Golfweek Features Jerry Pate Design and Teeth of the Dog - Read More
Designing or overhauling a golf course that truly excites every type of golfer isn’t just hard, it’s an art form. Unforgettable courses don’t just check boxes. They welcome newcomers, satisfy weekend warriors, push scratch golfers to their limits and dazzle everyone with their beauty. Captivating golfers of every skill level is rare, but when it’s done right, players of any ability walk away impressed. How to design a golf course for every skill level? It’s a challenge.
You can’t flatten the skill gap between a beginner and a pro, but you can design a course that thrills them both. Great golf is more than just hitting fairways, it’s about feeling something. A truly great course serves up a blend of strategy, playability, challenge and visual impact. Above all, it delivers variety. Cookie-cutter holes and rinse-and-repeat designs? That’s the fast lane to forgettable. Golfers crave fresh strategy decisions, shifting risks and layouts that make them think twice before swinging away.
Challenge still matters. Conquering a tough hole is deeply satisfying. But too much grind, hole after hole, sucks the fun right out of the game for most players. Switching up par is only the first step. The real magic lies in smart, layered risks that don’t just punish the short hitter and reward the tee box cannon. A course should test everyone, not just favor the elite driver.
Attention to Fairways
Wider fairways and creative shot options are essential if you want a course that’s actually fun to play for everyone. Giving a high-handicapper some breathing room off the tee doesn’t dumb down the course, it makes it more inviting. And the skilled player is still tested, just in smarter ways. A well designed wide fairway favors precision over brute force. Pay attention to shape and grade and suddenly ball placement matters more than raw yardage.
Want to reward the true shotmakers? Throw in some switchback fairways. These beauties don’t just favor bombers, they reward golfers who can shape a shot on command. A confident big hitter with control over draw and fade will obviously excel. But the rest of us will still have strategic, playable options. That’s not just good design, it’s great golf.
Jerry Pate’s lauded 6th hole at Pensacola Country Club is a perfect example of a fairway design that provides a comparable challenge to both average and scratch golfers. The 50-yard width for the first 270 yards allows a high handicap golfer to take a full swing. A right to left slope and the width tightening to 33 yards makes it challenging for a long hitter to stay on the ideal right side of the fairway. The design makes it interesting and challenging for golfers of every skill level.
Bunker Placement
Fairway bunkers shouldn’t be scattered around like afterthoughts. They should be a meaningful design element. Every bunker needs a purpose, whether it’s steering a player’s eye toward the green, punishing sloppy positioning or offering a bailout zone for a missed shot. Hidden bunkers should be avoided. Make them a visible and strategic challenge, not a frustrating surprise. And crucially, make sure less-skilled players have a path around them.
Bunker design should elevate the look and feel of the course, not just act as punishment. Size and shape should echo the green’s contours, creating cohesion and visual drama. Donald Ross didn’t just use bunkers, he composed with them. His layouts offered a full range of options: bold, surgical, or downright daring. That’s the kind of thinking that separates forgettable from memorable.
And don’t forget the sand, it’s not just filler. Climate should shape what goes into every trap. Wet climates? Blend coarse and fine grains for traction. Dry, windy conditions? Use larger, angular grains that stay put and resist blowing away. Local climate also influences the shape and style of bunker utilized. Flashed sand bunkers shouldn’t be forced in areas of extreme rainfall or heavy soils, for instance.
Even orientation and elevation matter. A south-facing bunker bakes harder, while a shady north-facing one stays soft. These aren’t trivial details, they define playability and fairness. A well-built bunker isn’t just a hazard. It’s a statement.
Green Design
Speaking of greens, variations in their size and complexity helps to broaden the appeal for golfers of every skill level. Bowl shaped greens that guide the ball to the pin can be confidence inspiring for a novice, but pose too little challenge for a seasoned golfer. Large, severely undulating greens can be a satisfying challenge for an expert putter, but cause many amateur golfers to rack up a deflating number of strokes. Greens that require more chips, pitches and bunker saves are the sweet spot where finesse and creativity are rewarded for golfers of every skill level.
Even though the borders of a green are fixed, that doesn’t mean that variety can’t be added. The best designed greens allow four or more pin placement locations that can vary the approach strategy. Subtle changes in location can completely alter how a hole plays and that’s the genius of great design. A hole can be fresh and challenging regardless of how many times it is played.
