Is Strategy Obsolete?

[Derek_Duncan]

Wow--there went an hour of my morning (I'm a slow reader).

Shivas,

I agree with your opinion of the BBC coverage.  I LOVE the crane view.

Tom Paul,

I agree with your take that, to paraphrase, the average player will take anything they are given for their course and like it, but then we can't continue to charge them $85 a round for "throw-back" conditions.  Ideally in achieving non-lush conditions the cost of maintenance would decrease and the average green fee would follow suit.
 
Much of the talk on this thread has been about ways to "toughen" up golf courses for the pros when the original question was whether strategy was obsolete to them.  Unless I'm reading it wrong the majority opinion seems to be that without changes in maintenance practice there's little chance to make a course more strategic.

As far as maintenance goes, it seems reasonable that firming up the fairways and greens might challenge the pros in more and different ways than they currently are.  They would have to factor in bounce, speed, and roll rather than stright distance.  Additionally, I agree with Jim Kennedy about green not meaning soft.  Yesterday I played at a fine course near Tampa called Lake Jovita that was beautifully green, yet the fairways ran (not like a links, but there was good enough roll there) and the greens were firm and difficult to hold even with substantial spin.  Firmness and greenness can co-exist with the right turf and management.

Staying with maintenance for a moment I spoke with Steve Smyers a few weeks ago and he said rather than technology "the lawnmower has changed the game more than anything."  He said, after playing a round at Winged Foot, the the perfect, tight lies found in any given "upscale" fairway allows advanced players to spin the ball any which way they want.  Maybe an alternative is to not only firm the turf under those fairways but also not cut them so short so as to produce slightly uneven lies.

I don't imagine the pros would love to see that.

Lastly, to address strategy (which in part I take to mean options and decision-making), perhaps the NGLA #17 paradigm is obsolete (this has been discussed here before).

Holes such as NGLA's 17th (because it's the model) reward length with length, so to speak.  The player who can hit it farther--in this case a long carry over scrub down the left side of the fairway--is rewarded with the preferred angle into the green.  The safe player or the player who cannot execute the long left carry plays shorter and to the right, leaving a longer approach from a less advantageous angle.  Double penalty.

Why not reverse the two plays?  How about a better angle for the player who has to hit the longer shot?  The long player is already rewarded with a shorter club into the green, so why not make the angle more challenging?  The long player might even chose to play the shorter drive/longer approach shot under certain conditions to have a better angle. That, to me, is strategy and variability.

[Patrick Mucci]

Derek,

Why diminish the reward for the risk the long player takes ?

Why reward the safer, shorter shot with a better angle ?

[Derek_Duncan]

Why diminish the reward for the risk the long player takes ?

In the context of making holes strategic for the pro player, hitting a shorter club into the green is the reward.  Add the preferred angle to that and it's a double reward.  This type of hole presents no real options for the advanced player: there's no motivation to play it any other way than down the left.

Why reward the safer, shorter shot with a better angle ?

More difficult to answer, but again, in the context of the pro game, with certain pin positions and wind conditions the angle of attack might be a more important consideration than the distance into the green.  For the player who can't pull off the riskier drive, hitting a longer shot into the green isn't exactly a reward, it's just not a punishment.

The idea is to bring decision back into the equation for the pro.

[TEPaul]

Derek:

I think that's a fairly interesting take you have there on NGLA's #17!

However, I might say it a bit differently on that particular hole. I'm not sure that the long player who bombs it way down the left side on #17 should have less reward if he pulls the shot off correctly. What I would say is that to take that particular line and length maybe that player should face a bit more risk in doing it.

In other words don't take any of the reward he gets for doing it away just increase the risk more for trying it!

Pat:

You know that hole and that area out to the left of #17 as well as any of us and you have to admit it's extremely generous--very little real risk to worry about there's so much fairway out there to the left!

I've often wondered about that just standing on the tee looking at all that hole tee to green! I just love that hole and the look of it but as wide as that hole is tee to green--one of the widest I've seen, it does seem a bit unbalanced strategically in the way the features are placed somehow.

I can't even imagine why any even semi-competent player would ever think of going way out the right! There's a lot of bunkering out there in the fairway and if you take it all on for some reason what's the reward? Frankly, I don't know, I've never even looked at the approach from over there or tried that angle. But if I were to guess why the right side may be risked up like that I might say it's only for the ladies tees that are waaay over to the right on #17 and an entirely different tee shot angle that plays nothing like the men's tee angle.

