[Thomas Dai]

...... if a course relies on a fairly high level of conditioning something is amiss with the design.

+1
atb

[Niall C]

Amazing how threads evolve! Some perceptive on-track points though.


Dull golf doesn't have to be cheap, it can be expensive, very expensive. Nor does it necessarily relate to distance, although it can. For most amateur players golf is a hobby, a leisure activity, a social pastime. If your hobby, your leisure activity, your social pastime isn't fun, then why do it?


Enjoyable or dull? -


Looking for lost balls?
Slow play?
Predictable holes?
Forced carries?
Uphill walks?
Constant runway tees?
Fancy, contrived course features?
Dress codes?
Having to park your buggy/cart on a path and walk across the fairway to your ball?


What are the aspects (not the quality of your own play!) that reduce the fun, that make the game dull, that effectively put you off the game? That might make you want to say "sod it" and walk in mid-round? That might make you even want to give the game up entirely?


atb

David

By my calculation 4 out of 9 of your criteria relate to conditioning or other matters other than course design. All fair points but in terms of dull golf and course design, I suggest that a lack of variety is the biggest thing to look out for but then again if the golf is compelling then I suppose having more of the same is perfectly acceptable. After that the biggest crime for me is courses that cry out for lots of big hitting without necessarily giving a challenge in terms of direction or hazards to be avoided.

Niall

[David_Tepper]

Dull for me is dead straight holes and a lot of back & forth parallel fairways.

[Thomas Dai]

The nine were just indicative type examples Niall, aimed at being essentially thought provoking, hence the ? marks. My initial draft originally had more but I edited some away for simplification. It's not meant as an exhaustive list. Other folks can add or subtract or agree or disagree as they feel appropriate.
Good point about variety. The grass is/isn't always greener over the hill. As to distance, that's a kind of each to their own area. Some find short dull, others will no doubt feel the same with long.


A listing of things we all, or most at least, find dull, might be interesting. Indeed courses and clubs that avoid having features that appear on such a listing might do better?
 
atb

[James Brown]

Had a big realization this weekend.  Every year I get up to Penn State for a long weekend and to play a couple of rounds.


Penn State has two courses. 


The White Course is a 1920s Willie Park Jr. layout with wide fairways, interesting greens, strategic bunkering.  It’s 6350 yards.  The course has been written about on GCA.  It’s [size=78%]a great walk and I really enjoy playing it.  Just the right level of difficulty for me and one of my favorite courses anywhere.[/size]


The Blue Course is now a “championship” layout, having been lengthened from 6600 to 7300 yards a few years ago to host the Big 10 Championship.  It has lots of narrow fairways and pretty bland greens and most of the hole are straight away.


Played both this weekend.  When I was in grad school 20 years ago, I liked them both equally,  it’s now  4:[/size][size=78%]1 White Course, mainly because it’s the course with real architectural value.  [/size]

[Pat Burke]

What kind of golf do YOU find dull, boring, unexciting, uninspiring, disinteresting etc and why?
Atb

Bethpage Black.

I took the under!

[Kyle Harris]

Had a big realization this weekend.  Every year I get up to Penn State for a long weekend and to play a couple of rounds.


Penn State has two courses. 


The White Course is a 1920s Willie Park Jr. layout with wide fairways, interesting greens, strategic bunkering.  It’s 6350 yards.  The course has been written about on GCA.  It’s [size=78%]a great walk and I really enjoy playing it.  Just the right level of difficulty for me and one of my favorite courses anywhere.[/size]


The Blue Course is now a “championship” layout, having been lengthened from 6600 to 7300 yards a few years ago to host the Big 10 Championship.  It has lots of narrow fairways and pretty bland greens and most of the hole are straight away.


Played both this weekend.  When I was in grad school 20 years ago, I liked them both equally,  it’s now  4:[size=78%]1 White Course, mainly because it’s the course with real architectural value.  [/size]

An irony is that the first and last few holes of the White Course were part of the original Blue Course, of which only the front nine remains on same.


They ruined the third hole on the present Blue, IMO, when they moved the tees back 15 years ago. When I played tournament golf there the tee shot from up front was tricky. You had to play a PRECISE Driver or hit something 210 off the tee at the expense of a much longer approach to a small target. The new back tee now places a well struck drive in the original Lay-Up spot. It's more boring now since you basically know what you're in for each time.

[Ian Mackenzie]

According to Golf Week, Men average 100-140 yards for their pitching wedge. Tour Pros average 136 yards but it should be noted tour pros are not hitting game improvement irons where many single digit amateurs do.
https://golftips.golfweek.com/far-should-pitching-wedge-shot-go-20163.html
Unfortunately I couldn't find an exact date on when the article was printed but the link suggests 2016.
I wonder how these numbers compare to the 2019 wedges in distance??


