Golf course set up for women

[Sean_A]

Tom

If par isn't to be stretched, you have a real problem if you don't want more than 3/4 tees or a course which maxes out at less than 6000 yards.  The big problem with tees all over the place isn't aesthetic (for me as it sounds to be for Tom), but rather the anti-social aspect of it.  I hate it when one person is isolated or the group is split and these days that split could literally mean only seeing a player on the greens.  If we believe golf to be a social game then this is a problem.  I think it also goes a long way to explaining why men and women play together so seldomly (relatively speaking).  Often times its married couples in mixed foursomes or some such thing - rather than mates getting together like we see in the separate genders on a regular basis.  Its like a totally different world of golf.

Ciao

[David Harshbarger]

I recall reading somewhere that women generally hit the ball a lower flight path, and impart less spin on the ball.   

1. Is this true?
2. Doesn't this mean that women hitting with short irons are hitting balls that fly more like mid or long irons?
3. If you were to design a course (or select an existing course) specifically for women, what would you do differently re placement of hazards, defending greens, etc.?
4. Are there courses designed specifically for women, and if so, do they work regarding playing qualities and economics?

Dave

[Patrick_Mucci]

Won't the ideal length of ladies tees (in relation to mens tees)  vary depending on fairway role?  On a reasonably firm surface the average woman could almost get as much role as her carry.  A man is not going to achieve that.

David,

Do you know of any course that consistently produce that kind of roll ?

This year, even during the drought, I didn't notice much in the way of roll on courses in the NY Met area.
In fact, I started a thread on the subject.

[Jeff_Brauer]

TD,

I should have specified that I really don't find too many LPGA tour pros running around the courses I consult at, so didn't mention them.  Typically, I find about 40 female golfers, with about 30 at 40 handicaps and 130-145 yard drives and 10 at handicaps <20 and 160-170 yard drives.  Obviously, they are all across the spectrum, but they concentrate in those two areas.

Same with men.  Distances are all over the board, but seem to cluster at 260, 230, 200 and 170, with a larger smattering between 170 and 200.

Yes 8 or even 6 tees is a lot.  I typically use five, based on the 1% 290 hitters (no more than 20  x 20 feet), 260, 220, combine the next tee to 180 or so, and then add the 140-130 tees.

I find total yardages of 7250, 6750, 6250, 5750 and 4250 to be popular among players, based on some golf industry stats I have seen.

[Philip Gawith]

Lots of interesting replies, thanks to all for the data and the views. Among the points that resonate (admittedly based off a small, but possibly representative, sample):

- the way some courses are set up means my wife will find most par 4's and 5's hard to hit in regulation, even with good shots - which means a long series of fairway woods and few short irons, which can't add to overall enjoyment.
- she has commented on how nice it is to play with someone else (a woman) who hits off the same tee as her - so Mike's point about the sociability of playing off the same tee is a good one, and not something i had considered.
- most elite courses will want a bomber's tee, but I agree with Ulrich that it would generally make more sense if you want to avoid proliferation of tees, to increase the optionality at the short end. Maybe Jeff's 20 by 20 solution for the back tee is a reasonable compromise.
- i think David E makes a good point about roll. That is why links or links style courses are much more friendly to women, at least from the tee. And David T confirms my general point about the difference between the older and more modern designs.
- on the basis of Pinehurst No 2 and Mid-Pines and Southern Pines my wife declared Donald Ross her (golfing) hero! But the Ocean Course and Tobacco Road were not congenial destinations - just too much quirk and difficulty.

Philip

[David_Elvins]

Do you know of any course that consistently produce that kind of roll ?
This year, even during the drought, I didn't notice much in the way of roll on courses in the NY Met area.
In fact, I started a thread on the subject.[/b][/size][/color]

Pat,

Here in Melbourne we have a lot of courses with Santa Ana couch grass (fine leaf Bermuda).  It can play very fast in the dry summer and during winter dormancy.   

The fast courses give the really short hitters a bit of a chance to catch up to the medium length hitters because the ball roles so much further for the shorter hitters with a flat ball flight. The better players usually have a higher ball flight that carries further but roles less.   A lady with a flat ball flight could definitely hit drives that carried 100 yards and rolled 70-80 with regularity. 

You will get a better sense of it when you come down here to play some golf. 

[Andrew Lewis]

My wife sports a 29.5 index.  She drives the ball around 150 yards (~130 yard carry) and comfortably plays our club with a goal of breaking 100.  Unlike some of the other posters' wives, mine regularly hits short/scoring irons into greens -- albeit more often on third shots on par fours.

Her biggest gripe relates not to length of course/holes impacting her ability to reach greens in regulation (although she does like courses that let her do so), but rather to forced carries anywhere other than off the tee.  Such shots oftentimes require awkward layup shots of 50 yards to position her as close to the hazard as possible and thus comfortably execute the carry.  Our club is generally free of such shots.

