"Beginner"course design Details-Architects?

[ward peyronnin]

Many sports offer special conditions/equipment for beginners-tee ball, pee wee footballs, etc. but not golf, just shorter holes.

Doesn't it make sense for those learning the game to be presented  with learning  courses with features meant to make the game easier to play with a sense of success and pleasure but golf holes that still feature interest and strategy ie. oversized maybe 6" instead of std holes, flat bottomed bunkers, etc?

Architects, or anyone, what features would you adjust to improve beginners sense of achievment  on say a three or maybe 6 hole practice course?

[Bill_McBride]

The club I joined as non-resident member in Portland, Oregon, Columbia-Edgewater CC, has a terrific set up for beginners.

There is a big short game practice area with bunkers, a horseshoe green with several flags, and lots of flat areas to hit shots from level lies, connected by slopes for practicing those shots.

Directly adjacent are the first and ninth holes of a nine hole par 3 course with nice greens.  The holes range from 60 to 135 yards.  I've seen quite a few families out there with small children in tow.  I don't know how many acres are dedicated to this facility, but I think it's less than 30.

http://www.cecc.com/cgi-bin/page_display.cgi?page_nav_name=masonandprgq8

http://www.cecc.com/cgi-bin/page_display.cgi?page_nav_name=newsoc9 and click on the link at the bottom for the article on the short game practice facility.

I don't know what the budget was, but the work was all done in house and was very well done.  Bunny Mason is the golf pro emeritus at Columbia-Edgewater and is a golf architect as well. Among other Pacific NW courses, Bunny designed the Glaze Meadow course at Black Butte near Bend, Oregon.

[Mark Bourgeois]

Ward,

Beyond hole size and locations and tees, I'm not sure what you could adjust; however, I would guess you could design for beginners along the lines of what you mention...or you could just build a knockoff of the old course or pinehurst #2 (with maybe a few of the more-difficult bunkers filled in).

Beyond that, what about Par 3 courses and courses / concepts like this:
http://www.northwickpark.com/playgolf-northwickpark-golfcourse.htm

And / or what about the youth course in Berwick / North Berwick? (I forget exactly where.)

Mark

[Tommy_Naccarato]

It's always great when one of the original Golf Club Atlas guys posts here. You can tell an original poster right away. Nothing about rankings or I'm right, your wrong. It's all about discussion. I have to say it's quite refreshing.

Way to freeking go Ward!

Forget the larger cups. Go with smaller ones. This is about creating golfer's of substance!

Do a complete mixture of great holes that defend themselves nicely at the greens for beginners. Something that doesn't so much frustrate them but intrigues them to want to keep on coming back.

Now that Tom Doak is a success, I'm sure he would do the course for a dollar, just like his mentor does!

[ward peyronnin]

Tommy,
Thanks for the warm weelcome. I really hope someday we have the chance to actually clasp habds , hoist a few , and rap out some snappy shots together.
Mark I really enjoyed out time together and Bill i regret I didn't have a chance to be with you more

My real interest here is what options in design are possible and practical to overcome that fragile retention/frustration  curve golf is that  slamming against these days.

My boys play but I have pretty much decided that the excruciatingly botring but flat and easy muni is the best chance the 11 yr old has to feel some mastery of the game. Why are these and similar par three tracks the only thing we have come up with? Can't there be collections of forgiving  holes that still exhibit strategy and interest? Level fairway collection areas with some adjacent slopes that allow a beginner to drop a practice ball on an unlevel place anf try it but play and score a more forgiving shot; greens with undulations but forgiving surrounds that promote an executable chip and run. Stuff like that but are there course stds that can also be relaxed as well?

Surely a Forrest Richardson or Tom D or the other guys who post have thought about how to promote beginning play?

Mark the "course" at NB is a putt putt layout on a roughly mown area. Gullane has a little course on village green by the sea but it is not much more thana pitching course. Poretrush had an interestin glooking par 3 course i idin't have  a chance to examine other than from the car but I am sure these course didn't alter stds to improve forgiveness .

Maybe this is heresy or going to too great an extreme but i know it is tougher to get kids and adults to be casual golfers who become more serious as their skills improve these days . Thanks for listening

[Michael Whitaker]

Ward – I am very excited to see your post! This is my pet project for 2007 (and beyond). One of my best friends is the Executive Director of the Greenville County Recreational District in my home town of Greenville, SC. We have been discussing this very subject for years, and his dream is to build a facility for kids and beginning golfers. The ultimate goal is to have several youth courses scattered around the county with an organized team-golf program similar to the ones that exist in most areas for soccer.

