[DMoriarty]

Some here are fond of saying that the whole concept of strategic decision-making for hacks is a fiction.  (Often those people say the same for skilled players, but lets leave that aside for now.)  "Even if hacks can make the right decision, they will not be able to execute," they say.  

If so, this is a failure of architecture, not the hack.  Architects who dont provide a means for hacks to think their way around the course (albeit in more strokes) aren't doing their jobs.

[Mike Benham]

Dave,

We might want to start this discussion by defining "Hacks" as it may be as broad as the fairways at Rustic or TOC  

Is a being a "Hack" a mental or physical definition or attribute?

Mike

[Joe Hancock]

This reminds me of a discussion that took place between Bruce Matthews III when I was building one of his designs. It had to do with tee placement, and the long and short of it was we agreed that it is impossible to design for every bad shot that will ever be hit. While one tries to take all levels of golf into consideration, it's much easier to design with good golf in mind rather than bad.

Joe

[Rick Shefchik]

But you can give the hopeless player an out. The most cruel and pointless thing golf course architects do -- and they don't do it too often, fortunately -- is to put a pond directly in front of the tee on a hole. I've never understood why you want to further penalize a shot that's only going to go 30 yards anyway.

Same with gullies. We've all played holes where the average-to-good player can easily clear some deep pit that intersects the fairway, whereas the hack is more or less forced to chop a couple of balls into the abyss and then drop on the other side. The ideal course should provide a way for the hack to get around the gully, or the gully should not have been incorporated into the design of the course.

Having said that, why not put a few hazards in spots that the good player can clear easily, but the hack has to aim away from? A fairway bunker 150 yards off the tee isn't going to affect the skilled player, but it gives the hack more to think about than the fairway bunker at 225.

I'd much rather see architects challenge the hack to steer his slice away from a hazard (or lay up to avoid it) rather than challenge the hack to get his shot off the ground.

[DMoriarty]

it's much easier to design with good golf in mind rather than bad.

 Is this how architects make their design decisions, on what's easier?

[Joe Hancock]

DMoriarty,

Hypothetical question you pose...I doubt any architect would admit to it. I would imagine that most of the "hacks" qustions for architects have as much to do with safety as it does strategy...but I'm no architect and wouldn't want to answer on their behalf!

Joe

[Patrick_Mucci]

DMoriarty,

Golf course design/architecture can't be considered inadequate because of severe or excessive LOFT on the part of those trying to play.

Golf, like high wire walking, is not for every single person.

The inability to get the ball airborne, should be a disqualifying factor.

There should be a minimum standard, above which you can make your assertion, relative to the success or failure of the architecture.  But, to open end it would be both unfair and unreasonable.

From a playability point of view, I think that "hacks" as you call them, can benefit the most by playing strategically.
Many higher handicaps that I come in contact with, try to do two things, hit shots that they are incapable of hitting, and ignoring prudent course management dictates.  If they played within themselves, understood the architectural avenues presented, and used prudent judgement (course management) they would benefit the most (% improvement in score) from understanding the strategic choices offered to them by the architect.

But, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

[David Kelly]

All of the dozens of bunkers that I think are out of play at Whistling Straits must be hell for beginners and "hacks".  Many of the bunkers at WS can ONLY be reached with a 100-yd shank off the tee and then once in one of those bunkers its Katie bar the door for the poor "hack."

World Woods Pine Barrens is another course where there is a ton of trouble for people who can't get off the tee but which the average or better player often doesn't even notice.

So, David, are they examples of bad architecture, overdone architecture or does the architect always have to keep the "hack" uppermost in his mind?

[ian]

I followed the pros at the Canadian Open to see how they would challenge all the carry angles, and how much they would "work" the ball on the holes. They just hit it to the most receptive area despite how the holes were set up to be challenged.

I would argue that the "hack" (I would include my 14 there) actually are enticed to try the angles and carries to make the next shot easier.

I do find good players have a tendency to remove the larger number through good management, thus ignoring many carry angles and high level risk/reward situations.

