Frank Thomas Survey on TGC

[redanman]

Frank Thomas, a good fellow has a very simple survey he's doing about golfer's likes and dislikes.  It's a little too simple for my tastes, but he is, according to the piece on TGC that I saw, gather info about golfer's likes and dislikes to be used in helping grow the game.

An opportunity for the tree house to be disproportionately listened to.......

certainly the questions themselves can be discussed here as well.

A good one.... I prefer to play a golf course with trees and hazards (sand and grass bunkers, and water)surrounding what percentage of the holes? (Followed by four choices)  



Frank Thomas Survey from TheGolfChannel.com

[TEPaul]

Frank Thomas personally is of the belief that golf courses are generally too difficult for the beginning golfer and are consequently limiting entry into the game. He often speaks of the need for what he refers to as "bunny slope" golf courses so the beginning golfer does not immediately become overwhelmed and turned off from the game and entry into it.

[Doug Braunsdorf]

Interesting questionnaire and point.  Tom, what do you think about Frank's point?  Myself, I think many courses are too difficult for the beginning golfer, but at the same time, the beginning golfer must make the decision themselves about the course to play; a gun is certainly not put to head to play a given course.  
When I first started playing--about seven years ago, when I was in college--I knew I wasn't ready for playing regulation courses--and I played several little par 3 courses near my home and my school to learn how to putt, chip, etc, and obviously for a beginner, a wedge is a lot less intimidating a club than, say, a driver.  I did this through most of the first year.  Yes, it takes a measure of humility, but I felt it was best to start this way.  And spent plenty of time on the range.  Only after I felt comfortable with this did I graduate myself first to shorter 9 hole courses, then up to regular 18's.  I played a bunch of rounds at the Rutgers course because it was cheap for me ($8.00 at the time, for students), relatively flat, not many forced carries.  
These pitch and putts and 9 hole courses were my "bunny slope" into golf.  And they worked pretty well.  Even now, after making swing changes, I may go and play an executive course a few times to get a feel for things before I take it to the bigger tracks.  
Getting back to the point, some courses have tee recommendations for certain handicaps, which is a good idea, but it's still a recommendation only.  I think there are a lot of courses which could be seen as "bunny slope" courses in existence currently--they won't have great conditioning, amenities, quite obviously, but they are not needed.  It's about learning the swing and playing a round of golf.  

[TEPaul]

Doug:

While Frank Thomas may think too many golf courses are too long for beginning golfers I'm not so sure when he mentioned the need for "bunny slope" courses for beginners he meant they needed to be of "executive course" length. I think he just meant too many courses are too difficult in other ways as well for beginning golfers. Losing a ball every other hole for a beginning golfer (or any golfer) genereally isn't a lot of fun nor very encouraging to keep playing the game.

[Brent Hutto]

I'm not sure Par 3 courses are the easiest or best way to introduce someone to the game. At least in my limited experience, Par 3 courses tend to be laid out where there's not enough land for a bigger course. If they have trees (as opposed to being built in a totally wide-open area) they seem to end up very tight. There's nothing easy about a 120-yard Par 3 with woods 20 yards left and 10 yards beyond the green plus another tee box 30 yards to the right for a beginner who doesn't know which direction the ball is going. In fact, it may well be that the ideal length is somewhere in the thin-proof zone (that's the yardage range where a well struck iron and a bladed iron go similar distances, for me it's about 130-140 yards).

I would think the least intimidating "bunny slope" course imaginable would be built in wide open pastureland where no matter where you hit the ball off the tee you can still find it and see the green. That might be (to some minds) a boring course but it would let beginners go ahead and learn the game hitting a 3-wood or something off the tee if they and more importantly it would encourage rearing back and giving the ball a good smack instead of trying to overcontrol the swing. You really wouldn't want to go to the THX-1138 extreme of playing "golf" on a vast featureless plain but we can keep that in mind as the far end of the continuum.

Obviously, forced carries, punitive rough and deep bunkers are the worst thing for a beginner to face so a "bunny slope" course should keep the rough down to under an inch (no long searches for balls in the rough) put low lips on bunkers (so you can possibly putt or chip out of them if you don't know how to play an explosion shot) and water hazards should be lateral. To borrow a page from another thread, it could be argued that a "bunny slope" course should have slow greens with some contour to them to provide interest without fear (or maybe not). Finally, I believe beginner courses should have small greens (no 50-foot putts) but with fairway-cut grass rather than rough within 20-30 yards of the green so beginners can have some chipping success. Also, a small green will teach the principle that the middle of the green is usually a good target if you can't control the ball extremely well.

