Penalizing the marginal shot

[Pat_Mucci]

James Bennett,

I think golf courses like Seminole forge that balance between challenging the better player while affording the weaker player the opportunity to score, commensurate with their abilities.

However, that assumes that both golfers are thinkers and/or good course managers.

Common sense isn't so common.  And that works in the architects favor.

[mike_malone]

 The relative lack of slope in the landing areas for several of the holes on the front nine of Winged Foot West failed to penalize the marginal shot IMO. When this  feature is compared with landing areas with more slope that kick away marginal shots into rough , hazards or trees it loses its luster architecturally.

   This is made up for at the green by penalizing practically any shot.

    I feel the balance of penalizing marginal shots from tee to green makes for interesting golf.  

[JESII]

Mike,

Could it be that the penalty for a marginal drive at WFW results in a second that must be either very conservative or extremely well played to avoid a more severe penalty?

Does this marginal shot penalty carry from one stroke to another?



I think the comments by Tom Doak and Tom Paul about proportionality might answer this but I want to explore something a bit.
From 180 yards in the fairway I would expect to hit the green most of the time. A marginal shot would be towards the edge of the green. A higher handicap player might think that to be a good shot. For me there a couple of possible options for penalizing my "marginal shot", which one of them properly punishes the higher handicappers good shot? (1)The ball could stay on the edge of the green with a difficult two-putt. (2) The ball could filter just off the green and be left with a relatively easy up and down. (3) The ball could run down off the green into a difficult place for me to get down in two. (4) Or the ball could run into a deep hazard of some sort that exacts a sever penalty, no chance of a scratch making par, and bogey is pretty good. Each of these circumstances probably become exponentialy more difficult for the higher handicap, but the first two offer virtually no penalty to the scratch.

What are real-hole examples of this proportionality idea?

If you do not penalize the higher handicappers at all don't you risk them losing interest if that philosophy holds for the lower handicapper?

[mike_malone]

 Jim,

   I did feel that my best option was to just try to avoid the trouble around the greens at WFW .I'm not sure if other players get this message there, but it was loud and clear to me. When I play Huntingdon Valley I usually feel I can execute a recovery shot.


   I am not enough of an expert to explain my disagreement of the praise for the front nine at WFW but it seems to lie in the treachery of the greens relative to the shots that come before. There is a lack of balance.

  If the greens at Huntingdon Valley and Rolling Green were as severe as WFW I doubt there would be enough players in the Philly area willing to join the clubs.

[JESII]

I think we played WFW about the same time a few weeks ago. The greens were extremely fast when I did, how about you? Would you see it as more balanced if the greens were about 10 feet as opposed to the 12.5 or 13 they seemed to be when I was there?

Those questions notwithstanding, the weight of the challenge at the West course is on and around the greens (combined with the length of the holes). An important part of the argument in favor of WFW is that all of the great courses have some characteristic that helps to make them great, their strong point. Pebble has the ocean holes, Shinnecock has the wind etc... Winged Foot's West course has its difficulty. Its difficulty is derived from its greens. There are hundreds of courses that might be as difficult as the West course, but they all extract their added strokes through penalty shots. There is not a penalty shot to be had out there without really trying.

I don't think anyone can argue that the tee shots on the front nine are pretty nondescript, but that is when they are taken by themselves. When you combine them with the next shot you'll face they become much more important. They'll never be the strength of the course but they don't need to.

p.s. If the greens at HVCC are 13 you better believe they're about as difficult as those at WFW.

[mike_malone]

 I overheard the caddiemaster state that "the greens on the West are treacherous today " or some version of that.

   

[JESII]

They were the fastest I have played in years anywhere.

It is undeniable that greens at 10 are more manageable, that would therefore reduce the green end demand, therefore helping the overall balance you seek (justly so).

I do not necessarily think Winged Foot has anything HV or RG cannot have (except its history), it's just that they don't.

[mike_malone]

 Jim,
   
   I was constantly thinking that day--What is the role of maintenance in architectural evaluation? This course was so well maintained that I needed to imagine it as a regular course. In fact, I thought of one of my favorite "cheap" courses---Centerton in New Jersey. What would that course be like if it were maintained like WFW?

  BTW I putted very well on the front and scored well also . So, my views were not affected by my play.

[JESII]

To me, conditioning is very important. I don't make judgements about a course because of its conditioning in terms of better or worse than something else, but it definitely effects my desire to play there again.

