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Tom Huckaby

Re:Are there any holes that would be better with a narrower fairway?
« Reply #25 on: December 05, 2007, 10:37:30 AM »
RC - great stuff - many thanks.

TH

Ally Mcintosh

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Re:Are there any holes that would be better with a narrower fairway?
« Reply #26 on: December 05, 2007, 11:03:27 AM »
The famous very narrow fairway at The Island seems appropriate because the hole is dead straight and short. I can imagine it being narrower I guess ;D

i wonder if anyone could post a photo of this hole... you'd still have to stand on the tee to believe it though...

was this hole the old first (making it twice as difficult)?... the clubhouse used to sit beside the 13th green...

Jeff_Brauer

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Re:Are there any holes that would be better with a narrower fairway?
« Reply #27 on: December 06, 2007, 09:22:47 AM »
Always an interesting argument. While my feeble brain process the world's 500,000 or so golf holes for examples, I will throw out a few thoughts:

Any super will clamor to take out fw where hardly anyone ever hits it to save maintenance costs.  Is lack of divots a sign of lack of strategy for a particular area of fw?

The counter argument says that if there is a miss (esp. on a dl like PB 8) to the wrong side of the fw, is it necessary to add to the punishment with rough, rather than fw?

Balancing the two, the general trend would probably be to take out extra fw on shorter holes, leave it on long, other than a few exceptions for variety.

I think Thomas favored narrower fw (and greens) on downwind holes, thinking that the tailwind straightened shots there, and a narrowing still allowed a doable shot.

Still haven't thought of any specific holes, but I am sure there are some.  Lets start by arguing US Open fw are too wide and need to be narrowed, or just taken out all together......
Jeff Brauer, ASGCA Director of Outreach

JESII

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Re:Are there any holes that would be better with a narrower fairway?
« Reply #28 on: December 10, 2007, 11:02:31 AM »
Kelly,

What happens if you aim where you did (the first time) and pull it 20 yards? Is it gorse? High fescue? There better be something worse than "forgiving rough" over there to make it a decision at all, right?

How easy was the shot to the green from your first round drive?

From your second round drive in the right rough, could you have gone around (right of?) the cross bunkers? That appears to leave a poor angle into the green, so no good...but it might just be the drawing.


All in all, my answer to your hypothetical probably comes down to whether or not the area you might see as fairway is actually any more difficult in its current state as "forgiving rough"...alot of the fairways on links courses are pretty tough to hit long irons and fairway woods off of...thin, manageable fescue rough might make it easier now than in your configuration...

Art Roselle

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Re:Are there any holes that would be better with a narrower fairway?
« Reply #29 on: December 10, 2007, 12:51:20 PM »
The answer here has to be yes.  Saying no would be basically equivalent to saying that every hole would be better with a wider fairway (isn't that the contrapositive or something?).  Even though both of those statements may be usually true, they aren't always true.  Of course it also depends on what you are going to narrow the fairway with.  Trees? nasty rough? bunkers? lake?  Most fairway bunkering serves to narrow the fairway in some way and if you think such a bunker is well placed, then you must think that hole is better with a fairway "narrower" than it would otherwise be (if the bunker were removed).

I think some holes would benefit from a more narrow fairway, if the change would add risk to trying the heroic line of play.  This seems especially true on holes with a dogleg.  Take #13 at ANGC, if a player tries to sling it around the corner and does not pull it off, it seems appropriate that he will run out of fairway straight away and end up in the trees and pine straw.  If that were all just fairway, the hole would be worse IMO.  

JESII

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Re:Are there any holes that would be better with a narrower fairway?
« Reply #30 on: December 10, 2007, 01:00:58 PM »
So then please...cite for me a specific hole that you would take from its current form and decrease the overall width of its fairway in the expectation of improving the hole.

By the way, I do not agree with your premise (that many others on this thread have proposed) that this question is the equivalent to asking if there are holes that would be improved if we widened the fairway? I disagree because this is not meant as a hypothetical question...I wonder if there are holes on the ground that you would narrow in hopes of improving.

