[Jeff_Brauer]

So now any flipplant, immediate reaction is considered valid research?  I would use the market, and as mentioned, if it fails it fails.  Like most here, I can't see it taking over any more than a handful of golf courses, at least on a full time basis.

As to PP3, all I was saying is we don't know if your son would have also enjoyed 15" holes.  Of course he knew that the standard cups were there!  Geez, you guys are getting so worked up you can't even read straight!

I would agree that the challenge of miniature golf would change a lot given how short the holes are.  I still believe beginning golfers could use courses like the MD Challenge Course where the forward tees are chip shots, the middle and back tees are something you work back to.  Eventually the goal for most would be to get off these learner facilities and on to bigger courses, however no problem is some occasional golfers simply want to stay there for occasional rounds.

As I say, what is the root of such vehement resistance to change?  It is merely discussion of ways to attract new golfers.  And yes, while Taylor Made will sell more clubs, if they can spread their overhead among a few million more sales each year, maybe out prices will go down, too.....

[Thomas Dai]

Would anyone posting herein bother to even carry a putter on any kind of 'course' with 15" holes?
atb

[Jeff_Brauer]

Thomas, you do need a putter.

[DMoriarty]

So now any flipplant, immediate reaction is considered valid research? 

You mean like your one round on a course with 15 inch holes?

[Paul Gray]

15 " CUPS will make the game much quicker. A round could drop nearly an hour. A lot of time is spent on greens and the wilder the greens the slower play will be.

It is not GOLF though so no point in taking in any further, some games you just cant change the rules and associated history.

+1

The above surely should have been the end of this nonsense.

How about we remove the holes altogether, replace them with two goal nets, change the playing surface to a far more manageable and orderly rectangle, form teams of, say, eleven on each side, and the game will really take off.

[Dave McCollum]

This has probably been mentioned, as I just read the last few pages.

When I read about these experiments, my first reaction was that this would be a great alternative to the usual scramble event.  Many of these are social events that take five hours or longer and often involve occasional golfers playing their annual game.  These events make money for the course and the F&B.  But they also deprive the regular players from playing while they are going on and on and on.  In our experience the worst are the corporate “customer appreciation” events where folks get off work and still get paid to golf and drink.  They don’t care that it takes all day.  Anything to speed these events up appeals to me.  I don’t think our regular golfers would mind “big hole” golf on those days (before or after).  A lot of our weekday golfers are seniors and retirees who would love making some putts and chip ins.     

[Greg Tallman]

Though he vows to stay involved in HACK Golf I am sure Mark King's departure from Taylor Made will have an effect on this experiment.

[Brent Hutto]

So let's say I were to propose attracting new golfers by allowing them to drive their personal cars and SUVs directly onto the course and even onto the greens in lieu of renting a golf cart. After all, the American consumer loves them some drive-thru ANYTHING.

If someone rightly points out that it's a pointless and idiotic idea, are they just "resisting change"? Or are they speaking the simple fact that such an idea is obviously stupid?

[Jeff_Brauer]

David,

Yes, I think trying something and judging that it might have a place on 1-3% of golf courses (I know I said 5-10% earlier, but probably on the high side of expectations) is better than asking random people who don't play golf, or posting crazily exaggerated scenarios, is 10X more reasonable track in forming an opinion.  And, as near as I can tell, no one on this thread other than me has actually tried playing such a course.  Nor have they seen such a course that gets reasonable play.

Brent, yours is obviously one of the over wrought scenarios.  That said, if one challenge course full of golfers isn't some evidence of its appeal, I don't know what is.  But, I do agree that its not anything guaranteed for success, or something you just change all of golf for, which is what some surmise. And, someone needs to invest their money.  I guess as far as "official" golfdom goes, it would probably be more attractive if they knew they weren't going to get slapped down silly here, there and everywhere. 

And, the Challenge Course at MD (not a pitch and putt, but there you go again, trying to distort the concept) seems like a great place to do such a thing - surrounding residential for built in clientele, takes less land, might attract those middle class gen X who would try it, and on and on and on.  Trust me, its not like Obamacare - in this case, if you like your golf course, you really can keep your golf course!  No one will be forcing it on you. (Sorry, couldn't resist the comparison....)

I have never really been a par 3 course kind of guy, but this one showed me it has potential if done right.  And the alternate to play to big holes was fun.  That's really all I can say as fact - I played it, I liked it, and see some potential and hope someone does try it in the right situations.  And, I will recommend it if I find a situation I feel is right for the project.

[jeffwarne]

Serious question.
Wouldn't a green get pretty scarred up with 15 inch cups being moved around it?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Jeff,

Yeah, I guess if they weren't careful, and left them high, it really would be sort of like that bumper pool someone suggested.  However, I didn't see any of that at MD and don't know why if changed with care, whatever size cup would make a difference.

[Thomas Dai]

I guess a 15" cup would have have to be pretty deep in order that balls going into it don't bounce out again.
atb

[George Pazin]

Inner city on what planet?  Whenever I see school playgrounds, I see 6 and 8 ft hoops, I see baseball diamonds at 60' rather than 90' basepaths, and I see reduces size soccer fields.  In every sport, the field is reduced to the abilities of those starting the game.  In addition to Tee it Forward, bigger cups on beginner courses might be an additional way to ease entry into the game.  Many would say golf doesn't do enough for its beginning golfers and we have the special challenge of many newcomers being adults, not kids.

Those reduced sizes are all to induce the young child to play, not to make it easier for adults. That's not even a remotely comparable analogy.

