Why SHOULDN'T we (kinda) know where the pin is???

[Mark Pearce]

I don't see any inherent conflict between using judgment and having some information as to where the flag is.  I'm not asking to be told where the flag is when it's visible and I'm happy for the architect to deceive me with some optical illusion.  But when the shot is blind what is the problem with being told that the pin is front, middle or back?

Tim, don't worry about the quality of your argument - you seem to be winning this particular fight, Pat Mucci tends to get more personal when he's fighting a losing corner.

[JESII]

Darren and Mark,

Let's put this conversation into context...#14 at Hidden Creek does not represent the type of hole Tim has been arguing about. It is not blind. The player does have options to figure out how deep the pin is on the green prior to making his shot. Brent Hutto described a different hole, one which more closely matches Tim's concerns in his opening post...

I was just looking at the Hidden Creek course profile, and the following passage jumped out at me:

"In an attempt to give every hole immediate visual impact, many modern architects in the past two decades defined the green to such a clear degree that it inadvertently became an easier target.  In the case of the 14th, Coore & Crenshaw could have been easily highlighted the green through the placement of mounds and bunkers.  Instead, they kept the 14th green as an extension of the fairway with the green even slightly below its surrounds in spots and no bunkers down its left side. From the tee, the golfer is hard pressed to determine where on this 51 yard (!) deep green the hole actually is."[/i]

I say this under the assumption that HC's flags all look the same, and that there's no indication of where the pin is on a green:

Why is it preferable that the player can't tell how far onto the green the pin is situated?  If it is not possible to estimate whether a pin is, how is that in the spirit of the game?[/i]

I have no problem with visual deception, but if the success of your shot comes down to pure guesswork, I don't see how that makes the shot "fun" or "interesting."  Three different types of pin/flag (for front, middle, and back) does not seem unreasonable, or detrimental to the integrity of the game

Thoughts?

one in which the green is completely obscured from the player and is so large that a shot to the middle of the green still leaves a very lengthy putt. Tim made a bad leap in assuming Ran said there is no way to determine where the pin is. "Hard pressed" is a world different from impossible.

Now, as to the golfing value of the partially blind approach shot, and the desire (dare I say , need) to know your exact yardage...I asked this of Tim earlier and he did not answer, maybe one of you would like to, what do you do when you're on the tee and there are a few bunkers out in the landing area and you have no information telling you how far from the green they are? How do you handle blind tee shots? I believe depth perception and land evaluation are very key elements to successful golf. I think on every hole there are clues as to the proper approach to that hole. And I think the best holes make you work to learn those secrets. Being able to step up on a tee and know the exact yardage to the pin and hitting it that yardage does not make you a great golfer, that makes you a great swinger...being able to step up on the 14th at Hidden Creek on three consecutive days with three different hole locations and hit three different shots and make par or better with each is what makes you a great golfer.


Darren,

--The ridiculous thing is that great architecture often succeeds by causing you to disbelieve the facts you have in your possession - even when you calculate a yardage and have that knowledge in your possession, it tricks you into trusting your eyes instead of your brain and thereby disowning that knowledge. Taking that knowledge away altogether turns golf into less of a sport and more of a hobby, which I suppose is fine if you don't play golf as a sporting contest but less so if you do, whereas giving that knowledge back does not invalidate the greatness of any great architecture.

As far as "sport" goes, ask one of the Max Behr afficianados on here about his definition of the terminology. I think you'll be surprised to come down 180 degrees opposite from his interpretation. Giving me every bit of information needed to accomplish the task thereby eliminating my non-physical skills does not enhance the "sporting" nature of golf, it deteriorates it.

[Brent Hutto]

Sean,

Let's return for a moment to an example I offered earlier. There's a 20-foot hill completely blocking view of the green and the flag from the fairway/tee. The hole location of the day is unknowable, since it can't be seen at all there's no possibility of estimating it.

First consider the case of a very large green, let's say 22,000 square feet (2,000 square meters) or more, where it's easy for a shot to end up on the green but 100 feet or more from the hole. Which circumstance do you think makes the hole most interesting to play:

a) a very general hole location (e.g. front, middle, back) is communicated to the golfer

b) absolutely no information is available to the golfer

c) a pin sheet with the exact location is provided

Would your answer to this question be different for a Par 3 tee shot of 200 yards and for a Par 4 approach shot of 120 yards?

