Interesting pin positions (for only one play through)

[turkmcgill]

I'm working on my second course and over the weekend I put in all my pin positions and did some preliminary green contouring. I tried to make some interesting greens but the challenging/strategic shots are only required for the 3rd and 4th pin positions. Then it dawned on me that the three or four people who play my course and the TGC reviewer who eventually rejects it will only see the least interesting pins. 

What strategy do you use when placing pins? Do you always have them gradually get more difficult, or do you think about the folks who will only play your course once?

[jwfickett]

The vast majority, unless your course gets picked up for a multi round society event or tour event, will play your course once on back tees, pin set number 1. So while I don't use up all my best pins on pin 1, I definitely try to make an impression with a few of them. If you have one pin location on a specific green that is just so much better than the others (i.e., a pin that requires a knife edge running shot where it could funnel or repel) and it just screams the strategy of the hole, you may consider using that pin as part of your pin 1 set.

Many designers used to make the pins more difficult through the set (1 easiest to 4 hardest) or 1 easy, 2 hard, 3 medium, 4 very hard. Nothing wrong with any of these approaches.

For my most recent courses, I've adhered to using 5-7 of my best pin locations on each green in pin 1, and then spreading out the difficulty and intent across the others. I have no data or anecdotes to back it up, but I think utilizing some of you best pins on the first set will give players the best taste of your course and hopefully make them come back to check out the others.

The key to all of this is having good greens where there are plenty of good pin locations on each one.

[PicnicGuy / BobalooNOLA]

Each pinset should have a mix of difficulties, within that a mix of small targets/feeder slopes/flattish locations/green edge.

Pin 1 is going to leave the impression.

Unless a green is miniscule, 4 interesting locations shouldn't be too hard.

[turkmcgill]

Appreciate the replies. Yeah, I have definitely been approaching this with an old school mindset, going from easiest to hardest. I playtested my course on Sunday and it was way easier than I expected it to be, in part due to the pins. I'll switch to some harder pins for a few of the holes. I think having a mix of difficulties is a good idea. Thanks!

[rixg]

Interesting - never thought of it that way. I also am doing easy to hard just like a tournament. And when I play courses I always choose back and pin set 4. Seems like I'm the anomaly then.

[rob4590]

Professional tournaments do NOT do easy to hard (at least - not if organised correctly) - they do 6 hard, 6 medium and 6 easy each round (Where possible)
They also try and have equal numbers of pins on the right and the left - and front and back evenly split too.

(except Augusta who do Augusta things )

The other thing real life tournaments have to consider (which we don't in-game) is foot-traffic - if there is one exit off a green, then they will tend to use the pin towards that exit in an early round - otherwise that area has extra footprints later on in the event from everyone walking over it in the early rounds (thus the surface won't be quite as good)

EDIT: And if it helps - when I review courses, I always pick pin 4 - for the reason that people like to 'trick up' pin 4 - so if there are stupid (overly tricked) pins, then that is the pin set they are usually found on....

[rixg]

Good to know rob. I always thought Sunday pins were the toughest. At least they look like that on TV!

I'll ask the course superintendent if I can get a pin sheet from him and replicate what they do for tournaments for the course I'm recreating. Maybe that will help me.

Cheers and thanks again.

[adamhill413]

As said above, I try to vary where the pins are between easy, medium hard (or, since they are my courses, hard hard hard 😉). I try and go for six front, six middle, six back, and six left, six middle, six right. Each pin set is more or less the same difficulty maybe pin 4 a little easier so, if it does get picked for going on tour, you need to keep up with all the birdies everybody’s making. I also want to change the hole strategy for playing to each pin if possible.

[trailducker]

Here's my philosophy when setting pins each hole.

Pin 1: This will be the Pin played probably 80-90% of the time unless you get on a soceity then that goes down but still probably around 60%. With that I try and make pin 1 the pin that interacts the MOST with the main decision the hole is asking the golfer to make. SO for instance say you have a Cape hole, which pin enticed the golfer to take off as much of the hazard they are carrying.

Pin 4: I like to think of Sunday as a day for scoring chances but with high risk so after I place Pin 1 I decide where Pin 4 is the most risk/reward shot placement. This doesn't mean it's the most difficult pin, a lot of times it is not but it does mean it's the pin that trying to stick it has a high cost if you have a bad shot.

With that I then place 2 and 3 where I see fit keeping in mind the difficulty of Pin 1 and 4 to balance out hard and easier pins. You also want to keep in mind the previosu holes pin placement. I always look at the previous hole and then after a few holes go back through with each pin to make sure I don't have one stuck in one place on the greens (for instance on my current project I noticed on my front nine 6 holes on Pinset 3 were back right so I had to make some adjustments on a couple holes pins to move that pinset around more).

