Almost everybody

[Patrick_Mucci]

makes mistakes.

Some are significant.

What features do you feel are architectural "mistakes" on a golf course ?

Mistakes that have an impact on play.

Mistakes that the architect may or may not have recognized.

Is a dogleg right, with a fairway that cants high right to low left an architectural mistake ?
On a long dogleg right ?

To the architects, if you can reveal them, what mistakes have you made ?

[David_Elvins]

I think the only 'mistake' a golf architect can make is making a hole too extreme in terms of playability.  Either a carry that is too long,  a target that is too small or a green slope that is too great to get the ball to stop near the pin from any angle.  The only problem with this definition is that everyone has different ideas as to what is 'too extreme'.

Everything else is just style. 

[Bill_McBride]

Part of the stout challenge of the Lakeside course at the Olympic Club is the reverse camber fairways.  I don't see them as a negative, just a fairly unique feature. 

[A.G._Crockett]

Tee shots that absolutely require the player to hit either a large fade or a large draw, and admit no other option.

Tee shots that all feed to one area, leaving a turf maintenance problem.  (This seems to me to come up with reverse camber fairways more often, but that may be just my impression.)

A fairway bunker that should function as a savior bunker, but is misplaced even slightly and intrudes too much into the fairway to make an already challenging hole too difficult.

Too many forced carries on the same golf course, either off the tee or on approaches, that cause difficulty for players in selecting the correct set of tees from which to play.

[Adam Clayman]

I've felt that placing the teeing ground of the next hole, directly behind the previous green is a mistake. The reason is because having people in your line of sight is almost as bad as having a building. Oddly enough, this occurred to me on my one time around Cypress Point, while me and my partner waited and waited for the group ahead to move. They were either on the green, or on the next tee. But, since the low January sun was in our eyes, we couldn't tell. So we waited.

[Philippe Binette]

the most important mistake

copying the same style of design from one course to another

[JMEvensky]

Part of the stout challenge of the Lakeside course at the Olympic Club is the reverse camber fairways.  I don't see them as a negative, just a fairly unique feature. 

I'm with you.Maybe it's just another case of trying to make things "fair".

The hardest 4-par at my place is like this--dogleg left with a left to right sloping fairway.Every year there's a new call to do something about it because it's so hard.

[Ally Mcintosh]

I think the only 'mistake' a golf architect can make is making a hole too extreme in terms of playability.  Either a carry that is too long,  a target that is too small or a green slope that is too great to get the ball to stop near the pin from any angle.  The only problem with this definition is that everyone has different ideas as to what is 'too extreme'.

Everything else is just style. 

I think you'll find that there are 1,001 more "mistakes" than extreme playability that an architect can make, David... Although as an overarching misjudgement (for the vast majority of courses), I think that's a good example...

I'll start:

1. Drainage pockets on non free-draining soil....

[Dan Herrmann]

I'll bet most "mistakes" are due to project managers/owners insisting on a feature that the architect knows is just plain wrong. 

[Bill_McBride]

I'm with you.Maybe it's just another case of trying to make things "fair".

The hardest 4-par at my place is like this--dogleg left with a left to right sloping fairway.Every year there's a new call to do something about it because it's so hard.

So how many of your members are comfortable hitting a rope hook to counteract that slope?

That's what we've lost with the ProV1. 

[Dan Herrmann]

Bill - check out http://cgi.ebay.com/BRAND-NEW-Titleist-TOUR-BALATA-100-/290594219142?pt=US_Golf_Balls&hash=item43a8c3e486#ht_564wt_1396

Untouched Titleist 100 compression balatas...

[JMEvensky]

I'm with you.Maybe it's just another case of trying to make things "fair".

The hardest 4-par at my place is like this--dogleg left with a left to right sloping fairway.Every year there's a new call to do something about it because it's so hard.

So how many of your members are comfortable hitting a rope hook to counteract that slope?

That's what we've lost with the ProV1. 

Exactly.

Of course,most of the complainers do,in fact,play Pro V's--but they're also the guys who shouldn't be.

Lucky for me that the rope hook is a standard part of my repertoire--whether I want it or not.

