Stan Mickle To Club Owners : Cater Your Courses To The Everyday Player

Online, November 25, 2010 (Newswire.com) - It may be a fact that only a minority of PGA TOUR players can consistently drive the ball more than 300 yards, but that doesn't mean golf club owners like Stan Mickle should scale back their courses.
"The game as it's played by the pros has little relevance to how the it's played by the overwhelming majority of golfers," Stan Mickle, owner of Canyon West Golf Club says. "The percentage of players who can overpower a golf course, or ever has reason to complain that courses aren't long or challenging enough is tiny," he added.
If you're a golf course owner and you want to create a course that the pros will like, that's your prerogative, Stan Mickle said. But he noted that 6,500 yards is large enough for most amateur players. The overall focus, Stan Mickle said, should be on "intelligent and challenging courses."
The long ball situation may be an issue for the PGA TOUR, but that should not affect how golf courses are designed. Owners should "carry on and build the best course possible for the given site, which is exactly the creed we follow at Canyon West Golf Club," Stan Mickle said.
Course designers may be concerned about the pros, particularly the ones who possess the long ball, potentially 'crushing' their courses, and this can influence a club to push for green redesigns and bunker renovations. But this can ruin the charm, nuance, and strategies that made the course great in the first place, Stan Mickle said.
There is a place for the pro-designed golf course, but much like in regular architecture, the real work gets done behind the scenes, by people who can relate to the amateur in all of us, and who do it for the love of the art and the game.
"Most players are just average," Stan Mickle says. "It's always a great experience to find out about shot values and some of the intricate things golfers of a certain level look for."
But certainly one of the biggest things Canyon West Golf Club strives for is playability," he said. "We try and make our course a fun experience for everyone."
Clubs and owners can do what they want, but Stan Mickle has a piece of advice for them: "Be satisfied with what you have. Forget the pros, and stay player friendly," he said.