An Allegorical Question - Why is Myopia only 6500 yards?

[Peter Pallotta]

And why is Fishers Island still 6500 yards, and Eastward Ho only 6400?

Do they not know of the demands of the modern game? Have they been spared the clutches of dictatorial and ego driven Chairmen? Are their members an uninspired collection of high handicap octogenarians? Do they somehow not realize that there are dozens of expert architects who'd be honoured to come there and bring those courses back to life, restoring the playing characteristics to the original designers' intentions? Are they so blind and selfish as to put their anachronistic ways ahead of the pleasure of their guests and visiting raters, who come with great enthusiasm only to leave feeling bored and wholly disillusioned after blistering the course with under-par scores? Or perhaps their greens are so brilliantly contoured and the strategic options so devilishly clever and numerous that 6500 yards proves more than enough for any golfer? Or maybe its simply that no one at those courses cares enough about great golf and engaging architecture to lift even a finger to have those courses stay relevant. Hell -- those fools may not have even considered how modern green speeds and maintenance practices are ruining countless courses just like theirs.
Peter

[Josh Stevens]

I will get in early with the joke about them being short sighted

[Peter Pallotta]

Short sighted is spot on, Josh. Are their eyes so bad that they can't read the scores of the hundreds, nay, thousands of modern day top flight amateurs in state and national championships who en masse finish their rounds at 3 or 4 or 5 under? Can't they even see their own 10 handicap members, right there in front of them, so many of whom hit the ball miles and miles these days and so for whom 6500 yards is a pitch and putt?
Peter

[Josh Stevens]

I hope to God you are being ironic. 

[Jim Nugent]

St. Louis CC is also around 6500 yards, and is pretty well land-locked, by multi-million dollar estates.  Do some of those other courses face similar limitations? 

[MCirba]

Peter,

Yes.

[Tyler Kearns]

Peter,

They understand that 6500 yards is plenty long for 99.5% of golfers.

TK

[Pat Burke]

CPC clearly left behind.   members don't see it I guess

[Brent Hutto]

My club's course is well under 6,500 on the card. But the Par is 70. How many of the courses mentioned in this thread are short par/short yardage, to use Sean Arble's term?

Our course has extremely difficult green complexes so it resists the sort of super low scores from strong players that one might expect.

The downside is that I frequently hear local non-members say they never play at Camden because the greens are "unfair". Or they just say the course is too hard, regardless of length.

At least in our case there is a certain pride in remaining unfashionably short. 

[Tom_Doak]

Peter:

A couple of these clubs might wish they could lengthen their courses, but just don't have the room to do so ... Eastward Ho, for one, seems to use every corner of space available.  The rest of them just don't seem to care much about anything except whether the members enjoy the course.

Most other clubs feel some pressure indirectly to lengthen their courses because of the rankings, but not these.  Myopia has been overlooked by the rankings for so long that they probably don't even want to be ranked, and that used to be true for Eastward Ho, as well.  However, the real irony is that Cypress Point and (especially) Fishers Island are in the GOLF DIGEST top 10 (!) at their current playing weights.  That makes no sense to me at all considering the formula that GOLF DIGEST uses, yet there they are.

Of course, maybe they will come to see the light [or be blinded by it].  I can still remember the days when Merion was proudly just as short as Cypress Point.

[Carl Rogers]

Length is relative .......

The length formula I have heard is multiply your 5 iron (or 5 hybrid) distance by 36 and that equals your proper par 72 length of course.

example ... 5 iron at 170 x 36 = 6120 yards.  .... not very long.  Turf conditions are of course a variable.

I stand corrected if needed.

What is the par at  Myopia?

[Mark McKeever]

Their memberships don't want the course longer or harder.  The courses function perfectly for the group of members that pay to play there.

Mark

[Brad Tufts]

Myopia is par 72.

Desires not withstanding, there isn't much room to go back.

1-6 have basically no room...I believe they have lengthened #5 a bit in recent decades, but that is a built up tee off an opposing slope.

#7 there could be room behind #6 green, but it doesn't make much sense to lengthen as the angle isn't great.

