What is a "reasonable" fairway width? Getting frustrated with our narrow fairways

[RoyalMustang]

I would love to hear your thoughts on golf course design and reasonable/ideal golf course design in terms of fairway width. I am still fairly new and haven't played that many courses. Is there a convention around average fairway width? I assume wider fairways make the course more playable, and that fairways should also incorporate other things such as slope and hazards. Too wide and things are boring, so there should be some variety, but too narrow leads to a sense of a contrived round and simply not a lot of fun. 

 

My home course seems awfully narrow, but I haven't played anywhere else in roughly a year. Over Christmas, I had a chance to play a longer/wider muni (74.8/135 from the tips). It was a revelation! I was making more fairways, and when I did miss, I could hit out of rough (instead of having a hard stop of trees right at the edge of the fairway. Even though I didn't play that well, I still shot an 80, which is a score a bit below my index of 5.  At my home course, I have to be lights-out to break 80, even though we are 74.4/141.  

 

This got me thinking: what should the "optimal" width of fairways be? I know it depends on the course and layout. I used my rangefinder yesterday to measure some fairways at my home course. Only 3 holes have landing zone fairways wider than 30 yards. Most are in the 21-25 yard range, and with slope and trees lining the fairways, might as well be 10 or 15 yards. The 3 holes I enjoy most have landing zones (including playable rough before you hit trees) of 47 yards, 52 yards, and 39 yards. These aren't rated as the easiest holes on the card: actually the 2nd is the hardest hole, but for me, it is my most consistent par. On many of the par 4s, you can often score best by using your hybrid, but using a hybrid 8-10x a round from the tee doesn't seem like great course design. 

 

 

[ezpz]

From my experience using google earth for my course management when playing on other courses, a lot of fairways you'll find will be from 30-40y wide. The level of forgiveness the fairway width provides obviously also depends on the rest of the course setup: Can you play from the woods or is it dead, high rough, can you miss on another holes fairway etc. etc.

[david.c.w]

My course is fairly wide open off the tee, with low-ish bermuda rough.  We are a private 18 hole course with lots of older members and women who play.  In general the defense of our course is the green complexes.  Bunkers, swales, and huge breaks on putts is what makes our course hard.  I generally play 73.9/138.

 

I have played many times on Medinah course 3.  Miss off the tee and you are making bogey.  They have tough greens AND 3" lush fescue rough. I think slope is 148 or something.  

 

Some courses are designed to be playable/fun/easy.  Some courses are designed to be challenging/frustrating/hard.  If you want to score find a short course with no rough with a rating/slope of 67.2/114.  Golf is not about scoring, it is the challenge.

 

[bcjim]

Don't enjoy narrow courses. We had one locally that was ridiculously narrow and bordered by "environmental areas" everywhere. They were just "woods" and nothing special or sensitive and the course otherwise routed through a housing development. If you hit one in any "environmental area" you were supposed to just abandon it. Even if you could see it.  

 

It failed eventually and closed. It was doomed from the start. 

[puttnforthe8]

As you said, it depends.  Course design could be tough fairways and easier greens, or wide/easy fairways and brutal greens.  So if you don't like tight fws, then play more golf elsewhere.  I am not a fan of the turtle-back greens of some designers, so I tend to play there less.  Also, same with designers - some people don't like certain ones - I play less at certain ones, e.g. Dye:  I am close to a "hate" for those designs.

Edited January 3, 2023 by puttnforthe8

[me05501]

You describe a lot of different elements that conspire to lead to your course's tough rating. It's one thing to have narrow fairways, but it also matters what happens to a ball after it hits the fairway and what you can expect when your ball ends up in the rough. 

 

You also have to look beyond the rough. Sometimes the rough is there to prevent the ball from ending up somewhere much worse. 

 

Faced with those conditions an expert player would want to shape each tee shot to get the best average result on those toughest holes. If the fairway slopes from right to left, a fade is more likely to hold the fairway. If overhanging trees protect the right side of the fairway, you want to draw it around them. Obviously this stuff is easier said than done but you'll never be sorry you developed that skill, and your game will travel well. 

