Course Setups Holding Back Women's Golf

[North Texas]

Really good article from Beth Ann Nichols on how course setups are holding back women's golf. One of the better ones I've read on the subject. A little lengthy but has some pretty good data/stats that I haven't seen before. 

 

https://golfweek.usatoday.com/2021/03/16/lpga-golf-course-setups-womens-golf-pga-tour/

[ThinkingPlus]

You and @Shilgyposted at the same time.  Great minds.  LOL.  The article is very interesting and reinforces many of the observations I have made playing golf.  Lots of good commentary from some of the games best.

[Shilgy]

Wow, that was eerie!😊 I’ll lock mine as we don’t need two on same subject.

[North Texas]

12 minutes ago, Shilgy said:

Wow, that was eerie!😊 I’ll lock mine as we don’t need two on same subject.

 

My bad man. Let's go with what @ThinkingPlus says. Great minds, lol. 

[ThinkingPlus]

5 minutes ago, North Texas said:

 

My bad man. Let's go with what @ThinkingPlus says. Great minds, lol. 

Always prudent.

[Shilgy]

4 minutes ago, North Texas said:

 

My bad man. Let's go with what @ThinkingPlus says. Great minds, lol. 

[Shilgy]

Just now, ThinkingPlus said:

Always prudent.

🤣

[North Texas]

41 minutes ago, ThinkingPlus said:

You and @Shilgyposted at the same time.  Great minds.  LOL.  The article is very interesting and reinforces many of the observations I have made playing golf.  Lots of good commentary from some of the games best.

 

Where the wife and I play is a great example. Including her, there are 6-7 ladies whose handicaps are around 10, give or take a couple of strokes and a couple more closer to a 6-7 handicap. And even these  ladies have numerous par 4's and par 3's that they have to use long hybrids or even fairway woods to reach in regulation. So you can imagine what's going on with the rest of ladies who play regularly and don't hit near as far as this group does. 

 

They have voiced their concerns with the head pro and course superintendent for years. But it just continues to fall on deaf ears.  

[Abh159]

Interesting article and a fun read for sure. I guess I've never really thought too much about the setup for LPGA events, but I found myself agreeing pretty much all of the points made in the article. 

 

However, I do wonder if just making the course shorter would accidentally lead to a different stereotype. If the current stereotype is what Brandel said - "Wow, they’re hitting 3-woods into par 4s and can’t reach the par 5s in two" , I fear that adding in some drivable par 4's and short Par 5s would lead to -"Wow, they're playing a par 4 that is 225 yards or all of their par 5s are the same length as an average par 4 for the guys."

 

I think the best course of action would be to find that balance between shortening some holes and making the other hole locations more accessible to mid-irons. Going all in on one (length or pin location) and forgetting about the other might not change all that much. 

 

[golfortennis]

8 minutes ago, North Texas said:

 

Where the wife and I play is a great example. Including her, there are 6-7 ladies whose handicaps are around 10, give or take a couple of strokes and a couple more closer to a 6-7 handicap. And even these  ladies have numerous par 4's and par 3's that they have to use long hybrids or even fairway woods to reach in regulation. So you can imagine what's going on with the rest of ladies who play regularly and don't hit near as far as this group does. 

 

They have voiced their concerns with the head pro and course superintendent for years. But it just continues to fall on deaf ears.  

 

One of my regular players' wife started playing from the green tees that were put in a few years ago.  Our course goes gold, blue, white, red, green(long to short.) These are basically placed at the beginning of fairways until tee boxes are built, and par 3s tee off from red tees.  She starting getting grief from some of the other women she played with about playing from there, and I needled her one time(but she will throw it back at me so it's all in good fun.)  Anyway, my buddy mentioned that she had made a good point:  we're hitting 6 and 7 irons in, whereas from the red tees they still have woods a number of times.  So are they really playing the same course we are? 

 

I used to think it was just some whining that the red tees on our course were too long for most of the women, and that green tees were more about young'ins, but it did make me reconsider.  Really hit home when I was trying to help one older lady with her bunker play, and she just wasn't strong enough to really do what I was trying to get her to do.   

