Width, what's it all about ?

[Niall C]

Reading a couple of the recent threads, its clear that quite a few of us on here are fairly enamoured with the idea of wide fairways, and by that I'm assuming 60 yards wide type of thing. The idea seems to be that landing on short grass with no danger of your ball landing in rough is preferable to having to avoid the rough, but I could be wrong.

Now my experience on these modern large scale productions are limited as most of my golf tends to be on older, more conventionally scaled courses so I am interested to find out if my assumption as to the appeal of wide fairways is all that their is to it or whether there are any other good reason for them.

Interested to hear everyones thoughts.

Niall

[Jason Connor]

I thought the idea of a wide fairway is to give options.

You can choose which side of the fairway to play on for a better angle toward the pin.

If the fairway is a narrow runway between the rough, then there are no options -- you've just got to hit the narrow strip of fairway.

[Jim Briggs]

I'm a relative newbie here, but will give it a shot.  Width clearly lends an element of playability which the mid/high handicapper (which as a bogey golfer, I can relate to) appreciates, but I don't think thats the reason many on here ar enamoured with it.  Width in combination with interesting green complexes that require thought in terms of angle of attack all of sudden make it more challenging for the lower handicapper to score well.  All of a sudden that fairway isn't as wide for the low hadicapper if he wants the prefered angle into the green.  Playablility for higher handicappers and challenge for low handicappers.  I think that is a combination many are (or should be) enamoured with.

I've been fortunate enough to recently become a member at Hidden Creek and the combination of the above is just one of the reasons why I consider the course not only a joy to play, but one that I cant wait to play again so as to try and figure out exactly where on those wide fairways I should actually be targeting.

[Marty Bonnar]

Niall,
given your latest Medal Score, I think you qualify admirably for the moniker of 'Wide Boy' - So You Should Know!
 
FBD.

[Don_Mahaffey]

Without good green design width is just more room to hit the ball. Sort of how the hairy edged bunker became the symbol of minimalism, width has become a trend because it seems like the "in" architects are building wider courses. Problem is the trend setters have width as just one of the reasons their holes are good, their greens being the main reason.
Wider fwys shouldn’t always mean bigger greens. In fact I think an argument could be made for just the opposite.

[Garland Bayley]

Well, if you have wide fairways, you can actually locate fairway bunkers in the fairway instead of locating them in the rough, where they would more accurately be referred to as rough bunkers.

A second issue is that modern irrigation systems have narrowed fairways by the limits of the distance they can cover. Historically fairways were wider before irrigation costs (for wider coverage) reigned them in.

[Niall C]

Jason

Good point but it does beg the question of how much width you need to give different options. Plenty of the older courses I play give you options in conventional 30/35 yard wide fairways.

Jim

likewise, I get your point about options particularly linking it into the green complex but again how much room do you need. If you are talking about more than a couple of options then it needs to be a fairly interesting green IMO.

Marty

I was actually very proud of that score  

Niall

[Tom_Doak]

Niall:

I played a four-ball at Crystal Downs yesterday with my cousin and his son and his son's friend -- all reasonable 10-handicap players.  The fairways are not ridiculously narrow, but the rough was up.

I would estimate we spent an additional 30-40 minutes of our time yesterday searching for balls in the rough.

I would much prefer to find the ball quickly, and then have a contour around the green make my approach shot harder.

[George Pazin]

I think too many people confuse a desire for width with a desire for wide fairways. That's probably because too many places seem to actively cultivate thick, heavy, uniform rough.

I'm as big a proponent of width as there is on here, but I really only care about functional width - can I find my ball and play it again? Less manicured rough usually allows this, whereas super thick lush rough frequently doesn't, or at least makes it overly difficult.

Nice post, Don.

[Tim Pitner]

Niall:

I played a four-ball at Crystal Downs yesterday with my cousin and his son and his son's friend -- all reasonable 10-handicap players.  The fairways are not ridiculously narrow, but the rough was up.

