Design for people who hit the ball 100 yards off the tee

[Jason Topp]

I hit balls yesterday next to a woman who made good contact with the ball but her mightiest wallop could not have gone much past 100 yards.  There are many such people in the Palm Springs area and I imagine the game for her, even from the shortest tees, consists of repeatedly hitting the ball as far as she can. 


Beyond forward tees, is there an opportunity to design courses that provide more interesting challenges for such a player?  Are there courses that do so effectively?


I recall watching my father agonizing over whether to go for it and hit a hybrid over a pond to an elevated green 110 yards away or to bail out right and chip up to the green.  It was an interesting choice for him when it would not have been for a younger player.  I could envision a course that presents those sorts of choices all over the place without asking interesting questions of others.

[DFarron]

You bring up a brilliant question. Just returned from 5 days in the desert playing at a club that has courses designed by the greatest players and architects in the game.
[size=78%]Every  time I leave there I wonder why anyone wants to belong/play there? Multiple forced carry’s, overwatered fairways and bunkers so deep you can literally hurt yourself getting out.[/size]


And I’m younger and in great shape !


Couple that with 5 hour rounds and I wonder what the attraction is to anyone.

[Kalen Braley]

Interesting the Palm Springs area came up, because Stone Eagle may just be the best example of taking into account players who don't hit it very far.  Not only were the up tees actually up, but they weren't just a thoughtless patch of mown down rough with a couple of tee markers. They were tucked away at interesting angles, and certainly weren't like countless configurations where the tees are 370-up, 390-middle, and 410-back.

[Mark Smolens]

Funny, I had a chance to play Southern Dunes shortly after Troon had taken over its management and opened it up to the public. Not only was there no restroom on the course, but the shortest tee box could not even charitably be described as a "forward' tee. My mother and my buddy's girlfriend (also a senior player) ended up teeing their balls from the beginning of the fairways.


Since then, they've added a restroom (I guess when it was a private, men's only club, pissing on cacti was the way to go), and forward tees. Pretty fun course.

[Thomas Dai]

A different perspective. I’m in the rollback the equipment camp but I’d be in favour of a ball that would allow players in the position highlighted in the OP to actually hit the ball further.
Atb

[Tim Martin]

A different perspective. I’m in the rollback the equipment camp but I’d be in favour of a ball that would allow players in the position highlighted in the OP to actually hit the ball further.
Atb

https://www.ebay.com/itm/373587160682

[Daryl David]

Couple that with 5 hour rounds and I wonder what the attraction is to anyone.

By “club” I assumed you meant private. 5 hour rounds?  Really?

[Tommy Williamsen]

My wife will only hit her drive about 125 yards. When she was younger she could hit it about 180 yards. She has learned a different game. Now she has to tack her way around the course and she has perfected the art of the layup, where to miss it, and how to use the ground. I think it is still fun for her. When we play a course that doesn't require forced carries she is in heaven.


Some shots are almost impossible for her. The shot to the green over the waste area on 17 at Dormie is one of them.

[DFarron]

Couple that with 5 hour rounds and I wonder what the attraction is to anyone.

By “club” I assumed you meant private. 5 hour rounds?  Really?

Yep private, and nothing is done to maintain pace of play. That being said many of the courses are “cart part only” a lot of the time, when you couple that with the difficulty of the course it can make a long day !

[MCirba]

I'm a big fan of every course having a set of tees at 4,200 yards, thoughtfully placed.

[jeffwarne]

You bring up a brilliant question. Just returned from 5 days in the desert playing at a club that has courses designed by the greatest players and architects in the game.
[size=78%]Every  time I leave there I wonder why anyone wants to belong/play there? Multiple forced carry’s, overwatered fairways and bunkers so deep you can literally hurt yourself getting out.[/size]


And I’m younger and in great shape !


Couple that with 5 hour rounds and I wonder what the attraction is to anyone.

Yet there you were

[Erik J. Barzeski]

Devil's advocate of a sort: golf is a sport, and you have to be able to play it at some minimum level. If 250 yard tee shots equate to a 7000 yard course, 100 yard tee shots would be only 2800 yards (for 18 holes)… and the scale of everything is off: fairway width, hazards and green sizes, etc.

[Tim Leahy]

R T Jones had the right idea building "executive" courses with short holes and par 61 or so. I don't know how many are left. One that closed near me was great for women, seniors, juniors and beginners but was lost to a real-estate deal.

[Jeff Schley]

Devil's advocate of a sort: golf is a sport, and you have to be able to play it at some minimum level. If 250 yard tee shots equate to a 7000 yard course, 100 yard tee shots would be only 2800 yards (for 18 holes)… and the scale of everything is off: fairway width, hazards and green sizes, etc.

