Green to tee walks

[Mark Mammel]

As an aging golfer who still finds walking a golf course the only way to really understand the strategy, the flow and the overall design philosophy, I am often discouraged by what seems to me to be essentially a rule for new designs- greens must be distant from tees for safety reasons. I play at White Bear Yacht Club, where the 18 holes opened in fall of 1915, and like other courses of this era greens and tees are very close together. Tom Doak and Jim Urbina (Jim continues as our consulting architect) both helped us understand how the course could better reflect its heritage and original feel. My understanding from listening over the years is that there are fairly strict guidelines in the world of course design that make it nearly impossible to create the proximity of the old courses. Much of this I suspect is also a question of length. Today, when the player heads to the next tee, he or she first passes the back tees, then the next ones, and so on, experiencing the full 7000+ yards even if the tees played are 6200 or so. For most older courses, where the overall length was generally 6500 yards or so, the next tee was often the white tee, with back tees often added behind. This probably reflects the sensibilities of the time, when many courses had only 2, or sometimes 1 set of tees. I became acutely aware of this playing at St Patrick's- 18 great holes but a very hard walk for the older players. Similarly, Erin Hills, Chaska Town Course (back 9 especially; comes to mind as I just played there to see where the US Amateur will be played, along with Hazeltine), and others to numerous to list. For me, this detracts from the sense of flow and continuity I love. Is this an issue for anybody else?  Any thoughts from our many esteemed architects in the forum?

[Charlie Goerges]

Yeah, I often wonder why many newer designs don't put the forward/middle tees next to the previous green rather than the back tees. Just on the basis of play volume, this would seem to be more efficient. I say that realizing that there are many other design considerations in play as well.

[Thomas Dai]

Another aspect of where the increase in distance of the modern era ball and clubs have affected the game.
Atb

[Jeff_Brauer]

Charlie,


I am aware of that being the best arrangement, i.e., keep the tees 90% of golfers use closer and make those 1% tees a longer walk.  That said, it is not always possible.


Mark,


It's been discussed before, but close proximity is going the way of country roads and two lane highways, replaced with wider roads, and more lanes, etc.  I didn't see you mention it, but cart paths drive some of that as well. You have to leave at least the 10-12 feet for the path.  My "standard" to keep cart paths less visible from greens while still being "handy" was 60 ft from green edge on the right, 50 on the left, and 40 from the back edge.  I do know some who prefer as little as 30 feet from the back edge of the green. 


I also found that with all the milling around at tees, the old curb against the tee edge causes a lot of wear.  I preferred at least 20 feet between path and tee.


Add all that up for a tee on the slice side of the green, and you get 60+12+20, or 92 feet.  Add in 50 feet to the green center and 25 feet for the width of the tee, the minimum you would want the center poles of both would be about 175 feet on the right, 165 on the left and 145 from the back, although I have cheated the back down to 130 on occasion, especially if the cart path goes to the middle tees and doesn't cross the back of the green.


It adds up.

[Tom_Doak]

Cart paths are the #1 enemy.  I’ve been lucky to work on a lot of projects designed for walking, and in hindsight, I always find a couple of green sites where we couldn’t have built what we did if we’d had to have a cart path.


When we built The Rawls Course I was surprised they wanted carts and therefore cart paths, but “where would we put the cooler?” was the ruling question.  That was a traditional “core” golf course (more than two parallel fairways wide), and I suddenly realized that the cart path in between holes had to be well outside the cone of safety for the hole playing back the opposite way.  It added like 20 acres to the course!

[Wayne_Kozun]

I didn't see you mention it, but cart paths drive some of that as well. You have to leave at least the 10-12 feet for the path.  My "standard" to keep cart paths less visible from greens while still being "handy" was 60 ft from green edge on the right, 50 on the left, and 40 from the back edge.  I do know some who prefer as little as 30 feet from the back edge of the green. 


I also found that with all the milling around at tees, the old curb against the tee edge causes a lot of wear.  I preferred at least 20 feet between path and tee.


Add all that up for a tee on the slice side of the green, and you get 60+12+20, or 92 feet.  Add in 50 feet to the green center and 25 feet for the width of the tee, the minimum you would want the center poles of both would be about 175 feet on the right, 165 on the left and 145 from the back, although I have cheated the back down to 130 on occasion, especially if the cart path goes to the middle tees and doesn't cross the back of the green.


It adds up.

So does that mean that courses that are designed without cart paths score better on this metric and have a better chance of being first class courses?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Wayne,


Probably.....at least until someone gets knocked on the head with an errant golf ball.


