Alternative solution to Technology

[Patrick_Mucci]

Rather than lengthening or in addition to lengthening holes to offset the distance the ball is traveling, should consideration be given to adding new bunkers in the new hitting zone, and more importantly, should greens be reduced in size, with penalties for missing them increased ?

[Pete G.]

I'll go along with bunkering the "new" landing area and increasing penalties for missing the target.
'Nyet' on smaller greens. Decreasing green size with the amount of play these days would lead to less than desirable putting surfaces.
Smaller greens can work at courses which recieve little play, ie: under 20,000 rounds.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Patrick,
More undulations in the new landing zones with perhaps some flatter but guarded target areas to tempt the longer hitter. Miss the flat and you might have a hanger or worse. Hit the flat and be rewarded.
A mix of sizes with all greens having many contours and bumps in them. They could be kept fast but would remain puttable if not overly sloped. Hard to birdie but good par/bogie chance for anyone.
I have always liked dual purpose bunkers that save a mishit shot from a worse fate but don't let one get away scot free.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Pete G,

Don't you find that some greens built since the 60's were overly large, even on courses with a good amount of play ?

[Pete G.]

Yes sir. Some greens built are obscenely large. The reason for this is what? Quirk, trying to be different or si..sig..signiature status.
Green size should be dictated by the strategy of the hole and the amount of traffic it will recieve. Target area is also affected by the width of the collar. Triplex width froghair increases the size of target greatly. Private clubs may still use the 16-18 inch swath, however this is not usually cost effective for public courses.
All this being said, the premises put forth do not address the speed of play issue.

[Dan King]

That's easy.  Keep the pros off your course.

Dan King
dking@danking.org

quote:"You make a lot of money in this game. Just ask my ex-wives. Both of them are so rich that neither of their husbands work."
--Lee Trevino

[aclayman]

So,is it safe to say the classic courses are safe from obsolesence, at least from anyone whos handicap isn't a plus?

[THuckaby2]

I know pros have shot some obscene scores lately at this certain course.. and the college boys regularly go under par... but...

PASATIEMPO I just can't see ever being obsolete.  The greens are such a challenge that even if you do have a wedge in your hand every hole, it's still gonna be tough to score.

More importantly though, at less than 6500 yards, I hit more 2irons, 4irons and 3woods into holes than I do at some 7000 yard courses.  It is never gonna be close to obsolete for this 5 handicapper, that's for sure!

I was just there yesterday, on a lark.  My comments are in the course section.

Make the greens tough enough and obsolescence is never a worry.  Now the separate question is when greens become absurd... this is Pasa's problem...

TH

[Dan King]

My game will never be mistaken for one of the elite golfers in the world.  But from watching golf over the years I sense a growing gap between the best professionals in the world and the best amateurs. Perhaps David Eger or other great amateurs can better answer, but it seems like the leading amateurs can still find plenty of challenge on courses like Merion, NGL, Pasatiempo, etc... and the big changes of late to courses is for the best professionals.

I believe if you had a four day PGA Tour® tournament at Pasatiempo, and allowed the PGA Tour to do their usual setup, you'd have a number of players shooting around 260. These guys just hit it too far and straight. With the same setup, the club championship would probably be reasonably close to 284.

While I think some of the challenges of the great classic courses have changed over the years, I think there is still plenty of challenge for well over 99% of the golfers in the world. That's why I wouldn't change just for the very small percentage that hit the ball too far and too straight. Let the organizations that govern their tournaments worry about them.

Dan King
dking@danking.org

quote:"There's an old saying on tour, 'Set fire to the trees and cover the greens with broken glass, put the pros out there in gasoline-soaked pants and barefooted, and someone will break par.'"
--Tommy Bolt (The Hole Truth, 1971)

[John_Conley]

I think too much attention is placed on trying to build courses that keep up with the top .1% of the golfing population and in the process sacrificing characteristics needed to make them appeal to the rank-and-file.

A Tour pro shot 62 on a new course in my market and his father-in-law couldn't wait to tell everyone in the shop.  "Don't say anything.  I don't want them to think they don't have a good course, because they do."

A scratch player will have a very hard time breaking 70 from same tees and a 6 will have to play well to break 80.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Dan King,

The pros may not be a good barometer for assessing a courses resistance to scoring today, or if its design features still function as intended, but....The next generation, college and high school golfers are hitting the ball incredible distances, and the trend seems to be there.

I don't think anyone fears that 70 year olds are going to turn the course into a pitch and putt, but young golfers and their equipment seem to be doing a good job of it.

The most notable shortcoming seems to be the position of fairway bunkers, and the ability of many golfers to now ignore them tactically, since they can be driven with relative ease.  I seem to recall, many years ago, that bunkers were at the 230 mark, then the 250 mark.  Do we now need bunkers at the 285 mark ?

As the popularity of golf attracts more athletes, and the equipment continues to improve, how do you design a golf course today ?  Where do you place your bunkers ?

Do you shrink greens ?  Do you make missed shots pay a steeper penalty around the greens ?  

[Dan King]

IMHO, if you stop trying to battle distance through architecture the organizations will come to realize they must do something about the ball.  Leave the courses alone. Let the tours shoot 20-30 under, watch the ratings go down and see the tours do something.

I don't see the sky falling otherwise. I don't see a lot of amateurs that are able to hit the ball like pros. I believe by the time this younger generation comes of age something will be done about the ball.

