How important is playing ability in understanding or designing a golf course?

[Mike_Young]

I am not talking about playing ability at the PGA tour level. 
I'm talking about having played enough over the years to understand or comprehend the various aspects and nuances involved in where to miss a shot and how to miss a shot.  Maybe I am old and grumpy but I have tired of having some guy with a 25 handicap explain why my club has specific features to me.  And yet at the same time I can't stand to have some guy with a zero handicap placed in charge of a place where all he wishes is more length.  This combination on a club committee can destroy a good golf course quickly.  IMHO I think it is much more critical than often realized and yet at the same time some tour caliber players often don't recognize little nuances as aspects of a design. 

....Just a goofy saturday of playing a course that became several hundred yards longer and at least 4 shots easier.....

[John Kavanaugh]

Beethoven was a great composer but a lousy critic.

[Gib_Papazian]

Years ago, we had an ASGCA golf gathering at Olympic and I wandered out there to meet some of the architects and say hello. Several of them - household names for those of us versed in the subject - literally could hardly advance the ball. Their golf swings looked like a Three Stooges parody and I could not for the life of me grasp why they would their put their complete incompetence at the actual playing of the game on display before their peers.

By contrast, 71 year-old Pete Dye (playing in tennis shoes with no glove) asked me to fetch his Ping 1-iron on the 9th hole and promptly rocketed a shrieking missile through the dripping fog to the middle of the green with a wink and a chuckle.

Todd Eckenrode swings the golf club like Tom Purtzer and I would take him against anybody short of a Tour Pro.  I don't suppose it matters in the grand scheme of things . . . when I consider that Seth Raynor could not hit his ass with both hands. 

[Lou_Duran]

. . . when I consider that Seth Raynor could not hit his ass with both hands.  

I knew that Raynor and I had something in common.  Now I know what.

Mike Young,

This thread has been topical numerous times over the years.  The sticks believe that they have special insights.  The hacks think that performance on the course is negatively correlated with architectural prowess and nuance.  Me, I'm reminded of what my JV high school basketball coach directed at me after I fouled him out (I refed the game) from the faculty vs. alumni game, something to the effect "you call how you play, NWAS".  I tend to think he was right, though there are always exceptions.  I've played a few holes with Rees Jones and he's very good.  Everyone here loves Black Mesa and Baxter Spahn is a fine player.  Mike Nuzzo, well, he might be the exception.  

[Chip Gaskins]

Great to see Gib posting!  Thanks.

Given that Nicklaus was the best player ever and Seth Raynor couldn't hit the ball out of his shadow one might think there is an actual inverse proportion to a GCA's playing ability....

More than likely its somewhere in between.

Great golfers (of their time): Nicklaus, Crenshaw, McDonald, Tillinghast, Flynn, Ross, Travis, Morris
Average golfers: Doak, Coore, Banks, MacKenzie,
Didn't play: Raynor
No idea: Colt, Thomas, Maxwell, Hanse, Bell, Thompson

[Adrian_Stiff]

Its not important in the slightest if you are +8 handicap or 28 handicap. The real skill is being able to think how a +8 handicapper would play and also think how a 28 handicapper would play. I was scratch at 16, 3 at 32 now I am 11 handicap at 51. I think I understand much more now about all abilities.

[Randy Thompson]

Chip,
I am average...oh sorry, maybe you must have meant Uncle Stanley! How did Ross find the time to design 407 golf courses and still maintain a great game! He is my hero, did he have kids or a wife or wives???

[Tom_Doak]

Great to see Gib posting!  Thanks.

Given that Nicklaus was the best player ever and Seth Raynor couldn't hit the ball out of his shadow one might think there is an actual inverse proportion to a GCA's playing ability....

More than likely its somewhere in between.

Great golfers (of their time): Nicklaus, Crenshaw, McDonald, Tillinghast, Flynn, Ross, Travis, Morris
Average golfers: Doak, Coore, Banks, MacKenzie,
Didn't play: Raynor
No idea: Colt, Thomas, Maxwell, Hanse, Bell, Thompson

Chip:

I don't think Bill Coore would appreciate being lumped in with me as a golfer [although he might be okay being on the same line with MacKenzie], and neither of us is really "average".  I was a 6 and now am more like a 12 handicap; Bill was a 1 or 2, now more like a 6 maybe.  He's WAY above average.

As for your "no idea," you should know better.  Harry Colt was good enough to play in the Amateur Championship for years and years [as was Pete Dye].  George Thomas was a very good player, too, I believe.  I don't know much about the others, except for Gil, who was about the same ability as me years ago.  I CAN tell you that I've got some very good golfers among my crew, and some not so good ones, but they all have made important contributions to our work.

