[archie_struthers]

     How do you feel about luck being part of the design equation ?  Where good or bad  is a real question until the ball comes to rest.  What say you ?

[Tom_Doak]

I am very lucky to have gotten to work on some special pieces of land, so I like the element of luck!

However, I'm not sure of your definition above.  Everything the ball does after it hits the ground is a function of GRAVITY and FRICTION and MOMENTUM, not of luck.  The golfer may see it as luck because he didn't factor all of that into the equation when he hit his shot ... but it is not really LUCK.

[Bill_McBride]

Tom, should you be talking about some of the incredibly convoluted contours of the Old Course, I have to respectfully disagree.  You could play for one contour, be successful, and still thrown off by one of the next few you encounter.  That's why it's such a fun course to play.  Plan all you want on those bump and run shots, but you'd better be a bit lucky too!

Luck is just part of the fun of interesting golf.

[Tom_Doak]

Bill:

You just didn't account for the latter contours.  That may be luck to a person who's not good enough to land his ball where he wants to, but it's not REALLY luck.

Isn't the question really how firm and fast we want a course to be, knowing that the faster it plays the more of those random contours and gravity will come into play -- to the point where it's impossible to factor them all in?

And yet, I'm still convinced that the firmer a course plays, the better, as long as it doesn't have too many greens fronted completely by bunkers.

[Chip Gaskins]

how would you guys consider punchbowl greens as it relates to luck??

dell holes?

[BCrosby]

To paraphrase A.C.M. Croome and Tom Simpson, there is an inverse ratio between luck and local knowledge.

Bob

[Tom_Doak]

A punchbowl green is a factor that reduces the spread of scoring instead of increasing it ... if you insist on thinking of things in terms of luck, then it's a feature that might provide good luck.  Which some good golfers hate, when their opponent gains from it.  But I don't find it different than any other kind of contour in a green ... it's all in whether you know how to use it.

As to the Dell hole, are you asking about the luck of a ball bouncing off the banks, or the blindness?  I don't like the bank shots so much in situations where the week-to-week maintenance of the course will make a tremendous difference in the outcome ... I am happy to give players a good bounce off fairway grass or chipping area or backboard, but I don't usually intend for anyone to get a good bounce out of the rough!

[archie_struthers]

 


Thanks for chiming in Tom , hope to see you some time in 2009. 

 

I just love watching the play in the British Open, where luck appears to have a bigger role in the outcome.  You see the players waiting until the ball absolutely comes to rest , a tribute to the firm and fast conditions that typically prevail.  Nothing like seeing the best players breathe a sigh of relief or slump in despair when the ball trickles into a pit is great stuff for the spectator.

As a player blind holes intrigue me more and more. At the risk of excommunication I have railed against the new bunkers on the top of the hill on #4 Pine Valley.  Although they look great, the chance to cut the corner and get a " turbo boost " to the bottom of the hill has been removed as an option for many.  The  bunkers take the angle out of play for many players.

While in Ireland for ten glorious days the "quirk" of some of the great course I played intrigued me , and  had I  made the sojourn earlier wouldn't have been as formulaic in my intiial design intent.  Look forward to more replies on same. 

[Bill_McBride]

Bill:

You just didn't account for the latter contours.  That may be luck to a person who's not good enough to land his ball where he wants to, but it's not REALLY luck.

Isn't the question really how firm and fast we want a course to be, knowing that the faster it plays the more of those random contours and gravity will come into play -- to the point where it's impossible to factor them all in?

And yet, I'm still convinced that the firmer a course plays, the better, as long as it doesn't have too many greens fronted completely by bunkers.

I agree with everything you said but I think you missed an emoticon somewhere in that first sentence.   

[Joe Hancock]

I think the discussion really is pertinent when you are on a course that lends itself to ground game options, ie firm, fast and windy. Nowhere would this be more apparent than in approach areas leading into firm greens.

That's when the element of luck reveals itself, based on the shaping on the ground. If an architect insists (or Mother Nature provides)on a lot of micro-quirk, then luck is a factor. If glossy smooth is the construction MO, then luck is not often uttered.

You'll hear about unlucky breaks or bounces more often than you'll hear about lucky breaks.

Joe

[Sean_A]

I am very lucky to have gotten to work on some special pieces of land, so I like the element of luck!

However, I'm not sure of your definition above.  Everything the ball does after it hits the ground is a function of GRAVITY and FRICTION and MOMENTUM, not of luck.  The golfer may see it as luck because he didn't factor all of that into the equation when he hit his shot ... but it is not really LUCK.