There's basically so much bunkering of every conceivable kind going on all over that hole (except way out left) that maybe they need something way out there on that enormous fairway area on the left! Maybe something smallish and very pyschological right around where the good player would get his very good 3-wood of driver to! That would ratchet up the risk some for the long player for the same reward!

Matter of fact I'm drafting a letter in my head to NGLA right now suggesting that! It'll say Pat Mucci suggests that be done--strike that--it'll say Pat Mucci INISTS that be done!

I like that "modify" button:

OK Pat, I realize you may think that would seem a bit pushy, so I'll compromise on my letter. I'll say Pat Mucci asked me to write the letter because he thinks it might be a bit forward of him to do it but this is what he suggests, although he also said if you don't do it he thinks you all are a bunch of a blue blooded architectural ignoramouses!

I think that's a much more subtle and effective way of getting their attention, don't you Pat?

Back again:

I'm not being very economical here! I should get all your suggestions under one stamp. Should I also mention that you suggest they move MacDonald's Gate and their driveway over to the right somewhere and increase the length of #18 by about 65 yds in case Tiger and his cohorts happen to come around again?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Derek,

You fail to factor in the Risk involved in the longer shot.

If we use # 17 at NGLA.
A slightly pulled driver is in heavy rough, with a shot to a slick green, downwind.  That drive also runs the risk of hitting the tree as well.
A badly pulled driver is in the water or deep, deep rough.
A slightly pushed driver is in the bunker
A badly pushed driver is in other bunkers or worse.

TEPaul,

So much of the decision on how to play # 17 is dependent upon wind direction and velocity.

Played directly in to a good wind, or good cross winds, the drive on that hole is demanding.

For good drivers, the slot left of the green seems to be the ideal zone to end up in.  Tee balls hit a little left, right or long are not rewarded.

I think the risk reward is just right, although I did hear that Ray Floyd's son drove the green.

[TEPaul]

Pat:

Poor analysis of the left side of #17! That's by no means a "slot" down the left side--and way down the left side--that's a huge amount of unencumbered fairway! And for a big hitter if they hit that tree that's a poor drive indeed!

You do have a point about the wind in your face etc but in a really sophisticated analysis of that hole's location and routing direction the prevailing wind is very much either at your back or quartering over your left shoulder enhancing a big hitter's option down that unencumbered left side tremendously.

We're not asking to redesign the hole--this is just an architectural analysis here. And into the wind there is so much else going on in that enormous fairway (other than the left side), cutting down on the ability of a long hitter getting way down the left side on those rarer occasions of into the wind is not of that much consequence.

Derek has a good point here in strictly an architectural analysis and we should all recognize the validity of his point! He wants to cut down on the reward of going down the left side and I say the same strategic effect can be gained by leaving the reward as is but ratching up the risk a little bit!

[Derek_Duncan]

Pat,

I'm sure pulling off that drive is no cup of tea.  But how many pro's would chose to play to the right?  If none of them would see the merit of playing conservatively then essentially it's just a demanding driving hole as you've described it, not necessarily a strategic one.

I'd also like to point out that this is not about NGLA #17 itself but NGLA #17 as the model for strategic driving holes.  If the drive to the left on a hole such as this was so truly risky to the professional--as Tom Paul suggests--that he or she might consider playing conservatively, then I could see rewarding that exemplary play with a better angle.  But you'd have to do something like put an island fairway out there 275 yards to achieve that.  Probably a better way, and a way that accomodates more players, if that's pertinent to this discussion, is to do it with angles so the long player doesn't have a double reward (angle and shorter club) but a single reward (shorter club).  

Enjoy your Labor Day weekend!

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul & Derek,

Since you're talking about # 17 in context with the pros, you can't use member conditions in your premise.

Nuturing the left side far rough and immediate rough would provide all of the RISK you desire.

TEPaul, that slot is narrow between the bunker and the left side rough, and a big hitter who can hit it in the slot can go through the fairway into deep rough.

Since NGLA replicates holes from the UK, let's replicate the condition of the rough from the UK, where finding your ball is half the battle.

The 17th hole reaks of strategy for every level of golfer,
only the conditions need to be changed to increase the risk/reward factor for the pros.

[TEPaul]

Pat:

Well, then all I can do is just walk off the amount of fairway which would encompass that entire option of bombing a drive far down the left flank of that hole and opening up in degrees the approach shot into the green! I would like to do that sometimes because in my recollection it's far larger and risk free than you indicate.

