worth reading The Hole Story

It may be impossible to break the spell of the 18-hole golf course, but Edwin Roald is doing his best to do so.

Roald, a course designer based in Reykjavik, Iceland, is telling anyone who'll listen that shorter courses -- ideally, 12- to 15-hole tracks -- would be good for golf. Shorter courses would be cheaper to build and maintain, he notes, and they could be played in about three hours, at lower greens fees.

We simply need to abandon the principle that a full round of golf consists of 18 holes, Roald contends, and get used to the thought that a golf course may have just any random number of holes that suits its particular environment.

Is Roald making a legitimate challenge to conventional wisdom or simply tilting at windmills? Decide for yourself at Why18Holes.com.