To what extent do you need central hazards/features with width?

[Thomas Dai]

A few photos posted recently have shown holes with pretty extreme fairway width or tree-line to tree-line width.

To what extent do you need central hazards/features of some kind - bunkers, streams, ponds, walls, rocks, smooth mounds, grassy hillocks or depressions, something that grabs the eye, a target to aim at or away from or curve around, even the odd tree, if you are going to have a great deal of width on a hole or a sequence of holes?

Can width become bland?

Atb

[Jerry Kluger]

David: Of course you are going to see some very wide holes on some courses but certainly not every hole.  The shape of the hole itself will affect the true width of the hole where the wrong side of a fairway can make a hole much longer and can also make the approach shot far more difficult because of the green complex.  Is the Old Course too wide simply because you can find your ball and have an unrestricted swing - of course not.

[Niall C]

Dai


I don't think the question is one of need. You don't really need anything but variety is good.


Niall

[Tom_Doak]

A few photos posted recently have shown holes with pretty extreme fairway width or tree-line to tree-line width.

To what extent do you need central hazards/features of some kind - bunkers, streams, ponds, walls, rocks, smooth mounds, grassy hillocks or depressions, something that grabs the eye, a target to aim at or away from or curve around, even the odd tree, if you are going to have a great deal of width on a hole or a sequence of holes?

Can width become bland?

Width CAN become bland, but you don't have to have central hazards to make it sing.  The most important aspect is that the green is oriented and guarded so that the approach from one side is very different to the approach from the other side.