How often do women have birdie opportunity ?

[Nicolas Joakimides]

I was lucky to design two 18 holes courses ( France and Morocco) and I decided to give the ladies chances to take greens in regulation and have birdie putts .
My courses are 4400 yards long from the front tee ( red markers in France).

Do you agree that ladies ( index 18-36 ) should play a shorter course in order to reach greens in regulation ? ( and have fun ).
Average courses in Europe are 5200 yards long from the front tee !!
From my experience, they drive the ball about 140 yards and can hit a rescue club (second shot ) about 100 yards. That means 240 yards par 4 !
Don’t you think it’s important to be careful at the women’s game ?


Nicolas J

[John Kavanaugh]

Nic,


Do yo typically work in yards or meters?

[Nicolas Joakimides]

In France and Morocco, we use meters only but I translate to yards for this article.
Nicolas J

[Ally Mcintosh]

Hi Nicolas,


I liked the look of a few of those greens on your course in Morocco... interested to see more if you fancy sharing?


I agree completely with you that front tees are best around mid 4,000’s (if we are allowed to generalise for a moment).

[Thomas Dai]

Hi Nicolas,
I liked the look of a few of those greens on your course in Morocco... interested to see more if you fancy sharing?
I agree completely with you that front tees are best around mid 4,000’s (if we are allowed to generalise for a moment).

+1
Atb

[Nicolas Joakimides]

Ally,
A complete course review is coming in two weeks from Ran and Joe !


Nicolas J

[Ronald Montesano]

I coach a girls high school team in Buffalo, NY. I have had the fortune to have 4 girls play high-level golf in college. They could reach most greens on a 6000-yard course, but the majority of the girls on the team this year do not hit the ball consistently, nor straight enough, to have chances at birdie. However, I believe that distance is key. I have never heard anyone come off a golf course, angry at having made too many birdies, or having posted a career-best score. I am on your side when it comes to distance.

[Jon Wiggett]

Two things come to mind. Firstly, 246 yards is already a par 4 for men so definitely for the ladies. I have a hole on my course that is 220 yards that I have as a par 4 as it is very difficult to hit and hold the green. I also mentioned in another thread about a hole at Riederalp in Switzerland that is less than 200 yards but a par 4 and rightly so. I think par should reflect the way the hole actually plays not so much the distance.


Secondly, if someone has an 18 handicap then they will get to the vicinity of the green in regulation some of the time but not always and a 36 handicap this will probably be case only now and then. I actually think that for the ladies holes over 400 yards should be avoided if possible.


Jon

[MCirba]

My wife says YES!!!


Great thinking and thanks for coming here on GCA.

[Steve Lang]

   My Bride says, "I want a challenge, sounds like they're dumbing it down, are there a lot of par 3's on the course??" Then she added, "You couldn't get two groups on any holes, you'd be waiting for every green to clear,.... slow and boring!"


5200-6000 yds is fine 

[Ken Moum]

My wife, even when she was an 11 handicap, thought 4800 yards was a nice length.  Now, at age 70, and about a 19, she thinks anything over 5,000 is an abomination.


It's not just about GIRs or pars and  birdies, it's about all the "empty" shots she has to hit at longer yardages.


Ask the average male how they'd feel about a course that had 10-12 holes where their second shot (and sometimes third shot) was nothing more than a trying to advance the ball down the fairway.


Every good player hates unreachable par fives, because the second shot is no fun.  Most women hit between 12 and 20 of those a round.


K

[Joe Zucker]

It seems like shorter courses would be more fun for the average lady golfer, but it would almost always require really long walks from the previous green?  A 4,500 yard course for ladies on a 6,500 yard course for men is adding more than 100 yards of walking between holes that men do not have before they play a shot.


Perhaps this is a small cost to make the game more enjoyable for half the population, but it seems to me that a course with proper yardage for an average woman golfer would not flow very well from green to tee. When you design your front tees, is this something you think about?  Perhaps having the men walk back half the time and having the ladies walk up the other half?

[Steve Lang]

Ken M... I feel no empathy for those "good players" who have to deal with unreachable par 5's and play those "empty shots", such a shame that they have to play position golf versus power golf.


My 66 year old bride, of 34 years, plays on through sickness and health against old man par, and me in match play hole by hole... if there's anything she hates, its being stuck by GCA's on a tee in a topographic hole, with no exciting view of things...


Last quote: "We have 30 handicappers that can hit it 200 yds off the tee!  They just can't get it in the hole!!" 

[Dan Herrmann]

My bride had a birdie on our #3 on Tuesday.  It's about 120 from her tee over wetlands to a crazy (good crazy) green.    It's defintely not rare for her to have a birdie.


From the back tees (front tees are over the walking bridge):


 
Courtesy of The Bausch Collection

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Here are the forward tee women's ratings for 2 of our 3 courses:


4925y 68.1/114   


4688y 65.9/103


My wife, a mid 20s handicap, makes some birdies with putts and chip ins and scores in the high 80s often.


Our 3rd course is undergoing some renovations and will be rated in September.

[Ally Mcintosh]

Steve,


Your wife should then be quite happy playing the 2nd forward tees.


Joe,


Whilst many courses do end up as you say with long walks for the ladies, the ideal situation (on a 4 tee set up) is to have the previous green closest to the middle two sets of tees which tend to be the most played. Walk slightly back for the back and forward for the forward.


Most important things for the forward tees are lack of forced carries and giving them a commensurate view, angle and pride of position.

