6400-6800 yard course DEAD?

[Robert "Cliff" Stanfield]

I scanned the interview article with the architects concerning the ball and driver.  What I took from some of the comments:  How do we design with the new technology in mind...I know that I am not quoting.

IMHO:  6400-6800 yard courses are not obsolete yet. They need to try and design more of these courses for the public instead of the CCFAD.

1.Spend more time in the field.
2.Study shot strategies from overseas and US courses that the memebrship have blocked from dozer deliveries.
3.Look at teaching the game for the masses with the use of features dictating the choice of clubs.
4.Dont worry so much about your design peers and their design fees and keeping up with their 7500 yard courses.
5.Put more effort into the finer points of design.  To spend more time in the field determining the angles.
6.Look at the town you are working in and determine what courses are not surviving and why?  Try to add to the architecture in that town rather than try to make a statement with yardage and difficulty.

If I was to try and corner a market I would try to assemble a band of men willing to change public golf in this country.  Scotland has small and challenging courses in just about every little town...some better than others.

I would look at municipalities and determine a way to change the product that they are struggling to keep afloat(I know some do very well).

This group of men would have specialties in agronomy to aid in the assesment of maintenance.  How many times do you opt to play an expensive round since the muni course is in bad shape?  I beleive you can reduce or maintain a budget after a good consultation evaluating design, strategy and maintenance of course. Dah, thats what most archies do? Or do they?  Some just impose what they want and not what the course needs...I know, broad statement for the arch. field.

This group of men would have specialties in golf construction and shaping.  Work on the existing land and add and enhance the routings and strategies in-house and in the field.  Move in set-up & get the aid of the local muni's staff and go to work.

I know many of the designers out there that have brilliant careers have outfits already set-up like this...its not a new idea...just a new concept for public golf...instead of private.

Avoid modern design concepts of pretty and electric green and try to revive the muni's with strategy that teaches the game and prepares the muni player on how to read and play a golf course...not just how to reach for the driver.

Along with the shapers is the design team...focusing their efforts in the field alongside the shapers maybe one in the same....looking to bring the course up to speed strategically and maximizing the land so that the overall maintenance budget and operation budget allows 20-30 dollar greens fees. With 35,000 rounds thats +1mil.

Maybe a financial guru joins the team and is paid with lifetime of free golf to aid in cost analysis that is not askewed like many of these Enron Style Development pro formas.

I know this not a new concept but one that is constantly thrown around with some of my friends in the industry.  Why cant there be a knock down muni course with tons of character and strategy and good greens in just about every town? I know, I know. But why?-said the young child looking at his dad.HA

Doak C&C and Hanse and a few others...trying not leave anybody out, have a core foundation similar to this but they do have to make money in order to pay bills etc.

I am willing to donate my services to the game and let all fees gained within the project pay for the men on the team helping to make the goal a reality.  I am sure there are a few shapers, supers and others looking to work on projects for the future of the game.  Who knows maybe not?

Now back to reality....how many muni's can afford to take on a renovation even if the work needed is small and and can be cost controlled?

Sorry for the rant I am sure after I re-read it, I will have a hard time finding any point I was trying to make.  I just beleive that designers need to find other excuses than technology is ruining the game...yes it is but to what extent?

I mean should we design the landing areas for the driver and technology or design the landing areas for the set-up of the hole.  If somebody chooses to hit driver on an iron hole and gets away with a shot who cares...does he score low?

Who cares....there are many games that can be played the way they were not intended...I still beleive there is a great many players and future players that want and need to benefit from playing the game the way past designers intended.

[Robert "Cliff" Stanfield]

I also forget while in the dream state of may rant...I want no cartpaths and the course encourages walking and has many pullcarts for the golfers....lined up like shopping carts.

Also have the course tied into the local school system.  Incorporate the school into the maintenance and operation of the golf course.

Cheap labor, life skills, and it gives many kids an after school place to go.  I know I know, sounds like first tee all of a sudden.

[CHC1948]

A good one to study would be Carolina Golf Club in Charlotte, NC. It's about 6500 from the tips and challenge the scratch golfer.  The green complexes are superior to any course in the area. Ross would proud, not much has changed since he left.  Bunkers could use a little TLC.  Some pin placements require a run-up shot, it fun to play, and best deal in town!

