Luck as an element of design

[Lou_Duran]

Tom Doak's Dye story above is an excellent example of why taking about the "fairness" or "unfairness" of a design feature is almost always a misnomer.

As my philosophy prof used to say, it is an pretty egregious category mistake.

Bob

Mr. Crosby,

Care to elaborate?  God knows that there is huge definitional problem/near total lack of concensus on what "fair" is in most important realms, but what are we to talk about golf design if "fairness" is a misnomer (and ostensibly off limits)?

Tom Doak,

Perhaps the level of precision that Mr. Dye requires is why so many of his courses are admired but not loved.

[TEPaul]

BobC:

Would you mind elaborating on that?

[Tom_Doak]

Lou:

In my examples featuring Mr. Dye, keep in mind that both cases were taken from golf courses owned by the PGA Tour and designed specifically to host a PGA Tour event.  In that light I don't think the shot values depicted were overly penal at all.  I would agree that they are beyond the ability of most resort players who go to Sawgrass the rest of the year ... but the people go there to find out what golf on Tour is really like.

[Norbert P]

    How do you feel about luck being part of the design equation ? 

  Getting the opportunity to operate a dozer on a few fairways this year, I felt COMPELLED to introduce possible unexpected fates for golfers.  It's some kind of an inescapable malevolent/benevolent set of motives that I have. It's not being malicious, it's more of an attempt to keep the player watching the ball.  Sure, the fundamentals of drainage, placement, naturalism, maintenance, etc. all factor in, but without adding a few surprises, then shapers might as well be doing roadwork.
  My favorite golf holes and shots are the ones that you can't look away from until the ball stops.  Shots that we have an expectation of what the ball will do, even while it's still in the air, kills the suspense and action of golf. And on blind shots, well, they still have the    l i n g e r i n g  weighty unknown result factor for higher shot appreciation.

[archie_struthers]

 


Slag love the answer.....I know that the golf course I built would have been better if I made sure it was a little quirkier.  Most people wouldn't consider it to be formulaic, but there was plenty of room to pulll some dunes into the playing areas and really twist it some more, and after playing some of the great courses in Ireland two years ago there were just so many neat wrinkles.  Rumpled is pretty good, but the supers get into you if it makes them scalp some fairways as you well know.   Oh well!

Until we find a defense against high towering iron shots , Luck will play less of a role in the game at the highest levels than we here might want. Maybe letting trees grow over the greens to knock down these missiles might not be so bad after all....Oh my !

The good news , lots of us hit some low semi skulls on occasion , and when we happen to catch it just right it will skip to the pin and then grab. If somehow you can keep a straight face , maybe , just maybe our playing partners won't know for sure that it wasn't intended.

But I doubt it ..!!!