Individual Hole Length

When looking at long golf courses, often times people obsess over the total length of the course. While total length is certainly a meaningful number to view, individual hole lengths are very relevant. Looking at individual hole lengths also determines if the course is really willing to take the golfer outside of his comfort zone with respect to length. Courses can also use hole length to maniuplate length into whatever they want. And individual hole lengths can also be used to determine the variety of challenge the player will face on the course.

It is rather easy for courses to climb to monsterous yardages. 7200 yards used to be considered extraordinarily long, but in reality, 7200 simply amounts to 18 holes averaging 400 yards. Certainly 400 yards is not a long hole. Bump the average up to 450 yards and the total length becomes 8100 yards. Once again, 450 yards is not an exceptionally long hole. But in many ways, courses seeking to be long simply for the sake of being long fail to realize that long is possible while also retaining variety. One of the newest courses on the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail, Fighting Joe at The Shoals Golf Club, manages to stretch out over 8000 yards, but does so with limited variety. Consider what is a "comfortable" yardage on a give hole. On a par 3, perhaps the comfort zone for golfers off the back tees is 150-235 yards. Par 4's probably range from 400-500 yards, while par 5's range from 500-625 yards. The Fighting Joe manages to reach close to 8100 yards, yet it has only one hole that falls more than slightly outside those comfort zones, that being the par 5 12th hole that plays 716 yards (the 5th and 9th holes are 236 yard par 3's, but 1 yard isn't a vast distance). Why is this? Why does this course feature such monsterous length, yet not require the better player to approach a par 4 with more than a 4 or 5 iron? How does it get that long and not require the better player to hit a 3 wood (or even a driver) into a par 3? Truth is, the course does very well and keeps the golfer inside their comfort zone on virtually every single hole. Never is the golfer asked to hit a 3 wood approach on a par 4; for golfers with any business at all playing a course of this length, that hole would need to be 550+ yards long. Never is the golfer asked to hit a driver into a par 3. So, it would seem that courses take great pains to make sure that hole length does not reach outside the normal comfort zones; even The International outside Boston, one of the longest courses in the world at 8325 yards, has only 6 holes falling outside the comfort yardages.

By keeping the individual holes within these comfort yardages, most specifically the lower limits, clubs are able to more easily determine the targeted total length of the course. It is difficult for a course like Pebble Beach to attain what many would consider  to be long yardage because the course has 9 holes that are very close to the bottom end of the comfort zones. However, the course rating is 2.7 strokes over par and the Slope is very high at 143. What so many courses miss in the quest for length is variety in hole length. But again, having holes top out at yardages near the lower end of the comfort zones makes it more difficult for courses to have top end yardages near the current "long" standard of 7200 +/- yards. This seems to be what most courses view as an acceptable yardage from the back tees. But the strange thing is, many courses fail to see that the best modern courses manage to test both the lower limits and upper limits equally, making the golfer uncomfortable by giving them long shots to greens and short shots to greens.

Here lies the key negative in keeping hole lengths within the safe areas. In order to do that, variety has to be sacrificed. A look down some of the best courses in golf, Oakmont, Pine Valley, Pebble Beach, The Old Course,  shows that the best courses have the length necessary to challenge the best players in the world, but also have significant variety in the shots required from the player. On these, and other great courses, players will find par 3's ranging from the 106 yard 7th at Pebble Beach to the 288 yard 8th at Oakmont, par 4's from the 294 yard 7th at Olympic (Lake) to the 505 yard 9th at Pebble Beach, and par 5's from the 476 yard 10th at Cypress Point to the 636 yard 7th at Pine Valley (or the 670 yard 16th at Olympic (Lake) if members are allowed to play that tee). Bottom line is, most of these courses certainly meet any need for difficulty, even if they may not meet some target yardage. And most of the time, shooting for a target number simply yields a boring golf course.

Courses can go about searching for yardage all they want, but the truth is, golfers want variety and they want interest. Interest does not come from having 10 par 4's all play between 410 and 455 yards. It comes from having one play 295 yards, one play 535 yards, and 8 others scattered in between. Same with par 3's and par 5's. Variety is the key to having a greatly interesting and high quality golf course. Sadly, in the quest for length, many new courses disregard that thought. Perhaps one day these courses will get back to top quality variety coupled with top end length.