[Mike Hendren]

Scotland has small and challenging courses in just about every little town...some better than others.

Please read Ran's review of Kilspindie in Scotland.  It took me approximately 2 hrs. 10 minutes to get around its 5,500 yards and I used more clubs in the bag that you might guess.  Just enough interest in the greens with nothing too dramatic.  No doubt designed with the hickory and gutta in mind but timeless, even with a Titleist 983 off the tee.

Regards,

Mike

[Tim_Weiman]

RCS:

I think it is silly to suggest the 6400-6800 yard course is obsolete when the vast majority of people playing the game have all they can handle at 6200-6300 yards. Moreover, how many golf courses are more fun to play than Dooks at all of 6000 yards?

The mentality that says we should be designing 7000 yard courses just to accommodate a small elite minority of golfers who really need more than 6200-6300 yards accounts in large part for why the cost of playing golf has increased and interest in playing golf has decreased.

Besides, the people who really need more than your 6400-6800 always have the option of going back to small head persimmon drivers which are likely to result in drives 5-10 less distance, thereby restoring the "shot values" that are lost when inappropriate technology is used. If these guys are really good, why do they need all this technology anyway?

In the interview article, I was delighted to see a light bulb has gone off and some people in the industry finally recognize that the golf technology arms race adds nothing but higher costs to the game. You wouldn't think it would be so hard for people to understand that real golfers want to play more not pay more, but that realization has been slow in coming.

Our challenge now is to get more people to understand that when it comes to length there is a difference between relative length and absolute length. We need people to understand that the 300 yard drive is no better than the 250 yard drive - as long as playing skill still gives advantage to the longer man.

Doing so will require that people get over this silly notion that we have entered some new era of "power golf" as if a bell curve didn't always exist when it came to playing skills, including the ability to hit a long ball.

The interview article is a small step in the right direction. Perhaps we at GCA can help drive home the point that wasting money and other resources building 7000 yard courses - or even longer ones - makes no sense.

[Kelly_Blake_Moran]

Very nice RCS, and no the short course is not dead, it is alive and well and being promoted, there is no excuse to demean it, rather it should be celebrated and made strategically invigorating for those whom care little for distance, and whom appreciate the game.

[Jeff Goldman]

Aye Tim Weiman, and let us not forget that Pac Dunes is what, 6500 from the tips?

Jeff Goldman

[Patrick_Mucci]

Jeff Goldman,

Pacific Dunes is 6,623 from the tips, not 6,500.

In addition, the golf course has five (5) par 3's which impacts overall distance.  If just one of those  par 3's was a mid length par four (4) it would add 200 yards to the golf course, bringing total yardage to 6,823, and if it was a long par 4 total yardage would jump to 6,923.

When you add in the wind, that plays like a long golf course

[Jeff Goldman]

Patrick,

Your point is well taken, but seems to support the idea that challenging courses can be built less than 7200 yards.  By the way, website lists 6557 yards, and only 3 par 4s are over 406, though depending on the wind, I guess a 350 yd. par 4 can play 500.  It may be an exceptional circumstance because of the location, but I've never been there so I don't know.

Jeff

[Tim_Weiman]

Jeff Goldman:

Tom Doak once told me that someone asked him why he didn't build Pacific Dunes at 7,000 yards or more so they could have a tournament there. Tom replied by asking why he should worry about that when there is a 7,000 yard course right next door.

That's the kind of thinking we need. Whether Pacific Dunes is 6,500 or 6,600 yards most people aren't going to play it from the tips anyway, so why even worry aout it?

You may have seen Jim Kennedy's recent suggestion that growth for golf in America may depend more on women than men. All the more reason we probably don't need golf courses to be more than 6,200 yards.

Let's save on the land, construction costs and maintenance costs and focus on making golf more affordable. Trying to accomodate the best 2-3% of golfers playing with the latest equipment and balls only serves to apply a tax on the rest of the golfing population that it shouldn't have to pay.

Let's repeal or at least lower the golf technology arms race tax. Golfers shouldn't have to pay it.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Jeff Goldman,

Try to get to Pacific Dunes and Bandon Dunes for a few days, it's well worth the trip.

It is unique, and strictly a golfers destination.

