Curves of charm.....

[paul cowley]

I've been conceptualizing on paper recently and, of late, I've actually been practicing and experimenting in the field with what I've come to refer to as 'curves of charm'.

Center line measurements, turn points, dogleg strategies weren't making it....I mean picking a straight line to a point in the field was getting increasingly unrealistic for design and probably influencing too much strategically......this little point was becoming to important.

maybe it's because of the distance thing and trying to design for all levels at once.

maybe it's because of all the extra tees and their strategic arrangements.

maybe because the game itself isn't played in a straight line physically....or  my mind strategically.

I have, however, ruled out spirochetes in my brain or any influence from my girlfriend....


I first began to discover these 'curves ' while working on paper in a two dimensional format.....I initially was experimenting with a gentle playable arc from the back tee to the turn point on an existing hole layout and then continued a flowing arc to the green ...I started to analyse the inside and outside of the curves in relation to the fairway with the angle of green placement etc.
I found that an improperly drawn curve, in conjunction with another, worked against itself, demanding a different approach.
I ended up going thru all the holes, eventually discovering the three main types ...the 'S'...the 'J' and the 'C' and alot of their combinations.



These 'curves of charm' can become large, sweeping capes, sometimes reversing in the same hole....or they can tighten, suggesting alot of interesting things.

They can intertwine while forming multiple strategies.

The beauty of these curves is that its easy to see where they begin to work against one another ...and just as easy to fix.



...I still use distance during layout, because measuring along an intended strategic curve line is impractical....I have found, however, that after analyzing the curves and their intersection points with centerlines, that the design of  hazards becomes an exciting excersise...which previously at times involved more guesswork than confident placement....and also just a great way to check things or stimulate one's own thought.

It really starts to get interesting when you jump to 3D, with the outdoors and contours and real things in nature to relate to........you just have no idea...you really have to be in here.

[Tom_Doak]

Paul:  Is that a 3-D concept or is it 4-D?  

You're a bit over my head with your description.  I do recognize the "S", "C" and "J" holes ... Mr. Dye was particularly fond of the "S" hole although I never heard him describe it as such.

My only problem with conceptualizing a course as a series of curves is that smooth curves are just as unnatural as the straight line.  Those curvilinear fairways that LA's draw are the bane of design to me.  We try to have the effect of creating no lines at all out there, through clever mowing and by serrating the outside edges of disturbance.

One other idea I've tried, and should try more often:  set the centerline of the hole on the ideal line of play, but have that ideal line of play far to the left or right of the center of the fairway and the center of the clearing.  I've found it's easier to make the line of play compelling in this way ... it shouldn't really make any difference, but in practice when you put the pole in the middle it gives you too much room to both sides.  You want to make people play down the edges, not just give them more safety to one side of center.

[TEPaul]

Paul:

I believe I understand all you mean here. I won't forget when you mentioned this in Delaware---eg you said it as some off-shoot of Behr's "Line of Charm" which in my mind was always misnamed as what Behr came up with essentially created not A line of charm but line(S) of charm.

Would it be safe to say that you began to think about this when you were working on setting tee placementS on #15 in Delaware? If so I can certainly see why you did it that way on that hole and how that may've got you thinking about what you call "Curves of Charm".

If I'm understanding what you're saying it may not be totally novel in architecture but put all together it may be most exciting not the least reason being the multiple angles that can be created from tees placed to create vastly different angles and curves on holes, a technique that can create so much more variety to golf holes. This is something Ross was very proud of on some holes he did such as the par 3 9th at Gulf Stream G.C.

[BCrosby]

Tom D says:

"One other idea I've tried, and should try more often:  set the centerline of the hole on the ideal line of play, but have that ideal line of play far to the left or right of the center of the fairway and the center of the clearing.  I've found it's easier to make the line of play compelling in this way ... it shouldn't really make any difference, but in practice when you put the pole in the middle it gives you too much room to both sides.  You want to make people play down the edges, not just give them more safety to one side of center."

