Box-Score Architectural Writing/Analysis

[Peter Pallotta]

Say I suddenly got Ron Whitten’s job. And say I’d grown tired of my purple prose and of my long-winded ramblings on murky musical analogies. (Just play along, please.) And say that I "wrote" a major championship preview piece by describing the golf holes as played by the two front-runners the last time a tournament was held there. Like this (for an imaginary course):

Hole 1
Woods – 3W 270; 9I 155; P 15 ft; P 1  ---  E
Mickelson – D 325; LW 95; SW 8; P 14 ft; P 1 --- +1

Hole 2
Woods – 6I 220; P 21 ft --- -1
Mickelson – 6I 225; LW 30 ft; P 6 ft --- +1

Etc, etc.

What would I be missing in my description of the course/architecture? How much of the golf course and its architecture could a careful reader “see” via that box-score description? What would even the most knowledgeable and experienced reader miss?  

Peter    

[R_Paulis]

Peter, your box score description falls right in line with the work of Edward Tufte who is described as the "The Leonardo da Vinci of Data" by The New York Times. In a poor attempt to describe Mr. Tufte's expertise, he basically develops methodology to display information that shares a large amount of data in concise and efficient manner.

Similar to GCA, Edward Tufte's website provides a thought provoking forum - Ask ET - to discuss visual analytics, the display of quantitative information and the like. Since Mr. Tufte is an afficianado of large outdoor sculpture he has writings and analysis on outdoor spaces that in some ways relate to golf. For example, I enjoyed a thread started by Mr. Tufte on elegant water drainage methods. It is surprising there is not more analytics or discussion related to golf for a keyword search for "golf" on the ET forum resulted in a mere four results. It would be intriguing for Mr. Tufte and his minions analyze the massive amount of golf related analytics including your box score description.

On a related note, Golf Digest of late has printed useful displays of visual analytics to explain data related to different skill levels that I feel follow Mr. Tufte's teachings.

[Rich Goodale]

Peter

This could be a good idea, if.....

1.  You add the third dimension (height) to show what kind of shot player A hit to reach point B (including putts)
2.  You add the fourth dimension (time) to express the JKE (John Kirk Effect) of each shot.
3.  You add the fifth dimesnion (context) to show how each hole relates to the one before and after and to the whole of the holes (routing).
4.  You describe each hole not by the shots of two players  (e.g. Tiger and Phil), but by the shots of whatever number of players it takes to express and describe the spectrum of strategies and execution available on the hole.

This would separate the men from the boys when it comes to describing and evaluating the architecture of a golf hole (and collectiveley, a course).

Rich

[Lyne Morrison]

Peter –

We would all be missing a true ‘sense’ of the unfolding journey – but I think you know that.

Stats have a place but I suspect a narrative such as this would appeal mostly to those who held prior knowledge of the course or event - or perhaps the Mr. Tufte's of this world .. and a few gca’s ..

Bring back the purple I say!    : )

Cheers - Lyne

[Mark Bourgeois]

But if a picture is worth a thousand words -- and it especially is if it's a "graphical" picture -- then how could Peter's idea not be better? 

Per Lyne's point it seems like there are two different POVs that could be depicted:
1. An individual golfer's round / narrative
2. Cross-sectional

Rich's idea would help the data escape Flatland as Tufte calls it.  I think though the reader would need both experience with the graphics and patience, for the data density would be really high: you should be able to get the big picture quickly but the layers of data would offer reward proportionate to the time and attention paid.

Practically speaking, how much of what you'd need for Rich's suggestions are available via ShotLink?

[BCrosby]

Peter -

Accounts of rounds as a way to get at a course's architecture are very hard to do well. In some respects more raw data just gets in the way.

What matters to me, and what would make me read such things, would be a simple narrative in which the player described what he saw, what it meant to him and how that affected his shot choices. It might be at times nothing more than a transcript of exchanges with his caddy. Some of those little shot by shot narratives would add no inoformation we didn't already have. Others would be fascinating.

The problem is that there have been very few world class players willing or able to provide such things. It happens rarely. Bobby Jones might be a minor exception.

Bob

P.S. You can get at some of that through the backdoor by looking at scoring spreads. They tell you indirectly what players in the aggregate must have been thinking. Which is often as close as you are going to get.

  

[Mark Bourgeois]

Think I got it.