How about a smaller green of 8,000 square feet (750 square meters) surrounded by a closely-mown collar and then light rough. In this case any shot on the green is likely with 30-40 feet of the hole which makes knowing the location much less important, right?

In all cases the shot is totally blind. My understanding of the original question was whether blindness plus a huge green makes some sort of (at least general) knowledge of the day's hole location desirable. I think given a big enough green and a short enough approach shot the answer is certainly yes although it's an open question as to how big is big and how short is short. I'd think the answer for a 25,000 square foot green and a 120-yard approach is clearly that knowing nothing at all makes the hole play rather over-the-top and silly.

[JESII]

Just two questions...

1) If there is no way of knowing where the flag is, how do we know were the green is?

2) Are there any totally blind greens that are 22,000 sq/ft on the planet?

[Brent Hutto]

2) Are there any totally blind greens that are 22,000 sq/ft on the planet?

Surely there's one somewhere but the more I think about the question, the more I think that blind shots to huge greens are basically just mismatched design elements.

For one thing, you would tend to put very large greens in places where the incoming shot is longish wouldn't you? Totally blind 200-yard shots over a ridge or something would be gratuitously punishing to those who don't hit long shots high in the air.

The other thing is that a blind shot where you either estimate the green location and hit it or else end up in the rough or a bunker just seems more interesting inherently than one where you can be off by 30 yards and still on the green.

The "i.e." of large greens is usually TOC. I've only watched Opens on TV but can't recall any blind approaches there.

[JESII]

Thanks Sean, I knew someone would come up with one. If you are going for that green in two and you hit it, do you care if you're 80 feet from the hole?

[Mark Pearce]

Now, as to the golfing value of the partially blind approach shot, and the desire (dare I say , need) to know your exact yardage...I asked this of Tim earlier and he did not answer, maybe one of you would like to, what do you do when you're on the tee and there are a few bunkers out in the landing area and you have no information telling you how far from the green they are? How do you handle blind tee shots? I believe depth perception and land evaluation are very key elements to successful golf. I think on every hole there are clues as to the proper approach to that hole. And I think the best holes make you work to learn those secrets. Being able to step up on a tee and know the exact yardage to the pin and hitting it that yardage does not make you a great golfer, that makes you a great swinger...being able to step up on the 14th at Hidden Creek on three consecutive days with three different hole locations and hit three different shots and make par or better with each is what makes you a great golfer.

I don't think there's any diffence between us here.  I'm quite happy to rely on rough judgment of distance to hazards and am quite used to not knowing exact yardages to pins.  In fact I rarely do more than estimate whether a flag is nearer the front, middle or back of a green.  I rarely play courses with accurate pin placement sheets.

With blind shots I'll normally try to work out what's going on from the course planner, if I have one but I'v eplayed the fourteenth on the Blue course at the Berkshire often enough to realise that knowing that it's best to be conservative when playing off the course planner (on that hole the fairway narrows dramatically at around 240 yards and any shot right of the centreline will be blocked out from the green if hit over 200 yards.  On the strokesaver it looks like 3 wood off the tee is a safe play.  It's a good way of making bogey.)

I'm not asking for exact yardages (and nor is Tim) - rather an idea of which part of the green a flag is in.  If I'm good enough to read the course and play to the appropriate part of the green then this information will help me to be rewarded for my skill.  If not, it's irrelevant and certainly doesn't spoil the challenge in any way.

[Tim Gavrich]

Darren and Mark,

Let's put this conversation into context...#14 at Hidden Creek does not represent the type of hole Tim has been arguing about. It is not blind. The player does have options to figure out how deep the pin is on the green prior to making his shot. Brent Hutto described a different hole, one which more closely matches Tim's concerns in his opening post...

