A form of visual deception

[Mark Bourgeois]

I continue to hold that "suggestion of falsehoods" like visually-deceptive bunkers are nowhere near as effective or enduring as features that remove "indicators" (suppress the truth).

Jeff, I would characterize your examples not as deceptions but "suppression of sensory input." That's a tough one to deal with, and I like how it encourages the right line of play.

Big greens tend to suppress the truth; it's much harder visually to figure where the flag is.

Paul's comment fits this.  Another would be the greens at Homestead's Cascades.  They don't break off the mountain consistently, discombobulating the golfer's "internal gyroscope."

Weird idea: what if the heights of flag sticks varied from hole to hole? How much would that confuse golfers?  I suspect golfers are able to make some type of internal calculation, similar to "break off the mountain," using flag stick heights.  They may not even be aware they make this internal calculation, but if the architect knows them, and designs a hole that deceives by violating an internal rule, that's likely to endure as a source of doubt.

The Alps hole at Yale used to have a really tall flagstick to give golfers in the fairway a sense of whether it was left or right, but fuggidabout trying to figure depth.

Mark

[TEPaul]

"I continue to hold that "suggestion of falsehoods" like visually-deceptive bunkers are nowhere near as effective or enduring as features that remove "indicators" (suppress the truth)."

Mark:

I sure do agree with you on that, and that's probably the reason why that for years now on some really good land---eg really good topography I think far more architects should try to go bunkerless.

I realize that to do that it is surely putting a good deal more pressure on them to come up with something effective both visually and in play.

In my opinion for the last hundred years or so almost every single golf architect, even the very best of them, have become incredibly dependent on bunkers.

They've gotten to be almost like some addictive drug to architects and now to golfers too in their expectations.

I think more architects should try to experiment a whole lot more in future courses with reducing dependence on bunkers in golf and architecture not the least reason being they are both expensive to make and expensive to maintain.

[paul cowley]

TP.....I know of a good candidate site for the bunker less [or almost?] course you speak ....not sure if the members are up to the task though....but I could be....as long as we sprinkled in a few debris mounds and faux earth covered stone walls and agrarian ditches when the need struck .

[Mark Bourgeois]

I think more architects should try to experiment a whole lot more in future courses with reducing dependence on bunkers in golf and architecture not the least reason being they are both expensive to make and expensive to maintain.

More grass, less sand -- here are your design principles:
http://www.doakgolf.com/essays.asp?e=besthazards

Paul Cowley, thought for a minute there you were taking us to...The Carthage Club.

[paul cowley]

....and you are right Tom about an over reliance on bunkers ....especially for effect.

More and more I think twice about putting one in, and then leave it out.
This approach scores low on how a hole 'looks' in the rating game though .

[Mark Bourgeois]

Paul,

I got one for ya...

What "great" courses have "few" bunkers, and can you recall how many bunkers they have? Or: what are some great / really good courses that do it without "bunker dependence"?

There are examples of truly bunkerless courses like Royal Ashdown Forest (http://www.royalashdown.co.uk/) but I'm wondering about courses that aren't bunker-free, just bunker-lite.

Curious minds want to know...

Thanks,
Mark

[John Kirk]

This subject ties in nicely with the use of range finders and yardage markers to determine distances.  I think it's both fun and valuable to play without yardage information from time to time.  You've still got three ways to estimate yardage:

1.  Knowing the length of the hole, you can estimate how far your first (and second) shot went, and subtract accordingly, based on previous experience.

2.  Using your eyesight, as discussed here, you try to determine the pin's location.  I believe a very keen observer would begin to discern subtle differences in distance, if distance information was not readily available.  As we've discussed before, a flag 100 yards away looks twice as tall as a 200 yard flag.  The golfer's eyesight would then become much more important, and nearsighted players would be at a huge disadvantage.

Mark, please don't have different size flagsticks.  That just kills me, even when I know how far it is.

3.  If it's your home course, you begin to recognize how far you are from previous shots played from the same location.  The home course advantage would be greater.

