[James Edwards]

I have recently had a discussion with my colleagues about what is a reasonable turning point yardage.  I know that from firm to firm this changes considerably.

I have seen as little as 220 metres off the back tee up to 259 metres from a well respected American golf course architect / Professional Player.

The first part of my question to those who are willing to discuss is what are your preferred turning point m/y ?  and why?

Are they dependent on the dog-leg severity?  meaning sometimes if your turning point is a standard 240m and the dog-leg comes at 215m then your axis line will cut across most of the woodland or whatever and does not fit?

The second part of the question regards the strategy of the bunkering relating to the turning point.  If the turning point comes at say 240m/ 265yards, and you bunker the corner accordingly to catch the good players bad play, then should bunkers be positioned to challenge the poorer player to give them some challenege, because all to often I hear the bad players say "the bunkers never come into play for us because they are so far up not even from the forward tees...."

Your thoughts...

[cary lichtenstein]

My old home course in Chicago, Green Acres CC, built in the 1920's had turning points around 200 yards. 60 years of tree growth, and you had to hit a rope hook on some holes to stay in the fairway.

Fred Ruttenburg's course in New Jersey is the same

[TEPaul]

My own course, GMGC, a 1916 Donald Ross, has a topoed stick routing diagram where on all the par 4s and 5s Ross labeled the LZ (or dot) as "tee to bend" even if the hole was straight. Those yardages were in a spectrum a little below to a little above 200 yards.

On a course of the Love Design Co. in Delaware I'm fooling with they seem to have the LZs at close to 300 from the tips. From what I'm seeing these days in the "A" class state tournaments that looks to be just about right with some suitable roll.

[Tom_Doak]

James:

There are turning points and then there is what you use them for.

I still use 800 feet on paper because that's what Pete Dye taught me ... even though I would bet that Pete uses 850 or even 900 feet now.  Jack Nicklaus uses 850.

Whatever the number, it is still a point on a line.  For a dogleg hole to work well, it has to work whether the player hits it to the "turning point" or 50 yards on either side of it.  I don't build very many holes with a significant dogleg, because I don't like to force long hitters to lay up their drives, or short hitters to lay up their second shots because they can't see around the corner from a short drive.

I do try to build one or two holes a round where the preferred landing area is short of the 800-foot mark, for the sake of variety.  However it is very hard to remember to do that when you keep drawing the line to 800 feet ... this is the weakness of thinking too much about a "turning point" in my opinion.

[Forrest Richardson]

It will vary with the type of course/golfer and altitude. At sea level we use 220-yards from the COMMON tees; i.e., those which will be used mostly by the average-skilled player. Tees farther back and forward vary greatly.

Interestingly, Nicklaus no longer designs from the back tees, although he may well prepare plans with 900-ft. centerlines. A few years ago at the ASGCA meeting he shared that their philosophy is to design from where the member or typical player will use the course. It was refreshing as our approach had always been to do so — but many of my peers have commented that our short centerlines from the next-to-the-back tees don't look right.

[TEPaul]

Tom Doak said;

"I don't build very many holes with a significant dogleg, because I don't like to force long hitters to lay up their drives,"

That's an interesting point. I can think of a whole lot of old doglegs around here where longer players do have to lay up with their drives. On most all those holes I'm thinking of that problem could actually be fairly easily solved by just adding or extending fairway past the dogleg. This would actually work beautifully conceptually because even though the longer hitter has less in he's almost always out of angle to the green!

[paul cowley]

 Tom is right that at Love Golf Design we do ocassionally have measurements for certain holes that use 300 yds to the TP....but not always, as we try for fexibility without a definitive landing zone driving the holes strategy.....more and more I try to eliminate fixed point designed holes, opting instead for what I like to refer to as 'the curve or curves of charm'........and when I finally get TomP out in the field, flask in hand, I will let him try to explain what is meant by that.

.....that is once he sobers up sufficienty to type something intelligent, least he lapse into Behr speak  

[TEPaul]

The "curve of charm"

That's it Paul. I love that idea and that term!

How about if we morph a plan for that Del project into the ultimate in golf architecture----"courses within a course". I could perhaps manage an iteration of up to seven of them in one course and even in such a way that when playing one no one would even notice the other six. That way those cats in Newark can have a different golf course for every day of the week!

Do you think they have even a glimmer of understanding of how lucky they are to have a couple of nut-cases like us?  

[Forrest Richardson]

Unfortunately — as Mr. Cowley knows — my "curve of charm" is a low velocity slice of about 190-yards!

[Jeff_Brauer]

James,

Ditto what Tom Doak said.

I have used both 850 and 900 feet in the last year as "Turning points."  If I am doing a 7000 yard plus regulations course, or one in the mountains, I think its time to go to 900 feet.  I am doing a nine hole course right now, and will use 800 or 850, since I can't imagine enough long bombers playing to justify going longer.  Even for championship type courses, I try to remember that it is only a dozen or so guys on TV launching it 325 and more, and they don't do it all the time.  Even at 300 yards, its probable I will catch long hitters on the fly, while "average" 300 yard players will roll in!

Like Tom, I rarely purposely dogleg a hole short of those turning points, as some golfers just can't force a fade or draw, and they feel like you've screwed them.  I also am against sharp doglegs, perhaps since the first course I played was Medinah No. 3, and it took a lot of critiscism for its sharp left doglet 13 (now 16) and sharp right dogleg 18 (now defunct)  My mentor used to say, "There are only two instances when I won't use sharp dogleges - when there are a lot of trees and when there aren't!" A clever way to sum up the problems of hitting short in woods, and having no defense without trees.

