At what point does an 18-hole course get "too short" and "too easy"?

[Thomas Dai]

I played in a competition recently with two other players I'd not met before. One was a 7 hcp.

We three were chatting away about different golf courses and the 7-hcp said he'd recently stopped being a member of course 'x' because at 6,000 yds, par-69 it was "too short" and "too easy" for him.

The third member of our group later said to me quietly, and out of earshot of the 7-hcp, that surely the course wasn't "too short" or "too easy" for him until his hcp was scratch not 7.

Thoughts?

atb

[Sean_A]

atb

I tend to agree with you.  Until guys are consistently playing to level par, the length of a course shouldn't be an issue.  That said, I can understand guys moving away from smaller footprint courses for ones with more space "to play the game".  If one is constantly playing out of trees or laying up to avoid trees, the golf isn't much fun.  The thing is, more space usually translates to more length, not width.

Ciao

[Mark McKeever]

Agreed, unless he's a scratch, that doesn't fly.

MM

[Rich Goodale]

Never!

[Chris DeToro]

Sounds pretty ridiculous to me

[Ally Mcintosh]

To add another view to the discussion, I don't think it is necessarily ridiculous.

I've heard others - including Tom Doak - give that "why aren't you breaking Par" argument and whilst I see the point, I think most 7 handicappers don't break par because they just can be consistent and accurate enough, regardless of which club they have in their hand from the tee.

In other words, low handicappers like having to hit mid-irons in to greens. Constantly hitting wedges in creates a similarity in challenge. It is the fact that they've pulled tee-shots under trees or in to deep rough or dunked it in the water or that they can't chip that makes them shoot over par.

So whilst a course can't be "too short", I can understand a low handicapper wishing for a longer course for variety of approach shots.

[jeffwarne]

6000 yards on a well designed par 69 6000 yard course doesn't have to be short, or easy.

That said:
I understand a shorter course with few par 5's could limit a player's potential for development by limiting the variety and length of his approaches, particularly for a stronger player.

I fail to see how a 7, who chooses to join another say  6400 yard club rather than a 6000 yard club,
is any different than a 7 choosing to play the 6400 yard white tees vs the 6000 yard yellow  tees at a given course, which I'm sure most here would have no problem with.
Furthermore, by choosing to join the 6400 yard course, he always has the option to play a variety of different including shorter yardages, whereas the member at the 6000 yard course doesn't.

There does come a point that a course is considered too short, or holiday golf, (even by contributors on this site) which no doubt hurts subscriptions amongst certain players.
Sadly,(and rightly or wrongly) whatever this yardage or number is, the number of courses that fall into this category increases yearly with equipment advances

[Tommy Williamsen]

I can fully understand why someone would want a course with more length.  That said, Rye and Cavendish, which are about 6000 yards, offer holes with plenty of length.  I live at a resort where the course measures about 6200 yards from the back tees.  I find it pretty boring. I like the odd par four where I have to hit a three wood into a green. For me part of the fun is the challenge of length.  Hitting short irons into greens may be fun to make birdies, but so is trying to make par on a long hole. I was a two for years but now, at 67, have jumped to a six.  I belong to two other courses that provide more of a challenge. I will jump around to different tees, depending on what I feel like that day.  A short course does not allow for that kind of flexibility.

[Adrian_Stiff]

The majority of golfers think they like long golf courses.

I think if you are building a new golf course to appeal to as many golfers as possible you need it to be at least 6800 yards from the very back tees, that probably should be made up of a normal medal tee course of 6600 yards, so more of a case of 5 or 6 holes have tees + 30-60 yards to get to 6800 perhaps even 7000.

Normal play at 6000- 6300 is optimum for the majority. Though there are groups that can be 18 handicap that hit it miles and are against shorter courses.

At 5999 yards I would say you will lose possible new recruits that at looking to join a club.