 

I've played clubs where the conditions of the course led members to adjust their gear to manage it. One course had sort of sparse Bermuda rough grown out to 2" or so. A ball settles all the way to dirt level ending up in a bird's nest kind of lie. The member I played with showed me how a seven wood could advance a ball from that lie when almost any other club longer than a wedge would be useless. He said high-lofted woods were really popular with members for that reason. 

 

I think most club members end up with a game shaped by their home course, for better or worse. 

 

Edited January 3, 2023 by me05501

[nitram]

30 yards seems about right for a driver landing area.

[hollabachgt]

I asked this same question a few years back. My home course at the time had a fairway width that averaged around 27 yards and the course I played 2nd most had a fairway width average of 49 yards, so a pretty big difference.

 

I measured the driving zone fairway widths on the top 30 courses in the world and found that the average and median fairway width was ~39 yards wide. The narrowest fairways were at Winged Foot (25 yards) and the widest were at Pacific Dunes (66 yards). Incidentally courses on windy sites such as Pac Dunes, St. Andrews, NGLA had the widest fairways measured; but at the same time courses like Turnberry and Ballybunion, RCD, and Muirfield had some of the narrowest.

 

There is a lot that goes into determining the appropriate width of a fairway and playing corridor, but it would seem that anything less than 30 yards would be considered narrow for nearly all sites.

[Socrates]

Narrow fairways are one thing.  It's whats on either side that makes the difference.  There is one course around here that is really nice, but nearly every fairway is lined with dense brush and trees.  So much so, that any wayward shot is virtually guaranteed to be a lost ball.  Even if you do find it, your chances of a recovery shot is nearly zero (no swing -before or after a drop- or might take multiple shots to get out).  There is a great chance you will X-out a hole or several and I just don't go there anymore.  Which is too bad because it really is a pretty course.  Pace of play suffers greatly.  5 hours plus is normal.

[ShortGolfer]

I play on an inexpensive executive course with a 13 yard wide fairways!  Tons of lost balls in the high rough and scrubby forested areas.

I play $1 golf balls.  Even good golfers will lose a ball or two.  Especially if they know about the poison ivy.

 

It is popular with beginners and seniors.  Cheap for beginners and a challenge for seniors.

Edited January 4, 2023 by ShortGolfer

[So_Cal]

All the great architects lauded width.  Width allows for strategy and interesting greens.  That being said I believe about 5% of courses play this way, although it’s coming back into vogue. 

[ChipNRun]

On 1/2/2023 at 1:45 PM, ezpz said:

From my experience using google earth for my course management when playing on other courses, a lot of fairways you'll find will be from 30-40y wide.

 

This trend emerged after WWII when more courses started installing modern in-line sprinkler systems. A sprinkler in mid-fairway would cast water about 20 yards in all directions. Hence, an everyday course fairway width of about 40 yards.

 

Sunset Country Club in St. Louis County has some aerial photos of the course back in the 1920s or so. The fairways are much wider than in 2021... fewer trees too.

 

This meshes with a greenskeeping blog entry in which a modern-day greenskeeper looks at 1930s aerial photos of his country club course. He said the fairways back then were 60 yards wide in places.

 

On 1/4/2023 at 10:30 AM, Socrates said:

There is one course around here that is really nice, but nearly every fairway is lined with dense brush and trees.  So much so, that any wayward shot is virtually guaranteed to be a lost ball. 

 

Here is an insightful article from 2003 about Trees: A Going Concern. Some points the author makes:

• Too many trees bumping together create excess shade on the course, which disrupts turf grass growth. Arborists call this canopy convergence. Article says turf grass needs 6 hours of unshaded sunlight - local guys recommend 8.
• Golf's intense tree lovers are more interested in trees than golf.
• Evergreen trees tend to have shallow root systems, which can damage maintenance equipment. Although not mentioned in article, shallow roots can also injure golfers hitting out of rough. And, evergreens tend to generate trash that builds up in rough.