Variety Enhances Enjoyment for Golfers of Every Skill Level
Variation in hole length and strategy isn’t just a design detail. It’s what separates a dynamic, memorable round from a monotonous slog. It gives golfers of every skill level the opportunity to utilize and gain experience with an assortment of shots and clubs. When every club is dirty it was a good day.
No one wants to play the same hole design over and over again. Famed designer George C. Thomas put it best when he stated, “each hole should be a thing alone, set off from all the others.” The best courses have some fairways doglegging right and some left. Even straight, wide fairways may vary in pitch to create a side that offers the best approach or least risk.
A par 4 may be well beyond the reach of the average golfer at 450 yards while some shorter ones may tempt a heroic drive. Approaches may be uphill or downhill. Greens may vary from bowl shaped to turtle-backed. By thoughtfully mixing up a variety of shots, angles, challenges and approaches, designers ensure that golfers of every skill level can find a favorite hole and make a memory.
Start Off Easy
Variety is important, but starting off with a relatively easy hole is generally a good idea. A less challenging par 4 provides golfers of every skill level the opportunity to get warmed up and begin the round with satisfaction rather than aggravation.
Opening with a forgiving par 4 also helps to speed up play by reducing the likelihood of backed up play right from the first hole. Nobody wants to start their day waiting behind a backed-up tee box because someone’s hacking their way out of a brutal opener. A gentle first hole keeps things moving and sets the tone for an enjoyable round.
Avoid Forced Carries
Ask any golfer, from weekend warrior to scratch player, what grinds their gears, and “forced carries off the tee” will be high on the list. Few tee shots are more frustrating than when a creek crosses the fairway right at the average golfer’s landing zone. It makes hitting a full tee shot too much of a risk for most players, essentially forcing them to layup and take a second shot over the water. Taking away the long drive reduces the enjoyment for most players, particularly when they see a big hitter clear the hazard with a 300 yard drive.
Designers need to stop mistaking “forced carry” for “challenge.” Hazards on the approach to the green should be strategic as opposed to penalizing anyone who doesn’t have a towering, high-spin wedge. Let players choose: go for it with a gutsy shot or take the safer, strategic route. That’s how you make golf exciting for golfers of every skill level.
Tee Placement
Tee placement is another integral part of making a course approachable for the widest variety of players. Often, too much attention is paid how the hole plays from the men’s tee. As a result, the experience of a hole may be markedly different for beginners than it is for low-handicap players. Tees, ideally up to five of them, should pe placed in such a way that golfers of every skill level experience a satisfying challenge and same level of enjoyment on a hole. On a short par 4, for instance, a variety of tees should make it possible for most players to hit the same club onto the green
It may sound academic, but changing how we refer to tees can also increase player satisfaction rates. While “women’s” tees do indeed provide some equality between men and women, thoughtful, well-conceived forward tee design makes the game more approachable for beginner golfers and those in their later years, regardless of gender.
Highlighting Natural Elements
Enjoying the beauty of a well designed and maintained course is an aspect of golf that transcends ability. Designing a course for golfers of every skill level begins with thoroughly understanding the lay of the land and creating a layout that respects and builds upon the natural elements that are available. Land contour, water sources, wetlands, woodlands and rock outcroppings become features that please the eye of both beginners and seasoned pros.
As Jack Nicklaus once put it, the best courses and most memorable holes, “look absolutely natural, as if the terrain had always been that way, waiting to be discovered for golf.” Great design doesn’t fight the land; it elevates it.
Cohesion and course flow is also important to the overall enjoyment of a course. Great course design architects understand the elements of the natural landscape as well as the best ways to blend them into the course design. Vegetation, grasses, ponds, streams and wooded areas should integrate seamlessly with the tees, paths, fairways and bunkers of the golf course.
Native roughs, for instance can dramatically enhance the look of the course while making it less costly to maintain to a high standard. A wild edge here and there adds contrast and drama, and makes the polished parts pop even more.
Course Design Is a Real Art
Designing a golf course that appeals to golfers of every skill level is an art. Golf course design architects take all of the things we’ve mentioned and many, many more into account when designing a course that is inclusive and inspiring for all. Get in touch to see how Jerry Pate Design can assist in designing or renovating a course for golfers of every skill level.
