Long approaches create the most fun.

[John Kavanaugh]

I love a drivable par 4's, reachable par fives and long par 3's.  I know I am not alone, so why all the hate for 7000+ yd courses?  For you recovery buffs, nothing creates more interesting recoveries than long approaches.

[Adrian_Stiff]

I prefer short approaches for fun, but a long approach finding a par 5 in two shots or driving a short 4 is very rewarding also. I guess a long approach at a long 4 where you cant get up is the real niggle.

[Phil_the_Author]

John,

If you have such a apssion for long approaches, then why not just push the USGA to ban every club longer than a 2-iron?

Withotu driver, 3-wood, etc... we can go back to 5,800-yard courses and have a blast with all of the long approaches...

[John Kavanaugh]

John,

If you have such a apssion for long approaches, then why not just push the USGA to ban every club longer than a 2-iron?

Withotu driver, 3-wood, etc... we can go back to 5,800-yard courses and have a blast with all of the long approaches...

Phillip,

I really thought the Black Boy would be with me on this one.  My idea of a long approach is with no less than a 5 wood.

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

Some long appraoches can indeed be fun...
I think of the second shot into number 5 at Merion with that incredible right to left slope...the second into #13? at Pacific Dunes with all of the options it presents..
Numer two at Sand Hills, numbers 4,15 and 18 at the same venue, great exciting fun second shots of considerable length.
Heck #13 at Pine Valley is about as much fun as you can have.
Second shot into #1 at Birkdale as well....but to name a few.

[JMEvensky]

I agree.Since they're so difficult,I usually feel like I've accomplished something by hitting the green,or even missing the green in the "right" place.

For me,long approaches create the greatest challenge which equals the greatest fun.

[TEPaul]

Maybe the most fun long approach, for me anyway, is the 13th at Pine Valley. If you really use your imagination and get a long shot low and just in the right place on the complex approach it is one of the coolest shots to watch on both the ground on the approach and when it reaches the green I think I've ever experienced. Another great long approach that's really cool on the approach area as well as when it reaches the green is PV's #5. Most people completely undersestimate how easily the ball can get right over the back on that green.

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

Oh no...I am thinking like the great one Mr TP himself...I must be learning to appreciate the finer points of architecture in the "correct' manner

After some of my errors in judgement over the past 12 months, it is nice to know that I am still able to guess right occasionally!

[Phil_the_Author]

John,

Don't get me wrong... My favorite club is my Pederson persimmon 4-wood. I always looked forward to taking it out of the bag. I think having to use one's head on a course is the most fun. Long approaches on most holes means that thinking has been removed from it.

By the way, it is for that reason I love the Black. A drive not hit quite far enough leaves the player with the choice of everything from a 7-iron to a three-wood for the same shot. How much does one gamble or to what point should I lay up?

I have a good friend who would par the 5th hole 95% of the time, yet he almost never reached it in two... he deliberately layed up after accepting a shorter and safe drive.

[TEPaul]

Michael:

Interesting---I did not see what you said about PV's #13.

For me that approach shot was always really hard because I was always so short off the tee I was generally pretty far back on that approach and I had to hit a whole lot of club. The problem was I didn't know how to hit a fairway wood very low because I never used a shot like that since I'm American and never really saw firm and fast approaches.

That all changed when I saw NGLA in the Singles Tournament about ten years ago. The entire course was so much firmer and faster than I'd ever seen over here. But I was just so used to hitting everything high. I was about 115 yards in front of the 9nth green at NGLA and my caddie said that is perfect yardage for your wedge since I've always been a pretty good wedge player. But I told him I just had to try a low bounce in shot along the ground because it was so rare I played conditions like that. So I took out a 5 iron I was going to just chip along the ground and I went----CHUNK---and hit it about half way to the green. That was so shocking to me I think it took me over a year before I even attempted to hit a shot like that again even in practice.

[John Kavanaugh]

By the way, it is for that reason I love the Black. A drive not hit quite far enough leaves the player with the choice of everything from a 7-iron to a three-wood for the same shot. How much does one gamble or to what point should I lay up?

I have a good friend who would par the 5th hole 95% of the time, yet he almost never reached it in two... he deliberately layed up after accepting a shorter and safe drive.