[BCrosby]

Bunny courses are a nice idea but I doubt we see many new ones built. Land costs will be the same as a regulation course. Their maintenance budgets will be only marginally less. OTOH, you can't charge anything close to regular green fees.

Bob

[Don Dinkmeyer]

Thanks for the link - its an interesting survey.

The challenge to get new players (as i understand it, as many quit as start each year) happens when something -- anything -- significantly different happens in the golf world.

To me, it would be

---the courses become far less expensive to play
---the courses become far less time-consuming to play

cost and time - not that i can solve it, but this seems to be the key to growing the game.

It will be interesting to see the results of the survey...

[JakaB]

BCrosby,

The biggest money machine in Evansville, In is a bunny course....Bob Hamilton (a PGA Champion) built a course so easy and still 6000 yds that it holds a couple of well known records.   Bob Hamilton is the youngest person ever to shoot his age 59....and I shot the Barney 66 is competition....the course is a wide open flat par 70 with some questionable doglegs measured a bit longer than they are.   I think he even got the land on a 99 year lease from the city....the place is packed everyday with people who just flat love to play the game....It's great..and at 6000 yds it qualifies for USGA records...

[Jeff_Brauer]

When I was a freshman in HS, the frosh/soph team used to play matches on a what I always thought was a perfect bunny slope course.  It was jokingly named the "Monster 9" at Rob Roy in Prospect Heights, Il.  The 9 was a real golf course, but it had really wide fairways, 60 yards or so.  Negligibly, gently rolling terrain -- maybe 20 feet of elevation change on the whole course, but just enough to notice uphill and downhill situations.  

There couldn't have been more than 4 basic saucer-style greenside bunkers and 3-4 fairway bunkers -- none with any lips to speak of.  The medium sized greens were essentially flat, and there were trees, but they were way off to the sides.  There was no water and OB only came into play on one hole.  The holes were:

260 par 4
350 par 4,
130 par 3,
330 par 4,
140 par 3,
350 par 4,
370 par 4
440 par 5
320 par 4.  
________

2690 yards or so.  Maybe it was a bit longer -- 2750 or so. I don't remember exactly.  It was a perfect place for people to learn, with no pressure because everybody who played it was a beginner.  

On Mondays, the greens fee was $3 for all you could play.  The important thing was that people felt like they were playing golf, not executive golf.  But it was practically impossible to get in trouble on this course and it drew kids, beginners and ladies.  Everybody else played the "regulation" 18 holer.  

Shivas,

What years did you play?  After my first round of golf with next door neighbors at Medinah, I played my next 50 rounds or so at that course......That would have been about 1967 through 1973, when I graduated high school.  I too have lots of fond memories of the course, including some high school golf matches, my first birdie on hole 3, and an incident where my buddy and high both hit our second shots on 8 at the same time from either side of the fw and they collided in mid air.  

That course, a stand alone nine holer near the junction of NW highway and Baldwin Road in Palatine, and the 9 holer at the Old Orchard CC in Mt. Prospect were great places for Chi Town youngsters to play golf.  A distant 4th in popularity for us was the 18 hole Palatine Hills.  I think my mom referred to them as the "Babysitter."  Three bucks for all day was cheaper than a nanny, even back then.

I don't think people really like par 3 courses. I think nine hole adjunct courses are the way to go to introduce golf, as stand alone 9 holers probably don't make economic sense. If an add on course in the floodplain areas of muni courses, there is no need for an extra clubhouse, maintenance costs are shared, so they are lower, depending on accounting, etc.  and muni courses will better serve their function of introducing players to the game.

Just my opinion, not my money being invested, however!

[George Pazin]

I think the key to Bob Crosby's statement is that he specifically says new courses as having the same general costs. There are plenty of older "bunny" courses where the land was paid for 30 years ago that are indeed probably cash cows. I'd guess most munis are like this - I know our two county courses here in western PA fit the bill quite well.

Didn't care much for the survey, as he lumped all "hazards" into one category - trees, sand, water, etc. I personally favor fewer trees and less water, but I like sand as a hazard.

Wonder how Frank feels about whether or not highly contoured greens favor the lesser golfer?