We tend to use the same measurement on all holes other than par 3's just to avoid confusion. However, that doesn't mean all fw hazards automatically line up at that point.  I try to consider prevailing wind, uphill/downhill and topography factors.  Even then, I would stick a fw bunker in the natural slope, even if it was a few yards long or short of where I calculate the drive "should be."  

I play my own courses, and can often remember where the pole marking the turnpoint was.  I don't recall ever seeing a divot right at the old pole location!  Golfers vary so much, that assuming every drive will go exactly 266, 283, or 300 yards and placing your hazards to precise mathematical measurements is not going to bring those into play more than other locations nearby.

BTW, I have played golf with Forrest Richardson.  We always used to call out after his tee shots "Run Forrest's Ball, Run" which I think a movie director must have heard, and incorporated in a movie some time back........

[Forrest Richardson]

Jeff is allowed to encourage my ball to run, unless it is headed for one of those aiming poles. I cannot afford to have any potential distance thwarted.

I am dismayed at plans where I do not see any centerline drawn from the tees which will undoubtedly accommodate the highest percentage of players. While calculating strategy and play from ALL tees is essential, it seems to me that depicting a routing from where the greatest percentage of players will begin each hole is most prudent.

[paul cowley]

...Forrest...come on man you're being a tad modest, that low slung slice is more like 200 or 205 yds ......but then again, it was a tough day to see the course for all the forrest.

...one of whom has started BTW and is doing quite well....I think this will be a most enjoyable experience for all involved.

 Hope you and yours are also doing well,
  tah tah....p ::)ul

[paul cowley]

...on further reflection, there are times when the first thing I do is put a bunker [usually about a 8.5 on the bunker reichter scale], squarely in the turn point, and then let the hole flow from there.......not out of desperation mind you, but for the thrill of it....curve of charm kind of stuff.

[Jim Thompson]

It seems to me that the turning point concept, particularly in instances where holes are tree lined or pinched, is one of the fallacies of design.  It reinforces the notion of a common landing zone for players of all tees.  I would much rather see varying landing zones that move forward as the tees move forward.  I know full well it is not always practical but should, in my mind, be the goal.  Without this approach I feel you get holes or even courses that play well, both from execution and strategy, from a single set of tees rather then from all tees.

Edit:

Tips: 270
Member champ: 250
Normal Play: 230
Sr. / Adv ladies: 210
JR./ ladies:190

Forrest,
I’m left here imagining how far you could stripe a ball if you ever went past the self imposed 1/6th follow through?

Cheers!

JT

[Forrest Richardson]

1/6...? I have improved. It used to be 1/7.

[James Edwards]

Tom, Forrest, Jim, Paul and Jeff  ,

Thank you foir sharing your thoughts....  I believe Nicklaus was using 259m @ Loch Lomond??

The reason for this question was because we have just started work with a golf club in Germany to rebunker their course due to a significant storm which essentially washed away their bunkering almost completely.

Whilst I was working on this, I came to the 4th, a dog leg from left to right, tree lined like most holes are in the region and had to decide whether to keep the 240m turning points we employ as standard - which is shown crossing the woodland quite significantly.

The turning point if shown as per the fairway corridor would of fallen at around 200m?  

Would you guys make an acception and just draw the 200m line?

[Tom_Doak]

James:

If I am drawing the plan, I will make all the turning points the same, so as not to confuse myself when trying to measure the course later.

A couple of the turning points on our plan for Sebonack were longer than 800 feet (because we were using a "special" back tee on those holes, or because the engineers had redrawn our original plan and something got shifted).  Nicklaus picked up on that right away ... he wanted them all the same, too.

It's just a line.  Drawing it the same as the rest will emphasize to the members just how that hole really plays.

[James Edwards]

Tom,

Yes, that it what I leaned towards also when I worked on the masterplan -

..measuring the course on this line will be incorrect though, wouldnt it?

..why did you make an acception for these back tees?

[Forrest Richardson]

I might point out (and I will) that we often will depict centerlines of varying length due to terrain. For example, last week we were working on a routing in Utah where a proposed 2nd hole climbs 80-feet. Obviously the length of a tee shot will be considerably less from the tee due to the uphill shot and no roll. We will show this centerline at 200-yards from the "common" tees — ordinarily it would be 235-yards at this 7,000-ft. altitude (from the member tees.) Conversly, on a downhill par-5 we will show the centerline from the tee shot at 245-yards as the 60-foot drop will lengthen the average tee shot.

As Tom D. points out — it is only a line! But, none-the-less, it begins to suggest and set-up all sorts of decisions. As an expert witness on numerous cases involving injury from golf balls, I can attest that the centerline is an essential reference to the design of any golf hole / course. It must be carefully considered...even though it is still "just a line."

[paul cowley]

....in reality, we usually use one consistant length during the plan phase......along the way extra tees may be added that we refer to as tournament tees.....sometimes they show up on the 'official' scorecard, sometimes not.

...on a few courses of late, because of the equipment changes and the length of time from planning to completion, we have changed turn points mid-stream during construction, usually by adding more length with new tees.....if you only knew how little sleep I have had concerning these issues.... sometimes I wish there was the equivalent of a sports psychologist for golf designers...is there anyone out there who might be in touch with their design self and might want to share?...........

[Jeff_Brauer]

....sometimes I wish there was the equivalent of a sports psychologist for golf designers...is there anyone out there who might be in touch with their design self and might want to share?...........

Jim Beam, Jack Daniels, Bud Wiser, Glen Levit, all come to mind as counselors to designers past and present......

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