Hole location rotation

[JohnV]

While playing at Pacific Dunes last month, I got very frustrated with their policy of using a constant front/middle/back rotation of their holes.  Because the 4 par 5s on the course are 3, 12, 15 and 18, they all had the same hole location each day.  The first day we were there all were on the front, the next day in the middle and the third day all were back.  This was bad enough for us since, but at least we got to see all of them over the 3 days.  For someone who is only playing there once it would be worse.  And if they happened to come back a year later and catch the same rotation, they might not ever see the rest of the green and miss a lot of the fun.

I've been frustrated before by this policy.  I recall one course where they didn't change the holes on Monday so if you always played on the same day of the week (say Saturday), you would always see the same hole locations.

Why can't courses just put the holes out there and not worry about giving my some card that tells me that if it is a #1 day, 1, 4, 7 etc will be on the front...  Or at least think about it and vary them a little so the problem at Pacific doesn't happen?

I know that Pete Galea's crew at Pajaro seems to always have 6-6-6 but they are never the same and the colored flags tell you where the hole is.  If he can do that on a limited budget, why can't a place like Pacific?  Or provide hole location sheets like Pumpkin Ridge does?

Or really provide the Scottish feel and let us figure it out for ourselves.

[A_Clay_Man]

JV- I think it has to do with the ability of the crew. I know Pete has to have one of the more consiencous crew chiefs anywhere. Hell, here at Pinon they switched from the red white and blue flags to all white with the litttle signal flages underneath the big flag. Since I am farsighted I can usually make out the little ones, but most everyone else has difficulty. The justification for the change was that it was too difficult for the crew to have the proper color flag with them when changing the hole location. Now, I don't mind making things efficient for the supers and crew but how much actual extra work is it?

John, I played at Dalton Ranch yesterday and had mixed feelings but one thing I did think was that this was one of the better manufactured CCFAD's. What was your impression of the semi-house riddled course? They had some of the best greens I'd seen in awhile and did use the tri-colored flag system.

[Jeff_Brauer]

John,

Most supers use a system to evenly distribute wear, and can't "just put them out there".  The maintenance factor of distributing wear may supercede balance play difficulty or balance, unless a special event is scheduled (ie tough pins for a tournament, or all easy ones for a scramble or ladies day).
 
Most use a tic-tac-toe board pattern of nine spots.  Some use a six spot board (Back, Middle and Forward, for Right, Left and Middle positions - middle excepted in the six spot)

Further, most use a pattern to move the cup as far as possible from the previous day on each green, such as BACk LEFT,CENTER MIDDLE ,FRONT RIGHT, BACK RIGHT, LEFT MIDDLE, FRONT CENTER, BACK CENTER, RIGHT MIDDLE.

Most will put the pin in each location twice or three times per round, usually making up a card for the pin setter dictating where each hole goes.  It's typical that the placemnt card follows a similar rotation as each green, so the golfer faces a nice balance of pin locations through the round.  

In one way, this gives good variety.  However, it may lead to all par 5's having a back pin, especially if spaced six or nine holes apart.  As a designer, we try to vary the various types of holes to have a balance of "Sunday pin" positions among 3's, 5's, long and short 4's, etc. but usually defer to the best possible hole, even if, such at Cowboys, two par 3's (3 and 17) have the difficult pin back left.

The point is, we have gone through the math of trying to design the set of greens both for difficulty balance using a standard rotation, and there are too many variables to really establish a perfect rotation, except when someone really pays attention for a special event.

[Stan Dodd]

Being a member at Jeff's Wildhorse in CA I have struggled with the front-middle-back rotation every three holes.  It seems to be done without regard to green wear and tear.  These green are large enough with many cuppable positions to move to six or 9 spot rotation.  It also goes to the expertise and caring of the crew as mentioned earlier.