The concept of visual reward

[Matthew Mollica]

I recently had a friend make an interesting observation regarding a well respected local golf course.

The friend doesn't like the course in question - among his criticisms,
he cited the repeated absence of any visual reawrd for good shots, especially into greens.

By this, he was referring to the pleasure he derived from seeing his shots land on the green, and continue to track close to the flag. His description of this sensation made all those listening realise that such a view, especially after a solidly struck iron, is a genuine and somewhat unrecognised pleasure the game affords.

The inability to see this, on a repeat basis through 18 holes, leaves him feeling deprived.

It's an interesting concept.
Is this sensation of visual reward worth considering when designing courses?

Do some courses offer it lots more than others?

Matthew

[Ross Waldorf]

This makes me think of playing Rustic Canyon and my feeling when I get to the post-flood incarnation of the 4th hole. That's a 150ish par 3 for those unfamiliar with the course, with a big swale dividing the green from front to back with a substantial right-left tilt.

After the flood, there was quite a bit of silt deposited down at the bottom end of the course, and Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner built a new hazard that crosses the fairway -- it's a rough-looking mound with some bunkering that obscures most of the green from view. It does tend to create uncertainty about aim and what shot to hit, and the blind aspect doesn't bother me per se. But what I miss about the original design was watching a well-struck punch shot drop into the swale in front of the green, and then emerge and roll up and over the mound toward back left hole locations. It tended to take awhile to get where it was going (reminds me of John Kirk's theory about the length of time a ball takes to come to rest), and watching it was one of the simple pleasures of a round at Rustic.

I think many people thought the original hole was a bit bland, because there was just this simple expanse of fairway that led toward the green. But I always thought the simplicity was one of the hole's strengths. The green is pretty much unchanged in the new incarnation, although the bunkering left and behind is way more dramatic. All of that's fine. But I really do miss seeing the ball roll across the green.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Absolutely.  I take great care in most cases to make sure that the entire green surface is visible to the golfer.  Its not always possible, but I once soured on an associate architect and later fired him in large part because he never worked hard enough to make fw, approach areas and greens visible.

Once in a while, not seeing the actual result of a shot and having to walk up to see it is nice.  Done as a habit (often unknowingly by a gca) and it does become irritating.

Who doesn't like reward for a job well done and seeing the result, perhaps posing at the top of the swing etc.?

[Ally Mcintosh]

Jeff,

If you are always trying to strive for complete visibility on greens, how do you cope with holes which go up steep hills?....

David Kidd's course at Powerscourt has quite a few uphill holes... He had no problem with leaving the green surface blind... You could argue that it's an equally pleasant feeling to have the occasional shot disappear on you so that you are awaiting until you reach the green before you see just how close that perfect 7-iron was?

Variety, I guess... Don't always want to present that target but the other way would be quite tiring if done more than a few times a round...

[Stuart Hallett]

It's especially annoying to make greens blind when it's unnecessary. My home course has either repeated soft mounding in front of greens, or raised greens with only occasional glimpses of the putting surface.
It took me 2 or 3 rounds to work out what was bothering me, now it really bugs me. Despite the course being built in dunes, I'm rarely encouraged to pitch & run the approach shots, what a crying shame !

[Jeff_Brauer]

Ally,

First try not to route steeply uphill holes.  Second, when the first rule is not applied, accept it, as I mentioned, and look for ways to design the green and surrounding bunkers to define generally where the players have to go.

[Jaeger Kovich]

I thought everyone on here liked tobacco road. You have no idea where your ball ends up at that place

[David_Tepper]

Matthew M. -

The new Castle Stuart golf course is likely one of the most visually rewarding you will ever see. Take a tour:

http://www.castlestuartgolf.com/course.html

DT

[Adam Clayman]

Jim Engh provides this feeling a lot. In his own words he's "a gatherer".

Matthew, The one question I have about your friends criticism is; When the ball rolls away from the hole, does the sadness associated, affect his opinion of the hole and/or course?

If so, that's an evaluation of architecture based purely on the subjectivity of how one plays. Is that really a good evaluation?

If I had a nickel for every time I heard someone complain about hitting a perfect shot, only to find it in a less than ideal shot...

How can a shot be perfect if it's final resting place is somewhere the golfer didn't want?

On the other side of the coin there's the anticipation of waiting to find out the result, when the golfer is blind to the visual of the result.  A good mix is the ideal, IMO. Repeated anything, save for variety, can't be that great. Can it?

[Nick Campanelli]

My initial reaction to this thread was to associate "visibility on a course" with flat land....After thinking about it more, I realize that many of the flat courses I have played (primarily in Florida) have less visibility than hillier courses I grew up playing in New England.  Flat land tends to toy with a player's ability to read depth.   

I agree that the character should be influenced by creating a variety of scenarios for the player (i.e. not having all open or blind approaches to greens).  Using slopes to create semi-blind shots often transforms an otherwise boring hole into a more interesting one. 

[Carl Rogers]

People ... now don't get mad ...

Is this thread the counterpoint of the blind, semi-blind, accelerated or compressed perspective GCA usually finding favor here?

