From the range and enthusiasm of responses, it sounds like holes of extreme short length are "embraceable"... given certain circumstances.
1. Do these (the best of these) holes need a gimmick, some unusual complication to work?
2. The shortest (playing) I've heard is 66 yards (TD's example)...is there simply just a certain number by which a hole can't find its way to any distinction or honest legitimacy...59 yards...49 yards...39 yards...?
3. What's the biggest green of one of these short holes.
4. Not a GCA myself, I can't answer, but in routing a course, you found 16-17 spectacular holes but can't complete the puzzle without disturbing that spectactular...is a 75 yard hole "ploppable" "available" "legitimate" to complete the circuit?
5. what would be the reason otherwise... you're lookign for such a hole? the landform suggests such a hole...? how does it even get in the imagination, if not an adjunct discovery imposed on a difficult routing...
Last one... is 17 Sawgrass a good, more legit, better or even worse hole if we played it at 85 yards? Or does it need its penal threat with a full swing, and fuller yardage through air to keep its rigor/fascination? (e.g.) if fewer balls go in the water, is it less of a hole?
Hi VK, I will answer your questions, but first, a note about Mr. Dye: when he made his site visit during the construction of Riverdale Dunes, he suggested that we make the "tournament tee" the 85-yard forward tee. But that was in the days before the L-wedge, when pros were deathly afraid of the half-wedge approach. As to the TPC, someone asked last week whether pros would be better off not going to the drop area, and I agreed. The short tee is a tougher angle to many of the hole locations, and better to play from the distance you just effed up and ought to understand. Okay here goes:
1. No, they just need some serious penalty around the green that you've got to avoid.
2. I would have said anything under 80 or 90 yards wouldn't work, but after seeing La Cumbre, I don't know what the cutoff is. I have never been tempted to build a hole under 100 yards though. Mr. Dye did volunteer once that he thought hardly any architect would have seen and built the 7th at Pebble Beach.
3. None of the holes mentioned have a big green. The only really short hole I can think of with a big green is the 2nd at Rockport CC, which was Bill Coore's first course. There is water left, and a huge buried elephant in the middle of the green, so if you aim away from the water with the pin left, you have to putt over the dome. There are probably some holes on some of these newfangled short courses that are very short with big greens, that would work on a regulation course.
4. See #2 above. Usually when you are short a hole, you break up a par-5 into two holes, instead of looking for something under 100 yards to get you to 18. I have never tried it the other way. I will try to think of that next time.
5. La Cumbre is a small course, and it's plausible to think that was just a lack of space, but still, you have to have been thinking about the possibilities of a 66-yard hole to find one. I think it has to come about either because you are looking for a hole like that, or as at Pebble, there is a beautiful bit of real estate you can't use in any other way, and you don't want to pass it by.
Someday I'd like to build a hole under 100 yards, but I'm not going to do it until I find a really good spot. And someday I'd like to build a par-6, with the same caveat. It's all about expanding the range of acceptance, but you will only succeed at that if the hole compels people to agree with the premise.