[Jeff Goldman]

Patrick, Thanks.  I'm trying to convince my golf travel partner/nephew that we should go there for our winter golf outing (the summer one got cancelled because of work).  You should try to get out to Chicago some time; there's a lot to see.

Jeff Goldman

[Robert "Cliff" Stanfield]

I know that the short courses are not dead.  I am also aware of a few who put no real creadence in overall distance when designing.

Wind etc is a great example of how a course can be different day to day.  The ultimate thing I have a hard time understanding is overall finer design details overlooked.  The bunkering and uses of natural waste areas/diff. grasses to create strategy.  It would be nice to get "strategic winds" at all the courses.

I just think that we need courses that read like manuals off the tee.  Simple things from the tee that lead the golfer on how to play the hole, instead of candy for the photographer.

Living in GA, I know of many small clubs and muni's that could be changed with back-hoe and a small crew and some sod.  Sure many have got green problems, but solve those with choosing a modified green construction approach and using a grass that fits the climate.  Then if the grass is slower go back to the Tillie designs of old.

I know its beating a dead horse because its not just the archies...its the greens comittees and members and others who are making decisions for lush green and putting speed...not overall 12 month consistency!

I worked on a renovation in the South that had a problem similar to the above.  They had members from all types of clubs of "higher caliber".  They tended to compare the club to their other courses and did not think about using bermuda for the greens etc.  So they got greens that were in good shape maybe 6 months out of the year and then complained about the super the other months.  Plus they wanted to add tee length in every possible location...often causing more work for than needed.

[Kelly_Blake_Moran]

RCS,

Boy, I thought you had everything well thought out until you said this, "I just think that we need courses that read like manuals off the tee.  Simple things from the tee that lead the golfer on how to play the hole, instead of candy for the photographer."  I agree with ditching the eye candy but designing a hole to read like a manuel sounds dumbed down for the masses.

[Robert "Cliff" Stanfield]

KMB-

As far as a hole reading like a manual I find this to be what is lacking in really intelligent design.  For instance,  George Thomas' book discusses using hazards to lead the golfer thru the hole.  James Braid did a wonderful job at the Kings Course and Walton Heath as well as many other past designers.

The view from tee should allow the player to intelligently determine the location for the next best percentage shot into the green.

IMHO hazards should not be designed to catch balls but allow the player a "road map" to the hole and ultimately a chance to score, once on the green complex...which should be the true test of scoring.  I hate bunkers behind greens and on slopes along ravines or something...all there to catch a ball.  What a waste....a poor shot should be penalized...I should know I hit alot of them!

IMHO The other idea of Oh!  my scale reads 850'...I need a bunker left and right or at least 1 bunker to catch the balls off the tee...is dumb.

Page 91 "Golf Architecture" by Dr. A. MACKENZIE...reads..."There are many leading players who condemn the strategic aspect of golf.  They only see one line to the hole, and that is usually the direct one.  They cannot see why they should, as in a dog-legged holes, be ever compelled to play to one or other side of the direct line.  A bunker in the direct line at the distance of their long drives is invariably condemned by them, because they do not realise that the correct line is to one or other side of it."

Many players have never had the chance to play a course that was designed with very intelligent features for the golfer to unfold.  Thus many do not know how to stand on a tee and determine why a hazard is placed 50-100yards of the tee on the left.  Damn...take on the hazard and place your ball as close to it as possible...use it as a marker for your line of play...whatever it reads...thus becoming a step in the manual of play for the hole.

Maybe in some peoples view a hole that dictates to the golfer how to play it successfully is dumb.  If so there seems to be alot of intelligent golf holes.  And I must say that I have yet to see many of these "intelligent holes" in many of these modern designs.  Only a few designer IMHO are even thinking this far into the design.

NGLA comes to mind and I apologize for not remembering hole numbers or throwing it out like dropping names at a party.  The stretch from #2 to the little turn house has tons of intelligent "manual" features to guide the golfer along the course....its in his hands to take advantage, execute the shots and score.

I am a huge fan of greens and the contours that can be created within a complex.  Thus I think its the most important avenue of the game in regard to scoring.  This is where IMHO the true creativity is pulled from the golfer.  If you give him the manual to get to the green in regulation then it is ultimately a game of who is more creative on the greens.