For competitions sure, but it is recreation and adaptable. Many of us know of those who are disabled in some fashion and it necessitates accommodations and in some cases modifications to enjoy the sport.

[Charles Lund]

California has quite a few Executive courses which would be well suited to players like Jason described. With a couple of holes that are no more than 300 yards from the back tees and the remainder being par 3 holes of varying lengths, they might top out at 1800 yards per nine, depending on which combination of tees an individual might play from.


Oaks North is an example of a 27 hole executive course in the San Diego area that has interesting green configurations, bunkers, a creek or two, and some ponds with natural vegetation.  There are two different tees per hole and from the back tees the longer holes on each nine become par fours not more than about 300 yards.  From those tees, the par threes stretch out to around 200 yards in length.


Charles Lund

[Jeff Schley]

California has quite a few Executive courses which would be well suited to players like Jason described. With a couple of holes that are no more than 300 yards from the back tees and the remainder being par 3 holes of varying lengths, they might top out at 1800 yards per nine, depending on which combination of tees an individual might play from.


Oaks North is an example of a 27 hole executive course in the San Diego area that has interesting green configurations, bunkers, a creek or two, and some ponds with natural vegetation.  There are two different tees per hole and from the back tees the longer holes on each nine become par fours not more than about 300 yards.  From those tees, the par threes stretch out to around 200 yards in length.


Charles Lund

True Charles I recall Oaks North being part of the JC golf portfolio that I joined for a couple years when I lived in So Cal. Another in LA that was very popular was the Lakes at El Segundo which had a couple par 4's IIRC. The driving range was always busy. I believe it was/is going to add a TopGolf facility.

[MCirba]

Devil's advocate of a sort: golf is a sport, and you have to be able to play it at some minimum level. If 250 yard tee shots equate to a 7000 yard course, 100 yard tee shots would be only 2800 yards (for 18 holes)… and the scale of everything is off: fairway width, hazards and green sizes, etc.

While I'm a big fan of Executive and par three courses, I'm thinking the question was more about full size regulation courses.  My wife's drives top out at about 150 yards and I think that's common for any number of women, seniors, children, et.al. so i used the same calculation as Erik to get to 4200 yard tees.

[Adam Lawrence]

Devil's advocate of a sort: golf is a sport, and you have to be able to play it at some minimum level. If 250 yard tee shots equate to a 7000 yard course, 100 yard tee shots would be only 2800 yards (for 18 holes)… and the scale of everything is off: fairway width, hazards and green sizes, etc.

I sort of sympathise with where Erik is coming from, though I think for different reasons. I don't have any macho 'You aren't goodenough/strong enough' to play this course/game feelings, but I do think that super forward tees on otherwise relatively long courses are a poor solution. Who on earth wants to have to walk at least 150 yards up virtually every hole to find their tee? But I don't really have an alternative option.

[Thomas Dai]

Devil's advocate of a sort: golf is a sport, and you have to be able to play it at some minimum level. If 250 yard tee shots equate to a 7000 yard course, 100 yard tee shots would be only 2800 yards (for 18 holes)… and the scale of everything is off: fairway width, hazards and green sizes, etc.

I sort of sympathise with where Erik is coming from, though I think for different reasons. I don't have any macho 'You aren't goodenough/strong enough' to play this course/game feelings, but I do think that super forward tees on otherwise relatively long courses are a poor solution. Who on earth wants to have to walk at least 150 yards up virtually every hole to find their tee? But I don't really have an alternative option.

Very valid points.
Folks who don’t hit the ball very far put quite a bit of £$ into the game though, which benefits others. And as folks are generally living longer the number of shorter hitters is likely to increase.
And in the same way that walking 150 yds forwards to a tee might not be nice either is walking back 150 yds to a back tee.
Time to fix the bloody ball.
Different ball specs for different length players would be one way to go.
Tees then wouldn’t need to be spaced to far apart, speed of play could well be enhanced. Lots of other advantages as well but we’ve covered this aspect more than a few times herein over the years!
Atb

[Kalen Braley]

Adam,

They already have a solution, the golf cart. 

Its enabled unwalkable courses to flourish in the states in multiple scenarios, this one included.  Even the shorter aforementioned executive courses typically have a sizeable fleet of carts.

[jeffwarne]

I have a lot of experience with players who hit it 100 yards off the tee.
It takes a lot of course management and yes a lot of walking from green to tee.
It also can creates flow problems as a 150 yard walk forward playing no shots, is far, far faster than a 50 yard backward walk and then playing one shot(at least).It's not uncommon on a modern course for a forward tee group to be right on top of a group who is on pace, yet playing their second or even third shots.


