Great penal courses

[George Pazin]

My understanding of "penal" as it relates to theories of gca is that it means hazards are placed in areas where mishits end up, to further punish them. This means they usually are flanking hazards, in the rough on the sides of fairways or greens. There really isn't a decision, as one rarely chooses to play into the rough.

"Strategic" hazards (sorry about the colloquialism, Rich), by way of contrast, are placed in such a manner as to force a choose between one route or another.

Thus, you could have a course that is exceptionally difficult, yet not at all "penal", at least by this definition.

The "heroic" school is kind of a combination of the two.

I think Tillinghast, in his writings, used an example of placement of a hazard on a dogleg hole to illustrate the difference between  "strategic" and "penal" - guarding the inside of the dogleg is "strategic", sitting on the outside is "penal".

The difficulty of any course has nothing to do with "penal" in this definition.

Put more simply, one could never error by playing down the middle of a "penal" hole, while doing so on a "strategic" hole might yield less than optimal results.

By these definitions, Oakmont was largely designed in the penal school, but the final result strikes me as more strategic than anything else.

(Sorry about all those gratuitous quotation marks, Dan Kelly.)

[wsmorrison]

"Without a full shot option a hole or a course isn't strategic. Rich's example of #18 at Merion is a case in point. If you can't carry the quarry and reach the fairway it isn't an "option" to hit it to a forward tee and then go from there. It is your only choice , so it is penal."

If you play from the wrong set of tees, any golf course can be unplayable due to one or more holes being impossible to complete.   I wouldn't judge a course as penal in this case.  

My 76 year old mother-in-law can hit out of the quarry on 18 at Merion when she plays the right tees.  I've played from the tips at 18 into a good headwind on a cold day and didn't get over the quarry on the first shot.  So what?  

Now if you're asking what does a short hitter do in a scratch tournament there if he can't get out of the quarry from the back tee?  I think he doesn't play in the tournament.  Is that penal? I guess the short hitting scratch player is penalized but that doesn't mean the design is penal.  If you know what I mean  

[wsmorrison]

Then by extension, Sean you are saying that regardless of the distance to a landing area, if there's no way around then it is penal.   I don't see why that is true.   Do you think that any course that has a complete cross hazard is penal no matter the width of the hazard.  Do you include rough in interrupted fairways, how about creeks?  I think that is too simplistic.  If that is the case most courses are penal.  What about the pond in front of 4 at Baltusrol Lower,  the inlet in front of 3 at Kittansett, 10 and 11 at The Creek, the pond fronting Short at NGLA, and other examples?  I guess you can play in the rough or through the trees on some of these but they are penal courses as a result?  Hardly.

[Lou_Duran]

Sean,

I am bewildered that you are bewildered.  By inference as well as definition, PENAL courses characteristically impose harsher PENALties on imperfect shots.

As to the term "Heroic", I wouldn't put a great deal of stock on a clear, distinct definition.  In my mind, it refers to a high risk/reward option which can be inherent in strategic as well as penal designs.

All courses have strategic and penal elements in their designs.  The predominance of one over the other is what characterizes the course overall.

We have previously tried to define strategy on this site with only minimal success and concensus.  It shouldn't be surprising that we are also stuck on penal.  Perhaps it is not only a matter of semantics, but one involving our individual playing abilities and preferences.

For example, forced carries and pinched targets are often cited as penal.  Wide fairways with internal hazards but also with open corridors to the target are correlated with strategic design.  These, however, are primarily perceptions from the perspective of the average player.

From the standpoint of the top players, the risk/reward calculation is much simpler and clearer.  I once heard an All-American Division I golfer state that his approach to playing a hole was to determine the best way to make birdie without jeopardizing par.  He never hit a shot without first contemplating where he wanted to hit the next one from.

A drive over a ravine requiring a 200 yard carry or a green totally surrounded by bunkers to be approached by a short iron was not "penal" at all to this guy.  A 70 yard fairway also provided him with few strategic options.

Instead, he probably thought in terms of "tough" and "easy" holes and courses based on his ability to score on them.  I suspect that we all do a little bit of this.    

