[Phil Benedict]

Dottie Pepper had some issues with Chambers Bay after the Amateur, including this comment about the slopes around the greens:

"The extreme slopes around the greens make the penalty for hitting a poor shot greater than the reward for hitting a good one. The Open should identify a golfer's skill, not his luck."

I'm not sure I agree with this entirely.  Sometimes good archiitecture can be penal for near misses.  Gathering bunkers for example.  Makes you think about what you are doing as well as intensifying the emotional experience of playing the game.  It makes me really angry when a near miss ends up in a bad place, but emotional highs and lows are part of the experience of playing.

[Phil McDade]

Arbirtrary outcomes are a hallmark of the game. I generally like Pepper as a commentator, but this sounds like the traditional complaint of pros that courses ought to be "fair," with seemingly equal (or proportional) outcomes for good and bad shots.

One of the things that I think has been missing in the CBay debate -- admittedly, stats from match play are a little suspect, because of concessions -- was that the course yielded a lot of birdies, and birdie opportunities. Maybe a bad bounce around a green is more than made up by a fairway in which the slopes and conditions yield 400-yard drives.

[TEPaul]

The numerical and philosophical underpinnings of the entire "risk/reward" concept and aspect of golf and golf architecture has always been pretty nuancy and in my opinion it can get increasingly uninteresting when golf tries to push it towards ever greater standardizations.

I've always felt that the underlying hallmark of really great golf architecture is rather narrow margins for error but pretty much only when those narrow margins for error areas are contiguous to safe areas.

The inimitable Max Behr essentially referred to that concept and aspect as architecture's "pressure points." A decent analogy might be the moth and the candle!


But to try to answer the specific question directly---eg Should the Penalty for a Bad Shot be Proportional to the Reward for a Good Shot?----I would say that may be an equation that is simply too hard or too fruitless to try to truly manage to any great degree in an atmosphere and a playing field that should essentially reflect the complexities and randomness of what should pass for largely a "natural" setting!

[BCrosby]

The conundrum of proportionality is something reflective golf architects have wrestled with from the beginnings of the discipline.

Peper's quote is interesting because she, like many top flight golfers and most of the game's sanctioning bodies, assume that it is a settled issue. It isn't and never has been.

Bob

[Sean_A]

"The extreme slopes around the greens make the penalty for hitting a poor shot greater than the reward for hitting a good one. The Open should identify a golfer's skill, not his luck."

I am not sure what this means, but it smells of standardization and therefore I am inclined to disagree with DP.  Of course, perhaps she means that there are too many holes with the same resulting recovery if the green is missed.  If this is the case, I agree with DP. 

Ciao

[Chris Shaida]

The conundrum of proportionality is something reflective golf architects have wrestled with from the beginnings of the discipline.

Peper's quote is interesting because she, like many top flight golfers and most of the game's sanctioning bodies, assume that it is a settled issue. It isn't and never has been.

Bob

Isn't the fly in the ointment of 'proportionality' that we don't really experience the positive and the negative 'proportionally'?  Haven't we learned a bunch (from behavioral economics and elsewhere) about the seeming paradox that x amount of the negative has a much bigger impact than x amount of the positive and that they don't balance each other out.  In golfing terms, almost everybody (and certainly pros) doesn't credit and take into account the positive 'breaks' in anything like the same way as we remember or account for the negative breaks--a good bounce is due to my skill (!) and a bad bounce is 'unfair'. 

[Peter Pallotta]

It makes me wonder how we define a "good shot", and how much consensus there is or could be around that definition. If we say it's any tee ball that stays in the fairway and any approach shot that stays on the green, it's seems to bring into question the validity of the subtle half-stroke penalties and/or disadvantges that are at the heart of so-called 'strategic architecture'.  But if we define a good shot as one that lands in the ideal spot on the fairway and on the ideal spot on the green (thus being a testament both to a players'  physical skill and to his golfing mind), then I don't think we're taking about good anymore, we're talking about "great" -- and the kind of great shot that even Ben Hogan might only hit 4-5 times a round.

Peter

[TEPaul]

"Of course, perhaps she means that there are too many holes with the same resulting recovery if the green is missed."


It doesn't even have to be many holes; it can be just one or two like the 7th and the 10th at Shinnecock in the 2005 US Open or even the 14th and 17th at Pebble this year.

On those holes of the field of 75-80 players if only a few are able to hit the green with ideally executed shots then the risk factor is just outweighing the reward factor by too much!