[Jeff Goldman]

Pat Mucci is dead right on this one.  As a self-described "hack," whose best scores on hard courses are low-80s, thinking myself around the course is the most important element of a good score, even when I'm not hitting it well.  On a difficult course like Blackwolf Run or WS, I'll play the really hard holes for bogey, and tee off with a 3 or even 5 wood and aim for safe sides, even if approaches become more difficult.  7 on the river course, for instance, playing away from the bunker but having a more difficult approach because of the slope of the green and bunkers that guard it on teh right.  On other holes, I'll take chances with shots I know I can hit, like playing for a big fade to get good position on 14 of the Meadow course, and a shorter approach shot, whereas laying back on that hole is no bargain.  Strategy matters for us!!

Jeff Goldman  

[Tommy Williamsen]

More good scores are ruined by poor thinking than by poor execution.  One of my best friends is a twenty.  I am a three.  We normally play 36 each time out.  After he struggled in with a 97 in the morning I told him to let me determine what shot and club he should hit.  He shot 88 in the afternoon.  We all think we can pull off shots that we normally can't.  
Now while I say that Poor thinking can ruin a score, I think I would rather try difficult shots because they are fun.  It took me a long time to discover that score isn,t the main reason  I play.  I play for fun: cutting the dodgleg, hitting a flopshot from a bare lie, trying to  hit a low hook around a tree or a high fade.  If I pull it off,great, if I don't I get the opportunity to be exceptional around the green.

[DMoriarty]

The inability to get the ball airborne, should be a disqualifying factor.

The inability to get the ball airborne?  Every attempt?  If so, I guess I would be disqualified from the game.

Why shouldnt an architect consider that some players wont get it in the air every time?    

[DMoriarty]

So, David, are they examples of bad architecture, overdone architecture or does the architect always have to keep the "hack" uppermost in his mind?

That depends, are they strategic for the hack, or are they just window dressing for the good golfer to view as he walks by?  

The architect doesnt always have to keep the "hack" uppermost in his mind, but he consider including strategic options that can work for the hack as well as the skilled player.  

[David Kelly]

David,
Take a look at this course map of WWPB.  Without ruining or at least drastically altering the aesthetics of the course there is no way to provide routes to all of the fairways for people who can't consistently get the ball airborne.
http://www.worldwoods.com/pinebarrens/pinebarrens.htm

I think that architects should ideally provide alternative routes for "hacks" but many sites just do not lend themselves to this.

[Michael Moore]

DMoriarty (usurper) -

As I mentioned with characteristic wit earlier this afternoon on what I thought was a more eye-catchingly titled thread:

I suspect that deep in their hearts most architects would rather have their canvas painted with a 67 than a 121. I also suspect that the astounding array of spectacularly bad shots that will no doubt besiege his couse weighs heavily on the mind of the architect, but that for reasons that are mostly aesthetic, the architect must ignore this and carry on.

I have become very interested in Mr. Fazio and his theories about "framing" a golf hole. Part of him must be rooting for the golfer to hit the ball up and away into this frame, to have the ball suspended against it for a short while. A topped shot doesn't fit into the frame.

I (8.8) play a wood from the fairway about once every other round. The hacker does it twice per hole. Is this because he is trying to hit the ball 240 yards onto the green? No, it is because he is, in an affront to strategy, trying to advance the ball as far as possible by the most difficult means possible with each swipe. I will go Mr. Mucci one further and say that generally speaking, the worse the golfer, the worse the strategy.

Does the architect owe the hacker an escape hatch? Perhaps. Should the hacker attempt the thirty yard carry off the tee with a nine iron instead of a driver before he curses the architect? Absolutely.

[George Pazin]

Haven't thought much about the main question, but I would like to point out that I played WWPB about 4 months into my golfing career & got around fine - not a pretty number, but much more fun than several other CCFAD's I've played. The waste areas are much more playable than the lush rough & copious water found on many mid to high priced daily fees.

It remains one of my favorite public courses in spite of my feelings toward its architect & his redesign policies.

[Patrick_Mucci]

DMoriarty,

If you catered to the player who can't get the ball airborne, how could you challenge or offer strategy to players aerially ?

[Tim_Weiman]

Dave Moriarty:

I agree with Pat Mucci's comments on the importance of course management for lesser skilled players. Robert Trent Jones, Jr. wrote an entire book on that subject:

Golf By Design: How To Lower Your Score by Reading the Features of a Course

Little, Brown and Company (Canada) Limited, 1993

Forward by Tom Watson

Chapter Titles:

The Playing Field
The Teeing Ground
Fairways and Rough Ways
Bunkers
Other Hazards
Reaching the Green
Greens
Illusions and Wind
Architectural Excellence

[Jeff_Brauer]

Regarding the hackers tee shot, I recall a story about a guy who wiffed his first tee shot at Firestone, and turned around to say, "They were right, this is a tough course."  