As Tom mentioned, now that we have more data on the safety cone of all levels of player, putting the path too far inside that might be seen as malpractice. I know of a case where a golfer got hit on an adjacent fairway, well outside the 15-16 degree cone to the left (for right handers) and they are suing to force the course to put up 140 nets between each fairway......


That will make most architects sit up and take notice.  It is probably already a standard clause in most analysis reports to say the owner is forcing the gca to build a course on a "substandard sized site."


The other thing to consider is if carts go between tees and greens, which are typically valleys between fills, whether anyone would like the soggy turf that would be created.  Asphalt does surface drain faster!

[Wayne_Kozun]

Probably.....at least until someone gets knocked on the head with an errant golf ball.

The courses that I am very familiar with that were designed to be walking only are Cabot Links and Cabot Cliffs. Just because there is no cart path doesn't mean that the next tee is more likely to be in the danger zone.  On these two courses there is generally a fair bit of separation between greens and tees and usually a bit of a walk.  Maybe the most danger would be the 16th tee at Cabot Links or the 16th tee at Cabot Cliffs.

At my home club, Scarboro, we used to have several safety fences up because once upon a time someone got hit by a ball.  We got a new super a few years ago and he has "uncluttered" the course and removed all of these fences.  No one has been hit yet. But we do have a couple of instances where tees are somewhat in danger due to proximity to greens.  And we do have cart paths, but they were added well after the course was constructed in1912 and then changed in 1926 by Tillinghast.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Wayne,


True, only the actual distance between concentrated play areas determines most of the safety. From your description, the Cabot courses seem to be designed closer to the modern separation guidelines. (No one likes to call them standards for legal reasons.)


Your home club is designed to older guidelines, which is also common. The thing about safety nets is that, like insurance, you hope they aren't needed, and they usually aren't until they are. As one lawyer told me, "The first accident is on the house. The second sets it up as a pattern." I'm not sure if in your situation, someone getting hit AFTER a net was taken down would be viewed by the victim and his attorney.


Overall, I looked at safety in terms of probability statistics, and you are offering anecdotes, so I am not sure what you are saying.

[Wayne_Kozun]

I was saying, at least in my original post, that it appears to me that courses that are designed without cart paths have a higher degree of being better courses since they don't have to leave room for cart paths or change the location of a tee or green to fit in a cart path.

[Phil Burr]

I do not mind an extended walk from green to tee as long as it does not  leave me gasping for breath at the end.  And no more than once per round.


Two good ones that come to mind are the tunnel of trees that bring you from 15-16 at CPC.  The other is the riverside path from 12-13 at Highlands Links.  Yes, it almost 500 yards.  My buddy & I made it a game within a game, slapping at a ball while pushing our trolleys as we walked nonstop while keeping the ball on the path the whole time.  There are so many creative iterations of golf that we can enjoy!

[Tom_Doak]

I do not mind an extended walk from green to tee as long as it does not  leave me gasping for breath at the end.  And no more than once per round.


Two good ones that come to mind are the tunnel of trees that bring you from 15-16 at CPC.  The other is the riverside path from 12-13 at Highlands Links.  Yes, it almost 500 yards.  My buddy & I made it a game within a game, slapping at a ball while pushing our trolleys as we walked nonstop while keeping the ball on the path the whole time.  There are so many creative iterations of golf that we can enjoy!

Another way of saying this is, it's not a problem if I really like the course; but it's a good excuse to take it down a peg if I don't really like the course.


I do think close green-to-tee walks are a terrific feature if the site and the plan allow for them; but there are plenty of great courses where people grant exceptions to their rules.

[Brett Meyer]

I do not mind an extended walk from green to tee as long as it does not  leave me gasping for breath at the end.  And no more than once per round.


Two good ones that come to mind are the tunnel of trees that bring you from 15-16 at CPC.  The other is the riverside path from 12-13 at Highlands Links.  Yes, it almost 500 yards.  My buddy & I made it a game within a game, slapping at a ball while pushing our trolleys as we walked nonstop while keeping the ball on the path the whole time.  There are so many creative iterations of golf that we can enjoy!

Another way of saying this is, it's not a problem if I really like the course; but it's a good excuse to take it down a peg if I don't really like the course.


I do think close green-to-tee walks are a terrific feature if the site and the plan allow for them; but there are plenty of great courses where people grant exceptions to their rules.

If Highland Links had been built today, those on this site and like-minded others would ding it so bad for the routing. I certainly would. It isn't just 12-13, but also 6-7, which must be at least 300 yards. Amazing to me being a golfer growing up in the 00s seeing everyone taking a cart on even the simplest walking courses that there was a time when everyone walked Highland Links.


But then again, if there were ever a place where it'd be reasonable to make an exception, it's Highland Links. It's in a national park, so you can just think of it as a hike where you also get to play golf.

