[Jeff Fortson]

This is an interesting question.  How do we define proportional?  In literal mathematical terms?  A good shot guarantees birdie, a bad one bogey?  I think there is a variance in possibilities.  Sometimes a good shot only gives the opportunity for a par perhaps.  On the flip side, sometimes a bad shot only makes bogey a slight possibility for the good player.  Plus, this question has different answers based on the varying skill sets of golfers.  For some golfers a bogey IS a good score.

Personally, I think par should be looked at as a great score on any hole.  Further, I think that good shots should be rewarded with simple opportunities to continue hitting good shots for the opportunity to make a par.  Birdie should take exceptional thought and execution.  In reverse, I believe a poor shot should reap what it sows.  This does not mean that a poor shot should be punished beyond recovery, but the recovery shot should take an exceptional shot to get back in position to make a par.  

Basically, I think this question is very difficult to quantify mathematically and therefore I don't know how to answer it in proportional terms mathematically.  I do think that a properly designed golf hole should have some adherance to what I mentioned above.  I just don't think it should, or can, be a fixed quantitative formula.


Jeff F.

[TEPaul]

Bob:

That is a very good point you make in #22 as well. However, it seems you are assuming something that not all chose to assume----eg that proportionality should only apply to the degree of increased penalty directly related to the degree of the miss of a shot.

If one could say in a philosophical sense that even a Max Behr had his own ideas about "proportionality"-----that it was just that his had very different applications when comes to the ratios of space and penalty.

[BCrosby]

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

To the contrary, I have no doubt that it did. That's what Faldo's agonizing was all about as he and Fanny considered how to play the shot. It's why the moment was so incredibly dramatic.

Also, those of us of a certain age remember when Curtis Strange, leading the tournament at the time, tried the same shot and found the creek. World class players do indeed find the creek and they worry about it. A lot.

It is the prospect of disproportionate, even catastrophic outcomes balanced against safer, more conservative alternatives that underpin the best, most strategic holes.

Bob

[TEPaul]

"Basically, I think this question is very difficult to quantify mathematically and therefore I don't know how to answer it in proportional terms mathematically.  I do think that a properly designed golf hole should have some adherance to what I mentioned above.  I just don't think it should, or can, be a fixed quantitative formula."


Jeff:

A few of the philosophical thinkers on golf and architecture such as Behr and MacKenzie did not believe that this question of quantifying mathematically or formulaicly risk and reward or penalty or even trying to quantify or qualify golf architecture should be easy or difficult; they firmly believed, and for some very fundamental reasons, it should never even be attempted! THAT, basically, at least in my opinion, was the real problem they had with the entire philosophy of the architectural ranking and rating system for architecture as proposed by Joshua Crane (and others).

[Jeff Fortson]

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."

I think this is very well said.
I hav a personal example that fits this description perfectly.

I played the Old Course at St. Andrews in 1995 a couple of days after the Open Championship.  I birdied 16 to get to even par.  The stands and scoreboards were still up.  The wind was whipping.  It was a tremendous day to be playing these hallowed grounds.  I stepped up on 17 and drove the ball left, trying to protect my score.  I was posed with an impossible shot.  I was mid-shin deep in fescue and my angle to the pin left the Road Hole Bunker directly in my line of play should I try to take it at the flag.  I chose to try and mash a 7-iron out to the right from about 190.  I was hoping for the ball to run up just short of the green.  Well, I advanced it about 50 yards into the primary rough.  The bunker was still in my line of play so I chose to try to crush a PW up high and take it right at the flag.  It landed on the green and came to rest 5 inches from the wall..  I chipped it off the wall and it came to rest on the road.  I then tried to bump and run it onto the green and it didn't make it up that little burm behind the green and came to rest on the dirt path between the Road and the green.  I then chipped it on and 2-putted from 10 feet for an 8.  I parred 18 and shot 76.

This is a prime example of a bad tee shot exponentially making a hole play harder than nearly any other hole in the world.  It put me in a position of having to play an exceptional shot to try to save par.  If I weren't so young and foolish I would have wedged the ball back into play and taken my medicine and hopefully had made a 5.  If this were any other host of average holes, I most likely would have not made worse than 5 or 6.  


Jeff F.

[Matt_Ward]

Bob:

I believe you may have missed my point - if most things a golf course provides is utterly randomness to the nth degree then you don't have golf -- you have a game of luck. I don't doubt that randomness is part of any game -- golf included. But if randomness is part and parcel the overwhelming number of times then the course being played is flawed in my mind.

[Phil Benedict]

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

To the contrary, I have no doubt that it did. That's what Faldo's agonizing was all about as he and Fanny considered how to play the shot. It's why the moment was so incredibly dramatic.

Also, those of us of a certain age remember when Curtis Strange, leading the tournament at the time, tried the same shot and found the creek. World class players do indeed find the creek and they worry about it. A lot.

It is the prospect of disproportionate, even catastrophic outcomes balanced against safer, more conservative alternatives that underpin the best, most strategic holes.

Bob

Curtis Strange made bogey on both 13 and 15 where he also hit into the water on his second shot, not double bogey.  They're par 5's.  If you hit your second shot in the water your next shot is your 4th - a pitch.  They're pros - they don't expect to do worse than take 3 shots after hitting into the water.  Obviously double bogeys happen on 13 and 15 but I doubt it's part of their thought process.

On 15 with certain hole locations one of the benefits of going for it on your second shot, assuming you clear the creek, is avoiding what can be a reallly dicey pitch which you are left with by laying up (or hitting into the water).

[TEPaul]

Jeff and Scott Sander:

I think your examples just above are good and interesting ones and they are uniquely yours and for that reason alone should perhaps not be questioned by others.