And for long hitters now, what is wrong with them being rewarded for their ability to hit the ball a long way? While I find the pro game boring because they are so good at hitting it long and straight, I don't see the same from the world's best amateurs.  There still seems to be a reasonable trade off between accuracy and distance.

Dan King
dking@danking.org

quote:"A bad week on the tour is when demons dance through your swing thoughts. In the real world, a bad week is when you wake pu to find you're a steelworker in Youngstown."
--Don Wade, 1983

[Patrick_Mucci]

Dan King,

I think we all agree about the ball, but how does an architect design a course today, for tomorrow ?

[Dan King]

You design for today and assume the governing bodies will take care of tomorrow.

There is a reasonable chance we have seen the maximum an approved ball will go. The USGA and R&A are improving their ball testing, and will better be able to test balls for advanced swing speeds.  The problem is that they will end up grandfathering in all existing balls and their equivalent.

Who knows, maybe in 30 years we are at the same spot, with manufacturers again having figured out away to get around the new USGA and R&A testing. But again, the problem will be for the governing bodies not for architects. Courses constantly modified to handle longer and longer length have given the governing bodies an out from doing their job, maintaining the same maximum distance on the golf ball.

Dan King
dking@danking.org

quote:"There are many bad long courses and many very good short courses, and length has very little to do with merit."
--Harry S. Colt

[Mike_Rewinski]

Patrick, you had better put those new fairway bunkers pretty far out. You know the 12th at Westhampton, we built the pond on the inside of slight dogleg to take the driver out the golfers hand and protect the 14th green from sliced tee shots. This weekend in our member-member I saw a 21 year old golfer, who weighs about 150 and stands all of 5'9", carry the pond, it was 280yds as measured with my laser. He had a good helping wind, but still....

[Mike_Cirba]

Dan King;

I understand what you are saying about the governing bodies, but coming from your scientific background, I think you understand the inherent problem.

The fact is, the R&D dollars going into the equipment companies cumulatively far exceeds that which goes into the USGA coffers for testing.  It is a game of leap-frog, and the USGA is always in the catch-up position.  

There are many more laws of physics that govern the total distance a golf ball will travel (especially in combination with new driver materials and technology) than can be measured accurately in the acceleration rate of a ball.  By focusing on this one factor, the equipment companies have danced all around the USGA guidelines, all while claiming total compliance.  

The USGA is losing the battle of numbers and dollars, pure and simple.  Head have been stuck in the sand in that organization, as well, denying that a problem exists while all the day to day empirical date suggests otherwise.

Maybe long-hitting BillV can weigh in here about where huge-driving Scott Hoch's drive on 18 LANDED at Cog Hill.  Bill has played that course many times years ago, and can give a first-hand account of the problem.

[aclayman]

Hoch's drive was not that huge. I think it measured some 290 ish. 463 minus 176, 6 iron in is a decent club.

[GeoffreyC]

Here is an article where John Fought who is now working with Tom Lehman proposes that new courses need added length. He thinks the average single digit handicap should play from 6800-7000 yard golf courses and tours should extend markers beyond 7400 yards. It looks like many in the business are not proponents of equipment rollbacks.
http://www.pgatour.com/u/ce/multi/0,1977,4082118,00.html

Instead, I agree with those who think interesting greensites and firm conditions are better ways to combat technology. I also think we should build more sporty courses under 6800 yards and forget about the pros! When a course like Metacomet built on less than 100 acres and about 6500 yards from the tips can put a smile on my face for the entire round I say who cares about the PGA tour.

[John_Conley]

Oh horrors!  Conditions dictate how long a course plays at least as much as the number, so I don't know how 740 yards from an elevated tee plays in the desert.  

To me it seems pretty simple... the best courses today are the same as the best courses 50 years ago and moving a tee on each hole back 100 yards! from where the average golfer plays (7700-6200 = 1500 / 18 is close to 100 yards on average per hole) means the trouble has to be placed on the sides.  Where would you put a cross bunker?

John Fought and Tom Lehman are working on Windsong Farms, whose site is the old property of a doctor I caddied for.  It'll be interesting to see how it turns out.  Lehman's project with Kurt Sandness at Lake Jovita turned out very good.

This year's U.S. Open played at about 6900 yards on VERY firm fairways, so the course looked a little short on TV for them.  But with par at 70 and other classic design features, it appears that Southern Hills is a place where the membership (98.3% of the rounds played this year by my estimation) and today's Touring professional (the other 1.7%) can both find enjoyment.

How'd you like to walk Fought's 7700 yard course if you played a forward tee?   You might walk 100 yards past the back box to get to the "members" marker and another 40 to the "ladies" tee.  Four hour round?  I don't think you'd be close.

If John Fought set out to challenge me with a course of 6150 and par 70, I think it would be a lot more interesting than one of 7700 yards and par 72.

As mentioned on other posts, I do favor "flex" tees... the existence of a back box only designed to play when certain conditions (i.e. a lot of wind) necessitate that to preserve the intent of a hole.

Haven't seen Pumpkin Ridge but have heard it's nice.  I'm sure I'd like some John Fought courses.  But the assertion that courses need to be 7400 yards minimum, with a preferred 7700, only ensures that more courses will be built like the RTJ Trail.  Haven't seen 'em, but my first choice would be Chicago Golf, Cypress Point, Merion, Cruden Bay, National Golf Links, Shinnecock, Royal Portrush, Machrihanish, etc...