[ThinkingPlus]

12 minutes ago, North Texas said:

 

Where the wife and I play is a great example. Including her, there are 6-7 ladies whose handicaps are around 10, give or take a couple of strokes and a couple more closer to a 6-7 handicap. And even these  ladies have numerous par 4's and par 3's that they have to use long hybrids or even fairway woods to reach in regulation. So you can imagine what's going on with the rest of ladies who play regularly and don't hit near as far as this group does. 

 

They have voiced their concerns with the head pro and course superintendent for years. But it just continues to fall on deaf ears.  

Exactly.  Forced layups, forced carries, elevated firm greens, deep bunkers, ... the list goes on and on.  I am nearly LPGA distance capable and I cannot regularly reach any of our par 5s in two from the forward tees.  At best I am hitting hybrid 180+ to a green less than 10 yards deep fronted by a bunker.  If I don't  stuff a few short irons from full wedge range or a little more, I can't break par from our forward tees (5425 yards firm and fast - this is TX after all).

[Stooch]

I guess I'm the minority lol  I have no desire to watch scoring fest on watered down setups.  It's sorta what the PGA has done to me over the past few decades, don't care about the events most weeks just enjoy the Majors, and I think I would do the same with the LPGA.  In the end, the LPGA has to what's best and maybe a person like me would lose interest but they would gain many others cause of it, but if I lose interest there always fishing on the weekends which I should probably do more of anyways lol

[18majors]

1 minute ago, Stooch said:

I guess I'm the minority lol  I have no desire to watch scoring fest on watered down setups.  It's sorta what the PGA has done to me over the past few decades, don't care about the events most weeks just enjoy the Majors, and I think I would do the same with the LPGA.  In the end, the LPGA has to what's best and maybe a person like me would lose interest but they would gain many others cause of it, but if I lose interest there always fishing on the weekends which I should probably do more of anyways lol

 

 

Agreed!  I don't find any appeal to watch pitch and putt tournament every week.

 

[ThinkingPlus]

Slight TJ. @North Texas does your wife play in any state level tourneys?  Thought maybe we might have crossed paths at an event in the last few years.

[Seamus_McDuff]

This is flat out misinformation. 
 

“Long to mid-irons into par 5s?

Not for the women. At any level.”

 

I’ve seen plenty of LPGA players have irons in on par-5s and you have to count hybrids as equivalent to long irons. 
 

That said, yes the courses need to be shortened if you think men and women should be hitting the same club in after comparable drives. You could even make the argument that women should be hitting less club in to make up for lower trajectory and less spin. 

[North Texas]

56 minutes ago, Stooch said:

I guess I'm the minority lol  I have no desire to watch scoring fest on watered down setups.  It's sorta what the PGA has done to me over the past few decades, don't care about the events most weeks just enjoy the Majors, and I think I would do the same with the LPGA.  In the end, the LPGA has to what's best and maybe a person like me would lose interest but they would gain many others cause of it, but if I lose interest there always fishing on the weekends which I should probably do more of anyways lol

 

But if I'm going to watch a scoring fest, I would much rather watch the ladies than the men 🙂

[ThinkingPlus]

7 minutes ago, Seamus_McDuff said:

This is flat out misinformation. 
 

“Long to mid-irons into par 5s?

Not for the women. At any level.”

 

I’ve seen plenty of LPGA players have irons in on par-5s and you have to count hybrids as equivalent to long irons. 
 

That said, yes the courses need to be shortened if you think men and women should be hitting the same club in after comparable drives. You could even make the argument that women should be hitting less club in to make up for lower trajectory and less spin. 

I think they were trying to imply "on average" or mid-pack/shorter players, but certainly doesn't include the longer players.

[mkuether]

Interesting topic. While I have no doubt that the LPGA plays proportionally much longer courses than the PGA, I'm not sure if it really has a major impact on its popularity. I really enjoy watching the women play and I appreciate their skill with longer shots/clubs since it's a lot more similar to how I play than watching Bryson hit driver/wedge into a par 5. I think the point made earlier is valid that if courses are shortened too much it might create a different stereotype that the women aren't playing real golf (maybe the course set-up could be changed day to day to create different opportunities to score, but I think having the average course length similar to what a amateur typical male golfer plays from actually makes good sense).