8-12 there isn't room.

#13 has been lengthened a touch, and there is a bit more room, but the approach is really tough even with a wedge, so more distance isn't really needed.

14-18 there really is no room...unless you built up a huge tee way back on #18 closer to 17 green, but that doesn't make much sense either.

[David Stamm]

Pasatiempo is 6500 yds. And plays alot longer.

[Mark Smolens]

I don't know about the rest of you, but I've been telling women for years that size just doesn't matter 

[Peter Pallotta]

I'm just an average golfer, a kind of "everyman", living here in my home-town of modest public courses and marvelling at the promise of such places as NGLA and Myopia, all the while burdened by the knowledge of my own relative lack of skill and talent and holding on to my Hogan blades like talismen. I've got Joe Six Pack on one side and Upper Crust Swells on the other, but I'm journeying towards clarity and truth guided by a few Evangelists of golf, old and new, while trying not to fall into despair at the expense (in money, labour, inputs, water) required to sustain the bright shining new baubles of the golfing world. Luckily, those evangelists speak with one voice when they say that 6500 yards was, and is, and will forever be more than enough golf course for any and all of us! And in this regard the light shines forth brightly from Cypress and Fishers, proof that being in the world (of top 10 courses) but not of the world (of hype and ego and fashions and dictators) is indeed possible!

Peter

[Donnie Beck]

Wind!

[Michael George]

Myopia is one of the greatest settings in American golf.  The drive through the polo fields.  One of the most charming clubhouses and pro shops in the world.  A simply great golf course that lays upon the land as nicely as any that I have played with unique and challenging bunkers.  And the great vibe of hitting shots while horse riders are galloping on paths winding through the golf course. Holes #4 and #9 are as good as golf gets.

Peter - I appreciate your sense of humor on this thread and agree with Tom that it doesn't make sense that Myopia Hunt is not higher ranked while other short courses are.  But also agree that Myopia likely doesn't care much about rankings.

Some questions (for Tom and others that have extensive knowledge of golf courses around the US):

(1) How unique is Myopia's bunker style?  Is it similar to Garden City GC (as it looks in pictures)?
(2) What are the other great golf and polo clubs are located in the US?
(3) Is the 9th green the smallest in the US?

[Michael George]

For those not familiar with Myopia Hunt Club, the below thread has the best pictures on the web of the great club/course.

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,59738.0.html

[Tom_Doak]

Some questions (for Tom and others that have extensive knowledge of golf courses around the US):

(1) How unique is Myopia's bunker style?  Is it similar to Garden City GC (as it looks in pictures)?
(2) What are the other great golf and polo clubs are located in the US?
(3) Is the 9th green the smallest in the US?

Michael:

I have only been to Myopia Hunt Club once, and it might have been before you were born - I think it was in 1985 or '86.

I guess the bunker style is more comparable to Garden City's than to most courses, but I wouldn't say it was the same.  Myopia has some long, deep trenches for bunkers unlike nearly anything else I've seen.  The 9th green is indeed very narrow, but I don't know that it is the smallest green in the U.S.  There was a tiny one at Wawashkamo on Mackinac Island ... you could almost do a doughnut on the greens mower and be done with that one.

I have worked at several golf clubs that used to have polo fields ... Piping Rock and Camargo are two that come immediately to mind, but neither one has seen a polo match in 40+ years.  I don't know where they still play polo in the U.S. -- Palm Beach has a relatively modern polo and golf club which is a fixture on the international circuit, I think.  Does Dedham Golf & Polo still do polo?  [I've never been there.]

[Michael George]

Thanks Tom for the answers...... and the age compliment, but if I was born in 1985, I would of had my 5 children by age 22!!!  I unfortunately am much older, currently age 45.

I was at Camargo last year and did not even notice the horse stables.  I was told that they had horse riding, but it must have been across the road.  BTW - great work on their bunkers.  They really enhance a wonderful course.

[Jon Cavalier]

Myopia is one of the greatest settings in American golf.  

Concur. Coincidentally, Myopia, Fishers Island and Eastward Ho are three of my favorite places on earth. 