Huckaby did what you want to do but with a reason...the hole was apparently built with the wider fairway and has since shrunk...

Kelly did as well, but was asking our opinion of the cost/benefit of widening that fairway, so it was an interesting question for me...

TEP named two holes, and I have not yet responded to him...but I think I disagree with both of his examples...although I'd like to talk about #8 at Gulph Mills...



Art,

Are there any specific holes that you would narrow the fairway on in hopes of improving the hole?

Art Roselle

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Re:Are there any holes that would be better with a narrower fairway?
« Reply #31 on: December 10, 2007, 05:07:34 PM »
JES
Now you are asking me to come up with a creative idea, rather than just reacting to something already in the ground.  I am clearly better at the latter.

I do understand your underlying point because when you start to try to think of specific examples, there just aren't many.  This is mainly due to the fact that so few courses have wide fairways in the first place (which may be your other point).  The few examples I can think of often need narrowing because of some other design flaw or because of technology, where the intended hazards have become obsolete.  I generally do not like the idea of new rough, but I do think some holes could use some narrowing through good bunkering.  So, here goes

1) Charlotte CC #15 - This is a slight dogled left with several bunkers on the outside of the dogleg.  From there it goes downhill to the green.  Ron Prichard is restoring the course and has added a cross bunker on the left and several additional bunkers on the left up closer to the green.  This effectively narrows the fairway in several spots, but I think it is a good change.  As players hit it farther, the bunkers on the right had become less and less relevant and lots of players could just bash it over the corner and down the hill toward the green.  The new bunkers and narrower landing area will at least force players to think about what they are doing before they rear back and kill it.

2) Valhalla #6 - I liked this hole better before they changed it, as they have now moved the green back 150 yards beyond the ravine.  Still, with that change, I think the fairway on the far side of the ravine should be narrower.  It is just a big wide runway up to the front edge so that a player who hits it out of position can really just hit it anywhere across the creek and then pitch on.  I think it would be more interesting if there were a bunker on one side of that landing area, narrowing the fairway short of the green.  Then, a player who lays back too far or hits it out of position would have to make some decisions about what to do next.

3) AGNC #18 - I would prefer it if they had just left Augusta alone and had no rough anywhere.  Despite that general view, if you look at #18 in a vacuum, I can see why a narrower fairway with rough on the left makes sense.  I think it had gotten sort of silly when today's players could just hammer it well left and way beyond the bunker.  Angle of attack does not matter much if you have a wedge from a perfect lie.  Forcing the player to go either short of or right of that bunker makes it a tougher decision and helps bring the bunker back into play.  Maybe that problem was fixed by the new back tee, but I can see why a narrower fairway there improves the hole.

I admit that I am agreeing with a prior narrowing more than I am advocating any new changes, but such are the limits of my creativity.  I am also prepared for whatever onslaught of outrage is spawned by that last one.

Art

JESII

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Re:Are there any holes that would be better with a narrower fairway?
« Reply #32 on: December 11, 2007, 09:43:25 AM »
Kelly,

I thought about this a good bit...and I am in a tough position having not played the hole but you described it in good detail and I can see from the image most of what you are talking about.

Very few holes these days seem to really require a particular shot shape for better players to have success...this one looks like it really suggests a strong player hit a draw to keep it close to the left to have a reasonable angle into the green with their second. Adding fairway left of the bunkers would eliminate that requirement.

For the majority of players this seems like it could be one of the old "shot-testing" type of holes like #7 at Pine Valley...hit two shots a total of X or pay the hefty price of not reaching the green with your next. I am really not sure if opening up the fairway left would make the hole better or worse for those players because by definition they likely do not have the control to hit it into a 20 yard gap, but they would likely try to anyway...I might be mis-interpreting how penal that area to the left of the tee shot bunkers is/would be...

JESII

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Re:Are there any holes that would be better with a narrower fairway?
« Reply #33 on: December 12, 2007, 11:06:41 AM »
Just ask Shivas...he spent your sabbatical telling these guys that their idea of width adding options is bull...all it does it make it easier...somewhere in between for me.