[Jonathan Cummingham]

I do agree with the consensus on the definition, but here's a question to be answered.  On a par three, I'm thinking of a hole at Pasatiempo, the green elevation is severe and dictates placement of the ball regardless of pin position.  I think it was the eighth hole.  From tee to green, is a nicely groomed mix of rough and apron. There are several bunkers around the green, yet from tee to green there are not great obstacles or challenges. In contrast, the tightly mown green is an example of McKenzie's legendary resistance to scoring. So if the green had only one safe location to land the ball, would it be labeled penal? And if there were two or more susceptible landing zones would it then be considered strategic design?

[wsmorrison]

Sean,

I am certainly not in the camp of those that think because an architect requires or tests a certain shot that it is inferior.  Often quite the contrary when that architect is William Flynn.  He did this a lot of shot testing on some great courses.  He also designed courses that were designed with a high class of play in mind but usually there was a way for high handicappers to play.  Flynn wasn't a fan of water as a central hazard as he believed strongly in the recovery shot.  He had holes with such features but not very often.

I think that sort of golf architecture is really fascinating but you're right in that it isn't for everybody.  I think we're on the same page in that what is penal to a certain class of golfer may not be for others.

[Pat_Mucci]

Wayne Morrisson,

Explain to Sean and Lou that top shot bunkers aren't penal to single digit handicaps, despite the fact that they traverse the entire fairway.

You're welcome  

[Lou_Duran]

Pat,

If they extended those topped shot bunkers further left into the rough, they'd be very penal for me.  It seems that 2 or 3 times per round I manage to smother one dead left that flies 100 yards or so then dives further left.  Very ugly really, and in compensation, often leads to an equal number of wounded birds skied short right.

[Doug Siebert]

Lou Duran is on the right track here.  Penal holes & courses extract higher penalties for failures to negotiate features on or near the line of play.  Water, lost balls, OB, or locations where it'll pretty much cost you a shot to recover back in play (extra deep rough, trees you can just punch out from under, pot bunkers that require sideways escape or offer very little advancement down the fairway, etc.)  Some people who play TOC might classify #1 as penal due to the OB right and the burn, but slicing it onto the Himalayas or dumping it in Swilken Burn is pretty stupid for a halfway decent player given how much room there is to miss to the left off the tee and long on the second!

Here's the simple minded way I'd boil it down.

easy hole = little or no penalty for most missed shots
hard hole = half shot penalty for most missed shots
penal hole = one shot penalty for most missed shots

A penal course is one where the majority of holes are penal.

Obviously as many have pointed out, what is easy, hard or penal depends on one's ability.  My idea of easy or penal isn't the same as a 25 handicap 60 year old woman, or Tiger Woods.  But I think unless we are specifically discussing pro golfers or amateurs with less ability, we'd probably assume someone who hits the majority of his shots reasonably square, reasonably on target, and plays tees roughly commensurate with how far he hits the ball.

[Jeff Goldman]

I'm sure folks have said this 1000 times already, but I think the Strategic school of design emphasizes options to get a good score, while the Penal school of design has only one option for a good score, though there may be various lay-ups if you are willing to accept bogey or worse (ergo, RTJ's hard par, easy bogey).  Just because a hole is difficult or a bad shot is penalized doesn't mean it is one school or the other.  In fact, hazards must be difficult in a strategic design, otherwise, there's no reason to consider the less risky option.  

The most basic example of strategic (a bit simplistic, clearly) is a central fairway bunker - you can go right, left, over or in front, leaving different types of approach shots, but it's your choice.  Now, instead of the central bunker, think a big mess of trees or water along the line of the formerly central bunker on the left (or right), and another big line of trees or water on the fairway edge of the other side.  Now you have only one way to play the hole to try to get a decent score - down the center.  You can hit less club to try to make sure you keep it in the center, but center is all there is.

Obviously, strategic designs are more interesting than the simple example (green tilting one way and the center bunker a little to the right or left, a la 14 at St. Andrews, making the tee shot option giving with the best approach more difficult), but I think options are at the heart of the strategic school, and specific shot requirements of the Penal school.  

[ForkaB]

I'm sure folks have said this 1000 times already, but I think the Strategic school of design emphasizes options to get a good score, while the Penal school of design has only one option for a good score, though there may be various lay-ups if you are willing to accept bogey or worse (ergo, RTJ's hard par, easy bogey).  Just because a hole is difficult or a bad shot is penalized doesn't mean it is one school or the other.  In fact, hazards must be difficult in a strategic design, otherwise, there's no reason to consider the less risky option.  

