Variety in Par 4 Length --- Then and Now

[Ryan Book]

Having played The Loop earlier this year, I immediately tried to find an objective reason why I enjoyed Black more. It seemed to me that Black featured a great range of par four lengths (several quite large and several quite short) even when compared to Red. I measured the "mean distance from the median" (MDFM) for the average par four at each course because A) just measuring a standard deviation could make outliers of the most extreme hole lengths and B) "MDFM" sounds like an industrial band. Comparing the two Loops, I found that I was correct; Black had a (slightly) higher MDFM than Red. Not stopping there, I took the best ranked courses from three modern architects to see A) if a higher MDFM correlated to course rankings and B) if the kinds of architects favored in modern GCA chatter (Doak, Coore) had much higher MDFMs than those who weren't (Fazio). The answers were "no" and "yes, but not aggressively so," respectively.

The truly eye-opening development was comparing the MDFMs at courses by Doak/Coore/Fazio against those of Ross/Raynor/Tillinghast. The variety of distances between par fours on any given course during the Golden Age was significantly less than those at modern builds.  For example, the average distance of a par four at Seminole is just 18 yards from the median par four's distance...that same value is 43 yards at Gozzer Ranch, which falls somewhere in the middle of the modern architects I sampled. The mean distance from the median par four length at Kapalua Plantation is a mind-boggling 70 yards. And yes: I did use corrective adjustments so that the final MDFM value for each course reflects what the value would be if the course were the same distance as Loop Black's middle tees. This is not merely a reflection of increased length at modern courses.

My theory is that modern architects are less chained to the concept of par; even audiences who typically play strokeplay still adore the matchplay design sensibilities of an Old Macdonald-type course, which doesn't shy away from exaggerating its par fours long or short.

For an even wind-baggier read, you can catch all my hot air here. I am of course open to other theories as to the "why."


Measuring the Variance in Par Four Distance as a Component of Course Rankings | BPBM

[Brian Finn]

I'd be very curious to know how some of the links courses of GB&I compare by this measure. 

[Jason Topp]

Interesting theory Ryan.  Remember that golf is a 3D game played in wind so ideally that would somehow be taken into account. At Kapalua, the trade wind is close to 20 mph and blows down the severe slope of the course.  As a result, a 400 yard downhill hole can be driveable (6 or 12) and a 350 yard uphill hole can require two healthy blows.  In theory you could have holes that vary greatly in distance but effectively play similar distances. 


I do think that courses built in the 50's and 60's tended to follow a standard formula of a bunch of 400 yard par 4's with one short one per nine and perhaps a long one, long par 3's to increase the playing yardage and relatively short par 5's.  The result would be a healthy total distance on a course that did not beat the player up too much. 


As for Golden Age courses, there are some writings on hole lengths that you can find.  I would have thought that there would have been more variation in length.  Your data suggests that is not the case which is quite interesting. 

[Ryan Book]

I had the same thought. Remind me in a few years when I feel like number crunching again!

I'd be very curious to know how some of the links courses of GB&I compare by this measure.

[Ryan Book]

You are of course correct; the best architects of any age are surely thinking about a sensible route foremost versus a yardage. Donald Ross may not have offered a wide variety of lengths at Seminole but few would deny he created a variety of holes nonetheless.


I also cheated a bit by using Seminole as an example in my first entry above...it's toward the tail end of the spectrum in this regard. Still, I believe Shoreacres was the "most varied" in terms of par four lengths, and it clocked in at about the same as Gozzer. I suppose I was a little surprised by the relative lack of length variety among the MacRaynor courses. I suppose I expected some combination of Road / Prize Dogleg / Punchbowl with a group of Leven / Bottle / Whathaveyou to have really blended up the scorecard!

Interesting theory Ryan.  Remember that golf is a 3D game played in wind so ideally that would somehow be taken into account. At Kapalua, the trade wind is close to 20 mph and blows down the severe slope of the course.  As a result, a 400 yard downhill hole can be driveable (6 or 12) and a 350 yard uphill hole can require two healthy blows.  In theory you could have holes that vary greatly in distance but effectively play similar distances. 


I do think that courses built in the 50's and 60's tended to follow a standard formula of a bunch of 400 yard par 4's with one short one per nine and perhaps a long one, long par 3's to increase the playing yardage and relatively short par 5's.  The result would be a healthy total distance on a course that did not beat the player up too much. 