A separate article (sorry, can't find it) talked about the post-WWII arrival of National Arbor Day (NAD). Up to this day, the  NAD group will send you 10 tree sapling for $10. In early days, the 10 saplings were more than many families could fit into their yards. Thus, some local parks asked to get the surplus saplings, and plant them in parks or golf courses. 

[Socrates]

21 minutes ago, ChipNRun said:

Here is an insightful article from 2003 about Trees: A Going Concern. Some points the author makes:

• Too many trees bumping together create excess shade on the course, which disrupts turf grass growth. Arborists call this canopy convergence. Article says turf grass needs 6 hours of unshaded sunlight - local guys recommend 8.
• Golf's intense tree lovers are more interested in trees than golf.
• Evergreen trees tend to have shallow root systems, which can damage maintenance equipment. Although not mentioned in article, shallow roots can also injure golfers hitting out of rough. And, evergreens tend to generate trash that builds up in rough.

 

The course in question is cut right out of the arboreal forest.  They have thinned out the bush/brush on a couple of holes, but for the most part, it's pretty dense.  In summer, it is nearly impenetrable. 

 

There is one course locally that fancies itself as a "better" private course.  In the last 40 years, they have done little to trim (eradicate) the scrub brush that line many fairways.  As a result, most trees do not develop properly (too much competition for sunlight and nutrients).  I feel that with some judicious trimming (directed by an arborist), they would have beautifully tree-lined fairways without the scrub brush.  It's one of those things that I think separates if from being a very good course rather than just okay.

[me05501]

On 1/5/2023 at 1:36 AM, So_Cal said:

All the great architects lauded width.  Width allows for strategy and interesting greens.  That being said I believe about 5% of courses play this way, although it’s coming back into vogue. 

 

My favorite local course is a Brian Silva design that draws heavily from the Reynor template hole style. The fairways are wide, but they offer different "channels" and challenges depending on how accurately you can place your tee ball. It makes it a much more interesting course IMO. 

 

On several holes it's clear that attacking the trouble you see off the tee will lead to a much easier approach while taking the safer line will cause you more stress on the approach. Some balls that carry the fairway hazards will benefit from a generous kick further down the fairway. It's brilliant. 

[503Mike]

On 1/4/2023 at 10:36 PM, So_Cal said:

All the great architects lauded width.  Width allows for strategy and interesting greens.  That being said I believe about 5% of courses play this way, although it’s coming back into vogue. 

 

It's obvious that my home course was built with width (built in 1927), but that width isn't the actual playing width due to the very large trees that have grown up on the course over that time. The conifers (Doug firs mostly) are trimmed up so you can play beneath them, but their upper branches encroach and pinch the fairways on a lot of holes and a lot of tees boxes. The deciduous trees are simply massive and despite how beautiful they are have outgrown their place on the course. The problem in my mind is that part of the charm and allure of the course is its natural beauty and peacefulness. I'm not sure many of the members would make the trade off for more playability at the expense of losing some of the massive trees.

 

That said, mother nature has slowly been doing the job for us, blowing over trees or overgrown limbs with each wind and/or ice storm.

[Is Golf Fun or Work]

TopGolf has the widest fairways I heard 😆

 

I would work on hitting driver straighter, narrow fairways add to the challenge and differentiate good strikers.

[DLeightonReid]

Over the past several years, the fairways at my local course have been getting narrower.  My best guess assumption is that it cuts down on mowing by making the rough wider on both sides of the fairway.  

[So_Cal]

46 minutes ago, 503Mike said:

 

It's obvious that my home course was built with width (built in 1927), but that width isn't the actual playing width due to the very large trees that have grown up on the course over that time. The conifers (Doug firs mostly) are trimmed up so you can play beneath them, but their upper branches encroach and pinch the fairways on a lot of holes and a lot of tees boxes. The deciduous trees are simply massive and despite how beautiful they are have outgrown their place on the course. The problem in my mind is that part of the charm and allure of the course is its natural beauty and peacefulness. I'm not sure many of the members would make the trade off for more playability at the expense of losing some of the massive trees.