[Tim Gavrich]

What do we think of this hole?  I've played it a couple times and find it a little strange for it to be the case that basically only a drive that lands in the left three to five yards of the fairway or in the first few yards of rugh left of the fairway has a chance of staying in the fairway.  I still like the hole, I think, but it's among the bottom half at its particular course.

[Brad Isaacs]

Is number 18 @ Bandon Trails a mistake? A good drive leads to basically the same place for almost all the drives. While the hole number 14 @Trails is debatable, the hike from 13 to 14 is somewhat out of character for a great routing.

Is a hole that is out of character for a design a mistake? Number 8 at Sebonack. (routing good but the hole?)

Another out of character hole is the short par 4 number 7 at Shooting Star in Jackson, Wyo. A flaw perhaps in a very good Fazio design!

My personal beef in design is green with a lot of slope that is too fast for the slope. This is more than just design though.

[Link Walsh]

What do we think of this hole?  I've played it a couple times and find it a little strange for it to be the case that basically only a drive that lands in the left three to five yards of the fairway or in the first few yards of rugh left of the fairway has a chance of staying in the fairway.  I still like the hole, I think, but it's among the bottom half at its particular course.

Tim,

Kind of looks like a hole out at Taconic, but it's been a number of years since I played there so I could be wrong.  At least the front of the green is open in case you have to hit out of the rough.  But it sure seems like a lot of wasted space to the left of the fairway. 

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

13 at Bandon Dunes. It has a collection area that gathers far to high a percentage of 2nd shots. On the same hole(13th) the 14th tee sits in line with the 17th green in the distance. It is set so one easily aims for the wrong target putting people in danger.The ball is coming in blind to the 14th golfers as well.  The 17th tee sits directly behind the 16th green which catches fly balls of 16 tee when people go for the green. Neither the golfers on 16 who are blind to landing area or on 17 have a clue what is happening or getting ready to happen.  I thought Kidd bungled the original first hole with a blind 2nd shot o an opening hole at a resort course. Then Doak has a percentage of his 2nd shots on Pac dunes one which are blind as well. lol So what do I know about pace of play.

[David_Elvins]

I think the only 'mistake' a golf architect can make is making a hole too extreme in terms of playability.  Either a carry that is too long,  a target that is too small or a green slope that is too great to get the ball to stop near the pin from any angle.  The only problem with this definition is that everyone has different ideas as to what is 'too extreme'.

Everything else is just style. 

I think you'll find that there are 1,001 more "mistakes" than extreme playability that an architect can make, David... Although as an overarching misjudgement (for the vast majority of courses), I think that's a good example...

I'll start:

1. Drainage pockets on non free-draining soil....

Ally,

You make a good point.  Drainage is an easy thing to get wrong.  I will revise my statement to say that other than drainage and playability, there are no mistakes, only preferences and quirks.

[Patrick Kiser]

Mounds...  I don't get them in and around greens.  I feel they're a mistake and in general a poor idea.  I don't see what they add.

Or is that style?

[Sean_A]

There are endless mistakes an archie can make but a tee behind a green is certainly not one of them
Usually doing things too often is a common mistake
I think having serious blind trouble is mistake
Not taking care of drainage is big mistake

Ciao

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mounds...  I don't get them in and around greens.  I feel they're a mistake and in general a poor idea.  I don't see what they add.

Patrick,

The answer may lie in the year the course was crafted.

Older courses employed mounds as the receptical feature for debris, which was costly to cart away.

In 1991, I created mounds to bury/hide plastic which couldn't be placed underground.
In addition, if waterways are excavated, the cost to remove the fill can be prohibitive,whereas the creation of mounds is a good way to dispose of it.

Large mounds are great for obscuring visual and/or acoustical problems

Other times mounds can be used to direct surface drainage, so don't be so quick to "dis" them.

Or is that style?

[JR Potts]

The mounds next to the #8 at Augusta National were the coolest things I've ever seen on a golf course.

And so were the mounds on the southern belles watching Adam Scott.

[Greg Chambers]

Building tees further back just to make the course yardage longer.  Greens that are too small to hold a long iron on a long par 3 or 4 and leaving no option to run the ball on.  Holes that play easier when an adjacent fairway, on another hole, is played to off the tee.