As for Golden Age courses, there are some writings on hole lengths that you can find.  I would have thought that there would have been more variation in length.  Your data suggests that is not the case which is quite interesting. 

[Ken Moum]

Two courses that taught me how much this can factor into making for an interesting design are the divine Elie and the NLE C&C Sugarloaf Mountain in Florida.


Elie's 16 par fours range from ~250 to 460 yards.  If you played it without a card, there's no chance you'd guess it had to par threes of 131 and 214 yards, with every other holes being a par four.


Sugarloaf, on the only mountain I'm aware of in Florida, had a similar spread, and equally significant, it' shortest four and longest three we about the same length.  One playing downhill, and the other uphill.


As a short hitter, I hate courses that throw a bunch of mid-length fours at me.  They all end up being two wood shots.

[David_Tepper]

I think there was a thread about this subject here within the past year or two.

James Braid had a reputation for designing courses with long and short par-4's. At Golspie and Brora (2 Braid courses in the Scottish Highlands) the par-4's are either under 350 yards or over 395 yards.

[Adam Lawrence]

I strongly suspect that much of the reason for the difference between old and new courses is that the lengthening that the old ones have been through over a century or so has made the holes lengths more samey. Shorter holes are obvious candidates for new tees to be installed by committees looking for more length. Long ones get less attention.

[Ryan Book]

This is an interesting theory, and one with logic behind it...if anyone has an original record of hole yardages for <choose a club from the graph in my post that has a MDFM less than 30>, I'd be both willing to do the math and curious to see how this plays out.

I strongly suspect that much of the reason for the difference between old and new courses is that the lengthening that the old ones have been through over a century or so has made the holes lengths more samey. Shorter holes are obvious candidates for new tees to be installed by committees looking for more length. Long ones get less attention.

[Michael Felton]

One thing to consider here I think is that Standard Deviation might not be the best measure here.


For example, if you had two courses. One has par 4s of:


250, 270, 290, 310, 330, 350, 370, 390, 410, 430, 450, and 470. The other has:
250, 250, 250, 250, 250, 250, 450, 450, 450, 450, 450, and 450.


The standard deviation of the first course is about 69, while the second is 100. I think most would agree that the first one offers more variation though.

[Ryan Book]

You'll note from the initial post that I did NOT use standard deviation as the metric. The actual measure I used (again, see above) won't find a workaround for your trick example either. Unfortunately, you'll just need to trust me when I promise that none of the courses looked at as part of this exercise had such clearly disruptive data as to require me to show the mode as well as the MDFM.


Needless to say, if a course with two half-dozens sets of par fours that are the same exact distance manages to make some U.S. ranking, we probably have bigger issues on our hands. 

One thing to consider here I think is that Standard Deviation might not be the best measure here.


For example, if you had two courses. One has par 4s of:


250, 270, 290, 310, 330, 350, 370, 390, 410, 430, 450, and 470. The other has:
250, 250, 250, 250, 250, 250, 450, 450, 450, 450, 450, and 450.


The standard deviation of the first course is about 69, while the second is 100. I think most would agree that the first one offers more variation though.

[Matthew Lloyd]

Ryan, very curious on your assessment of Black v. Red in terms of the variety of length on par 4s. What set of tees did you play from? I ask because it feels like the metrics come out fairly even from the back tees, but despite this I did come away feeling like the Black routing had more variability in the distances on the par 4s.


From the back tees, here are some metrics to consider:


Par 4s over 440 yards:
Red - five holes (#5, #8, #10, #16, #18)
Black - four holes (#1, #3, #9, #14)


Par 4s under 320 yards:
Red - one hole (#12)
Black - one hole (#7)


Par 4s between 360-420 yards:
Red - four holes (#1, #3, #7, #15)
Black - three holes (#4, #11, #12)


Average par 4 length:
Red - 418 yards
Black - 412 yards


Par 4s going uphill enough to impact strategy: (based on memory)
Red - #5, #8, #18
Black - #1, #12, #14, #18


The minutia on this probably isn't important. As mentioned, I felt the same way after playing the two courses, and would have guessed that the metrics were a bit further apart. Perhaps they are from the middle tees. We noticed the often huge gaps in distance on some of the par 4s between tee boxes for sure. Both courses play much longer than the actual yardage, that's for sure.


