Technology advancements making courses longer and longer !

When does the sheer length of a course become the greatest obstacle?  Is that more important than creating holes that tax our abilities with the cut shot, drawing the ball with long irons,  Obstacles in the fairway, and increased use of water hazards ?   What is more important, length or complexity ?

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For me, length is probably the least creative way to protect par, but a course that is very demanding of your shotmaking can also get old fast if you're not looking for a drawn out battle. If it's really forcing a certain shot, or excessively penalizing a mistake or certain ball flight, complexity doesn't make the course better. But at least an overly long course has forward tees; playing a ridiculously hard one from the front can only help so much. Water hazards just suck, especially those which like to funnel balls from anywhere near the edge. It's one thing if it's spicing up a pro event on TV, but honestly I'd rather take the penalty and keep my ball, thank you very much.

A good course needs to be able to stage a good match against a variety of players IMO, with strokes and tees negotiated of course. My brother and I will sometimes compete and I do like the challenge of extra length, and especially if I can get into a rhythm hitting fairways and getting flat lies to big greens. He's trying to scramble every hole while I'm trying to get a GIR, so if I can accomplish that, even if I need to get aggressive off the tee, I will end up winning most of the time. The more holes I need to take an iron off the tee or lay up, the more ground he can make up around the greens. A good course can have a balance; for example 3 of the par 3s don't need to be over 200 yards and some of the par 4s and 5s should be good driving holes.

although courses are becoming longer and the ball and clubs are allowing for some of that increase in distance, but  with this technolgy dispersion is also becoming tighter.

That said keep the course at their length but there needs to be a grass roots movement for the better of the game to play the correct tee boxes for maximize enjoyment. I'd like to see at least 5 tee boxes for example.

I have read/heard? that the hardest thing to overcome for the average golfer is length.  It certainly seems like that to me.

100% agree on this. I think rangers need to be taking a more aggressive stance on making sure players are playing from the correct tee box. They know the course the best, and should have a good grasp on who's level plays where.

That or have a sign out that says, "Handicap Recommendations" then list the range versus the Tee Box.

I'd agree with that on length. I'd say keep courses shorter, but just up the toughness if you put yourself out of position. If you want to hit driver, fine. We'll put more bunkers where drivers could land. We'll grow the rough up. We'll tighten the fairways. Make it so it is a good risk reward scenario.

I think pin placements makes the courses tougher, and the average golfer can struggle with this.

As if golf isn't hard enough, they have to tuck pins close to bunkers, near the very front edge, near the back edge, etc. Oh how I hate difficult pin placements. Now in tournaments I can understand this, but on a normal Saturday afternoon when the course is packed, all this creates is backups and slows play down.

I also agree with the length and tee recommendations. The starter should be responsible for asking or telling everybody in the group which tee boxes they need to play. Way too many 30 handicaps out there playing the middle and back tees, see it all the time.

it wouldn't be if they moved up to the tee that fits them.

so true but in reality it doesn't work because many golfers are offended by this. Can't tell you how many times i have watched a player say I paid my money and will play the tees I want. The result usually is they shoot 120 and say the course stinks lol

Courses are getting longer from the tips, if you play the right tee box they aren't any longer than they were 10 years ago.  Ego's are a bigger problem than technology and longer courses.