[Eric Hammerbacher]

I think what makes Myopia so special is how it uses its 6500 yards. The variety of holes are wonderful, and keeps things interesting the whole round.   Just think about #1, #3 and #6 and their yardage in relation to par...you don't see holes like this anymore.   And how about the second shot at #13- its such a unique shot that you aren't used to taking 2-3 extra clubs uphill.   These were some of my favorites and that's not even including #4 and #9, two top 100 holes.

Michael- Myopia's bunkers are great, and I heard comparisons to Garden City also, but what I appreciated were the small bunkers, such as the pot bunkers on 15, behind 14 and 16, and the right fw bunker and left greenside bunker on 17.   They are such effective hazards which can't be seen while playing your shot, I wish they would be used on newer courses instead of these huge monster bunkers we often face.

[Bill_McBride]

Some questions (for Tom and others that have extensive knowledge of golf courses around the US):

(1) How unique is Myopia's bunker style?  Is it similar to Garden City GC (as it looks in pictures)?
(2) What are the other great golf and polo clubs are located in the US?
(3) Is the 9th green the smallest in the US?

Michael:

I have only been to Myopia Hunt Club once, and it might have been before you were born - I think it was in 1985 or '86.

I guess the bunker style is more comparable to Garden City's than to most courses, but I wouldn't say it was the same.  Myopia has some long, deep trenches for bunkers unlike nearly anything else I've seen.  The 9th green is indeed very narrow, but I don't know that it is the smallest green in the U.S.  There was a tiny one at Wawashkamo on Mackinac Island ... you could almost do a doughnut on the greens mower and be done with that one.

I have worked at several golf clubs that used to have polo fields ... Piping Rock and Camargo are two that come immediately to mind, but neither one has seen a polo match in 40+ years.  I don't know where they still play polo in the U.S. -- Palm Beach has a relatively modern polo and golf club which is a fixture on the international circuit, I think.  Does Dedham Golf & Polo still do polo?  [I've never been there.]

I've been to polo matches in Santa Barbara but it's been years and no golf course involved. 

The smallest green I've ever seen was at the par 5 14th hole of the pre-Hurricane Ivan Pensacola course, now NLE.   The green was 20' across the front, with a deep bunker cutting in on the left and grass hollow on the right, and 40' across the back with a steep fall off behind.  About 60' deep, I'd guess it was about 1,800 SF.     The only smart play was to the front center.  I miss that little green although the new Jerry Pate split level sideways green is a beauty. 

[Richard Fisher]

I know that 'short courses' has been an hallowed and much-discussed GCA thread over the years. Here in the UK there are famously plenty of examples of the short par/short yards type as identified by Sean Arble, and not just amongst the Swinley Forest/New Zealand heathland cohort. By the sea, or nearly by the sea, Rye with its five short holes is, or certainly was, 6278 yards, with a par of 68 and a Scratch Score of 71 off the white (medal) tees, Harlech is 6403 (also with five short holes) off the whites, with an SSS of 72, and Aldeburgh (four short holes and no par fives) is 6378 with an SSS of 72 likewise. Off the very back Aldeburgh gets to 6603, SSS 73, for championships, and Harlech to 6629, SSS 73, whilst Rye I think reached the elephantine heights of 6454 when it hosted the English Championship a few summers ago. I somehow doubt that anybody, even the most accomplished GCA practitioner, has ever walked off any of these three thinking 'what a pushover', even in still conditions, let alone in a wind...the shortest course for a major British male event in the post-war period was probably The Sacred Nine, when it hosted (doubtless through the guidance of Gerald Micklem) the (then) English Golf Union Champion of Champions event fifty years ago this year, and would have played to 6218 yards, give or take: incidentally 142 strokes was the best 36-hole score recorded at Worlington by the cream of English amateur golf on that occasion. Luffness New is the only rival that I can think of: a medal-tee 6104 yards for Open Championship Qualifying (for Muirfield Opens) seems admirably self-restrained, although I don't know to what extent, if any, the course was lengthened for these purposes in the 1970s and 1980s.