Is it possible....

[TEPaul]

.....to design and construct a golf course that could truly challenge every level both psychologically and execution-wise and at the same time rarely, if ever, piss off anyone?

I've got a bunch of ideas how that may be possible. It may be somewhat impractical but nevertheless possible.

The next question is---could it be said it's a good thing if a golf course really challenged every level and somehow managed to not piss off golfers?

The reason I thought of this subject is on another thread someone said a first hole that wasn't all that hard or hard looking that could derive bogies and worse even from good players and really piss them off out of the box was a good thing.

I'm not so sure I agree with that. Is there a legitimate place in golf and architecture for an architect to dedicatedly try to piss off golfers for some reason?

[Jeff Doerr]

That quote puzzled me. We have strategic styles, even penal styles, but I am not a fan of intentionally pissing off any level of golfer. I would call that architorture!


I think what you are speaking about is the essence of GCA.

[Jon Wiggett]

TEP,

I think it is inevitable that any design will anoy somebody in one way or another.

[paul cowley]

I consider a hole in high esteem if its design challenges are such that a player is more annoyed at himself for wrong play choices, than annoyed at me for creating them.

 

[cary lichtenstein]

Interesting choice of words, got me thinking that #5 at Green Acres, #18 at the Ritz always "pissed me off".

I think both holes were badly designed and the more I think about it, you hit on something.

[Tom_Doak]

I agree 100% with what Paul C. wrote above.

Pete Dye told me a long time ago that the only way to get to a good player was in his head.  Pete would do it overtly, by trying to build holes the pros would not like (i.e., you can hit driver on this hole but you'll have a blind half-wedge approach, or you can lay up off the tee but you may have an odd stance for your wedge ... sounds nuts but it's no different than any hole at Prestwick).  But some players are immune to that sort of stuff; I've never met one who was immune to getting p.o.'d when he thought he should have made 3 and he was robbed.

[Jerry Kluger]

Doesn't it have a lot to do with the golfer's attitude when he starts the round?  Do you get pissed off or do you realize that the ball hitting the ground often has random results and this is what makes the game fun?  It does seem that the player, or for that matter the team, that winds up winning often gets the good bounce.  But in the end, you need to accept that strange things happen for no reason at all.  

I would view Ballyneal as a course that can challenge all levels of players without pissing them off. It's a challenging test with a bit of wind but I can hardly imagine getting pissed off with the result of a shot.  On the other hand, I might say that Sand Hills, as great as it is, can surely piss you off.  You start on the 1st hole and the angle of the tee shot and you can get pissed off if you hit it in the junk on the left or right.

[Peter Pallotta]

TE
someone once asked a famous (and wise) man how he was doing, and the reply was:

"I'm as content as a grown man can reasonably expect to be".

A sane fellow, it would seem. But how many of us have such a realistic perspective, especially on a golf course?

So, I might put your question this way: can a golf course be so designed as to negate or off-set any of the potential misery it might cause the immature or foolish golfer?

I think the answer is "yes", at least to the extent that an architect can TRY to design such a course. And, while I don't want to judge anything too harshly, including the way a man chooses to make a living, I can't speak well of the designer who consciously makes that attempt. The resulting elevated tees, containment mounding, and showy hazards that aren't in play serve only to encourage and satisfy our weaker/baser tendencies....and I don't need any help in that regard.

Peter    

[BCrosby]

There is an exquisite discomfort that I feel when playing great courses. I've wondered about it often. I think it has to do with the plays I didn't make. Or maybe the options I didn't take.

When a course offers up voluntary risks, risks I don't have to take, and I elect not to take them or if I take them and I fail, those feelings and the course stay with me forever.

What might of been stays with me. It's delightful. Thrilling. And it stays with me for years.

When it is simply a matter of execution, none of those switches turn on.

Bob

[paul cowley]

Bob....good corollary to the point I was trying to make.
....and at least you are not annoyed at the designer for the choices you chose not to take.....or are you?

[paul cowley]

I guess along the same lines:

Nothing p.o.'s me more than to strategize to play 'safe' and then blow the subsequent shot.....there is no close second.

Elite players can be the biggest 'blame shifters'...IE it wasn't me but some outside influence responsible for my failure.
I think for many its a major skill set of their success and to tamper with would invite disaster.

So much of this game is really all about feelings.....and I'm feeling like a glass of wine.

[TEPaul]

"There is an exquisite discomfort that I feel when playing great courses."

Bob:

That's a rather beautiful remark and a very fine description of feeling while playing a great golf course. I have a description I call a "high intensity level"---it may mean somewhat the same thing.

[Ed_Baker]

Bob,

I have been trying to put those feelings in to words for decades, perfect. Not selecting the correct options that the great courses present for the particular shot that suits your game at that precise moment in the round and then paying the price is really the height of "exquisite discomfort" for me.

Tommy Paul,
Nope, can't please everybody.

[Russ Miller]

I think that in some instances golfers are ticked off when they intially play a certain hole or course, but after playing it again (maybe only after playing it again several times) does the golfer begin to appreciate what the architect was trying to accomplish.  I should have an example of this that I've played, but I can't think of one off the top of my head.  Can anyone else think of such a hole or course?  

[RJ_Daley]

Perhaps we should define what P's us off.  Probably, a variety of different things for each of us...  Me, I hate to loose balls and fiddle around with provisionals, or take drops from hazards.  So, I like a course that has rough, no water, and options off tees in the form of width.  I don't get p'd off at wild greens, and look forward to them.  This is why I love sand hill courses.  You can usually find your ball and get back to play with an appropriate penalty.  You have width to decide approach angles to attempt to utilize if you judge the greens contouring well.  You have putting challenges with firm and fast conditions, as well as very interesting contouring in and around greens.

I like what Bob, Paul and others are alluding to above concerning making the choice, and being satisfied with it due to good result, or knowing that there was another choice for the next time, or realizing it was just execution on your part, and that the road taken was the correct one well fashioned.  It makes me think of this guy...

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,


And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.


I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.