Woman Friendly Courses

[TXPoppet]

Tell Us About Yours

I am blessed in that there are some terrific courses nearby that are woman friendly. When I travel, though I would like a heads up on the courses that are "Woman Friendly" and why. I'd love for this to be a positive thread only, with no discussion of the courses that done a gal wrong. I'll get the ball rolling:

Texas Star, Euless TX This is my home course. The Head Pro is Adena Wallace. Although she is a PGA pro, she offers great women's clinics on a regular basis and sees to it that the pro shop offers women's clubs and accessories in a manner proportionate to the membership. TX Star has a beautiful well stocked ladies locker room and they host some of the best women's tournaments around. A challenging and gorgeous course.
Texas Star Golf Course

Tierra Verde, Arlington, TX A great place for lessons. Pro Amy Fox was voted LPGA instructor of the year a few years back, and she is a whiz at pushing you past any limitations you may think you have. The couse is not as chllenging, but it's more like desert golf, rocky and rugged and a treat to the eye. The only fly in the ointment here is the locals who try looking up your skirt at the driving range. The staff are terrific.
Tierra Verde Golf

Eastern Hills Country Club, Garland, TX Home to the Texas Women's Open. Avid Golfer named them "Most Female Friendly Club in the Dallas/Fort Worth Area" Total flip from Tierra Verde, this club is ruled by the women and it's course is immaculate and cutthoat. The club house is wonderfully relaxed and full of laughter. The kind of old fashioned course women dream of. My favourite thing at Eastern Hills is the Men's Card Room. Accessed via the men's locker room, this is where the guys can be guys and you gotta love that.
Eastern Hills Counrty Club

Ok, now it's your turn. Tell us about your great places for women's golf!

[Sean2]

ALL golf courses should be women friendly. Women have just as much right to play any golf course as men do. And they shouldn't feel intimidated either!

 

Just an aside: at my club earlier this spring I had the pleasure of playing golf with a young lady who was a freshman at a university in Texas, and was home on break, and played on the golf team. She played from the tips and I played from the mids. She was hitting her drives WAY past mine (probably in the 270-280 range). Her swing was a real pleasure to watch. If a remember correctly she shot a 77.

 

I've also played with women who don't hit the ball very far, and I have no problem with that. We are all out there to have fun and we all do the best we can. It's not a race. And a woman should be able to play with the guys and feel comfortable doing so.

 

Sheesh...

[Charlie_Foxtrot]

Thanks for the excellent and well-organized review. :D

[BILL12x]

Aren't most clubs women friendly today? Our head Pro is a woman who does a great job!

Many people complain about being behind women golfers, but I've noticed that most play pretty quickly, regardless of handicap.

[Charlie_Foxtrot]

Aren't most clubs women friendly today? Our head Pro is a woman who does a great job!

Many people complain about being behind women golfers, but I've noticed that most play pretty quickly, regardless of handicap.

 

I think TXP is talking about is courses that aesthetically appeal to women, as opposed to a discussion of courses that don't discriminate against women (although, not discriminating is certainly a factor that would make the course more appealing.)

[BILL12x]

Aren't most clubs women friendly today? Our head Pro is a woman who does a great job!

Many people complain about being behind women golfers, but I've noticed that most play pretty quickly, regardless of handicap.

 

I think TXP is talking about is courses that aesthetically appeal to women, as opposed to a discussion of courses that don't discriminate against women (although, not discriminating is certainly a factor that would make the course more appealing.)

Ahhh! If that's the case - Arthur Hills courses are usually women and/or higher handicap friendly. Most greens will have a place to run the ball up onto the green, although pins can be tucked behind bunkers to still make it challenging for better players.

[Debit]

All courses should be woman friendly, but many have equated this with have TP in on-course potties and shortening the yardage to something near or under 5,000 yds.

[TXPoppet]

All courses should be woman friendly, but many have equated this with have TP in on-course potties and shortening the yardage to something near or under 5,000 yds.

 

:friends:

[dulce]

All courses should be woman friendly, but many have equated this with have TP in on-course potties and shortening the yardage to something near or under 5,000 yds.

 

Both of those sound good to me! My favorite course is 4800 yards from the forward tees. I love that it has a par 4 that I might be able to drive if I hit a fantastic shot. It's a lot more fun than courses that I oftentimes play where every hole except the par 3's is for me a driver, 3-wood and a wedge -- never have to check the yardages, though. I also like run-ups, minimal forced carries and manageable rough.

 

At 53 years of age and a late-comer to golf (in my early 40's), I'm finding that very few courses are senior woman-friendly. The guys can start at the tips in their power days and, as they age, move forward. When I played the Stadium at TPC Sawgrass recently, there were guys in the group ahead of us -- maybe a bit older than I but not by much -- on the red tees. As my mother-in-law hit her 80's, she was still on the red tees that she'd been on since her 20's when she first took up golf but her drives were considerably shorter.

 

I'd love to see more courses that have forward tees in the 4500 to 5000 total yardage -- it'd be good for junior play as well.

[Debit]

You have made my point, or at least emphasized it. Better women golfers, or those who think they are, have very little choice. If you scan a slope/ratings book for your state, you will see that the difference between the middles and tips is seldom greater than a few hundred yards. However, on those courses that have moved the forwards to around 5000, the leap to the middles is closer to 1000+. That's a huge choice. If you like those little par3s, you can play my home muni where the par3s have been shortened to under 110 yds from the forwards -- this is a joke. The longest is easily reachable with my PW! Sure there are plenty of women who find this just swell -- I'm not one of them. A woman-friendly course is one that gives me a reasonable choice...just as they do the male players.