I would estimate we spent an additional 30-40 minutes of our time yesterday searching for balls in the rough.

I would much prefer to find the ball quickly, and then have a contour around the green make my approach shot harder.

It's amazing to me how many people don't appreciate this.  Many players, and not necessarily particularly good players, don't believe a course is worthy unless you're punished by rough, water, etc., without regard to what other challenges might exist.  Why are people such gluttons for these specific forms of punishment?  

[V. Kmetz]

In preface, I'll say I'm as concerned with the width of the entire playing corridor as to the width of the actual fairway.

That said, my opinion about fairway width as a general topic is boiled this way.

1.  A generous space to hit tee shots catalyzes confident swings and that makes for better, more satisfying play.
2.  A wide vista is a visually appealing aesthetic to my eye.  I often hear reports of a similar experience and very few that disdain it.
3.  A well designed hole, despite the width will (via green complex, fairway hazard or rough) usually indicate that the best approach is from a particular spot in the fairway, not the larger entirety.  Therefore the premium on good play will come from one's execution to that spot.  The significant difference is that not hitting the spot will not engender another consequence in addition to missing the spot.  You will merely have a poor angle or poor lie, but lying in fairway turf... or if eschewed the width given and went for the best spot, you took your chances with the defenses that side.
3a. A wide fairway allows the golfer more latitude to choose how he will play it.  It less dictates play than allows the player to create it with his particular skill or judgments.  The result is that the player's fortunes are somewhat more tied to his appraised strengths and executions that it is his failures to hit a particular distance or shape of shot.

As with any significant component of a course design, I truly think variety is the answer.  Of the 14 two or three shot holes found on most courses, I would seek to have about 2-4 of them with ridiculous 100 yard wide fairways (the longer the hole, the wider the fairway) 3-5 of them with very wide fairways (60-80 yards wide) and 3-5 of them with 30-40 yard fairways.  This may or may not leave the opportunity to create one or two holes with a stringently narrow fairway 20-25 yards wide or a couple that are mowed to and through the trees.

of course this is all in a theoretical vacuum and without having a physically real piece of property to consider.  It might engender having shared fairways (like St. Andrews) in some spots.

Still to re-state, variety is the answer.  Width is just one modulator, hole to hole, of a player's experience of the course.  It's just that we know the 30-40 yard fairway very well and we know from stringent championship-level courses the very narrow fairway.  The wide fairway doesn't receive its proper proportion alongside these other frequent tropes.

cheers

vk

[Adam Clayman]

There's a win win when building width with greens that are thoughtful, on ground that is well contoured. The bogey golfer (or 10 handi as Tom points out) has not ruined their day by having to search and/or chop out of over irrigated thick rough, on many if not most holes.

For the better player, I believe width can throw them off their game. Having their spot to play to, always delineated with narrowness plays right into their comfort zone. While thoughtful width can lull them into thinking they can just bomb it anywhere without cause for concern. . If there's no advantage to being in the proper spot, and, no added challenge form being somewhere else, width for width sake is wasted money.

[Jeff_Brauer]

As an excersize, you can plot a par 4 golf hole at a short, medium and long on graph paper.  Put in a blob of a green at whatever angle you choose - say 10 degrees angled to the right.   If you presume that the risk taken is to hit just inside the fw edge on the right for the angle in, you can find out pretty quickly what width is necessary to create that challenge.  Generally, width required to create risk widens with length of hole and angle of the green.

But is width for widths sake any good?

Any width further right of that perfect approach angle for the opening is just making the golfer hit to the middle (or mid right) of the fw, with less penalty for missing right, (or left) and reduces risk, and thus strategy.  

"Too much width" left certainly has some value in highlighting the advantage of flirting with the rough on the right, but at some point, the advantage or avoiding rough off the tee by playing safe probably outweighs the advantage aiming for the right edge.  You are assured of a lie in the fw while playing safe and may be able to bomb tee shot to gain advantage of a shorter iron shot at harder angle.  Of course, that is an option!