[Thomas Dai]

Men usually seem to have 2-3 sets of tees. Why shouldn't ladies have the same? Just saying.
atb

[Sean_A]

I am skeptical of the idea of 4400 yard tees mixed with a men's course.  Trying to stretch course tees to cover 2000 yards would take an incredible design to keep the walk compact, still take advantage of all natural features and not require a lot of added shaping etc.  While I like the idea of 4400 yard tees, I think it is best if this sort of thing is kept to a course which is no longer than 5600-5700 max.

I am reminded of Formby of Ladies (comfortably a top 100 England course) which is 5400 yards from all the way back (still a par 71 so many ladies will have birdie opportunities, but an SSS of 67 for men so a tough track to play to one's handicap), but design isn't merely about distance, the course offers openings on practically every green and it does run fast.  There is plenty of scope there for forward tees and there are some in place.  I wonder why more courses like aren't built, ostensibly for ladies, but plenty interesting for the vast majority of male handicap players.  Truth be told, I think Formby Ladies would be better known if not for the Ladies moniker.  I have long wondered why more women don't get behind developing courses which are more suitable for themselves.

Ciao

[Ally Mcintosh]

Sean,


You are right of course.


The bigger the scale and length of a course, the harder it is to make the 4,500 - 4,800 yard tees work... But those tees are very important.


Yet another example of where modern scale is letting us down.

[Sean_A]

Ally

I think it is time to really consider how to cope with large scale golf because it isn't going away. It seems to me that there is already a trend on the edges of design to downsize which really means targeting markets for reasons other than money etc.  Is there not scope for more courses which are 4500-5700 yards?  Along with 9 holers and bold putting greens, which are ways to introduce people to the game while still providing fun for long time golfers, doesn't 4500-5700 yards make sense?

Ciao

[Duncan Cheslett]

I played the other day with two ladies - my wife is a 35 handicapper who hits her drives maybe 150 yards max, while her friend Julieanne is a 16 and hits it 240 comfortably.


It is bizarre that they are both expected to play from the same tees.


I abhor gender specificity in golf. All golfers should play from the tees that suit their game. Julieanne is far better suited to the men's tees than the ladies, and that goes for most young women. I saw an elite girl playing at Lindrick the other day and she was hitting 280 yard drives - from the ladies' tees!


There is probably a bigger spread of distance achieved by female golfers off the tee than there is by males - from 100 yards to 280 yards!


I agree entirely that on most courses the standard ladies' tees give too much length for average lady golfers like my wife. Building more tees further forward is the obvious option, but it meets resistance from the very ladies and senior men it is intended to help. They seem to take a masochistic pleasure in hitting a driver and three fairway woods to reach the green!

[Thomas Dai]

No wonder really that when golf was starting to become more popular in the U.K. many clubs had a Men’s course and a Ladies course, or in some places, two separate clubs.


Now, light the blue touch paper and retire a safe distance time........


Given that the desire to ‘grow the game’ is seen as being adversely effected by issues such as time constraints, pace of play, length of courses etc, how about splitting 18-hole courses into 2x9-holers.......a lengthier 9-holer for say most men and the longer hitting ladies and a shorter 9-holer for say most ladies plus shorter hitting men and young juniors?


Atb

[Duncan Cheslett]

Now, light the blue touch paper and retire a safe distance time........


Given that the desire to ‘grow the game’ is seen as being adversely effected by issues such as time constraints, pace of play, length of courses etc, how about splitting 18-hole courses into 2x9-holers.......a lengthier 9-holer for say most men and the longer hitting ladies and a shorter 9-holer for say most ladies plus shorter hitting men and young juniors?


Atb

Or a 12 hole course for serious players of either gender and a short 9 hole course for fun.


The tyranny of 18 holes has got to end sometime.

[Adam Lawrence]

Lots of things going on here.


Yes, the major issue with way forward tees is 'dead' walking, having to schlep a couple of hundred yards just to get to your tee. Ally is right about positioning of greens close to the most played tees, not the back ones, but I would make two observations, firstly this seems obvious but you would be amazed how often courses are laid out in a linear fashion and you have to walk past three sets of tees to get to yours, and secondly 99.9 per cent of the time we're talking about building new forward tees on existing courses, not building new courses. Here, the routing is fixed. The only remedy, unfortunately, is carts.


Women golfers, like men golfers, are not a single species. There are women who hit the ball less than 100 yards with their best drive and there are those that can really belt it. One set of 'ladies' tees is no solution, just as one set of 'men's' tees isn't. The only answer is to completely remove sex from tee boxes (unarguably a good thing surely?  ). If you have a number of sets of tees, you can play from the ones that best suit your game, whatever chromosomes you have. It makes just as little sense forcing a 20 year old single figure handicap athletic young woman to play from 4,000 yard tees as it does forcing an 80 year old guy to play from 6,500.


Dai in principle your idea of splitting courses into a men's nine and a ladies' nine makes sense, but in practice how on earth are you going to do it? Fine, if your course happens to have one nine that is considerably longer than the other. But this is just another example of the old 'I wouldn't start from here' story. We have courses; we aren't about to totally redesign them.


IMO the absolute ideal solution is to have a golf course that is designed to be playable by everyone from basically the same place. I once posted a thread on here saying how would course design differ if we had the old rules of golf that you had to tee your ball up within a certain distance of the hole (or at least, everyone had to tee it up in the same area), and I remember Tom D saying that this is one of the lessons of St Andrews. You'd have to abandon the idea of landing areas, and you'd have to get your mind around 'par' being very different for golfers of differing ability.

[MCirba]

We had a great day last year where my wife (playing along with Joe Bausch & Matt Frey) simply teed up at the start of the fairway on a nine-hole course that was about 2,500 yards, probably reducing total yardage about 40-50 yards a hole.

When one considers that she drives the ball approximately 130 or so yards, that created a very nice, playable course where it didn't require a drive, three wood, three wood, 7-iron on many holes.