There is more than a little bit of "cause and effect" here.  Right up through today, the truth is that good players get more OPPORTUNITY to be architects, because the average golfer [and the average client] believes that playing skill translates to knowledge of architecture.  I don't know if the two are really correlated much at all, positively or negatively, other than agreeing with Adrian that the most important thing is the willingness to think about all classes of golfers, which some on either end of the scale are less inclined to do.

John K. is also right to point out the dichotomy of the thread title -- there are a lot of people who can understand a golf course but don't really know how to design one very well.  Any good player can opine about where the bunkers ought to be or how the green should be contoured ... but, heck, so can anybody else.

[Ben Sims]

Mike,

Walking around Longshadow with you a couple summers ago, it was clear to me very quickly that if I ever wanted to be in the golf business, I needed to get a lot better at golf.  Then I met Tom Doak and Mike Nuzzo. 

Which in effect means this:  playing ability don't mean jack when it comes to designing a golf course.  Playing the strategy, understanding the strategy, and knowing how to build the strategy are three different things entirely.   

[Peter Pallotta]

Golf course architecture is a game of misses. No one solves the riddle of collective play all the time. The architect who misses least often becomes a beloved legend -- especially if an ocean's involved.
Peter 

[cary lichtenstein]

I would probably be a poor architect because I see a golf course thru my eyes and playing ability. As a 4 handicap, the challenges for me are beyond the average 16 handicaper, so my love for forced carries over water and ravines would not sit well for the average player. Ditto, courses I love that are 7200 from the back tees instead of 6500, I don't like.

Augusta from the members tees was great, and I wouldn't want to play it from the back. I see the golf world from right to left, the shape of my shot.

[Jaeger Kovich]

I think any architect that has caddied for any reasonable length of time has a set up on the competition. They not only see/understand what the playing ability is like for the general public/membership plays like, but has to find a way to guide them around the course in a way that translates to their talents or lack there of while still having fun... I think looping is a great education in golf design on the subject of playability and strategy for the masses.

[Tom_Doak]

Jaeger:

I said in a talk at the Dunhill Tournament in St. Andrews a few years back that I thought any of the caddies I'd had that week would probably make a good golf course architect.  We all want to ask golfers of all abilities to get more out of their games -- caddies do that for a living.

[Mike_Young]

Seems most of the answers are what I anticipated. 
Would most agree that playing ability is not that critical to the process?  So has  lack of playing ability amongst architects or playing ability amongst architects contributed more to the increase in length we continue to see? 

[John Kavanaugh]

Dr. Klein recently wrote an article saying that AAC has gotten better with age. You tell me who isn't the problem.

[Mike_Young]

Dr. Klein recently wrote an article saying that ACC has gotten better with age. You tell me who isn't the problem.

Where might this article  be found? 
I can tell you who is the problem....the low handicap players that have never taken the time to understand architecture but have played modern resort courses.

[John Kavanaugh]

Dr. Klein recently wrote an article saying that ACC has gotten better with age. You tell me who isn't the problem.

Where might this article  be found? 
I can tell you who is the problem....the low handicap players that have never taken the time to understand architecture but have played modern resort courses.

The article:  http://www.golfweek.com/news/2011/aug/07/raters-notebook-atlanta-athletic-club/?RatersNotebook

[A.G._Crockett]

Seems most of the answers are what I anticipated.  
Would most agree that playing ability is not that critical to the process?  So has  lack of playing ability amongst architects or playing ability amongst architects contributed more to the increase in length we continue to see?  

Mike,
You would know the answer to the question you pose far better than I or most others here.  But I'll take a shot and say neither; length increases are either a reaction to TV golf, a keep-up-with-the-Joneses effect, or a marketing ploy.  I'd lean toward the last two choices.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Mike,

In general, I know a reasonable amount of top player perspective (if not ability) is required.

As an example, many engineer or LA trained gca's tend to drain fw to the nearest spot, even if that creates reverse slope or blind fw.  I recall some firms tended to create crowned fw to get them to drain, which worked, but created rejector fw in both directions!  Somehow it never occurred to them that it drained and made the course virtually unplayable for everyone.

At the same time, many of the tour pros who get involved with gca tend to misuse their knowledge.  I see a lot of "what if I miss it here?" type questions affecting the gca, and of course, the real answer is, if there is no penalty for missing anywhere, where is the nuance and strategy?

