Oakmont’s eighth hole (pictured above) has long been one of the meatiest par threes in golf. Even in 1962, when Jack Nicklaus won his first US Open, and indeed first (professional) Major there, it played to 253 yards.

The hole is downhill, but for pretty much its entire existence, it has demanded a wood, perhaps even a driver.

This year, the hole was lengthened further, to 289 yards (it reportedly played from 253 to 301 yards for the four days of the US Open). But nonetheless, it remains significantly shorter than most Tour professionals would hit a full driver. The hole was all over the media in the run-up to the Open, and the mood music was not positive.

One player who was happy to go on record against the hole was Viktor Hovland. Asked about it in his pre-tournament presser at Memorial, he made it clear that he doesn’t think par threes should be so long. “I just think all the best par threes are under 200,” he said. “You can maybe have it just over 200, but as soon as you start to take head covers off on par threes, I just think it gets a little silly.”

Justin Thomas expressed similar views. “I couldn’t tell you a par three over 250 yards that’s good, I would say, architecturally,” he told the media. “Obviously, sixteen at Cypress Point is pretty special, but I definitely think there’s some potential viewing reasons that make it a great hole. So I’m a big short par three guy. I think a lot of players and people that watch golf are.”

When Cypress Point opened in 1928, the par-three sixteenth played some 230 yards (Photo: Gary Lisbon)

Memorial tournament host Jack Nicklaus echoed the views of the players, calling Oakmont’s eighth ‘a short par five’ and ‘crazy’. “I always liked to have one par three in the 220 to 235 range, two right in the 190 to 210 range, and then one usually somewhere shorter, 170 or shorter. I think it’s difficult to make a good, long par three. I think it’s a very difficult thing to have a hole where you’re standing back hitting a wood at a par three.”

So professionals, it seems, don’t generally think that hitting woods into par threes is a good thing. Yet, through the history of the game, there have been one-shot holes that demand a wooden club, even a full driver, and they have been among the most highly regarded in golf. To cycle back to Justin Thomas’s quote mentioned above: the legendary sixteenth at Cypress Point in California now plays to 243 yards, only ten yards longer than it did when originally built by Alister MacKenzie. It might now be a four iron for Rory McIlroy, but in the late 1920s, and notwithstanding the famous story of Marion Hollins convincing MacKenzie the hole was feasible by putting a ball down and hitting it to the proposed green site, it would have been an all-out shot for the vast majority of golfers.

Similarly with one of the most famous of CB Macdonald’s template holes, the Biarritz. Though the hole acquired its name because of the shot over the Atlantic at the Biarritz club in south-west France, the chasm was never the crux of the hole for Macdonald. Rather, he wanted the Biarritz to test the golfer’s ability to control distance and direction with one of his longest clubs, hence the swale in the green and the flanking bunkers: the idea was that the ideal shot should land on the front part of the green, run through the swale and come to a halt near to the pin. There is debate as to whether the front section was ever intended to be green at all; certainly, it does not appear as though the architect intended it to be used to locate the hole.

Most surviving Macdonald-Raynor Biarritz holes are still plenty long to this day. Possibly the most intimidating, and most famous, is the ninth on the Yale University course, 235 yards of fear, where the tee ball must carry a lake in order to find the green.

Architect Rees Jones, who attended Yale, says that the hole was terrifying in his day. “Yale’s ninth was a full driver back when I was there,” he explains. “And you did not want the pin on the front level, because you couldn’t stop the ball over the water. Those were days when the ball released more on landing than it does today. Nowadays, the equipment means that good players hit the ball further – and higher – than they did, and it stops more quickly. So the idea of testing a running shot isn’t as relevant as it used to be.”

Jones goes on to add that, in his opinion, maintenance practices have a significant impact on players’ – professional players especially – views on long par threes. “Mowing patterns have a lot to do with the issues,” he says. “At tournament level, closely mown slopes around the green mean that when players miss the green, they end up further away from it. I think that has a lot to do with their unpopularity.”

Steve Smyers, of Smyers Craig Coyne, likes the eighth at Oakmont. “I believe Oakmont is a fantastic championship venue and the eighth is a great golf hole that will help identify a competitor who is worthy of being the US Open champion,” he says. “When Angel Cabrera was victorious in 2007, during the final round he executed a fabulous long iron to 25 feet and calmly rolled in the putt. He credited that birdie as a pivotal moment in his round that helped propel him to victory.”

Smyers says the publicity about the hole obscures its true nature. “While the eighth measures just over 300 yards, it plays much shorter than the yardage,” he explains. “The hole plays a bit downhill and the land slopes to the putting surface encouraging the competitor to land his approach short and to use the slope of the land to his advantage.”

Or, in other words, the rollout of the ball means the hole tests the same kind of skills as the MacRaynor Biarritz!

“There is definitely a place for a long par three and I will always try to incorporate one, along with a short one, as part of the par three ‘set’,” says European Golf Design’s Dave Sampson, who redesigned the Marco Simone layout in Italy ahead of the 2023 Ryder Cup. “The long par three invariably plays as a ‘half par’ hole, demanding greater skill and precision. Furthermore, mixing up the par three lengths adds some variety to the course layout, allowing for different strategies and club selections.