6300 yards par 69 is actually a much harder course than 6700 par 72. In theory each 230 yards should equal 1 par, so @ 6700 par 72 is exactly equal to a 6470 par 71 or a 6240 par 70 or 6010 par 69. A consideration should be given to the composition of a course being a standard 4 par 3, 10 par 4 and 4 par 5 config. courses with just 3 short holes and 1 par 5 hole come out long on the adding up but the composition includes much shorter par 4 holes.

Strong, medium and easy holes come as something like:
Very Easy Par 3 holes are - 125 Easy Par 3 holes are 126 -150 Medium Par 3 holes 151-190 Hard Par 3 holes 191- 220 Strong 221-250
Very Easy Par 4 holes are 251-300 Easy Par 4 holes are 301-350 Medium Par 4 holes 351-400 Hard par 4 holes 400-45- Strong +450
Very Easy Par 5 holes are -500 Easy Par 5 holes 501-520 Medium Par 5 holes  521-550 Hard Par 5 holes 551-580 Strong +580
Obviously that is loosely looking at it. Topo and Vegetation need to be factored.
If you count medium as PAR then add or subtract 1 or 2 for Hard or Strong or easy, very easy its an interesting exercise which side your course falls and is a much better indicator of hard/easy.

People don't like Par to be 69 or lower...70 is the threshold.   There is no real logical reason why this is important.

[John Kavanaugh]

It is a very complicated issue but it does happen and is in effect at the course where I grew up.  It is a nine hole course with two sets of tees. We recently replaced the greens with large flat featureless ones and dutch elm disease killed all the trees.  Every round is a putting contest.  

I'm under par for the year and can't spend a single day out there without having to hear some goondick double digit tell me about his under par round.  Every round is under three hours, I don't know anyone who hasn't either shot their age or in the 60's at a par of 72, and dues are $500 per year at private course with only 200 members.  It's a goondick paradise.  No golfers need apply.

[Jason Thurman]

What was the slope and rating of this 6000 yard course? I'm a 10 handicap, but there are a couple courses within 7 miles of my house that I expect to shoot around even par or better on when I play. The one that immediately comes to mind is rated a 66/108 or something like that and I have to shoot 74 or 75 just to shoot to my index. It's definitely too short and too easy, though it has some fun moments.

A course is too short if I can't hit my hybrid, 3, 4, or 5 iron on at least three or four approach shots every round. Just because I stink at golf doesn't mean I should never get to experience the thrill of hitting a long approach shot.

[Chris DeToro]

I'm a member at a par 69 course and have found that it plays much more difficult as Adrian mentioned.  Granted, my course is longer than 6,000 from the regular set of tees, but it's very tough.  The lack of par 5 holes leave fewer scoring opportunities and all of the length is in the par 4 holes.  We don't have a single driveable par 4, so it's just a lot of lengthy, solid par 4s

[Brent Hutto]

What does handicap have to do with the difficulty of a course?

I'm a 17 handicap. If there were a course that was 4,800 yards with no hazards, no rough and dead-flat greens I'd presumably shoot something like 65-70 for a typical round. Unless the course and slope ratings were incorrectly calculated my handicap would still come out somewhere in the mid-upper teens. Handicaps are supposed to describe your playing ability, not the course you're playing at the moment.

Or are y'all talking about some different kind of "7 handicap" than our USGA "handicap index"?

A course can definitely be too short or too easy. There was NLE "executive" style 9-holer not too far from my house. It had been there for decades and was a great place to learn to play the game. It had five Par 4's (four of them very short) and four Par 3's (short to medium liength) and while there were a few trees and a bit of rough around (and one pond although it was not in the playing corridor of any of the holes) if you were able to get the ball off the ground at all and hit it give or take 25 yards from the direction you were aiming then it was quite easy even relative to its par and length.

I played there quite a few times my first few years in the game. Would I have played there 100 times a year for the past 15 years? No way, on a day I'm hitting the ball remotely straight the holes all play just hit-hit-putt-putt and on to the next. Plus it was only 9 holes so you go around twice to get 18.

So yeah, a course can be "too short" and "too easy". For my game, it would have to be a very short and very easy course with a boring layout but it's certainly possible. One good thing about being as poor a golfer as I am, any course I'd find too short and/or easy is probably not one that is commercially viable as better golfers would find it ridiculously so!

