Tennis downsized to Pickleball, will golf eventually downsize as well?

[Mark_Fine]

Would the game be any less interesting if the ball went not just 10% less but HALF as far as it does today?

I believe $$$ and common sense will eventually prevail. 

[Joe Hancock]

You mean like the Nicklaus-developed Cayman ball from 30 years ago? I had fun with it, but obviously it was an idea ahead of it’s time.

[Mark_Fine]

Joe,
Yes, something like that but where the top architects and developers truly embrace the idea and start to design and build some top notch courses comparable to what we have today but use the shorter flight golf ball.  I believe once the idea is catalyzed, it will spread and people will come to their senses that there is no need to build 8000 yard courses that take up massive amounts of acreage and expense to build and maintain. 

It’s now beyond ridiculous!

One of my regular golfing partners just played in a Golf Association of Philadelphia team match against two college age kids at Hersey CC.  He said both these kids were hitting it at times 100 yards past him and drove three of the 370+ yard par fours!! He said these kids basically saw none of the course for 340 yards off each tee. 

Think about all that acreage and strategy the architect designed in that 340 yards and all the time and tens of thousands of dollars spent by the superintendent and his crew to maintain it. 

It will take time but golf WILL eventually be downsized and it will be just as cool and interesting and fun to play for all levels of talent as it is today. 

[cary lichtenstein]

Interesting idea, just might happen, 4+ hours today is way too long, may not happened in my lifetime, but its a wonderful idea

[Craig Sweet]

No one playing today will want to play with a ball that goes half as far nor will they want to play 25-50 yard holes.


I sometimes play with members of our high school state championship team and when we hit from our proper tees our drives are no more than 10-20 yards apart.   Last week I played with a young man that routinely hot 300 yard drives, but again, he was teeing off 50-75 yards behind me.  I wasn't threatened by his feats of youth and strength.....my ego is intact.


People need to stop freaking out about the 25% and embrace what modern equipment has done for 75% of us.

[Mark_Fine]

Craig,
Not talking about playing from 25 yards in this thread (but by the way, there are already over 700 courses in this country alone using this method to get players excited about the game).  It is taking off big time and the tens of thousands partaking love it.  Golfers at my home club have embraced it for sure. 

Getting back to dramatically shorter length balls; can anyone say how golf has benefited from longer and longer golf courses? 

Be clear, I am not talking about chip and putt courses.  I am talking about the idea where Bryson stands up on the back tee and rips his high tech driver 200 yards down the middle of the fairway instead of 375 yards!  What is wrong with that?

As a fairly high level tennis player, I always looked down on Pickleball and avoided the game.  My wife convinced me to just try it and now I am hooked and playing all the time and even in National events.  There is a saying out there now about what the difference is between a tennis court and a Pickleball court.  The answer is, the Pickleball court has players on it 

Golf at some point needs to downsize. I believe guys like Tom Doak and others could design courses just as amazing as for example Pacific Dunes,…, for a ball that goes half as far (and still allows you the smash drivers and 3Woods,… all you want.  Again, why do we need 300 plus yards of mostly unused real estate between tee and target when 150 or 200 will do just fine?  You tell me 

[Erik J. Barzeski]

Would the game be any less interesting if the ball went not just 10% less but HALF as far as it does today?

I believe $$$ and common sense will eventually prevail. 

The scale of the hole, greens, and all sorts of other things would be out of whack.

In other words, a 7-iron from 165 will go much farther offline than a 7I from 85 yards would. The scale of everything would have to change.

Yes, something like that but where the top architects and developers truly embrace the idea and start to design and build some top notch courses comparable to what we have today but use the shorter flight golf ball.  I believe once the idea is catalyzed, it will spread and people will come to their senses that there is no need to build 8000 yard courses that take up massive amounts of acreage and expense to build and maintain.

I'll take that bet.

[Paul Rudovsky]

I think big driving ranges will become e a thing of the past.  Value of land is rising quickly...cost of simulators is dropping as quickly because of technology, and you get much more info than you get watching your golf ball fly.

[Mark_Fine]

Paul,
You are probably right about big ranges.  We are rebuilding/redesigning one right now and it is costly and takes a huge amount of acreage. 


Erik,
I ask the question again, how have longer and longer golf courses benefited the game?  Do pros outweigh the cons?


And yes, some of the scale might need to change but is that a problem?


Would baseball benefit if they allowed players to hit a ball that traveled 700 feet?  It wouldn’t be hard to do. 

[Edward Glidewell]

I don't think tennis has really downsized to pickleball. They're very different things -- most tennis players haven't switched to pickleball; pickleball is just something that's been picked up by a number of people (and generally older people).

