Is easy walkability more important in hot climates?

[Scott Warren]

The benefits of an easily walkable routing, especially the green-to-tee transitions, are obviously many.


But is it all the more crucial in a place with regular 33C/95f+ temps (even a bit lower if it’s quite humid)?


In those conditions, are you more likely to notice and lament an extra 50 metres between holes or a course that asks you to climb steep landforms without providing holes that make best use of them?


Perhaps the same course in a cooler climate would be less jarring?

[Sean_A]

Scott

Yes, I think that is the case.  When its very hot (and hot for me hot is about 27ish and up) the added walk can strike me as an irritant, more than if the weather is more suitable for golf.  I recall thinking this at Tobacco Road once in the heat...though I don't think TR is a good walk anyway. 

I also think getting a tight routing is critical for hilly courses and this would probably also mean a shorter course.  There is nothing worse than wasting energy being dragged around hills just to reach a tee.

Ciao

[Thomas Dai]

Golf for amateurs should be a pleasurable fun activity not an endurance test.
Atb

[Jeff Schley]

Hell yes!  I can testify to that golfing here in KSA, Bahrain, UAE.  It is almost impossible with this heat to safely do it during most of the day.  In fact our club (the course is owned by the oil company) had discussions with our loss prevention (safety auditors) department where they were NOT going to allow walking in June/July/August because they had several cases of heat stroke last year from walking golfers.  I even got heat exhaustion and I was riding this past summer here, kind of scary if you don't know what is happening. 

The temps here in the summer are about 105-115 and in July we get some humidity which absolutely kills you. I simply have learned not to play during the day and only in the early morning or under the lights at night for 9 holes during the summer.

I don't think it is so much the distance of the walk, but the elevation change that is taxing personally.  If it is flat and there are trees to walk in the shade that isn't as bad as some elevation change IMO.

I know in Thailand it is common to have a cool down halfway house every 2-3 holes where you have a cool wet towel and relax.  The Thai Country Club if I recall correctly.  It helped combat the hot and humid conditions.

[Peter Pallotta]

Part of me is glad there are golf courses just about everywhere. But part of me finds it strange and a bit unsettling that we've built hundreds/thousands of golf courses in places where grass doesn't grow, rain hardly ever falls, and walking 18 holes can make you very sick.

[Carl Rogers]

You might also include higher altitude mountain golf in this thread.  Example: The Cascades is a walking challenge on Holes 3 through the tee shot on Hole No. 9, but very walkable after that.

Hate to say it say, but the cart made golf possible in the Rocky Mt West.

[Tom_Doak]

Actually it might be less important, because more people use the excuse not to walk!  Certainly, a lot of the modern Asian courses are not easily walkable, even though the heat and humidity in summer can be oppressive.


But I always want to make my courses walkable, regardless of location.





[Also, those halfway houses every 3-4 holes as Jeff mentions are common on courses in many Asian countries, including Japan and South Korea.]

[Matthew Petersen]

Actually it might be less important, because more people use the excuse not to walk!  Certainly, a lot of the modern Asian courses are not easily walkable, even though the heat and humidity in summer can be oppressive.


But I always want to make my courses walkable, regardless of location.





[Also, those halfway houses every 3-4 holes as Jeff mentions are common on courses in many Asian countries, including Japan and South Korea.]

Living in Phoenix, this strikes me as correct. (Not that there are many walkable courses here anyway.)

[Kalen Braley]

Courses on the benches here in Utah have the triple threat going.


Rough Terrain where its hard to put holes close together
+
Hot Summers
+
High Altitude

[JHoulihan]

Living in Phoenix, this strikes me as correct. (Not that there are many walkable courses here anyway.)
Matthew,
Thanks for posting as a fellow desert dweller here in Phoenix. Maybe a few questions to clarify.
What is your year round ratio of walking vs riding?
Walking April to September how often?
How do you look to see if a course is "walkable" before your first visit onsite?

I personally grew up walking 100% in highschool, less through college, and now almost never since moving to Phoenix. I would love to do so more before Bandon trip but I have a feeling that there will be many tough days ahead unless some planning can be done to sort out the courses that occupy a huge acre footprint and long green to tee walks are the norm.

[Steve_ Shaffer]

The Phoenix munis- Papago, Aguila, Grand Canyon U., Encanto, Cave Creek- are generally speaking compact and walk-able. 

[Jay Mickle]

A large part of the essence of golf is the walk. The rhythm and flow of the game is lost in carts as is the social fabric of walking down the fairway with playing companions. Fortunate to live in the NC Sandhills all courses are walkable. I see some players taking carts through the woods on Pinehurst #2 and can't help but feel that they have missed the character and substance of the course.
I suppose that how heat affects each individual is at the essence of the question. As a farrier who stands in front of a 2700 degree forge while wrestling horses, I don't have a real aversion to heat. I expect that there are locations where I would feel differently, just not sure that I would want to play my golf from carts.

[JHoulihan]

Steve,

So that begs the question if walking in Phoenix is even on the radar for course and resort owners at all. I did a quick search noting that there are between 150 and 200 courses in the Phoenix metro area - and you listed 5 that are walk-able. I am certain there are more, but it seems from both my past experience and those whom I have joined on the first tee- walkability in the desert is a rare occurance.

Maybe Dave August can chime in. He walks the most of any player I have yet to meet from the area playing at Desert Forest in Carefree.

Steve, sorry I did not get to play the round at GCU with you including John Fought. Maybe we can rectify that soon and finally meet in person

[Jeff Shelman]

I certainly haven’t played everywhere in Phoenix, but a few places I have played and walked include: Papago, Talking Stick, We-Ko-Pa, Gainey Ranch, Seville and Corta Bella.