Back to the topic.  The 13th hole at Ballyneal has a large bunker in the right center of the fairway that looks like I should worry about it, but it's out of range for me, about 300 yards from the men's regular tee.  It's very large, so it looks closer than it is.  Also, bunkers are usually positioned to be in play for a solid drive, especially from a second tee which is 80 yards closer than the 510 yard back tee.  Expectations play a role when visually analyzing the shot.

[Forrest Richardson]

"In my opinion for the last hundred years or so almost every single golf architect, even the very best of them, have become incredibly dependent on bunkers." — Tom Paul

Amen.

Bunkers (sand) are akin to over-salting of decent food, that extra commercial squeezed in a good TV show, and bras — there are simply more than we need in a world this size.

[TEPaul]

I think resorting to different size flagsticks on a single course is the worst form of trickery----it's common, cheap, tasteless, troglodytish chicanery and foolish flukishness and the people responsible for it should be forced to sit in  unusually dirty, disgusting and really smelly mud-puddles for up to 26 hours at a time.

[Mark Bourgeois]

unusually dirty, disgusting and really smelly mud-puddles

I've played my share of courses that fit this description...

Okay, so far two votes in favor of different size flagsticks!

[Adam_F_Collins]

Now we're getting to "minimalism". A great reduction in dependance on bunkers...

How many natural landforms would come to the fore and define a golf hole if there were fewer bunkers? They are often so blindingly white and oversized, that it makes it difficult to see anything else.

"Turning" the hole, "Framing the green", "Indicating" the line of play... It's all too much.

[Patrick_Mucci]

I continue to hold that "suggestion of falsehoods" like visually-deceptive bunkers are nowhere near as effective or enduring as features that remove "indicators" (suppress the truth).

Mark,

I think that's a great point, architecturally, that gets frustrated and undone by range finders, SkyCaddies and other indicators.

[paul cowley]

Mark....I haven't played or know of any truly bunkerless courses except some of the primitive variety.....but I would truly enjoy the challenge of creating one if it was a requirement of a client.
Aside from creating contour challenges around greens complexes, I also enjoy experimenting with the creation of larger earth forms and other man made items to create interest......faux forts and moats, ruins, ricefields etc.....all of which I find challenging from a non use of sand point of view.

[Tom_Doak]

Royal Ashdown Forest has great natural roughs surrounding every hole, so bunkers are not so important.  

The best example of a great course without very many bunkers is Ballybunion.  Machrihanish is pretty good, too.  

But, it's silly to suggest that reliance on bunkers is a modern thing.  Forrest and TE love Oakmont, which is not exactly "bunker lite".  Neither is Muirfield, St. Andrews, Royal Melbourne, Cypress Point, or Pine Valley.  Modern architects use lots of bunkers because they have observed what are considered to be great courses and embraced the details of those courses.


Incidentally, a bunch of the courses I played in the UK & Ireland back in the early 80's had flagsticks of inconsistent heights ... some were taller so you could see them from a blind spot in the fairway, others were shorter because they had been broken off at some point.  (At Portsalon some of the flags were two feet tall.)  It does make it very hard to judge distances.

[Jonathan Cummings]

Those 2-foot tall flags at Portsalon must be a thing of the past.  When I visited there last year the flags were all short but nowhere near 2 feet.

JC

[Greg Murphy]

MacKenzie  was an explicit proponent of deception and camouflage but felt that blindness on approach shots ought to be avoided and one of the most annoying forms of blindness for him was the hole where the flag is visible but the surface of the green cannot be seen: “On a green of this description no one can possibly tell whether the flag is at the back, middle, or front of the green, and it is particularly aggravating to play your shot expecting to find it dead, and to discover that your ball is at least twenty yards short.”

On the other hand, such holes are necessary evils on most courses, especially modern ones that tend to be built on relativelyhilly terrain. The eighteenth at Augusta—a necessary evil. And, as Tom has mentioned, naturally elevated green sites are ideal for drainage purposes with the unintended consequence of creating some blindness, but while camouflage and deception add interest to a course, it would not seem this kind of deception is something one ought to strive to create deliberately.