One thing I do wonder though: the premise. If a Slope over 120 kills business for "almost all" public courses, and some clubs . . . does that mean anything? I guess all the courses in Bandon are an exception, and so are any other good courses which would make this rule seem silly.
Tom,
He puts resorts in different categories than the every day course, and without statistics, I tend to agree. Every day, golfers really just want to shoot about their average score, IMHO. Not so easy to be condescending or come in under par (maybe once in a lifetime) but not so much that you shoot 9-18 strokes higher than your normal score. Many have played a par 3 course just to go to the office and report that they shot a 70, omitting the fact it wasn't a regulation course. But for almost all, that is satisfying just once.
When you board a plane to play golf, you expect something different, in both aesthetics, design, and challenge.
I know you are an iconoclast, but even if you managed to find 100 difficult public courses that break this rule, it would still just be 1% of the total. The long held belief is public courses generally should be easier, and I will guess that you designed Common Ground with different golfers in mind than you might elsewhere?
To be fair to Keegan, after the table of slope ratings, he says all such lists come with caveats. He (and I) obviously think the pattern of designing harder courses starting about 1980, coincident with both course rankings and PGA Tour pros getting more involved with design, put the emphasis of gc design in the wrong places, or at very least, a place that comes with inevitable reactions to those actions. That said, it looks like the biggest jump is after 1990.......so maybe mostly awards driven? Or, like TD says, in the end, the owner tells us what they want, and we usually comply, so maybe the entire "tough is good" movement held sway after GD and others sort of changed their ranking criteria, i.e., took out resistance to scoring as the main criteria?
Certainly the intent of posting this was to discuss the general idea, not to critique the Slope system, which like any system has its biases. But, such is the internet!
Michael,
Yes, that is the $64,000 question. And, as suggested, providing shorter tees, and I mean really shorter tees, based on average tee shot length helps. I have often said the old 7000/6700/6300/6000/5400 model really plays pretty badly for many now. A better model (adjusted for site specifics) is 7250/6350/5900/5200/+/-4000.
A 7500 yard course with a 6000 yard tee option probably slopes out better comparably, which is not shown on this chart. Wider fw and corridors probably help, and may explain why TD isn't as high as some others. Eliminating forced carries should probably help, even if it doesn't show up too much in the ratings.
What really struck me is that the Maxwell's were so far down the list in the 125 range, given their penchant for tough green contours. Do ultra contoured greens really not bother average golfers, or is it a function of the system only adding a maximum of 0.1 stroke for putting difficulty on any given green?
I know I have taken a look at keeping sand bunkers not too far extended from the green, maybe from the center back, etc. especially on the right side where a high percentage of average players end up. Push hard for quad row sprinklers rather than 3 row (that actually started when Ken Moun complained pretty loudly about my corridor widths, and he was right, 250 feet wide holds more D players shots in than 210 feet wide. Watch where I put the native grasses, etc.)
BTW, he seems to have developed his view based on all his consulting at public courses, which do well, etc.
And, while OT, there is this statistical item of interest:
Par 70 - 1,360 courses
Par 71 - 2,561 courses
Par 72 - 6,731 courses.
Nothing we don't know in general, but puts a finer brush on it.