Golf Course Fairness
 

A Golf Course is a skills test and each hole can test one or more of your weaknesses. Add a little risk/reward theory, and punishment for failure can vary. Add the skills test to Risk/reward theory and millions of course designs and hole combinations can be created.

What’s more fair than everyone having to play the same holes?

So, can a Golf Hole or Golf Course be unfair?

The popularity of medal play vs match is relevant here maybe. Me, I wish they'd bring back the stymie and match play, score be damned. Rounds of golf would last about 3 hours too. Our friends across the pond still have it right, I bet. Saturday two ball matches only (four players) etc etc. The ancient Scots invented a nice little game you could play before lunch and then again after lunch and then after the pub and then again on the way home and then.........

Golf, like life isnt always fair, but thats golf ....er life. Whatever. Ay, there's the rub.

Technically if everybody is playing the same hole, it's fair. But, 'form should follow function.' You shouldn't be having a 460 yard par 4 hitting into a postage stamp that slopes away from the golfer. That stuff should be reserved for holes with short iron approach shots, again...'form following function.'

There's a course outside of Atlanta that's only 6,600 yards and it's probably the most difficult under 7,000 yard course I've ever played. And out of any course that I've every played, only playing Kiawah from 7,300 and Bethpage Black were harder. I've played Oak Hill a few times and thought Oak Hill was easier.

Basically, it's in an area that is about as hilly as you can play. It's fairways are postage stamps and all but about 3 greens have huge tiers into the green. The first 3 holes start out okay, but then 4-12 are about as ridiculous as it gets. And the other big problem is that you can't miss left or right just a little or your golf ball is off the face of the earth.

Golf is supposed to be enjoyable and I'm not sure what this architect was thinking when he built it (and he's a pretty reputable architect). The end result for 'not being fair' is a course that nobody wants to play and really just a waste of space.

I find most of the time with golf course design, less is more.





3JACK

Hi Jack,

It sounds like "Country Club" designing. Ya know, so the members won't get bored after 10 years and they can win a little cash when they bring guests to play. :laughing9 :laughing9

On the other hand, if its a public course, I think wrong Venue. Public courses should be for everyones enjoyment.

It originally started off as a Country Club. Then it basically shut down (IIRC) and then was bought out by another corporation. I am part of a unique membership here in Atlanta where there's an LLC that owns 21 courses around the Atlanta area. They charge a monthly fee for membership and then every time I want to play...and I can play any of the 21 courses...I pay about $25 (cart & greens fee). The thing is that I'm technically a member at only 2 of the courses and I'm allowed to make tee times 7 days in advance. In the other 19 courses, I pay the same price, but I only can make tee times 3 days in advance.

Anyway, this course barely has anybody playing there because it's just a ridiculously tough layout. Number 12 for example is about 450 from the tips, par 4. You have to hit over these woods and into a ridiculously small landing area. Almost guaranteed to lose your ball and you may go too far with driver and hit into a big pond. The pond goes right up to the green where you have about a 200 yard shot into the green. Oh yeah, it has a gigantic tier right in the middle of the green.

So sure, it's technically fair if everybody is playing the same hole. But, it's not going to make anybody want to play it again.

Another course I play is about 15 minutes down the road from this one, a Palmer design, that's about 6,900 yards, doesn't have a bad hole on the course, very picturesque, etc. Love to play it.




3JACK

Was the course built in "Pre-irrigation, pre-watering days"?

Both were built in the last 10 years.




3JACK

Then, I think that they're crazy too. :laughing9 It's like selling a product no one wants.

"Buy this cream, it's guaranteed to give you a skin rash."
"I'll take two!"
(I don't think so)

Yes, but oddly, in my experience not due to a designer or greenskeeper wishing to make a hole difficult, but rather due to ignorance and/or resources.

One hole in particular I play (often) is a 450 yd par 4 that has been 'redesigned' a few times to accommodate redesign and rerouting of nearby holes.

It has a huge tree smack dab in the middle of the fairway, leaving only 5 yards of fairway left and 20 yards of fairway right. If you go left of the tree, you have an uphill blind shot from the rough. If you go right of the tree your ball will go through the fairway into the rough on a 45 degree sidehill lie.

From there, the approach shot is into an elevated green built into the side of a steep hill, with a large mound blocking the right 1/3 of the green. The green itself is sloped severely from right to left and front to back. I have hit 9-irons dead solid perfect, 9 miles in the air, that will not hold the green.

The irony is the rest of the golf course is a pushover, making this hole completely out of place. :eyes:

I totally agree. They don't want to spend the money to remove it.

The guy who owns this course might market it better if he stopped watering, everyone must use rented hickory shafted clubs and low compression golf balls, and sell it as an experience to enjoy and have events and competitions. Charge more for it. (people lack imagination, if you can't compete with the big golf courses, them make them compete with you.)

If they would just design courses to follow the lay of the land more or less and stop watering them so much, we would play a game much closer to that of the Bobby Jones era and I bet that this golf course would be fun to play wth pitch and runs, etc. It's fun to have the ball roll out a bit on a drive or long iron. It brings back a dimension of the game we've seem to have lost.

The pros' get their fairways rolled and firmed up a bit for tournaments but the game was historically played on fast fairways and slow greens. Now we have slow fairways and fast greens. Things have changed. I think that course designers generally go too far nowadays.