*** Looking at one detail in particular: we found that Black #7 and Red #12 play very differently despite essentially the same yardage. I think the hole numbers are correct - the "drivable" slightly downhill par 4 on the black, and then the uphill tee shot on the back nine on the Red. Black #7 plays more like a drivable hole and is more of a "change of pace" than the uphill return hole on Red - which added a degree of variability to that round ***


Curious to hear more of your thoughts on this as I'm obsessed with The Loop but when pitching the courses to others I find that I can never quite articulates its merits as convincingly as I'd like.

[Tim_Weiman]

I strongly suspect that much of the reason for the difference between old and new courses is that the lengthening that the old ones have been through over a century or so has made the holes lengths more samey. Shorter holes are obvious candidates for new tees to be installed by committees looking for more length. Long ones get less attention.

Adam,


It would probably take a lot of research to confirm your theory, but it does seem to make sense.


Tim

[Ryan Book]

Matthew, I didn't too into the weeds on the origin of this project because, despite the vibes, there was not much that objectively proved the Black Loop was any more varied in its par four distances than the Red (which most of your numbers point to being the case). I took my numbers from the middle tees and, while Black did indeed have a higher MDFM value (implying more variety), the difference between the two was too minute to suggest a significant difference.


I'd need to do a real hole-by-hole comparison to explain the psychological reasoning for why the two of us shared a gut feeling as to why Black subjectively felt more varied than Red. I've got a few theories, some of which you hinted at as well.

1) The short par fours came across as more gettable on Black. It seemed that nos. 4, 7 and 12 on Black would have been doable for golfers bigger hitting than I, due to their downhill nature. Honestly a few holes of a similar distance on Red -- nos. 1 and 7 -- didn't strike me as par 3.5s per se. The former hole leads into my next thought...


2) "First impressions are important impressions." It's a popular belief that the last hole has the biggest impact on one's remembrance of a round but I'm not sure that the opening hole doesn't have equal opportunity to set a tone. Here, the Black opens with a beefy par four; the Red opens with a quite short par four, but it's not a drivable one...much more of the "relaxed handshake" opener. Perhaps if it were 30 yards shorter, we'd both be remembering the Red course as more varied due to its noticeable opener! A flimsy theory, but a theory.


3) I'd really need to dig into each hole's topography but there's no doubt that, somewhere, the uphill nature of certain holes makes the difference. For example (getting away from par fours), if you had asked me at the end of both rounds what the longest par three on either course was, I would have answered No. 13 on Black. It's not...it's nearly 20 yards shorter than No. 11 at Red. One is uphill and one is down. As Jason noted earlier, golf is 3D and that the objective reality of that impacts subjective perceptions as well.

Ryan, very curious on your assessment of Black v. Red in terms of the variety of length on par 4s. What set of tees did you play from? I ask because it feels like the metrics come out fairly even from the back tees, but despite this I did come away feeling like the Black routing had more variability in the distances on the par 4s.


From the back tees, here are some metrics to consider:


Par 4s over 440 yards:
Red - five holes (#5, #8, #10, #16, #18)
Black - four holes (#1, #3, #9, #14)


Par 4s under 320 yards:
Red - one hole (#12)
Black - one hole (#7)


Par 4s between 360-420 yards:
Red - four holes (#1, #3, #7, #15)
Black - three holes (#4, #11, #12)


Average par 4 length:
Red - 418 yards
Black - 412 yards


Par 4s going uphill enough to impact strategy: (based on memory)
Red - #5, #8, #18
Black - #1, #12, #14, #18


The minutia on this probably isn't important. As mentioned, I felt the same way after playing the two courses, and would have guessed that the metrics were a bit further apart. Perhaps they are from the middle tees. We noticed the often huge gaps in distance on some of the par 4s between tee boxes for sure. Both courses play much longer than the actual yardage, that's for sure.


*** Looking at one detail in particular: we found that Black #7 and Red #12 play very differently despite essentially the same yardage. I think the hole numbers are correct - the "drivable" slightly downhill par 4 on the black, and then the uphill tee shot on the back nine on the Red. Black #7 plays more like a drivable hole and is more of a "change of pace" than the uphill return hole on Red - which added a degree of variability to that round ***


Curious to hear more of your thoughts on this as I'm obsessed with The Loop but when pitching the courses to others I find that I can never quite articulates its merits as convincingly as I'd like.

