Creating challenge off the tee

[Tommy Williamsen]

I suppose the easiest way to make the tee shot challenging is to narrow the fairways. But this is one dimensional. Water and bunkering also make tee shots challenging but so does terrain. One of the courses I regularly play is bumpy, humpy, and rolling. The fairways are generally wide but there are always flatter places from which to hit. Sometimes, however, the better angle to the pin is from a lie that is a bit downhill or sidehill. The player has to decide which poison to choose: the best angle or the best lie. If you are bedevilled by uneven lies flatter is better. If not downhill and sidehill lies create their own problems even for the better player.
What are some of your favorite ways to create challenge to the tee shot?

[Ira Fishman]

I enjoy the challenge of knowing because of the cant of the fairway you must play to the high side which narrows the target. And if the hole plays downhill, it is fun to watch the ball bank down on a well executed (rare for me) drive.


Ira

[Tommy Williamsen]

I enjoy the challenge of knowing because of the cant of the fairway you must play to the high side which narrows the target. And if the hole plays downhill, it is fun to watch the ball bank down on a well executed (rare for me) drive.


Ira

Ira, the 17th hole at my home course slopes right to left. The hole is short but I generally hit driver because I need to hit a fade into the slope to mitigate the ball running into the left woods. If I overcook it I am ob. If I hit it straight tree trouble left. Some guys will try to hit a draw up the right side of the fairway and watch it run past the slope but it is a dangerous shot.

[SL_Solow]

Tommy, absent a lot of earth moving, many sites lack the type of terrain you prefer.  Nevertheless, creating advantageous angles pinched by bunkers, rough, water and the like can create real challenge when coupled with corresponding challenges on the next shot. Consideration of the prevailing wind can add to the challenge. What I dislike is overly narrow fairways or, conversely, fairways that are extremely wide with no perceived advantage for placing your drive on one side or the other.

[Tommy Williamsen]

SL, great terrain certainly helps give the tee ball interest, but so do doglegs. I know they are going out of style but a good dogleg sure makes the player think and they work on any terrain.

[Rees Milikin]

I like tee boxes that are bunker sand.  Place your ball in the sand and start the hole from there. 

[Ira Fishman]

SL, great terrain certainly helps give the tee ball interest, but so do doglegs. I know they are going out of style but a good dogleg sure makes the player think and they work on any terrain.

+1. One of the reasons I like Mid Pines and Pine Needles are the doglegs. Number 9 at MP should be a simple hole, but committing to a line is really difficult. Number 12 is just a fantastic hole as is Number 16. On PN, Numbers 8 and 14 are on flat land, but are difficult driving holes because of the dogleg and angle of green.


Ira

[Peter Pallotta]

Not one of my personal favourite ways but I do believe one of the simplest and best: fairways that are angled/oriented at 45 degrees relative to the teeing grounds. It almost immediately makes almost any golf hole better & more interesting and challenging; but it does give me fits!

[Tommy Williamsen]

Not one of my personal favourite ways but I do believe one of the simplest and best: fairways that are angled/oriented at 45 degrees relative to the teeing grounds. It almost immediately makes almost any golf hole better & more interesting and challenging; but it does give me fits!

Peter, the ones that go left to right give me the willies. i can hit the ball left to right when I want but my success with a hole that cants left to right depends so much on the length the tee ball needs to travel. My little draw works if I know the hole, but often on the first try I get into trouble.

[Peter Pallotta]

I find it interesting, Tom:
for me those holes are, on the one hand, completely in keeping with the finest aims/ethos of golf course architecture, ie there is a way for almost everyone to play them, either safely or aggressively. And yet, for me, it is not only my relative lack of skill (compared to a long time and better golfer like you) that makes them challenging, it is also the visual disorientation that I feel -- a disorientation that I can't explain given that there really is nothing tricky or tricked up or blind or quirky about them!

[Tommy Williamsen]

They do feel "tricky" and fun and challenging. How daring can you be?