Creating the Dilemma - Approach Shot

[Jeff_Brauer]

Here is one of those philly-sophical topics I usually strike out with here, but what the hey.....

I have been "noodling" on greens design again lately and wonder what really creates the dilemma for golfers in deciding how close to aim at the pin?

Case in point are two recent plans (not yet built)

First is a T shaped green, like Harbor Town 14, with front bunkers (but no rail tie wall) on the skinny part.  In the back, I have exagerated the "T' and added a one foot step up to it, as well as a nice backstop behind the top.  The idea is to make is so easy to aim long, accepting the downhill putt over the tier if the pin is on the lower tier.

Does that work, or would you just club for the narrow front portion and curse the gca?

Ditto on a similar, but reversed concept.  I have designed a green similar to the dustpan green at Pit Field Club.  Again, I have opted to "improve" the original somewhat, as follows.  Whereas the original is really just a collection green, my plan version has the:

drop down lip (to collect the dust, I guess)

The side ridges to hold approach shots to the front half of the green in easily, and

A raised handle (again, a one foot tier up) that is very narrow.  The green is to be built on a fall away site, so the sides of the handle (about 40' wide) will fall off steeply, while a shot to the front portion of the green will have helping slopes of the dustpan.  I should mention this is a long par  at the end of the round.

Would this be too strong an incentive to purposely play a club  short, giving up a chance for bird, or is it a strategic dilemma brought on with no bunkers whatsoever?

Hope I described it well enough for someone to answer.

[A_Clay_Man]

Jeff, It sounds a little like Thompson's original penultimate (I think) at Banff. Except his T was inverted. So that the long pin position was the real butt puckerer. There are fall offs on the sides, which seemed to excentuate the puckerability while creating the narrowness.

[Rick Shefchik]

Jeff -- I'd have to see the green before me, and probably play it once or twice, before I could tell you how likely I'd be to fire at a pin on the narrow part of these greens. Obviously, it would depend on how lofted a club I had; I like my chances to get close to a tight pin with a 9 or wedge, not so much with less lofted clubs.

But the issue these greens really raises in my mind, if I'm following your description correctly, is what happens if you hit the right or left side of the wide part of the green? Would you have to hit a wedge across the fallaways to the pin on the narrow part? Not my favorite play in golf -- or the superintendant's.

[Matt_Cohn]

Jeff,

Did you just invent the Eden hole?

OK, but really, from my perspective I'm having hard time making that T work with strategic options when the narrow part is in the front. I think it works in theory but in practice everyone will just go at that front pin.

If I have a short iron in my hands, I'll go at the flag, unless the bunkers are really, really scary. With a longer club - let's say I have a 5-iron in my hands - I wouldn't really be inclined to take a 4-iron to hit the ball even further than I have to, especially if the ball has a chance of going through the back of the green.

I have a feeling that golfers don't want to try to fly a ball over the flag - the feeling is that it's hard enough to fly a golf ball towards a flag without having to use an even longer club than they really need to.

I like the second green you described. For good players, trouble over a green is very scary, moreso than trouble in front of it I think. For average players, they're unlikely to ever go over the green so they're likely to walk off the hole feeling that they've accomplished something good. It sounds like Pine Valley #1 if I understand that hole correctly?

[Jason Topp]

I think that either design works or doesn't depending on the dimensions, the distance of the shot in and the severity of the penalty for missing.  

At Harbour town, for me, that green was so small, I just went at the back center of the green.  (We stayed in a house on the hole for a week and I hit several shots at it and concluded I was not accurate enough to go at a front pin unless I hit driver off the tee.  

A similar green is on #4 at Woodlands, which I think works real well.  It is driveable, but the penalty for missing the green on the side is a very difficult chip that one must hold on the green.  

I really like the reverse approach, but I would set it up so that it is possible, but difficult, to two putt from the wide front part of the green.  I think most players will find a hole where two putt is not possible as unfair and gimmicky.
17 at the TPC at Scottsdale is a good example of a green that you cannot putt to a back pin from certain spots.

