Golf Architecture: Confining v. Liberating

[Tom_Doak]

After reading a few posts, It would seem a point of clarification might be the Illusion of Liberation as opposed to being actual.  From what i can tell, you can spray the ball at TOC and "get away with it", but that doesn't mean you avoid a nasty approach shot where even getting par is miraculous...

Yes, that's what I was trying to get at.  Being able to swing away is liberating, but you should still have a difficult next shot if you drive it aimlessly into the wide open spaces.  St. Andrews is far better for that than any other course I know.  Bob Jones' description of it was point-on:  if you miss your intended line from the tee by ten yards, you might then have to change your approach to the next shot entirely from what you had been planning.

[Jeff_Brauer]

There is interesting interplay between open and shut. Masters competitors have told me they can hook a ball around the corner on 13 all day long....in practice.  When it counts, they start aiming a little further right and the feeling like it would be stupid to hit the creek when you have 60 yards to miss.


In short, there has to be some consequence to any position in the fw, and TOC is a great example of that.

[Rick Lane]

Seems to be agreement that TOC is the best example of having a liberated "feeling" on the tee, but in fact there are consequences, you can't just blast away.

What do you all think the best example of that in the US is?  I have not played too many in that category (sadly).   NGLA?   Garden City?   

[Pete Lavallee]

What do you all think the best example of that in the US is?  I have not played too many in that category (sadly).   NGLA?   Garden City?

I would nominate Rustic Canyon!

[Jeff_Brauer]

Probably a thousand residential courses, two fairways wide, between houses.  Hit the houses or play way wide to the other fairway is as similar to TOC as you can get.

[Peter Pallotta]

With the Old Course (and Bobby Jones' description of it) in my mind, I would've expected to think next about Augusta -- given the appreciation that Dr Mac and Mr Jones both had for St Andrews.  But partly because of what I've read here over the years, my thoughts went instead to NGLA; Tommy Nac used to talk about it in almost the hushed tones of spirituality. I wonder now if that isn't because of the feeling of freedom-liberty (of the kind we're discussing) it engenders. Certainly it *looks* more formalized than TOC or Wolf Point etc, and yet maybe that is its grand illusion.
Peter   

[Kalen Braley]

Peter,


I can see the comparisons here to spirituality...but I see "being liberated" much closer to being given choices... aka options.


I think the best golf courses give you choices in the form of play conservative and perhaps incur a more difficult approach, or take on some risk and have a much more doable approach shot for bird.


However, thru the eyes of a high capper, these choices are different. My game can be summed as...the closer I get to the hole, the better I get.  Off the tee, hands down the worst part of my game, putting with the flat-stick...the best. So for me, when I stand on the tee its more about pick my poison.


- Try to hit my driver far enough and straight enough, so I can have a reasonable chance at par, but incur more risk due to a wild/wayward drive....
- Or hit my 3w, avoid the big trouble, and give myself a much better chance to avoid any worse than single-bogey, and perhaps squeak out a few pars along the way.

[Bill Brightly]

Seems to be agreement that TOC is the best example of having a liberated "feeling" on the tee, but in fact there are consequences, you can't just blast away.

What do you all think the best example of that in the US is?  I have not played too many in that category (sadly).   NGLA?   Garden City?

I would nominate all the courses at Streamsong because those are ones many of us can play. There as SO many holes where the player is given an unusually wide fairway to work with. But simply hitting the fairway does not mean you'll have a good chance at par; there are definitely right and wrong places to play most of the holes.


Since SS Black is new and I just played, I'll try to describe Hole #2, a short par four that is with the prevailing wind. The green sits perched up a sleep hill and angles left-to-right away from the fairway. I aimed down the middle of the fairway and hit a hard power fade, not straight as I intended. I was pleased when my ball cleared the fairway bunker and stayed in the fairway. But I was essentially DEAD if I went at the (front-left) pin because there only was about ten paces to stop the ball. I hit what I thought was a perfect shot at the pin...but it rolled out, down the downsloped back of the green and then twenty yards further. It took all of my skill to save bogey. Had I kept my tee sot left, I would have has so much more green to work with.


Unfortunately, I think the average golfer is simply going to whine about this green...

