Flags & Flagsticks

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Has the USGA done any studies on visibility of flags and flagsticks? 

Why do I ask? My semi-private " club" with 3 courses in an active adult 55+ community has many members with vision problems- macular degeneration, retina detachment and glaucoma. We use white or yellow flagsticks and red, white & yellow flags for hole locations. Some, without taking a survey, would like striped flagsticks and/or checkerboard flags to improve visibility. I'm one of those affected. 

[Tom_Doak]

I have done my own study, from years and years of taking photos of golf courses.


And I will swear to you that yellow flags are more visible than white, and way more visible than red.  An old photographer friend of mine used to take yellow flags with him and have the course switch out when he came to shoot there.


I always liked the black-and-white striped flagsticks, too, but I am not sure if they really show up any better from 150 yards away . . . I am never really looking for the flagstick, just the flag.

[Sean_A]

I find yellow flags hard to see, especially in winter when grass is dormant or half way there. I prefer red.

Ciao

[AChao]

I get the same ... from me and another family member ... both of us are losing are sight ... yellow sticks out most and then white for us ...

I have done my own study, from years and years of taking photos of golf courses.


And I will swear to you that yellow flags are more visible than white, and way more visible than red.  An old photographer friend of mine used to take yellow flags with him and have the course switch out when he came to shoot there.


I always liked the black-and-white striped flagsticks, too, but I am not sure if they really show up any better from 150 yards away . . . I am never really looking for the flagstick, just the flag.

[Thomas Dai]

Contrasts and background. Dark background, dark coloured flag, not so good. Light background, light coloured flag, again not so good. Not personally so fond of different coloured flags for front-middle-back, would prefer just the one colour.

As to the colour of the flagstick, for ladies events at the course I mostly play pink flagsticks have been used for a couple of years now and are sometimes left out for a few days afterwards. The number of positive comments regarding improved flag stick visibility have been a surprise, especially when received from some men perhaps usually considered to be on the chauvinist side of the fence.
atb

[jeffwarne]

for ladies events at the course I mostly play pink flagsticks....
atb

Lots of ways to read that....

[john_stiles]

Found one reference that.....'The brightest, most visible color you can wear during daylight hours is fluorescent yellow-green. Why? Human eyes are built to be most sensitive to that particular wavelength of light (~550 nanometers), at least during the day.'


It seems most construction crews wear an orange or optic (fluorescent) yellow. The tennis ball is almost an optic yellow which I thought that the 'tennis world' picked as best for a ball moving over 100 mph, or maybe that is just a selection for TV viewing. Hunters wear orange regardless of surroundings, or time of year.


For quite a while, maybe still,  doesn't the the USGA typically prefer yellow?


I lean towards yellow or white.

[Ally Mcintosh]

Yellow Out and Red In is what almost every course in the UK used to have... before they started getting all fancy with the different colour for front, middle, back (which I despise)...


That said, I’m quite fond of blue as a different colour to yellow or red (although it does tend to be slightly less visible)... less fond of white.


Yellow the most visible.


Has to be 9 and 9 though.

[Matt Wharton]

I seem to recall nearly 30 years ago browsing through a copy of a PGA Tournament Manual - book for PGA Club Professionals.  Stated people who suffer from color blindness are able to distinguish yellow from a green background, thus the recommendation for yellow flags and flagsticks.  I have never checked the validity of that statement, and to someone's point above, in the winter months when green is not a dominant background color this benefit would be diminished.

[Erik J. Barzeski]

I seem to recall nearly 30 years ago browsing through a copy of a PGA Tournament Manual - book for PGA Club Professionals.  Stated people who suffer from color blindness are able to distinguish yellow from a green background, thus the recommendation for yellow flags and flagsticks.  I have never checked the validity of that statement, and to someone's point above, in the winter months when green is not a dominant background color this benefit would be diminished.

Red isn’t good because of the red/green color-blindness. Isn’t that the most common type?

I agree that yellow is probably easiest to see, though against a dense background (not just sky, not a large white McMansion) white is fine too.

[JohnVDB]

Has the USGA done any studies on visibility of flags and flagsticks? 

I don’t believe a study has been done, but I know the USGA provides black/white flagsticks for all championships.  I believe that they when with Yellow/Black checkerboard flags for the Senior open a few years ago for visibility, but all flags at USGA championships are now Red, probably for marketing reasons rather than visibility.

[Bernie Bell]

Don't know about golf studies but I believe the high visibility yellow that is very common for bicyclists is a result of careful study.  I think blaze orange has been studied a great deal as well.

[Tom_Doak]

 I’m quite fond of blue as a different colour to yellow or red (although it does tend to be slightly less visible)... less fond of white.

Blue is the absolute worst for photos . . . it is very very difficult to see.  It drives me bonkers when I see blue flags.  Might as well use green . . . although I have never seen a green flag on a golf course.

[Ally Mcintosh]

Blue does photo badly.... But I like the colour and there is no issue seeing the flag whilst playing.


