7,800 yard courses - Does the game need changes

Watching the Farmers USGA event from Torrie Pines I was amazed that the course was getting on for 8,000 yards and was the longest on tour, but a few others are not far behind. We've all seen courses being extended to try and make it difficult for the big hitters, but changing the course is not always a good thing as the naturalness of the place vanishes. It was no surprise yesterday to see that the main contenders for the farmers were all long hitters. So the question must be: would it be fairer if courses for the big events were toughened up rather then made longer. Over the last few days we've seen Phil hardly hit a fairway, indeed he was last in fairways hit but 2nd in greens in regulation, which means the big boys were just lashing the big stick from the tee and not bothering about where they ended up (Obviously fairway preffered) but by making the rough thicker and more punishing, would surely make for a level playing field and make the big hitters think before smashing. Course management didn't really come into play here, just lash and hope.

From a spectacle point of view the big hitters make for some exiting golf, but if something isn't done courses will be obsolelete in the next 5-years due to technology and Bubbaesque new swing techniques.

Doc - I'd much rather see shorter courses with the rough grown in, hazards being what they are supposed to be (it annoys me when commentators say the pros would rather be in a bunker than in the rough around the greens - it's not a hazard then :scratch: ) and par 3s under 200 yards. I hate these long, slog courses, especially the ones which have very little in the way of trees and bushes lining the fairways as well to give them some character.

Agree with you about the US tv coverage, too. I've given up watching it. :sleep:

One thing very noticeable is how flat every lie on the fairway was for the players at torrey pines. To take a famous example look at the stances the players have to deal with at Augusta. The course may be 8000 yards but the players will happily hit anything up to a three wood of the deck on level stances all day.

Courses need to test more than length as that seems to be something all the pros can master these days. THe harder shots yesterday were the ones to harder greens. Interesting terrain both on the fairway and the greens would help. But only if the conditions are fast and firm. Just look how the european tour failed this week. They pick a course with interesting greens then Poopie themselves and make them so slow the slope is basically taken out of the equation.

I've never understood why they don't just grow rough across the fairway between 300 and 400 yards?

Morning LP The bunker situation was a big joke especially the fairway bunkers. Phil and countless other big hitters were loving it as they hit easy shots onto the green from 150 yards and the same from the rough. Even on the 18th hole last night Phil was 260 plus from the green and in the rough, and everyone expected him to go for it, because it was the norm, and this is carrying water as well. Much surprise when he layed up and the only player who had the slightest problem over the whole 4-days was Hunter Mahan when he only managed to nudge the ball a few yards from the rough, but this only happened once. So the rough was not a penalty and the bunkers were easier than the fairways in some cases, risk and reward it wasn't as it seemed to have no risk and plenty of reward for bad 'ripped' shots.

By contrast the desert course on the ET yesterday did seem to have risk involved from being out of position and we saw many players fail due to thickish rough and 'non bunkers' which were classed as waste areas. We even saw darren Clarke make a double slip on one hole which cost him plenty of cash, because he tried to chip up onto the green from a run-off area behind the green, which had been covered all week. He managed to duff his shot twice which killed his round.

We had all the hoohah about the Wentworth changes last year because they had been making the course longer, and the arguments about the risk and reward shot to the raised green over the puddle was massive.

A bit of sanity needs bringing back into the game, because it may be good for TV, but its not real golf

Is the course playing 7800 yards? Or is that it's maximum length?

There is a lot of difference in where the tees can be placed as to where they actually are placed on a given day.

And overall length is less of a problem than the carry required. It was Bethpage during the US Open when it was first held there a few years back that brought that specific problem to light when several players couldn't even reach one of the fairways from the tee.

I find that more troublesome than a long course.

As for bunkers. Yes they are a hazard... but mainly due to inaccurate ball-striking. The rough can be far more penal due to the fact that you can rarely get the club on the back of the ball. In a bunker it accentuates your own swing failings rather than providing a basic inability to strike it cleanly. Except where the ball is plugged of course.

I actually prefer being in bunkers on certain courses due to the lack of imagination the greenkeepers have in relation to the grass. Thick, long, clingy grass just off the edge or a nice fluffy bunker that I can get a bit of control from.... Bunker. Everytime.

I distance has come to the fore way to much in recent years, what with designers going for length to toughen places up rather than using good old fashioned design, I mean it used to be the likes of Faldo, Langer et al would win because they plotted how to play courses with out hitting into the cabbage and the likes of PAvin worked on making the ball move at will to get around the hazards,

Bunkers these days all tend to be very uniform in design and style, how often you see someone get up and down from a regular sand trap, whereas if the same players end up in pot bunker round the open rota course a lot of them struggle.

It surely cannot be a surpise that scores round the likes of Shinnecock hills, and Bethpage Black tend to be a lot lower than the regular PGA tour courses due to the set up of narrow fairways and high rough combied with fast greens.

