Great Courses the PGA Tour Can No Longer Play

[Sean_A]

I have always tried to ignore what's happening on the PGA TOUR, in terms of how I design my courses.  As I've told many clients, those guys won't pay to play your course.  You've gotta pay them!


But, I should point out to Erik that it's not just PGA TOUR courses that are affected by the distance players hit it today.  If you've got safety problems over boundaries, those problems are much worse than they were 30-40 years ago, and more courses are having to make changes as a result.  [I've done work to Royal Melbourne and Yarra Yarra and Essex County because of this, to name just three non-PGA TOUR courses.]


And if your club ever wants to host a USGA event - not just the Open but the Amateur, the Mid-Amateur, the Walker Cup, or the Junior Amateur - the USGA Championship Committee is going to make you make a bunch of changes and possibly build a bunch of stupid tees for the privilege.  Stonewall, which hosted the Mid-Am three years ago, had to make a bunch of changes for the event, none of which were done at the club's initiative - all for an amateur event that was held at match play.  But the USGA insisted these changes were necessary to present a challenging and fair test to top amateur players ... they couldn't just leave the two courses alone.


Likewise, for CommonGround to host one of the stroke play qualifying rounds for the U.S. Amateur at Cherry Hills, we had to add 500 yards worth of tees to the course, even though it was 7000 yards before we started.  [The altitude in Denver exacerbates the problem.]


So, as I said before "Great courses the PGA TOUR can no longer play" is not the real problem.  It's a straw man.  The real problem is how the PGA TOUR affects everyone else's decision making, even when you are resisting making decisions on that basis.

it's amazing and quite silly that a few people in one organization (the USGA) can have SO MUCH EFFECT on golf course designs by their decision not to control how far the ball goes......

No what's more amazing is that this is the same organization that consistently said the distance gains were statistically irrelevant, all while lengthening every venue they held an event....


We can all say we don't care what PGA tour players do-fair enough.
What about the athletic 11 handicapper I played with who twice hit into the group on 330-350 yard par 4 greens a couple days ago, to say nothing of how much more dangerous his foul balls are at 320 rather than 290.
It's not just a PGA Tour thing.....

It sounds like this dude is very dangerous and ought to increase his insurance policy to cover poor decision making. As with anything in life, at some point people have to take responsibility for their actions.


Ciao

[Erik J. Barzeski]

Tom, thank you for your thoughts. While I appreciate them, and realize that distance isn't just about the courses the PGA Tour plays… I chose to limit this discussion to just the PGA Tour courses affected by distance.

Garland, refer to the signature. I skip over everything you type.

[BHoover]

Garland, refer to the signature. I skip over everything you type.

Now that is something with which we all can agree. Consensus! #ignore36handicappers

[Erik J. Barzeski]

#ignore36handicappers

Oh, it's not because he's (apparently) a bad golfer.

[Garland Bayley]

#ignore36handicappers

Oh, it's not because he's (apparently) a bad golfer.

Besides Erik, that is fake news.

[BHoover]

#ignore36handicappers

Oh, it's not because he's (apparently) a bad golfer.

A 36 who is convinced he’s a genius.

[V_Halyard]

6500 yards is plenty for the vast, vast majority of golfers, and courses that want to chase the PGA Tour are free to do so, but it's not like the average golfer has to play the same tees as the PGA Tour players. They can still play their 6300 yard tees, or whatever. When the average golfer goes to the Old Course, they don't play a bastardized course - they play where the pros play, one of the oldest courses in the world, and a great course… from 6300 yards. Or 6700. Or whatever.

My current course is a 7 mile walk from the 6700 yard tees and covers 240 acres.  It can be played from 7600 yards or so.
My prior course which was 6600 from the back tees was a 5 mile walk on 160 acres.

Maybe a million dollars in additional land costs, a significant addition to annual maintenance costs and an extra half hour to finish the round? 

So we can add FootJoy, Ecco and Skechers to the distance conspiracy in support of longer courses in an effort to sell more comfortable shoes.

[Scott Warren]

Tom, thank you for your thoughts. While I appreciate them, and realize that distance isn't just about the courses the PGA Tour plays… I chose to limit this discussion to just the PGA Tour courses affected by distance.

No you didn't, you chose to limit it to "courses the PGA Tour can no longer play". Let's not pretend for a second that that's the same thing as "PGA Tour courses affected by distance".


"PGA Tour courses affected by distance" would be an easy and authoritative list: all of them.

[Erik J. Barzeski]

No you didn't, you chose to limit it to "courses the PGA Tour can no longer play". Let's not pretend for a second that that's the same thing as "PGA Tour courses affected by distance".

"PGA Tour courses affected by distance" would be an easy and authoritative list: all of them.

Okay, expand it to say "affected in the way I described". That list still seems to be pretty short.

[Eric LeFante]

No you didn't, you chose to limit it to "courses the PGA Tour can no longer play". Let's not pretend for a second that that's the same thing as "PGA Tour courses affected by distance".

"PGA Tour courses affected by distance" would be an easy and authoritative list: all of them.

Okay, expand it to say "affected in the way I described". That list still seems to be pretty short.

As usual, I completely disagree. It's hard to think of Tour courses that haven't been affected by distance.


A new list I would like to propose to prove my point:


List all the courses that host a PGA Tour event or major championship where the total yardage today is within 200 yards of its total in 1995 (and par is the same).


Waialea and Harbor Town may make the list (although Waialea changed its first hole from a par 5 to par 4). Other "short" courses like TPC Sawgrass, Pebble, Merion are quite a bit longer than they used to be (even Merion added 400 yards over a couple decades!!!)

[Erik J. Barzeski]

As usual, I completely disagree. It's hard to think of Tour courses that haven't been affected by distance.

I specified courses that the PGA Tour could no longer play due to distance. That list is pretty short (at least so far).

List all the courses that host a PGA Tour event or major championship where the total yardage today is within 200 yards of its total in 1995 (and par is the same).

The 1913 U.S. Open was contested at about 6200 yards and a par 73. And +12 got into a first place playoff.

Nobody has ever denied that courses have gotten a bit longer.

[Kevin_Reilly]

This isn't a "great" course, but the SF Chronicle reported today that Lake Merced CC has emerged as the course to host the new Steph Curry PGA Tour event in September 2019 (the new Rees course at Alameda was previously rumored to be the spot). 


As a condition to host, the club must expand the course to more than 7,300 yards and expand the driving range to 290 yds (presumably with a net at the far end).