to do is add 10-15 yards to those holes in the 200's and add 3x that much to the ones over 350 yards. I do not think many course modernizers have used that line of reasoning.

Changing subjects completely...

There was a design cliché back in the day, at least among the "Ross School" (my club's course was designed by Ellis Maples in 1960) of including numerous uphill tee shots with a ridge situated a couple hundred yards off the tee. So you get a lot of Par 4 and Par 5 holes where you tee off over a low area to a landing zone above the tee and then often another lower area before you reach the green which is on at least a slight rise. I'm guessing this was equal parts drainage-related and to make the course play longer than a given piece of property might otherwise allow.

Is it my imagination or is this less utilized in courses built post-1970 or so? I think a modern equivalent would be to place the tee boxes on the highest ridge or rise and if there is some ridge crossing the fairway it's not high enough to produce an uphill tee-to-landing-zone differential. It is a big factor for a short hitter like myself that often makes a rather dinky looking (scorecard numbers) older course play as if the length were quite substantial indeed. I just don't seem to see that with modern courses as much.