[Matthew Petersen]

The most absurd walking situation in Phoenix the the Biltmore Adobe course. Compact, almost flat course, would be a great walk. And yet carts are required, except for members.


That's the overall vibe throughout Phoenix. A great many of the courses were not designed for walking, either due to hillside locations, residential requirements, or both. But even the courses where you could easily walk generally assume you will ride a cart and are not really walking friendly. Most courses, as soon as you get to the clubhouse, someone is there putting your bag on a cart.

[Ken Moum]

I agree with the idea that walkability is less important in the desert because when it's over 95* only a few have the stamina to walk, without major heat injury.

That said, there are courses out in the valley that are very flat and very walkable. Pretty much none of them are on GCA fanatic's radar, but they stay busy. This winter my wife and I have played Longbow, Toka Sticks, Bear Creek, Mesa CC, Dobson, Ranch McCormick Ranch Palm, and Arizona Golf Resort.

They're all easily walkable and the first five of them have plenty of walkers.

K

[Thomas Dai]

Would folks be more inclined to walk in hot climates if the ball only went (say) 75% as far as currently and courses were only (say) 75% of the current length? Ought to be as much fun with as much skill needed but less of a physical endurance test.
atb

[Tom_Doak]

Would folks be more inclined to walk in hot climates if the ball only went (say) 75% as far as currently and courses were only (say) 75% of the current length?

I doubt it would make much difference.  Riders gonna ride.


I remember vividly that early in the planning for The Rawls Course, Right on the heels of building Pacific Dunes, I suggested it would be really easy to make it a walking only course because it was completely flat and we could getgreens and tees close together.


The official university response was that they needed carts to carry the golfers' coolers of beer 😀

[Conley Hurst]

It is important to keep in mind that many golfers in the U.S. (probably most golfers) could care less about walkability. For one thing, golf carts have sadly become an integral part of the experience for casual golfers. (They are great for transporting beer .) This is particularly true in warmer climates (such as in the South) where golf is frequently thought of as more of a summer sport. 

Back home in Little Rock, which is both hot and hilly, this is very much the case. Most serious golf is played here between May and September, and there's not much fun about walking even a flat course when its 95 and humid. Thus you get courses like Alotian which are beautiful and fun to play, but downright impossible to walk. And I can guarantee that the average Arkansas golfer doesn't think twice about Alotian's poor walkability in making an assessment of the course. 

As a golfer who loves to walk when the weather is conducive (i.e. spring and fall in Arkansas), I wish there were more good, walkable options in the LR area. But the demand is just not there... 

[Tom_Doak]

As a golfer who loves to walk when the weather is conducive (i.e. spring and fall in Arkansas), I wish there were more good, walkable options in the LR area. But the demand is just not there... 

The part of this that has always bothered me is that you don't have to have demand to make a course walkable ... you can do it regardless of golfers' preference, and at the start of my career, I never understood why it wasn't just the default position.  Over the years, I have identified three reasons:


1.  The big one is housing.  If you're dealing with a developer who wants to maximize real estate frontage on the course, the next tee has to be laid out PAST the green instead of BESIDE it for safety-boundary issues.  (And that's the back tee ... so it's a long walk to the forward tees.)  Plus you may have long transitions between houses from one golf corridor to the next (ugh).


2.  To make the course function for golfers in carts, it's pretty much necessary to run the cart path between the green and the next tee, so that golfers will get back to the cart to switch clubs instead of having to bring driver with them to the green.  But, then the cart path has to be far enough from the green that errant approach shots won't bounce off it ... which generally puts the next tee PAST the green again, or further to the side than it would otherwise need to be.  The Old Course has the easiest green-to-tee walks in golf, but imagine where you'd have to put a cart path in, and how much in play that would be.


3.  The third factor, unfortunately, is just being lazy with the design.  Once the architect knows that his client doesn't care about walkability, the cause is lost unless he cares about it himself enough to insist upon it.  There are many architects who don't really care that much about walkability.  I think that's especially true in hotter climates, because clients don't walk, and that's why you find even fewer courses there that are reasonable to walk.

[Jeff Schley]

Good points to lament the lack of walkable courses.  As I said previously, elevation changes is what makes a course unwalkable more so than the heat. Any course with large elevation changes is killer to walk regardless of heat, thus that to me is #1.  Heat just magnifies the issue.  Extreme heat, makes it a health hazard.

[Sean_A]

Good points to lament the lack of walkable courses.  As I said previously, elevation changes is what makes a course unwalkable more so than the heat. Any course with large elevation changes is killer to walk regardless of heat, thus that to me is #1.  Heat just magnifies the issue.  Extreme heat, makes it a health hazard.

For me heat is far more the pressing issue.  I can walk up hills, though I may not like it much.  I simply cannot cope well with heat and it doesn't have to be extreme.  I have had a few bouts of heat exhaustion in the past few years.  The last time I played in serious heat was Aiken...39 celsius with typical S Carolina August humidity.  I survived the walk, but it took a 2ball 4.5 hours!  Anyone that knows Aiken will know that it can be walked comfortably in 3 hours in decent weather.  I just sat under trees drinking water every three holes for 15 minutes.  I didn't much see the point in this, but my partner insisted we walk  . 


I still think its a better idea to make the course walkable (if possible) even if loads of folks will ride. The good thing about Aiken is there are houses around the course and its still walkable....mind you I think most of the houses were added after the course was built.


Ciao