After hitting another two hundred yard approach into trouble I once had a touring pro tell me that (the fat guy with the bad hat) did a study that showed even pros would score better by laying up on long approaches to their perfect wedge location.  I play a generally difficult course myself where on a couple of holes the shorter hitters in the group lay up and often win the longer par 4's with pars or bogey.

[Anthony Gray]

   I believe that it is not mandatory for the average golfer to have to be able to reach every par 4 on the course.
TOC 17 and PAC 7 are great holes wiyh their length.

        Anthony

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

TP
Same for me, being a straight but short hitter, that hole is always a big challenge for me also.
The margin for error anywhere except the right side is so small, that whilst facing that shot your confidence is certainly stretched to the fullest.
With a scorecard in the back pocket, that right side becomes very appealing
A five on the scorecard does not seem so bad when you have played with enough folks there who have had to reluctantly scribble down thier 8 or 9.

[Scott Sander]

I, too, love long approaches.  For me it's a simple matter of excitement versus anxiety.  
A shot that I should be able to execute gives me anxiety.
A shot that I might be able to execute gives me excitement.

I relish long approaches because they often offer somewhat warmer invitations for shot-shaping.  Shorter approaches seem to bark cold demands.

With shorter full-swing approaches there is often a clear ideal course of action.   i.e - No wind, 135 yards, slightly elevated green with a shoulder bunker left.  My play is a high, hard 9 5 paces right of the pin.  Now EXECUTE!!!

But if I'm standing 208 out, I have to think about ALL of the hazards around the green.   The wind can be more of an ally - or enemy.  The flow of the land makes suggestions you tend to ignore with a short iron in your hands.  Suddenly as many as 3 different clubs are viable options.

Key to it all may just be that, as suggested by JMEvensky, the definition of success is expanded.  Your gut doesn't ache if you end up on the wrong tier of the green, as it does with a wedge approach.  Instead, you celebrate being on the green at all.

But more than anything, long approach shots make better fish stories in the postround grill.

[Ken Moum]

   I believe that it is not mandatory for the average golfer to have to be able to reach every par 4 on the course.
TOC 17 and PAC 7 are great holes wiyh their length.

        Anthony

While I agree in general. I would add that it's not a whole lot of fun when the unreachable par fours exceed 50 percent of the total.

I've played a lot of golf with the women in my family over the years, and I am astounded at how many holes end up being three wood shots, even for decent players.

My aunt was a solid 10-12 handicapper into her late 60s and long ago figured out that anything over about 4,900 yards was a slog.

K

[Anthony Gray]

  Scott,

  Welcome. Fish stories after the round, great approach to the game.

   Anthony

[John Kirk]

Generally true.  Good call.  I don't think I would like a steady diet of 4-woods and 7-woods into greens, though.  I like a variety of approaches.

The problem is that most 6500 yard courses give few opportunities to hit the long clubs.  Even on a cool spring or fall day at Pumpkin Ridge - Witch Hollow, you hit two long irons on the par 3s and maybe 3-4 fairway woods on par 5s.

Yardage allocation on golf courses sure is important.

[John Kavanaugh]

John,

I bet at an 8000 yd course you will hit more wedges than at a 6500 yd course.

[TEPaul]

"A five on the scorecard does not seem so bad when you have played with enough folks there who have had to reluctantly scribble down thier 8 or 9."


Michael:

You know that kind of statement and that kind of fact probably is what makes Pine Valley the totally cool golf course and architecture it is. I mean I can dink a drive out there and then hit something up in front of that green and I just know I'll make a four some of the time and a five pretty much the rest of the time. The shots I've hit to do that really aren't very impressive and they all tend towards the conservative side (I would be considered the tortoise in the old fashioned "Tortoise and Hare" golf analogy).

Let's say the pin is left front on #13.  

Then a guy who drives it fifty yard past me can hit one down to the end of that fairway and have a 7 iron in there and go aggressively at that left front pin to make birdie and just err left A LITTLE BIT and BOOM he can be off down the hill on the left and into total junk and trees looking straight back up with hardly anywhere good to go. Let's say he actually finds his ball down there, he probably might not expect to make better than a 7 or 8.

