ASGCA answers back: distance overrated by all except 'yardage snobs'

In response to Chris Baldwin's recent column ("In pursuing pro tournament dreams, courses forget us average golfers"), 6,600 yards is more than enough course for all non-tour pros to have fun on. It's the individual holes, not the overall length that make the course.

How many courses have short par fives but have long (over 200 yard) par threes to make up scorecard distance? I was just at an old (circa 1890s) course and the owner wanted to get another couple of hundred yards on the scorecard because that's what the tourist's look at when booking play from out of town. Having no real room to expand, I suggested adding 10 or so yards to each tee where one could and making the back tee thin but wide to take advantage of the way one measures a course.
It's still the same course for all intents and purposes but now some people (yardage snobs) might play it and find a really neat old course they would of otherwise never played.

Tim Nugent,
American Society of Golf Course Architects

October 17, 2005

Any opinions expressed above are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of the management.