7
THE FAIRNESS TEST
An article in the April issue of TROON
GOLF & TRAVEL, "The Fairness Test,"
discussed if 5,000-plus yard golf courses
were fair for average women players. It
elicited several responses:
Editor:
Our home club, Oakhurst Golf &
Country Club, is shorter than some,
but when you look at holes like No.
15, which has a creek in front of it, the
only chance my wife has to make par
is to hit driver, 2-wood and a 9-iron
over the creek and one putt. What
would men say if we had to do that?
My wife is a 22.3 and plays by the
rules. Funny part is that she doesn't
complain about hitting 5-wood into
most of the par 4s. Although Bay
Harbor is an Art Hills course, Stephen
Kircher had a lot to do with it. His
dad passed away years ago, but as
his dad got older, he always thought
that, on a medium par-four, he should
be able to hit a 7-iron to the green. So
again, as he got older, he would build
shorter tees. Of course, he didn't
want to play the women's tees, so
the women's tee's got shorter too.
Hence, Bay Harbor plays about 4,600
yards, and my wife actually gets to
hit some short-irons to greens. And
as I always tell the architects, the
better women just move back. What
a concept!!!
Dave Richards
Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
Editor:
The trick is to bring players of varying
skill (and distance) as close as
possible during a match. This doesn’t
mean punishing length and rewarding
the short hitter. Besides making
more tees available, we need to put
choice and options into the mind of
the golfer. Big greens, for example,
can lead to several shot choices
by the highly skilled player, yet it
is far more forgiving to the player
approaching with a longer shot. Same
for fairways...a wide fairway, despite
popular belief, can actually demand
more decisions by some players,
while it seems more forgiving to
others. The best golf courses bring
women players more in proximity to
men, but it’s done without always
creating that long walk or cart ride
to the forward tees. Some of the
greatest compliments are paid to
courses with yardages around 6,000
yards. Why? Because these tests can
be maddening to the longer hitter, yet
highly playable by those who hit it
not as far.
Forrest Richardson
Golf Course Architect
Editor:
I don't necessarily agree with the
reasoning that golfers should be
playing courses some 30 times their
average drive, or 30 times twice their
9-iron distance. I've been playing
golf for over 45 years, and I know
my average drive is 230 yards. And
that's when I hit it well, which isn't
very often, so I have to discount
that statistic. More accurately is my
9-iron distance which is a consistent
130 yards. By Little's calculation,
I should be playing courses about
7,800 yards. The last time I played
a course over 7,000 yards was the
black tees at Mauna Kea in Hawaii,
shot 125, and had the worst time of
my golfing life when I should have
been having the best.
If you think about trying to make
a match fair on a typical par four
hole between a Dustin Johnson-type
and the average women golfer, the
women's tees would be well past the
fairway bunkers which were placed
to challenge the average and long
hitters' drives. That takes away a lot
of the fun for many women golfers
who want to play the "same" course.
Better yet, allow all golfers to hit
their drives into the same general
area by careful tee placement, and
then let the handicap system take
over and do its magic from there.
Once the drives are hit and the
golfers can brag about distance or
who out-drove whom (and believe
me, even though my wife gets about
90- to 100-yard advantages on our
courses, she still gets a big charge
out of claiming she outdrove me),
the handicap system kicks in, and all
is fair. Updating courses so that men
and women can play the same course
while playing to their handicaps is
making the game more enjoyable.
Robin Nelson
Golf Course Architect
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