What constitutes "hard" or "difficult" on a golf course to you?

[George Pazin]

[Poster's note: this is a winter topic, when most of us aren't playing much. If you don't care what it means to different levels of golfers, feel free to ignore.]


Last year I had the opportunity to play my favorite golf course, which as everyone knows is Oakmont, thanks to a wonderfully patient host. My day was beyond spectacular - temp in the 70s, a cloudless blue sky, the course was in typically perfect condition, and 3 very patient and enjoyable playing partners.


If you've been paying attention on here, you know I'm one of the worst golfers on here, score-wise. And as John Kav accurately notes, that's by choice. With a struggling small business and a 15 year old son whom I am the primary caregiver for, I simply don't choose to prioritize golf, neither play nor practice.


So how did I get around a course long known as one of the most difficult in all of golf? Either quite horribly or okay, depending on your perspective. I didn't even bother counting my strokes, and there were many. But it was more than a little fun, and even more than a little illuminating as well.


Why am I even wasting everyone's time with this? I think it's a topic worth exploring.


What is hard, in your book? Is it forced carries or brutal green surrounds or the lurking opportunity to lose one ball or even a few in desert or water? Or is it a course that is simply relentless in shaving stroke after stroke after stroke, so that your total blows you away? Is it a course that is prepped in an over the top manner (long and lush rough, overly speedy greens) or a course that doesn't even appear to have a maintenance staff (shaggy, spotty, something that looks like you imagine a course in the 1800s)?


One of the most vexing things I read on this site is when very good golfers - my own personal definition being an index of 5 or less - share their thought that course ASDFQWERTY National is simply too hard for lesser golfers. My own personal belief is that we lesser golfers don't fixate on a number, but rather look for an interesting experience. And interesting and hard are not at all the same, not every remotely in the ballpark of the same (kudos to you if you pick up on that reference).


So please, share your thoughts. I will bore you with mine later, if I haven't bored you enough already........

[Peter Pallotta]

Nice post, George - and happy for your Oakmont experience.
For me, the only kind of difficult I really don't like is the too-many-perched-greens variety, made worse by the jutting-into-the-fairway-wetlands. Besides being hard for a low ball hitter, that combination is monotonous and unpleasant to look at, and if both elements are present there's a very good chance that the routing will be awkward and the walk a slog (which further adds to the 'difficulty' of having an enjoyable day).
Best
P

[Tim_Weiman]

George,


Very good topic. For me it would be a course with fairways too narrow and lots of potential for lost balls on tee shots.


That scenario is just not fun, especially if you live in a Northern (U.S.) climate and don’t play year round (so your game seasonly goes to hell!).

[Cal Seifert]

As a 15 handicapper. The most difficult courses to me are the ones that require accuracy off the tee.  That combined with penal rough or fescue is almost always a bad combination for my game. If I have room to spray my tee shots I can usually wack my way around the course.

[Mike Bodo]

I'm in agreement with Peter. Perched or elevated greens, while perhaps aesthetically pleasing, are usually more daunting and challenging to hold than greens either slightly raised or adjacent with the surrounding terrain. Also, fast greens pitched steeply back to front with sharp fall-off's off the back are a killer for me, as it's almost next to impossible to keep the ball on the green with your recovery/chip shot from behind the green. Forced carries typically don't bother or intimidate me - unless there are too many of them on a course -nor do bunkers. High wind can be a bugger - especially if it is swirling or shifting continuously throughout the round. It's frustrating to have good shots end up in bad spots multiple times in a round because of the wind. But that's golf.

[Jeff Schley]

Hard for me is narrow fairways with OB/hazards on one or both sides.  If I can find the fairway I can score pretty well, but I'm erratic off the tee.

I like the challenge of some variety, so my preference isn't to play a course with wide open fairways just to score well.

[Tom_Doak]

George:


Your question reminds me of my year overseas in the UK.


When I showed people there pictures of famous American courses:  Pine Valley with all of its sand, or famous US Open venues with all of their trees, every golfer in the UK would say those courses looked impossibly difficult to them, because they looked so tightly defined.