To tie into the other thread (Architectural Snob?), I would prefer the hamburger served with great presentation and pride to the poorly done filet. But with out knowledge of the condition, I go for the filet every time.

[mike_malone]

 Jim,

   I find the conditioning at HVCC to be superb , BUT it seems to enhance the existing greatness of the course. I wonder if WFW's might be a little over-the-top . It was almost a distraction. Without those slick greens and perfectly manicured bunkers what was underneath that rose to the level of top ten in the country?

[JESII]

Interesting thought. Augusta syndrome???

[Michael Whitaker]

...proportionality is a formula for disaster.

If the bad player is punished severely, he'll quit the game.  If the good player is not challenged to play his best shots, he won't enjoy the game and he won't ever get any better.  Solving the paradox of proportionality is the heart of golf architecture.[/b]  

If someone tells you that a great course is one that punishes proportionally, that person is a narcissist in love with his own golf.[/blue]

TOM - These are two of the greatest quotes I have seen on this site!!! They drive me to ask the following:

What is the result of striving for proportionality? What type of course results?

Are there any examples that you feel comfortable citing?

If striving for proportionality is "a formula for disaster" what is the other side of that coin? What do you strive for... fairness?

I'll relay a conversation that caused me to ask Pat the original question about proportionality of severity. A friend of mine (who is a repected rater for one of the national magazines) doesn't care for Kiawah's Ocean Course... which happens to be one of my very favorites. When I have asked him why he doesn't like TOC he says it isn't "proportional" in its severity. He claims that the design is such that it doesn't matter if you miss a shot an inch or a quarter-mile, the result is the same... disaster. As a result, he scores TOC down for this "flaw." In his mind a great course is not an "all or nothing" course, but one that has degrees of severity as the player strays off line. I've never thought of my friend as a narcissist, however, he is a very good player. Have you found that this line of reasoning is particular to good players?

Obviously, you have given this concept of proportionality considerable thought. I'd like to know how you would respond to his assessment of TOC.

[Sean_A]

On of the best quotes I can think of that deals with this silly notion of proportionality in golf is by Max Behr.

The golf architect is not at all concerned with chastising bad play.  On the contrary, it is his business to arrange the field of play to stimulate interest, and hence, the province of hazards is to chastise the too ambitious.

Ciao

Sean

[Geoffrey Childs]

I just want to say that I've read this discussion jsut now and I find it to be one of the most interesting I've seen here in quite a while.

Jes- I really enjoyed your views on how architecture affects or can affect "marginal" shots from players of different ability.  It opened my eyes a bit on viewing a golf course from the perspective of the variety of players who use it.  Thanks.

[Pat_Mucci]

Geoff Childs,

Think of penalizing the marginal shot in terms of Yale.

Quite interesting isn't it ?

[paul cowley]

Personally I hate to see the design challenges of any hole watered down for the good player out of concern for the bad player.
But this is the arena where the best design solutions are won or lost.

[George Pazin]

Too late to the party to add anything interesting, but like Geoff, I wanted to say that this is a terrific thread. I think it illuminates much of the difference between very good and great, and goes a long way toward explaining why certain courses are held in such high regard.

[Pat_Mucci]

Tangentially,

Does the higher handicap regard three putting as an integral part of their game ?

If so, then avoiding the marginal areas of danger for the safer, more expansive side of the putting surface is in harmony with tempting the better player to accept the challenge, assuming he can identify the risk involved with a marginal shot.

[Tom_Doak]

Patrick:  That's a perfect description of The Old Course.  You can just keep hitting it to the fat side of the green, but do it enough times and you will three-putt a couple of them.

Michael:  I have heard several player/architects talk about rewarding a shot in proportion to its quality.  It only makes sense from their narrow perspective.  By the standards of my game, or of most people's, a pro almost never hits a mediocre shot, and so he believes he should seldom be punished.  If they hit a good iron shot, they always want a makeable 15 footer for birdie; but even more so, if their opponent hits a really loose shot, they want to see that shot punished with a bogey.  [95% of pros just hated it when Tom Watson or Ben Crenshaw scrambled after a bad approach shot to tie them, or God forbid, chipped in to beat them after an "inferior" approach.]  They seem not to understand that would mean a steady stream of double bogeys for you or me.

