Is it good architecture when it gets you to hit the wrong club?

[mike_malone]

 

  I have a feeling that well designed courses get one to do this more often. You just think you can take the risk. When I see no sense in risking is it a less well designed course?


     

[Matt_Cohn]

Do you mean through visual deception, or...?

What's an example? Especially since basically every course has accurate yardage plates and/or sprinkler heads now.

[mike_malone]

 Matt,

   When I search for an example from today where it happened twice on my home course ,that I know like the back of my hand, I find myself getting too wordy.

     I agree that visual deception could be one thing. But it seems to be more related to temptation. My assessment of my capability is tested.  I feel that the risk/reward says take the chance .


   

[Pete Lavallee]

Mayday,

Did you take too much club, or too little?

[wsmorrison]

"When I search for an example from today where it happened twice on my home course ,that I know like the back of my hand, I find myself getting too wordy."

You've played Rolling Green, what, 1000 times?  What about the architecture made you hit the wrong club with that much course experience?  Which holes?  What did you hit and what was the result?  I'm almost scared to hear your response...you worry me, Mikey

Bill V,

I think Mike is the goofy one    

[mike_malone]

 In the first instance too much club instead of the prudent layup ;in the second too little .

    It may be doubt but it seems to be more about taking risks ; trying the low percentage play because the consequences don't seem that bad.

[Mike_Young]

Good architecture IMHO is when you have a choice offered in front of you as to which club you wish to hit.  That is why some of these new longer courses will actually be easier for the average golfer because the hazards will be out of his play yet if he is faced with a hole where there is a choice of club, well he may hit the wrong one.  JMO

[TEPaul]

When I read mayday's initial post I thought to myself this will drive Wayne Morrison up the wall and so I started scrolling down and sure enough it did drive him up the wall.

[TEPaul]

Mayday:

I'm not too clear what you mean by good architecture making you hit the wrong club but let me give you a suggestion. I think Rolling Green is very good architecture but if for some odd reason it isn't making the members hit the wrong club then why don't you and I go out there and screw around with all the yardage markers all over the course. I'm pretty sure that will help make the members hit the wrong clubs. Do you think that will instantly make Rolling Green's architecture better?

[Gary Daughters]

I have never thought of good architecture in terms of fooling the golfer distance-wise, but certainly in terms of direction.

They seem to have their ways of luring you into places you know you don't want to go and yet you end up there anyway.  Hats off to them.

[wsmorrison]

Tom,

Right you were, I was flabbergasted by his premise.  Another classic Maloneism  

I cannot understand how someone who has played a golf course literally 1000 times or more can be fooled by anything external.  Even in Mikey's case, it simply cannot be that the architecture fooled him, unless he sees but does not learn and he's got more sense than that.  Doesn't he?  Mike's observation is more likely an artifact of having a handicap that means he doesn't hit his shots within a sufficiently narrow range of outcomes that he can factor out his own variability; sort of like myself these days, especially with a bum shoulder.

However, there are design techniques that are meant to fool the eye and create a bit of doubt in golfers.  This should be learned in relatively short order but remain a challenging feature to newcomers.  Such features inclued raised toplines of fairway and greenside bunkers that hide landing areas and foreshorten distances.  I've seen excellent examples on classic era courses (Indian Creek) and today (Beechtree).  The understanding of perspective and angles can be used to make carries seem perpendicular when there may be a pretty strong diagonal to carry.  Swales, mounds and other topographical features can be made or used to alter distance perspectives.  

But come on, after 1000 rounds, you are still fooled?  Mikey, say it ain't so!

[Mike_Young]

Tom,

Right you were, I was flabbergasted by his premise.  Another classic Maloneism  

I cannot understand how someone who has played a golf course literally 1000 times or more can be fooled by anything external.  Even in Mikey's case, it simply cannot be that the architecture fooled him, unless he sees but does not learn and he's got more sense than that.  Doesn't he?  Mike's observation is more likely an artifact of having a handicap that means he doesn't hit his shots within a sufficiently narrow range of outcomes that he can factor out his own variability; sort of like myself these days, especially with a bum shoulder.

However, there are design techniques that are meant to fool the eye and create a bit of doubt in golfers.  This should be learned in relatively short order but remain a challenging feature to newcomers.  Such features inclued raised toplines of fairway and greenside bunkers that hide landing areas and foreshorten distances.  I've seen excellent examples on classic era courses (Indian Creek) and today (Beechtree).  The understanding of perspective and angles can be used to make carries seem perpendicular when there may be a pretty strong diagonal to carry.  Swales, mounds and other topographical features can be made or used to alter distance perspectives.  

But come on, after 1000 rounds, you are still fooled?  Mikey, say it ain't so!

Who is mikey?

