Does anybody here...

[Kyle Harris]

...honestly think that equipment has ever fully caught up with architecture?

[Mark Brown]

No.
Even with all the new tech equipment, my handicap has risen a bit because the golf courses I play are mainly new "world class" courses that are much more difficult around and on the greens than the courses I used to play.

[Matt_Cohn]

Yes. It's pretty much a conceded point on this board that modern equipment has made certain architectural elements obsolete*.

*...when such equipment is in the hands of an expert user!

In the hands of 99.5% of golfers, no. Golf courses have gotten much harder while average golfers still play at about the same level. But that's about the Indian, not the arrow, as they say.

[JohnH]

It doesn't matter to me the improvement in technology, if you can't chip and putt, you aren't going to score (cliche' ?).

[Kyle Harris]

To expand on this point:

Why is it that the development of modern architecture always sees the need to stay one step ahead of technology? To me, this is putting the cart for the horse - golf was created because someone hit a ball with a stick, not because someone built a golf course and said, "figure it out." Why all of a sudden has the thought changed?

There seems to be a trend in using an old epistimology in order to make the game marketable in the future. However, this old method of thinking leads us down some even darker roads than it did from 1945-1985.

What happens when distance gets maxed out and equipment manufacturers starting making clubs and balls that just go straighter? How will architects be able to contend with a straight ball by using the same process they use to contend with the long ball?

[Matt MacIver]

Speaking of clichés...is "drive for show and putt for dough" still applicable?  Maybe now more than ever.  

Technology = floggers (bad for golf?), but gca's are making the greens more difficult (thank you new greenskeeping technology - good for golf?), so is it a wash?  

Lots of floggers can't chip and putt like Tiger or the other Big 5....i.e. the "dough".  

[Kyle Harris]

Matt, you seem to be getting at using the area around the green to defend against length. I certainly agree.

Sure, you maybe able to carry the ball 310 yards, but ultimately, that ball will have to have a much more focus and probably have to roll to the cup for the last 50-75 feet or so.

Is it possible to design a golf course at a fixed length (no more than 7000 yards?) that will ALWAYS stand the test of time?

[Glenn Spencer]

Kyle,

It is my opinion that it can be done. I do however think it must be done with some cunning though. I think the 7000 yards must have some "hidden yardage" like short par 4s that are extremely challenging and short par 3's the same. I think there must be some long par 4s that are just a bear to par, with par5 type green complexes. a 7000 yard course without variety of length and architecture will get chewed up every time in opinion. par 4s that are all 420 and no danger will be birdied a lot of the time. The more indecision the better. Variety causes one to think and that is where the architects chances increase in this day and age.

[Kyle Harris]

Glenn,

I am inclined to agree. How many courses do we play anymore where Driver isn't the play 13 or 14 times off the tee?

When an expert golfer is expected to use half of his shots on the green, presumably with the putter - the other half are meant to be used with the 13 other clubs. Driver dominates that group.

I also contend that the Driver may have become the easiest club to hit in the bag apart from the putter. If that's the case, no wonder we seem to be inundated with length - the architecture is playing right into its hand.

Truly, is the challenge of the game to see who can hit Driver the best the most?

[Tom Huckaby]

Kyle, Kyle, Kyle:

I'd be offended if you weren't such a good egg and Genesis fan.

I refer you to this thread.

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forums2/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=21676

You know what needs to be done.

TH

[Kyle Harris]

Huck,

You should know me to know I am in the going persimmon camp... heck, I'd try hickories too. I'd also go back to playing the Titleist Tour Professional 100.

Realistically though, I am sure we both agree that is strictly a niche market. I am trying to discern a middle ground here, where hickory and graphite can live happily amongst the fields of golf.

I have a lot of architectural solutions to the present distance problem that, in my mind, would interest both camps. If it turns out that the equipment distance problem isn't a problem after all, why fight the fight?

[Tom Huckaby]

Kyle:

The problem is that as worthy as your architectural solutions would be, they sure as hell don't help me right now.

When you or others build these courses, I will be first in line to play them, with modern equipment.  Seems to me that is many years off.