 

That said, mother nature has slowly been doing the job for us, blowing over trees or overgrown limbs with each wind and/or ice storm.

Interesting.  I don’t think full blown tree removal is for every club.  Selective removal makes sense. 

[503Mike]

2 hours ago, So_Cal said:

Interesting.  I don’t think full blown tree removal is for every club.  Selective removal makes sense. 

 

Full removal is not right for my club and I wouldn't advocate for that, but it has made sense for some in past. 

[golfortennis]

On 1/4/2023 at 11:30 AM, Socrates said:

Narrow fairways are one thing.  It's whats on either side that makes the difference.  There is one course around here that is really nice, but nearly every fairway is lined with dense brush and trees.  So much so, that any wayward shot is virtually guaranteed to be a lost ball.  Even if you do find it, your chances of a recovery shot is nearly zero (no swing -before or after a drop- or might take multiple shots to get out).  There is a great chance you will X-out a hole or several and I just don't go there anymore.  Which is too bad because it really is a pretty course.  Pace of play suffers greatly.  5 hours plus is normal.

 

This sounds a lot like Shepherd's Hollow in Michigan.

[golfortennis]

2 hours ago, DLeightonReid said:

Over the past several years, the fairways at my local course have been getting narrower.  My best guess assumption is that it cuts down on mowing by making the rough wider on both sides of the fairway.  

 

Which I think is a bad thing if that is happening on the sly on purpose.  It's like filling in bunkers.  At some point someone has to realize the golf course is there for the members to enjoy, not so the ground crew have jobs or the superintendent can cash in a bonus.  

[ChipNRun]

On 1/5/2023 at 11:37 PM, Socrates said:

There is one course locally that fancies itself as a "better" private course.  In the last 40 years, they have done little to trim (eradicate) the scrub brush that line many fairways.  As a result, most trees do not develop properly (too much competition for sunlight and nutrients).  I feel that with some judicious trimming (directed by an arborist), they would have beautifully tree-lined fairways without the scrub brush.

 

Yes. Volunteer trees can also pop up from seeds of mature trees. This can create crowding in rough, and creep inward that narrows actual fairway.

 

St. Louis in 2005: the old and rather scruffy Triple A golf course in southeast corner of Forest Park got rebuilt. Most of the holes were redone to recapture an early 1900s design flavor. Along with redesign came major brush clearing. The rebuilt Highlands course grooms out as fairway, light rough, and mid to large trees; the trees get periodic limbing to remove low-hanging branches. No underbrush, clumps of prairie grass, or other irritations.

-----------

Clarification on Golf at Forest Park. The Triple A Golf & Tennis, renamed Highlands G & T, is an autonomous operation located in Forest Park. The northwest corner of the park houses the Probstein Golf Complex, which replaced the old Forest Park golf course. So, Forest Park now houses 36 holes of golf, with 27 at Probstein and 9 at Highlands.

_________________________________________________

On 1/9/2023 at 1:44 PM, golfortennis said:

Which I think is a bad thing if that is happening on the sly on purpose.  It's like filling in bunkers.  At some point someone has to realize the golf course is there for the members to enjoy, not so the ground crew have jobs or the superintendent can cash in a bonus.

 

Superintendents and the grounds crew don't just decide these things on their own. It has to do with revenues, costs, and budgets.

 

Golf course design and construction costs are only an initial expense. Some 15 years afterward course systems have to be refurbished or replaced. These systems include greens, bunkers, irrigation systems, cart paths, etc. Failure to properly plan capital budgeting for refurbs and rebuilds can cause a course to close down.

 

Budget needs to include $$ both for the season's mowing and fertilizing, and for periodic capital improvements needed.

 

The bunker thing: at Ruth Park GC in our area, the refurbishing came with idea to fill in all the bunkers. It was a tragedy. Fill in some bunkers, but not all of them. RP was a classic Robert Foulis design from 1931. Robert and his brothers designed dozens of Midwest courses in the early 1900s.

 

At my home course, some of the bunkers were simply too exotic and difficult to maintain, and prone to erosion. Those were filled in, or reshaped as grass bunkers. Others were rebuilt, often as flat-bottom bunkers with rather high lips. The bunkers that stayed are all solidly built and easier to maintain.