Since most golfers can regularly hit a fw about 35 to 40 yards wide about 2/3 of the time, anything more than 17-20 yards left of the centerline might qualify as "too much width." I think there is some practical limit as to how wide the fw on the safe side should be to create strategy, and about 40-45 yards probably wide enough when considering strategy, speed of play, mowing costs, etc.

A couple of other thoughts -

I agree rough only needs to be high enough to cause flyers....

From experience, and relating to TD's story, I find that the turf corridor (whether rough or fw) needs to be about 80 yards wide.  At 70 yards wide (sometimes typical because that is what 3 rows of sprinklers cover) I find that on every hole, one of the 10 handicappers TD mentions will be in the adjacent woods or native grass.  I doubt there would be many lost balls at all in the same foursome at 90 yard wide turf corridors.

I am not all that enamored with center bunkers.  Despite a flowing mowing pattern, in essense you need to have an adequate area on both sides of that bunker making it a cosmetically disguised second fw, with all the problems associated with that - using more space and resources for what usually gets exposed as a less favorable route, although that is not even a given, esp. on windy sites.

[V. Kmetz]

Adam,

I so very much agree with your previous comment regarding width "throwing good players off their game."  I think that way about straightforward, easy green side pitches and chips too.

I was just commenting about a course to a GCA member last night and talking about a very plain pitch of 15 yards over low grass to an an amusing contour with average green speed.

the low-handicappers and crack players are so uninspired by such pitches because they are  for a wide class of players - "easy." Not only does it bring a lesser player nearer their scoring class but it is also doubly frustrating if they themselves do not pull it off.  The easiness of it and its apparent solvability almost bring an anxiety of being humiliated to a very, very good player and force him to stress over a shot he can usually do in his sleep.

I think that anxiety over the "easy" and the "wide" is an un-examined charm of some special courses.

cheers

vk

[Brent Hutto]

I don't like wide fairways as much as hate rough. I've played a couple of course I can think of that are just ridiculously narrow in terms of the corridors cut through trees. On certain holes, anyway. But that can be fun. For my part, if you want a narrow hole then put trees or fairway bunkers down one or both sides as long as the trees have the undergrowth cleared away where you can find your ball. Don't just grow a bunch of ankle-deep or knee-high grass.

Just this weekend I had a brief conversation over lunch with our club's head professional. I told him how much I appreciated the fact that unless conditions conspire to grow the grass faster than we can afford to cut it, our Bermuda rough punishes bad shots with thick, nasty lies but not with deep grass. He said the goal was to never, ever have more than 1-3/4" of grass depth so that you could see your ball as you walk near it.

Basically I like any feature of a golf course that lets you play the game in a more or less continuous-walking fashion. So wide, wide playing corridors of short grass are great. But it's quite acceptable to have rough that's an inch or so deep as well. Or trees with no low limbs and pine straw or mulch underneath. Or fairway bunkers as long as you don't need a ladder to get in and out.

But of those I'll take wide, wide fairways as my first choice!

[Chris Buie]

IMO, fairway width should be related to the strategic principle of proportionate penalization.  That is, the worse the shot the greater the penalty.  And vice versa. 
I was going to post the following on the recent #2 restoration thread but didn't want to prolong it.  The first photo shows the 13th as Ross set it up in 1939 on the left.  The photo on the right shows how it has played in modern times - until just recently.  As you can see there is quite a difference. 


For the Opens that were held on #2 if you hit it one foot off of the very narrow fairway then you just chopped it out.  Remember Payne chopping it out on the 72nd hole?  That is too strong a penalty for just missing a fairway.  Below we see how it played during the 2005 Open and where C/C currently are.


Another point of having wide fairways has already been touched on in this thread.  Options.  It's a more interesting and certainly more fun game when there are optimal ways of approaching a green - particularly when the hole is located far to one side or another.  With narrow fairways there is no option with the drive.  And there is no strategic advantage with no varying angles to the approach.
Penalize the poor shot, but give the not too wayward drive something of a chance.  That is my point of view.