That said, given you are designing for the 99% of non-top players, I sort of question whether any expensive nuance aimed at just 1% of players really, really makes the difference in design.  Even many top players prefer the "what you see is what you get" design, and a "receptive to a good shot" design, which doesn't really require any special high level playing knowledge to pull off.

We just need to know how far a typical carry is and some other basic criteria to create holes good players like.  Now, creating all the quirk, nuance, and whatever the typical gca.com participant likes......well now THAT takes a lot of knowledge!

[BCrosby]

Mike -

At my course in ATL I had a different experience. As Green chair over the last couple of years I have discussed a number of course changes with the members. (We try to preview things to head off surprises and get feedback early, which can be quite helpful actually).

At the outset our scratch players believed that their views were entitled to great deference. And they told me so. In no uncertain terms. They are an influential caucus at our club and can be intimidating.

The scratch crowd had lots of funky ideas, but what really surprised me is that they opposed lengthening our courses. They thought they were plenty long enough. From the tips one plays about 6900 (72) and the other 6600 (70).

The great mass of our players were agnostic about lengthening. They weren't playing from the tips anyway. Their concern was money. Why spend big $$ on back tees that will be used by very few players.

The core advocates for new back tees turned out to be - to my surprise - the architecture group we hired and our head pro. After hours and hours of meetings with them, their root concern seemed to be the reputation of our courses. Their argument was that we gotta have a scorecard with a '7' handle or we will not be considered a top flight club in a very competitive Atlanta market.

Our green comm disagreed. While lengthening a number of holes is still in our master plan, it has been moved to the back of the bus among our priorities.

At the end of the day the pressure to lengthen came from professionals in the industry who were more concerned with fairly crude markers of course quality (i.e. overall length) and much less concerned with the harder architectural issues like playability and strategic interest.

The skill level of players didn't seem to correlate with views about course changes. What did seem to correlate was whether or not you worked in the golf industry. At least at our club.

Bob  

[PCCraig]

Considering Raynor is probably my favorite GCA? Probably not.

But then again he was obviously greatly influenced by a pretty good player early in his career...

[Mike_Young]

Bob,
Interesting viewpoint.  My theory regarding the thoughts of scratch players and length is based on whether they have played in major competitions or just played in local club type events.  You have players at your club that have played in some major events.  We don't.  Except for the college kids who aren't memebrs anyway.   I think this has a tremendous effect on their view.  Also, many local scratch players are not scratch.  
And I agree with you regarding the industry.  But the way we handle length is playing into the hands of the shorter hitters.  CR was telling me that during the PGA it was apparent that the shorter more accurate players were scoring better because they were more accurate from the fairway with their five irons and hybrids than the longer inaccurate hitters were with their shorter irons from the rough.  Also, if you looked at holes like #16 the bunkers began at around 300 yards and continued to 360 on the right side.
I still think playing ability is probably the best and quickest way to comprehend golf design but at the same time one needs to emphasize that there are different levels of understanding golf design.  Dustin Johnson and Tom Watson would have two totally different takes on golf design IMHO.  Dustin doesn't know it exist and Tom would analyze it.  So often golf design is measured by the obvious ( such as a bunker instead of a grass slope) where the hidden might be much more thought out and missed by many.  
Let me leave you with this.  Would you say most 300 yard holes would become easier at 340?  This industry person says yes.
ok...

[Ian Andrew]

I began to play well starting late last year and played so well in Ireland this spring that my handicap dropped six full shots over the year as I looked more like the player I was in my teenage years.

I made a fundamental change in my swing – does that change now mean I understand architecture better because I player?
The top tier (my opinion of who they are) of architects easily average low double digits.

[Mike_Young]

I began to play well starting late last year and played so well in Ireland this spring that my handicap dropped six full shots over the year as I looked more like the player I was in my teenage years.

I made a fundamental change in my swing – does that change now mean I understand architecture better because I player?
The top tier (my opinion of who they are) of architects easily average low double digits.

Ian,
What I pick up from you post is "more like the player I was in my teenage years".  Maybe I should rephrase the question to Golf course architecture?  I don't think a 25 handicapper could read ten architecture books and come on this website and understand golf design as well as a low double digit player that had been playing for twenty years after reading the same books.  JMO

[Ben Sims]

I don't think a 25 handicapper could read ten architecture books and come on this website and understand golf design as well as a low double digit player that had been playing for twenty years after reading the same books.  JMO

Mike,

I don't think this is the real question.  Mine would read like this.  Does the low-mid double digits golfer that's read all the right books and been playing for twenty years understand as much about architecture as the 0 to + golfer that has played for 30 years and seen a ton of great players play golf courses?