I was not originally talking about blind holes.  My argument has--all along--operated under a hypothetical adaptation of the 14th at Hidden Creek (a hole I have neither seen nor played, but have read about).  "Hard pressed to determine where on this 51 yard (!) deep green the hole really is" means to me (perhaps I'm stretching the meaning, but please bear with me for the sake of the argument) that no matter what, one cannot figure out from the tee whether the pin is in the front, middle, or back, despite the fact that the player can actually see the pin.  I realize that that situation is rare; I was just challenging the reason for calling such deception "great architecture," if hitting the right shot is beyond the golfer's capability.

[JESII]

Mark,

That sounds reasonable, but if you could, please take a different side of the debate.

Assume you and I are playing a course that has the Red - White - Blue flag as indicators of which third of the green the hole is. I say to you that I would really benefit from having exact knowledge of the hole location...to the yard from the front edge of the green. After all, on  51 yard deep green I could easily hit a good approach shot to the center of the front segment where the pin is and have a 25 foot putt. Not very rewarding for a perfectly played shot.

How would you argue that having the segment indicated should be information enough when I think exact locations would help reward my skill?

[JESII]

Tim,

Hard pressed to do something does not mean it cannot be done.

In fact, I would not believe there is anyway to completely eliminate the opportunity to narrow down the possible hole locations on a hole like the 14th at Hidden Creek; where the entire flag is visible from the tee/approach area.

Totally blind is a different conversation...I think you read too much into Ran's words there.

[tlavin]

Well meaning and occasionally playful deception in the design and placement of greens, it seems to me, is a valuable tool in an architect's arsenal of weapons to make a golf course as enjoyable and challenging as possible.  As a player, I know that I am more relaxed and confident when the "hole" is "right in front of me", and I typically make a better stroke.  On the other hand when I'm unsure as to the exact location of the hole due to sightline or other factor, I'm more diffident and the results show it.  That's part of the greatness of the game of golf.

[Darren_Kilfara]

For what it's worth, the 7th hole at Machrihanish is a long par 4 over a huge dune (around 100 yards short of the green) to a completely blind, and quite large, green. In the last few years, the club has erected a piece of whiteboard adjacent to the tee; the whiteboard has a circle on it which is divided into quadrants, and every time the hole location is changed, it is reflected by a newly inked "X" on the whiteboard. In this manner, what was formerly a completely blind shot with no strategy now is still a completely blind shot, but it is now one you can play intelligently - if you're familiar with the aiming markers and where the green is beyond the high ridge, you can hope to play a precise shot to the correct location, and even if you're not thusly familiar, you can still favor one side of the green to the other (and also one side of the fairway or the other, from the tee) and try to leave an intelligent miss. THAT is the amount of information I'd ideally like on every blind or semi-blind hole - not a precise yardage, but rather a general idea - and I think that's all Tim is asking for as well.

Cheers,
Darren

[JESII]

Darren,

What if I told you I needed a precise yardage to feel my skill were being properly rewarded...could you argue against that?

[Mark Pearce]

Mark,

That sounds reasonable, but if you could, please take a different side of the debate.

Assume you and I are playing a course that has the Red - White - Blue flag as indicators of which third of the green the hole is. I say to you that I would really benefit from having exact knowledge of the hole location...to the yard from the front edge of the green. After all, on  51 yard deep green I could easily hit a good approach shot to the center of the front segment where the pin is and have a 25 foot putt. Not very rewarding for a perfectly played shot.

How would you argue that having the segment indicated should be information enough when I think exact locations would help reward my skill?

How exact is required to reward your skills?  Do you need the position to the nearest 5 yards, yard, foot or inch?  Clearly there comes a point where more exact information does not reward.  That point will, it is true, vary with the player's skill.  I suspect that only the most highly skilled of players can judge a truly blind shot accurately enough to require the pin position to the nearest yard.  I certainly don't need that accuracy but I don't object to you having it on a blind shot.

I'm somewhat perplexed that I appear to have reached a position where I'm happy for detailed information to be given on a blind shot but not one where the flag is visible.  What's the situation where the top of the flag is visible but the hole is not?

In the end, I suspect that Pat Mucci's argument regarding who would be responsible for giving the information regarding pin positions is the limiting factor in deciding the accuracy of infomation to be given.  Many courses adopt a coloured flag approach and greenkeeping staff seem happy to do this.  Whether they'd get out geometrical instruments to give you a flag position to the nearest inch I somewhat doubt.