Edited January 20 by ChipNRun
Sp.

[sailfishchris]

………Have you ever played 1 at the old course? I think that is perfect width! JMO.

[Bonneville85308]

A financially-troubled club I was a member at during the great recession decided to narrow the fairway widths and eliminate the "first cut" between the fairway and rough as a cost-cutting move. There was a lot of complaining and it only lasted a season before they went back to the way it was before.

 

There were some aerial photos hanging in the clubhouse of the course from the 1940s-1950s and the fairways were probably 10-15+ yards wider back then, and ran right up to the now-giant trees lining the holes that were small and newly-planted back then and in the deep rough now.

[vandyfan]

On 1/2/2023 at 1:41 PM, RoyalMustang said:

Over Christmas, I had a chance to play a longer/wider muni (74.8/135 from the tips). It was a revelation! I was making more fairways, and when I did miss, I could hit out of rough (instead of having a hard stop of trees right at the edge of the fairway. Even though I didn't play that well, I still shot an 80, which is a score a bit below my index of 5.  At my home course, I have to be lights-out to break 80, even though we are 74.4/141. 

 

I am not an architectural expert and I am not an elite (or even good golfer) but I tend to vote with my wallet and I avoid narrow/penal golf courses like the plague. To me, I look at it more as "landing zones" whereby I can land my ball without being blocked out or OB. For me, I tend to prefer courses with an average landing zone of 45 yards+. If it is a windy course with a ton of water (I am looking at you florida) then go ahead and increase that number to 50 yds+. I understand people like @Is Golf Fun or Work basically saying "play better" but realistically I have at least a 40 yd dispersion on my driver most days and as a 4-6 HDCP that isn't going to get much tighter than that with the current time I have to practice (almost none). 

 

So for me, I go on google earth pro as some have suggested earlier and if the landing zones are less than 40 yards on repeat, I am out. I have made exceptions for courses like Harbour Town (don't need to play that again), Caledonia (ditto) and other Florida/SC courses where they generally just don't always have the real estate to make courses "wide." But I will say that I much prefer Sand Valley's approach to fairway width than I do Harbour Town's. Golfers should get a variety of options and just as some like to play down hallways to test themselves, I enjoy hitting down a airport tarmac width fairway and having the challenge be the green complexes and 2nd shots. Having stressful tee shots on repeat is not my favorite way to play golf...so I avoid it!

[smashdn]

On 1/2/2023 at 1:41 PM, RoyalMustang said:

I would love to hear your thoughts on golf course design and reasonable/ideal golf course design in terms of fairway width. I am still fairly new and haven't played that many courses. Is there a convention around average fairway width?

 

Fairway width should match the scale of the overall property.  You got a big, rolling property without really natural things that pinch or narrow the playing corridors, I would expect fairways on the wider side and specifically wider playing corridors.  If you have a course that is shoe horned into a smaller property, that will necessitate some more narrow playing corridors and fairways.  An architect needs to be on his A-game to position the fairways in relation to one another and to the boundaries that maximizes the interior space while at the same time not creating a safety hazard.

 

Also, the fairway should match the scale of the greens and surrounds.  A tiny ribbon of fairway doesn't gee-haw aesthetically with a giant green complex and surrounds with run-offs and "chipping areas" everywhere.

 

To answer your first thought up there, ideally you would have all the space you need and could make the playing corridors as wide as you want so as not to punish higher handicap players.  They will find all the punishment they need on their on.  

 

Is there convention?  I would say no.  So much depends upon who the course is serving and what the course is trying to be.  By that I mean, you have a smaller, private, golf-only club intended to cater to a bunch of really good players out there playing competitively, you can have a ball buster type course and not get much push-back.  That includes narrow fairways, penal rough and hazards and trees that are not far off the fairway cut.

 

On the other hand, if you have a muni where you intend beginners and casual golfers to be a large part of your clientele, you want to design something that is really playable and golf balls extremely findable and whackable despite being well off the intended line o' play.

