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Sir Nick Faldo might be a golf traditionalist, but he’s certainly not stuck in his ways when it comes to how the game should be played.
The six-time major champion has long been banging the drum for the revolution of shorter golf courses as time becomes even more of a precious commodity in the modern world.
The 18-hole layout is causing rounds to tip over the four-hour mark on a consistent basis – time a lot of recreational golfers simply don’t have.
And Faldo, through his hugely successful eponymous course design business, thinks he has the answer.
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“I’m a big fan of 12 holes, because you can do two sixes,” he told The PGA recently. “Do another one and there’s your 18.
“I’ve been pushing that for years and it’s been blooming difficult! You go to a hotel and they say, ‘We want an 18-hole championship course.’ I say, ‘It’s not going to be championship, you haven’t got the room. Why don’t you have a nice 12 holes?’”
Chiddingfold is a prime example of a course that has benefitted from such innovation.
Call the picturesque parkland club brave, but they decided to take the plunge by ripping up their popular 18-hole course last winter and rerouting it into a 12-hole layout.
Terry Edwards, a long-time consultant at the Surrey club, has been credited for the design, which was aimed to not only speed up rounds, but to also attract the next wave of golfers.
The response since the reopening in March has been emphatic.
“Its absolutely taken off,” head pro Phil Stevens tells bunkered.co.uk. “We’re busier with 12 holes than we ever were with 18. Its a different clientele. A much younger clientele. People who play for two hours tend to be a bit more cheerful and stop and have a beer for a bit longer. We’ve never had such a good response.
Of course there has been, as expected, considerable backlash from the conventionalists.
“Initially the traditional golfers were a bit snitty with us and said we ruined everything,” he says. “We got quite a lot of abuse. ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing? It’s a great old traditional club!’ “It’s not actually. Its only 30 years old.
“We’ve turned quite a lot of people round who are deeply sceptical and an awful lot of the regulars are saying, ‘Well, can I just play eight?’ It turns it into a completely social experience. People say 12 holes and that just sounds like fun doesn’t it? Doing it differently.”
The complete remapping of the land has also allowed space for a dedicated academy course that means children as young as six can start feeling comfortable in the otherwise intimidating environs.
“We let kids play for nothing on the academy course and we let one under-14 play for free with an adult on the main course so we’re very children friendly here,” Stevens adds. “We stopped taking seven-day membership too.
“We turned the old 17th into a driving range. We’re getting so many people come from other places and practising off the grass. We’re getting two or three handicappers playing who would never have been members here.”
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The surge in popularity, Stevens says, has been game-changing at a time when golf courses across the UK are facing the threat of closure.
“The big difference is the afternoons, which would be the guys coming out of work a bit early,” he says. “A lot of the time in the summer we were completely full from 2pm until half past 7, which I’ve never experienced. It’s been great.”
For myriad reasons, those at Chiddingfold feel that this is a bandwagon well worth joining.
“We’re getting enquiries from all over the world,” Stevens adds. “I’ve had two enquiries form America to talk us through what you’ve done. I’ve been in golf 45 years and I’ve never experienced such a positive feeling.”
Its a move Faldo would doubtless endorse.
“It’s taken 20-plus years but we’re finally getting people to go, ‘You know what? Eighteen is a lot.'” he insisted in his interview.
Maybe 12 is the magic number after all.
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