The most basic example of strategic (a bit simplistic, clearly) is a central fairway bunker - you can go right, left, over or in front, leaving different types of approach shots, but it's your choice.  Now, instead of the central bunker, think a big mess of trees or water along the line of the formerly central bunker on the left (or right), and another big line of trees or water on the fairway edge of the other side.  Now you have only one way to play the hole to try to get a decent score - down the center.  You can hit less club to try to make sure you keep it in the center, but center is all there is.

Obviously, strategic designs are more interesting than the simple example (green tilting one way and the center bunker a little to the right or left, a la 14 at St. Andrews, making the tee shot option giving with the best approach more difficult), but I think options are at the heart of the strategic school, and specific shot requirements of the Penal school.  

I have trouble with the concept that,in an absolute sense, there can be holes that have "options to get a good score."  In my experience, and in the testimony of JESII and others on this thread, for the scratch golfer (and many others somewhat less competent) there is ALWAYS a "best" way to play any hole, for them.

All options in golf (even those on the poster child 14th at the Old Course) require balancing risk and reward, and carry fractional penalties and benefits, depending on execution.  Yes, you can "get a good score" on the 14th covering many different routes, but you can do the same on any golf hole that I know.  And then again, what is a "good score?"  For some, on the 14th it would be a 6, for others a 5, for others only a 4 would do.

I would very strongly disagree with Tom Doak and others who say that penalites are not progressive.  They are, if you think in terms of fractions instead of integers.  What happens in the real world is that players instinctively or thoughtfully calculate the various opitons available to them and make a choice based on their assessment of their own capabilities on the day, their ambitions for the shot and/or the round, and their preference for risk.

In this case, Shivas, is and has always been right.

[TEPaul]

If anyone wants to describe a course like Bethpage Black in the 2002 US Open or Carnoustie in the 1999 Open, I wouldn't describe or definie them as "penal architecture", I'd just describe and define them as extremely hard.

As usual most on here tend to completely over-think definitions of types and styles of golf architecture to such a degree they eventually get into cyclical discussions and a constant need to define the terms they use to a point that approaches meaninglessness.

A good working definition for penal architecture compared to strategic architecture,in my opinion, is Cornish and Whitten's sublimely accurate definition and description;

"PENAL design generally involves compulsory carries over hazards with no alternate routes."

"STRATEGIC design provides althernate routes so that the player is not required to carry the hazard. It also provides a pemium for those who dare the hazard and succeed."

[TEPaul]

Examples:

Is the tee shot on Merion's #18 or PVGC's #18 penal or strategic design? Both are completely  "penal" in design as they both require a compulsory carry over a hazard with no alternative route. I don't see that there's a need to parse the description or definition beyond that reality.  

[Phil_the_Author]

Tom,

The only way that Carnoustie & Bethpage Black can challenge each other for the title as being most difficult is because both are examples of GREAT penal architecture.

[Doug Siebert]

Doug

Sounds like you are stating the opposite of others who say penal holes are characterized by hazards well off the line of play.  

Ciao

Sean

I guess I missed who is arguing that penal requires that they be well off the line of play.  That point of view doesn't make any sense to me.  If there's an fenceline way off to the left, I can't really bitch if I duck hook it and go over that fence.  My fault, I suck, I hit a completely awful shot and totally deserved my fate.  Penal is more like that housing development courses where you've got OB or water/swamp on both sides of most fairways, so you don't have anywhere to bailout.  You may never have to carry a single hazard, but personally I get pretty clausterphobic if I've got playing corridors 60 yards wide on every hole because there's no way I'm going to last 18 holes without violating those a couple times even on my best day.  I'll take 240 yard forced carries over 60 yard wide OB corridors every time!

I think the big problem I have with some people's description of penal is that they are trying to divide up penal, strategic, heroic and difficult as if a single hole can't be all of those things at once.  TOC #17 is the poster child for a hole that's got all four in my book.

[ForkaB]

Rich

What does "progressive penalties" mean?

Ciao

Sean

Sean

I'm meaning that the hole gets fractionally/progressively harder the further you get away from Position A.  This would relate to any shot.

[ForkaB]

Sean

I'm sure I said above that I do not believe there is such a thing as a "penal" (or "strategic" or "heroic" or "abstract impressionist" etc. etc.) course.

If I  didn't, I so say now.

[ForkaB]

Sean

I am thinking primarily of the variables of length and direction.  Obviously, where specific hazards intervene, the fractions become disproportionately larger.