If I understand you correctly, MacK said something similar in '33. MacK said of the 17th at ANGC that he designed it to be a very difficult par if you didn't approach the green from the far right side of a very wide fairway. The center of the clearing for the hole is well left of the line of play. It was intended to play as a slight dogleg left, but the width of the fairway makes it look like a stright hole from the tee.

The 17th green has since lost some it's righward tilt and its surrounds have been redone a couple of times (even worse, everyone now hits wedge approaches), so hitting it down the right side of the fairway has lost much of its strategic value. But I have always thought Mack's description of the stategy at the 17th to be unique.

What I find most appealing about your and MacK's idea is that the preferred line is not at all obvious initially. The original 17th, for example, had no bunkers, trees or anything on the far right side. Nothing there to direct your focus. Yet that is where a well conceived drive ought to be played.

I'm not sure I understand why you and others don't design lots of similar holes. They are terrific at a number of levels. Or are they simply too subtle for most clients/golfers? Or is it that they don't have enough eye candy? (In fact, the essence of such holes is that they don't have any eye candy. That's what makes the strategy so effective.)

Bob  
 
 

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Paul,
I read your post with extreme interest and the first thing I thought of was Max Behr, and then running further down, that TE Paul had beat me to it!

Recently I played a course where there was little definition of fairway--only nearby tree lines and the placement of hazards had little to do with any semblence of stategies. I thought for a moment of Oakmont and it's penal nature, and being that I've never had the opportunity of seeing it in person, if this was a sort of a convoluted, confusing way of designing golf holes. Not that Oakmont is confusing or convoluted. Given that many modern architects would claim that if they ever design something so brazen, bold and quirky, they would be lynched by an angry town mob.

I'm sure Oakmont has no problem working--strategy wise--and I'm sure it was just this architects way of taking a nothing site and trying to give it some interest. It certainly is a popular place, but the placement of bunkers, their shapes; screwy trees; and these strange mounds blocking the entrance as well as visibility to every green left me feeling, less then enthused.

Trying to stick to your point, and Tom Paul's and Bob's ideas, I'm very familiar with a school of thinking that allows one to discern features and that don't neccessarily need a fairway cut or line to do it.

A dog leg doesn't neccessarily have to be a dog leg, but it can play like one-thus opening up that line of charm--that discernable feature(s) that dictates the line(s) of play and, hurrumph, hurrumph....strategies to get the ball to the green and into the hole. It doesn't have to be a bunker everytime either.

I think of Rustic Canyon #12, Riviera #10, Pacific Dunes #3 as very good examples. A lot of great MacKenzie courses have lost this because of the addition of a rough grass and the elimination of shared fairways. I also think this is--for the most part--and I'm sure to get Tom Doak in upheavel over this--the California School of thinking, or at least where it further evolved from inspirations such as the Old Course at St. Andrews.

[TEPaul]

"What I find most appealing about your and MacK's idea is that the preferred line is not at all obvious initially. The original 17th, for example, had no bunkers, trees or anything on the far right side. Nothing there to direct your focus. Yet that is where a well conceived drive ought to be played."

Bobsy:

What I find most appealing about Paul's idea, if I understand it correctly, is he isn't just changing the ideal spot to get to so much (although he might be) but he's apparently changing the angle WHERE one gets to it FROM. But perhaps I'm just simplifying what he said a couple of months ago and and perhaps I'm thinking too much about the example hole I think he showed me when he first mentioned "lines of curve" had occured to him off of Behr's "Line(S) of Charm" idea. The fact is the tees were set on a very distinct progressive arc on that particular hole. The initial reason I could see was that they pretty much had to be because if they weren't, shorter hitters could not reasonably have gotten to the fairway at all, or the section of it he might've wanted them to.

But I guess when one starts setting different angles at the starting point all kinds of interesting ideas and multiple curves, strategically and otherwise, can be developed on down the hole.

Perhaps in a direction sense this is something like what cross features like those that PVGC has so many of do to varying levels of players in a distance sense. Those cross features at PVGC create all kinds of different distance options for really good players off the tee but they only come into play vis-a-vis different distance options for shorter players on their second shots.