For a player who say hits his wedge 140 and his drive 300, every par 4 under 440 that is NOT tree lined is Driver / Wedge.


Personally I hit my wedge 150 but I'll use a friend as an example. He is retired from the MLB (so obviously the minority) and he hits his wedge 200 yards. He hits his Driver 330-350. Nothing excites him except for long par 5 holes or courses that force him to hit irons off the tee. Example would be tight tree lined dog legs that he can still cut corners with Irons he never gets to play on open courses.


With technology advancing leaps and bounds so quickly today, how long until we are all playing his game?

200 yard wedge on a standard wedge trajectory? Come on..

Rob, If you haven't noticed this group can be tough and a response like this could warrant some harsh insults so let me help you out...


Rob: 200 yard wedge on a standard trajectory? You know as well as I do your friend is playing the wrong clubs.


Rob, You are most likely correct as I said in () he is  the minority. He plays game improvement irons which are not the best for someone of his athletic ability primarily because of their inconsistency in distance control. When you get a player with higher swing speeds who is big and athletic there is also a bigger gap in distance between clubs. Unfortunately for my friend, he is not good enough for players irons so he's stuck with Driver / Wedge / Putter most of the day in his game improvement irons unless of course we are at a classic course that has not had the resources to redesign their course removing masses of trees and widening fairways. These older courses have maintained their courses as built and trees as original tree plans intended. They are tight and if the tree line comes close enough to the tee my friend is unable to bomb his driver over the trees forcing him to play the course as the original architect intended. Now because the course never had the resources to expand my friend does hit irons off the tee, but hes forced into the landing areas that have been intact from the very beginning.


If you want to learn more about game improvement clubs and just how far they are I suggest you attend a local demo day and talk to the equipment reps. Tour pros today actually calibrate their irons to fit the distances they prefer to play from according to their schedule and courses on it. Tiger woods for example had some issues with his new clubs where he wasn't feeling comfortable with his distances as they were going too long. The only thing that forces pros to accept longer distance is the courses they play on tour. If the average hole on the tour gets longer players are forced out of their comfort zone and embrace some distance changes.


If you ever get the opportunity to catch a tour player on the range during an off day in a relaxed environment or in a friendly home club round, a really cool thing to watch is them hit game improvement irons. It's basically home run derby...

Nah...no chance.


"Game improvement" basically mean that the lofts are stronger so that a "players'" version of a pitching wedge has a loft of 47 or 48 degrees while some "game improvement iron" has a stronger PW loft of 44-45 degrees.


OK, OK...cavity-backed, offset...blah, blah...but also that means the shafts arent as "good" as a pro set up.

[James Brown]

Had a big realization this weekend.  Every year I get up to Penn State for a long weekend and to play a couple of rounds.


Penn State has two courses. 


The White Course is a 1920s Willie Park Jr. layout with wide fairways, interesting greens, strategic bunkering.  It’s 6350 yards.  The course has been written about on GCA.  It’s [size=78%]a great walk and I really enjoy playing it.  Just the right level of difficulty for me and one of my favorite courses anywhere.[/size]


The Blue Course is now a “championship” layout, having been lengthened from 6600 to 7300 yards a few years ago to host the Big 10 Championship.  It has lots of narrow fairways and pretty bland greens and most of the hole are straight away.


Played both this weekend.  When I was in grad school 20 years ago, I liked them both equally,  it’s now  4:[size=78%]1 White Course, mainly because it’s the course with real architectural value.  [/size]

An irony is that the first and last few holes of the White Course were part of the original Blue Course, of which only the front nine remains on same.


They ruined the third hole on the present Blue, IMO, when they moved the tees back 15 years ago. When I played tournament golf there the tee shot from up front was tricky. You had to play a PRECISE Driver or hit something 210 off the tee at the expense of a much longer approach to a small target. The new back tee now places a well struck drive in the original Lay-Up spot. It's more boring now since you basically know what you're in for each time.

I should have also mentioned that what triggered me to write out PSU after playing both courses probably 150 times was that this time around the pins on the White Course were largely at the edges of the greens, which really accentuated the value of hitting to the proper sides of the large playing corridors.  It was a real contrast to the bomb and gauge Blue Course, where you had to make very few strategic decisions


And I would agree on what they did to the third hole.  I really like longish par fours where you have to choose between laying up to a long iron approach or threading a driver further down the fairway.  The wind often plays a huge role in such decisions. 

[Tags:]

Tags:

[Tags:]

Tags:

Call to undefined function theme_linktree()