What would you do?

[Ted Sturges]

What would you do, architecturally or course maintenance-wise, to provide resistance to scoring to the world's best players today?  Building an 8000 yard course seems to have been proven to NOT work, so let's rule that out.  Other than lengthening the course, what would you do to challenge today's touring pros (assume you can't change the ball or deaden today's driving clubs)?

TS

[JESII]

Make sure the greens are firm with significant slope.

Don't rake bunkers, but also not too much sand.

Fairways set at an offset angle to the tee.

[ward peyronnin]

Make the course and setup "unfair" cause the players have conniptions!!

[JMEvensky]

Make sure the greens are firm with significant slope.

You don't need your other two.

[Brent Hutto]

Put it where the wind blows, elevate the greens, place bunkers and water everywhere and avoid having any straight-ahead tee shots in favor of oblique carry angles. Use a kind of grass nobody is familiar with an play the sand areas as regular through-the-green instead of bunkers.

Even then, some little slip of a kid will probably shoot 13 under. Go figure...

[Brett_Morrissy]

Maintenance - cut all the rough, so they can run out of position as possible - see Melb Sandbelt

[Adam Clayman]

Firm, with low mow everything, except the greens. Run horses through every bunker and make hitting a grandstand OB. 

[John Kavanaugh]

Make every par 3 under 100 yds, every par 4 between 280 and 330 yds and every par 5 over 650 yds.

[Ted Sturges]

Would anyone propose to SLOW down the green speeds?  Very interesting points made by Tim Liddy at the Midwest mashie on that topic. 

TS

[Tom_Doak]

Would anyone propose to SLOW down the green speeds?  Very interesting points made by Tim Liddy at the Midwest mashie on that topic. 

TS

Ted:

We as architects don't get to set up the courses.  The Tour does that.

The only time they make the greens slower is when they are playing an older course where the greens have significant contour, and haven't been flattened by Rees Jones yet.  Westchester was one such event.  I do think part of the reason the pros didn't shoot -30 there was that the greens were slower than what they are used to, and they had trouble adjusting to the different speed.

But, if you were building a new course, the Tour would hand you a set of "guidelines" that preclude having a slope of more than 2.25% in the areas where they will set the holes, so that they can have the greens rolling at 13.

I do have some ideas on what I would do ... in fact, I am refining them right now as it's possible the day will come when I get a chance to try them out.  But if I do get the job, the toughest part will be getting the Tour to let me do anything that makes a difference.  In the end, they seem not to really WANT anybody to figure it out.

[Rich Goodale]

Make every par 3 under 100 yds, every par 4 between 280 and 330 yds and every par 5 over 650 yds.

You nailed this one, John.  Such a course would drive the pros batshit!

[Jon Wiggett]

1. Plenty of slope on the green
2. don't rake the bunkers
3. ban yardages letting pros judge by eye
4. play matchplay making par irrelevant
5. make all holes under 500 yards par 3s

Jon

[Pat Burke]

Less par fives.
Course within a course design.  Short par fours for golfers become long par threes etc

Accepting something below a par of 70

[Joe Bausch]

Make every par 3 under 100 yds, every par 4 between 280 and 330 yds and every par 5 over 650 yds.

That should generate some discussion.  Not sure
anyone would design a course like this but it likely would
challenge convention.

[Matthew Essig]

1. Contoured greens (however not greens that are bowls with dividing ridges so balls funnel towards the hole within 15-20 feet of it)
2. Have bunkers play like hazards (whether it is more plugged lies or have a kid or horse run through it a few times and never rake a bunker)
3. Have players drop behind the grandstand or have it play as OB.
4. A par 70 course with all par 5's play as 3-shotters (thread is about how to challenge the pros not about having scoring be exciting).
5. Only indicator of yardage is a 150 pole.
6. Return to having Round 1 on Friday with 36 on Sunday

[Matthew Petersen]

Hard and fast seems to be the biggest thing, and probably the easiest to accomplish without compromising the architecture as it can be softened and slowed for regular play later on.