This Paul Cowley is definitely an "outside the box" thinker (he's also a building architect), in my opinion, and I find some of the things he comes up with fascinating to consider even if I may not understand it all just yet. I've even wondered if Paul even knows or cares what things look like from "inside the box".

And if you think about it, that's pretty exciting, at least potentially or in theory and that's always where interesting ideas and architectural concepts start.

[TEPaul]

TommyN:

Are your referring to Oakmont in Pittsburgh? If so, that course is pretty unique, at least it was for the age of it. Oakmont is a basically center-directed. The options and strategies on that course are not so much direction options but distance options and strategies, if you know what I mean. On many of its holes you take a club that gets you as far down there as you can stand with the flanking penality. And of course that becomes somewhat complicated by the fact that the course is pretty long and always has been. Not all the holes of Oakmont are that way but a ton of them are. Oakmont a basically 'nothing site'? Hardly!

[BCrosby]

Paul/Tom/Tommie -

What I find interesting about the "Cowley Curve" theory is how it is supposed to generate optimal bunker locations. Paul seems to say that pre - Cowley Curves, bunker location "sometimes involved more guesswork than confident placement...."

I'm not sure Paul means that literally. I have trouble seeing what he is getting at. But I would like to hear him expand the thought.

Bob
 

[TEPaul]

"I'm not sure Paul means that literally. I have trouble seeing what he is getting at. But I would like to hear him expand the thought."

Bobsy:

Do you see any irony in all this in the fact that Paul took his idea from Max Behr's "Line of Charm"? Perhaps it's just the way of the world that "outside the box" thinking people like Max and Paul communicate things the way they do. It's taken people like GeoffShac and me years to try to understand what Max wrote. Let's hope Paul can be a bit clearer in writing than Max was in writing. Only if we were actually able to talk to Max in person, but he was gone when I was in diapers and before GeoffShac was a thought. If he were alive though, I'd find some nice place and stock it well and lock him in it until he explained every single thing he wrote to my satisfaction! Actually, it's not what he wrote that interests me so much. It's trying to imagine what he really thought and didn't write, as well as where he really wanted to go with his thoughts and his philosophy that interests me so much.  

Sometimes, I look at some of what those guys in that crowd of architectural philosophers did do, and I wonder how in the world did they think a time would come when golf architecture could do better than that? It seems they felt when the future brought various construction advances and such that all this could be taken to a new and higher level. What could they have been imagining??

I just wish a guy like Behr, who certainly could've done it would've written more of that instead of just warning golf and architecture and the regulatory bodies that they were taking some wrong turns!

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Tom,
Yes, I was asking about Oakmont, PA, not Oakmont, CA. But the point of the question was the use, or lack of definition. (I hate that word too, but its apropos)

Does Oakmont contain many holes that lack definition from the fairways to the point that it's so penal, that's its a guessing game where to hit it? You see, I'm struggling to find out where the architect of the particular course I was looking at--got his ideas--which fly into the face of what we are talking about.

It's funny though, because if Oakmont is supposed to confuse you from the tee, then certainly he succeeded in emulating that here. I was scratching my head all day trying to figure stuff out. Mostly on shots into the green. (approaches) I even had a few choice words for the course on my approach into 18.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Where could one buy a Cowley Curve templete for their drafting tables? I'm assuming that it would of course be made from typical draftsman plastic with little bunker stencil cutouts. Sort of like a French Curve, only for guys dreaming of designing courses like us!

[TEPaul]

TommyN:

I'm not too sure what you're trying to say or ask about Oakmont. Are you asking if it's confusing where to hit the ball off the tees? No, not really. I'd say one could do just fine at Oakmont if one managed to hit the ball right down the middle of most every fairway!  

In my opinion, most of the holes at Oakmont are what I would call center-directed. In other words down the middle is fine. Not all are that way obviously depending where the pin is and holes like #2, maybe #5 and particularly #17 has distinct direction choices and strategies or optional ways to go.

