You may often wonder about the size of a golf hole but have you ever thought of why they choose that size in the first place? In our guide to understanding golf holes we are going to breakdown every question you could ask about the this elusive part of the golf course.
How big Is A Golf Hole
A golf hole is 4.25 inches wide or if you live in a metric based country 10.8 cm. Golf holes have a standard to be a minimum 4 inches deep.
Are All Golf Holes The Same Size
Yes, all golf holes are the same size as since the president set in 1891 at the St.Andrews Golf club. This rule became the standard for all golf courses worldwide.
Why Are Golf Holes 4.25 Inches
Unfortunately, there is no real reason why this size was chosen to be the standard size for golf holes. But rather just a funny story of chance.
The Royal Musselbrough golf club invented the first hole cutter. They were able to use a drainage pipe they had on the premises to cut the hole. This pipe happened to be 4.25 inches which led to the size we used today.
Prior to this courses dug a hole to an approximate size. This invention of the first hole cutter allowed them to create this standard size.
Will Size Ever Change
A size change of the cup is not a debated issue but it has been brought up in the past. Most famously Jack Niklaus often brought into debate that he believed the golf hole should be much larger.
His thoughts were that putting was to important of a factor in golf and making the holes larger would put more emphasis on other parts of the game.
In fact Niklaus cut 8 inch holes into his course for several tournaments over the years to test his theory. Though as we know this did not have any effect on the standard golf hole sizing.
Conclusion Understanding Golf Holes
We hope you learned something throughout this article on understanding golf holes. If you have any questions regarding golf holes or this article please reach out in the article below.
If you enjoyed this article we hope you check out some others such as our guide to understanding par three courses or our article on bogey golf.