[Simon Barrington]

I think there was a thread about this subject here within the past year or two.

James Braid had a reputation for designing courses with long and short par-4's. At Golspie and Brora (2 Braid courses in the Scottish Highlands) the par-4's are either under 350 yards or over 395 yards.

James Braid in "Advanced Golf" (1907) which IMHO is an over-looked (and oft misinterpreted) detailed and simply worded exposition of a good compromise between penal and strategic design:

"There should be a complete variety of holes, not only as regards length, but in their character - the way in which they are bunkered, the kind of tee shot that is required at them, the kind of approach, and so forth."

He went on to describe the dozen or so two-stroke holes:

"The remaining holes should vary in length between about 320 and 420 yards, those between 360 and 420 yards, representing always good two-shot holes, predominating."

He considered it was generally, but not always, good to have 4x "short holes" (Par 3's in today's parlance) and 2x "very long holes" of 500-550yds (and there are very many exceptions in his own work driven by topography and suitability to the layout)

N.B. These statements were not some "formulaic" or "scientific" (pejorative) approach that fitted all courses or even his courses.
He was clear he was suggesting ways to create a sporting and varied course on a poor piece of inland park or meadowland.

His practice and desire was always to discover holes in naturally good environments ("sandhills" being the most desired) but in growing the game that was not always possible.
Several members on here have rightly lauded Braid's great ability to route holes across seriously challenging terrain, that in itself belies the formulaic myth.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Could it be that the possible range of par 4 lengths has increased?  From 251-445 a century ago to 251-470 (or more, up to 530 in some cases)?

[Joe Hancock]

After watching golfers play a new course for the past few days, I’m convinced more than ever that “variety in length” has forever been reduced by the equipment used to play the game. Whether a hole is 360, or 450, the better player of today is hitting some sort of wedge into the green. The yardage variety is muted by the distances these golfers can hit it.

[Tom_Doak]

I strongly suspect that much of the reason for the difference between old and new courses is that the lengthening that the old ones have been through over a century or so has made the holes lengths more samey. Shorter holes are obvious candidates for new tees to be installed by committees looking for more length. Long ones get less attention.

Adam,


It would probably take a lot of research to confirm your theory, but it does seem to make sense.


Tim

I have done that research, over many years of consulting, and Adam is mostly correct.  Greens committees from the 1950s to today (and some architects, too) have obsessed about adding length to “maintain the challenge” that was “the architect’s original intent”.  And low-handicap green chairmen are especially inclined to goose the length of the shorter holes (where it bothers the average player more than them) instead of on the longest holes (where it might actually bother them).

It never occurs to them that having holes of different lengths might have been more important to the designer than the overall challenge was.


EDITED TO ADD:  The other big change from the Golden Age to today is the nature of the short par-4.  Golden Age designers shied away from 250-300 yard holes and preferred the “drive and pitch” type.  Modern designers seem obsessed with the “drivable” par-4 and that in itself unlocks a wider range of hole lengths.

[Thomas Dai]

Current generations have a habit of believing they know better than the previous generation.
Atb

[Tom_Doak]

I took the best ranked courses from three modern architects to see A) if a higher MDFM correlated to course rankings and B) if the kinds of architects favored in modern GCA chatter (Doak, Coore) had much higher MDFMs than those who weren't (Fazio). The answers were "no" and "yes, but not aggressively so," respectively.

This is generally correct.  When I visited construction sites with Bill Coore back in the day, he would often claim not to know the length of some of the holes he was working on, but he generally uses templates to help lay out his holes on the map and those templates enforce a certain variety of lengths.  Whereas, I am looking for variety but not doing anything to enforce it.


A different way of looking at it would be that Bill’s courses tend to have a similar distribution of lengths, whereas mine vary more from course to course based on the topography.


Also worth pointing out that Seminole lacks variety in hole lengths because most of the routing is dictated by two parallel ridges that lie a certain distance apart.

[Sean_A]

I strongly suspect that much of the reason for the difference between old and new courses is that the lengthening that the old ones have been through over a century or so has made the holes lengths more samey. Shorter holes are obvious candidates for new tees to be installed by committees looking for more length. Long ones get less attention.