[Adrian_Stiff]

I think too many people confuse a desire for width with a desire for wide fairways. That's probably because too many places seem to actively cultivate thick, heavy, uniform rough.

I'm as big a proponent of width as there is on here, but I really only care about functional width - can I find my ball and play it again? Less manicured rough usually allows this, whereas super thick lush rough frequently doesn't, or at least makes it overly difficult.

Nice post, Don.

George I agree that width should be thought of more of the corridor in which you can play the ball. There are not many UK courses where fairways are in excess of 40 yards wide and personally I think hitting it straight off the tee is a clear part of the game with penalties of varying degrees for missing the fairway. I think you should be able to find your ball easily if you are in the semi rough with the penalty that the longer grass affords lesser ball control to the better golfer and often an increase in how the greenside hazards will affect.

[Jud_T]

And I though width was solely about ingesting too many fish tacos at the turn....

[Tom_Doak]

Basically I like any feature of a golf course that lets you play the game in a more or less continuous-walking fashion. So wide, wide playing corridors of short grass are great. But it's quite acceptable to have rough that's an inch or so deep as well.

I agree with this as well.  In fact, Crystal Downs is set up just that way ... the fairways are 30-40 yards wide, and then there is maybe 10-15 yards of mowed bluegrass rough on either side, before you get into the nasty native stuff where all the ball-hunting begins.  But, as Jeff's numbers indicate, that isn't really quite enough for a group of 10-handicappers to get around fast.

[V. Kmetz]

Jeff B.

You could be making a good deal of sense in the overall, but I think that your anecdotal statistical review of what "most golfers" do is too breezy/ or presumptive.  i observe 1500 -2000 shots per week of "poor," average and above-average golfers and all groups would be happy to take 66% of fairways hit.

I do think - with greater occasion than has been present for many decades - width for width sake is a good thing.  It's just an opinion, but i re-state my foundations for it:

1.  the magnitude appeals to the eye
2.  it inspires less anxious swing execution
3.  it gives the player the choice...not the architect, course, the conditions or the committee-of-the-day that presents the playing field.

and two others:
4. it means less looking for balls
5. easiness through width, can often make humble the brazen player

cheers

vk

[Brent Hutto]

Not wanting to be argumentative but I do not agree with "proportionate penalization" as any sort of rubric for evaluating a golf course. What in the world is wrong with a shot or a hole on which the worst place to be is quite close to the safest place to be? Or where there are wild-ass shots that end up OK?

[Scott Warren]

The reason I love width so much is this:

As you stand on the tee, you have a score in your head that you know you want to make, expect to make or hope to make. Perhaps all three.

The closer you get to the hole, the more acute the pursuit of that becomes - both that you're physically nearer to the hole and have fewer shots to play.

On a tight hole bordered by harsh rough, water, thick trees or gorse - that goal can be ended by one bad swing.

With width coupled with features that enhance the test the further you move down the hole, you can recover from a bad swing or poor decision, and while your mission remains alive, you give yourself more to do to achieve your goal.

Allowing the anticipation to build longer before a goal it is ultimately realised or taken away from you increases the emotion that's felt - either good or bad.

I know I haven't articulated that as well as I hoped to, but that to me is a round of golf - 1 war broken down into 18 battles. The longer each of those battles is able to go on before victory/defeat is decided the better.

I firmly believe a well-designed golf course will take as many shots as a narrow death march will if you don't play well, but you will enjoy the experience more because you will spend more of each hole and more of the round "in the hunt".