[Garland Bayley]

...
"The extreme slopes around the greens make the penalty for hitting a poor shot greater than the reward for hitting a good one. The Open should identify a golfer's skill, not his luck."
...

Someone please tell Dottie that they are welcome to hold their pro tournaments on a driving range. Make everything flat and uniform, and measure results with lasers, computers and other appropriate technology. No groups following groups. Everyone can play at their own pace. They can set up virtual holes at 150, 180, 210, 240, 270, 300, 330, 360, 390, 420, 450, 480, 510, 540, 570, 600, 630, and 660 for he men, and other appropriate distances for the women.

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

My only issue is when a marginal shot is punished as much as a poor shot.
That would certainly seem to be the case at somehwere like Whistling Straits, where numerous times you saw somebody barely offline in brutal trouble and yet 20 yards ofline being in better shape.
I understand that can happen with thsi game, but when coursesre set up to encourage such penalties for marginal shots I wonder of that is "fair"
This is often the case around severe greens, where a player may actaully hit the green some 30 feet or so from the pin and end up dead, whilst another player could hitt he shot 30 yards offline and actually have an easier shot.
Again I understand it is all part of the game, sometimes the penalty does not fit the crime...hmmm..kind of like life

[TEPaul]

In my opinion and experience Dottie is actually damn good and really intuitive about golf course architecture and particularly old and classic golf architecture. I think Dottie really gets it. I thought that ever since first hearing her announce during the US Women's Open at Newport when it was really firm and fast. I was totally impressed by much of what she had to say about that course at that tournament. By the way, she just got married to David Normoyle, formerly with the USGA (Museum Library) who definitely "gets it."

[Jim Sweeney]

Let's think about St. Andrews 17. A great approach means a 3, 4, or 5. A little short or long can mean an 8, 9, or 10. Definitely not proportional.

But, one's joy at making a 3 or 4 at that hole may vastly outweigh one's sorrow at making a 10.

I guess proportionality will mean different things to people who measure outputs differently.

[George Pazin]

I'm hoping Tom D will weigh in - he once said solving the problem (paradox?) of proportionality is one of the keys to understanding architecture, or something to that effect.

Here's my limited take:

When everything is proportional, the choices are so obvious that they are boring. We might as well be on the range, playing closest to the pin. Heck, proportionality is probably what led to the geometric designs of early golf.

-----

I wonder if Dottie actually played the course. Looked pretty awesome to me, didn't see too many results that appeared to be luck rather than skill.

[Matt_Ward]

Let me flip things around - if most of one's shot are disproportionate to what you actually get from your execution then you don't have golf -- you have luck. Great design -- while including the elements of randomness -- is about a high wire of consistency in what it expects from players and tries, in most instances, to provide an appropriate result in return to the execution brought forward by the player.

[John_Cullum]

I am not familiar with the course, but is it possible to select 4 hole locations on each hole that mitigate the dangerous edges

[Richard Choi]

The thing about greens at Chambers Bay is that you usually have a sideboard on one side and a steep drop off on the other. If you miss to the sideboard side, you won't have a problem getting a par in most cases (unless you are coming in from a bad angle). And the target involved is pretty wide. However, if you miss to the steep side, or even hit to the middle of the green where it starts to fall off, you are looking at a very tough up and down.

You can miss to the wrong side by 1 yard and you can be 50 yards away. That is pretty severe. But then again, you have about 30 yard wide target on the otherside, so why you would even flirt with the wrong side? Sure, if you want to ball to be really close, you may have to gamble, but then again, you are taking on risk/reward scenario.

It is not like Pinehurst #2 where all sides drop off. There are plenty of places to miss. You just have to be smart.

I don't think that is asking too much. And I certainly don't think the proportions are way off.

[Jim_Kennedy]

"The extreme slopes around the greens make the penalty for hitting a poor shot greater than the reward for hitting a good one.

I can't argue with this. The reward for hitting a good shot is always going to be in a very narrow range, while the range of penalties for hitting a poor shot can be very broad, i.e., mild to extreme.

That's how it's always been, and hopefully it's not going to change.
   

[Mike Nuzzo]

The USGA removed fairway and urged for changes to the course.
That hurt pace of play and did introduce more lucky bounces.
Cheers

[Doug Siebert]

Isn't this the definition of a tough course?  If the penalty and reward are roughly equal, then its a course of average difficulty, and if the reward is greater than the penalty (think short par 5s or driveable par 4s where there is little around the green to discourage one from trying to go for it at any distance where one has any hope of making it) then it is an easy course.