 

On 1/2/2023 at 1:41 PM, RoyalMustang said:

I assume wider fairways make the course more playable, and that fairways should also incorporate other things such as slope and hazards. Too wide and things are boring, so there should be some variety, but too narrow leads to a sense of a contrived round and simply not a lot of fun. 

 

Maybe, but not always.  Really depends upon how they are presented.  Take Augusta National for example.  Moving the tee boxes farther and farther back not withstanding, ANGC is a pretty benign first shot course.  Does that make the course more playable?  Doesn't appear that way given the difficulty of the green complexes.

 

Takes a real sly archie to build wide fairways but still have a preferred spot or angle to approach a green from.  Maybe one side of the wide fairway puts you in a spot where you can't see the bottom of the flag stick or you are landing your shot on a downslope on the green or you have to carry a bunker.

 

I agree that too narrow will certainly lead to rather one dimensional tee strategy.

 

On 1/2/2023 at 1:41 PM, RoyalMustang said:

My home course seems awfully narrow, but I haven't played anywhere else in roughly a year. Over Christmas, I had a chance to play a longer/wider muni (74.8/135 from the tips). It was a revelation! I was making more fairways, and when I did miss, I could hit out of rough (instead of having a hard stop of trees right at the edge of the fairway. Even though I didn't play that well, I still shot an 80, which is a score a bit below my index of 5.  At my home course, I have to be lights-out to break 80, even though we are 74.4/141.  

 

This got me thinking: what should the "optimal" width of fairways be? I know it depends on the course and layout. I used my rangefinder yesterday to measure some fairways at my home course. Only 3 holes have landing zone fairways wider than 30 yards. Most are in the 21-25 yard range, and with slope and trees lining the fairways, might as well be 10 or 15 yards. The 3 holes I enjoy most have landing zones (including playable rough before you hit trees) of 47 yards, 52 yards, and 39 yards. These aren't rated as the easiest holes on the card: actually the 2nd is the hardest hole, but for me, it is my most consistent par. On many of the par 4s, you can often score best by using your hybrid, but using a hybrid 8-10x a round from the tee doesn't seem like great course design. 

 

 

Really old course or course in the pacific northwest?

[Pepperturbo]

I am likely an exception to the prevailing chatter in this thread.  There is no "reasonable" fairway width, nor have I ever looked at the tightest of fairway's and mumbled, damn it's too tight; designers and owners should make them wider and easier.

 

Golf course designs IMO are supposed to challenge our skill levels, as they exist.  If the course is too much for your skill, you either now know you need to improve, or leave and don't go back and find easier courses.  Changing course designs because you don't have the skill reminds me of youngsters changing words because they don't like how they feel; ridiculous.

 

When a fairway is tight, I reach for 3wd or 2 iron down to 4 iron and put the ball in the middle.  That's why I practiced a great deal, so I could play any course and not be intimidated.  When fairways are wide and the course too easy, I end up being bored, and not likely to return.  It's easy to make the decision not to go back.

[Bob M]

As a data point, both my home course (North Kingstown GC) and a nearby course which I often play (Pinecrest GC) have fairways in the 25-27-yard-wide range. 

[vandyfan]

1 hour ago, Bob M said:

As a data point, both my home course (North Kingstown GC)

 

Not too far from Jamestown 9 hole golf course that I thought had very reasonable width fairways and Midville 9 holer that I also thought was delightful. Some fun, shorter golf courses up there in Rhode Island. I was up in Newport for a conference and really enjoyed those two. 

[Bob M]

24 minutes ago, vandyfan said:

 

Not too far from Jamestown 9 hole golf course that I thought had very reasonable width fairways and Midville 9 holer that I also thought was delightful. Some fun, shorter golf courses up there in Rhode Island. I was up in Newport for a conference and really enjoyed those two. 

 

I've never played Jamestown, which is reputed to be the oldest 9-holer in the US and haven't played Midville in years. What I recall about Midville is that it is an interesting layout and always in really good condition. Hard to beat the views from Jamestown, however!