As far as bunkers on a course while I am on my rant....I could care less if there are any....I beleive strategy can still be made without bunkers...and if you have to have them...I would love to see rakes abolished....mainly on PGA events!!!

Sorry KMB I am not attacking your view just ranting on my own crazy opinions....and I am just tired of paying the green fees for slop golf.....when I know that there many who can make some good stuff but just dont have the real estate name or developer with an open mind!

[Kelly_Blake_Moran]

I understand what you are saying and I subscribe to the direct line or line of charm idea as well.  However there are instances when the terrain does not allow you to spell out the options to the player, if a "roadmap" bunker is needed to help the golfer read the hole like a manuel as you suggest yet the terrain does not allow that road map bunker to be built without massive fill so you can prop up the road map bunker then you might consider anything less than that a failure.  Yet I think working with the terrain and positioning that bunker there because strategically it causes the player to weigh options as to which side to play to or bust it over the bunker is a worthy exercise even if the bunker can not be seen.  Other means of crumpling the area in front of the bunker may give a hint of trouble to the golfer but for the first time player it could be a preplexing mystery as to just what is happening there.  The unknown is valuable and exciting.  the roadmap or manuel dea borders on the framing school which lacks integrity and soul.  I suspect we agree on much and I may just be misinterpreting or focusing too much on a few words and missing your big picture.  

You can lead a golfer through the hole but you do not have to reveal everything to them, particularly if revealing someting causes you to grossly violate the integrity of the existing landscape.  

I have walked NGLA twice but never been invited to play it HINT HINT but I must say that the holes did not always reveal to me just how they should be played.  There was a lot of mystery, and I am certain several plays still would not solve most of the mysterys.  

Anyway best wishes.

[Doug Siebert]

My pet peeve about 6400-6800 yard courses, at least for modern designs, is that a lot of them screw you with forced layups or oddball dogleg configurations to try to keep the approaches reasonable so the course isn't overwhelmed by longer hitters.

If you are making a course for the 95% of golfers who aren't finding a course of that length too short, do so and quit farting around with stupid design decisions due to fear of scaring away the better golfers.  There are plenty of challenging courses out there, not everything has to be a test worthy of someday hosting a PGA event.

[A.G._Crockett]

Doug,
How is a forced layup or oddball dogleg screwing with you?  At worst, wouldn't these features just limit use of the driver?  At best, wouldn't they force a second (or third) shot that is more demanding?  I need some examples, I think, to understand what's wrong with this.  For instance, on a par 4 with a creek crossing the fairway, if I have to hit 4 iron, 4 iron instead of driver, wedge, what's wrong with that?
Describe what you mean by an oddball dogleg configuration.

I'm not being critical of what you're saying; I just want to understand.  I belong to a 6100 yd., par 70 course, and hit every club in my bag almost every round, and I love it!

[Doug Siebert]

Stuff like a creek crossing the fairway isn't what I mean.  If it is just a creek, you are free to hit over it rather than take a 4 iron and lay up, though it may well not be the smart play.  What I'm talking about are holes where you can hit 200 yards and then the fairway just disappears into unmaintained ground, desert, what have you, just to force you to lay up and make a 350 yard hole require something more than a flip wedge second.  If it is a lake or ravine or such at 200 its OK once or twice, but it gets really old if you keep seeing it a half dozen times in 18 holes.

An oddball dogleg configuration is something where you can only hit 150 or 200 yards out then have a 90 degree dogleg, and there are trees right up against the tee that prevent cutting the corner unless you have the ability to snap hook it 90 degrees at will (I can do that, except for the "at will" part )

These sort of things are just copouts to me to eliminate options for a player to force the game to work like the architect intends.  If the architect wants you to hit a lot of 5 irons to a target off the tee and 9 irons into the green rather than letting me be free to decide whether I want to play it 5/9 or 1/SW or driver/flop based on my own risk reward evaluation why not just give you a par 3 course.  At least that's being honest about it.

Would you consider it a cop out if the PGA tour decided they wanted par 5s to really be three shotters and put foot deep rough out there from 250 to 350 to force players to lay up short to a place where they couldn't reach the green in two?  That's the kind of thing I'm talking about when I say they "screw you".