Is Good Golf Course Design Bad Product Design?

[Charlie Goerges]

In most cases "good" product design means that the product is intuitive and easy to use. If you've read "The Design of Everyday Things" by Donald Norman, you'll know what I mean. An example that he uses in his book is of "push" doors using "pull" handles (i.e. a door to an office building with a pull handle installed when the door must be pushed to open it). Another example is doors so uniform in design that you can't tell which side the hinge is on so you end up trying to push on the hinge side and are left wondering what the hell the problem is.

In other words "it's all right there in front of you" or at least it should be (in product design). This seems to be the opposite of what makes a golf course good. Most on this site would probably prefer the golf course to be difficult to decipher, and not at all apparent. However it seems that most modern golf courses tend to the intuitive and easy to use.

I guess I've probably answered my own question, but what are your thoughts? Is good golf course design bad product design?

[TEPaul]

"Is Good Golf Course Design Bad Product Design?"


Yes, of course it is. As Arnold Toynbee or P.T. Barnum once appropriately said:

"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste and intelligence of the American public."

[Jeff_Brauer]

Charlie,

There are a lot of elements in making a golf course easy and intuitive to use that have nothing to do with how intuitive the golf shots are. First among those is circulation (starting with the entry road, parking and clubhouse area circulation) and second is reasonable vertical climbs.  Safety and hole spacing might play into that, as do on course amenities (restrooms!)

As to your main point about WYSIWG, there is still a lot to be said for that in golf design of features, this website notwithstandng, especially for public and resort courses that cater to the first and perhaps one time visitor.  When you put the idea of "framing" and "definition" the way you did, in terms of product design,  it seems clear that the long time move to those design features actually makes perfect sense in a bigger human nature picture.

[Peter Pallotta]

Charlie - in one of my summer jobs when I was younger, I worked at a brewery, one of those small, quality micro-breweries. And I was talking to the Head Brew Master one day, and he surprised me by complimenting the work of his counterparts at the big, big beer-makers, Molsons and Labatt. He said that, while he thought the beer itself was just okay (but that too was a matter of taste), the real amazing skill the Brew Masters at the big places had was that they could make every single batch and every single bottle of the millions of bottles they churned out TASTE EXACTLY THE SAME. He said I'd never realize how hard that was to pull off. I guess the same goes for, like MacDonalds or something -- here, there, in Mexico, in Paris, in Russia - new people working for them, old timers, it doesn't matter: when you order a Big Mac you know EXACTLY what you're going to get, every time. There is a skill there, of a kind (and one, I'm told, not to be disparaged). If it "works" it "works" I guess -- and beer is beer, and hamburgers are hamburgers, and golf courses are golf courses. So, to reverse your question: is good product design bad golf course design? I'm not so sure. And are good golf course designs bad product designs? I'm not so sure either -- I mean, the Brew Master at the micro-brewery made a lot less beer than the guy at Molsons, but he too tried to make every bottle taste exactly the same. And I guess that if you sought out a Coore and Crenshaw design (and there's a lot less of them than by the big-name designers), you'd probably be expecting --  and want -- the same thing that they had produced before.

Peter

[Tim Nugent]

Charlie, I would contend that it depends on who the target market is.  What I think many on this site fail to keep in mind is that they are, shall we say, college math majors when a majority of the golfing world are struggling to understand basic math.  GCAers assess golf courses through a different prism. They have the benefit of (if they have been paying attention to years of info desemiination here) history, technical abstracts, and architectual insight.  Naturally, the more educated one is on all things golf, the challenge of increasing complexity keeps ones interest level up.  However, asking the same of Joe Sixpack is like asking him to doa Proof of Moor's Equation.  Can you say "Deer-in-the-headlights"?
So, on one hand, Yes but on the other hand definately not!

[Charlie Goerges]

Charlie,

There are a lot of elements in making a golf course easy and intuitive to use that have nothing to do with how intuitive the golf shots are. First among those is circulation (starting with the entry road, parking and clubhouse area circulation) and second is reasonable vertical climbs.  Safety and hole spacing might play into that, as do on course amenities (restrooms!)

Good point Jeff, and not one that came readily to mind when I was thinking up the question. Included in this might be that phenomenon that occurs when you get done on a green and think: "where the hell am I supposed to go?" I suppose its obvious then, that the factors you mentioned will have a significant impact on the other design elements.

As to your main point about WYSIWG, there is still a lot to be said for that in golf design of features, this website notwithstandng, especially for public and resort courses that cater to the first and perhaps one time visitor.  When you put the idea of "framing" and "definition" the way you did, in terms of product design,  it seems clear that the long time move to those design features actually makes perfect sense in a bigger human nature picture.

I understand what you're saying, but my intent was not actually to get into that kind of discussion (which has been hashed and rehashed on this site ad infinitum). I used the phrase "it's all right there in front of you" with little thought. I was hoping to get more into the idea of intuitiveness (and its counter) versus aesthetics. It's difficult to put into words because I think its a bit different than the standard "golden age vs. modern" argument. A slightly better characterization might be whether a good golf course design requires you to go against your intuition to have a better chance of success? And not ALL the time either. Kind of like the idea that you wouldn't want every hole to be full of crazy/unpredictable contours, but one or two or a few might be good for adding spice to the round.

An example might be when you're presented with a strategic tee shot where your next shot will be easier if you take the easier tee shot option. That kind of thing, but certainly not limited to that.

[Richard Choi]

Not sure if "ease of use" is paramount when you are designing a product that is SUPPOSED to be challenging.

I mean, based on the above criteria, Rubik's Cube should be a spectacular failure. I still can't solve that thing beyond the bottom two rows. But it sold BILLIONS!

