> Hole Design | Golf for the Small Community (click here)

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This page is intended to introduce you to golf hole design principles.
· It cannot possibly cover all the thousands of options available but should whet the appetite.
· It will allow you to look again at your own course and understand it differently.
· It may help you in planning changes to your course.
· I am available for further advice and ideas to suit your particular situation.

One of the great things about golf is that every golf hole is unique.

There are great holes and bad holes and though they may not be able to define what makes a great hole, most golfers recognise a good one when they see one.

A great deal of additional interest can be added to a dull hole without necessarily making it too difficult for the less accomplished players. The key thing is to engage the player's thought processes.

Let's start by looking at the way most golf holes are "designed."

 

At least 90% of golf holes are simply "follow-your-nose" designs almost entirely lacking in any serious strategic considerations.

To illustrate that assertion let's take a simple flat and empty field and place a tee at one end and a green at the other about 400 yards apart. If we then mow a straight strip of fairway about 40 yards wide from the tee to the green we have a golf hole offering the player a well-defined task . No tricks, no traps; straightforward "follow-your-nose" golf.

(Fig 1)
Out in an open paddock this hole might seem very basic and dull but if the fairway is bordered on each side by a line of trees it will immediately look like thousands of such holes on golf courses all over the world.

Now to make things interesting: The most obvious improvements

· The hole would have a little more character if the ground between the tee and the green were not
· flat.
· The green could be shaped and contoured to provide some borrows in the putting
· The hole could be dog-legged

We now have the elements that describe the majority of all golf holes and although they are still basic "follow-your-nose" designs they sometimes work well enough. On good suitable terrain there is often no need for any more complicated design. In fact any fine course is likely to have a few holes like this where the terrain provides the character.

 

The next step is to provide extra hazards :

· Hazards, usually bunkers, could be added to trap poor shots especially the drive and the approach to the green
· A dog-leg hole created by a large specimen tree at the angle can be very effective and widely respected as a "good hole"
· A pair of bunkers at the edges of the fairway near the drive length might be seen as demanding a straight drive and therefore "good design".
· Similarly a pair of bunkers near the front of the green might be visually appealing and might make the approach to the green sufficiently narrow to qualify as "good design" for most players.

Most golf courses are designed using the principles discussed so far. I call this "follow-your-nose" golf . Each hole is immediately obvious. Playing the course again and again the player has to repeat the same shots with a little variation provided by atmospheric or ground conditions. Ultimately, repeating the same holes with the predictable same shots time and time again becomes very boring

There are many more interesting ways of developing a golf hole.

There are so many options available in fact that a course should utilise different concepts at every hole. Nothing could be more boring and more illustrative of a lack of design awareness than to find the same concept repeated hole after hole.

For the sake of simplicity three terms will be used to define design concepts.
Penal design locates hazards and boundaries along the sides of the intended playing route to trap or penalise the wayward shot. The implication is "Hit it straight or else"
Strategic design by definition requires the player to think and to select from various available options. The principle is that a well-positioned shot will make the next shot easier.
Heroic options can be added to either design allowing the player to take on a demanding shot for a significant reward but at risk of severe penalty for failure.

 

Let's examine some of the hundreds of possible ways that a simple par four hole might be developed to create greater interest.

1. Take another look at that straight flat 400 yard hole in the field with no trees or topographical features. (Fig 1)

2. Place a single hazard, say a bunker, in the landing area for the longer drives on one side of the fairway. (Fig 2)

Now the player wants to play away from the bunker for safety, effectively creating a dog-leg and lengthening the playing route to the hole. The more sever the hazard the wider the player will aim. For a simple strategic design that may be enough since the wider or shorter the player chooses to drive to stay away from the hazard the longer the hole becomes.

The easiest second shot is obtained by driving well and close to the hazard.

3. To add an extra element a second bunker can be located near the front of the green on the opposite side of the fairway to the fairway bunker. Now the player who aims well away from the fairway bunker will find the green-side bunker on line to the hole for the second shot. Fig 3

In this situation the fairway can be very wide offering plenty of room for the drive to avoid the first bunker and making the drive appear deceptively easy.