The main holdup to proceeding with this project has been funding... until last Tuesday night when our county council approved an entertainment tax for the purpose of funding recreational opportunities for our residents! This tax is expected to generate revenue of around 6.75 million dollars a year by adding 2% to all restaurant tabs in the county. it goes into effect in April.

I wish TOM DOAK or FORREST RICHARDSON or MIKE YOUNG or one of the other progressive architects who post on this site would get an interest in working on a project like this. I think it can truly change the future of golf.

There are two facts that stand out in the research we have done:  1) only 5% of "golfers" ever achieve "skilled player" status (as defined by a single-digit handicap); 2) only about 5% of golfers who have an official USGA handicap ever play in a sanctioned stroke play tournament. These numbers are true for adults, but they are also true for kids. 95% of the kids who try golf will never be "skilled" players... yet, 95% of our junior programs and teaching is focused on identifying and creating "skilled" players with an emphasis on strokeplay competition.

We think if kids were given the opportunity to participate in a program that emphasized team play in a non-threatening fun way they would fall in love with the GAME of golf and get hooked… the way most of us have. We want to create a program patterned after the soccer model in which kids can ENJOY golf as a GAME and not get turned off because they can't score as well as the 5% of kids who will eventually go into traditional junior programs and play strokeplay tournament golf. We want to teach kids that golf can be fun and doesn’t have to just be about someone asking, “what did you shoot?”

We hope to create a program that will help create the 95% of the next generation of golfers who will never have a single-digit handicap or play in a strokeplay tournament. But, to do it we have to have courses that kids enjoy and find interesting... and, provide them access on the weekends! You can’t just put kids out on a flat field and expect them get excited about chasing a little ball. And, you can’t just limit their course access to Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons. Offer them something every day of the week that is fun and “just challenging enough,” and they will come back for more and more and more.

God how I wish Doak or Richardson or Young or Cowley, et.al. would get excited about a project like this. How great would it be to work on our version of the Balgrove and Strathtyrum courses?

2007 could be a great year!

[Tommy Williamsen]

In 2005 Royal North Devon opened a course for juniors called the Pimply Ground.  The course has holes 75 yards and shorter.  It is also a good place to practice your short game.

[ForkaB]

My observations, as a golfer and a parent.

1.  Every golf club should have a beginner's course, even if it is just a putting green
2.  Golf is a HARD game!  The major obstacle to beginners is learning how to make contact with the ball
3.  Fuggedabout GCA when building a beginners course.  The flatter and easier the better, except for the greens, which should have some contour.  Kids can putt.  Do have bunkers.  Kids love to get in and try to hit out of bunkers.
4.  Do keep score.  This is what the game is all about.  Kids like to keep score.
5.  Encourage mass participation.  Kids are more likely to stick to the game if their friends are playing it.

[Phil McDade]

"Do keep score.  This is what the game is all about.  Kids like to keep score."

Rich:

I do hope by that comment you mean match-play score as well as stroke scores. I think one of the easiet ways to turn off youngsters to the game is to hold them (or have them hold themselves) to some arbitrary stroke count known as par, when those kids -- I'd suggest, as a golfer and parent -- would probably get more enjoyment out of playing against each other in a 9-hole, match-play format. I agree to some extent about "kids like to keep score" -- I'd modify it to say "kids like to compete," and encouraging match play is one one of the best ways to get youngsters excited about the game and competing without worrying too much about the inevitable double and triple bogeys.

[ForkaB]

Of course Phil, but you still have to count the strokes.  At one of my clubs I've seen beginners matches where holes were halved in 17, and it was hard fought!  I don't think you want to have Monty Pythonesque score keeping where at the end of a hole you say something like, "Well, Phillipa might have taken more strokes on that hole but she tried hard, so we'll give it to her...."

My kids (who are only occasional and indifferent players) know damned well when they have played a good shot or completed a good hole, for them, and when I say something like, "Well done, Melissa!  That was an 11!" they beam one of those priceless children beams.

Who said anything about "par" anyway?  Shirley not me.......

[Larry_Keltto]

I met a gentleman who grew up at Pyle & Kenfig in Wales. He told me P&K has a three-hole loop that youngsters use, and he'd go around many times a day when he was young. No adults needed.

