Deceiving Appearances

[Ed Oden]

On another thread Matt Ward said the following:

Red Ledges does a very smart thing that other great architects usually do -- they make the course APPEAR more demanding than it is and with such stellar scenery it's very e-z to be thrown off one's game when playing there.

Do you agree that making things appear tougher than they actually are is a hallmark of quality design?  Or is the opposite (a course which looks easy but plays harder than it appears) really a better indicator of architectual merit?  Personally, I prefer the subtle mysteries of the latter approach.  With the former, once you learn there is more bark than bite, some luster is inevitably lost.  I am far more likely to think there is something special (and enduring) going on when repeated play reveals complexities that belie a simple facade.

Ed

[Tom_Doak]

Ed:

What I like best are courses which present shots in a way that frighten the good players from firing away at the flag ... such as making a green sit on the horizon so there's just negative space behind it.  A good player gets uncomfortable over that and often bails out; the average player doesn't change his game plan as much.  We all need to figure out ways to achieve that result more often.

At the same time, I agree with you that you also want some holes that appear simple but aren't, so the golfer leaves the green scratching his head over his score.

Indeed, I think it's important to have both types of holes in every course.  If it's all one or the other, the players will figure it out pretty quick ... but if you keep mixing it up, then they don't know when to put their foot on the brake, and when to step on the gas.

[Ed Oden]

Tom, after 10,000+ posts I would have thought you would know that it is incredibly poor etiquette to give the perfect answer on the first reply.  Thanks for ending this thread before it got started.  You could have at least waited until Anthony Gray chimed in with the inevitable gratuitous Garland Bayley reference. 

Ed

[emoticons intentionally omitted to make this post appear tougher than it actually is]

[Garland Bayley]

On another thread Matt Ward said the following:

...with such stellar scenery it's very e-z to be thrown off one's game when playing there.

That's the real nonsense in Matt's post. Scenery is the killer of player's games! Give me a break! Unfortunately, Matt keeps repeating many of these silly ideas over, and over, and over, and over, and ..............................................., and over again.


Ed,

Shouldn't you be off looking for a G, you know like in Garland and Gray, instead of taking shots at my bud and I?

[Martin Toal]

As an average upper single figure handicapper, I dislike playing at flags perched on the horizon with no perspective behind to frame the shot or give a sense of depth. Very easy to come up short.

On the other hand, I quite like dead ground in front of the green, and tee shots which appear narrow but are actually more generous than they appear.

Some tight links holes partly compensate by having slopes at the side of the fairway which help feed the ball back, although if this is too generous, you start to find a lot of divot holes gathering in a small area.

[Carl Rogers]

Ed:

What I like best are courses which present shots in a way that frighten the good players from firing away at the flag ... such as making a green sit on the horizon so there's just negative space behind it.  A good player gets uncomfortable over that and often bails out; the average player doesn't change his game plan as much.  We all need to figure out ways to achieve that result more often.

At the same time, I agree with you that you also want some holes that appear simple but aren't, so the golfer leaves the green scratching his head over his score.

Indeed, I think it's important to have both types of holes in every course.  If it's all one or the other, the players will figure it out pretty quick ... but if you keep mixing it up, then they don't know when to put their foot on the brake, and when to step on the gas.

Tom, are there course of yours or others or stretches of holes that everyone knows about that might illustrate your point?

In my mind, Beechtree (RIP), does less of this than Riverfront.

[Ronald Montesano]

At a high school tournament a few years back, the host pro discussed country club of buffalo by saying "every flag is negotiable from the center of the green.  Place it there and you will have no more than 25 feet left to cover."  Being teenagers, the kids nodded, fired at flags and practiced lots of flop and sand recovery shots, all the live-long day.  The putts were not easy ones, mind you, but they were all within the stated range.  This would seem to support the "perfect answer" that Ed noted.

I personally am an aficionado of holes that do this on the drive.  I tend to see the places where stray drives might go, rather than the open spaces.  I am a good enough stick to be able to hit the intended line, but allow the "deceiving appearances" to flow in and infect my thoughts.  Ergo, even as I struggle with the thought process, I applaud the architect for making me think.  Nothing makes me happier than to find ample room as I arrive at the drive zone.

[BCrosby]

Tom -

In the "Le plus ca change..." category, Simpson and Croome both said several times that a mark of a good golf course was that it took several rounds to understand it. It was an idea they used against Crane, for example. The idea also appears in Simpson's book and in other places.

Your post is a reminder that the idea is a two edged sword. Most people think it means only that some holes should play more easily than they appear. But there's a flip side. Some holes ought to play harder than they appear. That's part of what Simpson and Croome meant when they said you'll not understand a good golf course the first time around. 

Bob

[Mike_Young]

Isn't it interesting how critical color contrast is in determining "viewed" difficulty in a golf hole.  IMHO sand has become more of an indicator of difficulty than element of difficulty.

[BCrosby]

Mike -

Interesting distinction. Would you consider blindness (or semi-blindness) an indicator rather than an element of difficulty?

Bob 

[Peter Pallotta]

Then there's different kinds of hard. I play occasionally with an old South African, a good golfer (about a 4 I'd say), well travelled, bad knees from his rugby days. He appreciates golf course architecture, but appreciates the game itself (and getting the ball into the hole quickly) even more. Terrifc around the greens. And I've never heard him complain about anything we find on a golf course, except when a course consistently makes it impossible for him to run the ball on.  I don't quite understand it (he seems to manage okay anyway) but it drives him nuts.

