Great thread Pat.
i wrote a first fast post cause i had no time..now i complete and tweak it a bit to explain better I can what I think.
Personally, although sometimes it could not seems, I'm actually really, really happy about how things goes in CC. Simply, is always possibly to improve. At least to try. I wish just to share some thought, with the premise that i don't think there is something broken or unfair about some green speeds or something else on our courses..and that to be honest, the last thing I could ever wish is to limit in some way the creativity of designers about what kind of courses to produce and propose for CC, how much sloped, firm, big or bold a green (or a fairway) should be..and stuff like this I mean. I think there is room for every kind of course, easy or hard it can be..it needs to be just nice looking AND well architected.
Then, for me, is mostly a question of setting a course properly when is time to schedule it, in order to offer a challenge always fair and funny. Even when the course is supposed to be tough.
And for me this not means that we need easier course..or that designers should do something different. Is great to have creativity and courses so much different. And sometimes, even a very tough course is just fantastic to enjoy. Just to say, until now my two preferred weeks stays the past season at Royal Birkdale, in conditions sometimes extremes, but on a course that was always really fair..and two weeks ago at Raynor Ridge. I don't know how it works for all the other players, but generally what I dislike is simply when trying to offer a tough challenge, the totality of the difficulties is just pushed too far.
Is for all these reasons that, even if i know that the thread is supposed to be to offer feedbacks mainly to the designers, I think that is probably much more a matter about scheduling..cause i think designing and scheduling are strictly related, when we look at the "final result" playing a course on Tour. I mean, a course can be perfect, flawless, but the conditions can make it too much hard (or easy) to really enjoy it. Keeping this in mind, my wish list :
1) Also considering the new policy about demo mark, it would be great to alternate weekly, for the most is possible, hard courses and easy (or less hard) courses on schedule. I bet that lot of guys in these first weeks has been demoted simply cause they have just not a chance to recover from a bad tournament. Is something it should be taken in count now, while scheduling.
2 bad weeks and you are demoted, now.
2) I wish to see at least the 75% of courses used on tour having some crowds. Not all the tournament stuff, just the crowds. And not for a personal taste or preference. I know a lot of players don't like crowds, but this should don't matter at all. We are playing on a tour, and is the crowds, the only real thing that gives the proper feeling to be actually on some tour. Is not something secondary, for me. It gives realism. I'm not saying it should be mandatory..but in these first 6 months here on CC I played maybe a 30% of courses with crowds. Is really too little.
3) Some real course more. Possibly near to the 50% of the total. We have great real courses, hard and easy. We in CC could easily use a lot of them with no need to follow the footsteps of the other flights, cause there are enough Real Courses for all of us.
4) This is just a secondary thought, so take it for what it is, but I would see less dramatic changes in the course conditions between two consecutive rounds. I mean..if the idea is to use both soft and firm greens at some point, please use a round of medium firmness in between. And the same for speed on greens. This extreme transitions are generally unrealistic and also creates just problems to find some rhythm in our game. At least try to avoid this on tougher courses.
5) Don't pick the same course two times in the same season on different flights. Unless some exceptional situation (like for the Open last season, for example, with two releases of the Royal Birkdale used by all).
6) As a general rule, we should try to avoid redundancy. If a course already offers complicated greens and fairways...and also water hazards, bunkers and elevation changes to deal with, it can be simply too much, to have also firm&fast greens AND high wind in the same round. We should never forget what is the medium level of the field in CC. To transform a tournament in a "via crucis" is something good for PGA guys
As already said, for me this don't means to play ALWAYS on easy conditions..but just to try to create the fairest mix is possible between natural toughness of the course and round conditions.
7) Limit (and if possible avoid) the use of the default speed of wind when are already involved tough conditions on the course. No matter how many times a course is tested using a default wind with a pin, it always changes of an amount of mph good enough to make a course unplayable on certain conditions. And sometimes, as it happened in the first round at Pacific, is also totally random about the speed on every hole. Use this option when the conditions are fair enough to have not too much impact on the round.
8) A bit stricter policy about what is needed for a course to be considered Tour Worthy (or used in CC, in the specific case). There are great designed courses that unfortunately don't fits well with the needs of CC or the whole tour (like Geiranger was, for example, for the unnoticed issue on the hole 3). And, as I already said somewhere else, sadly is useless to declare 6-700 tour worthy courses on more or less 1500 approved in a year, if in any case we can use barely 300 of them, on tour. Also considering that the older courses are never (or almost never) taken anymore in consideration to be used on tour, even if they are actually freaking good. What I mean is that we could really ever use a top notch course every week. On every tour. And we should.
I have no other thoughts, for now
Edit : I wish to clarify something about points 8 and 3, perfectly fitting with the idea of "wish list".
On my perfect idea of this tour, I wish to have..more or less 20 real courses on 42, every season and in every flight
At the start of the season, schedulers could make a list of 60/80 "must play" real courses and, starting from PGA, to choose what of them to use on tour for the season, leaving some spot free for the future released courses.
I know and i understand that on better tours real courses plays often too easy, but this means also that they are often perfect for cc-am, cc-pro and still good enough for Korn Freaks. And PGA and Euro Tour could pick the toughest.
I say this cause, working on my lists, I noticed that not only the majority of real courses are absolutely underplayed, but a lot a great courses are also almost never (if not just never) used on tour. And this is simply absurd, if you think a little about it.
After all, when we start to play golf games, is not mainly cause we dream to play in some great competition on courses like Merion, Congressional, Valhalla, Muirfield, all the majors venues etc etc?
I perfectly understand that, for every designer, to have his fictional course used on the Tour is the best possible thing, but I think this should be a privilege gained only by a huge minority, of the enormous amount of really good fictional courses we have, not the normality as it actually is.
And this privilege should be given only for those courses that shows also a great architecture and playability...cause is this the real difference there is almost always between a real and a fictional course. There are also tons of societies, in which fictional courses can be used, but a Tour that moves in the footsteps of real Tours, like this actually IS, it should always have an eye of regard for real courses. Especially when they are good realized if not spot on. And we have really many more than 100 real courses who deserves to be used. A lot more.
Not counting the fact that designers who creates real courses must do an incredible amount of work..maybe they don't deserves in the same way of the other designers to see their work recognized and appreciated having their courses used on the tour?
This thing to have at least more or less half of the schedule of every flight occupied by real courses, for me should be just implicit, at least from cc-am to Korn Frieds.