But before doing that I could probably get some sense of it from an aerial. I probably have one around here somewhere in a book but I don't feel like searching my library for it now. The only shot I've ever tried on that hole from the tee is basically right at the flag and to the left of the bunkering in the middle of the fairway. My recollection is that long and left from that spot is nothing at all except fairway for a very large stretch. I realize there's a tree there which complicates things for such as me going farther to the left (which very much includes the added distance for me carrying that diagonal bunker).

But neither that diagonal bunker nor the tree (to my recollection) would even be a thought and certainly not a worry for a very long driver! And the pond or the rough way left should not be much concern to a long driver either unless he hits his tee shot way wide of his intention.

This is all based on space and dimension alone which naturally has a direct effect on "risk" and maybe I'm wrong about it for some visual reason but that is my recollections!

[Tom Doak]

You gentlemen have certainly run with this topic while Jim and I were out working this week!  Sorry I couldn't have participated more, but I've read everything above and a few points:

Tom P:  I agree with you in general that firmer greens would be the best solution to reinforcing the strategy of golf holes for the pros.  Yet only on links courses have I ever seen conditions get to the point where the pros considered landing the ball short of the green -- probably because Americans have still never reached A.W. Tillinghast's ideal of making the approach equally as well conditioned as the green itself.  Until we get to that point, making greens really firm makes a course brutal for the 15-handicap and above.

Dan B:  I appreciate your analysis of Pacific Dunes, though I was surprised to hear you describe the greens as "very large," since I was trying to make many of them relatively small to contrast with Bandon Dunes.

You are also right to notice that I rarely build penal hazards at the front and back of greens -- esp. in a windy place like Bandon or at altitude like Apache Stronghold where visitors are never sure of their correct club.  I've always believed that good players are much better at distance control than average golfers, so a bunker front or back was less likely to do them damage (relatively) than a bunker at the sides.  And, since the good player is nearly always hitting his approaches in the air, a bunker in front is a non-factor:  it doesn't "help" him at all.  (It just makes him less likely to make bogey if he comes up short.  As you noted, I'm not trying to make a resort course impossible.)

When I worked for Pete Dye on the planning for PGA West, he assigned me to brainstorm on how to make the short par-4's difficult for the pros.  Most of the effort revolved around leaving them with "uncomfortable" shots:  they'd have to choose between hitting a hundred-yard approach from a bad angle or a blind line of sight, or else hit a half-wedge from the clear view.  As someone noted, the development of the L wedge soon after neutralized a lot of those strategic ideas.  (One of those planning sessions was when Pete uttered his immortal words about "getting those dudes thinking," which I quoted in my book.)

We have pulled out all the stops in Lubbock, Texas to make the college players strategize, and in a windy place at altitude, to boot.  I hope and pray it isn't too hard to be fun for the rest of the university community.

If that course doesn't make them think, I'm thinking about going back to M.I.T. and inventing a wind machine for 200 acre plots.



  

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

If you let the rough grow, like GCGC's rough, it would be a treacherous drive, with all the risk/reward you desire.

[TEPaul]

Pat:

Of course you're right that if they let the rough grow in to narrow the very generous landing area down the left side of NGLA's #17 it would make the drive somewhat more treacherous and would logically up the risk for the available reward of that area and that long driving option.

By recommending that, however, I think you're suggesting a solution that isn't a particular good one--certainly not the ideal "architectural" one and as such sort of compromises the extreme uniqueness of #17 which is, in fact, the enormousness of the entire fairway area of that hole.

The hole is a short one and one of the fascinations of it is the gigantic "arc" of the fairway area belting around that green.

I really can't think of another hole anywhere that you have available options of approaching a green to the north of you (from way out to the extreme right) or approaching a green to the east of you (from way out to the far left)!

That in itself is much of the uniqueness of that hole but the entire right side has risk/reward features and factors which use fairway bunkering sprinkled throughout the center and right side extremely well. Of course, from center fairway over to the right side you also have that most interesting sandy mound affair (with blind bunkering just behind it) that complicates the approach from center fairway (actually very much left center too) to way over to the right side even more by making the green blind!

So, I think you're someone missing much of the point of the hole by suggesting the left side should be narrowed with rough! What that generous fairway area long and left could use is its size maintained and something architectural (other than rough) that could even be quite small but pyschological to make a very long player think a bit more before bombing a very big drive down the left side and opening up the green to view.

Don't think of this discussion so much in the context of a suggestion that NGLA should actually do this and thereby change C.B's course--it's just a theoretical discussion involving options and strategies and how to "balance" them more effectively!!

