Course Set Up

[revkev]

I think that we've all experienced this to some extent or another but I'm curious about everyone's take. Often times the courses we play become different animals at big event time, member guests or club championships. Sometimes the course plays two or three strokes harder under those conditions with another stroke or two thrown in for nerves.

But I've also noticed that a courses super and his crew or the pro has a lot to do with course difficulty. Over the past few years our league course has been set up relatively easy with tee markers almost to the front of their respective spots and pins normally in flat spots on the green. Not so this season and you can see the impact among the lower handicap players in our league. All of us have seen our handicaps go up by 1 or 2 strokes a 9. The tees seem to be back on every hole and you will often see A type pin positions on the majority of greens. I suspect that our course is playing closer to the back tee rating and slope than the second to back tee.

This isn't a complaint just an observation. In the end I will end up with a handicap that travels better. My preference would be that some balance would exist. Tees/pins would be set to find an average and course conditions such as prevailing wind and weather forecast would be taken into account.

Thoughts?

[revkev]

Oh and it should be course although coarse might be more accurate. Got to love the iPad with the cracked screen.

[Blade]

You can fix the title if you edit the first post in the full editor. 

[kygolfer1980]

The course I usally play gets much tougher in July/August because the bermuda rough really takes off.  Have to keep it in the fairway or be prepared to do alot of hacking out.

[silver & black]

My home course is always tougher when outings are held there. It's one of the harder courses to putt on in the area anyway but, it's doubly difficult during outings or "championship" type of play. the course isn't long but, it's tight to drive with lots of trouble for errant shots. As short as it is, it's one of the harder courses to score well on in the area.

[RoverRick]

Our course has undergone many changes over the past few years.  But recently I have noticed some changes that make it far more difficult.  Because we have more water the grass is better, but with lush grass we have much longer rough.  Also, I can remember last year when the fairways were 20 yards wider.  The pins are sometimes within 6' of the edge of the green.  The greens are faster, the rough is taller, the fairways are narrower, the pins are closer to the edge and nearer the slopes.

[Jondagcl]

I don't frequently play courses that are at the level where they get much high end action, so their set up is consistent from week to week, year to year. Sometimes like was mentioned above, the rough can get a little long and that makes it take longer to locate balls not on the fairway.

[revkev]

Our course has undergone many changes over the past few years.  But recently I have noticed some changes that make it far more difficult.  Because we have more water the grass is better, but with lush grass we have much longer rough.  Also, I can remember last year when the fairways were 20 yards wider.  The pins are sometimes within 6' of the edge of the green.  The greens are faster, the rough is taller, the fairways are narrower, the pins are closer to the edge and nearer the slopes.

Do you have a new super or pro?

 

Also as the course gets more or less difficult does anyone notice a difference in pace of play? That's the bizarre thing ours hasn't gone up but again I think it's because the greens are in general a little slower and much of our slow play came from the fast green have to putt everything out scenario.

[sp0rtsfan86]

My home course has 2-3 holes which if the pin is put in a certain part of the green it's almost impossible from more than 5 foot to hit a putt. Ditto with the college course. However, it's weird because those holes aren't the worst offenders for slow holes. Think it has to do with design, where risk/reward shots are there.

 

Most of the time in my experience slow holes are really short par 4's that are drivable, or par 5's that are short enough to consider two shots... regardless of the setup or pin positions. Most of the time it's guys hitting big enough drives to be on the edge of going for the green in two. Of course they hold up play waiting for the green to clear. There should be a study on how often that golfer duffs his shot and holds up the hole even worse after waiting for the green to clear and playing a shot that gets them in trouble.

 

At our college course the biggest offenders was number 3 an average downhill par 5 that played shorter and could be reached in two, and 5 which was 280-300 from the whites, but often had wind at your back so a lot of guys went for it. My home course it's two holes that have doglegs but if you cut them you can end up on the green or 30 yards from it. Again, the waiting game has produced some ugly results. 

 

That and one course has a long walk. Like .1 mile from one hole to another. For a walker it's a good 5 minute walk and backs things up. That's just the course setup that can't change really.

[RoverRick]

Do you have a new super or pro?

 

Also as the course gets more or less difficult does anyone notice a difference in pace of play? That's the bizarre thing ours hasn't gone up but again I think it's because the greens are in general a little slower and much of our slow play came from the fast green have to putt everything out scenario.

 

Do you have a new super or pro?  We have new everything. Haha.  We have 10 new greens, a new club house, new sprinkler system, new pro, new superintendent, new cart sheds, new cart, new restaurants, new bars, and 200 plus almost 300 new members.  We went from a semi private members owned club to a private members-own 70%.  Construction is in its 3rd of 4 year plan. 