[Ira Fishman]

I do not mind an extended walk from green to tee as long as it does not  leave me gasping for breath at the end.  And no more than once per round.


Two good ones that come to mind are the tunnel of trees that bring you from 15-16 at CPC.  The other is the riverside path from 12-13 at Highlands Links.  Yes, it almost 500 yards.  My buddy & I made it a game within a game, slapping at a ball while pushing our trolleys as we walked nonstop while keeping the ball on the path the whole time.  There are so many creative iterations of golf that we can enjoy!

Another way of saying this is, it's not a problem if I really like the course; but it's a good excuse to take it down a peg if I don't really like the course.


I do think close green-to-tee walks are a terrific feature if the site and the plan allow for them; but there are plenty of great courses where people grant exceptions to their rules.

Yep. I embraced CPC 15-16, Cruden Bay 8-9, Friar’s Head 15-16, Koehler River 4-5, and even Bandon Trails 13-14 with various beauty/reveal/next hole is terrific justifications. Courses on my favorites list. But I could not abide any of the long walks at Kapalua Plantation because I did not care for the course—and we were riding!!


Ira

[Tim_Weiman]

As an aging golfer who still finds walking a golf course the only way to really understand the strategy, the flow and the overall design philosophy, I am often discouraged by what seems to me to be essentially a rule for new designs- greens must be distant from tees for safety reasons. I play at White Bear Yacht Club, where the 18 holes opened in fall of 1915, and like other courses of this era greens and tees are very close together. Tom Doak and Jim Urbina (Jim continues as our consulting architect) both helped us understand how the course could better reflect its heritage and original feel. My understanding from listening over the years is that there are fairly strict guidelines in the world of course design that make it nearly impossible to create the proximity of the old courses. Much of this I suspect is also a question of length. Today, when the player heads to the next tee, he or she first passes the back tees, then the next ones, and so on, experiencing the full 7000+ yards even if the tees played are 6200 or so. For most older courses, where the overall length was generally 6500 yards or so, the next tee was often the white tee, with back tees often added behind. This probably reflects the sensibilities of the time, when many courses had only 2, or sometimes 1 set of tees. I became acutely aware of this playing at St Patrick's- 18 great holes but a very hard walk for the older players. Similarly, Erin Hills, Chaska Town Course (back 9 especially; comes to mind as I just played there to see where the US Amateur will be played, along with Hazeltine), and others to numerous to list. For me, this detracts from the sense of flow and continuity I love. Is this an issue for anybody else?  Any thoughts from our many esteemed architects in the forum?

Mark,


It is a good topic. I don’t recall many threads on this subject in times past.


Intimate courses with short green to tee walks have always appealed to me. Unless I’m mistaken, it feels like this is more common with older courses.


As for longer walks and the impact on older golfers, I think it is both distance and topography that matters. Walking up to tees gets old.


FYI, I thought through this issue for Old Barnwell, a big bold modern course. Most of the holes require walking forward for the shorter length tees, but usually somewhat down hill. A few holes do require an uphill backward walk that I suspect many older guys just won’t do.

[D_Malley]

A modern golf course with very close green to tee placement is Applebrook (Hanse/Wagner) in philly area.
But as mentioned above this was designed as a walking only course and remains as so with a vibrant caddy program.
There are several holes where the green sourounds blend right into the following tee box.
I beleive it opened around 2000

[Thomas Dai]

Long green to next tee walks (or buggy ride) frequently means long forced carries for the tee shot.
Atb

[Ben Sims]

It added like 20 acres to the course!

What!? I have zero frame of reference and have no reason to doubt. But this is such a shocking number I have to ask about it.

[Sean_A]

It added like 20 acres to the course!

What!? I have zero frame of reference and have no reason to doubt. But this is such a shocking number I have to ask about it.

I clocked 20 acres as well. But in a way it makes sense. How many acres are added for mega tee courses? The sort that have tees spread enough that par 3s and sometimes 4s can be built between holes.

Ciao

[Jeff_Brauer]

I once had an oversized property, and our preliminary routings aimed to use it all.  After we ran the cost of additional irrigation piping and cart paths to get to the far reaching property, we realized we had to tighten it up just to get close to budget.


Semi related, but as a young pup, my older project manager shook his head at some of the climbs up to tees I had incorporated.  He said he hoped he would be alive when I reached his then age to see how I felt about the climb. Now that I am his age then, I am starting to understand just what he was saying!

[Wayne_Kozun]

Long green to next tee walks (or buggy ride) frequently means long forced carries for the tee shot.
Atb

At Cabot St Lucia it leads to more downhill tee shots as several of the paths from green to the next tee are uphill.