Flexible courses

Golf architecture faces many challenges for the next decades. With technology regulation at a standstill, it seems like golf architects will have to dig deep to figure out a way to make sure golf courses remains fun, accessible and able to host competitions once in a while. I say competitions because even today, 15 year old kids may hit their drives 280 yards !!! or more.

 

So the length gap: between everyday golfer and competitive player keeps widening.

 

I've addressed the issues of more acreage, more maintenance, more costs in previous posts.

http://binettegolfarchitecture.blogspot.ca/2011/12/matter-of-numbers.html

 

I've often been fascinated with courses on a small piece of land... and with Merion hosting the US Open this year, people will discover how you can turn a small piece of property in a 7000 + yard course. They are going to use every inches of the property to do so, but the US Open tees are not used in everyday play.

 

And that led me, for many years, with the idea of a flexible course. A flexible course would bring the concept of tees back to its origins, when a golfer had to tee his ball 2 club length from the previous hole and start the next hole from there.

 

 

Some courses, mostly designed by Renaissance Golf Design (Sebonack) and Coore & Crenshaw have tees that are just an extension of the previous green surrounds and some flatter spots here and there are the tees. 

 

A flexible course, conciously designed to presented length variations on most holes on a day to day basis will have 2 major advantages:

 

1) It can be stretched to host competitions, using tee positions that would be borderline dangerous in every play, but safe in competitions where ball spread is less an issue.

 

 

2) It can offer a different course to the members basically every day. I've always wondered how members can play the same exact course for 60 rounds a year ? Would it be fun to see a 320 yard "easy" par 4 one day turned into a brute 245 yards, par whatever, the next. Or the 510 yards par 5 into a 472 yards, par 4.75, monster to next day. Or just take the average 360 yards par 4 slider left and see it a 390 yards slider to the right next saturday.

 

 

 

The flexible course will deconstruct the "false unwritten laws of golf architecture" where a long par 3 cannot have a small green.... but the next day it's a short par 4, so it must have a small green. Players would play the hole for what it is, a golf hole... It might encourage match paly a little more.

 

The only thing a flexible course leaves out is the course record and the notion of par... I can live with that !!!

 

Stuck in a storm: the fate of tournament golf

The first round of the 2013 PGA Tour season was cancelled today because of inclement weather... which is too bad:

• too bad because somebody had figured it out. (Webb Simpson was 3-under thru 7 holes... so much for unplayable weather !!!)
• too bad because it's fun too watch. (The Tour report said Rickie Fowler hit a full driver 215 yards... so what)
• too bad because the weather is part of the game.
• too bad because if there is one course on Tour designed for wild weather, it's definitely the Plantation Course at Kapalua.

When Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw designed the course, they probably had in mind a day like today. High winds on this hilly and open site. So they built extra wide fairways (60 + yards in some spots), open entrance to the green, so it's possible to run the ball in and also a great variety of length on the holes with short and long par 4's. A 360 yards par 4 can turn into a beast into the wind while a 480 yard hole can be 3-wood, wedge. It's built for great golf, strategy, course analysis...

 

But the Tour had to stop play. Golf is a game played outdoor and wild weather more than often identify the most courageous, the toughest player.

 

Sadly, the PGA Tour is stuck in a storm, litteraly and here's why.

 

Because to keep up with the technology, speeding up greens remains the best way to protect par. Therefore (even the relatively slow one at Kapalua), the ball starts moving and / or cannot be stopped around the holes... The greens cannot be slown down overnight, sadly enough, and they can't keep the green slow, the score would go too low if there's no wind.

 

How about changing the hole locations to flatter spots ? Well that would be an idea, but the pin positions are more than often pre-defined. But the Tour players could do like most golfers do, play it by ear, analyze, think... 

 

Last, but not least, the PGA Tour is a player's tour, a kind of union. So any kind of unfairness between Player A and Player B, is negatively perceived (even though there is always a diversity in the conditions day in / day out). It's their job and in a certain way, we can't blame the players for that.   

 

I really hope they get a chance to play, so you can appreciate the design at Kapalua.

 

As far as wild conditions, we'll have to wait for the Open Championship, where they don't care about the fact that there's 8 or 9 hours between the first and the last tee time of the day... talk about even conditions !!!.