 

Once all construction is complete, the course will be 1000 yards longer than it was.  The degree of difficulty is way up.  Our second hole was the number 1 handicap hole before.  It is now 35 yards longer, and is the 4th hardest hole. And it is harder than it was.

 

Our number 10 hole just now fully opened up.after its redo.  It went from a 321 yard par 4, that if you did not birdie you were losing ground to your opponent, to a 390 yard par 4 that a par will often win the hole.  Hole 8 went from an easy 340 to the hardest hole on the front at 424.  There is also a new lake and the larger lake is larger still by a couple million gallons.  Two island greens, new lakes, lots of sand bunkers.  Oh, and not only a new club manager, but one that is there everyday.  And two chefs, and a bunch of cooks.  Haha, we have a lot of new stuff.

 

Pace of play has slowed down drastically, but it is from the number of people now there.  We also went from show up and play to must have tee times.  The number of players every weekend has doubled.  July 4th festivities hosted 1200 people this year.

[hckymeyer]

Rev, we've had some pretty interesting/different pin placements this year.  Usually my course puts in tougher positions when they are holding some type of high school/college event, Wed's for mens league and then a few member events.  This year it seems like they are going all out with the pin placements and it's actually been pretty fun.  It's amazing how placing the pin in a spot that it normally isn't at can completely change a hole.

 

I think they hired a couple new guys that do greenskeeping and either they have never played golf before and don't care where the pins are, or they play a lot and have a sadistic streak on their placements

 

The toughest our course gets though is an event we have every year called The British.  They speed the greens way up and pick really tough pin placements.  Then we play from the tips and they stretch out a few holes by using a different holes tee box.  For instance the 10th hole is a reachable par 5 normally, but during The British we tee off from #1 tee box and have to hit over a road.  If the wind is in to you it's hard to even reach the start of the fairway.  

 

So after that long ramble, I think my course is in a similar boat as yours.  We are seeing overall tough pin placements this year and the lower guys are up maybe a stroke or two.  It makes for some fun golf though, I generally play 3 times a week or so and since it's always the same course it's fun to see some different pin placements and tee box placements to help mix things up.

[revkev]

I have no trouble with the way they are setting up my course because it's in such great shape and not slowing down pace of play.

 

I would love to see them adopt a policy of 6 difficult, 6 moderate and 6 attackable placements every round along with varying the tees up and back to keep it varied and interesting. I'm very intrigued by courses that will vary themselves.

[RoverRick]

I have noticed that on weekends, the pins are set up to keep the majority of the traffic off the center of the greens.  But they are definitely set closer to the hazards on the weekend.

[Jmikecpa]

Having been a member at a club that has done a redesign I can relate to this.  About 10 years ago when my former club went through a full remake and my index went from a +1.2 to a 4 after we opened the new course.  Rough was way too high, greens were hard and would not hold and the course as a whole was 700 yards longer from the tips.  The only good point is that once the super got his arms around the new course it became much more playable and less penal.  First big improvement was the rough getting cut down to under 8 inches.  New greens will take some time to soften up as the soil needs to settle and that takes time and play to work that part out.

[jaxbeachpackerfan]

I was on the greens committee of my club up north for a number of years.  Soon after I got on the committee (with two others from our early weekend group), we asked the greenskeeper about his philosophy on tee and pin placement, because we hadn't been impressed with it.  Guess what?  He had no philosophy.  His pin placer was instructed just to move the pin around a particular green, and the tee placement was determined solely by the kid or immigrant worker who happened to be mowing the tees that morning (in other words, totally random).  We got the greenskeeper to get involved in the process and suggested some guidelines with immediate improvement.  Pro hardly ever got out on the course, so he was clueless.  I wouldn't be surprised that this happens more often than you would suspect.

[RoverRick]

Just remembered one more little thing.  The course super can effect how things play around the green.  The length of the rough around the green is huge.  In most cases, we have hills of moguls on one or two sides of the greens.  The easiness of the hole can be altered by the length of grass.  Short grass allows you go use the hill as a back stop, however, longer grass if you run up on it holds the ball.  This means that you have a downhill lie in the thick grass. 

 

Likewise, on the sides near the water hazards, the grass can be long or short.  Long grass catches the ball, and keeps it out of the hazard.  It can be shaved down to the fringe height and if you get on the edge it will roll into the water.

 

A strip of rough high grass in front of the greens will keep people from putting from the fairways, while that same strip can keep the ball from trickling into a hazard.

