Isn't golf hard enough?

[Patrick_Mucci]

That is what I am trying to find out.  I will not attest that an easy golf course is featureless.  But, I think designers can develop holes that have an easier route, moderately hard route, and a difficult route into the hole.  Those types of golf courses with every hole as such would demand a lot of land and increase the cost.  A hole that is designed difficult should have an easier route for the high handicappers.  Unfortunately, most high handicappers do not recognize the easier route and try to follow the low handicappers.

As a result, golf could be made less difficult if people would learn the game of strategy, routing, the swing, and etiquette to better understand how the game is played.

Troy,

The genius of NGLA is that it provides what you describe above.

Routes, shots and risks for both the low and high handicap player.

There's even a schematic that shows the prefered routes for a scratch and bogey player.

If you can get a copy of "Scotland's Gift" by CBM, in the back of the book there's a map complete with routing choices on some of the holes.

Scott,

If you've been told that you have a weak grip and you still duck hook the ball your swing plane is way to flat.

Perhaps the swing aid club that breaks apart when you go out of plane would help.

[Scott Szabo]

Thanks Patrick.  I'm sure that with a little time and a few lessons, it could be corrected.  The hard part is finding the time to devote to a swing change.  

[Kirk Gill]

People still vote with their feet, though, and for 95% of the facilities that I've seen with 36 holes or more, the easier course gets the most play.

Well, that depends on a lot of other design qualities besides just "difficulty," wouldn't you say? There's a local complex here in Denver where the easy course is also bland and monotonous. The harder course is has a totally different feel, and every golfer I know, from the relative experts to the lamest hacker would rather take a trip on the harder course, just because of its interest, its visual qualities, and its "fun factor." At the same time, from the right set of tees, that harder course is to my mind not all that hard (I have achieved my personal best score at that course).

For Mr. Mucci, making a course easier "connotes dumbing down the architectural features, or at least altering them toward mediocrity." But don't US Open setups make a course harder while at the same time dumbing down the architectural elements to the point of taking many of them out of play entirely?

[Dave Relford]

My favorite topic that falls in this subject line is the use of multiple tees.  Sitting in the locker room and hearing the bellyaching every now and then about how this is too tough and this is unfair.  Then sure enough, the 10 handicapper is on the back tee, the 22 is on the second to back tee.  Golf courses have 5-6 sets of tees and only the back two sets seem to get used from what I've seen.  I know it's a manhood issue and all that.  I don't know, I just shake my head sometimes.  I know guys that don't break a 100 and I offer to play the middle tees and they say ' oh no way, man '  Then they go Rodney Dangerfield on the scorecard with the pencil tip when the round is over, they're not.. not good.

[Patrick_Mucci]

For Mr. Mucci, making a course easier "connotes dumbing down the architectural features, or at least altering them toward mediocrity."

That's partially true.

But don't US Open setups make a course harder while at the same time dumbing down the architectural elements to the point of taking many of them out of play entirely?

I don't think so.

Most U.S. Open setups involve lengthening the golf course, narrowing the fairways and growing the rough higher and thicker.

I don't see how those alterations "dumb down" the golf course.

Most of the architectural elements remain in play.

However, one could make a case that hi-tech has taken many of the architectural features out of play vis a vis distance.

Bunkers once in a driving zone now find themselves well back of the driving zone.

It's clarifying the definition of "easier" in the context of the architectural features that has yet explained, that interests my curiosity.