"Based on the opposition, apparently the majority of women at our club enjoy hitting drivers into the par 3's and rarely if ever reaching a green in regulation.
I don't get it."
Jamie:
If that's true that your women's tees play for your women members like an 8,000yd course for good men, and your women members actually like that kind of thing and oppose a shorter more reasonable course, that situation (preference) really does need to be looked into very carefully as to what it means!!
I'm certainly not denying they feel that way because we apparently found somewhat the same thing at GMGC. We created a number of shorter tees recently to address the concern that the course was too long for some women members. I've heard a number of them complain that made the course too easy for them.
Of course my first reaction was to tell the ones who complained to just play the longer women's tees but perhaps they feel the distance differential is too great. Or perhaps they are thinking of something else entirely of which we may not be aware.
However, if they really do enjoy playing a course that is seemingly too long for them, perhaps we need to take a much closer look at what the whole idea of playing to a green in "regulation" means.
I do know that the theoretical "bogey" male golfer is assumed to hit a drive 200 yards and only capable (distance-wise) of reaching a 370 yard par 4 in two shots. Obviously there is the same theoretical distance guidelines for women in a rating sense. And we can't deny that in various handicap brackets the distance players are capable of hitting a golf ball varies tremendously. We also can't deny that all tees are rated for both the scratch and bogey player (at least I think they are).
So perhaps women or some portion of them are not even supposed to reach their par holes in what we consider to be a regulation number of shots.
It seems to me that something is seriously falling through the cracks here.
All I can think of is various women over time have gotten used to playing golf in a certain way and maybe for them that now includes not being able to reach some holes in what WE think is "regulation". I realize that's hard to believe and seems counter-intuitive to us but how else can it be explained if they really do oppose a course length that allows them to hit more greens in fewer shots, at least potentially distance-wise?