 

All of this is within the Superintendent's control and can play a major role in how difficult a course plays.

[fozcycle]

I was on the greens committee of my club up north for a number of years.  Soon after I got on the committee (with two others from our early weekend group), we asked the greenskeeper about his philosophy on tee and pin placement, because we hadn't been impressed with it.  Guess what?  He had no philosophy.  His pin placer was instructed just to move the pin around a particular green, and the tee placement was determined solely by the kid or immigrant worker who happened to be mowing the tees that morning (in other words, totally random).  We got the greenskeeper to get involved in the process and suggested some guidelines with immediate improvement.  Pro hardly ever got out on the course, so he was clueless.  I wouldn't be surprised that this happens more often than you would suspect.

 

I believe that is what we have as well.....They send the kids out before dawn and they rotate the pins Red, White, Blue.  So in the darkness, they start on the first hole and just take the Red(front) pin, and move it to White(Middle) then move the White to Blue(Back) on the next hole, adjusting the Tee markers as well.  There is no other consideration taken regarding the condition of the Tee Box or Greens.

[markb]

I believe that is what we have as well.....They send the kids out before dawn and they rotate the pins Red, White, Blue.  So in the darkness, they start on the first hole and just take the Red(front) pin, and move it to White(Middle) then move the White to Blue(Back) on the next hole, adjusting the Tee markers as well.  There is no other consideration taken regarding the condition of the Tee Box or Greens.

Ditto, ditto, ditto. 

 

The pros at the courses I play never care or get involved in placement.   Holes are moved only when wear and tear dictates they be moved and they are only put in the usual spots.  Flags are cycled, it's like we have only 6 flags of each color and so you must use them all in rotation.   Often it is NOT the the boss greenkeeper punching holes it's a non-playing newbie.   We can tell when it's a newbie because they'll put them on false fronts and slopes that won't hold and we have to complain and send out a guy for replacing.

 

Tees rarely change, no one cares.   Just for variety's sake I'll often move the markers myself to new locations and when I come back a few days later they're still there.

[RoverRick]

Our course superintendent (Director of Golf) was a local boy.  He was a pretty good high school golfer and worked at the club.  Went on to a different course 100 miles from here and was brought back to run the nicest course (now former nicest course) in the area.  The man that invested a lot of money in our course wanted to bring him back here and did so.

 

I knew him from playing here on Wednesday nights.  While I had played that other course many times, and it was very nice, but I was not sure when I first heard about him coming that it would make much difference.

 

I was wrong.  I noticed two days after he started that the hoses were rolled up nicer.  The trash was being emptied sooner, and the ball washers were full of clean water.  Wow.

 

I also noticed that after arriving at 7 am one Saturday morning, he was driving around showing evidence of having already been hard at work.  Same thing happened the next day.   And this has continued to happen in the two years since.  Plus all the course improvements.

 

He has done an excellent job, and I have told him so more than once.

[revkev]

I was on the greens committee of my club up north for a number of years.  Soon after I got on the committee (with two others from our early weekend group), we asked the greenskeeper about his philosophy on tee and pin placement, because we hadn't been impressed with it.  Guess what?  He had no philosophy.  His pin placer was instructed just to move the pin around a particular green, and the tee placement was determined solely by the kid or immigrant worker who happened to be mowing the tees that morning (in other words, totally random).  We got the greenskeeper to get involved in the process and suggested some guidelines with immediate improvement.  Pro hardly ever got out on the course, so he was clueless.  I wouldn't be surprised that this happens more often than you would suspect.

I think this happens 75 % plus of the time. I have no doubt the pin and tee placements on my course are because of one of the kids working on the course. The instructions are move the tees and you have to have 6 fronts, 6 middles and 6 backs with the pins. Our greens are very tough, I know everyone thinks their greens are tough but I've been a member at a several driftnet courses in three different parts of the country. These greens are very tough because they are old school Bermuda, it's the courses biggest form of defense. The course regularly hosts big local tournaments and PGA tests. When you start picking the toughest front, middle and back placements it gets silly. The Super is doing an incredible job, he's got one of the most played courses in the country and he's keeping the greens pristine. The kid setting the tees and pins could vary his set up a bit. He's found placements that guys haven't seen in years which is great but they get old week after week.

 

To Rick's point absolutely the height of rough around the greens and hazards is huge. Nothing drives me crazier than heavy rough in front of the green so that you can't run the ball on. That's one quick way to slow down play because there are any number of golfers who need to run the ball on.