1. Narrative perspective

Using a topo routing map, plot 3-5 players' shots.  (More than that and you'd have to delayer or degrade the data -- see architecture section below.) Use a unique geometric shape (dot, square, triangle, etc) to represent each's shots. Shape goes where the ball finished on each shot.  Shape could be color-coded to represent how the ball got there (e.g., red for high, green for low, yellow for left-to-right, etc.)

Although you could ascertain score by counting, simpler would be to keep a running tally of scores along the bottom of each hole.

In the corners of the map you could add things like weather conditions -- and list in the corner of each hole any conditions that varied considerably across the set of 3-5 golfers.

If you wanted to include the Kirk Effect you'd need to add lines -- but only for portions along the ground.  Specifically you could plot the shape (with color coding) where the ball first landed, then draw the line to a second, unfilled shape plotted where the ball came to rest.

This offers a huge number of data layers, including:
weather (4-5 data layers)
topo
proximity (routing)
shot distance
shot shape
shot roll (time)
result

Even better if you could do frame by frame overlays for 15-minute increments.  Then you'd have chronology in there, too.

2. Architecture

As for #1, but plot everyone's shots on each hole.  Every player would get the same geometric shape (not enough shapes out there for the entire field!).  You might have to reduce the number of data layers further, or blow up the topo.  A simple alternative would be like the graphic used to show how the pros played Riviera 10, the graphic that appeared in the Links Mag issue that Doak edited.

Thoughts?

Mark

PS It is appalling this thread has been pushed down to the second page -- the middle of the second page, no less.

[John Kirk]

I've quite busy right now, and giving short shrift to GCA threads.  But Peter Pallotta and I see thing similarly, so I'm at least waching to see where this one goes.

What does "Shotlink" compile for PGA Tour events?  It must be similar.  Also, I imagine that golf video games compile much of the sae information.

Peter, I like your thinking on this subject, as I like stats.  I'll keep watching, and maybe I'll enter the fray later.

[Peter Pallotta]

Thanks gents, and Lyne. I didn't have much time today to look in, let alone post, but not surprisingly you surprised me with your answers, and the nuance.  I have to let the ideas you shared float around a bit; this is a tough exercise for me, which is one of the reasons I choose it -- I tend to think in word-patterns, and have a hard time with pictures and numbers.  But for now I will say this: that Rich G posted was interesting because I think that some of his past posts have shaped my thinking/question here. Maybe the idea that, when we boil it down, golf (and the course it's played on) is experienced -- and can only be experienced -- one shot at a time, moment by moment, as the situation and the shot at hand manifests itself.  So that the journey (the literary, the spiritual experience) is but a post-facto reflection on the cumulative set of these moments, which moments might and might best be described with numbers and not in prose (where, often times, the 'narrative' of language itself  takes centre stage, and fools us into thinking that it's describing architecture.

Peter

Also, just to say what my two hole box score told me about the course. The first hole is a modest length Par 4, probably a slight dog-leg right, that provides options off the tee and that gets narrower (and the rough thicker) closer to the green, which green is protected by a single large bunker short and right, and falls away from front to back.  The second hole is a longish par three from an elevated tee with a green angled from front left to back right, the back right portion being the higher plateau - Tiger's fade landed softly, while Phil's draw landed hard and ran back off the green, onto a shaved area. 

[Peter Pallotta]

Mark - well, I guess there's no saving this puppy.

Thanks for that detailed post -- to me (the anti-Tufte) it seems a comprehensive data-set, and excellent for that. (RP - thanks for introducing me to Tufte; I wikipedia-ed him this morning.)

I'm trying to see what would happen if we took the 'subjective' out of golf course architecture review/analysis.  And, Lyne and Bob C -I don't mean that in the way a Joshua Crane might, i.e. he never seemed to let his right hand know what his left hand was doing; he tried to eliminate subjectivity via his rankings, but introduced that very thing (his own subjectiivty) through the categories he chose and in the relative weight he gave them, IMHO.

Believe me, I understand the value of subjective experience of a golf course/golf course architecture; that is my way, in fact. But a golf course is an objective fact - it can be measured; the actual/objective playing of it by wide range of golfers can be mapped (via Mark's graph, including the Kirk Effect).

If we are so determined to forever keep talking about "great architecture" and "Number 1 courses" and to obsess over creating the "best of" lists, might not the golf architects and the courses themselves be better and more accurately served by focusing on this objective graph/map?  (At the very least, it might temper the breathless enthusiams or corrosive negativity that comes with the written/subjective version-- though I won't even argue that this is a good thing...)

