How do you...

[Matthew Hunt]

...make a green seem further away than it really is?

...is there any famous holes that do this?

...what does the board think of the Idea?

[Jeff_Brauer]

build a smaller green, and maybe use a smaller flag. 12 at Shadow Creek in Vegas does this magnificently.  In fact, it starts at the "fore" fw bunkers which are huge, and then  bunkers are scaled down until they are pots at the green.  The green is about 3500 SF and the flag is 6' rather than 8' tall. (approx)

[Matthew Hunt]

The bunker and green ideas are neat and were kind of along the lines what I was thing, yet do you not that slightly transcends the murky line between intrest and being 'tricked up'?

[Brad Tufts]

Robert Trent Jones' "Golf By Design" is a good resource for stuff like this...

I believe one of the visual tricks mentioned is to put the green in front of a background feature that dwarfs the green in scale.  This would make the green appear smaller and look further away.  Of course one has to have a site with long views to allow this....

[CJ Carder]

Robert Trent Jones' "Golf By Design" is a good resource for stuff like this...

I believe one of the visual tricks mentioned is to put the green in front of a background feature that dwarfs the green in scale.  This would make the green appear smaller and look further away.  Of course one has to have a site with long views to allow this....

I think you can accomplish this by setting a green way back amongst some trees.  I don't have any particular examples, but I've read somewhere that this is one way to make the green seem further away.

[Bill_McBride]

Jeff, I can't believe you architects would resort to such a dirty trick as shorter flagsticks.

Jeez, what's next, aiming tees into the woods? 

[Garland Bayley]

Jeff, I can't believe you architects would resort to such a dirty trick as shorter flagsticks.

Jeez, what's next, aiming tees into the woods? 

Bill,

I agree completely. I read that and thought "sleezeballs".

What's next? The GCA golf equipment company with clubs guaranteed to keep you from missing fairways, because they have sponge on the clubface?

[Greg Chambers]

what's wrong with shorter flagsticks?

[Garland Bayley]

what's wrong with shorter flagsticks?

Jeff wrote "the flagstick". Proper semantics means that flagstick was shorten over the others that were taller. If all flagsticks were 6', then there is absolutely nothing wrong.

[Greg Chambers]

10-4

[Tim Nugent]

You can use an exaggerated perspective angle to make it seem farther, coupled with a narrow green.  Think back to your basic art classes in school.  Remember doing those perspectives with a long triangle out to the horizon?  If you exaggerate the narrowness of the triangle (with some sort of verticle - either up or down - landforms along the sides of the fairway - which will narrow to a width less than expected) you can make the end (green) seem farther away.  It is especially effective when used just after a hole where you create "hidden ground" before the green to make it appear closer than it really is.
I apologize in advance if this "trickery" offends anyone sense of fair play - but hey, who ever said golf is supposed to be fair. You provide the offense, we supply the defense and may the best man prevail.