[RookieBlue7]

I think they let the maintenance staff pick out pin placements at our course about once a month.  Because those times, pins are at impossible locations where you're not stopping it and a missed putt means a 6-8 footer coming back because it's not stopping.  I can just about tell you every one of those locations on every hole.  They occasionally put them there for tourneys or other events, but it's rare because the pro or super picks them those days.  But the random days, I don't care who you are, if you don't dunk it or get a lucky bounce, it's not getting close.  Some are to the point of a missed putt means you're chipping I don't care how softly you hit the putt.  

Examples:

#1 front right anywhere within the first 7 paces on and inside 8-10 paces from the right edge.  This sits on a little ridge that's the highest point on the green.  Not getting it close as it's guarded by a bunker that sits a mere 6 feet from the green's front.  Miss that putt and you're putting from at least 5 feet.

#2, front left.  There's a tall pine just off the front of the green that actually guards it a little (not much, just a hair.  The shot is downhill and about 40 feet of elevation change from the fairway.  It goes down a hill to a creek from the fairway then back up 10-15 feet or so from the creek.  It's a small green to start with and there's a hill behind it.  The front left is the lowest spot on the green and it's near impossible to hit the ball close when it's tucked there unless you spin it back from the middle of the green after hitting a draw.  Luckily, you're hitting a 115-130 yard shot depending on what side of the fairway you're on, so at most, it's a smooth 1/2" choked gap wedge for me and I can spin the ball.  Too much spin and you're chipping back on though.  Miss that putt, and it's going off the front of the green.

 

#3 is a shot to an elevated green.  There's 30-35 feet of rise from the tee, it's a narrow green (20 feet wide at best) and slopes back to front.  Right is down a bank 15-20 feet below the green.  Left of the green is a small almost ditch and then a bank left of the green.  There's a bank in front of the green so you can't hit a shot that hops on the front.  A pin on the front of that green is a sucker pin.  You try to bounce it on and it's dying in the bank because they also water it fairly often to keep it soft so you can't do that.  The best play is to either try to land it on the frog hair on the front of the green and have it squat so you're putting uphill or hit it left intentionally and hope they mowed the bank short enough where you get a kick onto the edge of the green.  Because of the slope, if you're off to the side, you're putting with a severe break.  If you're long, you better just touch the putt or you're chipping from off the front of the green.  I HATE that pin placement because it's almost a penalty to hit it to the middle of the green unless you luck a putt in.  The maintenance staff loves putting the pin 5-8 feet on the green and EVERYONE cusses the pin placement.  That par 3 has 6 recorded hole in ones in the 30+ years it's been there.  That's the worst green on the course because the only good pin placements are the back 1/3 of the green and that pin placement is rare.

Those are just a few.

[RoverRick]

To Rick's point absolutely the height of rough around the greens and hazards is huge. Nothing drives me crazier than heavy rough in front of the green so that you can't run the ball on. That's one quick way to slow down play because there are any number of golfers who need to run the ball on.

 

I would have to say that our course is no longer set up with pace of play in mind.  Although, we still play under four hour rounds for the most part.  This is mainly because of personal carts allowed on the course.  I pay a fee every month for space in the cart shed and provide my own cart.  This is beneficial to the club in that I pay the same if I play or don't play.  They don't have to maintain my cart, and since there are a number of people like me, I usually am alone, so pace of play is increased.  But so is traffic on the course.

 

But our Superintendent says that he is the defense in golf.  It is you against his course.  His and the designers.  He also claims to be able to make it almost unplayable by all but the best of golfers.  He has done some stuff to prove himself right.

 

When Club Championship time rolls around at the end of next month, the fairways are narrower, the banks leading to water are shaved, the greens are hard and very fast, the rough is thick, and there will be a strip of rough between the fairway and the greens.

[revkev]

Well that's nice but it's also a private club. If that's what the membership wants you should have it. I'd be fine with that if the club is the membership were small and made up of good players. If not I'd get on the committee that hires and evaluates the super and make his life miserable. At a club the membership will make sure that pace of play is not an issue, one way or another.

 

I'm talking in general at most courses where the public plays there is little doubt in my mind that course set up and design contributes to pace of play issues.

 

BTW I was a member at a club once where the pro got mad at a bunch of us for playing in the New York State Am without asking his permission. When he was younger he had played in the US Open a few times and so he decided to set our course up like that. He was forced to resign. I was a junior member and had little to do with that but he got what he asked for.

 

I was also a member of a club where we tried to save money by having the Pro handle both the management and course supervisory duties. I felt terrible for him. He was young and could barely handle the pro part. It was a debacle. Fortunately we recognized that it was our fault and not so much his. We hired a new supervisor who did good things, the pro developed, the course was bought by a solid developer who moved the pro on to another property and they did some great things to the course and surrounding property.

