How Darwin Defined a Great Course; What Would You Say Meets His Criteria?

[BCrosby]

TEP - I would love to see it.

Bob

[Rich Goodale]

Me too.

[Mark Bourgeois]

MarkB:

I'm not too sure how you got from this:

"Great strategic holes primarily challenge thought.  Knowledge of what to do is not immediate.  It must be sought."

To this:

"So great architecture is by definition inaccessible (or at least very difficult to access)?"

If knowledge is not immediate but must be sought, the architecture cloaks the answer. Ergo inaccessibility.  Isn't this the opposite of "all right there in front of you"?

[TEPaul]

"Isn't this the opposite of "all right there in front of you"?"


Mark:

Pretty much but that doesn't mean the opposite of "it's all there right in front of you" is inaccessibility. All one needs to do is think a little bit and the idea is it will become accessible! 

[BCrosby]

Mark reminds me that there two kinds of uncertainty involved here.

When you are standing on the tee, you might be uncertain about (a) what your strategic alternatives are, or (b) what strategic alternative is the best.

When Simpson, Behr and (maybe) Darwin talk about great holes being hard to nail down, I think they mean both kinds of uncertainty. I would think, however, that the uncertainty you find in most great holes is of the (b) type.

Bob

[TEPaul]

Bob:

I believe you are exactly right in how they would cast it----eg some amount of uncertainty. I do not think they would consider the idea of "inaccessiblity" to be in any way synonymous! 

[Mark Bourgeois]

Tom, how are you defining inaccessibility? I take it to mean something along the lines of not apparent or obvious, like hidden behind a veil.

Bob, excellent post. Yes, we've discussed in the past a concept from game theory known as dominant strategy (aka corner solutions or Cournot-Nash Equilibrium).

A hole with no dominant strat meets two of Darwin's vy interesting criteria in the last part of his quote.

The inclusion of the wind adds an entirely new, more challenging dimension in this regard and would seem to demote the strat quality of holes that tend to play in a prevailing wind (or no wind) and therefore do not change in this regard from day to day.

Does this make Riviera 10 and Royal Melbourne West 10 lesser holes? Which holes not on TOC meet all three of his criteria?

Mark

[TEPaul]

"Tom, how are you defining inaccessibility? I take it to mean something along the lines of not apparent or obvious, like hidden behind a veil."

MarkB:

I didn't use "inaccessibility" to describe what I was talking about. You used it and that definition you just provided seems OK. I prefer Bob's use of the word uncertainty to describe what I believe we're talking about.