[Niall C]

Richard

If I understand Charlie's post correctly, what he was referring to wasn't the challenge but understanding the challenge. Of course understanding the challenge might be part of the challenge itself, I think !

Niall

[Carl Rogers]

"Is Good Golf Course Design Bad Product Design?"


Yes, of course it is. As Arnold Toynbee or P.T. Barnum once appropriately said:

"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste and intelligence of the American public."

I thought that was H.L. Menken who said that.

[Charlie Goerges]

Yes, I believe PT Barnum's phrase was "There's a sucker born every minute".

[Charlie Goerges]

Niall, I think you are expressing what I was getting at pretty well. And Richard's example of Rubik's Cube might be a useful analogy. If the ergonomics of the cube were all wrong (e.g. one couldn't easily turn the sections or if the colors scratched off easily etc.) then the challenge would be compromised. It also offers the example of playing away from your objective (i.e. one might have to turn matching squares farther apart before bringing them all together). Though I still don't know that this is counterintuitive in the same way that playing to the easy side of the fairway in order to get the easier 2nd shot happens to be.

[Sean_A]

Charlie, I would contend that it depends on who the target market is.  What I think many on this site fail to keep in mind is that they are, shall we say, college math majors when a majority of the golfing world are struggling to understand basic math.  GCAers assess golf courses through a different prism. They have the benefit of (if they have been paying attention to years of info desemiination here) history, technical abstracts, and architectual insight.  Naturally, the more educated one is on all things golf, the challenge of increasing complexity keeps ones interest level up.  However, asking the same of Joe Sixpack is like asking him to doa Proof of Moor's Equation.  Can you say "Deer-in-the-headlights"?
So, on one hand, Yes but on the other hand definately not!

Tim

Isn't the price point the most important factor for Joe Six Pack?  I have never totally bought into the private, muni, resort argument for differing design because I know there are many other factors not associated with the design which have a huge impact on the success of any course.  I bet if you give JSP funk for $25 or straight ahead golf for $50 he will choose funk.  This sort of stuff is as much about the competition as anything.  If you try to enter a well tread market with funk and hope to attract JSP the course had better be cheap as chips.  Unfortunately, funk leans toward the designer label and tends to cost extra.  Bottom line for me, most archies don't do funk because they aren't funky.  Architects aren't any sort of super sub-set of people.  They are a reflection of society.


Ciao 

[Jud_T]

Charlie,

I think it depends on the time frame as well as the user.  Even Joe Sixpack may get tired or bored of playing the same "all there in front of you" golf course after 50-100 plays...He just may not understand why he doesn't like the product so much any more....

[Matt Langan]

I think the key is to variation. I don't go to a golf course to play putt-putt (crazy undulations and very little transparency), nor do I go to play golf to watch paint dry (what you see is what you get). To me, golf course design, like everything in life, should be a matter of yin and yang.

[Tom_Doak]

Charlie:

I guess the short answer to your question would be, No.

The point of product design is to make something as easy to use for its intended function as possible.

For golf course design, that would translate to stuff like putting the greens and tees as close to together as possible, and getting the conditioning right.  It's not about making the course obvious or easy ... because the point of golf is to enjoy the challenge or just to have fun, and just making the course easy doesn't necessarily make it fun.

The point of a bottle opener is to open the bottle.  Playing golf is an end unto itself.

[Tim Nugent]

Charlie, I would contend that it depends on who the target market is.  What I think many on this site fail to keep in mind is that they are, shall we say, college math majors when a majority of the golfing world are struggling to understand basic math.  GCAers assess golf courses through a different prism. They have the benefit of (if they have been paying attention to years of info desemiination here) history, technical abstracts, and architectual insight.  Naturally, the more educated one is on all things golf, the challenge of increasing complexity keeps ones interest level up.  However, asking the same of Joe Sixpack is like asking him to doa Proof of Moor's Equation.  Can you say "Deer-in-the-headlights"?
So, on one hand, Yes but on the other hand definately not!

Tim

Isn't the price point the most important factor for Joe Six Pack?  I have never totally bought into the private, muni, resort argument for differing design because I know there are many other factors not associated with the design which have a huge impact on the success of any course.  I bet if you give JSP funk for $25 or straight ahead golf for $50 he will choose funk.  This sort of stuff is as much about the competition as anything.  If you try to enter a well tread market with funk and hope to attract JSP the course had better be cheap as chips.  Unfortunately, funk leans toward the designer label and tends to cost extra.  Bottom line for me, most archies don't do funk because they aren't funky.  Architects aren't any sort of super sub-set of people.  They are a reflection of society.


Ciao 

Sean, i used JSP to refer to a basic level of golf IQ not affluency.  The contention was that a majority of golfers like what they are used to and comfortable with.  Th,e higher the golf IQ re: design, the more funk, quirk or whatever you want to call it, is accepted as it has a correlation to design history.  But since a vast majority of golfers doon't understand it, they reject it (and the guy who built it), so naturally that guy wants to give em what they want and save his own hide in the process.  It's not because they aren't "funky".  BTW isn't a super sub-set an oximoron?

TD - succently put.

[Joe Perches]

Rubik's Cube should be a spectacular failure. I still can't solve that thing beyond the bottom two rows.

Now you'll never get hired at Google...

[John Moore II]

No, I don't think good golf design is bad product design. I think golf courses have to be fun and enjoyable for people to play them repeatedly. Is Pacific Dunes or Cypress Point bad product design? Probably not. A good golf course must be interesting and fun, and good product for golf must be interesting and fun; seems to me these two things to hand in hand.