[wsmorrison]

Mike (Mikey) Malone is the self-proclaimed Mayday Malone.  But you might be onto something, Mike Y.  Maybe Mayday is an alter-ego of Mike Malone, one with quite a bit less gray matter  

[TEPaul]

Mayday;

Are you thinking about something like a hole that looks like a 3 iron but is really only a 9 iron? I agree with you that that would be very cool architecture. The strategy for the intelligent golfer should be to hit a 3 iron about 50% fat.

How cool would that be? A true test of skill. Do you think it's possible to design a hole that's so deceptive it looks straight but in reality requires a shank on call?

I think you may've uncovered the new direction for the future of golf course architecture.

[Walt Cutshall]

Gee this seems like such a simple question to elicit so many non-answer answers.

[TEPaul]

Walt C:

If you asked the question it probably would be a relatively simple answer but Mayday asked the question and there's nothing simple about Mayday.

Belay that. It depends which meaning of "simple" one is using. Right Wayne?  

[ForkaB]

I played a highly regarded course yesterday with which I am only slightly familiar, and on the 1st (a hole of under 400 yards) when I got to my tee shot, the second looked as if it required 210-220 to cross the burn in front of the green.  I trusted my eye and was lucky enough to nail a 3-iron to about 40 feet.

Great architecture!


Of course, the fact that I skied my tee shot about 170-180 yards enhanced the deception in this particular case.......

[TEPaul]

"Of course, the fact that I skied my tee shot about 170-180 yards enhanced the deception in this particular case....... "

Richard the Magnificent:

That is simply brilliant. The skied tee ball on call is one of the most skillful and sophisticated strategies in all of golf.

It is also extremely important to do from time to time for a person of your remarkable intelligence. If it were otherwise a golfer with your active mind might be endanger of falling asleep out there. It takes quite a bit of time to walk to drives of 280 yards and it's true one can only think of sex so much on golf courses during these mental down-times.

[Ian Andrew]

The 10th hole at Riviera may be the hole that makes player chose the wrong club the most.

The hole is easily reachable from the tee which naturally entices a bold player to play for the green. One of the joys of the Nissan is watching how many players try to hit the green, and make five. Even though they know missing right is certain peril and most strokes are lost from missing right, they continue to look directly at the green. We know this is a great hole for a couple of reasons. How many holes do you know where the longest way to the hole is the most efficient to make a score?

The funny part is the left edge of the fairway, where the smart lay-up is played, looks like the worst option from the tee. How many holes do you know where the smart play is the least obvious and the riskiest play is the most understandable, now that's great architecture isn't it?

The player is stands on the tee just brimming with confidence thinking that they can knock it on, and the architect has framed the hole perfectly with bunkers to encourage this. You may get lucky with your silly choice and make a birdie or a par through an excellent tee shot. But as a regular member told me you won’t pull that off two days in a row. He continued, once you make six from the right, you take the route to the left to score better, but even then you can’t help but give it a go every month.

[Jim Adkisson]

The example of this that comes to my mind first is the 7th hole at Pumpkin Ridge Witch Hollow...there are bunkers that seem to crowd the green in front with a narrow opening between them...as my approach shot (assuming I hit a decent drive) is apx. 170 yds...the visual of these bunkers make you want to hit it in the air the entire distance...but the bunkers are actually 25-30 yds short of the green with a landing area that is angled towards the green...the correct play is to bounce it onto the green from this firm landing area instead of hitting the green on the fly and having your ball bounce over the green leaving a tricky pitch shot from apx. 6 feet below the level of the green...

Good GCA?...I believe so...it makes you have to choose a play that is not intuitive...your eyes tell you that you must hit it in the air the whole way, but you must conquer that urge internally and play the correct shot to get it on the green.

[Bill_McBride]

"Temptation" is the word. Yesterday I was playing the Crenshaw course at Barton Creek outside Austin TX.  The 14th is a straight downhill par 4, 272 yards.  The saliva starts to flow.  The ears perk up.

There is a monstrous oak tree almost hole high on the left, and a fall off to the right which has light rough.  The area in front is flattish and there is one fairly benign bunker front right.

I was in a good match and said to myself, hit the 4 iron, you won't be able to reach the green and it won't be that big a stretch to pitch close to that front pin for birdie.

I talked to myself a moment more and then hit a really solid slightly pulled driver almost hole high, left of that 100' tall oak tree with a low canopy and rough that eliminated a running shot underneath.  Hit the SW open and full blast, almost cleared the tree.  Made a great up and down for par and halved the hole.

This epitomizes "temptation," all part of good golf architecture!

[Pete Stankevich]

Something that hasn't been mentioned in this thread is options, especially around the greens and surrounds.  Would you consider it good architecture if you miss a green and you have the option to play any club from putter to wedge to 7 iron to a hybrid?  Give a good player a bunch of options and more than likely, they're going to either make the wrong choice or at least try to execute a shot that they're not comfortable with.  Who wants to hit a flop shot every time they miss a green?  Give'em options, get'em thinking.