Heresy! A 12-Hole Round of Golf

I kind of lost interest in my blog for the last month or so. I have been playing a lot of golf and the "World Of" trip to St. Andrews is coming together so there is a lot to talk about, but it is hard to find an hour or more to write a good post. But since my son Tyler and the Joker are pining for more posts here goes.

As the days get shorter and the weather gets colder (yes, it does get cold in Arizona; we are in the Sonoran Desert!), the daily window for playing 18 holes of golf dwindles. I played four times in a row in a three week period recently and did not once finish 18 holes! One time playing at Aguila Golf Course the weather was so nasty (cold, windy and drizzling) that the Gardener and I quit after 14 holes. Another time playing at Phoenix Country Club with Fred Flintstone we started after 2 p.m. and simply ran out of daylight. At Stonecreek Golf Club, Chad Feldheimer and I were supposed to tee off at 11:30 and we were delayed for an hour because of early-morning frost on the greens and then simply bad course management and after 4 hours and 30 minutes we quit on the 14th hole. Finally, playing with Digger at Moon Valley Country Club, we simply miscalculated how quickly we could play 18 holes and did not finish before darkness.

These rounds got me thinking about why golf is 18 holes instead of 12, 14 or 20 holes. As usual, everything in golf revolves around St. Andrews. Around 1764, St. Andrews converted from 22 holes to 18 holes (actually St. Andrews had 11 holes and the golfer played each hole twice). In 1858, the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews issued new rules for its members; Rule 1 stated "one round of the Links or 18 holes is reckoned a match unless otherwise stipulated". However, I like the legend that 18 holes aligns perfectly with the number of shots in a fifth of scotch -- one shot per hole.

I know it is heresy to talk about playing less than 18 holes of golf, but the idea of playing 12 holes in 2 1/2 hours is intriguing. While spending 5 to 6 hours at the golf course (including warm-up time and a round at the 19th hole) sounds fine to me, there are a lot of people with busy lives that do not want to spend the entire day at the golf course. For a while it would be cool to shoot in the high 50s or low 60s and even break the fabled 59! Existing golf courses may have to be reconfigured a bit, but the courses could either rotate out one 6 for maintenance or players could play two of the three 6 hole layouts. New courses could be built on smaller parcels of land to accommodate 12 holes instead of 18 and would require less water and maintenance. Assuming a course reduced its daily fee, it could make up the difference with lower operating costs and more rounds.