Even courses design in our own local areas are now paying premium to distance not hazards for example recently played at Surrey national which just tips 7000yards of the back tees, and to be fair it wasnt that difficult becasue of the landing areas available and short rough meant could really let fly with the driver with out worrying about being slightly off line and this place wasnt cheap to play after being there for the day and the usuals paid out to go with an away day

Ye i played a local Muni called Upchurch down in Kent yardage about 6200 iif memory serves me correctly, but it had undualting fairways, narrow fairways, fairway bunkers, rough that was rough in certain areas and some wellplaced trees making you think, do i hit driver or 3 wood, do i risk playing from a hanging lie over water and wheres the safe bail out if i miss hit. A much better test of course management and overall golf as it made you work for your score. That to me was testament that a well though out course be much tougher than a tee it high let it fly type.

I would much rather see pro's on tour playing otu of comfort zones and showing us how good they really are when they too have to just pitch out sideways

Mave... All of that I agree with... And to be honest it makes the display Tiger gave us at Hoylake look very impressive. And similar when he first won at St Andrews with an entire week not going in a bunker.

LJ the course yesterday was set up for 7,600 yards as they were expecting the wind to pick up later, as it did, but the first 3 rounds were played from near on maximum distance. &7.6k is still massive and nobody had any problems carrying the rubbish to hit the fairways because none of us on here would have either, it easy. The fairways were tight yes, but were bieing hit by most excpet the huge hitters as they didn't give a damn because the rough and bunkers were not punishing. Bubba was fairly accurate I have to say and the only difference betwqeen him and the other massive hitters, was that he and Phil were able to work the ball in the air to go for tight pins, the other big boys were just content to lash it and hit the green. This though killed the game from the average tour hitter as they were already potentially 16-shots behind due to the long par 5's which the long hitters killed. Bibba was 18 under on the 5's ....

Just sounds like the course has been setup to favour one particular player type... which isn't a bad thing.

Out of interest are we looking at tiny little greens or those american things that take up as much ground as a 15 bedroom house with a tennis court?

Exactly LJ, Hoylake and TOC when he was bunker free for 72holes, is what I mean ,i seem to remember he hardly hit a driver at those 2 events as well, paying premium to placement over power. Look at how Pavin won at shinnecock and how the likes of Lee Janzen has won 2 US opens his most recent not that long ago, Very rarely do you see the US open or the Open winner being the longest hitter, but more the guy that has played the course and managed it the best, hit the most fairways and chipped and putted well while avoidng the caggabe land.

I think more needs to be put back on this type of course and make them work for it, these hit it hard target courses just are becoming boring, thats why I feel the European guys are doing os well now, they've realised the fact they can play so many diffenrent types of course works in there favour.

That said the septics tend to do well in the open hell of a lot have won it, they jsut need to try variety over target!

If you discounted the par 5's at the farmers and looked at the leaderboard, there would be a massive reverse as the players at the top of the leaderboard would have been the average hitter. Phil, vegas, Johnson, Bubba and the rest all killed the 5's which was the difference. 675 yard par 5's were being hit with driver wedge and the odd 8-iron. So not really a fair test of golf.

As I said earlier Phil was last in fairways hit and 2nd best in greens in regulation, which is a joke. Bubba was longest driver and first in greens in regulation, so 1st and 2nd greens in regulation came 1st and 2nd for the event, but the underlying thing is Phil being last in fairways hit so no punishment for being worst off the tee.

Wider fairways and larger more demanding green complexes may be the way forward. I premium should be placed on putting the ball in the correct place and mav says plotting a way round the course. Wider fairways bring the fairway bunkers back into play and also allow for more demanding greens to be used. A ball is more likely to run into a bunker if the grass around it is short and feeding to the bunker, add some proper depth to the bunkers and players will try and miss them. Once you have width you have options, and also the ability to more closely examine a players skill around and on the greens. I think someone else figured this out a while back as I think I just described the Old course.

I think that bunkers should be hazards. I would like to see them as unraked, scruffy bits of sand which are almost impossible to get onto the greens (if fairway bunkers) and very difficult to get up and down from (if greenside). Then there would be a penalty for visiting them and pros would not aim for them rather than being in greenside rough (which I think makes a mockery of them being hazards)

This subject comes up time and time again. The best pro's only manage to get up and down from bunkers around about 60% of the time, and they have all day to practice in them, therefore they are punishment enough for them, I would suspect that getting up and down for a club player, 25% might be admirable for a pretty good player, god knows how hard they would be unraked, with big footprints in them.

super_realist wrote:The best pro's only manage to get up and down from bunkers around about 60% of the time, and they have all day to practice in them

How often would they get up and down from thick, gnarly rough?

The game is hard enough without creating extra difficulty, especially for us amateurs. The last thing we need is unraked bunkers or thick rough.
The key is not growing thick rough, or leaving bunkers unraked. It is the positioning of hazards and pins which should make these elements hard, that way the premium is on accuracy and not length.

Thick rough is very one-dimensional. It sits at the bottom of the grass and all you get to do is hack it out with a wedge of some description.

I've played a course near Pattaya called St Andrews 2000. It's 7777 yards long and has 2 par 6's. Par 74.
I found it an "interesting" course to play. I don't see a problem with long courses as long as "par" reflects this. Will we see a 9,000yard course, par 80?

http://www.golfasian.com/golf-courses/thailand-golf-courses/pattaya/st-andrews-2000-golf-club/