[Thomas Dai]

There are wider, more 'liberating' courses in the UK than TOC, Minchinhampton Old for one.
As said above, best be in the most appropriate position for your approach shot though.

Others can name others.

atb

[Clyde Johnson]

There are wider, more 'liberating' courses in the UK than TOC, Minchinhampton Old for one.
As said above, best be in the most appropriate position for your approach shot though.

Others can name others.

atb

If you are talking 'liberating' in the sense of lack of boundaries, and the blend between golf and nature, then somewhere like the  Forest Course at Bramshaw or the New Forest Golf Club would be pretty good examples...they tend to fall down on the consequential aspects, though given a dry, hard summer any pushed-up greens want to be approached on axis.

[Sean_A]

There are wider, more 'liberating' courses in the UK than TOC, Minchinhampton Old for one.
As said above, best be in the most appropriate position for your approach shot though.

Others can name others.

atb

Yes...I think Cleeve Cloud is the best example I know for a liberating course.  With rough more or less a non factor, the impact of elevation change takes on a far greater importance without creating too many opportunities for lost balls.


Ciao

[Niall C]

Of non-grazed courses the Gullane courses would be really good examples. Certainly there are some spots with heavy rough but excluding certain times during the year such as early spring, in general the rough is mostly beaten down by the weather and foot traffic. You might not get as good a lie as the fairway (although the semi-rough can actually be better sometimes) but it is mostly playable. Go off line though and the approach becomes much harder not just because of guarding bunkers but also because of contours/slopes/elevation changes of the green complexes. In that respect similar to TOC and some other links courses.
 
I think also, similar to the likes of Cleeve and Appleby etc, there is a very open aspect to the whole Gullane property which helps engender a feeling of expanse that encourages you to open the shoulders. Not sure though that entirely meets the idea of liberation referred to by Bogey in his OP.
 
Niall

[Mark_Fine]

I have heard so many good things about Wolf Point.  I really need to play it.  First of all, I wouldn't describe TOC as "liberating" but that is another discussion.  It is very demanding off the tee especially with any amount of wind.  As far as liberating goes; I love width as width can create options and options create interest and to me interest is what makes for great golf courses.  At the same time width for the sake of width is just wasted real estate and adds to higher maintenance costs.  At the end of the day, variety of design is what makes golf special.  The extreme diversity of the playing fields is what has always fasinated me.  I am for example playing Nanea GC this coming week and that course is for the most part "liberating" as there is lots of room to play golf.  It is Sand Hills in a lava flow but there is plenty of width and angles.  On the other hand, I recently played Wannamoisett which is a brilliant Ross design set on less than 100 acres.  I love that golf course (it can't be more different than Nanea which meanders over 1700 acres) and I never felt claustrophobic.  If you have played Merion, the feeling is similar.  Variety is what leads to great

[Tom Ferrell]

Width is certainly not the sole determinant of liberation.  Liberating, to me, involves a blurring of lines to such an extent that the golfer is free of architect intrusion.  Now, this is an ideal that is hard - maybe impossible - to actually attain.  Multiple lines of play and approach are probably the factors that I would consider most liberating. 


I played Wine Valley prior to its opening with architect Dan Hixson and several of the principals in the project.  When we played the par-5 7th, the liberating effect of the golf course came into full view.  We ranged from professional (Hixson) to competitive amateur to low-handicap to mid-handicap in skill sets.  Each person selected a different line and a different strategy for the hole.  Ironically, the mid-handicap made the only birdie in the group after choosing the most conservative and safest route.  In other words, our achievements and undoing on the holes were not determined by some level of shot execution *required* by the hole but instead on execution of the lines we individually chose to play.


We were all free to pursue our own version of success and risk, with the hole not really providing favor to any one approach.  Liberating! 