However, it does occur to me that you are offering them in something of a vacuum given the realities of most golf----eg that we are generally playing it against other golfers that are seen (match play) or largely unseen (stroke play).

I guess my point is if I was out on a golf course playing only alone my choices with the things I would attempt to even try would probably be quite diffrent than if I were playing against others in either match play or stroke play which we all know offer their own real situational realities and consequent varying choices. Perhaps the best dramatic example of a golfer choosing just to not consider those situational realities was the denoument in the movie "Tin Cup." 

[Jeff Fortson]

Jeff and Scott Sander:

I think your examples just above are good and interesting ones and they are uniquely yours and for that reason alone should perhaps not be questioned by others.

However, it does occur to me that you are offering them in something of a vacuum given the realities of most golf----eg that we are generally playing it against other golfers that are seen (match play) or largely unseen (stroke play).

I guess my point is if I was out on a golf course playing only alone my choices with the things I would attempt to even try would probably be quite diffrent than if I were playing against others in either match play or stroke play which we all know offer their own real situational realities and consequent varying choices. Perhaps the best dramatic example of a golfer choosing just to not consider those situational realities was the denoument in the movie "Tin Cup."  

Tom,

I agree that my example is relative to my experience and mindset in playing the game.  That's why I posed the question in my first post as to how do we define "proportionality" to what a good/bad shot gives the player.  

While I do draw much enjoyment from golf in its beauty, smells, and walk, I view the actual playing of the game much differently.  It's a game.  I draw much of my enjoyment form the strategic decisions and ensuing execution of a gameplan.  The true beauty of the game of golf, to me, is how a "gameplan" develops throughout a round both mentally and physically.  Being a reasonably skilled golfer, this is what piques my interest for the game, especially in competitioon and its added pressure.  To me, whenever I watch Tin Cup I literally want to throw up when that last scene unfolds.  I want to jump through the screen and punch Kevin Costner in the face for being such a friggin idiot.  But, that is how his character sees things.  He wants to pull the shot off regardless of the consequences.  If others relate to that extreme example and find joy in that type of experience then great.  I certainly don't begrudge anyone for finding joy in that.  I certainly don't think that architects design golf holes with the "Tin Cup" model of experience in mind.  I do think they have great risk/reward shots in mind but I don't think they anticipate people reloading four or five times just to experience the thrill of said shot.  I certainly could be wrong but it's hard for me to believe that would be so.


Jeff F.


To clarify... I don't find the same thrill in executing a shot the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th time.  I achieve the maximum thrill through executing it the first time.   Example... I dump a tee shot on a par 3 in the water.  I reload and hole out the shot.  While it is a thrill to hole it out and save par, the experience certainly doesn't feel as good as if I had holed out the shot for an ace.  Does that make sense?

[George Pazin]

Has anyone seen anything remotely approaching the utter randomness that some seem to fear?

The only incidents I can recall are when the 17th at Valderrama got out of control, and when the 18th at Olympic got out of control. Even the infamous 7th at Shinny saw most of the good players navigate its charms successfully.

And all 3 of these were setup related.

I've never seen anything architecturally that remotely approached random resulits, but then again, I haven't done all the heavy lifting.

[Garland Bayley]

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.

No Matt, it just means you chose the wrong shot to execute!

Great design has nothing to do with "a high wire of consistency in what it expects from players" as you could do that on a driving range with high technology measuring devices. Great design is about offering choices about how to proceed. If you choose a risky choice and successfully execute, you should expect to win over the person choosing the safe choice and successfully executing. However, if you choose a risky choice and fail to execute, you should not expect to even win over the person choosing the safe choice and failing to execute.

[Matt_Ward]

George:

I'll send you weights to build up to heavy lifting.

Give you a good example -- you have courses that routinely cut greens way too close and have slopes that don't allow for anything but miniature golf results. There is no golf involved -- just luck.

[Jud_T]

If pro golf wasn't effectively ruled by television money, this would be a moot point.  Match play doesn't work for the tour because god forbid Tiger and Phil get eliminated in round one or a match ends 8&6 an hour early what it means for ad revenue.  Hence the focus on stroke play and connect the dots golf, golf courses and golf course conditioning.  God forbid someone has a slight miss which leads to a triple, or worse.  This is the mentality that leads to Pepper's comments IMHO....Quirk and rub of the green have no place in the pro game and we're all the worse for it....

[Phil Benedict]

While discussing advertising Peggy Olsen told Don Draper she could no longer tell the difference between what was good and what was awful.  Don responded that they are very close.

In architecture quirk is good, but goofy is awful.  Not everyone agrees when quirk crosses over to goofy.  Dottie obviously has a lower threshold than some GCA posters. 

[Bill_McBride]

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 

Bad example.  When can (or when would you) actually play a shot over the Road Bunker to a pin cut behind it?  That's a recipe for learning that Jiminez shot!

I think what this whole discussion points out is the fact that there are some courses that are match play courses, and Chambers Bay is one.  Posting a 72 hole score will be ulcer-inducing, and so defensive that it may not be as interesting as it could be.  Richard points out that there is a safe play on every hole, but the safe play won't yield many birdies.

[Richard Choi]

Richard points out that there is a safe play on every hole, but the safe play won't yield many birdies.

Bill, I think USGA would be very happy with that result. Maybe not players, but US Open has always been about defending the par. What US Open is not about playing defensively unless the weather does not cooperate?

For there to be true risk reward, there HAS to be a price for not executing the proper shot. If I go for a pin that is close to the fall off area, if I miss to the wrong side, that means that the ball should roll far away from the hole. If that risk is not there, and the resulting penalty was gradual, why would ANYONE ever stay away from firing at the pin on every hole?

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