For Jack Nicklaus, practice was always a key ingredient to his success as a competitive golfer.  And although his competitive days are over, the Golden Bear still practices what he preaches.

        In recent years, Nicklaus has addressed the fall-off in golf play by touting a practical idea -– 12 hole golf courses.  The logic behind the idea is unassailable:  A shorter golf course would appeal to senior golfers who might not have the physical or mental stamina to complete 18 holes; to the businessman and woman for whom a 4 ½ to 5 hour round is too much of a luxury; and to beginning golfers, young and older, for whom the frustration of a difficult game would be lessened by a layout one-third shorter.

        “It’s the health of the game, the growth of the game, keeping people in the game, that I’m interested in,” Nicklaus said earlier this year, as reported at several golf-oriented web sites.

        Nicklaus, who has tried to convince PGA Tour chief Tim Finchem to endorse the idea (he’s thinking about it, reportedly), tested out the concept at his own Muirfield Village Golf Club over Labor Day weekend.  The club hosted 12-hole events that attracted 100 golfers over a rainy weekend; the group included a hefty dose of senior golfers who do not play regularly, as well as mothers and daughters previously intimidated by the course, and junior golfers.  To make things even easier, the golfers were encouraged to move up one tee box from their normal teeing grounds, the holes were virtually doubled in size (to almost 8 inches), and penalties were assessed for rounds longer than 2 ½ hours.  (Average time of play turned out to be 2 hours 15 minutes.)

        The idea is intriguing, and could work at existing 18-hole layouts that reconfigure themselves in such a way that the 12^th hole returns to the clubhouse.  In that way, those who want to play just 12 could make way for those continuing on to the full 18 (it would give those who hate to be stuck behind slower players something to look forward to). And everyone but the strictest traditionalists could be happy.

        We’d love to hear your opinion on 12-hole golf courses.  Please cast your vote at the top-left of this page.

        As we will discuss here in the coming days, no less than Jack Nicklaus has recommended that golf courses be shortened to 12 holes to respond to the frustrations of beginning golfers and the time crunch of busy ones.  During an experimental 12 hole tournament for all ages at his Muirfield Village Golf Club over Labor Day weekend, holes were enlarged nearly 100% (to almost 8 inches) and all golfers moved one tee box ahead from where they typically drive the ball.  Nicklaus said the experiment was a great success.

        Ken Kirkman, developer of the Carolina Colours golf community in New Bern, NC, recent told us that his Bill Love-designed golf course had hosted tournaments in which competitors rolled a die to determine from which of the six teeing grounds they would drive their ball on each hole.  Other tournaments at Carolina Colours called for moving back one tee box when you birdied the previous hole or up one when you bogeyed.

No suprises:  The Bill Love designed course at Carolina Colours (first hole above) features wide fairways, multiple tee boxes and few homes adjacent to fairways.   

Photo courtesy of Carolina Colours.

        People have invented plenty of other ideas to make golf more entertaining, including teeing the ball on every shot, including putts; restricting to three or four (in some formats, just one) the number of golf clubs you can use; and even teeing off from your knees.  But before we overreact with gimmicks to the dire prophecies of golf's demise, it would be wise to consider something else Ken Kirkman wrote me about the golf course at Carolina Colours, which I toured before it opened but have not yet played.

        "My goal with my architect [Bill Love] was to create an attractive course, not hemmed in by homes, with relatively wide fairways, limited forced carries (at least from the shorter tees) and a variety of holes that allow use of all clubs in the bag," he wrote. "No trick shots, no hidden surprises."  In other words, a golf course built for fun for virtually all ages and abilities.  We look forward to playing Carolina Colours and to reviewing it here.

        Editor's Note:  New Bern, NC, is a charming and historic town (birthplace of Pepsi Cola).  The well thought out and designed Carolina Colours features new homes from the $200s.  Please contact us for more information or an introduction to Carolina Colours.

        Whatever the opposite of Chicken Little is, that is Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors.  He always has his pom poms at the ready, even in the darkest of days.  But Yun’s no dummy; in the face of unrelenting bad news here and abroad, his recovered memory must go back to the ignominious downfall of his predecessor, David Lareah, who pumped large doses of sunshine toward his half-suspecting members even as the housing market was collapsing around us all.

        Therefore, Yun put away one pom in his speech to the Realtors Conference & Expo in Palm Coast, FL, today, an address that seems,

        “Tight mortgage credit conditions have been holding back home buyers all year, and consumer confidence has been shaky recently,” Yun told the group of realtors.  (Note that you must be an NAR member in order to be called by the trademarked term “Realtor.”)  Not much to argue with there, yet in the world of cheerleading, there is always a “But” (or “Nonetheless”) to follow any mention of challenging conditions.  The NAR economist believes he lets NAR members down if he doesn’t keep the sunshine machine pumping, no matter the market conditions.

        “Nonetheless,” Yun added, “there is a sizable pent-up demand based on population growth, employments levels and doubling-up phenomenon that can’t continue indefinitely.  This demand could quickly stimulate the market when conditions improve.”

        Oh the linguistic tricks of an economist trying to stoke the sputtering optimism in his flock.  It sounds so upbeat and confident until you parse the language.  How “sizable” is “sizable pent-up demand?”  And does Mr. Yun know something we and the Labor Department don’t know about “employment levels?”  (The 80,000 net new jobs created last month do

        Unlike Yun, New York Federal Reserve Senior Vice President Richard Peach, who followed him to the podium, did not throw hush puppies* to his anxious audience.  He told them that the ratio of employment to population in the U.S. is historically low, and that the spread between corporate profits (up) and employment compensation (down) is widening.  I wasn’t at the speech so I do not know if Peach’s remarks provoked any Occupy NAR folks in the back of the room to break into the Beatles’, “You say you want a revolution.”  But we can imagine Lawrence Yun humming, “Here Comes the Sun.”

        Yun’s comments -– and perhaps we missed some of the context -– do not seem particularly useful to this real estate agent.  (I am not a Realtor, and when I hear such pabulum, I know why.)  At least Peach proposed an out-of-the-box idea to address the housing mess.  He suggested the government provide certificates to the 2.5 million members of the military who served in Iraq and Afghanistan; the certificates could be used as down payments on Fannie and Freddie homes in foreclosure as a way to absorb inventory and stabilize the housing market.  Finally, someone treated the audience members like intelligent grown ups.

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*The hush puppies that are served with such southern dishes as Carolina barbecue and fried chicken came about when homemakers found an ingenious and inexpensive way to quiet (or hush) the family's yapping dogs.  They deep fried balls of cornmeal and threw them to the dogs.  Today, humans seem to like them as well.