Peter  

[Mike_Young]

Mike -

Interesting distinction. Would you consider blindness (or semi-blindness) an indicator rather than an element of difficulty?

Bob 

Bob,
Yes.  Wouldn't you?   Once you plan the shot and address the ball then blindness has no effect IMHO....now it may create an issue for alignment which some may consider and element.....but I don't think I would.

[Niall C]

Mike/Bob

Sometimes blindness can simplify the shot. When all you have is to pick a spot and go over it you don't think about whats about the landing area because you can't see it. When you can thats when you're brain starts feeding you information you don't need.

Niall

[BCrosby]

Mike/Niall -

I agree with both of your points. Which raises a deeper philosophical issue. What is the basis for the near universal objection to blind shots? (Where are the iconoclasts like Tom Simpson d'antan?) If b/s's aren't inherently harder; if in fact b/s's are in some respects actually easier, what's to complain about?

But everyone does.

If I might venture a guess, I think it has to do with disrupting the execution - outcome linkage. To refer to my Crane piece if I might, predictability is valued highly by most golfers. It certainly was by Crane. If a shot is intrinsically unpredictable (because blind), then your neat little equitable world breaks down. You are forced to accept unpredictable outcomes because, ... well because you can't plan outcomes you can't see. Something like that.

Such predictability/equitable concerns play a much smaller role in strategic design theories. Which explains why adherents of those theories (again, think Simpson) tend to have a much higher tolerance for blindness. In fact they think it is an important tool in the toolbox. I do too.

Bob 

[Peter Pallotta]

Bob - that IS interesting. I know it's become almost a cliche around here to raise Max Behr or 'freedom' or 'the spirit of the game', but it does seem to me that predictablity is tied very closely to ego: I want things to be predicatable so that I can be proved correct in my thinking and deemed worthy in my execution, and this would all be for naught if I couldn't actually see the fruit of my labour, i.e. the predictable outcome I had -- in my wisdom -- predicted, and that had manifested itself -- through my skill - as predictably as I had predicted.  

Not quite the expansive mood and perspective of the 'sportsman' that....

Peter    

[Bill_McBride]

To carry on the "blindness" theme, what about holes with strategic blindness?

By that I mean if you can place your tee shot in the right area, you can see the target.  If you don't hit to that area, perhaps all you can see is the top of the flagstick.  There were a couple of good examples of that at the TPC of Boston this weekend, and of course the poster child is the Leven hole #17 at NGLA.

I find those to be very subtle and interesting holes.

[Mike_Young]

To carry on the "blindness" theme, what about holes with strategic blindness?

By that I mean if you can place your tee shot in the right area, you can see the target.  If you don't hit to that area, perhaps all you can see is the top of the flagstick.  There were a couple of good examples of that at the TPC of Boston this weekend, and of course the poster child is the Leven hole #17 at NGLA.

I find those to be very subtle and interesting holes.

it works....

[Sean_A]

Mike/Niall -

I agree with both of your points. Which raises a deeper philosophical issue. What is the basis for the near universal objection to blind shots? (Where are the iconoclasts like Tom Simpson d'antan?) If b/s's aren't inherently harder; if in fact b/s's are in some respects actually easier, what's to complain about?

But everyone does.

If I might venture a guess, I think it has to do with disrupting the execution - outcome linkage. To refer to my Crane piece if I might, predictability is valued highly by most golfers. It certainly was by Crane. If a shot is intrinsically unpredictable (because blind), then your neat little equitable world breaks down. You are forced to accept unpredictable outcomes because, ... well because you can't plan outcomes you can't see. Something like that.

Such predictability/equitable concerns play a much smaller role in strategic design theories. Which explains why adherents of those theories (again, think Simpson) tend to have a much higher tolerance for blindness. In fact they think it is an important tool in the toolbox. I do too.

Bob 

Bob

I think you are at least partially correct.  However, when folks like Jeff B (and I think Rihc) state that for a hole to be strategic one must see the target(s), I wonder how that fits into the Crane/Behr (etc) debates.  I think some of the so called strategic designers such as Dr Mac and Colt weren't keen on blind shots - especially approaches.  Blind shots didn't seem to have many supporters once  architects started to accept (say around 1900) that the land could and should be moved to suit the purposes of golf.  Of course, Darwin was a notable exception (probably out of a love for tradition), but his influence on architecture was minimal at best.

Archies go through all sorts of convoluted ways to eliminate blind shots.  I recently played Bearwood Lakes in Berkshire.  The 14th is near the lake on a lower part of the property.  The 15th is back on the higher land, some 200 yards away.  I thought it curious that the archie didn't plop a tee down near the 14th green and play the next as a par 5 rather than walking all that distance to the tee to play a par 4.  I know many folks don't like blind shots, but isn't it better to hit a blind shot rather than walk to roughly where the blind shot would finish then tee up?  To me, this sums up the difference between modern archies and "ancient" archies.  Somewhere along the line the idea of strategy and/or consistency mucked with matters of practicality of design and thus sometimes a routing is compromised by broken rhythm or perhaps worse yet, lack of variety. 

As is always my stock answer in these matters, variety is the key to good design and thus deceiving appearances in any manner should be welcomed. 

Ciao