[THuckaby2]

Wonder how Frank feels about whether or not highly contoured greens favor the lesser golfer?

He's a techy-scientist, so won't be able to see beyond the obvious and grasp the subtleties and nuances required to understand the issue.  Thus I'm sure he thinks such do favor the skilled, which is the knee-jerk response.

 

As for his survey, I'm with you, George - it's tough for me to lump all hazards in one definition.  But kudos to him for trying to make some sense of things.

TH

[TEPaul]

John B.

Would you say that "bunny" course in Evanston is at least an 8.6 on the Doak Scale? Do you know if Matt Ward has rated it yet?

[TEPaul]

"He's a techy-scientist, so won't be able to see beyond the obvious and grasp the subtleties and nuances required to understand the issue. "

TomH:

Have you ever met Frank? I wouldn't call him a techy-scientist although he sure does know his stuff. Frank does grasp the subtleties and nuances just fine and he's also spent about three decades dealing with some really mindless people and off the wall ideas like some of those seen on here so he's pretty cool about that problem too!  

Hell, he didn't even flinch when Carsten sued him personally for $10 mil---or maybe it wa $100 mil---what's the difference?

[A_Clay_Man]

I didn't read the survey, or the questions, but I have been doing some research (reads fun) into counter-intuition.

 The counter-intuitive thing to do, to grow the game, would be to restrict play, on regulation 18 hole courses. Perhaps then, those who are not serious enough to get a handicap, or learn and follow the rules/ettiquitte will have an incentive to do so.

Isn't it those rude inconsiderate bastards who ruin it for everyone?

[JakaB]

John B.

Would you say that "bunny" course in Evanston is at least an 8.6 on the Doak Scale? Do you know if Matt Ward has rated it yet?

I would love to see Matt Ward play Hamilton...its in Evansville not Evanston...like that makes a difference.   They must have lengthed the course since the last time I played in the never ending fight against technology...current stats..

6223 yards
64 Rating
108 Slope
$12 to walk...$22 to ride

I am not making fun of this place....it provides a great, great service to the golfing community..and I shot 66 in competition...did I say that already..

[TEPaul]

"I didn't read the survey, or the questions, but I have been doing some research (reads fun) into counter-intuition."

Adam:

Is that why you've been spending so much time on GOLFCLUBATLAS.com recently?

[TEPaul]

John B;

Evansville sounds bunny-wonderful. I wonder just how easy it really is though. If you're not too humble to mention it would you mind telling us what your best score on the course has been?

[JakaB]

Tom,

I only played the course once in an inter club challenge match and shot the 4 under 66....I remember the par fives all being Driver, short irons and some of the par 4's being drivable....with smooth true greens.   I can't say why it seems to play short....but I have played resort courses that measure from the back of the tee to the back of the green...can't always trust the tape.   I do drive by the course now and then and it might be getting a little tougher as the trees grow.   I just can't imagine a 6223 yd course with a rating any lower than 64.....kinda puts a damper on the Barney 66...

note...I have shot 4 under at a couple of other courses but they were at par 71 and 72's so the Barney 66 is the low round of my life.....and I'm pretty sure it is gonna stay that way..

[THuckaby2]

"He's a techy-scientist, so won't be able to see beyond the obvious and grasp the subtleties and nuances required to understand the issue. "

TomH:

Have you ever met Frank? I wouldn't call him a techy-scientist although he sure does know his stuff. Frank does grasp the subtleties and nuances just fine and he's also spent about three decades dealing with some really mindless people and off the wall ideas like some of those seen on here so he's pretty cool about that problem too!  

Hell, he didn't even flinch when Carsten sued him personally for $10 mil---or maybe it wa $100 mil---what's the difference?

Yeah sure Tom, I've met him, and Nicklaus, and Tiger, and Bobby Jones, and Gene Sarazen, and Old Tom Morris.  

That was meant as a joke and a jab at my scientific-minded friends in that other thread.  I have no doubt that Frank Thomas sees golf issues as well or better than anyone who cares about such today.  But he is - or was - an equipment guru, right?  That to me says techno-science-mechanical outlook.  And if one just looks purely scientifically at an issue like "Ben Crenshaw is a better putter than me, so it doesn't matter where we are, he's gonna do equally better than me regardless of conditions", well, one doesn't see the subtleties necessary to really understand that issue.