And, so mapped, might we just find that the 'objective' architecture (and the objective playing experience that it engenders) of the best courses by designers so apparently diverse as Fazio, Moran, Mackenzie, Nicklaus, Dye, RTJ, Doak, Ross, Devries, Brauer, Ross etc. etc, has a lot more in common than our changing and subjective 'tastes' would suggest?

Peter

[Mark Bourgeois]

Peter

As Tufte notes, the presentation of data is as subjective if not more than writing.  What to leave in, what to take out...

[R_Paulis]

Peter - Your box-score proposal is not anti-Tufte in the least. Tufte presents data in whatever format works for effective understanding. Unrelated to sport, the Pallotta Box Score (PBS) reminds me of how Tufte presented a person's medical data for quick analysis by medical professionals. Related to sport, I remember Tufte doing work with baseball stats, but I believe the data was presented in a more traditional visual manner using micro line charts called sparklines.

[Peter Pallotta]

Mark - I can't argue with Tufte about the presentation of data (and I'm not surprised that a top-flight professional would be the first to acknowledge the element of subjectivity). But I think he's wrong to assume that it comes out even with writing in this regard. Writers, I'd suggest, make at least as many of the same subjective choices - what to put in, what to take out -- but, unlike Tufte,  usually make them unconsciously, or at least with more predetermination. And then the nature of language itself -- as a vehicle primarily of narrative, with a tendency to imply causal connections where none exist -- does the rest.

RP - thanks, you do me a great honour, sir.  I wish I could go a lot further on this (and on Tufte) with you and Mark, as both of you seem to really know your stuff; but for me, most of it is way over my head.  I still think there is something potentially interesting/instructive and useful in this thread/idea -- but I can't, I don't know how, to take it any further.

Peter  

Lyne - I can't escape your point about missing the true 'sense' of the unfolding journey.  And yes, if I'm the one actually playing a course, that experience is important to me, as I'm sure it is to you. But this idea/thread is about having a second hand description of that journey -- and for the last few days, I've been feeling that I might prefer some type of 'objective' data-set description of that journey much more than I would the written/prose version of it from someone else, some writer, even if that writer was me

[Lyne Morrison]

Peter and Mark – this reminds me somewhat of the graphic references posted with televised cricket matches here. A clever snap shot of data that provides an easily understood synopsis of what has taken place and what need to take place (and without having to sit or listen for hours on end .. hmm, sorry guys  : )

But Peter where I am caught with your model is that we are not dealing with a level playing field as in cricket (or Pat Mucci's Oval option) – there are so many variables – and as Mark and Rich have shown the volume of data required to tell the story is significant (and graphically detailed).

From where I stand I don’t seem to be able to read the same account as you do from your 2 hole box score – what I see is raw data that I can make a personal assessment of, but perhaps not - the options, the slight dog leg, the thicker rough or the fall on the green - personally I would need the additional layering to capture this story.

So I am left wondering if your model might work more neatly with a simplified graphic representation that captures some preferred essential data - that is presented as an addendum to a written narrative? 

I mean crikey – we don’t want to reduce this game to a set of stats – do we??

Cheers - Lyne

[Dan Kelly]

Peter et al. --

I don't mean to hijack your thread, but I have something OT to say:

I really would like to read this thread -- as I have wanted to read several threads since the redesign of golfclubatlas.com -- but the typography is so terrible (so painful to my eyes -- almost literally painful) that I just ... can't make myself read it.

It's more than a little uncomfortable even to reread the little bit I've typed here now. The type looks cheap and brittle. The letter spacing is abysmal.

No matter how large I make the type, it still looks like crap.

Has this been discussed?

Is it merely my computer on which the new gca.com looks not just bad, but godawful bad?

Dan

[Rich Goodale]

Dan

The typography does suck, and you are not the only one who looks into less and contributes less to this once fine website.  Regrettably, they include some of the finest contributors, such as you.

Rich

[R_Paulis]

What was the font on the original GCA compared to current GCA? I am not a typography expert, but I seem to remember the original font was in the Times style for which many find easier to read. The current font has a more modern feel to it and I think it is often used when small type face is needed.

Way off topic, but there is a theory that the way traditional printed content is structured (no matter the font) that causes confusion for the human eye and brain. The theory says words, sentences, and paragraphs are packed so tightly together that there is a constant battle to remain focused on the words in the line of content that you are reading for the eye/brain has the adjacent lines of content in its field of view which it is also attempting to interpret at the same time.