#4 Care to add up the green to tee walking distance to the standard tees?
Subtitle: low greens and high tees. High tea is good if you're British and get hungry in the afternoon. High tee is not good if you are playing golf.
I'll be a little critical: I think #4 and #21 are weaker than the rest in green to tee transition. Given the nature of the site, I don't think anything >50 yards should really be seen from the edge of the green to at least one of the next tees.
Also of interest, #17 was the only one of the finalists to not have their routing use the land in the bottom center-right of the property.
Alex,
I think 50 yards is a little harsh. I don't mind walking over 50 yards to the next tee...if it's worth it when I get there (and you have an idea of where you're supposed to hit it). Quality of the golf holes has to be the main consideration.
As this was being discussed, I was working on calculating some green-to-tee distances via this nifty tool called Google Earth. I also tried to consider the gradient between the edge of the green and the start of the next tee box. For the first and last hole, I averaged the walk to and from the clubhouse and counted it as one data point. Call it the Colton Green-To-Tee Index.
I found myself using Sand Hills and Ballyneal as benchmarks in the design process, so it seems like a good starting point. Both are considered good walking courses.
What follows is the average adjusted (for slope) walking distance, first without clubhouse, then with clubhouse. This is followed by a distribution of holes by adj distance (0-25 yards, 25-50, 50-75, 75-100, 100-150, 150+)
Sand Hills: 55/71* : 3, 7, 3, 1, 3, 1 (* to and from Ben's Porch)
Ballyneal: 66/76 : 1, 4, 7, 5, 1, 0
Obviously the site has a lot to do with it, but that should give us some context (I'll probably do DR1 & 2 eventually).
UPDATE:
DR1: 81/91* : 2, 4, 1, 5, 3, 3 (* to and from starter hut)
Now let's look at the finalists:
4 - 95/95 : 0, 3, 5, 5, 2, 3
7 - 46/53: 4, 7, 2, 4, 1, 0
13- 32/36: 9, 5, 3, 1, 0, 0
16- 60/68: 2, 5, 6, 2, 2, 1 (I adjusted for what seemed to be a slightly larger scale. He'd be 66/75 w/o this adjustment)
17- 59/65: 0, 9, 4, 3, 2, 0
19- 44/44: 1, 12, 4, 1, 0, 0
21- 84/98: 1, 3, 6, 2, 5, 1
22 - 28/44: 7, 9, 0, 1, 0, 1
It appears that 13 & 22 rank best in this criteria, while most of the others are in the right ballpark. As Alex pointed out, 4 & 21 are outliers on the high end.