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

I think you may have misunderstood me.

I didn't say "narrow" the rough.

I said, just let the rough grow where it is.

That slot is narrow to begin with, but the nearby rough is fairly benign.  If you let the rough grow to knee or waist deep, I think you would achieve the risk/reward you desire.

[Mark_Fine]

Tom Doak,
Maybe I'm dense (stubborn for sure) but explain to me what shot options (other than aerial) a pro has if the approaches are soft?  Nothing worse than seeing a low 4I for example land in front of a green and check up  

I fully understand and agree that firm greens add strategy, but if the approaches do not allow a run up shot, there are NO other options.  Even if the greens are concrete, the pros will still have to attach the greens in the air.  They'll have to adjust by trying to hit shorter irons and play higher softer shots with more spin.  

If approaches are firm, options prevail.  This is especially the case for the shorter hitter playing a longer golf course.  
Mark

[TEPaul]

Pat:

I'm not talking about growing the rough higher either. You may think that area out to the left is a narrow slot--but that's not my recollection of it. The only way to reslove this is for me to get out and measure it, certainly with the generosity of fairway in that area compared to the middle of the fairway and the right side too when you net the bunkers that are in those two areas out of it!

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

I will do so on my next visit, just like I measured the two fairways on # 8, and their elevations.

[TEPaul]

Pat:

What is the total width of the fairway on #8--not netting out the centerline bunkering. I'm only talking about the width if you stepped off one side of the fairway to the other side? I did it too!

Tom Doak:

Regarding your second paragraph on your 8/31/3.32pm post.

I too believe there is a degree of green "firmness" at which  even a tour pro might be induced to consider at least, a run-up option! He cannot do that or won't, of course, if the approach itself is not firm enough to bounce or filter the ball onto the green.

And if this can be done in Europe, there's no actual reason it can't be done in America too. And if both green firmness and approach firmness are at that point or degree that will create a "quandry" in even a tour pro's mind as to which will work best or worst, he will probably start to try both--and at that point either option should be equally available and effective! At that point there's no real reason why a handicap player wouldn't recognize what's best for him with those two options although obviously a handicapper should try the runup option far more than the tour pro would!

That very green firmness that will induce a very good player to start to think about the runup option I call the "ideal maintenance meld".

[Tommy_Naccarato]

There is an excellent treaty on Attack and Defence in Wethred & Simpson's The Architectural Side of Golf which is required reading for all in this Discussion Group. (There will be a Pop Quiz on Tuesday night, so you all better be ready!)

Back in 1929, when the book was published, it is clearly evident that the Game has the same runaway problems back then as it is today--THE GOLF BALL.

It also clearly defines how the Game would be better served by not so much lengthening the courses as defending the greens with firmness. As far as maintaining firm second cuts of rough, Does anyone know when the second cut actually became a practice?

For those who are of a higher-handicap, yet possess the same love for the game as a Scratch Tiger, I can only suggest that you try to look harder at the Strategic Side of the golf holes you play, may they be Dr. MacKenzie or Ted Robinson designs. (The full spectrum of GREAT to BAD)

Read some of the great books that have come out in recent years describing the whole process of GREAT golf, and not over-rated Golf.

One of the best holes you can look at in flat form on paper is the 10th at Riviera. A classic, short, 310 yard par 4 that is one of the GREAT drivable two-shot holes in the game.  

How would one play the hole? When you are going to line-up the direction you want to hit your drive, do you want to challenge the bunkers, the shortest route to the hole, only to be faced with an approach into a sliver of a green? Or....Do you want to play it safe left and then have a longer second that is less taxing and hazardous?

Is Strategy obsolete? Well, I still see the greatest and longest players in the game today still playing it to the safe, short left. Although you still get one every so often that is wanting to gain the advantage, and that is what strategy is all about, Attack and Defense! Therfore, "Strategy" is not dead, only barely sleeping because you have some pretty well-studied guys defining it in this modern age. (Tom Fazio is not one of them.)

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

The courses in Europe may have been designed for that,
Courses built in the US over the last twenty years or so have not been.

You can't force people to play run-up on a course not designed for that game.

In the Bottle Hole thread, under the old GCA format, I listed the yardages from centerline to rough line, and the elevation change from the high left side rough line to the low right side rough line.  Unfortunately, I've forgotten them.

RAN,

Any luck on bringing the old format threads into some type of archive or active list on this new format ?