Adam,


It would probably take a lot of research to confirm your theory, but it does seem to make sense.


Tim

I have done that research, over many years of consulting, and Adam is mostly correct.  Greens committees from the 1950s to today (and some architects, too) have obsessed about adding length to “maintain the challenge” that was “the architect’s original intent”.  And low-handicap green chairmen are especially inclined to goose the length of the shorter holes (where it bothers the average player more than them) instead of on the longest holes (where it might actually bother them).


It never occurs to them that having holes of different lengths might have been more important to the designer than the overall challenge was.

Yes, seems to me that extra yards should be found on the longer 4s where a 5 is a good score for handicap play anyway.

Still, I always thought a good way to attack length is to reduce short 5s to long 4s. It’s pretty easy to create medal tees forward to of daily tees making par 4/5.

Ciao

[Simon Barrington]

I have done that research, over many years of consulting, and Adam is mostly correct.  Greens committees from the 1950s to today (and some architects, too) have obsessed about adding length to “maintain the challenge” that was “the architect’s original intent”.  And low-handicap green chairmen are especially inclined to goose the length of the shorter holes (where it bothers the average player more than them) instead of on the longest holes (where it might actually bother them).
It never occurs to them that having holes of different lengths might have been more important to the designer than the overall challenge was.

Agree wholeheartedly that, variety (in all things) is the spice of golf.

But regardless of the original designer's intent and what they may have left on the ground, especially the ODGs, I suspect we also should be looking for the culprit as being the consequences (unintended or otherwise) from the respective Handicapping Schemes globally, now merged into the WHS.

In 1985 over in UK & Ireland CONGU brought in the Standard Scratch Score (SSS) methodology to rank/benchmark courses for handicapping.
The key input to that same ranking was....
...you guessed it...
...length.

So in order to raise their SSS Clubs chased the addtional yardage on as many holes as they could within the physical constrictions of their site.
Leading to longer Par 3's (with greens ill-suited to a lower ball flight), and a proliferation of extended and new tees (often so close to a boundary that you didn't even have room for a backswing).

You may think that's exaggeration but CONGU later had to issue a guide/requirement that the distance point be at least 4 yards infront of the back edge of any tee and 6-yards if there was an obstruction behind to allow for a backswing).
I know this as I used to referee PGA events in the late 80's and early 90's and finding a legal and payable rear tees sometimes was really tough, especially when the Clubs desired you to play from the "Tips" and their new "handkerchief" tees were only 4-5yards deep!

This chase for length in order to make their members feel better for having a supposedly more difficult course, and enable them to get lower handicaps than their neighbouring clubs, if the SSS was above Par, skewed the entire hole-length distribution towards the top end reducing variety (as the top end was restricted by land availability).

I would guess the same occurred in the US with the implementation of GHIN and the subsequent Global WHS, but defer to others stateside on that.

There is a persistent (and incorrect IMHO) fascination across our game with distance as a measure of skill, and it has so many detrimental effects.

One thing that fascinates me is the apparent misuderstanding of Slope.
(Please do correct me if I am wrong as I am yet to complete a single WHS scorecard, as the card & pencil mentality is not how I enjoy playing golf)

Most golfers seem to champion a course with a high Rating and steep Slope as being a measure of a good/difficult course.

However if one considers Sunningdale Heath (which Dai & I both played recently) it has a Slope of 93 from the regular Silver Tees (Par 58 & Rating 58) from the Silver Posts it's Slope is 98 (Par 58 & Rating 60).

So a Scratch Player is relatively more challenged to match his Index than the Bogey Player who is less impacted.
Low players find it very hard to beat their index as the lack of their driving advantage is palpable with 14 Par 3's and many of these with decent length, so they are tested through the bag. Bogey players seem to find it far easier to match their Index.

That seems to be the right way round to me for maximum enjoyment, and challenge at the top end of ability too.

Perhaps that is the way to go? Design to create courses with a shallower slope (or even - if possible- a negative one)?

Taking the Driver out of the better/longer players hands by design, have them stop to choose what is it best to play from the tee.
If the authorities won't act then perhaps creative design is the way forward, if owners can see it...

#shrinkthegametogrowthegame #moresedgevalleys #moresunnigdaleheaths...

Cheers!