I see both of these as change of pace greens.  I would not like a steady diet of them but one in a round would be fun.  

[Jeff_Brauer]

Jason,

I agree that most greens ought to be nearly oval/circular or at least gently shaped.  Its just that I wonder how much the dilemma of aiming at the middle vs the pin at the edge can be accentuated from time to time.

I felt the same thing at Harbor Town 14, which is why I exagerated the back portion to really differentiate them.  One of the reasons for the step in the T shaped green is to offer the option of the high spin shot of the slope rather than flirting with the front bunkers.  I even wonder if someone might hit a high spin shot for the backboard, trying to spin it all the way down the tier......but I agree its hard to get someone to intentionally fly past the pin.  I might get someone debating between two clubs to take the longer one, though, at his own peril.

It is possible to create the greens to avoid the putt around the corner problem.  In the dustpan, the raised edges should kick any shot back into the green by several feet, for example, although its slightly possible someone could get caught up on the fringe.

The T shape green is for a 160 yard max par 3 hole, so most will be using 7 or 8 irons if they play the proper tee.  The Dust Pan is on a longish par 4, as described before. (I don't know how long, as the engineer just e-mailed a revised lot layout changing it yet again.  Sheeh!)  It's downwind, so it will probably be a 185 approach or less.

[Daryn_Soldan]

Jeff,

I really like the idea of the T-shaped green.  Reading your description I immediately thought of similar features I noticed on the par-3 6th at the Rawls Course.  I found this hole to be innocent looking but saw some bogies and worse from players who did not take the play long option.  Although not really T-shaped, the slope into the bunkers makes the front of the green play much narrower than it appears (there is a second front left bunker just over the large one in the picture).  The front bunkers extend back to about the center of the green depthwise.  The rear portion of the green widen quite a bit to  both the left and right with some back to front slope in the center of the green.  A sneaky bunker lurks just over the green on the back right but slope on the remainder of the rear of the green acts as a backstop.  Especially on the back left.  

The day I played was blessed with a healthy northwest wind that was directly in our faces. The hole location was cut in the front center of the green.  Several of us hit shots to the rear of the green that although 20-30 feet offline, rolled up onto the back collar and then back 10 feet onto the green leaving a downhill 30-40 foot putt.  Those who's shots landed hole high any more than about 10-15 feet offline watched as the balls bounced once and then roll off the edges into the deep front bunkers.  Shots that are even with the back of the green and off the putting surface would face much easier chips than those out of the bunkers.

I can also see where this concept would work well in the summer playing downwind from the left.  Shots could be flown to the middle of the green and although they would release to the back, they most likely would not run over.  To get close to a front pin one's shot would have to be perfectly placed and either land just short of the false front and run up or just into the crest of the slope.  Below is a low quality picture of the hole in case my description makes no sense whatsoever.

[Tom_Doak]

Jeff:

I've done a hole like that a couple of times before ... Daryn posted one of them.  But Daryn is also the first guy to ever say that he liked the hole.  I think most players don't pick up on the design, except by accident if they hit a long shot one day.

We actually had a hole shaped to your description at Archerfield last week -- the front part of the green was only 35 feet wide between nasty bunkers -- but the client thought we were nuts since it was aimed straight into a 40-mph wind when he saw it and he thought that no one could get a shot to the back of the green in those conditions.  So we took out the nasty bunker on the left and softened it ...

[TEPaul]

Jeff:

I think the concept on both that you described is just fine---the "T" green concept is pretty basic really when I think how often Flynn did that even though he did his greens with that concept more on the shape of a big "V", and obviously many of them are somewhat back to front sloping. The idea was to play safe you can hit an aerial shot farther and into the much wider back but if you want to get near a front pin you have to run it through a narrow opening in front squeezed in by bunkers on either side that fan out the farther back you go or play a shorter by much more accurate aerial shot.

And when I think of an RTJ course like London Hunt Club he used that basic concept on more than half the greens except his shapes were basic "Ts" that were much broader side to side in the back and his greens were not as back to front sloping, pretty level really. The real dilemma on those RTJ greens was they were mostly all really enormous.

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