I feel difficulty of pins is secondary to variety of locations on greens. I do keep in mind difficulty of pins for pin sets but I feel that organically works out as you move through the course and I more want approach shots to play differently and to different locations. I would say Pins 2 and 3 usually have a bit more of the most difficult pins then 1 nd 4 on my courses but it's still a good even split of harder and easier pins for each round. A lot of it depends on the tee shot the golfer selects as well whcih I can't control, only suggest.

[Q]

Chiming in here as well to say I personally pick a random pin when reviewing, just a heads up on that.

[csugolfer60]

To give your course the best chance of being Tour-worthy and hosting an event at the top level you desire, you need to design it for the toughest it will play, then work backwards from there.

Courses I design have the toughest 72 hole locations possible on the golf course, with the firmest and fastest greens available. This ensures that the greens will never be quicker or firmer than they are designed for, but also means you can create an easier version later on.

Hole locations should be an average of about 9-15 feet off the edge of the green, and its usually best to have some sort of hazard that will reject shots away from the fringe, in order to take away the "play for the chip option" when possible. Using the edges of the green, and creating "tongues" is an under-utilized mechanic that protects hole locations by forcing the player to play away from the hole. 

There are also pins that can use the green itself to create a hazard - putting the pin over a false front, just past a bump in the green, etc.

For the top tours, try to place the pins on mild to medium yellow slopes, but keep the red away from them, so there is always a preferred side of the hole, and the player has to judge a significant amount of break to actually make a putt. 

[HoneyBadgerHacker]

May 10, 2021 7:33:45 GMT -5 csugolfer60 said:

To give your course the best chance of being Tour-worthy and hosting an event at the top level you desire, you need to design it for the toughest it will play, then work backwards from there.

Courses I design have the toughest 72 hole locations possible on the golf course, with the firmest and fastest greens available. This ensures that the greens will never be quicker or firmer than they are designed for, but also means you can create an easier version later on.

Hole locations should be an average of about 9-15 feet off the edge of the green, and its usually best to have some sort of hazard that will reject shots away from the fringe, in order to take away the "play for the chip option" when possible. Using the edges of the green, and creating "tongues" is an under-utilized mechanic that protects hole locations by forcing the player to play away from the hole. 

There are also pins that can use the green itself to create a hazard - putting the pin over a false front, just past a bump in the green, etc.

For the top tours, try to place the pins on mild to medium yellow slopes, but keep the red away from them, so there is always a preferred side of the hole, and the player has to judge a significant amount of break to actually make a putt. 

I remember you posted something similar in another post that was similar in nature. Very good tips here and actually attempted this on my current NT course. Whether I pulled it off or not will be fun to watch on the reviews. Thanks for your input.

[rixg]

May 10, 2021 9:11:41 GMT -5 HoneyBadgerHacker said:

May 10, 2021 7:33:45 GMT -5 csugolfer60 said:

To give your course the best chance of being Tour-worthy and hosting an event at the top level you desire, you need to design it for the toughest it will play, then work backwards from there.

Courses I design have the toughest 72 hole locations possible on the golf course, with the firmest and fastest greens available. This ensures that the greens will never be quicker or firmer than they are designed for, but also means you can create an easier version later on.

Hole locations should be an average of about 9-15 feet off the edge of the green, and its usually best to have some sort of hazard that will reject shots away from the fringe, in order to take away the "play for the chip option" when possible. Using the edges of the green, and creating "tongues" is an under-utilized mechanic that protects hole locations by forcing the player to play away from the hole. 

There are also pins that can use the green itself to create a hazard - putting the pin over a false front, just past a bump in the green, etc.

For the top tours, try to place the pins on mild to medium yellow slopes, but keep the red away from them, so there is always a preferred side of the hole, and the player has to judge a significant amount of break to actually make a putt. 

I remember you posted something similar in another post that was similar in nature. Very good tips here and actually attempted this on my current NT course. Whether I pulled it off or not will be fun to watch on the reviews. Thanks for your input.

Interesting. Everything I had watched in videos and read said that you wanted to have no yellow or red inside the  9 squares around a pin for it to be legal. So you are saying that I can have some slight yellow and still be ok?

[HoneyBadgerHacker]

That has changed for 2k21. You can have yellow on the middle box and red/orange inside the 9 box as long as the red or orange is not inside the pin box. That being said it should still be able to play fair.