After all, it shouldn’t all be about how it photos (as you might say yourself).


That said, I probably like it as it’s used for the back nine at Portmarnock and so I chose it for the new nine at Carne. Think I have bad memories of white from poor third nines and pitch ‘n’ putts in Scotland.

[Thomas Dai]

Anyone favour wicker baskets? If so what colour?
Plus flagsticks with spring at the bottom to allow for flexing in the wind.


Atb

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Merion's " wicker" baskets are steel and are removed every night.


I like the striped flag pole even though it's red. 


No mention of cost.



https://ftw.usatoday.com/2013/06/2013-us-open-merion-golf-club-wicker-baskets




https://en.paperblog.com/the-origin-of-merion-s-wicker-baskets-558080/

[Steve Lang]

Yellow, pins and flags...


if good enough for The Masters, who cares about the USGA?  Or Simply go with any of the Maritime flags... they have some interesting meanings

[Pete Lavallee]

At Coronado GC we used to have red, white and blue for front, middle, back. Our Senior golfers had a hard time seeing the blue ones so they switched to black and yellow checkered; much more visible!

[Drew Maliniak]

Yellow is definitely the easiest, but it's also the Times New Roman of flag colors.

I would love to hear about some unique flags. It seems like an easy way to stand-out. But I guess flags take a beating. You would need to rotate them out every few months to stay looking sharp.

The flag sticks at Philly Cricket and Baltusrol are a work of art (cloth and wood).

[Erik J. Barzeski]

Yellow is definitely the easiest, but it's also the Times New Roman of flag colors.

I would love to hear about some unique flags.

Given the comments above (and I’ve hunted, too, mostly as a kid as my dad was a big hunter), why no hunter orange flags? Just too garish or out of place? (The color orange, except on Rickie Fowler, is dramatically under-represented in golf.) Would a bright hunter orange flag stick out more than a yellow one? Against light and dark backgrounds?

[Adam G]

The red and white striped flags at Boston Golf Club (the flag of sons of liberty and also the club's logo) are pretty awesome and unique.

[Tom_Doak]

Given the comments above (and I’ve hunted, too, mostly as a kid as my dad was a big hunter), why no hunter orange flags? Just too garish or out of place? (The color orange, except on Rickie Fowler, is dramatically under-represented in golf.) Would a bright hunter orange flag stick out more than a yellow one? Against light and dark backgrounds?

I just don't think anyone likes how orange looks.  Too non-traditional.  I've seen it a couple of times though.


You could also go with neon pink for visibility, but I have never seen that!

[Tom_Doak]

Yellow is definitely the easiest, but it's also the Times New Roman of flag colors.

I would love to hear about some unique flags. It seems like an easy way to stand-out. But I guess flags take a beating. You would need to rotate them out every few months to stay looking sharp.

The flag sticks at Philly Cricket and Baltusrol are a work of art (cloth and wood).

Lots of clubs have spent lots of money on this front trying to be distinctive.  Most of the wooden flagsticks I've seen do not really function that well, but rich guys think they are the bees' knees.


The most unusual flags I've seen [for better or worse, as tastes vary]:


Wind socks at The Challenge at Manele
Double pennants at LACC
Wicker baskets at Merion [not as rare in 1920, you see them in old photos of SFGC and some other courses]
Very short flagsticks at Secession


Those are the ones that come to mind right away, I'm sure I've missed some.


My favorite ever was on a course I saw in Zambia last year.  I could see it from a distance but was not sure what I was looking at.  When I got up close, I found that it was some kind of tree branch or plant, with a single, very large leaf near the top of it for a flag.  But it was just on the one hole!

[Thomas Dai]

Seems like flags, yardage markers, sprinkler heads etc would seem good opportunities for sponsorship ....... by local opticians!
Never seen a course with 200/150/100 yds to the bar markers on the 9th/18th though. Might be a popular addition amongst some thirsty folks?

atb
PS -I remember seeing the Zambia stick and leaf photo.

[Forrest Richardson]

Some know that I serve the Phoenix Fire Department, and was President of the Phoenix Fire Foundation for many years. Fire service is sort of in my blood, even though never a firefighter. Yellow is most visible, and this is born by many studies. However — the kicker — is that when I brought this up to Chief Alan Brunicini (now deceased) he said to me, "Forrest, I once asked God what color fire trucks are supposed to be, and she said 'red'..." Alan even painted the federally funded airport trucks in Phoenix Red — and we are still the only city in the U.S. to do so...we get them from the factory (O.S.H.A. Yellow) and then re-paint them with our own local funds. All because of Chief Brunicini and his commitment to traditional red for fire trucks.

To golf — Par Aide Tournament Sticks (black/white striped) + Yellow and Black flags. That is my contribution here. Simply, this offers the best contrast and works in most backgrounds. Backgrounds are the key. You normally need both a bright (lighter) color and a darker color on both sticks and flags.