Regarding "tee box proliferation" -- our club has four sets of tees, but five "courses" one can play as a result of a mixed/combination set -- a concept that I think makes a TON of sense, as it provides additional options without any increase in maintenance.  The distances, respectively, run around 4900 yards, 5700 yards, 6300 yards, 6600 yards (the combo set) and 7000 yards.

[David_Tepper]

Janet Coles played (and won) on the LPGA Tour for a number of years. She now teaches golf in northern California. She has written a book called "3-Shot Golf" that is focused on how women (and us short-hitting seniors ) have to play most holes on most golf courses.

The 3-shots are driver, fairway club/hybrid and short iron/wedge. Anyone looking for a nice present for their golfing wife should get them a copy!

http://www.amazon.com/Three-Shot-Golf-Women-Revolutionary-Approach/dp/1580800327/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1347490129&sr=1-5&keywords=janet+coles

[Tyler Kearns]

I find total yardages of 7250, 6750, 6250, 5750 and 4250 to be popular among players, based on some golf industry stats I have seen.

Jeff,

Doesn't this spread in total yardage really only give average women one choice of tees? Imparting the 75% rule, the 5750 yds. tee is the equivalent of men playing from 7650 yds., which won't be fun for the vast majority. I certainly understand it is getting increasingly difficult to provide for the widening range of golfers, but I think it is imperative that women should have a choice, with the longest choice overlapping to serve a portion of the male membership as well.

TK

[Jeff_Brauer]

Tyler,
Therein lies the rub.  I think 5600 on an average course might work better as a combined tee for senior men and competitive, longer hitting women.  Most senior men like a course yardage below 6000 (whereas my Dad never would play under 6K) but not tooooo far below.

If you really want to accomodate the major "classes" of players, you probably need six tees, but so many here, and also so many course operators are against it.  Even with 6 tees, however,  you will always have a lot of holes that are just a bit too long or short for a wide variety of players who hit it just off the "average" of their typical player.

[Tom_Doak]

Talking about all of this in terms of total length is the wrong approach, in my opinion.  It's not the total length of the course that matters but how it is distributed through the 18 holes.

Simply, there need to be some par-4 holes where the women can reach the green in two shots, and some where they are better off playing the holes as "bogey 5's" and taking three shots to reach the green.

The same is true for senior men and anybody with a handicap above 10 or 12.

[Jeff_Brauer]

I think there are some broad ranges you start with, and of course, every hole should be examined to make it right.  One thing those stats helped me see is that the forward tees really need to be shortened in most cases by a percentage, i.e. par 5's 10% less might be 50 yards shorter, whereas par 4 holes can be 40 yards shorter, for example.

I agree that not all par 4's should be reachable, but when we unveiled La Costa, and a decent female player was glowing that she hit 13 greens from the family tees, her next words were "why didn't you make all 18 reachable in par figures?"

And so, that is the question.  Is it chauvanistic to say the women should be happy to play a course where some or most of the holes cannot be reached in par figures?  If distance isn't as important as playing the course the way the game is imagined to be played, why not make the holes where different levels of players can play it in regulation, if they are good enough (or their shots are?)

[David_Elvins]

If you really want to accomodate the major "classes" of players, you probably need six tees

Jeff,

As an alternative, if you want to accomodate the major classes of players, just design a fricking good golf course.  

People give a lot less of a sh-t about what length of course they are playing if they are continuously confronted with interesting, challenging and well designed golf holes.

6 tees is just a crutch of the poor designer who wants to show they are accounting for different types of players without actually doing so in their architecture or design philosophy.  

[ward peyronnin]

David

You bring to mind Tom Byrum and in my mind one of the top rounds of golf I've ever not seen...........his 72 at Bethpage Black  in the open when he could hardly make the forced carries on many holes

[Greg Chambers]

wtf is a par figure???

[Ken Moum]

Talking about all of this in terms of total length is the wrong approach, in my opinion.  It's not the total length of the course that matters but how it is distributed through the 18 holes.

Simply, there need to be some par-4 holes where the women can reach the green in two shots, and some where they are better off playing the holes as "bogey 5's" and taking three shots to reach the green.

The same is true for senior men and anybody with a handicap above 10 or 12.

You are definitely right about that.

I just played Ron Farris's Red Rocks today and decided to play the gold tees @ 5780. But that's a bit under my preferred length so I played three holes from the whites and one from the blues.

Since it has one of.my least-favorite attributes, par threes of 110, 153, 153 and 178, I played one @ 225. I also played one par five far enough back that I could barely reach the fairway.

Those changes made the spread between longest and shortest more than 100 yard.

Which makes the game more fun.