Thomas Dai -

The article that ran in our local rag over the weekend said the cups were filled with sand to "collect" the balls coming in with speed. Justin Rose was quoted extensively, and noted that the cups removed speed as a factor in reading the greens. So, they're really just making it easier for the better golfers, while the beginners will still struggle.

jeffw -

Love your comment about adding golfers one at a time. It has (sadly) taken me 20 years to really understand that concept with my own business. The only thing I can say in my own defense is I don't think most people EVER learn that lesson, so maybe 20 years isn't so bad.

[Garland Bayley]

...  And, as near as I can tell, no one on this thread other than me has actually tried playing such a course.  Nor have they seen such a course that gets reasonable play. ...

Sorry, but I play that way several times a year. And, when I show up at the course it and find out it is set up that way it is a huge letdown. It is a huge letdown especially for the low handicapper in the group, because we can beat him when playing to the "buckets" as he calls them.

[Greg Tallman]

I guess a 15" cup would have have to be pretty deep in order that balls going into it don't bounce out again.
atb

This is one of the issues they are struggling with at the moment.

[jeffwarne]

So today as I soothed my jagged/spent nerves after stumbling home in a qualifier (I certainly could've used larger holes ),
I asked the bartender if she would play more golf if the cups were larger. (speaking of larger cups  )

She said she would play more if her friends played more, but she could care less about how big the hole was.....as long as the cart had beer in it.
Day 2 of my unscientific research, but hey somebody's gotta do it......

[Greg Murphy]

Does anyone think anyone has taken up golf because of putting?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Does anyone think anyone has taken up golf because of putting?

Greg,

That's a great point

[Emile Bonfiglio]

How did the size of 15 inches come about? What I find frustrating is puts that I miss 1 inch short/left/right or hit a bit too hard and pop off the back edge. So give me an inch on all sides and a little extra to spare and go for 7 inch cups. I've hit many good even great putts that burn the edges. But if I miss a putt 5 inches offline my stroke, speed or read was off enough that I don't deserve to hole the putt. Imagine an Driver that is allowed to be struck over 15 degrees open/closed and always find the fairway because they are 200 yards wide. I'm open to the idea but it needs to be slimmed down a bit.

[Russ Arbuthnot]

Can't people just play with gimmes (inside the leather) and then not add the stroke? I know it's not real golf, but neither are 15" holes. Like Emile says, the 15" thing seems arbitrary (unless it's a ploy for footgolf or something). Or even better, just do what Hogan, Knudsen, and Moe Norman used to do: hit the green, pick up, add two, go tee off on the next hole. So many better choices than cutting bigger holes.

To the original topic of the thread, regarding how it would change strategy, I definitely think you would see changes to "protect par": Extremely wild contours (think slope of 10%+), holes cut on the edge of the green with water off a cliff behind, etc. In other words, all kinds of ridiculous things that would make maintenance even harder and the game no more fun.

[Greg Murphy]

Emile and others who wonder about 15" - it's outrageous for sure - and of dubious merit if its purpose is to draw people to the game - but it is a perfect illustration of a De Bono "po" in action (see Wikipedia entry for po) - a seemingly silly idea that is allowed to survive long enough for a good idea to be "undiscovered".

People are attracted to golf because it takes place in the great outdoors, and offers the thrill and sensation of hitting a ball in the air with a stick toward a target. Its allure is not based on bunting or rolling a ball along the ground but on launching it into the air, over and around all sorts of obstacles (and elements like wind) and imposing some measure of control over what it will do in the air as well as when it hits the ground. The soul of the game is shot making and one goal of architecture is to add interest to the shots.

I think when Mike first posed the question about the hole and its influence on strategy, his assumption was that a 15" hole would most likely reduce strategy and thus playing interest. Maybe a better question would be this: is there anything that could be done to the hole or the areas around the hole, that has not become an accepted tradition, that would make golf, especially the shots before the putt, even more interesting than it is now? Without being goofy?

[Brent Hutto]

What's fun (to me) and non-goofy is when a regular old-fashioned hole of 4-1/4" is put at or near the bottom of a "bowl" in the green. It makes for a very easy hole location (lower scoring) which is probably seen by conventional golfers as the downside (makes putting "too easy" if you had a bunch of holes cut in bowls). But it's kind of neat to putt or chip a ball over the precipice and try to judge the line so as to have the best chance of the ball going in. And when it doesn't go in, the green is basically uphill in all directions from the cup so you're hardly ever going to end up more than a foot or so away.

If drainage would allow, I think a set of greens in which each one had two or three large "bowl" like areas would be an easy and fun way to build a course. It's probably anti-strategic but that doesn't really factor into "fun" for 99.9% of golfers. And of course if you designed greens around multiple bowl-like areas, you could alternatively move the hole locations uphill to a greater or lesser extent to provide some decidedly non-easy locations for setup variety.

[David Kelly]

I definitely think you would see changes to "protect par": Extremely wild contours (think slope of 10%+), holes cut on the edge of the green with water off a cliff behind, etc. In other words, all kinds of ridiculous things that would make maintenance even harder and the game no more fun.

And then people would say that 15" cups are no longer fun and are keeping people away from the game.  Then'll someone will come up with the idea of having cups as big as a garbage can lid.

[jeffwarne]

"8 minute abs?"
"7 minute abs would be better"
"How about 6 minute abs"
"that's stupid-who would believe 6 minute abs"

[JMEvensky]

"8 minute abs?"
"7 minute abs would be better"
"How about 6 minute abs"
"that's stupid-who would believe 6 minute abs"

Ever get the feeling the marketing genius behind 15" cups watched Spinal Tap the night before his presentation--but didn't realize the movie was satire?

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