With ladies in mind

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Questions for you architects:

What do you have to consider when designing a course which both men and women will play?  Let's say you're asked to design a high-end resort course.  
Have you had to abandon a potentially good hole for men because it would be unplayable by women?
How do you decide where to place the ladies' tees?
Given that few women hit the ball further than 150 yards and get little height on the shot how do these affect your thinking?

[Jim Sweeney]

Mark, just find anything written by Alice Dye on the subject. She writes about distance, maintaining interest through angles, etc.

It is a very hard thing to do, I'm sure. One should probably dispense with the notion that any hole must play "the same" for men and women. If a hole doglegs right with an inside bunker for men, it may have to be straight carry over the bunker with an option to go left for women.

Safety is obviously a big issue also.

[Jim Sweeney]

Oops: sorry Mark- I'm only an observer. But I still know Alice Dye's wrirings on the subject are well respected by real archies.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Jim,  You're an honorary archie - they were too busy building courses from Scott Island to the Aleutians to notice such a pathetic topic.

[Philip Gawith]

Mark - have a look at the thread "The Unfairer Sex", or something similar, by Matt Sullivan, posted on September 2. I think you will find some discussion on this topic.

[TEPaul]

Mark:

You ask a good question there and make a good point. It's probably hard to imagine how many excellent holes had to be just chucked in a routing sense because something about them (generally topography, water etc) just made them totally disconnect for ladies tees. I had a problem like that at that Ardrossan project routing. It seemed like no way to solve it other than making the ladies play into a valley or short of a long par 3 (and that certainly wouldn't have worked). With the way golf is going today architects may have to spread front to back tees out to the tune of up to 150 yards or so and not all landforms will allow that for one reason or another.