[Quinn Thompson]

“Park Golf” in Japan. Played 18 holes yesterday while driving for a coffee: passed a little course, pulled in, paid my 3 dollars to rent a club and ball, tee sheet was open, made my way around in about 35 minutes, and was back in the car and down the road after that, satisfied.


Wrote an article on it for Golf Course Architecture magazine a few years back; my “Gonzo” days.


It’s a little pipe dream of mine to build or renovate a Park Golf Course in Japan. It’s a miniature golf course, more or less; with little bunkers, little greens, and strange features that only a farmer in Japan would think of - and that’s why I really, really like it.


There are some Park Golf Course popping up in America - but from what I’ve seen in pictures, they’re missing out by not building some of the goofy stuff.

[Craig Sweet]

Mark,why are we building longer and longer courses, and mandating how far a golf ball will travel when the average golfer hits it 220 yards?  You are focused on a perceived problem that does not exist for 75% of us. 


Like I said, everyone needs to stop freaking out and accept that modern equipment is making the game easier, thus attracting more people to the sport, and it is keeping many older folk in the game.

[Tim_Weiman]

Mark,why are we building longer and longer courses, and mandating how far a golf ball will travel when the average golfer hits it 220 yards?  You are focused on a perceived problem that does not exist for 75% of us. 


Like I said, everyone needs to stop freaking out and accept that modern equipment is making the game easier, thus attracting more people to the sport, and it is keeping many older folk in the game.

Craig,


I don’t think modern equipment is making the game easier for a very large percent of people playing the game.


Tim

[Thomas Dai]

Interesting to read the comments in relation to a similar thread I raised a while ago -
https://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,72549.msg1742572.html#msg1742572
Atb


PS - finite size planet, finite land and water etc resources, ever increasing population.

[Mark_Fine]

Edward,
I used to think the same thing about Pickleball - it is for older people and not for tennis players.  I was very wrong.  Young players are gravitating to the sport in crazy numbers.  Courts that used to be filled with retirees, now are booked with players of all ages.  Many tennis players have taken up the game once they tried it.  Google Pickleball and you won’t see 60 year olds pop up 


Quinn,
Love the idea.  Some good things take time and a visionary to get it going. 


Craig,
The game is hard for most everyone regardless of how great the equipment. 


You think we have a “perceived problem”.  What do you recommend I tell the owner of a public golf course who can’t let the local high school/college kids hit drivers or woods of any kind on his range because many were flying the ball 300 plus yards over the 50 foot high net and onto a road creating all kinds of safety issues   


There is no need or benefit to the game for the ball to go that far.  No one has yet to state any real benefits for golf of having the ball go so far.  All it has done is force courses to continue to get longer and longer, cost more and take longer to play.


I know this is very old topic/argument but I am talking about a “radical” change to distance - a paradigm shift.  Very much like Tennis to Pickleball. 


My prediction is Pickleball will overtake Tennis in popularity at all ages in the next five to ten years.  Could even be faster.  We can’t build courts fast enough.  The same could one day happen for these kind of world class half length golf courses.  We might not be able to build them fast enough to meet demand    But just like with tennis courts being converted to Pickleball courts, there would be a huge opportunity to renovate existing golf courses to high quality “half length courses” or whatever we decide to call them.


Thomas,
I will take a look at your thread.  Thanks.

[Tim_Weiman]

Edward,
I used to think the same thing about Pickleball - it is for older people and not for tennis players.  I was very wrong.  Young players are gravitating to the sport in crazy numbers.  Courts that used to be filled with retirees, now are booked with players of all ages.  Many tennis players have taken up the game once they tried it.  Google Pickleball and you won’t see 60 year olds pop up 


Quinn,
Love the idea.  Some good things take time and a visionary to get it going. 


Craig,
The game is hard for most everyone regardless of how great the equipment. 


You think we have a “perceived problem”.  What do you recommend I tell the owner of a public golf course who can’t let the local high school/college kids hit drivers or woods of any kind on his range because many were flying the ball 300 plus yards over the 50 foot high net and onto a road creating all kinds of safety issues   


There is no need or benefit to the game for the ball to go that far.  No one has yet to state any real benefits for golf of having the ball go so far.  All it has done is force courses to continue to get longer and longer, cost more and take longer to play.


I know this is very old topic/argument but I am talking about a “radical” change to distance - a paradigm shift.  Very much like Tennis to Pickleball. 


My prediction is Pickleball will overtake Tennis in popularity at all ages in the next five to ten years.  Could even be faster.  We can’t build courts fast enough.  The same could one day happen for these kind of world class half length golf courses.  We might not be able to build them fast enough to meet demand    But just like with tennis courts being conveyed to Pickleball courts, there would be a huge opportunity to renovate existing golf courses to high quality “half length courses” or whatever we decide to call them.


Thomas,
I will take a look at your thread.  Thanks.

