It’s got to be the “hazards”!

[Mark_Fine]

If someone asked me to name one thing that truly distinguishes great golf architecture from the rest, I’d have to say it’s the hazards.  Yes the routing is key and the mix of holes is important and varying lengths and angles of attack add to the strategy and the quality of a design and so on and so on.  But if you think about the best of the best, it’s the hazards that set them apart.  And I’m not just talking about the bunkering like that of a Woodhall Spa.  It could be the greens and chipping areas like at Pinehurst #2 or the washes/barrancas at L.A. North, or the sand mounds at Prairie Dunes, or the gorse at Dornoch or the grass hollows at Royal Ashdown,…

If an architect gets one thing right, he better make the hazards interesting.  I think that might be the biggest thing missing in much of modern architecture.  Many of the newer courses are so finely manicured and landscaped that the hazards often just blend right in.  They just don’t seem to provide that inspiration and their perceived “hazard” value (whether it's truly there or not) is subsequently diminished, as is the status of the design.    

Could this be the prime reason many of us bend toward the older classics and discount many of the modern layouts?  It’s got to be the hazards!
Mark

[AWT]

A course without notable hazards is a course without distinction.

The casual visitor to any golf course usually carries away with him a vivid impression of some particular section of the course, which afterwards is a mental picture of the course in general whenever his thoughts revert to it.  Nine times out of ten the mind's camera has been focused on the most prominent hazard, no matter whether the player has come to grief there or not, although, if he has, the impression will be more lasting.  For example, most men who have played Merion a few times will instantly see in the mind's eye the quarry whenever Merion is mentioned.

Familiar to all golfers are the names of the Redan, the Maiden, the Principal's Nose, Hell Bunker, the Alps, the Cardinal, Swilcan Burn, Strath's Bunker, the Himalayas, the Corsets and the Sahara.  These are the names of some of the most famous hazards in the world.

[Slag_Bandoon]

I agreed almost entirely and then I think of the micrcosmic world of greens and the hyper-attention we give to them. Then I think of the natural surrounds of the course itself. Then I think of the severity of wind. Then I think of the playability. The fun factor. Whether it's available to all players.
 For the picture memorability I agree, but for the whole event memory I have to make the layout a Monet inside my brain.

(Disclaimer- I haven't played enough great courses to be highly qualified - just enough to think I've discovered a few things.)

[Mike_Cirba]

But Mark,

If hazards are the preeminent feature of a great course, what are the predominant hazards of Lehigh?  

[TEPaul]

As far as playability is concerned hazards can be the distinguishing feature of a golf course but they have to be "hazardous" to be distinguishing, at least as far a playability is concerned!

As for bunkering, it has certainly been one of the architect's most important  architectural expressions forever, but certainly not the only one. Mark, things like Pinehurst's chipping areas and greens are not hazards. Neither is the gorse and other danger areas of many golf courses like most of the area off the fairways at Pine Valley etc.

But bunkering is the primary architectural "hazard" over the evolution of architecture. There are certainly many other kinds but bunkering is by far the most common and prevalent.

Probably the most diluting effect to the real function and effectiveness of the bunker hazard is the whole idea of consistency. I'm not sure when it came into being in golf and its architecture but it certainly is here in spades and today there are few courses that really have bunkering that maintains the old time effectiveness of bunkering.

I look at bunkering in three ways--the sand, the structure and the surrounds. If a golf course has all three working well to present the golfer with three types of hazardous playability, then the effectiveness of them radiates out into the player's vision, his thought processes, club selection (distance), aim, just about the entire gamut of strategic considerations.

But alas, many golfers don't appear to want this type of situation or this type of strategy. There certainly appears to be many memberships (or at least the majority of them) that don't. MikeC's remark about Lehigh's bunkers is another good example. Apparently Forse's bunkers (at least the surrounds) were too much for the membership and they had to be changed.

That's merely a choice of preference, but you have to admit they play less like real hazards than they did when Forse debuted his. We can talk about losing balls in the grassy surrounds, slowing up play because of it and scores getting run-up too, but that's what is supposed to happen to make the golfer think more and play harder to avoid getting in them and that fact is the central theme of strategy and basically a lot of the guts of a golf course.