[Aimee]

We have some really good municipal courses near me, if you are a resident of the county it's a real bargain. I play 3 different 18's, 2 are parkland style, one is more links style. The cool thing about a links style course is that it rewards accuracy in many cases more than distance off the tee. There's one hole (a par 4) which is only about 250-260 from the red tees...but if you don't put it in exactly the right spot you're gonna wind up in a trap. 'Course when you do hit the right spot, you're just off the green, which is cool. Courses like that can be fun for everyone.

 

Here's a course in NJ that I enjoy:

http://www.thearchitectsclub.com/2007/golf_coursedetails.php

[Debit]

Yes, Aimee, the munis here are generally really good courses as well. However, the county has systematically shortened every one of them from the forwards, reducing the slope/rating to 68-71/114-116. Previously, they had been more like 72.3 and 122. Many of the women's club members were concerned about how this would effect their handicaps, and, of course, the answer is to play better. The index isn't reflective of the course so much as your scores, which is why you can transport it from course to course or teebox to teebox. Some of the surrounding counties permit aliens (he he) to purchase a resident golf discount card -- at a slightly higher price. Slap those resident golf cards down, and it's possible to play for a pitance compared to what the daily fee is at the Architect's. Ouch!

[Aimee]

Agreed, sometimes they "dumb down" the forward tees since it's just easier than really thinking it out. When I played in Arizona, they often had 5 sets of tees to accomodate all different abilities, plus I'd guess it worked well for the retirees.

The slope/rating on my muni courses - the longest course for me is 71.4/116 (best score 97), the shortest (the links style) is 70.8/123 (best score 89). So I guess that bears out the ratings, since the course that is shortest is easier to score low on if you are accurate (hence the higher difficulty rating).

 

Can't beat the County Resident rates...weekend $19 or $25 greens fee depending on which course. Goes without saying I play Architect's course on special occasions (ie business golf) only!

[jdhallissey]

Ok i am not here to start any trouble but I have an idea. Why don't the women in golf go to there club pro and ask to have the course setup a little different. Maybe on those short par 3's you want longer move back to another set of tees and on some of the par 4's move up a little. I am a male golfer and very good. I sometimes don't agree with how it is setup for me either. Asking your head pro to suggest a different setting for the forward tees would never hurt. Golf courses are getting harder and longer if any of us like it or not. You also have to remember FORCED CARRIES are more about mind over matter than actually being to far to carry.

[dulce]

I went digging for my home course scorecard to see what numbers the various tees play at and can't find one... they must be littering my husband's trunk! Our home course is at the local University which has both men's and women's golf teams, so it's not unusual to see women playing from any of the various tee boxes.

 

However, I did look through my collection of scorecards and pulled the TPC at Sawgrass Stadium. It does show total yardages of 5019, 6103, 6403, 6661, 7215 -- so you make an interesting point. The first time we played there with my regular foursome, the guys played the 6661 total yardage. The next time the guys played the 6394 total yardage and that was also the time that the senior guys ahead were teeing off the forwards of 5019. So the guys did have lots more options.

 

I pulled another card from a course that just opened a couple of years ago and the total yardages are 5410, 5955, 6394, 6955, 7428. I would've liked tees even more forward but the course played very hard and fast so there was lots of run on the ball. However, I think the more even spacing of these tees do give a lot more options for everyone.

 

When we played Scotland, the teeing was interesting because all of the teeing was usually within a few paces of each other. However, the par for the ladies would be different than the par for the men -- I played a number of par 6's in Scotland. Then there was the all male club that had decided to allow women visitors but didn't have any forward tees at all! However, the caddies had found spots that were good for forward tees, so I relied on the caddie to take me to a good teeing area while the couple that we'd been paired with, she played the same tees as the guys and did much better than her husband!

 

But your point is an interesting one. Since I'm always looking for total yardage around 5000 or less, I rarely look to see the yardage difference to the next tee back. I just assumed that better women players just move back onto the "whites" or "blues" since that's what happens at my home course. But now I'll be looking because a 1000 yards is a huge difference between teeing areas.

[Debit]

JD, the problem with your solution is posting for handicap purposes. You are not permitted to pick which tees to use during a round. There are a few women's clubs that have "club" tees that have been properly rated by the state golf association. However, as Ms. Sarah Q. Public those tees are set on club days only and only for the period that the club is on the course. They aren't published. I did complain/whine to the PGA pro that is assigned to my muni as our women's club will host one of our Team dates -- among the best public links women golfers representing area clubs (handicaps as low a 6). He offered to move the forwards tees as far back as possible within the forward teeboxes on the par3s, but that is about the extent of his options under the state golf association rules. When our groups of golfers is through, he'll move them back to the normal positions. Again, the longest par3 -- even using the back of the teeing ground will be less than 130 yds! On this and other "woman friendly" courses, my only recourse as a comparatively long ball hitter is to play the middles and adjust my gross score appropriately for slope and rating for women for those tees. With a teeball averaging/expecting 220+ and 5I at 150+, I'm just not thrilled playing a short course of less than 5400. I have no idea how far my balls would go were I using the modern game-improvement clubs that are so much stronger in loft than my 10-year old near blades, which are closer to classic loft. Probably a full club or more stronger as I a flew a 130 yd par3 with a 9I early in the season using a borrowed set of those ugly things.