Look at Pebble Beach. Sure, it has wind and small greens, but that doesn't stop guys from shooting very good scores there in February. But when the US Open shows up in June and that course is as hard and fast as can be ... doesn't matter at all that it's "only" 7,000 yards. That course is a beast in those conditions.

[Kalen Braley]

Holes with doglegs with trouble on either or both side of the dogleg.
Contoured greens
Fast fairways that run out into the rough.
Pinched in areas at common LZs.

[BCrosby]

There's no mystery about setting up a course to resist scoring. We've know how to do it since at least the early '50's. Narrow fw's, heighten roughs, firm up and speed up fw's and greens, stretch tees. Depending on how far you take any of those elements, presto, you get high scores. Not a very interesting question

The more interesting question is - holding set-ups constant at normal levels - how you would design permanent architectural features if your goal is to test the pros.

We've discussed this many times here. I don't have any cool ideas. I'm loooking forward to seeing Tom Doak's. I think John K's suggestions above would result in unusually low scores. The pros might not be in line for tenure at MIT, but they aren't so dumb they wouldn't quickly adjust to such a course.

Bob  

[Tom_Doak]

Make every par 3 under 100 yds, every par 4 between 280 and 330 yds and every par 5 over 650 yds.

You nailed this one, John.  Such a course would drive the pros batshit!

I used to think something like that would work, but not anymore.  When we did some of those things for the Stadium course at PGA West, the players voted not to play it for the Bob Hope anymore!

But, once they realized Pete intended to take away the easy 100-yard approach shot and make them try to play half-wedge shots, came the dawn of the 56- and 60-degree wedges so they could get those shorter distances dialed in.  No pro is even slightly fazed by an 80-yard wedge shot anymore.  And, time marches on, so the distances you are describing as ideal to cause trouble today, would be obsolete in ten years anyway.

There is a better way, but it involves thinking out of the box.  I'm glad to see that nobody so far has come close to what I'm thinking, although Jim Sullivan's idea of angling the fairways is one piece I agree with.

[Matthew Essig]

Tom,

Is your idea some crazy idea that would never happen like shrinking the hole a 1/8 inch, an idea that is so simple that no one would think of it, or some architectural key/setup that no one has thought of?

[Jon Wiggett]

On second thoughts. Just mow the greens and tees letting the rest of the course to be dealt with by a flock of sheep might work .

Jon

[John McCarthy]

Make the cup 33% smaller.

[Tony Ristola]

A fair diet of fall-away greens, or sections of greens that fall-away.
Blindness when not on the optimal line; you can see the flagstick but not the hole.
Offset fairways where it is difficult to pick a line off the tee, and then add hazards that draw the eye up the fairway.... and imperceptible curvature on the line of attack.
Ridges in the putting surface that can deflect shots; thinking Vernon Macan's definition that the green is not a safe haven.
A variety of lies; an example; a guy who bombs it over a plateau finds himself with a downhill lie to a green designed to be difficult to approach from such a lie.
Thin, long greens close to boundaries and wide fairways, so those playing safe are attacking towards the boundary; add a sharp slope on the safe side (bail out area) of the green and the approach is a b*tch.
Make the greens on the short 4's so radical they are playing defensive.
None of this requires massive length, nor an abundance of hazards. The (short cut) contours are the hazards.

LOL... make the finishing holes play into the setting sun.

Mix 'em up, and give them a few opportunities to breath. It would be a modern radical answer, and with the short cut would allow the average guy to keep it low into and around the greens.

[Josh Tarble]

Would anyone propose to SLOW down the green speeds?  Very interesting points made by Tim Liddy at the Midwest mashie on that topic. 

TS

Ted I thought that was a pretty interesting comment as well....I immediately thought of players using belly putters.  I'm wondering if on slow greens belly putters would actually be a hindrance? 

[Ken Moum]

Less par fives.
Course within a course design.  Short par fours for golfers become long par threes etc

Accepting something below a par of 70

Just add about 75 yards to of the numbers on this chart--for pros.



Par threes up to 325
Fours from 326 to 550
Fives 551 and above

Pretty much every course would become about par 68, and we'd all be able to get over ourselves about only par 72 courses being "real" golf courses.

K