Multiple bye-holes to push back against the card-and-pencil mentality?

[Matt Schoolfield]

Just a thought, but if a course specifically made a 15-hole "course" but then had 3 bye holes at the end (say, a par 3, 4, and 5), I think it could really encourage folks to have fun at the end of a round, rather than ending with a grind. Most folks want their 18 holes, but if they only have to post 15, maybe it could create a fun dynamic at the end.

It would allow more room for "unfair" holes, extreme risk-reward holes, and high-luck holes, since people wouldn't have to be worried about their precious handicaps. I think that would be good. At the same time, I wonder what it even means to have multiple bye-holes on a course that aren't technically part of the course. It does seem a bit weird to say they aren't part of the course, when they are, you just don't really have to play them, and I guess they wouldn't be part of tournaments.

Any thoughts on this? Has it been done before?

[Ben Hollerbach]

The course would have to be rated as only a 15 hole course.
If it was rated for 18, and you played 18, you would need to post all 18.

[Matt Schoolfield]

The course would have to be rated as only a 15 hole course.

Yes, definitely.

[Ben Hollerbach]

The course would have to be rated as only a 15 hole course.

Yes, definitely.

Doesn’t the USGA have stipulations around rating a 9 hole course or a 18 hole course, without a range of holes in between?


If you’re allowed to post a 15 hole score on a 18 hole course, could you then just post a 13 hole score on a 15 hole course?

[Tommy Williamsen]

Speaking only for me. It wouldn't make any difference. I'd think of it as 18 holes and grind to the end.

[Matt Schoolfield]

Doesn’t the USGA have stipulations around rating a 9 hole course or a 18 hole course, without a range of holes in between?

Yes, this does seem like a strange stipulation with some pretty serious implications. Why wouldn't a rating system not just weight the amount of handicap movement to the number of holes played insofar as the whole "course" is played?

I feel like with all the modern land-use issues many regions are facing, accommodating (or even encouraging) awkwardly-sized courses would be a good thing.

[Ben Hollerbach]

considering the ratings are conducted on a hole by hole basis, with the overall rating being the sum of each individual holes rating. It should be possible to rate a course 9 holes or more, regardless if it’s 12 or 22.


Tommy’s perspective, I suspect, will be the perspective of most. They will play all 18 as a 18 hole round and want to submit their score as such.

[Matt Schoolfield]

Tommy’s perspective, I suspect, will the perspective of most. They will play all 18 as a 18 hole round and want to submit their score as such.

I completely understand that this is most folks perspective. I'm just saying it seems like it would be interesting, especially for a minority of people like me, to propose something like this as an alternative experience.

Focusing on a minority of players with non-standard desires is definitely a marketable strategy, even for long-tail audiences. I just thought this might be a way to inject more of a match play mentality into a daily fee course without completely excluding folks that want to post every round.

[Craig Sweet]

Old Works has 18 holes and a 3 hole warm up course consisting of two par 4's and a par 3...I suppose you could call the three extra holes anything you want.

[Craig Sweet]

What I like about golf is I don't have to keep score, and I don't have to play 18 holes. My friends and I can play match play on the front and stroke play on the back. We can alternate every three holes....stroke play/match play/best ball.....Last summer our "thing" was greens in regulation....a bean for every green in regulation.  That makes for fun and game improvement.

[Rob Marshall]

If you don't want to grind don't keep score. Play the forward tees. I don't think my handicap is precious, I think it's a benchmark as to how I'm playing. You can't have fun and post a score. Most players don't even have handicaps do they?

[Matt Schoolfield]

What I like about golf is I don't have to keep score, and I don't have to play 18 holes. My friends and I can play match play on the front and stroke play on the back.

If you don't want to grind don't keep score. Play the forward tees. I don't think my handicap is precious, I think it's a benchmark as to how I'm playing. You can't have fun and post a score. Most players don't even have handicaps do they?

