How would you set-up an inland course for a top pro men’s event like a Major?

[Thomas Dai]

An amateur architect challenge.


How would YOU set-up an INLAND course for a top-pro men’s event like a Major?



Remember to take into consideration on-site spectators and all the logistics etc that go with holding a big event.


Be your own Open Doctor, ie change features, plant more trees or chop some down, dig ponds or fill them in, etc etc.


It’s your choice what to do. Your the Open Doctor on this one.


Good luck.


Atb

[Greg Smith]

It really depends on the course.  Probably the most important variable is location (mostly latitude), which affects the seasons that course experiences.  Timing of the tournament vs. prevailing weather would be just as important.  And what about grasses and soils?


Try to imagine what June (US Open) weather would be for, say, a place like Cherry Hills vs. Pinehurst No.2.  The differences would probably affect how you would achieve "identifying a champion" or "providing a fair test".


I think I'd need more information to even start deciding.

[Tom_Doak]

Thomas:


I'm working on it in Houston right now.


The course is not exceptionally long [7200 yards par 71].  We've only built 20 bunkers, figuring that the rough off the tee and the short grass around the greens are more testing to the best players and less testing to the high-handicappers than bunkers are.  [Our course is a municipal course that plays 60,000 rounds per year, so we have to worry a bit about getting golfers around it.  And I might have built some smaller greens for the pros, but you really can't have small greens on a course that does 60,000 rounds.]


There are some nice trees, and we've tried to use them as hazards for missing on the wrong side of the fairway.


There is water in play at the 9th hole, and on 15-16-17, which consist of a shortish par-3, a death-or-glory par-5, and a potentially drivable par-4 [if they move the tee up on the weekend].  It should be exciting, though I am sure the winning score will be quite low in relation to par, and some might deem that "not major worthy".

[James Brown]

I would benchmark the course against US Open setups from 1992-1994, when I think they really got it right in terms of level of difficulty and dimensions of the test.  The Loren Roberts, Ernie Els, Colin Montgomery playoff at Oakmont was what I would call the ideal setup for allowing any style of play to be successful.  Same for Pebble in 92 and Baltusrol in 93.  I would study the shot patterns and make the pros hit a lot of similar shots.  And it would make sure the greens were scary.  The greens at Bethpage are not scary. 

[Jon Wiggett]

I would eliminate all rough and allow the contours to deflect the ball away from the fairway to leave players facing awkward recoveries from amongst the trees and bushes. In the fairway areas I would go away from bunkers and look more towards grass bushels/heather set across the line of play making the ball easy to find but difficult to advance any real distance.  The greens would be strongly contoured giving the option of easy and difficult pin positions on greens which would be cut to suit the contours.

[Thomas Dai]

We’ve heard from Tom and James and Jon.

After what we’ve seen on TV over the last 4 days how would set such a course up?

There’ve been pages of pointers and comments and advice on several recent threads.

So what would you do?

Atb

[JESII]

To me, the greatest opportunity in set up for a tournament like the PGA is aggressive hole locations. Using slopes and corners should dictate play a great deal. Would still result in the best player winning because understanding the situation is every bit the part a champion needs to display.


The problem is, this also runs the risk of making the organizers look bad if one hole location slips over the edge...so we don't see them much anymore.

[Kalen Braley]

In general I would pick courses that have the most amount of options, and less so on ones that are one trick pony in nature like BPB.


The goal is to identify the best overall golfer, not the one who hits it the longest and straightest and has the strength to hit the balls out of nasty rough..

[Kyle Harris]

TPC Sawgrass circa 1982 with commensurate distance increases.

[Peter Pallotta]

I think of Winged Foot the year Geoff Ogilvy won. Players as diverse as Phil, Colin and Furyk right behind -- and no inherent-unavoidable reason why Colin had to mess up the 6/7 iron approach to the 18th green, or why Phil had to make the choice he did off the tee there. Ah, the good old days....

[Thomas Dai]

The goal is to identify the best overall golfer, not the one who hits it the longest and straightest and has the strength to hit the balls out of nasty rough..

Very nicely put.


Atb

[JMEvensky]

TPC Sawgrass circa 1982 with commensurate distance increases.

I'm not sure you needed to add the distance increases. It was a challenging golf course at 6800 yards--and I bet it would be today as well.

[Thomas Dai]

Come on guys, we must have had 20 or so pages on various threads about BPB and it's set-up.


Plenty of opinions expressed there.


So come on, how would YOU set-up an inland course for a top men's pro event like a Major?


Don't be shy now!


atb

[Brad Payne]

Similar length rough to Bethpage, but would mow the fairway height into bunkers and would add an extra 1” to the height of the rough at 300+. Make the longer hitters deal with higher rough when they miss the fairways. Also, probably widen fairways areas a bit more at 260-290 then Bethpage.

[Michael Felton]

I think this depends on what you want to do. If you want to keep scores up, the number one thing that affects scores I think is distance from the hole on a given shot. To that end, to the extent that there are runoffs around the greens, I'd shave them down so the ball will roll away from the hole. Having rough on banks like that makes it much easier. I'd set the fairways narrow enough that the pros are hitting maybe 60% of them. I suspect that's in the 25-28 yards wide range. I'd make the rough thick enough that they could get to the greens, but not with enough control to stop the ball where they want to. It obviously depends on what's on the ground, but the par fives should be reachable, but with enough trouble around them that just being able to get there doesn't mean it's the right play to go for it. That likely means water or OB close by.


If the goal is simply to identify the best player, then I think it doesn't really matter. I don't like the idea of penalizing the longer hitters by making the fairways narrower or the rough thicker at longer distances. Why shouldn't the longer hitters have an advantage from hitting it further? The shorter hitters ought to hit more fairways so let them get their advantage that way.

[Tom Culley]

Similar length rough to Bethpage, but would mow the fairway height into bunkers and would add an extra 1” to the height of the rough at 300+. Make the longer hitters deal with higher rough when they miss the fairways. Also, probably widen fairways areas a bit more at 260-290 then Bethpage.

That's an interesting point - perhaps rough should be graded length rather than widthways - with the deepest rough being at the length the longest players hit it.


Short grass around the greens with run offs seems obvious - and i would love to see some more features like the revvetted steps on the par 3 third at Castle Stuart.


Fairway bunkers with very little flat surface are perfect - scar shaped hazards where it's likely the player might have a foot out of the bunker (the new creation at Pine Valley springs to imagination.