Does your interest in GCA change when-

[Ash Towe]

You are playing well.   When your game is good and you are feeling positive does your desire for more knowledge and general interest in things golf increase?
OR, No matter what the state of your game your interest level stays constant.

[Chip Gaskins]

the worse i play the more i look around and try to find something of interest in the design

[TX Golf]

Chip,

I am the exact opposite. The better I am playing the less I am worried about my own golf game and all the other shit that goes along with it. That gives me the chance to look around and not be pissed off that I am playing poorly. Everything about the round (ie. architecture, amount of fun, etc) is much better when I am playing better. Not saying you are wrong. We all deal with adversity in different ways.

Robert

[Mike Sweeney]

Figure this one out.

I start out on #5 at Yale Saturday, playing the member tees with two members who I join up with. Conditions are very good for scoring with soft greens from the previous nights rain. Play 5-9 and end up at +3 after a double on #9 and a birdie on #6. Okay decent day so far in my continuous goal to break 80.

Proceed to the back nine, hit every green in regulation except #18 which I just miss and get up and down pretty easy. Combined with 2 birdies on 14 and 15, I shoot -2 34 on the back nine par 36 at Yale!

So now I am +1 coming off 18, and head to holes 1-4. I start thinking where can I make birdie on 1-4? Reality sets in on a tough stretch of holes and I bogey 3 of the 4 holes with a par on #3, for a 74. Lowest round of my life after a summer of moaning and groaning about my game. Combined with a day of Jim Sullivan flying 50 yards past me off the tee, I decide to take a lesson. Two weeks of hitting balls pretty regularly, then one round to take it from the practice range to the course. That round was pretty wild off the tee, but I settled in for the last 5-6 holes and then it all comes together at Yale on Saturday.

Screw the architecture, go take a lesson. I am headed over to BombSquad to buy some of those Tour shafts instead of architecture books! 

[John Moore II]

I don't concentrate on architecture during a round. I sometimes notice the design features, but normally the features are revealed to me over the course of time. What I notice doesn't change based on how I am playing.

[Ash Towe]

Mike,
I really like your story.  What I take from that is whilst we are all really interested in GCA we are all champion golfers just waiting to get out.
I find I like the architecture more when I am playing well because to ball is going to or close where to where it was intended and hopefully where the architect is suggesting the best place is.  As a result more of the courses features will be seen and played in the context they were intended, rather than just seen.

[Ian_L]

Mike,
I really like your story.  What I take from that is whilst we are all really interested in GCA we are all champion golfers just waiting to get out.
I find I like the architecture more when I am playing well because to ball is going to or close where to where it was intended and hopefully where the architect is suggesting the best place is.  As a result more of the courses features will be seen and played in the context they were intended, rather than just seen.

Same for me.  If I can't hit the green from 140 yards out, it doesn't really matter whether I try to fade or draw it into the green.  I also usually care more about my score when I'm playing better, so I try to really think about my shot instead of just aiming for the green.

[Carl Rogers]

As a newcomer to this site and some one along with a friend found on this site (Scott Weersing), are going to travel to Beechtree in October and tee it up.  I am wondering what my action & reaction will be to the course.  I am usually bearing down hard trying to shoot a score, but I think I need to look around more than play as the course life is short and this will be my first and last opportunity to see it.