The most useless 200 yards of fairway in golf?

[Ben Hollerbach]

As the chasm between long players and short players becomes greater I have to wonder how this effects the designs of par 5's going forward. While the shorter players uses a much larger portion of each golf course, the longer players tries to use very little, carrying as much of the course in the air as possible. For them, that often means playing their second shot as near to the green on a par 5 as possible, leaving the stretch of fairway ~350 yards off of the tee to ~50 short of the green virtually useless to them. I could see a designer with a mandate to build a championship course spending little time on this ~200 yard stretch of land. as it will impact the longer player little and the shorter player has enough difficulty reaching par 5's in regulation anyway.
Of course there are great examples that would disprove this line of thinking throughout time, but especially in modern course design, I'm not so sure. How common can we see this thinking, or overall is this not the case in design today.

[Doug Siebert]

If the designer only cares about the long hitters then sure, ignore everything but their landing area and the green complex. Hell, not just on par 5s but par 4s as well. Then the course will be boring for the shorter hitters, who have nothing interesting to interact with, other than a requirement to keep it reasonably straight to avoid the rough.

You don't need make their life suck, just make it interesting. That requires thought. I don't think it would be too controversial to suggest that one of the more boring shots in golf is the layup on a par 5. You can always have an interesting "go for it" shot, because reaching a par 5 in two can and should demand more of a golfer than simply length (such as distance control into a shallow green due to the angle a player going for it in two must take versus those going for it in three) You can get away with giving them a greater challenge on such a shot than you can on the approach into a par 3 or 4.

Making the layup on a par 5 challenging without being overly penal is probably one of the tougher tasks an architect faces. Or at least that's how it seems to this outside observer, given how rarely that shot is of interest - rare enough that a hole that defies that norm is worthy of special mention as far as I'm concerned. I hope architects don't do what you appear to be suggesting and simply give up, or avoid providing fairway in the name of saving money in the "useless" parts of the course and leaving rough or waste areas as forced carries for lesser golfers.

One thing I personally like are par 5s where for certain pin positions you are better off deliberately laying up into the rough, either to get a better angle or to make it easier to take spin off the ball and run it to a back pin position. I really enjoy counterintuitive things like that which most people won't see. Though sometimes I wonder if they were even intended by the designer, or just something I discovered on my own (sort of like when you find a hole is easier hitting to another fairway, which I used to discover by accident sometimes thanks to my regular bouts with a massive hook )

[Erik J. Barzeski]

As the chasm between long players and short players becomes greater I have to wonder how this effects the designs of par 5's going forward. While the shorter players uses a much larger portion of each golf course, the longer players tries to use very little, carrying as much of the course in the air as possible. For them, that often means playing their second shot as near to the green on a par 5 as possible, leaving the stretch of fairway ~350 yards off of the tee to ~50 short of the green virtually useless to them. I could see a designer with a mandate to build a championship course spending little time on this ~200 yard stretch of land. as it will impact the longer player little and the shorter player has enough difficulty reaching par 5's in regulation anyway.
Of course there are great examples that would disprove this line of thinking throughout time, but especially in modern course design, I'm not so sure. How common can we see this thinking, or overall is this not the case in design today.

In addition to what Doug said, it also removes any interest from the layup should the longer hitter get into trouble off the tee. No?

[Peter Pallotta]

True - but maybe a pond would be good there, or a canted fairway or severe downhill slope. I mean, something.  Don't get me wrong, I'm all for strategy, but I don't think we need to talk about 'penal architecture' as if it was one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Each one of those sins has caused me, all on its own, 10 times more grief than all the penal architecture I've ever played combined!


 

[James Brown]

Bring it on!  I love the theme of designs meant for long hitters.  I’m a 1 handicap that hits it 250 and have seen very few 300+ golfers that scared me cause most hit it sideways often enough to not be competition.