4. The hole is not impossible for the player who plays wide to the left from the tee but the second shot is getting tougher. It can be made tougher still by positioning a further hazard on the right and beyond the green to make the lay-up to the front of the green more critical for length and to put increased pressure on any attempted draw shot to the green. Fig 4

The green is still easier to hit from the right side of the fairway. The player may choose to lay up to the first bunker to obtain the easier line to the flag.

Fig.5

5. Going back to figure 2 we could place the fairway bunker about 30 yards shorter inviting the player to attempt to drive over the bunker to obtain the best line to the hole. The heroic carry becomes increasingly tempting as the further features are added to the hole. Fig 5

A useful way of defining the difference between penal and strategic designs is to say that penal design positions all the hazards along the edges of the intended playing route while strategic design locates obstacles directly in the way.

Fig. 6

For a fresh approach to the hole let's go back to the plain flat straight hole in Fig 1 and position the first bunker right in the middle of the fairway at drive length. This is a classic "strategic" situation. The player has plenty of options: aim left, aim right, lay up short, try to carry over or just aim straight and hope for the best. In changing wind or ground conditions the decision is likely to be different. Some players will prefer to take one side or the other because of their natural shot shape.

A cleverly designed green could force the issue and encourage players to take one route or the other regardless of the wind or their preferred shot-shape.

The green shape suggested would be best approached from the left when the pin is short on the green and from the right when the pin is up the back. Fig 6

This simple approach also has the added design quality of rewarding shot-shaping expertise.

 

All the ideas discussed so far are essentially "strategic" requiring the player to plan the best way of playing the hole and then rewarding the good drives with easier second shots

Now let's look at the classic "penal" approach

Fig.7

7. If bunkers are placed at each side of the fairway for the drive and at each side of the green as in Fig 7 then the player is confronted by a single, well defined, playing route with little potential for interesting choices.

This is the most common form of simple penal hole.

The fairway bunkers would be located about 210 to 230 metres from the back of the tee. At that range many players will not be able to reach them from the back markers and the better players will normally be unable to carry over them

.

Fig. 8

8. Some possibilities still exist to liven this concept up. Firstly the bunkers could be slightly staggered in each case. Normally the fairway bunkers would be positioned with the right hand or slice side for most players shorter and the left hand bunker longer on the principle that draw shots go further than cuts.

Now the drive can be made more or less tight depending on the tee position and the gap between the green-side bunkers will appear wider or narrower depending on which side of the fairway the approach is played from.

The exact location of the shorter fairway bunker is critical since it could be used to offer an heroic carry. Fig 8

If the green is shaped as in fig 6 then the heroic option would be doubly attractive as the shot to the green would be easier.

Fig. 9

9. Alternatively the heroic carry could be designed to leave the player the shorter but more difficult approach to the green. Fig 9

Now strategic and heroic elements have been added to a basically penal concept.

Strategic design elements engage the player, offer choices, make the player think. Ultimately they make the playing experience much more interesting even though some players will be infuriated by having their best drive finish in a bunker in the middle of the fairway or feel cheated when they hit a long drive only to be faced with an impossible task to hit the green. Some players do not play golf to think, they do that all week at work. They don't want to be tricked by the course or confused by complex choices or even to find the course different today to what they saw yesterday. Yet those are the very elements that enrich course designs and the playing experience. You just can't please everyone.

Good hole design will challenge players at every level, providing severe tests for the best players while still offering a relatively easy route for the less competent

Good course design involves compiling a number of holes to create a complete course that provides the widest possible variety of design concepts.

The planner should first seek to take maximum advantage of all existing topographical features before deciding the particular design principles to be applied to an individual hole.

Finally the total course needs balance :
· The direction of holes,
· The sequence of holes
· The number of long and short holes
· The right and left doglegs
· The shot shaping requirements fade and draw
· The difficult and the easy
· Relationship to the wind

At Craftsman Golf we offer advice and assistance in getting the best our of your golf course.

Literally no job is too large or too small.

I am particularly interested in the small repair jobs especially improving existing holes.

� Planning of single holes,
� Designs for a new green
� Course extensions,
� New course developments

Ideally the planner should have a detailed knowledge of the entire course before deciding on the most appropriate improvements to a given hole.

The more information you provide the more I can help you.

If you have a specific need for design input please contact me and describe the problem. I will respond with advice on how I could help and the level of fees. You will be very pleasantly surprised!

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For information on course designs for small communities click here