P.S. Also agree with Sean's assessment that a course which is short but also narrow, tree-choked or otherwise constricting to play is an unpleasant one because of the narrowness rather than the shortness. That's always been my problem with dinky "Par 3" courses and especially with the advice that beginners learn the game there. The last place I'd sent a beginner with no idea where the ball is going is to the Par 3 courses around here where a ball that goes 30 yards from your target is either lost in a swamp or will bean someone on the adjacent green in the head.

[Greg Taylor]

If the par 4's are of the same length, straight away driver then wedge the course may or may not be "too easy" but for sure it would lack variation for me.

Plus, part of the fun is having every facet your game tested. That includes a couple of long par 4's as well as the obligatory drivable par 4 etc...

All other things being equal, for me, a course is easier than it's peer if it has more width.

[Chris DeToro]

If the par 4's are of the same length, straight away driver then wedge the course may or may not be "too easy" but for sure it would lack variation for me.

Plus, part of the fun is having every facet your game tested. That includes a couple of long par 4's as well as the obligatory drivable par 4 etc...

All other things being equal, for me, a course is easier than it's peer if it has more width.

I think this is the distinction that needs to be made.  Lacking variety sounds like the issue more than difficulty.  I can definitely see that being an issue at any skill level

[Thomas Dai]

What was the slope and rating of this 6000 yard course?

Apologies Jason, I don't know much about slope and rating. It's the UK, so we're talking a UK 7 hcpper and inland, so no mega-crazy, wind battling links days.


Many interesting comments above. Thank you all for them.

One pretty key element in the debate seems to me to be familiarity, or rather over-familiarity. To be harsh, even boredom with a course.

I raised a thread a while back - which I haven't been able to find (!) - about how often folk play their home course. IMO these two aspects are kinda related.

atb

[Ben Hollerbach]

While I very much agree of the notion that if someone can't shoot par on a course then the course is never too easy to them, at the same time, so few people have the ability to shoot near par on any course the ease/difficulty of a course is really just a player reaching for interest. People enjoy playing long courses because of the challenge in hitting their long club well/straight and when they move up on those courses and they turn into driver-wedge-repeat they loose interest. Difficulty seemed to be linked in the players interest in hitting shots consistently better than what their mental average is, or the "lets see if I can pull this shot off" mentality. Often short courses that don't force the player to make decisions off of the tee do a poor job of holding a players interest as their "gambles" are rarely punished and thus their successes are not justly rewarded. On the other hand, a course that tests the player off of the tee and into the green by hitting a large variety of clubs can be nearly any length and still hold a players interest. If the player has to choose both a shot type and appropriate club on each tee shot the notion of difficulty and interest seem to return. Thus why short holes like the 10th at Riviera are so compelling.

[John Kavanaugh]

It all comes back to shot values.  People who measure rounds in shots per hour will never get it.

[John Kavanaugh]

Society and golf is headed towards a point where every hole starts at the lip of the cup so we make a hole in one every hole.  Everybody wins and everyone is equal.  While we are not there yet we are seeing a strong movement to move up and play faster.  Bifurcation so we can all play as bad as the pros or they as bad as us.  Many, many courses are set up at less than 6,000 yds, most championship tees are now closed and those who dare to challenge themselves beyond the norm are chastised and ridiculed. 

How quickly did many on this thread dismiss the possibility of any course being too easy.  How quickly are 7 handicaps who do not shoot par told to move up or shut up.

I'm pretty much done with the game every since this summer when I waved a group though and it took them three strikes each of the ball to reach where we were standing.  It was their first hole of the day, my last enjoyable hole of a lifetime.  I'm not going to take the time to change my shoes to pretend to play a game where everyone scores the same.  Question: What did you shoot?  Answer: 3 hours and 15 minutes.

[Thomas Dai]

That's very nicely written Ben. I particularly like your final two sentences - "If the player has to choose both a shot type and appropriate club on each tee shot the notion of difficulty and interest seem to return. Thus why short holes like the 10th at Riviera are so compelling."