“Hole twelve at Zavidovo PGA National is, at 241 yards, the longest par three I have built to date. The longest I have designed is 252 yards and for a ‘tournament’ course in the Far East. On this project, it suits the site, conditions, challenge (the client’s brief is to test the best players in the game) and the rest of the course layout to have that ‘very’ long par three.

The 241-yard twelfth hole at Zavidovo PGA National Russia (Photo: European Golf Design)

Stuart Rennie of Pangaea Golf Architecture says: “I am a fan of shorter par threes but do understand that a longer, tougher par three can be more of a challenge for the better category of golfer. I suppose a long par three requires an accurate long shot, which is fine for the tour players but a bit mundane for the majority of golfers.

“When designing the Kings Golf Course in Inverness we tried to create a good variety of par threes ranging from 120-191 yards. The shorter ones are definitely a bit more fun, in my opinion.

“The Postage Stamp at my home club Royal Troon is 123 yards. It can play long or short depending on the wind but if the green is missed the challenge can be severe. Most who play are more likely to remember it versus the really good long seventeenth hole. I grew up in the Highlands playing at Royal Dornoch so perhaps my eye aligns with the slightly shorter par three.”

Merion’s seventeenth played to around 250 yards in the 2013 US Open (Photo: Larry Lambrecht)

Brian Curley of Curley-Wagner says: “To most golfers, a very long par three is just one more chance at an errant tee shot that finds the weeds. My biggest issue with them is changes in wind – that long downhill, downwind, somewhat manageable shot can easily become a beast and really a par four, but typically with an inadequate landing area – and if you do have a large area, it loses visual appeal.”

One of the most curious things concerning the negativity about long par threes is that, functionally, they are extremely similar holes to short – especially driveable – par fours, which are almost universally loved. “Someone once asked Alice Dye what she thought about driveable par fours, and she said, ‘I think they are par threes’,” laughs Rees Jones. So perhaps it is the par designation that causes the distaste – which is surely silly – the hole is the hole, and playing it better than the field will give the player an advantage, whatever par number is attached to it.

“Years ago I implemented a driveable par four in all on my designs,” says Smyers. “As the game has evolved and elite players’ skill sets have greatly improved, I no longer design short driveable par fours. Elite players are hitting several short irons and wedges, and one more short hole plays right into their hands. I do however allow for the setup committee to move tees forward on a select hole to achieve this, say on one day of a several-day competition. Today, in every one of my modern designs I include a very long one-shotter. I am a big fan of long par threes!”

Chambers Bay’s fifteenth played to around 250 yards in the 2015 US Open (Photo: Rob Perry)

Kurt Bowman agrees, and points out that, whatever the par designation, such holes tend to be in fairly short supply on most courses. “Usually there are no holes with distances between 220 and 350 yards,” he says. “I like half-par holes, whether they are a par three that is effectively par 3.5 or a short par four that is also par 3.5.”

Canadian architect Christine Fraser has thought hard about long par threes. “They are fascinating to me, and I think their unpopularity is more psychological than anything else,” she says. “Functionally, they should be celebrated: they ask the same bold question as a short par four: can you hit a long club with precision and control? But the reaction is often resentment instead of excitement.

“Part of the reason, I suspect, is that the par three designation sets up an expectation that you should hit the green in one. When you hand someone a hybrid or wood and ask them to hit a small, guarded target, it can feel unfair, even though the same shot on a short par four would be considered daring and fun.

“There’s something deeply human and universal about our reaction to being told we’re supposed to do something very difficult without any room to improvise or be creative. Long par threes offer almost no margin – there’s often no lay-up, no bailout strategy that still feels like a win. You either hit it, or you don’t. Conversely, if you called it a short par four, suddenly that same shot becomes an option – and golfers love options.

“I also think there’s an opportunity being missed with how long par threes are typically presented. Too often, they’re flat, one-dimensional brute tests with little nuance. But what if we leaned into the scale? What if they played downhill, through wind corridors, into wide, expressive green complexes with feeder slopes, humps, and multiple entry points? Introducing strategy into long par threes is difficult, but not impossible.

“Maybe the most radical idea is to stop labelling holes by par altogether. Instead, ask: is this hole fun, interesting, and engaging to play repeatedly? Can it accommodate different trajectories and different players? At the end of the day the player with the lowest score would still win. I’d love to see more long par threes that feel like short par fours in spirit, with strategy, variety and room to move. If we give players space to rethink expectation and experience these holes creatively and strategically, would long par threes actually become some of the most beloved?”

The seventh hole at LACC North was 299 yards for the fourth round in 2023 (Photo: Hanse Golf Design)

Let’s give the last word to someone who has played the eighth at Oakmont in top level competition. “I played the hole in the 2003 US Amateur at about 255 yards,” says Tripp Davis. “It was a good distance because all players in the field could reach the green. Three hundred yards may be a bit too long because not everyone in the US Open field can hit it that far. But I like it as an option. We worry too much about par in the US. It may be a par 3.5, but if it has some options that make sense, like a wide area to not try to hit the green, it can add a lot of interest.”

This article first appeared in the July 2025 issue of Golf Course Architecture. For a printed subscription or free digital edition, please visit our subscriptions page.