Until that time, well... the game remains fun both ways, but if I want to have real tee shot club choices rather than 14 drivers each round, I need to go back in time.  Persimmon would do just fine - I'm just taking this to its logical conclusion because it's fun.

TH

[Kyle Harris]

Tom: I'd hope that the course would still be playable with persimmon and hickory as well, that's more the point. Keeping things under 7000 yards or whatever.

Remember, a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

Okay, enough cliches.  

[Tom Huckaby]

I love cliches.

And remember, I most definitely support you in this.  It really has struck me forcefully particularly in the last year how easy it is to hit the driver STRAIGHT, and what the effect of that is in terms of club choice.  And I've come to not like it at all.

But again, I'm not in the industry, I'm a consumer.  I'll be cheering all the way for you guys to make architectural solutions to this, because of course that is better than forcing any of us to go back in time.

I just do see that as being a LONG way off, and also don't see what I can do about it one way or the other as a consumer other than to vote with my feet, and make my club choices accordingly.

So guys like Randy Jensen get my money now instead of conglomerates like Titleist and Callaway.

There's my one little step.

 

[Kyle Harris]

Tom,

As we speak I am considering lengthening my driver's shaft by an inch - just to get some more distance and because I can afford to since I can control the ball.

What if there was a minimum length for the Driver, say 46 inches?

Back to the architecture. The idea is to make the 310 yard carry possible, and if well done practical, but also throw a bone to the 240 yard player.

For example, if greens can be artificially built up on a pad, why can't the long landing area?

[Tom Huckaby]

Kyle:

That's an I/B rules change that would be great by me.  So would a smaller limit on cc's for driver heads.  So would a souping back of the ball.  But I'm not holding my breath for any of that to happen.

And while your landing pad ideas are intriguing, well... no one likes to be FORCED to lay up due to distance limits.  I'm intrigued though as to what bone you're going to throw us at 240... please explain.

BUT... to me distance isn't the issue here.  Not to me anyway - not in terms of club choice off the tee.

To me the bigger issue remains accuracy.  Today's drivers are so damn easy to hit straight - and in fact for most golfers are indeed the straightest club - that there remains no reason not to hit driver on damn near every non-par three hole.

And that ain't right.

I'm really not sure if any architectural solution exists for this.

But as I say, keep trying... I am behind you all the way.  If you find the solution, it will be a great day for golf.

TH

[Kyle Harris]

Kyle:

That's an I/B rules change that would be great by me.  So would a smaller limit on cc's for driver heads.  So would a souping back of the ball.  But I'm not holding my breath for any of that to happen.

And while your landing pad ideas are intriguing, well... no one likes to be FORCED to lay up due to distance limits.  If I came to a hole that had a benefit for a 310 yard carry and a limit at 240, I'd be pissed as hell as all that means is this:

less than 1% have any reason at all to consider the long carry;

75% are forced to hit something less than driver because their normal driver rolls out over 240;

the remaining 24.__% can't hit a driver 240 anyway, so just go ahead and bang away.

Distance isn't the issue here.  Not to me anyway - not in terms of club choice off the tee.

To me the bigger issue remains accuracy.  Today's drivers are so damn easy to hit straight - and in fact for most golfers are indeed the straightest club - that there remains no reason not to hit driver on damn near every non-par three hole.

And that ain't right.

And your idea there doesn't fix that.  I'm really not sure if any architectural solution exists for this.

But as I say, keep trying... I am behind you all the way.  If you find the solution, it will be a great day for golf.

TH

Tom, I may not have been as clear as I should have been. I think I was more clear on the reachable par 4 thread. I did not mean that the 240-310 range would be nasty and you only had to be before or over it... I meant that at the 310 range there would be some not-necessarily-apparent challenge. If I can design a hole where the choice off the tee is "longer approach from a leveler lie to a tricky green" or "shorter approach from a hanging lie to same tricky green" to me, that is a "vertical strategic decision" where the particular talents of the player on that given day can be exposed. I believe all architecture is about posing questions to the golfer, and this one states "Which do you want?"

I suppose the idea is more around rewarding well struck shots (which idea isn't, though?). I will contend that a well struck 310 yard shot should be rewarded regardless of the distance problem. That being said, it is up to the architect to be able to define just what well-struck is.