K

[Jason Thurman]

If you really want to accomodate the major "classes" of players, you probably need six tees

Jeff,

As an alternative, if you want to accomodate the major classes of players, just design a fricking good golf course.  

People give a lot less of a sh-t about what length of course they are playing if they are continuously confronted with interesting, challenging and well designed golf holes.

6 tees is just a crutch of the poor designer who wants to show they are accounting for different types of players without actually doing so in their architecture or design philosophy.  

On that same note, I keep thinking another way to accommodate women without making every hole reachable in regulation is to just consider how it would play as a "higher par" hole. How would your par 4 play as a par 5 for a really short hitter? Is the layup interesting or miserable? How would the par 3 play as a par 4? Is there somewhere to hit the tee shot or is it just "aim at the green and hope it goes far"?

This is one thing that Pine Needles does really well, and it helps explain why it's one of my mother's favorite courses.

[Jeff_Brauer]

David,

Great sound bite.  Not really sound advice.

I believe most golfers do check a card (at least before the first playing) and look to see if there is a tee set/overall yardage that suits their game.  Now, they may find that a course 100 yards longer or shorter might actually play well, its a matter of forced carries that make it no fun.

Usually, for an interesting shot, you need some kind of hazard or twist.  The basic choice in most cases is multiple tees to get all tee shots to the same area with hazard, or fewer tees and more hazards/features.  While the latter can be great, and sometimes preferable, since you need adequate tee space anyway, its usually more economical to build the multiple tees.

I recall the Chicago school (esp Larry Packard) typically made the women's course a par 74, which is fine by my count.  Why not a 8- 6 -4 arrangement?  Somehow, the ideas of equalizing all pars at 72 has taken hold.  But then, that second shot should be made interesting, rather than a boring advance the ball type shot.  And, really, if those middle par 5 shots are boring most of the time for men, why should we tell women they should take it and like it?  Aren't the tee shots and approach shots more interesting?

[David_Elvins]

David,

Great sound bite.  Not really sound advice.

I believe most golfers do check a card (at least before the first playing) and look to see if there is a tee set/overall yardage that suits their game.  Now, they may find that a course 100 yards longer or shorter might actually play well,

I agree, but they don't need to.  Just a personal reflection but I find my score has little to do with the course yardage.  Anecdotally, so does that of the people I play with.  

its a matter of forced carries that make it no fun.

I agree, forced carries are no fun.  But forced carries are a design feature that has nothing to do with the length of the hole.  If forced carries are an issue for the weaker golfer, the most logical solution is to design less forced carries.  

Usually, for an interesting shot, you need some kind of hazard or twist.  The basic choice in most cases is multiple tees to get all tee shots to the same area with hazard, or fewer tees and more hazards/features.  While the latter can be great, and sometimes preferable, since you need adequate tee space anyway, its usually more economical to build the multiple tees.

Apologies, but this just seems like horrible architeture to me.  Requiring a player to interact with a hazard on every single tee shot is a monotonous bore.  Put the hazards at different distances on different holes as an alternative.  Diagonal hazards will interact with more golfers, as will hazards on a golf course with firm ground.  Use big features such as ridges to provide interest instead of hazards.  There are so so many alternatives to prescriptive architecture that requires every golfer to try to play the hole in some sort of ideal way imagined by the designer.  

[Sean_A]

If you really want to accomodate the major "classes" of players, you probably need six tees

Jeff,

As an alternative, if you want to accomodate the major classes of players, just design a fricking good golf course.  

People give a lot less of a sh-t about what length of course they are playing if they are continuously confronted with interesting, challenging and well designed golf holes.

6 tees is just a crutch of the poor designer who wants to show they are accounting for different types of players without actually doing so in their architecture or design philosophy.  

I too am amazed by this comment.  We have so many great examples where three tees work fine because the design is playable.  Yet, what do developers and archies want to do - reinvent the wheel.  Is it all part and parcel of justifying their fees?  

If there is one thing we learn from history is that we don't learn from history.


Ciao

[Jeff_Brauer]

David,

I would agree with your points.  If it was just a sand hazard you saw on every hole, it would be boring.  Which is why I said a hazard or a twist of some kind.  But, I would also contend that a shorter hitter playing up to 14 shots that simply were advancing the ball would be (based on comments I hear) pretty boring, too.  I suspect if I said we will just design boring no strategy shots that you would critique that, too.

Sean,

Again, I see no problem in reinventing the wheel if the wheel wasn't perfect in the first place.  Saying three tees works fine sounds like you still design from your perspective and don't really consider others!  Its like saying the 50's were the greatest decade if your childhood experience was like Leave it to Beaver, but not asking blacks what their pre civil rights life was like, eh?  In short, as time goes on, and we really start considering how the course plays for the real golfers rather than imagine that a pro will show up, we ask questions, try to get answers.

