by Bob Duden

Created on: March 22, 2010   Last Updated: March 31, 2010

The nine hole golf course is half a golf course.  Would that be the good half, or the bad half?  It's neither, just half the traditional length.  Legend has it that when the Scots invented the game, eighteen holes was the equivalent to the number of shots in a bottle of Scotch.  There was a shot of warmth to ward off the chill on every hole along the highland moors where the game began.  When the bottle ran dry, the golf course ran out of holes.   To build a nine hole golf course would then be giving the players two shots per hole and perhaps too much Scotch to keep the golfer sharp.  But, a nine hole course does have it's advantages.

Golf is a time consuming game.  The average individual just doesn't pick up a set of clubs, find a course, and strike the ball like those PGA guys on the television.  Those guys are good, and that's why they have adopted that slogan.  The rest of the guys playing the game, and most of the gals too, are constantly working on getting better, and getting better takes practice.  The driving range is an excellent place to hone skills but, one really only sees the game through conditions on the course.  You have to play the game to get better.  The lie of the ball in the rough, fairway and green side bunkers, and the creative shot to get you out of trouble are not practiced on the range.  The driving range develops your swing but, the golf course defines your game, and all that takes time.

A round of golf should take four hours to play on a full size golf course.  Play nine holes and you should be able to cut that in half, two hours out of the day to work on driving, iron play, chipping and putting.  Two hours early, before you head off to work, or two hours later in the afternoon before you head home for dinner, easily fits into a busy schedule.  A two hour lunch might be too much but, you can squeeze in nine holes there as well.  Of course, you have to find a course that allows nine hole play.  There are nine hole courses, usually built on smaller parcels of land and the result is usually a shortened version of a full size course.  Golf course designers believe that it takes at least one hundred acres to build a traditional eighteen hole lay out.  Often those nine hole courses are jammed into much smaller parcels of land and that creates a smaller course with shorter holes and therefore, less of a challenge.  But, this is practice because tournament play and handicapping are geared to eighteen holes.  The usual nine hole course allows a quick round with the ability to work on short irons.  You still have to drive the ball, chip and pitch and make those putts.  It's still golf, only a quicker version.  

Finding nine hole courses isn't all that hard.  They are out there and are often cheaper to play.  Many of them are municipals; town, county or state owned and open to the public.  The private ones might even have full service pro shops with a PGA professional on staff, a place you can take lessons as well.  Even the traditional eighteen hole lay out that returns to the club house after nine will usually offer a nine hole fee, and on those courses you can play the front nine one day and the back nine the next.  Getting in nine is an option, the alternative to the full round of golf and it helps to keep your game sharp.                      

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