Every time a new ball, new driver,more athleticism, skil etc. changes the scale, this situation is escalated and exaggerated.
As Erik points out, the scale of all features is far different from a 100 yard max to a 350 yard max. to say nothing of retrofitting existing courses and features for the new elite distance reality.
We could agree that no changes need be made to courses,and elites shoot in the 50's(see last two weeks on Tour) but that's just not the reality.


Bifurcation of courses is not a terrible idea, but the idea would be more easily solved by a bifurcation(or even a trifurcation) of balls.
Two sets of tees-one at 4000 yards, another at 6000-6500 yards and a variety of ball hotness to produce desired scale of the course.

[Michael Felton]

I think partly the difficulty here is the shorter hitting person is much more likely to hit it less far offline. So even if you place tees so the person who hits it 150 hits it to where the "championship" tee players are playing to, the challenge is never going to be the same.


One of my parents' friends, a lady who hits it maybe 160 on her best day also hits it arrow straight. I don't recall ever seeing her miss a fairway. She doesn't hit it far enough to. She would hit fairway then green on the shorter holes and fairway fairway green on the longer holes. She was about an 8 handicap at the time. So to give her a challenging tee shot you'd have to make it very narrow, which makes it a joke from the back tees.


That's leaving aside that it's impossible to have two players of such differing length play to the same spots with both first and second shots on a hole. A 120 shot for someone who hits it 300 in the air is vastly different from a 120 shot for someone who hits it 130 in the air with their driver. They can never have the same questions asked, unless you have the second player playing from 50 yards while the first plays from 120, but then they have very different tee shot situations.


I guess the best you can do is try to ask the same questions of players at different points in the hole. So for example, and I know it's not perfect for various reasons, but the 4th at Bethpage Black, the green approach shot there is very challenging for the top level players with their second shots. They're hitting long irons to a green above them that slopes away. That hole could present the same challenge to someone who hits it 150, but not with their second shot. More likely with their 3rd or 4th shot depending on where the tee goes. Not sure many people who only hit it 150 could make it up the hill to the second fairway, so that hole wouldn't pan out that way, but the green situation could ask the same question of do you play out to the right and leave a decent chip/pitch or do you go for it. If you're comfortable with putting the challenge to a player not necessarily on the same shot, then it doesn't really matter how long the hole is unless you're worried about what your score is.

[Erik J. Barzeski]

For competitions sure, but it is recreation and adaptable. Many of us know of those who are disabled in some fashion and it necessitates accommodations and in some cases modifications to enjoy the sport.

And where feasible, I'm all for accommodations. But at some point, people need to be able to do something "athletic" to play a sport. And again, even if there are tees at 2800 yards or whatever, the scale of everything is out of whack - everything's much too big for the same "angular error" as other players, so there's very little strategy. All for a tiny number of people who aren't cut out to play the sport but who for some reason persist in doing it?

If you are someone who enjoys golf but who tops out at 90 or 100 yards… enjoy the local executive course and make up your own pars, as even the 130-yard holes will be par fours for you, assuming they're not over water or a bunch of hay.

Folks who don’t hit the ball very far put quite a bit of £$ into the game though, which benefits others. And as folks are generally living longer the number of shorter hitters is likely to increase.

Really?

What % of yearly revenue do you think those who can't hit the ball over 100 yards contribute? 5%? 1%? 10%?

Nothing's stopping those players who can't hit the ball > 100 yards from playing an illegal super-hot golf ball. It's not like they're playing in competitions. That there isn't a market for it should tell you something.

[Jason Topp]

One of my parents' friends, a lady who hits it maybe 160 on her best day also hits it arrow straight. I don't recall ever seeing her miss a fairway. She doesn't hit it far enough to. She would hit fairway then green on the shorter holes and fairway fairway green on the longer holes. She was about an 8 handicap at the time. So to give her a challenging tee shot you'd have to make it very narrow, which makes it a joke from the back tees.

Thanks Michael.  The width element is interesting.  My father's course is so narrow that from its back 6,000 yard tees it is a bit of a joke - but it is not a bad width for people who play the course regularly at 5400. 

[Jason Topp]

Devil's advocate of a sort: golf is a sport, and you have to be able to play it at some minimum level. If 250 yard tee shots equate to a 7000 yard course, 100 yard tee shots would be only 2800 yards (for 18 holes)… and the scale of everything is off: fairway width, hazards and green sizes, etc.

Erik - I agree the scale is way off.  From what I am seeing around here, a significant percentage fit my description - maybe 25%.  I would think the industry would want to keep those players and maybe they do the way things are but I do think the question of whether such players could be better served is an interesting one.
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