So I think you're correct to a large degree, "It's got to be the "hazards"."

[Mark_Fine]

You need have to broaden your definition of hazards.  For example, if you roll down into one of those chipping areas on the short side of a pin at Pinehurst #2 or leave your ball up top with the pin at the bottom on #16 at Augusta, trust me, you are in a dangerous area, a hazard.  Hazards are far more than bunkers and water.  Forget the USGA definition!  

At Lehigh, there are many kinds of hazards.  Some of the bunkers are excellent hazards and their hazard value changes dramaticlly depending on pin location, e.g. #3.  Flynn's use of the stream is one of the great hazards at Lehigh.  But it's the greens and their surrounds that stand out the most.  For example, miss the green right on #9 (you're better off in the bunker) and you are in a real hazard.  Miss the green left on #5 with a front pin and you might as well put the ball in your pocket, it is a real hazard there.    

Hazards come in all forms and if you think outside the old paradigm of what the "standard" definition is for them, you'll understand where I'm coming from.

Halloween parade, got to run!

[TEPaul]

There are no doubt many kind of danger areas on a golf course that all can be used for various kinds of strategies and such but the definition of "hazard" is one that's been around a long time and has always had a specific meaning, so thanks but I think that I will stick with that one! But I do get your drift. You're getting into streams and chipping areas and the difficult areas of greens and their surrounds etc, etc. After a while you're starting to talk about most of what's on a golf course and again I agree "It's got to be in there somewhere".

[Mark_Fine]

Tom,
I was sure you knew what I meant.  Take a flat green with a few shallow bunkers around it and one might say there is no "hazard" there despite the bunkers.

What I think makes a golf course interesting are the "danger" areas, call them what you want.  It's like the second hole on Talking Stick's North Course with the OB fence straight down the left side of the hole from tee to green.  To me there is something about that "hazard" that makes the golf hole unique compared to many others I play that feature out of bounds.  

Think about it, doesn't the uniqueness of most great holes center in some way around a hazard?  
Mark

[AWT]

There are hazards in golf other than pitfalls dug by man and water courses placed by nature.  The dictionary tells us that a hazard is "that which comes suddenly or unexpectedly; chance; accident; casualty; danger; peril; risk."  And often enough the golfer has to contend with hazards which are casual.

Some years ago, there was a player by the name of McDonald, and the scene of his conquests had won for him the sobriquet of "Florida McDonald."  It is related that once, after pulling his drive off the fairway, he was considerably startled to find that it had come to rest in contact with a coiled rattle-snake, but undauntedly he played his ball and then dispatched the snake with the same club.  It is likely that but a few would have faced such a hazard so courageously.

But let us get away from that which is freakish and casual to real hazards and the powerful influence they exert.  While sand pits and water are encountered most frequently, and sometimes grassy hollows and mounds, trees often are used by the golf architect.  They are picturesque and mostly effective, but there are times when they are a trifle unfair, for there are balls hit in about the same fashion that are intercepted by trees and although one may be stopped or deflected, the other may find its way through luckily with no opposition.  The green foliage adds greatly to the beauty of the course, but it is just as well to keep the trees out of the direct line of play, although they may be used for the formation of dog-leg or elbow holes.

Hazards are frequently natural -- a brook, a pond, a swamp, a road or an abandoned excavation, etc., but for the most part they have been placed by the golf architect.  These artificial hazards are usually sand pits so located as to trap badly-hit balls.  They are the inanimate fielders of golf, and all golfers strive to follow Willie Keeler's precept of hitting " 'em where the fielder ain't."  In brief, the hazards of golf put a premium on the accurate placement of the ball.  The mediocre player fears them and cramps his strokes in the effort to avoid them, and his play will not improve until he learns to go at a hazard fearlessly.  The expert often finds his ball in trouble but it is his ability to play out without considerable loss that stamps him as a class golfer.

[TEPaul]

Call them danger, peril, risks, hazards, whatever you wish, I do know what you mean. Much of what AWT says above (and Mark alludes to) is very similar to the treatise by Max Behr on hazards and their effects on the golfer.