I think there should be shots on a course that are so difficult they separate Tiger Woods or Jack Nicklaus or Seve Ballesteros from other golfers -- a place around a green somewhere that if you're not Seve, you can't get up and down, or a fairway bunker where if you're not Tiger, you'd better lay up.  The average pro would call these situations "unfair" if he got into them just off the edge of the green, but the truth is that if he's in those places after a marginal shot, it's his tactics that were at fault ... he should have been aiming further away from them.

But, the other side of the coin is that if you don't leave a large number of places on the course where the 10-handicap has a chance to make par [and get a half with Nicklaus if he misses his 15-footer], the course won't be any fun for the average guy.

So, Michael, proportionality IS a scratch golfer's idea of fairness.  I don't know where that leaves the analysis of Kiawah.  Some guys think it's so penal around the greens that it will punish anything short of a great shot ... I'll defend that, but not for 18 holes, and not for even one hole like the 17th at Kiawah.  I haven't seen the Ocean Course in many years, but the one thing I remember about it is the variety of stuff around the greens.  You may have a difficult shot when you miss a green there, but at least it isn't always the SAME shot.

[JESII]

Geoffrey Childs,

Thank you for the nice words, have a nice Holiday.


Patrick,

This question has held my attention very well, if I did not say so earlier, good topic. Having said that, I honestly think Jeff Brauer did an amazing job of answering your questions and his post (the first reply on this thread). His answer is as accurate and concise as any I can think of in terms of addressing the topic posed on this site recently.



To me, what makes Seminole so great is the green complexes and the way they torture the good player with their deflective ability, but they allow the bogey player to recover to them so long as they keep their eyes open and their wits about them. If your goal is simply to bogey each hole out there you should be able to do that with smart play and some good (relative) shots. If you are hoping to shoot par however you're going to have to take some level of risk. When those risks do not pay off you will have a chance to recover but you'll have done very well to make par.

[Pat_Mucci]

JES II,

It's not just about thinking your way around the golf course.
You can be the best thinker in the world, but, if your execution is flawed, resulting in a marginal shot, you'll suffer the same fate as a non-thinker who makes a bad choice, who executed their intent well.

[JESII]

JES II,

It's not just about thinking your way around the golf course.
You can be the best thinker in the world, but, if your execution is flawed, resulting in a marginal shot, you'll suffer the same fate as a non-thinker who makes a bad choice, who executed their intent well.

from my prior post:

If your goal is simply to bogey each hole out there you should be able to do that with smart play and some good (relative) shots.

Come on Pat, lets read carefully what someone writes, afterall there's no party for the second guy to 20,000.

Your comments above are certainly correct, my point is that the marginal shot with the wrong strategy/gameplan/whatever is more frequent and more penal than the marginal shot with a better approach. Not surprisingly, the majority of bad decisions are on the too aggressive side.

[Kyle Harris]

Jim,

Going to have to agree there - as this is how I play the game most of the time. I'll hit some clunkers but I always tend to fall in the right direction. This is why more strategic courses like HV or Rolling Green suit my game over a penal course like Talamore. Give me angles, not carries.

I think the balance required for a good course is some holes that place a premium on execution (i.e. a "short" hole) and some holes that require good decision making over perfect execution (the 12th on the A-B course at Huntingdon Valley). While both types of holes require elements of both, one is certainly favored over the other.

Architecture is what defines what makes a shot marginal.

[Pat_Mucci]

JES II,

It's not just about thinking your way around the golf course.
You can be the best thinker in the world, but, if your execution is flawed, resulting in a marginal shot, you'll suffer the same fate as a non-thinker who makes a bad choice, who executed their intent well.

from my prior post:

If your goal is simply to bogey each hole out there you should be able to do that with smart play and some good (relative) shots.

Come on Pat, lets read carefully what someone writes, afterall there's no party for the second guy to 20,000. [size=2x]
Since when does a low handicap golfer want to bogey each hole ?

Perahps you should carefully re-read what you write  [/color][/size]

Your comments above are certainly correct

That's all you really need to say  [/color]

[ed_getka]

Patrick,
   You talk about someone hitting a thin shot and it leaves a difficult recovery, and a running shot pulled off line into a hazard, as being examples of penal architecture. Aren't those just bad shots? Now if the opening for the running shot was only 2 feet wide, and the ONLY way to play the hole, I would say that IS penal.
    Great thread, but disregarding others viewpoints just because they haven't played Seminole is against the rules.
     Happy Thanksgiving!