Visualisation and Architecture

[Padraig Dooley]

One of the things I always wondered about was why two people could look at the same putter with one guy loving it and the other hating it. Lately I came across some analysis of this. It comes down to visualisation (the process of creating internal mental images). People can be classified into three groups, poor, good and great visualisers.

Poor visualisers can be helped greatly with alignment aids on the putter and ball (think mallets with lines), great visualisers should avoid aids and lines (think bullseye and blade putters), good visualisers can go either way, aids, lines or no aids, lines.

So we can see why some golfers would love a blade putter and some the aid covered TM Spider. Their instinct or experience tells them they could putt well the putter. We can also see why some people advocate the line and others hate it.

While seeing this analysis, I started wondering has it been applied to architecture either knowingly or unknowingly? It's common enough to hear of golfer speaking of a course which doesn't fit his or her eye. One aspect that could be used as an example is the aiming bunker, where it is advocated to place a bunker which is out of reach to indicate the line of play. Where others often argue why does a golfer need to be shown where to go. Could this be an example of the difference between the two visualisers?

Could width be another difference between the two? The poor visualiser, who needs help to be shown which line to take, would be a fan of narrow lines of play where the great visualiser who needs less help is a fan of width. Could it be that the architect who instinctively or actually knows this builds variety throughout the course whereas the architect who doesn't know this builds courses along the lines of his or her visualisation preferences? Of course people involved in design would tend to have great imaginations, so should favour variety whereas a green committee chair mightn't and be an advocate narrowness over width.



 
     

[Padraig Dooley]

Just a test, can you see one cube or two?

[Tom_Doak]

Padraig,

one thing I noticed from my year overseas was how differently people visualized golf holes.  In Britain I was routinely asked how Americans could play golf through such narrow corridors of trees -- these holes looked terribly restrictive and just about impossible to the Brits.  And yet when I got back him, armed with all my phi tis of links courses, the common reaction from Americans was that LINKS courses looked impossible to them, because there was so much trouble around and it was so hard ti ficus on the target in the open landscape!

I have never thought of myself as particularly good at visualizing what a golf hole is going to look like ... but very good at visualizing how a hole is going to WORK.  And if course I do still favor the old blade putter I got when I was 13.  So I am curious to see how this thread plays out. 

[Pat Burke]

When playing, I could "see" (in my mind) the flight of the shot I wanted to hit.  Well, on the good days at least

When playing courses, I always look at how I would redo things if I were the almighty and powerful OZ of that course

I can actually see what I would like, but frustratingly, have no ability whatsoever to relay those images from my brain
to my hands        Have tried, but cannot draw a line!!!

[Peter Pallotta]

Padraig - so many interesting ways to address this. I see two cubes. I am a poor visualizer. I am an average putter and golfer at best -- but I use a Bullseye putter and Hogan blades because I like how they look and what they represent (a game where skill predominates) and what they demand of me (a striving to get better).  Which is to say, I think a man 'sees' what he wants to see as much as what he actually does see.

Peter  

[Carl Rogers]

Visualization is as much of an acquired skill as much as it is an innate ability.  Patience and persistence are needed, too.

As far as alignment aids are concerned, visualization may be one skill but the ability to aim is another skill.  Visualization and execution are two different things.  I see myself as a very very good visualizer but like a mallet headed putters with alignment aids. 

Visualization in playing the game is imagining the ball in flight.

[Tom_Doak]

Carl,

It is also important to visualize the ball rolling on the green and taking the break when putting.

[Jaeger Kovich]

I'm very good at being able to visualize whatever I'm trying to create. I don't really know how to explain it, but I can see final products in my head.

However this skill is completely useless unless you have the problem solving abilities to actually figure out the process to create what you see in your mind. This is what I go to work everyday to practice, so when I get my next chance, I have every tool possible to translate idea into something solid.

The ability to breakdown the image of a final product into all of its steps towards creation and having faith that your vision will only be achieved by following a long process start to finish is a miracle of the human mind. Through the beginning stages of my golf course building career, the absolute hardest thing for me to do is to let my vision of the finished product go a let the process take of it and build up to it.

It took me thousands of hours in the printmaking studio to master the process of photo silkscreen, a flat 2-dimensional medium. Golf courses are a much more complicated animal that only a handful of people have probably ever really tamed.

[Alex Miller]

Carl,

It is also important to visualize the ball rolling on the green and taking the break when putting.

It's probably the most important aspect of visualizing in golf. I have no intention to brag, but I've always been a fantastic putter. I used an Odyssey 2 ball putter for years and it did little more for me than help me to align the ball. I got a Scotty Newport 2 last year and my putting has not changed one bit, except for the fact that it's a little easier to putt on fast greens.

I fully believe my ability to visualize the roll of the ball on the green is what makes me a good putter, and maybe some feel, but that's about it. Visualization is vital for seeing how the ball breaks in your minds eye. I'd imagine this ability would translate to architecture, especially building greens which many would also argue are the most important part of a golf course.

While visualization would seem to be of the highest importance on greens for the architect, I'd imagine it's less so from tee to green. Constructing the route to the green including hazards of various sorts would certainly take visualization to see what the golfer would when standing on the tee or in the fairway, but because golf is such a numbers game away from the green, placing a bunker 250 yards off the tee is simpler than creating a strategic puttable green.

Sounds like Tom Doak is a good greenreader. So is Ben Crenshaw.

[Carl Rogers]

Carl,

It is also important to visualize the ball rolling on the green and taking the break when putting.

Yes Tom, I forgot that.

In walking the property (a densely treed property), it would seem to me for the feet to inform the mind and then the eye for vertical elevation change.

[Jaeger Kovich]

I have a theory that if you if you take a top level caddy from the Hamptons, Westchester, Philly, Bandon, etc, teach him how to use a bulldozer, and have him try to build his favorite 18 greens from his hometown you are gonna get 18 interesting green complexes.

[Tom_Doak]

Jaeger,

Sure, maybe, but you could say the same for the guy who mows the greens of any of those courses.  And they would have to get pretty good on the dozer before they could get it right down to the nearest 1% which is about all the tolerance you have when building greens.

Or -- to put it the opposite and unfortunately the more currently applicable way -- a lot of those good shapers would make very good caddies!   

[Padraig Dooley]

Padraig - so many interesting ways to address this. I see two cubes. I am a poor visualizer. I am an average putter and golfer at best -- but I use a Bullseye putter and Hogan blades because I like how they look and what they represent (a game where skill predominates) and what they demand of me (a striving to get better).  Which is to say, I think a man 'sees' what he wants to see as much as what he actually does see.

Peter  

Peter, if you can see two cubes you probably wouldn't be classed as a poor visualiser, there are more tests, e.g using block flips, to test your skills further.

[Sean_A]

This is strange.  I think of myself as an extremely poor visualizer and thought this is probably why I prefer less defined holes/courses.  I have some sort of uncontrable, but mild negative reaction when I see holes which are rigidly defined.  I tell myself that these sorts of holes are good in small measures because its the archie's job to ram rod a few "must execute this way" holes just to separate the quality of ball strikers and levels of confidence.  However, I don't mind blind holes in the least and this would seem to be support for good visualization.  In my case I think its more a matter of just whacking it out there until I have enough experience with that particular blind shot to just know what is good and not.  I don't recall ever actually imagining my ball flying to a favoured spot.  It all makes sense to me, but apparently I may be barking up the wrong tree.

Ciao