There's perhaps an equipment issue here too.

Before the 460cc titanium driver became commonplace, even when drivers were still metal/titanium (rather than persimmon/laminate) but their sizes were considerably smaller, they still weren't that easy to hit, the more so with a 'swervy' old balata ball.

18-holes then seemed to be more than just 14 wacks with a driver plus 4 x par-3's. Indeed, I recall a considerable number of both very good and lesser players hitting fairway woods and long irons off tees on par-4's and even par-5's. I also recall the use of that most wonderful weapon....'the knife', ie the 1-iron, it's use even from the tee by higher single figure hcppers was once pretty commonplace, certainly on UK links courses. Now alas not the case - a vision of Victor Meldrew is appearing before my eyes as I type this!

atb

Anyone still carry one or have one in their storeroom?

[Dave McCollum]

We had a numbered set of MacGregor persimmon woods, 1,3,4,5, and blade irons, 1-SW, vintage 1981, in a display case for the last 33 years.  When I found out they weren’t so valuable as collector’s items, I decided it would be more fun to hit them than find a good home for them.  Particularly for our young pros who have never played with such clubs.  We took them out today and played a few holes.

I didn’t really start playing golf until 20 years ago, although I did play the occasional round for the 30 or so years before that.  So, I had hit similar clubs way back in the day.  When I started playing regularly, it was already the era of oversized, cavity back irons and metal woods.  My first clubs were Pings, very much of the game improvement variety. 

Wow.  What a shocking revelation.  Just to hit the ball, I had to totally change my swing.  I played with another geezer who has been playing fairly regularly for 50+ years.  He couldn’t hit them either.   I’ll keep trying, but I’ve got an enhanced admiration for you guys that play with hickories and persimmon. 

If there is the slightest relevance to golf architecture in this, at least for me, there would be no such thing as course that was “too short” or “too easy” while learning how to play with these sticks.

[Josh Stevens]

Is "too short" but one of the criteria?

My home track pushes about 6800 yards for normal play (6200m in real money) and that's good for me as there is width and I can still hit it ok to maintain a 6 handicap

But from time to time I play with some old mates at a public track that is possibly 5500 yards on a good day and I cannot score as well as at home, largely due to lack of width.  Being a muni, space is a premium and so they have squeezed 36 holes into the same sized plot of land on which my club has 18.  I am probably a 10 handicap on the public course as I just cant play on 25-30 yard wide tree lined playing corridors.

Yes, I guess I need to straighten up

[jeffwarne]

That's very nicely written Ben. I particularly like your final two sentences - "If the player has to choose both a shot type and appropriate club on each tee shot the notion of difficulty and interest seem to return. Thus why short holes like the 10th at Riviera are so compelling."

.

 I also recall the use of that most wonderful weapon....'the knife', ie the 1-iron, it's use even from the tee by higher single figure hcppers was once pretty commonplace, certainly on UK links courses.

atb

Anyone still carry one or have one in their storeroom?

Thomas,
That Ping was hardly a knife-(compared to blades)but it certainly repopularized the one iron for few years.
had a guy come in for rentals the other day-18 handicap.
Insisted on a one iron-said he didn't hit woods.
I gave him my old Ping with a slick rubber grip.
He hit every fairway according to the caddie.

[Brent Hutto]

I carry the 3-iron from my Ping G20 set instead of a hybrid or fairway wood. The G20 clubhead is huge, the sole is wide, the center of gravity and moment of inertia is probably within spitting distance of the same as some of the smaller hybrids. And it has a steel shaft that's a couple inches shorter than a hybrid which makes it easy to control, theoretically at the cost of a few yards (potential) distance.

I have an old set of Macgregor blades and persimmons that I play with a couple times a year. Guarantee I'd hit more fairways with that Ping Eye 1-iron than with the 6-iron from my "Jimmy Demaret" blades!

[John Kavanaugh]

I have lost distance in the modern age due to increased irrigation and modern grasses. Golf was easier to learn in the 70's because the bar of what is excellence was so much lower.