Well-struck needn't be straight. What if the architect made the fact that the club is straighter to hit a liability every now and then?

[Tom Huckaby]

Kyle:

As you see I went back and did some editing, because I thought things through a bit more and understood your take a bit better.

I do that sometimes.  Post, review, revise.  I really ought to do it before I hit the post button, yes.  

In any case, your solutions sound great to me.

But what is most intriguing is the last question:

Well-struck needn't be straight. What if the architect made the fact that the club is straighter to hit a liability every now and then?

RIGHT ON!  That's what we need - more requirement to work the ball.  That's another thing I thought of in my hickory experiment, as it is actually a lot EASIER to do with those than with the mega-Ti modern drivers we all seem to have.

The problem is, this seems to be a lost art on too many courses.  And where it does exists, it's due to huge overgrown trees far too often... which isn't the best solution either.

It does remain a VERY rare hole where the benefit to curve the ball exceeds the long straight shot a driver can so easily give, and thus making one go back to long iron or fairway wood, which are usually easier to curve these days....

But if more of those exist, that is a GREAT solution.

I'm gonna seek these out.  I do believe they are rare.  And when I do find a course with a lot of those, I won't feel too bad using modern implements.

TH

[Kyle Harris]

I suppose we're blessed in the Philly area. Huntingdon Valley is that course to a tee. Awkward stances abound, but each hole has its backdoor way into the green.

The genesis of this thread was my thought last night that we are too stuck on this "look to the past to move into the future" tripe that we forget the fine art of standing still and taking things as they are.

[Tom Huckaby]

Much wisdom in that Kyle - well done and many thanks.

It's interesting though - I can't think of many courses here in the greater SF Bay area that make this play out.  And I include the great ones in this.  Some seem to have one or two holes re a well-drawn or faded tee shot is better than a long straight one.... but one hole does not a course make... were just talking 12 drivers instead of 13 or 14.

I've gone off the deep end on this, for sure... but I want a course where driver is not the obvious choice a lot more than that (like MANY of these were in the days of persimmon!).  And I don't want it due to distance constraints.

I am becoming a tough customer... who'd have thunk it.

 

[Kyle Harris]

Tom,

Here's an example, though this is actually a drivable par 4. For a long hole, just juxtapose the features.

310 yards from the back tee. Multitude of angles. The "Alps" area is the low point of the hole. The greenside bunker is the high point.

By "alps" I mean an area of uneven terrain mown as fairway where any number of different lies can exist.

[Brent Hutto]

Kyle,

I don't know what's just off the right edge of the depicted area but the design probably depends (at least IMO) on there being something pretty discouraging to make the player protect against a layup that goes too far right. It seems there's such a strong incentive to be coming at the green from the right side that just thick rough wouldn't be enough of a penalty over there.

You know what would be cool? Extend the low-mow area long and right of the green so a really big hitter could just hit it as far as possible as long as he doesn't go left. Feed a ball that hits pin-high and on or just off the right side of the green into a gathering area below the green. Maybe even cant the back half of the green slightly away from the tee (like the second green at Pine Needles) to be wicked. That way if you miss over there you can play something creative if you like.

[Kyle Harris]

Kyle,

I don't know what's just off the right edge of the depicted area but the design probably depends (at least IMO) on there being something pretty discouraging to make the player protect against a layup that goes too far right. It seems there's such a strong incentive to be coming at the green from the right side that just thick rough wouldn't be enough of a penalty over there.

You know what would be cool? Extend the low-mow area long and right of the green so a really big hitter could just hit it as far as possible as long as he doesn't go left. Feed a ball that hits pin-high and on or just off the right side of the green into a gathering area below the green. That way if you miss over there you can play something creating if you like.

Brent, how about a knee deep, thinnish sort of fescue? Think heathlands.

[Brent Hutto]

Exactly.

Hey you could put a big bunker with a couple trees in it over there too ( Just Joking! ).

[Kyle Harris]

Brent,

Believe it or not the first answer I considered to your question was trees.

My only reservation would turf quality of the green. If sunlight and the land dictated that keeping trees in that region would work and not be detrimental to the green's health. I'd be all for it.