[RSLivingston_III]

For what it's worth, the 7th hole at Machrihanish is a long par 4 over a huge dune (around 100 yards short of the green) to a completely blind, and quite large, green. In the last few years, the club has erected a piece of whiteboard adjacent to the tee; the whiteboard has a circle on it which is divided into quadrants, and every time the hole location is changed, it is reflected by a newly inked "X" on the whiteboard. In this manner, what was formerly a completely blind shot with no strategy now is still a completely blind shot, but it is now one you can play intelligently - if you're familiar with the aiming markers and where the green is beyond the high ridge, you can hope to play a precise shot to the correct location, and even if you're not thusly familiar, you can still favor one side of the green to the other (and also one side of the fairway or the other, from the tee) and try to leave an intelligent miss. THAT is the amount of information I'd ideally like on every blind or semi-blind hole - not a precise yardage, but rather a general idea - and I think that's all Tim is asking for as well.

Cheers,
Darren

Darren,
Isn't that there for the tourists?
Aren't Front, Middle, Back flags there for visitors and tourists?
A members course needs none of it.

[JESII]

Mark,

I'm not sure what to make of your post #94...but I can say this...I prefer to know as much information as possible for the majority of my rounds, as they are competitive...but I appreciate the sentiment of valuing ones judgement capabilities; whether they are eyeballing the yardage, course knowledge about which swale the pin might be hiding in based on surrounding features, or walking over to the side of the tee a bit to get a different perspective or even counting the steps of the group in front of you as they walk from the hole to their bags at the back of the green. That's some of the best stuff in golf for me.

As to the totally blind shot...I prefer just to take it with a grain of salt and hope for the best. If there is a quick and easy way to get a peak at the hole somehow (perhaps from an earlier hole or something) that helps, but I'd prefer as little outside information as possible. Maybe I'm just a traditionalist, but I think further steps down the road of providing information is a bad thing for the game...and specifically "the spirit of the game".

[Mark Pearce]

Mark,

I'm not sure what to make of your post #94...but I can say this...I prefer to know as much information as possible for the majority of my rounds, as they are competitive...but I appreciate the sentiment of valuing ones judgement capabilities; whether they are eyeballing the yardage, course knowledge about which swale the pin might be hiding in based on surrounding features, or walking over to the side of the tee a bit to get a different perspective or even counting the steps of the group in front of you as they walk from the hole to their bags at the back of the green. That's some of the best stuff in golf for me.

As to the totally blind shot...I prefer just to take it with a grain of salt and hope for the best. If there is a quick and easy way to get a peak at the hole somehow (perhaps from an earlier hole or something) that helps, but I'd prefer as little outside information as possible. Maybe I'm just a traditionalist, but I think further steps down the road of providing information is a bad thing for the game...and specifically "the spirit of the game".

Jim,

I'm not sure I know what to make of my post 94, either!  I'm equally puzzled by your post, though.  You want as much information as possible, yet you don't want to know more about blind shots and think that providing further information is a bad thing for the game?

[JESII]

Good point.

Most of my golf is competitive, therefore it would be foolish to not want as much information as possible, hence I'll take it. But, if it were up to me I would get rid of all information...yardage markers etc...everything!

Now, as it relates to blind, semi-blind, non-blind...I think you get going down the wrong path when you provide some information and justify it by saying, "that's all I ask". That was the point of my question to you about taking the opposite position and telling me why I should not have yardage indicators down to the yard. You said that at some point the exactness of the information cannot reward skill...where is that line? Someone is always going to want more until we end up with some guy changing the X on your whiteboard for every hole. That's the Pandora's Box someone referred to early in this thread.

[Mark Pearce]

Philosophically you may be right but there are practical limits so a decision needs to be taken as to what level of accuracy is appropriate.  You're a better player than me but I can't believe that anything more accurate than the nearest yard is needed by the very best professionals and I'd guess that most scratch golfers wouldn't benefit from much more accurate than the nearest 5 yards in which case, given that the cost and time consumed by providing the information will increase as accuracy does, I'd say that that was appropriate.