[Tim Gavrich]

I wonder if the fact that these greens are almost visible is the principal irritant here.  At places like Yale, where there are shots that are 100% blind (i.e. the green is not visible at all) like at 3, 12, and 18, it's part of the thrill of the hole to hit-and-hope.  But if you have a bunch of greens where you can see maybe litte bits of the edge of the green here and there, I could see how it'd be a bit frustrating.  As with most things in GCA, I like balance.  Having 18 greens where you can see exactly where the balls end up or 18 where that is impossible would be a bummer, to me.

[Brian Walshe]

I was with Matty when he had the discussion that lead to this thread.  The gentlemen in question doesn't like the course Matty and I had just played and was giving his reasons why.  He has a good eye for architecture, no doubt helped by having Royal Melbourne West the other side of his backfence as he grew up.  The visual reward element was an interesting one that I had not really thought about.  To be fair, he made the point that not every hole suffered from the problem but that he thought the balance was out, that there were too many.  A lot of the comment in this thread echos the importance of having a balance.

I wonder if we don't blur the lines between what is good or bad architecture and simply a golfer's preferences.

[John Kirk]

I agree with the concept of visual reward.  I like to see my ball land and roll, though I understand that blind shots and uphill shots are an integral part of the comprehensive golf test.

For instance, I liked Garden City GC, but felt that too many drives were blind, obscured by high grass and subtle elevation changes.

I have visual reward higher on my personal priority list than Kelly does.

Hey Kelly....Judas! 

[JESII]

Somewhat misdirected...but...does anybody build holes with a blind side of the fairway and a side that reveals the green on which the blind side will offer a better playing angle into the green?

#9 at Royal New Kent? maybe...
#3 at Roayl County Down in a hard right to left wind? maybe...

[Brent Hutto]

JES,

I can't describe it adequately but the eighteenth hole at my club is somewhat like that. It is an uphill hole of about 380 yards from the tees I play and the fairway slopes severely from right to left. The edge of the fairway bunker on the high (right) side is probably 15 feet or more higher than the edge of the trees on the low (left) side at the normal approach-shot zone between 150-200 yards out. Then it is way up the hill to the green, probably 40 feet or more from the middle of the fairway to the front edge of the green (which is a false front).

So the upshot is (pun intended) you can see a little patch of the green toward the back half if you're over near that bunker and you can see nothing but the top of the flagstick from middle or left of the fairway. However, a slight slope and some considerable Bermuda grain in the green run everything hard to the left. So an approach shot (mid-iron to hybrid, typically) from the blind side of the fairway has the full depth of the green to work with while from the right side where the view is better any ball moving slightly right to left is going to run toward or over the left edge of the green (which falls away).

So given that the fairway is only 30-odd yards wide, I think that hole does a great job of giving you a choice between visibility vs. what the ball will do once it's on the green. Let so of course for anyone who can drive it down to 120 yards and be hitting a 9-iron up the hill. But for us short to medium hitters it's a legitimate choice. The shot also plays a club shorter from the right side because it's less uphill. Cool hole, I always try for the right side myself and take my chances with my 170+ yard hybrid shot getting away to the left (there's actually a grassy hollow right of the green that is my bail-out zone).

[JESII]

Brent,

That's a good description and is what I was looking for. Sounds like you think this concept works pretty well?

[Kirk Gill]

Jim, I think the use of a "blind side of the fairway" is a great design feature. Jim Engh doesn't get much love on this forum, but I think he integrates this into a number of his holes. There's a par 5 at Pradera where the tee is so elevated (maybe TOO much so) that there is a tendency to just bomb the drive and let the chips fall where they may - but if your tee shot is to the wider part of the fairway (there are several central pot bunkers), any attempt to reach the green in two is blind. There are other examples.

[Brent Hutto]

I think the concept works well for my game in which a lot of Par 4's involve hitting the longest or second-longest club in my bag, which arrives on a very flat trajectory. An awful lot of people approach even 400+ yard Par 4's with a shot that lessens or eliminates the action on the green but I suppose you could get similar effects with a more sloped green.

But I'll bet out of the 30-40 guys who play in our weekend morning games only a handful at most even think about that better visibility over there. So mine is a minority-geek sort of appreciation of the feature. There's also the speed-ramp effect where if you can play the right shot to finish down the left side you'll be a good bit closer to the green...it's hard to offer a visibility or even an angle inducement that most people would prefer to 15 extra yards on their drive!

[JESII]

When I went to Royal County Down for the British Amateur in 1999 I had one chance to go around before qualifying began...I believe they had a yardage guide as well for reference.

When I got to the 13th tee the dune looked short on the right and the fairway much too narrow up the left so I decided I could get on or around the green with a 2 iron off the tee and then a 4 or 5 into the green...I guess it was also clear on the guide that there was a wide approach area short and right of the green, so it seemed I'd have some room to miss the approach being that far back as opposed to driving it into the fescue in hopes of having a shorter shot in.

This seems like the normal trade-off of length for accuracy, but in reality the short right approach area worked really well in feeding a long iron onto the green when I am not sure it would have if I were 40 yards closer and coming in from a sharper left angle. Maybe, maybe not, but after hitting the first 4 iron over the dune and out to the right of the aiming pole and having the ball end up on the middle of the green, I became convinced this was a far superior way to play the hole due to minimal risk.