 

The issue of course setup for recreational women's golf is a HUGE issue though, one I suspect that prevents a lot more women from playing and enjoying the game. I've played almost every round of golf for the past ten years with my wife, and frankly the course setups for her are ridiculous half of the time. She only hits her driver maybe 160 on average, which means that many holes are impossible for her to hit in regulation (a hole or two like this is fine, but similar to me playing 450+ yard par 4s, too many in a round is going to make for a rough day). When you add in the forced carries, awkward layups, etc., it makes for a frustrating round. I live in North Texas and there are WAY too many courses here where the forward tees are 5200+ yards. I assume that this has to be a problem for junior golfers too, they'd need to tee off from the fairway on a lot of courses.

 

Anyway, long story short, I don't see a big problem with the current LPGA setups, but recreational women's golf could use a ton of improvement.

 

[Lobby]

Pretty much every week we're seeing the long PGA players hitting a couple of  7i or 8i into par 5 greens.

One key point I took away from Beth Ann's article is shouldn't we be seeing the top women also hit 7i and 8i into greens?

I agree her and the article.  It was well researched and included nice data

 

Edited March 16, 2021 by Lobby

[ezpz]

Our course hosted a national championship a couple of years ago. Even though it's a fun members course and somewhat challenging it became kind of a sh*t show when it was exposed to fairly high level ladies golf. The par 5's which for long hitting men are reachble in 2 became holes where the women had to hit 7 iron off the tee not to run through the fairways and they could hit over trees because the were to close to them. Pretty much eliminating all risk reward. Also comparing the yardages on pretty much any course I play to those mentioned in the article it's no wonder why people and espcially women have a hard time getting started in the game.

[North Texas]

5 hours ago, ThinkingPlus said:

Slight TJ. @North Texas does your wife play in any state level tourneys?  Thought maybe we might have crossed paths at an event in the last few years.

 

She's only played in some partner tournaments in Mansfield, Pearland, and Montgomery (Bentwater CC). Her competitive days as an individual are pretty much over except for the club championship. Which she hates playing in. Even though she's won 3 in the last 8 years, lol. 

 

BTW, she's going in for a fitting this Friday. 

Edited March 16, 2021 by North Texas

[ThinkingPlus]

1 hour ago, North Texas said:

 

She's only played in some partner tournaments in Mansfield, Pearland, and Montgomery (Bentwater CC). Her competitive days as an individual are pretty much over except for the club championship. Which she hates playing in. Even though she's won 3 in the last 8 years, lol. 

 

BTW, she's going in for a fitting this Friday. 

Hope the fitting works out.  Nothing worse than feeling like you can't elevate the ball when you put a good swing on the ball. Frustrating.

[Titleist_PT23]

I always knew the LPGA played a bit longer courses relative to average driving distance.  However, I didn't think about the different shot height/spin coming into greens.

 

That being said, I'm also in the group that isn't sure following the PGA Tour is the best thing to do.  If half the tour hits a 6-7-8 iron into a par 5, it isn't really a par 5.  It may change players' mindset (score vs par), but fewest total shots still wins.

[North Texas]

23 minutes ago, agolf1 said:

I always knew the LPGA played a bit longer courses relative to average driving distance.  However, I didn't think about the different shot height/spin coming into greens.

 

That being said, I'm also in the group that isn't sure following the PGA Tour is the best thing to do.  If half the tour hits a 6-7-8 iron into a par 5, it isn't really a par 5.  It may change players' mindset (score vs par), but fewest total shots still wins.

 

With regards to following the PGA Tour, I'm not sure half of them hit 6-7-8 irons into a par 5. But I could be wrong.

[Argonne69]

As far as recreational golf is concerned, the setups for the women are generally way too long. 'Can't even begin to count the number of courses I've played where the forward tees are a few yards ahead of the white and blue tees. Forward tees should be at least 30% shorter, and possibly 35%. I don't recall a round in recent memory where a female playing partner was able to reach any par 4 in two shots. 

