You Know, A Nine-Hole is Still A Golf Course

Also,

Why are so many investors calling on Dye and Nicklaus to design courses, clearly too difficult for the average player, and when did it become acceptable to have 1/4 mile drives between holes? Courses don't need to be longer than 6,600 yards for most players and economic course routing needs to play a part in design again. That might speed up play. Another problem is courses that employ 300+ acres and are heavily wooded on each side of the fairway - making lost balls more common. I like the classic courses because you can spray your drive OVER the trees into the next fairway and still have a shot at the green. Now that's golf.

Designers should also be sought out whose work is better than their name, it'd keep costs down. Also, carts cost between $10-25 extra per round per person. If golfers in the US weren't so lazy and hoofed it once in awhile, that would shave off serious cash, but then where would we keep our beer?

B Tuck

Exactly the point made by course architect Howard Mauer in my interview with him a few years ago. I'm a huge proponent of 9-holers and executive courses, even par-3 courses (great for short game practice!). Of course, one can always play 9 holes instead of 18 at a regular course, but some of these bg-name tracks charge so much for 9 holes, it seems less of a rip-off to play the full 18.

Oops...typo. Howard Maurer.

You can always play nine holes on an 18-hole public course. Fees after 5pm are $18 in my neighborhood. Super twilight begins at 6:30pm and, I believe the price is about $9. Early morning back-nines come with a golf cart for quicker morning play.

Barry & I like twilight golf. We like to walk and can watch the sun set together...it's kind of...romantic.

Stacy,

Oh no. You're getting all mushy. I didn't think that golf and ....romance mixed.

I wrote about this subject in What Will It Take To Get You To Play More Golf? It is not always easy to get courses to let you play just 9, unless it is at the end of the day. What if I want to play 9 at Noon? Can't do it, unless I play an executive, which usually has all the conditioning of a Rwandan muni. Architect Ron Garl has some fabulous ideas of designing shorter courses, but course owners don't want to pay for anything but 18 hole championship monsters.

There are many reasons why so many new golfers quit, but among them is the fact that golf is infernally difficult. What happens is that a lot of people (many of them women) try their hand at the game because the pros make it look so easy or because it seems socially appealing and then find out they have trouble even making contact with anything round -- unless it's other social scene seekers who are portly.

As far as the great distances between holes is concerned, the reason this has become common is simple: golf carts have afforded architects the opportunity to design courses using non-contiguous acreage. And, for one thing, this allows them to build golf courses around homes, as opposed to just homes around golf courses.

And one-quarter of a mile is nothing. I played the Country Club of the Poconos, and I don't exaggerate when I say that there was a one mile gap between two of the holes. Look at the bright side, though: this does allow there to be golf courses in places in which you may not otherwise have them.

Lastly, getting back to the attrition rate of new golfers, can you imagine how crowded the courses would be if all these folks didn't quit? I say goodbye and good riddance. The fewer hackers we have on the links the better.

There are many charming 9-hole courses throughout the U.S. Trust me, we have found a few and are constantly on the lookout for more. Problem is, you have to have a keen eye and an attentive ear. The "programs" that the major golf organizations have in place to grow the game are mostly ineffective and designed to promote their own interests.