[BCrosby]

Let me flip things around - if most of one's shot are disproportionate to what you actually get from your execution then you don't have golf -- you have luck. Great design -- while including the elements of randomness -- is about a high wire of consistency in what it expects from players and tries, in most instances, to provide an appropriate result in return to the execution brought forward by the player.

Matt - Let's take the Road Hole bunker. Let's say I've perfectly struck my approach shot. Let's say on Friday it lands six inches over the bunker and rolls up next to the pin for a kick in birdie. Let's say on Saturday I've perfectly struck another approach shot that is six inches shorter, rolls back into the bunker just under the face and I double bogey the hole.

On Friday my perfectly struck approach yields a birdie. On Saturday my perfectly struck approach yields a double bogey. The difference was six inches and a three shot swing.

Disproportionate penalties.

Bad hole?

Bob 

[Phil Benedict]

Not really germane to the thread but the 'ideal' case of proportionality is a forced carry water hazard fronting a par 5 green.  Carry it and you are most likely going to make a birdie; hit into it and bogie is the likely outcome.  13 and 15 at ANGC are obvious cases of this architecture and they are both considered pretty good holes.

Isn't proportional risk/reward a feature of many of the classic half par holes?

[TEPaul]

Phil Benedict:

That's a good point you make.

Water hazards and OB are essentially the only areas used in architecture and golf with which a fairly automatic (WH) "penalty" stroke, a non-executed stroke, applies and therefore should probably be considered about as "proportional" in the context of risk and reward as it gets in golf. The entire spectrum of the unplayable ball not in a WH or OB obviously gets somewhat less proportional in that the player is left with a wider array of choices with the latter.

[BCrosby]

Isn't proportional risk/reward a feature of many of the classic half par holes?

Phil - I don't think the above sentence makes much sense.

You are standing in the middle of the 13th fw at ANGC 200 yds from the green. What makes your shot decision interesting is not that the risks and rewards you face are proportional. What makes your decision interesting is that they are not. The score you eventually post will not necessarily correlate with the quality of the approach shot you hit.

Specifically, an almost great 3 iron might find the creek and result in a double bogey. A totally flubbed 3 iron will stay short of the creek and allow you the chip on for a par.

Proportionality (and its kissin cousin 'fairness') have nothing to do with the greatness of holes like the 13th at ANGC.


Bob

[Scott Sander]

I don't accept the argument.

The golfer's task should be in which battles to engage and from which to retreat.  
Choose to engage and you accept the consequences of brinksmanship - an act which is by its definition fraught with peril.  And the most thrilling peril (to me) is that for which the penalty is extreme and often unknown.

If we accept golf as a gambler's game (even for those who don't wager), then isn't the price for glory defined by its odds?
In Bob's example, for instance, the golfer is trying to pull off a shot that will give him a kick-in birdie on the Road Hole (the Road Hole!).  To attempt such an outcome, one should not be able to make a simple stroke-for-stroke barter.  The course says "You want birdie here, mister?  OK, I'll give you 3-to-1 odds!!"  And the odds do NOT refer to how many times out of 3 you'll pull it off, but rather the toll you'll pay for missing your mark.  Tempt the line between greatness and garbage and you'll likely pay three strokes.  

Don't get me wrong, many (even most?) shots can/should be "even" odds.  And that's fine.  But when it comes to memory-makers, we (I, anyway) don't generally include memories of simple bogey/birdie gambles in my golf life-story narratives.  
I either remember shots that I executed well under the external pressure of competition -or- I recall times when I took the fool/hero route and somehow pulled it off or failed in grand style.   I rarely remember the shots for which the worst outcome was a simple added stroke.  

JMO, natch.  But anytime someone says "that's unfair" for a shot that offers safe retreat somewhere else, my first instinct is to say "Then you misjudged the risk and your appetite for it."

[Phil Benedict]

Bob,

Consider Nick Faldo's 2-iron in 1996.  The likelihood that he would "totally flub it" was almost nil, so he was either going to land in the creek or clear it.  (I know, even the pros bail out to the right of the creek occasionally but humor me.)  His average expected score for hitting in the creek was probably between 5.5 and 6, because some of the time he would get up and down and make par.  A 7 would be a rare outcome.  Clear the creek and his expected score is probably between 4 and 4.5, because getting over the creek does not ensure a birdie.  Lay up and his average score is probably 4.5-5.  Obviously I'm guessing at the stats but I'm comfortable with looking at it this way.  The other factor is his confidence in executing the shot, which was no doubt high.

I don't think the prospect of a double bogey entered into his thinking.

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