Mark,


The Rec Center where I live has an active pickleball group. Pretty much all the people who play are older. I don’t recall ever seeing a thirty something. Most appear to be retired people in their sixties.


As for a pickleball golf offering, it doesn’t have much appeal. That said, I’m glad Brian Schneider and Blake Conant are building the “kids course” at Old Barnwell. I can imagine wanting to play that a few times per week when I spend a month in Aiken. I suspect the kids course will be a good way to work on my short game and serve me well when I play the full 18 hole course.


Tim

[Mark_Fine]

Tim,

• Supposedly there are an estimated 36.5 million pickleball players in the United States according to the Association of Pickleball Professionals in 2022.

• Pickleball participation has grown an average of 223.5% over the last 3 years according to the SFIA.

• Pickleball is the fastest-growing sport in America for the past three years.

• Players 18-34 make up the largest percentage of pickleball players at 28.8% nationwide.

• There are currently 13,969 pickleball courts in the United States.

The distance problem hits home with me when I have a driving range to deal with that is 280 yards long with a 50 foot net at the end and high school and college kids can’t safely practice there!!!  What have we done to the game and why? 

[David_Tepper]

Mark -

Setting aside the implications for golf, the real question is will Pickleball in the 2020's prove to be the raquetball of the 1980's, a contrived semi-junk sport that had a burst of huge popularity but faded once people realized how one-dimensional the game really was?

DT

[Thomas Dai]

Earlier in the year I was fortunate enough to play the magnificent new 9-hole short Furrows course at Kingston Heath in Melbourne.
It’s magnificent.
Playing it with a regular golf ball was a thrill, a challenge and a smile a minute.
Playing it with a short-length ball, even a much shorter length ball, would I reckon be even more challenging, even more fun and produce even more smiles. If short-golf, ie ‘pickle-golf’ were to be played on courses akin to it, well sign me up right now!!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-pC0dWlwVM4
Atb

[Kalen Braley]

Mark,

I appreciate where you're headed with this, and now more than ever the practical solution seems easy...bifurcation.

Tournament ball for the pros and top am events, normal balls for the masses...and everyone plays from the same 6000 yard tees.

[Mark_Fine]

David,
Time will tell but Pickleball has the advantage over racquetball of being an outdoor as well as indoor sport.  You can even set up a proper court in your driveway or parking lot.  As I said, I never thought I would enjoy playing Pickleball over Tennis but my views changed completely.  In a way it is a lot like golf, the better you get, the more you realize how much skill and strategy and athleticism is necessary to be really good at it. 


I could be dead wrong but if someone like Mike Keiser had Tom Doak or C&C build a world class “championship” half course designed for a short distance golf ball, the world would beat a path to it’s door and he/they might truly change the game of golf. 


One of the first things I would do is host an invitational pro tournament showcasing some of the best players hitting 200 yard drives with their regular drivers and having a blast. 


Paradigm shift 

[Craig Sweet]

If anything needs to be "downsized" it's the egos of those developers that insist Tom Doak build them an 8,000 yard championship course.

[Bruce Katona]

I'm thinking these half sized courses may get to be a bit more popular once the TGL (Tiger & Rory's indoor golf idea) has some airtime.  Why?


1. Less time to play -shorter course, less of a walk, less time to finish, on to the next agenda event of the day.


2. Mix drinking, betting & playing & make it part of the overall experience.


3.Pipe in music - this is an activity, not so much US Open qualifying golf.


4. Fun is the key - make the overall experience for for the masses and you capture the customer.   


[size=78%] [/size]

[Charlie Goerges]

Limited flight ball on halfish-sized golf courses appeals to me. Mostly because I like to hit driver, it’s probably the club I hit the best and I don’t love a round where it’s completely taken out of my hands (like on a short course with the standard current ball)


That said, the world has about 30,000 golf courses built to (mostly) accommodate the current ball. An awful lot of redesign and redevelopment would be needed to turn a decent percentage of those into limited-flight golf. Probably better to just bifurcate while also normalizing the nine hole round.

[Thomas Dai]

I'm thinking these half sized courses may get to be a bit more popular once the TGL (Tiger & Rory's indoor golf idea) has some airtime.  Why?
1. Less time to play -shorter course, less of a walk, less time to finish, on to the next agenda event of the day.
2. Mix drinking, betting & playing & make it part of the overall experience.
3.Pipe in music - this is an activity, not so much US Open qualifying golf.
4. Fun is the key - make the overall experience for for the masses and you capture the customer.   

#1 would be good. Suspect amongst some #2 and #3 would be more of a put-off than an encouragement thus lessening #4. Maybe, maybe not. Peaceful leisure pastime vrs mass market hustle and bustle? Different countries, different cultures, different age group ‘customers’ perhaps. Time will likely tell.
Atb