[Argonne69]

I don't think there's anything wrong with the LPGA setups. If anything, they've been a little too generous. Well, except in 2020 when they played a few new courses at 6600+ yds with real rough. Ignore the long hitters for a moment, I can easily recall Stacy Lewis reaching many par 5s in two circa 2014, and she was driving it 257 on average. Looking at the eagle count for 2014, I see players like Danielle Kang, Chella Choi, Paula Creamer, Catriona Matthew, Azahara Munoz, and Na Yeon Choi all having 8+ eagles. They were not know for bombing drives that year. 

 

The median LPGA player had a scoring average of 71.64 in 2019. The median PGA player averaged 70.98. Less than a stroke doesn't scream out to me that big changes are needed.

 

The last time I calculated the average winning score, I believe the women had a lower score than the men. 

 

[Seamus_McDuff]

27 minutes ago, Argonne69 said:

The last time I calculated the average winning score, I believe the women had a lower score than the men. 

 

Reading some Twitter responses to Beth Ann yesterday this was pointed out a couple times. Her argument was “yes, but the cut for the women is higher.” Of course they’re higher, the fields aren’t as deep. Around here we might pay more more attention to who’s making/missing cuts but casual fans aren’t. The only thing casual fans know is who they see on TV on weekend and that’s generally only the last three groups. 

[Argonne69]

The LPGA has played on a number of new courses, or courses they haven't visited in a while, in the past two years. Unfamiliarity with the courses is going to have an affect on scoring. On top of that the new courses were fairly penal. Add them together and you're going to see higher scores, and a higher cut line. 

 

For the courses that the tour visits every season, I haven't detected any significant change in scoring. Last year's ANA was a bit of an anomaly because they played it late in the year.

 

[WestTex]

Very interesting article and I'm torn between the two arguments (leave it vs change it).  I like Arg's point about not having too much familiarity with the newly played courses likely impacting recent scores, but I also noticed the infographic about mid-page which showed avg driving distance, avg 3W, then versus avg 2nd shot on a par 5 distance.  That's a big gap when you think about it.  They have vast differences on D/3W, but only 8 yards difference on 2nd par 5 shot. (Compared to PGA)

 

However, the issue of doing a blanket shortening may lead to the inevitable "see the ladies can't play, weaker, less talent, blah blah blah" argument from the usual.  That's even if they notice and if anyone actually cares.  The comparison to the men playing a 7,300 yd course was telling though.

 

Either way I think the biggest issue I noticed was the lack of data on scoring stats that we have all griped about here for a while.  At least those who are inside the ropes within the LPGA agree it is a big issue.

 

As far as courses in general, I spoke with my wife about this and she was pretty much neutral on the matter.  She's only 5'1" and hits it about 200 avg, 220 with a good smack.  She reaches in 2 on par 4s about half the time and rarely, if ever,  reaches in 2 on a par 5.  Again, like Arg said this is because most women's tees are only about 20 yards forward at best.  The club we usually play has 5 tees, and she plays from the 2nd tee, not the forward.  This is by choice.  I think most courses rarely have more than 3 tees outside big "golf towns."  I think 5 tees should be standard if possible, but I get real estate is at a premium.

[Abh159]

 

2 hours ago, Seamus_McDuff said:

Reading some Twitter responses to Beth Ann yesterday this was pointed out a couple times. Her argument was “yes, but the cut for the women is higher.” Of course they’re higher, the fields aren’t as deep. Around here we might pay more more attention to who’s making/missing cuts but casual fans aren’t. The only thing casual fans know is who they see on TV on weekend and that’s generally only the last three groups. 

This is exactly what I started to notice when I re-read it last night. I also realized that it made no mention of things like rough height, green speed, and etc. It was almost entirely focused on distance and what clubs women hit vs what clubs men are hitting. I'd be curious to see what would happen if they shortened the length, but grew the rough out and increased the green speed like they do for PGA events. I've only been to 2 LPGA events, but in my limited my experience the courses were in immaculate shape, however they were a loooong way from what I would consider difficult when it came down to conditions. 

 

Sadly, the whole things makes me think back to what Stacy Lewis said at the US Open about how the USGA should be setting up the course easier so women could look better on TV since they had a national audience. People who watch and enjoy the LPGA are going to keep doing so, and people who don't aren't going to all of a sudden start watching just because they turn the course into a glorified "pitch and putt" where 25 under wins each week.