[Chris Buie]

Brent, I enjoy the occasional shot where the best and worst places are side by side.  Like going for a flag that is close to a fearsome bunker.  That is a strategic choice for the golfer - and that is fun.  Some randomness with the shot bounding around on firm turf is adventurous and fun as well. 
But every single tee shot, all day long where you can not hit it one foot off the fairway?  Or a constant stream of disproportionate penalties?  Not a kind of course I would care for.  Ross definitely had the philosophy of rewarding and penalizing a shot according to how well it was played.  He definitely wanted to give the somewhat wayward shot a chance to be redeemed with an especially well played next stroke.  Those are the kinds of courses I enjoy playing for the most part.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by wild shots that end up ok.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Jeff B.

You could be making a good deal of sense in the overall, but I think that your anecdotal statistical review of what "most golfers" do is too breezy/ or presumptive.  i observe 1500 -2000 shots per week of "poor," average and above-average golfers and all groups would be happy to take 66% of fairways hit.

I do think - with greater occasion than has been present for many decades - width for width sake is a good thing.  It's just an opinion, but i re-state my foundations for it:

1.  the magnitude appeals to the eye
2.  it inspires less anxious swing execution
3.  it gives the player the choice...not the architect, course, the conditions or the committee-of-the-day that presents the playing field.

and two others:
4. it means less looking for balls
5. easiness through width, can often make humble the brazen player

cheers

vk

I have spent a lot of time over the years studying this.  The basic statement is taken from the USGA slope guide, however, and they have studied it even more.  I always laugh that they didn't attempt 3/4 of golfers which would seemingly be more relevant to fast play and finding fw.  Maybe the numbers were just too staggering, as I know fw would have to be over 70 yards wide, not just 40!  There was also a one day study by the USGA on a public course and 104 of 150 shots studied got airborne, and about 2/3 of those found a reasonably wide fw, so the 2/3 number is actually a little low for the average public course - 2/3 of 2/3 is more like 44% of all high handicap shots hit the fw, but if the discussion is width, the top shots don't necessarily apply.

That said, the environmental trend to reduce turf certainly makes the top shots apply, as does width!  It all slows down play and we need to find a combo of real low maintenance turf that can be cut at reasonable heights and take traffice to allow those top shots and 30 yard right tee shots get found and played quickly.

I do agree large scale can be awesome.  The first comment golfers make on many of my courses is about the scale of them.  There was another thread on that recently, where the comments were about how scale was used simply to win awards, was there not?  Honestly, I think there are many reasons to make a large scale course.  Many of your traditionally scaled courses started as large scale courses and got downsized over the years, either to save maintenance, fit sprinklers (2 or 3 row) or because poorly planted trees over grew.  For that matter, most of the old time greens started out as 6-10,000 SF affairs and have shrunk to half their size.

[George Pazin]

I have spent a lot of time over the years studying this.  The basic statement is taken from the USGA slope guide, however, and they have studied it even more.  I always laugh that they didn't attempt 3/4 of golfers which would seemingly be more relevant to fast play and finding fw.  Maybe the numbers were just too staggering, as I know fw would have to be over 70 yards wide, not just 40!  There was also a one day study by the USGA on a public course and 104 of 150 shots studied got airborne, and about 2/3 of those found a reasonably wide fw, so the 2/3 number is actually a little low for the average public course - 2/3 of 2/3 is more like 44% of all high handicap shots hit the fw, but if the discussion is width, the top shots don't necessarily apply.

That said, the environmental trend to reduce turf certainly makes the top shots apply, as does width!  It all slows down play and we need to find a combo of real low maintenance turf that can be cut at reasonable heights and take traffice to allow those top shots and 30 yard right tee shots get found and played quickly.

I do agree large scale can be awesome.  The first comment golfers make on many of my courses is about the scale of them.  There was another thread on that recently, where the comments were about how scale was used simply to win awards, was there not?  Honestly, I think there are many reasons to make a large scale course.  Many of your traditionally scaled courses started as large scale courses and got downsized over the years, either to save maintenance, fit sprinklers (2 or 3 row) or because poorly planted trees over grew.  For that matter, most of the old time greens started out as 6-10,000 SF affairs and have shrunk to half their size.

Don't you think most of your problems would be eliminated if folks simply stopped turbocharging the rough?