Wider Fairways Needed

[Deleted]

Here's an interesting article on fairway width and lack of penalising rough. I'm all for more fairway width and less rough around the greens with more run off areas to test the short game.

www.ispygolf.com/blog/guest-author/2014/12/learning-mackenzies-design-principles/

[reebdoog]

I know I am a big fan of making a fairway generous short or long but somewhat harder in the general landing areas of a full tee shot with no wind. That way they always have an option to play shorter or try and get a big benefit if they take a chance.

As for runoffs...yes! This is a big deal especially in this game. Use of tight runoff areas is a great way to make your course JUST that much better.


As for how to make them:

1) when you lay down the green decide where you want the runoffs to be and make sure to lower those areas a bit (a couple feet probably at least...but not always)

2) Lay down the fairway for the runoffs. You MUST do this BEFORE step 3 or you'll get some really odd looking runoffs... trust me.

2a) You MAY have to lower the fairway you just put down a little bit. See, adding fairway texture tends to SMOOTH out the ground. Not always a good thing. If you need to lower it again go ahead. DON't worry about the green sloping as well. You'll take care of that in step 3

3) FLATTEN the green. Don't just grab the same shape and flatten. Get a circle brush and find the part of the green that is the height you want...flatten there first...then flatten a little bit out from that point all the way around. That way the green is the height you want and not just the average height that it would be if you used the same shape to flatten. (hope that makes sense)

4) Check that action out! Your runoffs now are fairly steep and follow the shape of the green! How cool is that!

5) Leave it alone...or take a soft brush and flatten SLIGHTLY to make the runoff a little less severe.

Not much to it really... but if you don't do it in that order you're going to have flat runoffs or runoffs with odd contouring.

[Deleted]

Nice tips Reeb. I hope to one day create the course I crave. Only had the game two months and two weeks into that I had a wrist op so although I can play the game the designing was a tad taxing on it. Seems a steep learning curve, I'm just creating hole after hole at the mo trying to learn different techniques before I attempt a course.

Ps...I like how you risk/reward it in length. It would be good to risk/reward it in width too, so playing to the right side would be more beneficial than the left or vice versa due to the approach shot angle into the green.

[Han]

I'm a big fan of runoff areas too.
I have used quite a number of them on both my first two courses and on the one I am working on now I think pretty much every hole has them in some form......I know that sounds like overkill to have them on every hole but so far I think it is working fine (14 holes in atm).

Reeb already covered pretty much everything about making them so no point in me adding anything else as I do it almost exactly the same way.

[Deleted]

www.tmgolfdesign.com/width.pdf

[mgwest24]

Another cool article on the topic: golfclubatlas.com/in-my-opinion/sponcia-joe-the-misunderstood-concept-width/

Runoffs around the green are awesome in this game, gotta keep balls from stopping at perfect flop distances

I've had a hard time making wide fairways work, have to put so much thought into the strategy and work into the side slopes etc, but Magnolia National is proof it can be done and done well.