Relative Strategic Interest

[Peter Pallotta]

For those who've played a number of both golden age classics and modern day greats:


Have you found a difference in the nature, quality, frequency and/or subtlety of the strategies evident on the classics relative to the moderns?

[Jeff Schley]

IMOHO the classic courses don't include nearly the number of water hazards are let's say Pete Dye onward do (maybe 1960's forward).  Dye/Fazio/Nicklaus etc. utilize many more water hazards in their designs.

The other notable change is that trees have grown to such an extent that when a classic course has a restoration, which includes tree removal to get back to the original layout it plays much more open.

In short classics have less water hazards and less trees in play than the modern courses (sans minimalist such as Doak/Hanse/C&C).  I'll leave the green complexes to the experts as this is a controversial area with how fast courses keep their greens now with the advent of stimpmeters.