Thank you Tom.  I have had a few ding dongs about this topic with folks on this site about how luck is not nearly as pertinent as folks give it credit for.  Often times what passes for luck is really lack of knowledge and experience about a given shot.  I don't know how many times I hear people say bad or good luck about a ball that behaves exactly as I would expect to. 

I spose I don't really like the idea of too much luck being designed into the course - if there is a way this can be done.

Ciao

[TEPaul]

Archie:

As I think Tom Doak implied, I believe it's a bit difficult to even explain what luck as an element of design would be. However it might be done, I'm generally for the maintenance or even increase in the element of luck in golf. It seems too many have tried to minimize the element of luck in golf or in golf design or golf course maintenance in some misconstrued effort to make the game always more "equitable" or fair.

My recent thread on a definition for Skill in the game being both mental and physical was an attempt on my part to get at perhaps increasing the element of luck in golf or design or maintenance (or at least the perception of increasing or maintaining the element of luck in golf and design and maintenance) as it might thereby more appropriately reward a mentally strong player when he meets with misfortune through bad luck compared to another playar was is not so mentally strong (MENTALLY Skillful?).

I just didn't explain it well on that thread and so I doubt anyone saw the connection with the element of luck. 

[Adam Clayman]

Most people are in the middle of a bell shaped curve when it comes to luck. They get equal amounts of good and bad. Fewer are the outliers who either get mostly good, or, mostly bad luck.

Witnessing how someone deals with both their good and bad fortune is a large part of identifying character. Remove the opportunity for luck to show her face on the golf course and you remove one of the greatest aspects of the sport. This aspect alone is a good enough reason to show disdain for the designs built with equity in mind of the past (and present).

[TEPaul]

"Most people are in the middle of a bell shaped curve when it comes to luck. They get equal amounts of good and bad. Fewer are the outliers who either get mostly good, or, mostly bad luck."

Adam:

If anyone plays golf long enough (which may not even be that long) it should be pretty obvious to tell that noone gets mostly good or bad luck over time. For anyone to think that is a pretty preposterous thing to believe, wouldn't you say? 

I suppose what ARCHIE STRUTHERS is suggesting here is some way to up the occurence through design where more players may feel they experience more bad luck. But perhaps he also means it may be possible for them to feel they also may experience more good luck but for most players it's what they consider bad luck that seems to be what they notice the most or remember the most. And then we must recognize, I guess, that probably most players tend to blame their misfortunes and what they perceive to be their bad luck on anyone but themselves. 

[TEPaul]

ARCHIE:

I've been trying to think of some design example that might create what many players would use as an example of creating bad luck for them.

I think a negative camber fairway is one good example (ex. a fairway that slopes one way while the hole goes the other way).

I sort of like that kind of thing because it does require extra concentration and perhaps a lot more shot value but I'm aware a lot of golfers think that kind of thing is an example of bad design.

[Peter Pallotta]

Archie -

I think it's about the PERCEPTION of luck, and about architects ALLOWING this perception.   I've seen the opposite often enough, i.e. most every high-end daily fee course built in the boom years seemed determined to say to golfers "NO LUCK INVOLVED HERE". 

If a golf course advertises itself as being "all there right in front of you", you can bet it's trying to minimize to zero any perception/possibility of luck
 
Peter   

[Adam Clayman]

Tom, The comment you quoted was a general one about luck.  It might be preposterous, but, I've seen it first hand. Even on the golf course. One golf buddy use to have some sort of noise always go off in his back swing. Be it a train whistle, or bird clucking, it always seemed to only happen to him. Another i.e. In DeNiro's directorial debut "A Bronx Tale" the character "Mush" epitomized that one guy who was always unlucky.

Peter is right, it's more about perceptions  of luck.

I view luck on the GC as when someone blades a bunker shot that would be another 50 yards away but it hits the pin and drops onto the green or cup. Or, on a daily basis when you seem to find every bad bounce and get behind every tree, or, roll into every bunker. But on the very next day it all evens out. Hell, I've even seen our own Ran Morrissett hit a tree on the 17th at Quaker Ridge having his ball bounce back into the fairway, where he proceeded to make birdie. Believe me, that was lucky. Lucky the super had a slight expansion of the fairway cut out just beyond that tree where Ran made his approach from.

Mostly I use to think it was all Karma. Those who got good breaks, or lucky, somehow deserved those breaks because of other good deeds done. And Vice versa. 

[Jim Nugent]

Archie, could you (or anyone else) give us more examples of courses where luck plays a big role?  The more specific, the better. 

