Can trees ever be an appropriate strategic tool?

[Tommy Williamsen]

We are, on this site, pretty good at disparaging trees on golf courses.  Part of the argument is that trees tend to take away from strategy because they require the player to play the way the course dictates.   I’m not sure that is always true.  My son belongs to a course in MN that is short in distance but the trees help make the course interesting.  From the tee a decision must be made which club to use.  If you stray and end up in the woods, there are decisions to be made about the way you would like to recover.  Even shots to the green call for decisions.  Most holes allow the player to hit a run-up shot.  The greens are small so accuracy is important hitting into the green as well as off the tee.  I wouldn’t want that on every course, but I have to say I do enjoy his course.   

[Eric Franzen]

Is the 17th at Cypress Point perhaps the ultimate example of trees as an appropriate strategic tool?
The clump of trees in the fairway dictates the options - where you can choose to either play safe and go to the left of them or take a more daring line to the right and be rewarded with an open approach to the green.

[mike_malone]

 I believe the difference between good or bad trees for strategy is whether you take them on or avoid them.

[JESII]

Mike,

Under your line or reasoning (here and with Winged Foot #3) everyone needs to make the same decision...which sort of eliminates the point, right?

[Wade Whitehead]

We are, on this site, pretty good at disparaging trees on golf courses.  Part of the argument is that trees tend to take away from strategy because they require the player to play the way the course dictates.   I’m not sure that is always true.  My son belongs to a course in MN that is short in distance but the trees help make the course interesting.  From the tee a decision must be made which club to use.  If you stray and end up in the woods, there are decisions to be made about the way you would like to recover.  Even shots to the green call for decisions.  Most holes allow the player to hit a run-up shot.  The greens are small so accuracy is important hitting into the green as well as off the tee.  I wouldn’t want that on every course, but I have to say I do enjoy his course.

You could be describing Harbour Town here.

I like Harbour Town very much, by the way.

WW

[Tim Gavrich]

This is a good (IMO) use of a tree as a strategic implement.  This hole is the 9th at Pawleys Plantation, where I play the majority of my golf when in South Carolina.  It is a bunkerless hole with tee yardages 419/387/358/351/310.  The tree in question sits 186 from the middle of the green, meaning that depending on one's self-appraisal at this point in the round, most players might think about blasting a tee shot over it.  If not, there are fair routes around if you can work the ball.  I usually try to hit a low galloping fade (I'm a lefty) around the right side of the tree.  If I don't fade it enough I'll be in either Bermuda rough or pine straw, impeded by some loblolly pines which, as you ma know, are almost all stem and so are good on golf courses.  If a player tries to play left of the tree and misses left, there is more pine straw but some unfriendlier live oaks.

The hole's centerline tree forces the player to make a decision off the tee rather than just wail away.  It is important to know one's limitations on the tee and that wisdom will pay off in the form of a mid-iron or short iron into the shallow green.  I have considered whether or not a bunker would be better than the tree and would still favor the tree as the bunker would physically narrow the fairway on either side of it by too much.

[Tom_Doak]

I have always liked Harbour Town, and what it represents, but the course is so narrow as a whole that the individual trees within the corridors are pretty overwhelming for someone who is not a really good player.

But to have clumps of trees as hazards can be a beautiful thing, and I'm sick to death of people saying they can never be a good hazard.  I think about that clump of cypress trees to the right of the 14th at Cypress Point, or the oaks which come into play on a couple of holes at The Valley Club.  They add so much to the character of those places, that it's ridiculous to postulate that you shouldn't incorporate them into the design of some of the golf holes.

Yes, they are fickle hazards, and as living things you know that someday they will die and your golf hole will no longer be the same.  But would it have been better never to have loved at all?

[JESII]

Feeling romantic this New Year Tom?

Oh, and I agree...along with my beliefe that a golf course is an evolving thing...

[Anthony Gray]

  The only thing I don't like is if the trees take away the high approach than the architecture should allow for the low approach. I cannot post a photo of this now, but bunkers or mow lines should not be place in areas that block the low entry.

  Anthony





 

[mike_malone]

 Jim,

   I see it exactly the opposite. If players make different decisions it is strategic. I think #15 at Rolling Green is a good example. Some players try to fly the drive over the trees that form the dogleg on the left. Others hug the trees to be on the left side. Still others just try to lay up.  As a bad example I think of a hole at Queenstown River which has trees paralleling each side with no angles . There are no decisions to be made; just execution.

[JESII]

Why shouldn't hitting it behind certain trees virtually eliminate your chance of hitting the green in regulation?

[JESII]

I believe the difference between good or bad trees for strategy is whether you take them on or avoid them.

Mike,

Here is what you said.

You also made the argument about Winged Foot that #3 was poor because the guy the won the tournament chose not to take on the risk of missing the green to the side.

Now, in your analogy to #15 at RG, what if the guy that hits it out to the right wins the match? It seems the same as Casper laying up at Winged Foot...if not, how so?

[Ben Sims]

My first reaction to the question...NO!!