And when I came back from my year overseas, and showed people pictures of Cruden Bay and Lahinch and all the rest, American golfers would say those courses looked impossibly difficult to them, because of the lack of definition and the wide open spaces subject to wind, etc.


So, that was a quick lesson that difficulty is a matter of what an individual is used to.  Tilted greens, fast greens, trees in play, water in play, forced carries [even the smallest ones, for women], exposure to wind . . . even slow greens!  [Although the golfers who complain about slow greens would not use the word "impossible," they mean they hate slow greens because they can't get used to them, which is exactly the same thing those who complain about fast greens lament.]




The other thing your post brings to mind is Alister MacKenzie's line about keeping the course playable "regardless of the fact he is piling up a big score".  I don't have the book handy to find it in context, but I think that's what you are talking about re: Oakmont.  It's not impossible to get around, you're just going to get beat up along the way.

[Tim Martin]

Greens that are maintained too fast.

[Matthew Petersen]

I'm a better golfer, but I play most of my golf with not very good players In particular my Dad, who's 72 and plays rarely these days and friends who has a handicap hovering around 15, maybe. Between them and, frankly, the vast majority of other people I'm paired with, I feel like I'm quite familiar with the game of the typical golfer and that's what I'm thinking about when I call a course hard.


What I don't like is a course where my dad or most players (or, hell, me) might not finish a lot of holes. Whether that's excessive water. Overly penal desert areas. Bunkers that a 72 year-old just isn't realistically going to be able to get out of and has limited options to avoid in the first place. That kind of thing.


As the OP says, my dad doesn't really give a rip what he shoots. He wants to make solid contact pretty often and maybe make a par here or there, and just not feel stupid out there.


So, a course like Pasatiempo is a pretty good option. It will sure challenge you around the greens. I don't even really want to talk about all the strokes I piled up around an on those greens. But, with only a couple of exceptions, it's really very playable from tee to green. You're not going to lose sleeves of balls. The greens might make you feel silly, but they'll do that to the best players in your group, so it's not so bad.


I expect Oakmont is the same way. Those are hard courses, but not in a bad way.


Courses that I might term "too hard" or that I wouldn't like to play, or certainly wouldn't suggest my Dad would enjoy, are your mid-80s Nicklaus torture fests. Anything at PGA West. PGA National. Doral. Quintero. No one wants to write down an X.

[Thomas Dai]

Not too fussed about narrowness or water or wind or sand or long rough or heavily contoured greens or surrounds etc. I can factor these into my game plan.
But a real hate, hate, hate with me, and it’s way past hard or difficult, are forced carries off the tee and/or when you have to pitch your second/third/etc shot to lay up short on the fairway because you can’t carry some feature or other. This isn’t hard or difficult it’s disillusioning, even more so when repeated. It’s no wonder so few women play the game given the general frequency of this sort of occurrence.
Severe uphill shots aren’t something I’m keeen on either. Just fail to reach the top with a perfect strike with your longest club and then the ball rolls way back. Again this isn’t hard or difficult, it’s disillusioning, bit like soft, overly lush courses with no options.
Another hate, nothing to do with hard or difficult shots, are fountains. There existence is bad enough but the spray and sound they make ...... arghhhhhh....!
Atb

[Erik J. Barzeski]

Relentlessly unfair courses are the "hard" or "difficult" ones to me. Courses where good shots are not rewarded.

Now, I know the reaction of others here might be "maybe you're not playing the right kind of shot." But, for example, I mean a course like the old Thunder Hill, near Cleveland, OH. The course was 7500 yards, rated out at 78.5, had about a hundred ponds (no kidding - it may have been an old fish hatchery), and you could land the ball short of a green with a lob wedge and have the ball bounce/roll off the back… of a back-to-front tilted green.

The course was a joke. Difficult for the sake of being difficult. I had a 4-iron roll there 80 yards once… and had it rolled 83 it would have been in another pond. I thought I was laying up short of the pond… that was 40 yards short of the pond I almost hit into.

