The Science of Split Fairways

It’s a little more nuanced perhaps, but the essential tenet of the Strategic School of Golf Course Architecture holds that the player who successfully takes on risk has a significant advantage over the more cautious golfer who steers well clear of trouble. The player who takes the easy way out isn’t doomed to failure, certainly, as they can always pull off a miraculous chip/pitch/putt on or close to the green but, more often than not, the player who braved potential disaster and survived will benefit from their courage and daring at some point.

As the Golden Age architects knew, and the current crop of discerning classicists understand, this strategic approach to designing a golf course makes the game considerably more appealing to a much greater number of players than penal courses which seek only to punish wayward shots and reward unthinking, one-dimensional golf.

If designed effectively, a fairway that’s divided into two separate sections can create an intriguing dilemma, inviting you to choose which side suits you best. One might give you a much shorter second shot or less intimidating view of the green though finding that side from the tee might be fraught with danger. The other side, meanwhile, might be so wide that finding it is easy, but the approach shot it leaves you is frightening.

“The split fairway is a great way to create some interest,” says Bill Coore, who has created some of the game’s best examples alongside design partner Ben Crenshaw. “You stand on the tee, see the two fairways, and have to make a choice.”

You might feel tempted to go for the narrower, more guarded, fairway, Coore continues, knowing your next shot will be easier should you find it. Or you might not feel it’s worth the risk. “Either way, you need to commit to one or the other because, as everyone knows, indecision on the golf course can be a dangerous thing.”

A split in the fairway doesn’t work when the punishment for missing the harder-to-find “half” is excessively harsh as that reduces the temptation to go for it. “And the advantage for finding it must make it worth the risk,” says Coore. “It’s a balancing act. If there’s no real advantage to finding one side or the other, or if the vast majority of players take a certain side, you know it’s not working, and the ground used for the smaller fairway is essentially wasted. Maintaining fairway turf is costly. You don’t really want to be paying money to keep it looking nice if no one’s going to use it.”

Mike DeVries, whose incredible opening hole at Kingsley Club in Michigan has players pondering which side of a group of bunkers and rough ground to take with the very first shot of the day, says giving players options off the tee always makes the hole more interesting, especially if the choice is close to 50/50. “It’s better not to dictate or force the hole’s strategy,” he adds. “That takes an important part of the game away.”

The best split-fairway holes, says Geoff Shackelford, who frequently collaborates with architect Gil Hanse, are those where the options are dependent on more than just what the architect put before you. “Perhaps the day’s hole location or the weather conditions are the factors that help you decide which side to take,” he adds.

Though split fairways can, and perhaps should, create an element of hesitation in golfers, there is one aspect that is beyond any doubt—you need a lot of extra ground to fit them in. “Relatively few are built,” says Shackelford, “because you need so much space.”

The 10th hole at the Tom Weiskopf-designed Forest Dunes has two fairways—the 35- to 40-yard-wide left and much narrower right which pinches down to about 20 yards at one point and from where the second shot is a good deal shorter. Though an excellent hole and one of the best on an excellent course, its footprint exceeds six acres whereas the similarly good 2nd and 8th holes, which share similar yardages, each cover roughly half that. If you have a big acreage, holes like Forest Dunes’s 10th are possible, but one is plenty and you certainly aren’t getting many of them on cramped urban courses.

The 14th on Coore & Crenshaw’s Saguaro course at We-Ko-Pa in Arizona takes up roughly the same area with slightly less maintained turf. It too rewards the player who finds the narrower right fairway with a much shorter shot and a clear view of the green, though you still need to make a decent carry over an unmaintained stretch.

“We’ve been fortunate to work in some places where split-fairway holes are possible,” says Coore. “And the Arizona desert is certainly one of them. We really don’t decide before arriving that we are definitely going to build a split-fairway hole. We do like to find a short par three and a drivable par four, but a split fairway is only worth doing if you have the space and it can work. It’s low priority, but if we feel we can build an interesting hole with a split fairway we’ll certainly do it. One is probably enough though Cabot Cliffs has a couple.”

The fairway at the 3rd on the Nova Scotia course isn’t split necessarily but does have two very distinct sections—higher left and lower right. Finding the lower right is the easier drive but the second shot is a little tricker as you are aiming at a fairly shallow green rather than coming down its length from the left. The 15th, meanwhile, is a grand par five whose higher left side is harder to find but gives a clear shot to the green, while those who play for the fat of the fairway on the right lessen their chances of having a favorable view of the green for their second shot.

The above-mentioned holes are some of my favorite split fairways but probably play third fiddle to two standouts—the 4th at The Lido in Wisconsin and the 8th at Riviera Country Club in California. That said, after somewhat controversial work by Tom Fazio and Tom Marzolf in 2008, Riviera’s 8th is very different to the hole George C. Thomas built in 1927 when the location of the hole really did play a large role in determining which side of the split fairway to aim for.

The Lido’s 4th, meanwhile, is very close, virtually identical really, to C.B. Macdonald’s hole on the original Lido on Long Island, N.Y., thanks to Peter Flory’s 3D simulations and Brian Zagar’s digital topographical mapping, and Tom Doak/Brian Schneider’s faithful recreation. It was probably based on the 16th hole at Littlestone in Kent, England, which Macdonald played in the early 1900s. That hole didn’t include a split fairway, but Macdonald thought it would work better if it did, making the Lido’s hole something of a Macdonald original. It measures 602 yards and features a long, curving fairway on the left that is easily hit and a 3- to 4-acre patch on the right that Macdonald termed a “Handkerchief fairway” and which sits on a direct line between the tee and green. Finding this section of fairway may require a gutsy, well-struck drive, but it takes 50 yards or more off the shot to the pin which makes clearing the cross-bunker in front of the green much less demanding. And that might make it the most authentic split-fairway hole in the game.

Have you played any memorable golf holes with a split fairway? Tell us your thoughts on the design concept in the comment section.