But then I think of the trees on the left side of the fairway on the 15th at ANGC.  Then I think of this hole in Sacramento at Haggin Oaks.

http://www.smartsites.legendarymarketing.com/site_images/244/holes/hole_11.gif

So in actuality, I am doing what we talk about a lot on this site. I made a hard rule in my head about golf architecture, and it gets broken in a completely legitimate way.  

But I also think it's funny that many of the examples of strategic trees are on MacKenzie layouts.

[Sean Leary]

Is the 17th at Cypress Point perhaps the ultimate example of trees as an appropriate strategic tool?
The clump of trees in the fairway dictates the options - where you can choose to either play safe and go to the left of them or take a more daring line to the right and be rewarded with an open approach to the green.

I thought this until I played it. There is really no reason to go right of the trees on purpose. That gap is so narrow (which for some reason, I never realized), that anyone trying to play for a score would not go there.

[Mike Hendren]

One could argue  that the trees in the 17th fairway of Cypress Point Club are Mackenzie's second biggest mistake.  and then argue that the trees in the middle of the 18th fairway are his biggest mistake. 

Mike

[Eric Franzen]

Is the 17th at Cypress Point perhaps the ultimate example of trees as an appropriate strategic tool?
The clump of trees in the fairway dictates the options - where you can choose to either play safe and go to the left of them or take a more daring line to the right and be rewarded with an open approach to the green.

I thought this until I played it. There is really no reason to go right of the trees on purpose. That gap is so narrow (which for some reason, I never realized), that anyone trying to play for a score would not go there.

That's probably true, Sean. My own memories of the hole included a possible/unrealistic option of playing to the right. But it does indeed look quite narrow when I reality check myself by digesting some pictures of the hole.

[Tim Nugent]

Trees are 90% air. You can go over them, around them under them or through them.  They are the only reason I still carry a 1-iron.  But if a number of trees in succession limit your options, I tend to frown on them.  Usually, they don't bother me.  I can jack a shot over just about any tree (thank god for my 60).  But given my drothers, I prefer trees not be play.  I tend to block them out in design because as TD stated, they die, then you have a different hole.  You can always cut em down but they are had to put back.  So I design for them not there, then if they die, the hole stands on it's own merit.

[Charlie Goerges]

I've been a proponent of trees since I've joined this site, so I'm glad to see some other tree huggers coming out into the open. I agree with Jim and Tom on the idea that the life cycle of trees shouldn't preclude their use. And they are beautiful.

Plus, they are versatile hazards. They are Aerial hazards (like the wind) and they are ground hazards (like a bunker, boulder or extreme ground contours).

[mike_malone]

 Jim,

  My point about WFW was that the architecture seemed to indicate that not even trying for a par three green was a good tacitc. As for RG #15 there are many options , each with risk and rewards. Laying up in the fairway is one of those reasonable options.

[JESII]

Mike,

I know...that's why I equated it to the guy that just bumps his drive out to the right on #15 RG without challenging the trees left or creek long-right. How is that different from Casper not trying to hit the green at WInged Foot and then executing perfectly from there?

[Norbert P]

  
   "Can trees ever be an appropriate strategic tool?"


  Moreso than ever. We have such a rich history of what does and doesn't work with tree strategy that we should have enough of a database to know what works and what doesn't.  Since the game has gone more to the air, we should not forget the sky bunkers.  Trees are very useful and should not be discarded, by rote, as annoyances. Their negative rap is not the trees' fault, it's the thoughtless placement and lack of foresight in the layout vision that harms their reputation.  
  

  

[Kirk Gill]

Obviously, one impact that trees have on golf is that the player has to control where his ball travels through the air, and  not just where it lands and the direction it's going when it lands. Up and over, around, or under. I don't necessarily love it on every hole, but there are a good number of holes that would lose some of their interest if they lost certain trees......

[Sean_A]

Of course trees can be a terrific element, but they must be severely restricted in their use.  I like the individual or small (cops) groupings of trees, but I hate wall to wall trees which essentially offer a an indistinguishable wall of green in which individual trees cannot be made out.

Ciao

[Tom_Doak]

But I also think it's funny that many of the examples of strategic trees are on MacKenzie layouts.

Ben:

Why is that funny?  None of Dr. MacKenzie's 13 rules said anything about avoiding trees.  He and George Thomas, in particular, defended their use on occasion.

What IS funny is that the conventional wisdom is that we should not use trees as hazards because they will die eventually, but those trees Dr. MacKenzie saved are still there and still causing arguments, 76 years now after MacKenzie passed away.

[Kevin_Reilly]

I think #7 on Olympic Lake would be better with a cypress back on the right side of the hole.  There are new cypress, recently planted, that have been placed farther to the right than the original tree that has been gone for a long time.  The tee shot with the tree looming to the right would a bit more interesting.

Across Lake Merced, I've always wondered if #10 at SF Club would be better if the tree to the left near the green was less prominent.  There is a large fall off to the left of the green, from which recovery is very difficult, and that might come into play more if the approach from the left side were more open.

For reference, the 10th green is in the lower middle, and the tree I reference is at about 11 o'clock from the green.  It is #16 green in the middle right.