Now, there's no question in the broad scheme of things he has hit two shots to get at the green that most would probably say are a lot more impressive looking than mine but look how it all turned out.

That to me (that his 7 iron approach missed by maybe six feet what might be the difference between birdie or eight) is that all important wide scoring spectrum that some of us feel is the true barometer of quality architecture.

The thing is with Pine Valley there are just so many holes like that or kind of like that. Hole for hole, day after day, that really wide scoring spectrum is just so common and effective down there. The difference between Pine Valley and so many other penal or wide scoring spectrum modern courses is that at Pine Valley you actually hardly ever lose your ball---you basically have to deal with it wherever it is and on the modern courses you are all the time taking some kind of lost ball or hazard relief strokes!

I can honestly say after having played Pine Valley hundreds of times over the decades I've actually lost a ball less than a handful of times, I have never hit one OB (if that is even possible) and other than putting it in the water hazard on #14 a number of times and in the water on #16 probably less than three times, that's it---eg I just have to deal with where my ball is all the rest of the time and I can also say because of that I've never had as many interesting recovery shots of all distances and types as I have on that golf course.

How cool is that in the context of wide scoring spectrum compared to the rest of those courses where you're so often going to your bag for another golf ball?!
 
 
 

[Kirk Gill]

The long approach for me necessitates use of the ground game. As Tom was saying above, it lets you watch both the aerial shot and the roll, on terrain around the green that is usually the most interesting on the hole.

I'm not that great at long approaches, but they are the most fun.

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

TP
Amen to that..the place is just so terrific..the more I play elsewhere, the more I appreciate Pine Valley for the marvel that is really is.
Although I suppose technology has lessened its severity...although I question that as a fact......I just marvel at the architecure and how it lulls you into being brave and then just kills you if you dont pull off the shot perfectly.

Another "horror" shot is the third into 15..to  a back pin.
You know that you have to get beyond that false front AND first tier, to have any chance of getting a decent birdie putt, but heaven forbid you go a little long....DEAD...that back bunker is just about unplayable, so narrow and deep....
it is just great tough golf...I love it.

[Anthony Gray]

John,

I bet at an 8000 yd course you will hit more wedges than at a 6500 yd course.

  John,

  Great point. You are on a roll today.

    Anthony

[TEPaul]

Michael:

For me the third shot into #15 PV has been the hardest third shots and also one of the longest year in and year out to any par 5 I've ever known. I don't even think about where the pin is, all I've ever concentrated on is keeping the ball somewhere on that green. For par 5s I've played a lot I think I've birdied that one less than any other and also made more bogies without doing that much wrong than any other par 5 I've played many times.

Also, Michael, for tree removal at PV almost above anything else I would suggest they take enough trees off that hillside on the left to allow a player to attempt to hit a big high fade or cut up into that green. I think a lot of people would be tempted to try it but it would be quite difficult to get right and the penalty for leaving it up there on that hill with its slope and those bunkers would be very interesting. Also that is a very big, very full scale golf hole and it would look awesome with that hill left cleared and those bunkers up there (which apparently are not original to the basic creation period of the golf course).

[John Kirk]

John,

I bet at an 8000 yd course you will hit more wedges than at a 6500 yd course.

Yes, perhaps.  There's got to be a happy medium somewhere.  It's certainly easy to create long approach opportunities on par 3s.  But par 4s and par 5s are a bit trickier.

I feel a bit apologetic about referencing Ballyneal so often.  However, the 2nd hole at Ballyneal is a great example here.  It plays 440-490, and most players end up with a 200-250 yard shot with a rather inviting target.  The opening between the bunkers is wide and a low shot will roll onto the green.  If you can reach the green, you are rather compelled to try.  It's an underrated hole on the course, because right off the bat you get to hit a long club off the ground.

Another hole that comes to mind for long approaches is #9 at Riviera.  The green is inviting enough that you want to hit a big fairway wood up the hill at it.  Love that hole.

[Sam Morrow]

I love a drivable par 4's, reachable par fives and long par 3's.  I know I am not alone, so why all the hate for 7000+ yd courses?  For you recovery buffs, nothing creates more interesting recoveries than long approaches.

John I think it's because most people would rather play a course where they have a shorter (generally considered easier) approach.