Part of the uniqueness of Oakmont, in my opinion, is that it's always been so center-directed, and it's so old. You feel like you need to hit the ball pretty far on that course but you also have to sort of negotiate Scylla and Charybdis on either side. That's precisely why I think the theme of Oakmont is distance options (off the tee) and not necessarily direction options which most on here seem to think is the best type of options and strategies and architecture.

William Fownes had his own very unique ideas about architecture. Essentially he felt very good players should have some perhaps obvious demands but very hard ones put on them but if they managed to do them they should definitely be rewarded.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Tom,
Simply put, is Oakmont off the tee--not counting any sort of distantce or carry--visually imparing? Do you know where to hit it, or is it obvious where to hit it, only more threatening off of the tee?

[TEPaul]

Tommy:

Is it obvious off the tees where to hit the ball? Not particularly, even if many of the first halves of the holes are "center-directed", in my opinion.

I think playing Oakmont off the tees takes a ton of experience and knowledge. There're all kinds of nuances to those tee shots, particularly if that course is firm and fast as it generally is, weather permitting.

[paul cowley]

Tommy..I like the french curve comparison, except that what I'm  really talking about is strategic 'curves' that flow not along fairway lines but along the inside and out of strategic choices.....its double edged .....and curves work really well on a straight hole [see Ross].
I don't design holes that require a fairway cut for strategy.
Bob...good question that I will try to explain but more on the morrow  

[TEPaul]

What the hell is the "French Curve"?

Whatever it is, it's bound to be arrogant, selfish and beset by way too much national pride over some little sawed off twerp who lived 200 years ago or something.

And if redanman likes it I'm bound not to.

But if the "French Curve" is some of the figures I saw on some of those au naturale beauties without tops in St Tropez then I'm all for the French Curve and I think it should be firmly transplanted into golf course architecture.

Golf architecture should play firm and fast but even with that I'd have no problem with it playing more sensual either.

[ForkaB]

very interesting, paul

i particularly am intrigued by the 3-D aspect, as it brings the slopes of the land into play, and helps explain the complexities of many of the great courses.  for example, Olympic, with its reverse cambered fairways effectively creates S-shapes on tee shots alone!  just think of how a ball travels if you have to draw it into a sharp left to right slope, particularly if the course is maintained fast and firm. also, shots to greens with some sort of boomerang feature can be seen as having reverse J-shapes.  some of the chips and runs to courses such as TOC with highly complex green structures can be seen as positively ophidian:

"Bounce to the left! Bounce to the right!  Stand up!  Sit down!  Bite!  Bite!  Bite!!!!"

cheers

rhic

[TEPaul]

"think of how a ball travels if you have to draw it into a sharp left to right slope"

Rich:

Just think how it travels if you fade it on that sharp left to right slope! I sure never did see the great Fireball Roberts try to turn right on one of the sharply banked turns at the Daytona Beach Speedway

[Marty Bonnar]

What the hell is the "French Curve"?

TEP,
before the halcyon days - or dare I say, Golden Age? - of AutoCAD, we lucky designers used to get to draw in pen and ink (would you believe it!?)
To assist us create deeliteful deelicious curves, we used La Curves de France...flat plastic templates of joy.



Combined in myriad ways, you could draw the sweeping radii of planetary orbits, the tight turns of superelevated roadways or best of all, the elegant sinuous forms of feminine beauty. Happy days indeed!

My set still resides in the big box of drafting aids under my computer desk...

FBD.

[Mike_Cirba]

If the topic is "Curves of Charm", and there's not a single picture on this thead of Angelina Jolie, Jessica Alba, or Jennifer Garner, then this must be GolfClubAtlas, and we all must indeed truly be golf course nerds.  

[THuckaby2]

Thank you, Mike.  When I saw this topic I figured it had to be about the Solheim Cup and the Team Hottie partnership of Kerr and Gulbis, or something like that.  Good to hear I'm not alone in this line of thinking.