[Marty Bonnar]

Sad, pathetic, little man that I am, in my quieter moments I spend inordinate amounts of time pondering the minutiae of golf course design.

My most recent musings have concerned the differences between accuracy and precision and how they might relate to design. An old Physics tutor would use the dartboard analogy to describe the difference between the two and it strikes me that if you picture the concentric rings as a green or as a landing area, how the analogy holds for golf shots too.

High Precision with Low Accuracy:


High Accuracy with Low Precision:


My questions are about how we might punish EQUALLY the imprecise player and the inaccurate player. Is it possible that we can do this in the same area? What design might best accomplish this? Or do we have to try and balance the overall course design so that both types of player might be punished equally over the course of the round?

Do we need to add these descriptors to our 'Type-indicators'? I can see it now: Penal design or Imprecision punishment; Strategic options or Accuracy rewarders...hmmmm???

FBD.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Martin,

Pelz and USGA slope studies will show you that golfers don't miss the way your target shows.  A scratch player will miss at the correct length, but wide left and right at about 7% of approach distance.  

The handicap player will miss all over the map, but more often short than long, and probably over time, more often right than left.  However, 2/3 of 20 handicappers will miss within 8% of approach distance left and right, not much more than the scratch player.

The question would be then, what shape green, contours and hazard placements would bring into play the lateral misses on the bra strap pattern shown by good players?

The answer would seemingly be ridges along the line of play dividing the green laterally.

[Jon Wiggett]

Martin,

I think the average player would prefer an inaccurate or imprecise shot not to be rewarded rather than it being punished. For the better player it probably lies in the lay of the land and their influence on the next shot.

[Marty Bonnar]

Jeff and Jon,
many thanks for your interest and input. Apparently, this subject is of NO interest whatsoever to any other GCAers, so I shall decline from further discourse.

I hereby declare this thread dead'n'buried. Let's return to debating far more interesting nonsense.

Ahthenkyoo!,
FBD.

[David Stamm]

Martin, I thought this was going to be a follow the red dot exercise with Linda Blair screaming back at me at the end.

[Mark Bourgeois]

Don't feel badly, Martin.

In just a few minutes you've gotten nearly as many posts as my Ganton pics!

[Marty Bonnar]

Don't feel badly, Martin.

In just a few minutes you've gotten nearly as many posts as my Ganton pics!

Ah, but then you didn't even mention the many famous people you have played through at Ganton, did you....?

FBD.

[Padraig Dooley]

This is an interesting question Martin.

For the first type of player, it might be a case of forcing him out of his comfort zone, i.e. if all his misses are in the same place, it would suggest one type of ball flight, right to left in your example. A couple of holes requiring left to right shots would make him think.

The second, imprecise, player has no definite miss so I don't think anything special would have to be done for him, as every hazard would be in play.

[Tags:]

Tags:

[Tags:]

Tags:

Call to undefined function theme_linktree()