[JESII]

Greg Norman asked for yardages to the half-yard in his prime...that just might explain something...

My opinion is that scratch golfers think they need more than they actually do. That's the basis for my position through this. To minimize one of the basic tenents of the game because somebody thinks they can score better if they know the pin is 3 yards short of center versus 4 yards past is a mistake in my opinion.

[Mark Pearce]

But, if it were up to me I would get rid of all information...yardage markers etc...everything!

Would you get rid of marker posts used to indicate the line on blind shots?

[JESII]

Mark,

You must not realize, I live in Philadelphia, PA USA. We have no blind shots on this side...I'd just like them to still be around if I get back to your side...

[George Pazin]

I must be missing something here.

How is there zero visibility on this hole?



I tend to agree with Jim K - if it's a big time tourney, fine, otherwise, just have some fun.

I totally disagree with this:

One reason is that if I hit one stiff, I know I hit a good shot, and its not just that I got lucky.

I prefer to think that all my shots are good shots, and if they're not stiff, I just got unlucky.

 

[Bill_McBride]

For what it's worth, the 7th hole at Machrihanish is a long par 4 over a huge dune (around 100 yards short of the green) to a completely blind, and quite large, green. In the last few years, the club has erected a piece of whiteboard adjacent to the tee; the whiteboard has a circle on it which is divided into quadrants, and every time the hole location is changed, it is reflected by a newly inked "X" on the whiteboard. In this manner, what was formerly a completely blind shot with no strategy now is still a completely blind shot, but it is now one you can play intelligently - if you're familiar with the aiming markers and where the green is beyond the high ridge, you can hope to play a precise shot to the correct location, and even if you're not thusly familiar, you can still favor one side of the green to the other (and also one side of the fairway or the other, from the tee) and try to leave an intelligent miss. THAT is the amount of information I'd ideally like on every blind or semi-blind hole - not a precise yardage, but rather a general idea - and I think that's all Tim is asking for as well.

The 15th and 18th holes at the Valley Club in Santa Barbara play uphill to greens where you can see the flagstick but can't tell how far it is from the front edge of the green to the hole.

The Valley Club is one of those courses that has almost no distance-finding aids, no pin sheets, no tri-color flags, no 150 bushes, nothing but a set of hieroglyphics on the scorecard that give yardage to the center of the green from such markers as trees, sprinker boxes, etc, including a couple of "NLE" trees.

But on 15 and 18, there are arrows on trees out in the area of most approach shots that are pointed UP if the pin is back, and DOWN if the pin is up.  I didn't realize until I just typed that how confusing that system is!  

My opinion on this subject of telling the golfer how far it is, or whether the pin is up or back, etc, is that today's top golfers are so precise in distance on their shots, and most greens are so soft, that only some mystery will protect par at many courses.  So I in general am opposed to GPS, lasers, pin sheets, etc etc.

[Kyle Harris]

Tim,

To answer your base question - we almost always certainly do - if we look for the right clues.

Most courses feature flags of the same height (7 foot is standard in the US and I hear 5 foot is standard in the UK), this perception of height (especially for people who play golf frequently, as your handicap would indicate) from different distances plays a HUGE factor into how we perceive the distance to the flag, even subconsciously.

Here's an exercise about what I am talking: one evening go to your home club and "borrow" a flagstick from the putting green (the little 2-3 foot ones) and take it with you out on the course. Walk up to a green and replace the flagstick with the one from the putting green, and then go back and play the hole without looking at the yardages. Try to eyeball the distance into the green and play a shot to get to the pin.

Even though you actually walked to the green and know exactly where the flag is on the green - your instinct will make the shot seem further because of the smaller flagstick.

Perhaps one of the things we forget in this great debate about exact yardage is that many aspects of the course are standardized to our benefit. Most framing trees are of the same relative height, the flags are the same height, and previews are given of blind holes before one plays them, if the player is paying attention.

Using the standard height of the flags, we can perceive distances from edges of greens and hazards around them (think of what the flagstick looks like when on the ground, or better yet, watch when the group in front of you putts out...).

How do you think you would perceive distance if for back hole locations, higher flags were used and for front hole locations shorter flags?