7 of the top 10 under 7000 yards? Hum...

[Scott Cannon]

Again, I am sure the point has been made a thousand times here, but I was looking at the Golf Digest's Top 100 courses, and 7 of the top 10 courses are under 7000 yards. Is it a lack of imagination on modern architects part ( sidebar... I get to play Austin Golf Club, a C&C, quite a bit and it's only 6870 74.4/142) or is it almost impossible to design courses at 68-7000 yards with todays lack of "good sites", or technology, or...what?

[Tom_Doak]

Scott:

A lot of architects are convinced that "in the modern age," a course needs to be over 7,000 yards if it is to be ranked as great.  A lot of clients are also convinced of this "fact", and on most of our good projects, we can't use the lack of additional property as an excuse for why it can't be done (as old courses do).

Nevertheless, it is possible to design a modern course under 7000 yards and have it considered great; Pacific Dunes and Barnbougle Dunes are two examples of that.

[BCrosby]

Mike Young told me a story recently about a course he had finished that came in at 6995. The developer insisted that it be stretched so he could advertise it as a 7000 yard course. So Mike had them mow the grass at the back of a couple of tees, re-measure the holes from there, and - a la kahzzam - the course came to 7005 yards and everyone was happy.

Bob

[Evan Fleisher]

That is a pretty pathetic example of what is wrong with golf today...

[Tom_Doak]

Bob:  When we first built Beechtree, it measured out at 6,999.  No kidding.  The owner then built an additional tee on #18 to get it up over 7, but he could just as easily have fudged the numbers a bit.

The golf chairman at Shinnecock told me that before the last Open, they added something like 110 yards to the course, but the scorecard only went up by about 50 ... apparently the USGA had fudged the numbers a bit for the Open in 1995 to make the course sound longer!

[Tom Huckaby]

Very interesting about fudging distances...I had no concept that was done until relatively recently.  Their used to be a Senior Tour event at a course in San Jose called Coyote Creek - the last time there they used a composite course made up of certain holes from the two 18s there.  It was listed in the program and all other media as 7150 or something like that - which of course was based on the very back of every tee.  My friend and I did a "play the course the big boys did" deal the day after the tourney, and measured the exact tees they DID play... it came out to not much over 6500.  That was pretty comical.

Another instance in a different context is the horrid THE RANCH in San Jose, which lists tees on their web site and on the scorecard which simply do not exist, in an effort to add distance... There are signs on several of the tees stating the REAL distances so people don't freak out.  That rather cracked up - and disgusted me - as well.

TH

[Scott Cannon]

So it's a marketing thing? Fastest car kind of thing? Are the course owners doing it because their ego's are out of control, or the patrons? Are we the knuckle heads insisting on 7000?

[Tom Huckaby]

I really do think it's marketing more than ego by the developers - today's golfer wants distance, and thinks shorter courses are mickey mouse and not worth his time until proven otherwise.  If a course measures anywhere over 6900 in reality, hell yes they need to find a way to get it to 7000, be it real or not!

TH

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