Yes, both of these arguments are very fair, but taking a hole off of an official score should still effect the type of design that an architect would consider. Not including a hole on the official round that a player will post should shift the overton window as to what is acceptable to players.

Nobody is going to like a hole where they are as likely to put up a quad, as you are to get par, but that's mostly because it would be a card wrecker. Still, it could be a fun hole since everyone in the group is likely to get the same quad.

[Ben Hollerbach]

Nobody is going to like a hole where they are as likely to put up a quad, as you are to get par, but that's mostly because it would be a card wrecker. Still, it could be a fun hole since everyone in the group is likely to get the same quad.

That would suggest the par for the hole should be 2 strokes higher.


Many years the 13th at Augusta has a similar number of eagles as it does double bogeys, yet no one could imagine playing the hole as a par 3.

[Matt Schoolfield]

Nobody is going to like a hole where they are as likely to put up a quad, as you are to get par, but that's mostly because it would be a card wrecker. Still, it could be a fun hole since everyone in the group is likely to get the same quad.

That would suggest the par for the hole should be 2 strokes higher.


Many years the 13th at Augusta has a similar number of eagles as it does double bogeys, yet no one could imagine playing the hole as a par 3.

I guess I'm not communicating the idea properly. I mean adding more extreme features to a hole that have nothing to do with length. Imagine the postage stamp hole, with it's brutal bunkering. Then imagine building a par 4 version of that hole, where the same penal bunkering is mirrored in the landing zone. A well placed long iron into a barely survivable landing zone followed by amazing wedge into such a tough green complex would be epic par or birdie, but if most players were likely to end up in one of those hazards, they'd likely put up a double or worse as often as they put up a par. It would still be considered a par 4, even if the median score on it for a scratch player was a 6.

[Ben Hollerbach]

Par does not have to correspond to a holes length.


If the drive is a long iron into a very tough driving zone and then a wedge to a tough green, couldn’t I be better off trying to hit driver greenside and scrambling  from there to make my 4? Why risk 2 difficult shots when I could nearly cover the full distance in one?


I understand what you’re trying to accomplish, but I believe it will need to exist as an ancillary collection of holes away from an intact routing. Something like the baddest little 9 at Scottsdale National.

[Matt Schoolfield]

If the drive is a long iron into a very tough driving zone and then a wedge to a tough green, couldn’t I be better off trying to hit driver greenside and scrambling  from there to make my 4? Why risk 2 difficult shots when I could nearly cover the full distance in one?

You can't because I've made it a dogleg. Here's a quick mock up of what I'm thinking on, based on extending the postage stamp. You have to play it as two delicate shots, as everything else, let's just say, is out of bounds.

I understand what you’re trying to accomplish, but I believe it will need to exist as an ancillary collection of holes away from an intact routing.

I mean, this is kind of what I'm suggesting...

[Ben Hollerbach]

Intact routing, as in the main course is of a regulation number of holes. (9 or 18)


Your notion of these holes being extreme bye holes as part of a regulation routing would be very challenging to execute successfully, as you intend for the player to be playing stroke play and submitting their score for their handicap.


The only way I could see it “working” is if each hole included a split fairway. In which there was on extreme fairway route and one traditional route.


A player who was looking to complete their 18 hole round and post their score would most likely choose the traditional route. While A player who was playing a match could possibly select the extreme route as part of the match or after the match had concluded. Or a player playing stroke play in a round they did not intend to post toward their handicap, or desired to post with the intent to raise their handicap, could select the extreme route. (quite grey behavior)

But I’d suspect that in a short amount of time the extreme route may be abandoned for lack of use.

[Simon Barrington]

The course would have to be rated as only a 15 hole course.
If it was rated for 18, and you played 18, you would need to post all 18.