My feeling, btw, is that luck doesn't play a very big role in many courses at all.  Almost always, the player who plays best, wins. 

[Tom_Doak]

Tom Paul:

Your statement about good and bad luck is not entirely true.  I have seen golf pro / designers try diligently to eliminate the element of luck IN THEIR OWN LANDING AREAS and TIGHT TO THE GREENS, but not worry about bad bounces and horrible lies outside what they thought was the target area.

An example would be all of those "decked" fairways built in the 1980's and 1990's like the TPC at Sawgrass, or The Bear at Grand Traverse Resort.  Dead flat fairways for the player good enough to hit most of them ... severe banks, bad bounces and bad lies if you missed the target zone.  The fact that those bad bounces came into play way more for the bad player than the good player did not bother the architects at all.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tom Doak,

I think you hit on the essence of luck, F&F conditions.

As conditions move further from F&F, the element and effect of luck diminishes.

As you move toward the ultimate F&F, the element and effect of luck increase.

I also think you have to bifurcate luck into two categories.
1 Visible
2 Blind

[Tom_Doak]

Patrick:

I think that's true.

The way you stated also made me think hard about something I hadn't really thought before ... that a big part of the reason that American golfers like their courses overwatered is NOT so much to make them green as it IS to take away the bad bounces and make them more predictable.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Tom- I think if you spoke to most pro's they would say that TOC has a lot of luck involved and on some courses they talk about things tricked up, Crans in Switzerland is another. I just dont think you can be that precise on some shots into the greens where because they are firm, you can hit into a slight upslope and the ball runs nowhere or a yard the other side and it runs sixty feet. For 99% of golfers the pitch into 12 is luck. My arguement is partially flawed as the best player in the world has won the last two opens, but a lot of shots that look good when you play them aren't and others flick off downslopes and do quite well. It might be fun, but largely its luck if its firm and fast with the luck element reducing as it becomes damper.
PS. just read the lastposts.

[archie_struthers]

 


Now we are really into the meat of the question, and it's probably not so simple as firm and fast, though that was my immediate thought .


For Jim Nugent ....I think links courses tend to have an inordinate amount of luck integrated into the design, or as some of our esteemed colleagues have opined , require more skill  .  The modern tour player has tried  to eliminate luck as a variable, hitting the ball higher and spinning it less. This effectively eliminates bad bounces from the equation. Finding a defense to the golf that Nicklaus introduced to the world, and is played by almost all the tour today is a designers  Holy Grail .

Here's a specific on a single tee shot on one of the great courses in the world, the 4th at Pine Valley, and how luck makes the shot special.

Two similar tee shots  (# 4 Pine Valley) hit on the downslope about 250 off the tee . They land within a couple feet of each other> One bounces iinto the perfect position , a scant 140 yards from the green, while  ball #2 bounces a trifle harder , ending up in the cross bunker and actually hangs in the gorse that inhabits said pit. This could result in a three shot swing on the hole , yet could be attributed in great part to good or bad luck.  It's fabulous !  

 Given that both players may have played the wrong tee shot , there's no denying that luck played a huge factor in the results   .... the design and angle of the fairway played a big role in introducing the element into the equation ....on a golf course that generally is right in front of you ...

A pretty good argument has been postulated that skill mitigates luck .which begs a new question ....are the modern tour pro's less skillful but smarter than those that came before  .... did they learn from Nicklaus how to eliminate luck from the equation...I'd say absolutely ..

.perhaps more chances need to be taken to do some great architecture, and the rewards for skillful , aggressive play should be rewarded even more....now that's an idea

[Tom_Doak]

Adrian:

I don't entirely agree with your description of The Old Course.

A lot of those bounces would be a lot more predictable if the professionals were hitting their approaches on a lower trajectory ... or landing the ball 40 yards short of the green and letting it roll over the contours, like they did in the old days. 

Today's pros just aren't so good at those kinds of shots, so they hit a high one and RISK the bad bounce -- and then complain about the bad bounce. 

[Damon Groves]

Adrian:

I don't entirely agree with your description of The Old Course.

A lot of those bounces would be a lot more predictable if the professionals were hitting their approaches on a lower trajectory ... or landing the ball 40 yards short of the green and letting it roll over the contours, like they did in the old days. 

Today's pros just aren't so good at those kinds of shots, so they hit a high one and RISK the bad bounce -- and then complain about the bad bounce. 

You are absolutely correct Tom. The old pros were shot makers and would hit shots in a certain trajectory and shape to get the bounces they intended. Today's pros simply do not have the shot making ability to dictate those type of bounces and are left at the mercy at their lack of shot making ability.

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