Would you argue that the early ladies tees, set about five yards in front of the men's tees worked for women?  Or was it a half hearted accomodation that left them with too long a course, mostly because men in charge just didn't care?

[Martin Toal]

At my club, Bearwood Lakes, the mens' white (competition tees) are 6488 yards, par 72 and the ladies tees are 5482, par 72. By my calculation (OK my computer's calculation), that is 84% of the length. The Standard Scratch Score (akin to course rating) is 71 for men and 72 for ladies.

There are 27 men with an active handicap of 5.0 or lower. The median handicap for all men is around 13 (eyeballing the centre of the list in handicap order)

The lowest ladies' handicap is 5.7 and the median is around 21.

[Sean_A]

Jeff

I am inclined to believe that men didn't care much about where ladies tees were.  Some of that was for good reason as many clubs didn't have many lady members and the men often didn't encourage women to join.  These days, in the mad rush to make money women are seen as an untapped market so suddenly there is talk of women's tees.  Be that as it may, my point was that despite men not caring about ladies tees back in the day, the courses were and are more playable than many modern courses so there isn't the need to create six sets of tees.  Creating a course which is playable for all was actually an M.O. for archies.  Now, archies create a false need for extra sets because of marketing decisions rather than architectural decisions.  IMO, six sets of tees represents lazy architecture and/or a poor site for golf.  If courses were designed with the idea of getting people around them rather than carts there would be little need for that many tees.  But then 7000+ yards, six sets of tees, 100 bunkers, signature holes, 5 miles of cart paths and 5 ponds are all marketing points these days - thats how badly things have gone astray.  So much of architecture is just an exercise in marketing - so much so that archies make a living going against that mantra.  It sure is a big world.  

Ciao

[Jeff_Brauer]

Sean,

No doubt that the drive for tougher courses, which seems to have been there in most of American golf history.  There was CBM's quest for a world class course, RTJ at Oakland Hills and others, the GD rankings focused on hard, and of course, the CCFAD movement that tried to make muni courses into more championship tests. The drive for length also contributes in that shorter length might make up for harder courses.

 Maybe that drive has peaked at least for a while.  No doubt that three or four sets of tees work better when the back tees are closer to 6800 rather than 7500.  (I wonder how many courses are really that long, but thats another issue)

That said, as a designer, form follows function.  So, to start, I set a goal of most if not all players being able to play golf the way intended, such as hitting par 4's in two, so that they enjoy the game.  No one has answered the question yet of why the 99% of golfers who pay the bills shouldn't enjoy the game that way, and I doubt anyone really can give a good answer.

With that as a design goal, I need multiple tees at 60/70/80 and 90% of the longest hitters, because the math cannot be overcome.  A 130 yard driver cannot have par 4's over about 290 yards and reach them in two shots.  That said, I do find it impractical to use the Barney Adams method of an 8 iron for Tiger is an 8 iron for Aunt Sally.  I think keeping the approach shots to any kind of iron, rather than three full shots on a par 4 is a big step forward.

Of course, I make exceptions for topo, hazards, and other individual hole factors, so I might (grudingly) accept only 14 holes as reachable by those average length hitters for their class, if forced to by natural factors.  I might accept par 74, knowing that a few courses with six par fives are generally well accepted.  Where I have introduced shorter tees, women have said they really liked them, and it made golf more fun.

To be honest, its not lazy design.  I put more thought than ever in it.  What's been lazy design is architects never really considering the needs of the average player.  Simply slapping a forward tee somewhere up front didn't really cut it.

As to the length equals marketing argument, I can agree, and posted a thread on it recently.  That said, most businesses don't want to be the trend setter of ignoring those back tees, which shoud be only a rumor to 99.9% of players, but for whatever reason, they equate them with quality, even if they never set foot on them.  I have tried to tell clients to eliminate the back tees used by so few.  

[Sean_A]

Jeff

You have lost me on the "intended" remark.  It isn't at all clear to me that golfers who hit the ball 275-350 yards in two shots were intended to hit greens in regulation - men or women.  To my way of thinking this is a very recent notion and little to do with classic architecture or playability.  Some may argue that folks who hit two shots 300 yards should have a course which essentially has 18 reachable greens.  I can't say I necessarily disagree, but then I do disagree that we need tees stretching back more than 1000 yards beyond these tees.  The problem lies at the top end of the yardage scale, not the bottom end.  This inherently means that architecture leans toward men's needs (at least men with handicaps), but that shouldn't be surprising as the vast majority of true golfers are men. 

It is interesting that one of the few courses owned and operated by women that I know of is Formby Ladies and their card is 5400 yards.  So it would seem even at that end at least some women think hitting the ball a minimal distance is an important aspect of the challenge. 

Ciao