[Jason Topp]

I think location has a lot to do with the success of these courses.  

There are two relatively close to me.  One is in the middle of a suburb and is packed.  One is in the outlying areas of town, and is empty.  If it were possible to put small facilities in existing parks, that it would help a lot.  I'm not sure how to deal with possible liability issues.

[Gary Slatter]

I spent a summer in Calgary and they seem to have more than the average number of beginner courses, many city owned but not all.  And very reasonable fees.  
The recent growth of well designed teaching/practice facilities is good but often they cost more than the price to play a par three course.  I saw a group of adults playing the Wee Course at Disney, looked like they were having fun.
In Jamaica we put a flag in at each end of the range on on certain days the new juniors could "play" from one flag to the other and back, being coached about the game along the way.  We are going to cut a fairway into our range here at Lucayan and do something similar for newbies. Helps us "qualify" them to go on the real course.

[Michael Whitaker]

Do keep score.  This is what the game is all about.  Kids like to keep score.

Encourage mass participation.  Kids are more likely to stick to the game if their friends are playing it.

I agree that kids like to compete, but more kids (and adults) are turned off to golf by the constant focus on shooting a certain "score" rather than just enjoying the competition of a game. When we ask kids and adults who have given up golf why they stopped playing, the most common response is that they couldn't "break 90" (or some other arbitrary number),  or that they couldn't score as well as their friends. Most say that they enjoyed the game, but were frustrated with their inability to shoot lower scores. Sad, but true.

We have created a program with the SC Junior Golf Association called "Little Legends" that gives any kid under 12 the opportunity to play golf in a fun team format. Kids are grouped together on teams by age or ability and play nine-hole matches in a Captain's Choice stableford format. They absolutely love it!!! We had around 20 six-week programs set up in SC this year with 60 or so kids participating in each program. In 2007 we plan to have three sessions (spring, summer, fall) and have over 5,000 kids participate.

[Jeff Doerr]

A beginner's course should encourage multi-generation fun. No water! A few easy bunkers. A few junior long holes - 120 to 180. And real greens with contours and speeds like those on the main course.

The one at Columbia-Edgewater seems like a great example.

Is there a history of the practice course or kid's course? Do we have what we think are first examples, etc.?

[Forrest Richardson]

Well, hazards are essential. Without them it will be a boring excursion. Rick Wesselman in my office created the First Tee of Phoenix (while at Fazio Designs) and it has loads of bunkers and contours. Kids find it interesting — so do avid golfers!

[D_Malley]

isn't the real reason why this type of course is not being built, because 70% of golf course construction cost is in the green construction?  if you are going to build a so called "beginers course" or for that matter a par 3 course, don't people look at it and say " hey i could build a regulation course for only a little bit more, why not go all the way.

[Forrest Richardson]

George — Partly. But your argument goes away when land cost are considered. I think it boils down to comfort and balls. Developers need the former and don't always have the latter.

[ward peyronnin]

Forrest,

Another "one of life's maxims" candidates. I assume of course that you are not referring to female developers?  

What is your opinion on whether this kind of course associated with a practice facility is more utilitarian and economically justifaible and is there anything wrong with increasing the circumference of the hole in this concept?

Ward

[Tommy Williamsen]

When my son was a little boy we would play on the "big" course, but I would give him a different par than I had.  Sometimes his par would be 12 and mine would be five.  Boy did he love it when he could beat me.  I would carry his clubs as he hit is little five wood down the fairway.  He would keep up with us and we had a ball.

When the course was very crowded I would have him tee it up where my drive landed and we would play in from there.

[Eric Franzen]

Here in Sweden beginners right now have to play from the 150 meter marker until they score a certain amount of points based on nine holes of stableford.

We have a par 3 course at my home club which beginners can buy limited memberships for. A couple of months ago I saw an older lady playing there with her 10 year old grandson, having the time of her life while picking up the game. I doubt that she will upgrade her membership to play the 18 hole course... but still, it is great that we can provide her with a place where she can play and enjoy a quick round.

[Forrest Richardson]

Ward — I think there are loads of things possible. Making the hole bigger is controversial because it remains a hallmark of golf and its damn-ness. I think the more traditional variables are better sources of change; length, quantity of holes, match-play format, etc. These options preserve golf while allowing beginners to experience the game on an easier plane. As for practice facilities, I believe they benefit all golfers. The problem is often the land required — about 8 acres. Whereas an entire 9-hole par-3 layout might only take half of that.