Here is the David Letterman list of "The Hack's Top Ten Strategic Swing Thoughts",

1.Where is the beverage cart?
2. Would hitting it right or left get me closer to the beverage cart if it comes by?
3. What is the best angle to view the beverage cart girl from?
4. Where is the nearest golf shop that I can buy me a new driver - that's my problem!
5.  Does that golf shop carry putters, 'cause that's a problem, too!
6. I don't know what a gap wedge is, but I think I need one.
7. I know what a wedgie is, and I have one.
8. I'll try to hold this fart in until after I swing.
9. Too late!
10. I think that swing fart gave me more distance!

Don't ask me how I know this!

[TEPaul]

Once again, it would probably be an instructive thing to consult a few of Max Behr's essays touching very directly on this subject.

On some other thread within the last 24 hours Rich Goodale, with his constantly muddled thinking and contrary nature referred to something he thought Max Behr had said as elitist towards the good player and against the poor player.

Nothing of the kind! Practically the opposite in fact. Behr actually said it was not really in the proper realm of the architect to highlight and thereby point out the poor player's (presumably DMoriarty's "hack") FAULTS. Behr said that was the responsibility of the golf professional.

Behr recommended that the realm of the architect was definitely NOT to use the hazard feature (the architect's primary strategic expression) to constantly attempt to penalize the poor player. This is one of the very fundamental reasons Behr believed in width and did not believe in the use of rough in architecture. And it's one of the reasons he believed in his so-called "line of charm" philosophy. Essentially the "line of charm" theory was to place a hazard feature at that very point where particularly a skilled player wanted to hit the ball and presumably could at will. This he called the "line of instinct".

Generally Behr's theory of the hazard feature and architecture was to use fairway width to put the hazard feature inside that fairway width and to not put the hazard feature on the flanks of the fairway as so much modern architecture does. He felt putting hazard features on the flanks of fairways simply penalized the hack and did not really challenge the skilled player and certainly didn't really make either of them think much about strategy.

But even if Behr's idea basically involved the mental game (thinking about the choices in strategy) more than just the physical aspect of particularly center-directed architecture for the skillful, he believed at the very least any level of golfer couldn't help but understand that putting a hazard feature in the middle of a wide fairway created more choices for him than just hitting the ball into the middle of a fairway with flanking features on either side. At least with putting a hazard feature in the middle of fairway width, for instance, both the skillful and the unskillful had up to four real choices (strategies) to attempt--laying up short, hitting the ball to the left of the hazard, to the right of it or over it.

So to Behr strategy in an architectural sense did matter for the hack, despite his lack of skill in performance, but it should be used only in a positive sense to make him think and inspire him not necessarily to concentrate on penalizing him. The same hazard feature in the middle of fairway width was also to challenge the skilled gofler to use his intelligence and to challenge him to 'shoot the bones for the whole works'.

Behr used the hazard feature and fairway width on either side of it to challenge any golfer in interesting ways that uniquely involved their own individual skill levels. The challenge, he thought, was 'to make a call upon a golfer's intelligence' whether he was skillful or a hack!

To see an example of how Behr actually proposed this refer to the drawings in the "Behr hits the Bottle" thread now on page 2.

[DMoriarty]

DavidKelly:  
I am not asking architects to go back and fix all their old courses, so I am not sure what the map of WWPB is supposed to prove.  I am sure someone as creative as Tom Fazio could have figured out a way to keep the look while still not repeatedly forcing the hack to hit over waste and water.  But George has a good point.  Maybe one way to still get the look right is to provide more playable waste areas.  

But the course does help make my point.  You take a look.  The vast majority of these waste areas and water hazards have no influence over the skilled player's strategy, but they will murder the hack.  It looks like the architect chose aesthetic over playability and strategy for the hack, probably to repeatedly give the skilled player the same cheap thrill of a  forced carry, no matter how short.  

Michael:
 I did see your thread and must compliment you on your clever title.  Perhaps this group cannot quite keep up with your witty repartee.  
  Seriously, I did see your thread and almost posted this there, but I wasnt sure we were heading the same direction and I didnt want to hijack your thread.  Plus, if you are going to usurp, you might as well take credit for the idea as well.  