Otherwise, and you almost never find entire courses like this, I find courses with exceptionally narrow fairways with lots of trees to be hard or difficult. But, hell, Lake View is one of my favorite courses, and the fairways and tree corridors average about 27 yards there, with the 17th being 17 yards wide, so… yeah.

[Mike Bodo]

The course was a joke. Difficult for the sake of being difficult. I had a 4-iron roll there 80 yards once… and had it rolled 83 it would have been in another pond. I thought I was laying up short of the pond… that was 40 yards short of the pond I almost hit into.

There's nothing worse than playing a course that is absurdly difficult for difficulty's sake. Anybody can design a course like that. Problem is, the average golfer would play it once and never come back. So, what have you gained as an owner or operator by going that route?

[Lou_Duran]

Length with forced carries over water and bunkers guarding firm greens.

[George Pazin]

Thanks for the thoughts thus far.


Before I share mine, one additional question: does what bothers you have to be repetitive, or is a couple times enough to call something hard? Put a different way, would you call things that cause an additional stroke here or there, but in the end add a lot, or something that causes the occasional 8 or 10 or X?

[Jim Hoak]

I can go with the perched green answer, but I really find wind--especially gusting wind--to be the most difficult for me.

[John Kavanaugh]

Hard is the last bastion of legal discrimination. If you don't like women or children...

[Kalen Braley]

An old guy I used to play with long ago gave me an interesting perspective to chew on....that courses which routinely deliver high scores almost always aren't about actual strokes...but about stroke and distance penalties where one doesn't actually take a stroke.

So whether it be an over-abundance of encroaching OB, tall lost ball-inducing gunch, forced carries, or water...its almost always these kinds of attributes that lead to high "stroke" totals at which point most deem difficult.  And its no coincidence that the hardest course I ever played had all of these in massive amounts...

[Greg Chambers]

The most difficult courses for me are real estate development courses...there’s nothing more difficult than standing on tee box after tee box staring at fairways lined by houses.

[archie_struthers]

 




Hello George, hope all is well.


An island fairway really wigs me out. Just don't like the visual. Hard to understand but seems so much harder than a narrow fairway with fescue all around.  Just like a bail out or easy side to hit it! Or miss it!

[Tom Bacsanyi]

I'm a 3.5.  I would say excessive lost ball hazards and OB.  I don't even really mind water hazards, as even if you hit a ball in there you get a drop, and still have a chance at bogey.  Hitting 3 from the tee is no way to make a score, so that's my greatest fear.  I also hate tons of elevated tees.  As a pretty high ball hitter, any shot that starts working off line works further and further and further off line from a perched tee box.


I play most of my golf in the mountains, so both of these issues are overrepresented in general.  I always breathe a little easier on a flattish course.

[Kyle Harris]

Ubiquitous water doesn't make things more difficult, it just increases your score.

[Dave McCollum]

The course on TV this weekend, PGA National or whatever it's called--the one with the the goofy "Bear Trap"--would be my poster child for a course I wouldn't enjoy much.  Forced carries over water.  The course across the river from us, Blue Lakes, is not long but fairly difficult because there are many ways to lose balls.  Its also plenty quirky and quite fun to play.  I don't mind a few holes with water.  18 watery holes would get old quickly. 

[Mike Bodo]

I don't mind a few holes with water.  18 watery holes would get old quickly.

+1

[jeffwarne]

The course on TV this weekend, PGA National or whatever it's called--the one with the the goofy "Bear Trap"--would be my poster child for a course I wouldn't enjoy much.  Forced carries over water.

you left out OB on the other sides of the holes there....


My dad never broke 100,and played 1-2 x annually with me but he always shot 103-108 at Augusta CC where it was nearly impossible to lose a ball-there was one water hazard at the time that had to be carried (about 100 yards) and he was always thrilled to carry it-so water has its place but water is so over doneat so many places....


It's fun to play a course like that where your good shots can be great and bad shots may just be setting up your next great shot rather than a knee high Fowler/USGA squat

[Gary Sato]

Length for me. Hitting driver, hybrid or 3 wood on every hole is repetitive and no fun.


Another feature is really large greens which you can't get close to the pin for some reason. Last year I played Old MacDonald and found getting close to the hole was very difficult.