I did a test today on this thread. Today was breezing along at 20-25mph. I played the same 9's, one with driver on all par 4's and 5's, and one with nothing longer than a 4 iron. I shot 42-41. Putts were near equal.
The scoring differences were pretty clear. Lower average relative to par on par 4's, higher on par 5's. I know it's one day, one test, and there are all kinds of variable for each golfer. But I came away with a few thoughts. I think shorter par 4's are scarier with the driver in hand. Though the length is certainly nice to have, it's much easier to get offline with a driver. One of the other thoughts I had was that par 5's became very strategically boring when a 200yd shot was all I could get off the tee.
I think this is a very good topic Mike. One of Tom's young guys, Zach Varty, and myself have had some good dialogue about the driver. I wrote this in one of our emails....the continuous and precisely directed messages that golf companies and the greater golf world feed the larger golfing public are negatively affecting golfers’ views of great architecture with regard to the driver. That's why I think it should be an architects goal to never overtly take a club out of any players hand due to shrunken landing zone, impossible carries, and prematurely ending fairways/early doglegs. I would add here, holes that take driver away from the vast majority of players is generally not well received from my experience.