Patrick:  Again, I am not talking about catering to the hack.  Just talking about including him.  How can one do this while still challenging the aerial game of the skilled player?  

Provide the hack an alternate route around the impediment.  It will still be the same carry for the skilled player, but the hack can finish with the ball he started, if he chose to avoid the risk.  Also, be a little more creative.  Quit relying exclusively on the WOW factor of the forced carry two out of every three holes.  Not every course needs 15 forced carries, all of which are easily made by the skilled player and often impossible for the hack.  
_____________________

Look, I dont want this to deteriorate into arguing whether or not forced carries are ever acceptable, so I will concede that with some sites and with the current regulatory atmosphere, some forced carries are inevitiable.  I dont think this is a bad thing, because making a forced carry that you didnt think you could make is one of the most thrilling shots in golf, especially for the hack.  But come on, enough is enough.

Modern architects use forced carries as the opiate of the golfing masses.  

[McCloskey]

I guess the term "hack" must be defined, and I can only guess that we all feel like a "hack" now and then.
I just can't understand how someone that scores in the high 80's and 90's and above can possibly give ANY strategy a second thought.  The only thing they are trying to do is hit the ball on the clubface.  I don't think they are trying to hit a high fade into a right to left sloping green to hold  the green, or turn a driver down with a low hook around a bunker because he know he can't carry the bunker, and take advantage of the fairway slope.  To think that this actually takes place in a "hackers" mind, is impossible to conceive from my viewpoint.
Strategy is only for players that have a pretty good idea on how to hit a golfball and manuever the ball around the course.  To think an architect must make some design allowance for someone that can't get the ball airborne, is off the chart ridiculous imho.  
Strategy is for players.  Contact is for "hackers".

[DMoriarty]

TEPaul:
It sounds like Behr knew what it took to give the less skilled golfer the chance to experience strategic thinking on the course. Perhaps some modern architects should read Behr.

McKloskey,  define 'hack' however you like.  But I know one when I see one.  

As for those shooting in the high 80s and 90s not being good enough to utilize stragegy, I disagree.

I have been playing with a friend who is just picking up the game.  He shoots anywhere from the 130's down to around 115, and he very often makes strategic decisions on the course, and they help him score better when he does.  In fact, I am often quite amazed at his level of sophistication when it comes to strategy.  Now he doesnt always think strategically, and he usually pays the price when he doesnt.  

[DMoriarty]

Perhaps I should clarify, where I was going with my initial post..  

I agree that most hacks dont think strategically.  But I dont blame this on their lack of skill.  I blame it on the architect for not giving them a canvas which encourages them and allows them and to think and play strategically.  

[ForkaB]

Dave

Along with Dan Kelly's similar thread, this one is part of a golden age of GCA posts.  Well done!

IMO, strategies are essential for any golfer.  They differ, however significantly in terms of degree and type, depending on the individual.  The "hack" has to worry about carrying hazards just as much as the giften player, but the hazards he or she sees are at different didstances and in different places.  The "hack" doesn't have to worry about shaping the ball on any shot, except to the extent that he or she needs to be able to develop a strategy which accommodates the normal shape of his or her shot, usually a fade.  The gifted player, with more shot options at his or her disposal, has more and richer choices to make.

To me, shots, holes and courses which have the ability to offer interesting strategic choices (and outcomes) for all levels of golfer are preferable to ones which are more one-dimensional.  Also, because outcomes vary, even for the finest golfers, courses with multiple and subtle trouble spots also are abundant in the "confounding" characteristic which is the subject of Dan Kelly's thread.

As Tom Paul notes, there is a very good exposition of the difference between a hole which has rich strategic options for all classes of players and one which does not in the exchange between Max Behr and John Morrison in Paul Turne's thread, referenced below.

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forums2/YaBB.cgi?board=GD1&action=display&num=1054347685

Behr is offerring an alternative design to Colt's 12th at Sunningdale and Morrison argues very convincingly (IMHO) that this alternative design would ruin the hole, largely because it would eliminate most of the strategic interest for all categories of player.  To give Behr credit, however, he had apparently never seen the hole, and was just basing his ideas on his interpretation of Colt's diagram, so his errors may have been unintentional and uninformed......

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