The WHS 2024 revision deals with this now, you can play a subset of holes and still lodge the score:
https://www.whs.com/videos/2024-Expected-score.html

The larger issue is the WHS system's inflexibility, and the "card & pencil" mentality affecting design.
The requirement to have the measured course within 100 yds total every day is causing some courses not to move their tee marker as often as they should to spread wear. This may in turn result in even wider tees being needed to be bullt to do so.
Creative use of tees and mixed/hybrid rating courses shown on scorecards are creative ways around this, as is a rotation policy of odds forward evens back...but these all add complexity to our ostensibly simple game.

The desire to benchmark against all players in a standardised form has long-standing roots, but far less so than matchplay where players are only concerned with their direct opponent. That is the founding of our game, and ought to prevail.

This Fried Egg podcast with Stephen Proctor about the history of Par was an interesting one in that regard:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/25J4YThG6Ig9yMZRdxAmFr?si=uMwJzMrNTN25mMa0zexE7w

[Ben Hollerbach]

The course would have to be rated as only a 15 hole course.
If it was rated for 18, and you played 18, you would need to post all 18.

The WHS 2024 revision deals with this now, you can play a subset of holes and still lodge the score:

That only applies if a player stops after 15 and does not play the 3 bye holes to finish the round. If they complete 18 they're expected to post 18.

[Michael Felton]

If you wanted to do this, you could just stop playing by the rules. Switch on the slope function on your laser for example. Then those holes don't count

[Simon Barrington]

The course would have to be rated as only a 15 hole course.
If it was rated for 18, and you played 18, you would need to post all 18.

The WHS 2024 revision deals with this now, you can play a subset of holes and still lodge the score:

That only applies if a player stops after 15 and does not play the 3 bye holes to finish the round. If they complete 18 they're expected to post 18.

QED - The system forces behaviour and affects design (limiting creativity and fun).
Perhaps we should all play more (Scotch) Foursomes Matchplay or Greensomes, to get back to the innate spirit of the game?

[Niall C]

Matt


If the intent is basically to change the mentality or if you like the culture, then I think it better to go back to the way it largely was in the UK before the introduction of the WHS and that was only medal scores counted for handicap, rather than changing the architecture of the course. Yes, previously in the UK you could play a round with your pals and put a card in for handicap purposes but that generally wasn't the culture and was usually done by someone looking to maintain their handicap because they hadn't played the required number of medals during the year (from memory you had to play 3).


Hands up, I haven't held a handicap since before they brought the WHS in and therefore never feel the need to hole out or grind over every shot. That's not to say I don't keep a score. As far as I am aware most of my friends who do have handicaps don't post scores every time they go out but I think some do. Mind you my friends and me are mainly of an age where old habits die hard but I expect the younger generations probably post scores more often, mores the pity.


Niall

[Charlie Goerges]

As tough as this might be to implement, I think it's good of Matt (and others) to be thinking about ways to improve the culture of the game. The extreme card-and-pencil mentality leads to multiple bad outcomes, from lowering enjoyment to the conditioning arms race (or death-spiral).

[Ben Hollerbach]

The course would have to be rated as only a 15 hole course.
If it was rated for 18, and you played 18, you would need to post all 18.

The WHS 2024 revision deals with this now, you can play a subset of holes and still lodge the score:

That only applies if a player stops after 15 and does not play the 3 bye holes to finish the round. If they complete 18 they're expected to post 18.

QED - The system forces behaviour and affects design (limiting creativity and fun).
Perhaps we should all play more (Scotch) Foursomes Matchplay or Greensomes, to get back to the innate spirit of the game?

100% agree. I believe the USGA has it wrong when it comes to handicap posting and it should only apply to competitive or qualified rounds. Its too bad that aspect filtered its way in the WHS for everyone.

The expectation of posting every round for one's handicap limits people choosing to play "non-scorable" rounds. Every round does not need to be a performance of one's ability.

[Craig Sweet]

Just a hunch, but early designers created golf courses to have fun and there was no handicap system.  I don't understand why it should be any different today.  Most golfers don't carry a handicap with the exception of club members that are pressured to have a handicap for club events.


And, it seems to me, that newbies to the sport care less about handicaps and scores and more about a fun day with their buddies.