[Jeff Goldman]

Jeff

I think I understand the strategic elements, it is the idea of penal design that is hard to follow.  There have been at least three very different ideas tossed around describing penal design.  I think your description may be the best, very similar to George's description.  

1. Penal means higher penalties for marginal shots (presumably a higher penalty than a missed shot on a strategic course)

2. Penal means trouble well off the line of play

3. Penal means only one way to play the hole


I can't buy into #1 at all.  TOC is meant to be very strategic yet it has very penal bunkering for marginal shots.  I reckon there are plenty of strategic courses that have serious penalties for errors in judgement or execution.

SEAN, I THINK THIS IS EXACTLY CORRECT BECAUSE STRATEGIC DESIGN REQUIRES DIFFICULT, TO SAY PENAL, HAZARDS, OR THE "RISK" ELEMENT NECESSARY TO STRATEGIC ARCHITECTURE IS ABSENT.

#2 strikes me as odd because I would think most people would not complain about their predicament if they are 40 yards (or whatever the criteria for being well off line is) off line.  If this is penal, who cares?

HERE, YOU DEFINE PENAL ARCHITECTURE EXACTLY BY USING THE TERM "LINE OF PLAY," BY PRESUMING THAT THERE IS ONLY 1.  I BELIEVE THAT WHERE THERE IS ONLY 1 LINE OF PLAY, THE ARCHITECTURE IS PENAL BY DEFINITION (REGARDLESS OF HOW "PENAL" THE PENALTY IS FOR NOT EXECUTING THE REQUIRED SHOT.  AGAIN, STRATEGIC ARCHITECTURE ALLOWS THE PLAYER TO CHOOSE HIS LINE OF PLAY, OFTEN GIVING THE OPTION OF A SAFER LINE THAT MAKES THE NEXT SHOT MORE DIFFICULT.  17 AT ST. ANDREWS IS THIS WAY, IS IT NOT?  YOU CAN FLIRT WITH THE OB TO GET A BETTER ANGLE TO THE GREEN, OR PLAY SAFELY LEFT AND BE SHOOTING AT THE ROAD HOLE BUNKER WITH YOUR NEXT SHOT.

#3 seems reasonable.  One correct way to play the hole.  Either between the trouble or over the trouble.  I like this because it eliminates the idea of penal relativity based on ability.  I know I trumped this notion, but I think I was wrong.  This definition stands no matter a player's ability.

YES.  I DISAGREE WITH RICH'S COMMENT THAT SCRATCH PLAYERS DO NOT HAVE OPTIONS TO A GOOD SCORE ON CONCEDEDLY STRATEGIC DESIGNS.  CERTAINLY FOR EACH SCRATCH GOLFER THERE MAY BE ONE BEST WAY FOR HIM TO PLAY THE HOLE, BUT EACH SCRATCH GOLFER CAN TRY TO USE HIS PARTICULAR ABILITIES TO MAKE THE GOOD SCORE.

IN OUR DISCUSSION "PENAL" REFERS TO A STYLE OF ARCHITECTURE, NOT A MEASURE OF DIFFICULTY OR HOW HARD A COURSE IS.  BECAUSE THE TERM CAN REFER TO BOTH, I THINK WE GET BOLLIXED UP A BIT.  

So is it reasonable to say that there is a scale of design?  3 or more options are strategic and 1 option is penal.  Where does heroic design fit in on the scale?  Or is heroic design a modern term for penal?  Also, what is 2 on the scale?

MY UNDERSTANDING OF HEROIC DESIGN IS THAT IT IS BASICALLY STRATEGIC BECAUSE THERE ARE USUALLY ALTERNATIVES TO TRYING TO MAKE THE SHOT, BUT WITH THE MOST SERIOUS PENALTY FOR A BAD SHOT - NO RECOVERY AT ALL.  ON A FEW RTJ PAR 5S, THERE IS AN OPTION TO GO FOR THE GREEN IN TWO WITH AN ALL WATER CARRY, OR TO LAY UP AND TRY TO MAKE BIRDIE WITH A SHORT IRON.  I THINK 11 (?) AT SAWGRASS IS LIKE THIS AS WELL.

Ciao

Sean
 

With any luck, Brad Klein, Geoff S., Tom Doak, or someone else more knowledgeable than I will chime in.

Jeff