[Kor.A.Door]

I agree with a lot of points here, I read in Rev's post about the Bermuda greens being the courses defense, that's what we gave as well, the course super or whoever can make these greens easier or they have the ability to make them almost unplayable at times, put the holes near the false front, at the base of the hill, tucked behind the bunker, but the biggest asset to making the Bermuda tough to play is that they can cut them extremely short without hurting them, and they get lightning quick so if you are putting from the wrong place, it's a three putt almost Everytime, that's usually how it's set up for our tourney's

[mnfats95]

Our club has the luxury of having a semi-retired greens keeper that came from the nicest course in our area. We also have the former head greens keeper who no longer wanted to run the course and just mow and maintain.

 

Between the two we have a course that is much nicer than it should be. There is also a younger guy there who is in college and works part time.

 

I can always tell who sets the pins and the tees by where they are. The head greens keeper sets the pins very conservatively, the former one sets them in places that are tricky but fair, and the kid sets them in places where it's clear that no thought whatsoever was put into the decision.

 

Tournament time comes around and you can bet that the pin positions have either been set by one of the first two or they gave very specific locations to the kid for them.

 

The tees are the most frustrating. Our course has been around since the 1920's and the tee boxes on some of the holes drop off in the back of the box. Nothing makes me more uncomfortable on the tee than when the markers are all they way back and you feel like you are about to launch uphill on the tee.

 

The kid always has them in these spots. I have mentioned it to the two others and they just tell me to move them up, but I don't feel that is my place.

 

I just deal with it.

[sp0rtsfan86]

Our club has the luxury of having a semi-retired greens keeper that came from the nicest course in our area. We also have the former head greens keeper who no longer wanted to run the course and just mow and maintain.

 

Between the two we have a course that is much nicer than it should be. There is also a younger guy there who is in college and works part time.

 

I can always tell who sets the pins and the tees by where they are. The head greens keeper sets the pins very conservatively, the former one sets them in places that are tricky but fair, and the kid sets them in places where it's clear that no thought whatsoever was put into the decision.

 

Tournament time comes around and you can bet that the pin positions have either been set by one of the first two or they gave very specific locations to the kid for them.

 

The tees are the most frustrating. Our course has been around since the 1920's and the tee boxes on some of the holes drop off in the back of the box. Nothing makes me more uncomfortable on the tee than when the markers are all they way back and you feel like you are about to launch uphill on the tee.

 

The kid always has them in these spots. I have mentioned it to the two others and they just tell me to move them up, but I don't feel that is my place.

 

I just deal with it.

Funny you mention that. My school had one or two holes where the tee boxes could be placed very far in the back. On 4 holes there was probably 40-50 yards of distance between the tee boxes. On two or three of them, the tee boxes aren't in the best shape in terms of leveling. One tee box is affectionally called the launching pad because it's at the highest point of the course and has a big upward tilt. Try hitting a regular drive into a headwind there, and it gets knocked down far too fast. I've found that tee boxes unless really taken care of  seem to be the least maintained part of the course over the long haul. I've had far too many rounds where the boxes are placed in areas where you are hitting a shot above or below your feet by a few inches.

[revkev]

This is not an us thing but I wanted to throw in that I was particularly impressed with the R and A's decision to keep the rough high in it's drop areas. One of my biggest beefs about the set up for Tour events is that guys who hit wayward shots get rewarded with a drop into a well maintained area. Either make the grandstands OB or the drop area difficult.

[fozcycle]

This is not an us thing but I wanted to throw in that I was particularly impressed with the R and A's decision to keep the rough high in it's drop areas. One of my biggest beefs about the set up for Tour events is that guys who hit wayward shots get rewarded with a drop into a well maintained area. Either make the grandstands OB or the drop area difficult.

 

 

AMEN!

[BK in TEXAS]

This is not an us thing but I wanted to throw in that I was particularly impressed with the R and A's decision to keep the rough high in it's drop areas. One of my biggest beefs about the set up for Tour events is that guys who hit wayward shots get rewarded with a drop into a well maintained area. Either make the grandstands OB or the drop area difficult.

 

AMEN!

 

 

X3 !!!!

 

I LOVED the rough hewn drop zone.

[revkev]

Another possibility and really the way to insure fairness is a temporary bunker as a "drop" area.  This would create a nice 40 yard bunker shot, the ball could be placed and the bunker raked after each player plays.  Puff, gone would be the intentional fly one into the stands out of the rough on purpose trick.