[Mark_Fine]

Tom,
Hope you are doing well!  Good post.  I agree with you (to some extent) but it is hard to create “options” and "alternative lines of play” without width.  Yes you can have a hole for example where a better player or longer hitter can take on a long carry vs playing a more conservative route around a hazard or obstacle but I am not sure I would call that “liberating”.  To the shorter hitter or weaker golfer, there really is only one option/line of play so it is not that liberating.  Think about any tight golf hole that lacks width.  How many such holes really offer alternative lines of play for most levels of golfers?  Risk/Reward of course factors in as well and I guess some would consider that aspect of a hole liberating.
Best,
Mark

[PCCraig]

A lot of the love for "liberating" design seems to come from bad golfers.


They love being able to hit fairways easily, and they aren't worried about their angle of approach to a green because they aren't going to hit the green anyway and are happy with a bogey.


Don't get me wrong, I can only stomach a limited diet of Medinah #3-esque Championship golf courses, but the trend of building these WIDE OPEN courses with no repercussions for missing a fairway or green under the guise of "fun" is going a bit too far, in my opinion. It's kind of like the new course at Sand Valley. Yes...it's fun to play well and make birdies, but after a while you realize you are just banging away at the ball and the birdies begin to ring hollow.

[Mark_Fine]

PCCraig,
Yes width for the sake of width is a waste of real estate and just adds to the cost of the game.  Again variety is key.  Sometimes it is fun to just grip it and rip it but if every hole is like that with no advantage except pure length then the design is not ideal in my mind. 
Mark

[Tom_Doak]

A lot of the love for "liberating" design seems to come from bad golfers.


They love being able to hit fairways easily, and they aren't worried about their angle of approach to a green because they aren't going to hit the green anyway and are happy with a bogey.


Don't get me wrong, I can only stomach a limited diet of Medinah #3-esque Championship golf courses, but the trend of building these WIDE OPEN courses with no repercussions for missing a fairway or green under the guise of "fun" is going a bit too far, in my opinion. It's kind of like the new course at Sand Valley. Yes...it's fun to play well and make birdies, but after a while you realize you are just banging away at the ball and the birdies begin to ring hollow.

Since when did anyone say there should be "no repercussions" ? 


The idea is that a poor drive to the wrong part of the fairway will leave the low handicapper very little or no chance of getting an approach close to the hole.  Yes, the bogey player is not as penalized for the position of his drive as the scratch player, since he doesn't expect to get close to the hole anyway.  But the bogey player still has to get his second shot in a good spot to give himself a chance for par, and that may well be harder to do depending on where he has driven.


It's the idea that a poor shot needs immediate repercussions that bothers me, and puts you down as an advocate of the penal school [which has a seat at the table, but not at the head of the table].

[Thomas Dai]

Putting the ball in the best spot from which to play the next shot and repercussions -
Isn’t there a course management quote (from Hogan or Faldo maybe) along the lines of “Work out how you’re going to try to play the hole from the pin back to the tee and then try to execute it in reverse.”
Atb

[Kalen Braley]

I couldn't agree more with Tom D on this one. 


Most high cappers are accustomed to only getting a handful of GIRs anyways, so a small well protected target from a bad angle on the approach shot from the fairway is nowhere near as frustrating as being completely dead after the tee shot.  Its all about where you kill hope that matters here.  On the tee, or being short sided near the green in a nasty bunker. 

[Tom Ferrell]

Mark - back at 'cha!  Well, I selected my example (Wine Valley) on purpose!  Wine Valley - and the 7th hole in particular - is long on width and lines.  And I think we're making the same point.  Width used to unlock strategic options is *almost* always good.  Now, there's no reason you can't be liberated and confined within the same round.


I do believe in golf as a metaphor for a journey, with its twists, turns and both joyful and despairing moments.  In such a journey - in my experience at least - there often comes a moment where you must fire and arrow right into the symbolic dragon's mouth - no option but to hit the shot required.  And I'm a-ok with that.


Maybe we're actually confining the term "liberation" here.  Liberation is an internal sense or feeling, not NECESSARILY a set of physical characteristics.  If by the time I reach the 18th hole I feel that I have been a journey that speaks to the range of emotions we feel as we journey through life, I feel liberated.  And once in a while, that sense of liberation comes in the tiniest and most confined part of the property!

[Ira Fishman]

Tom,


I could not agree more that liberation is an internal feeling.  The courses that I have enjoyed most are ones where at the end of the round I am both mentally exhausted and mentally exhilarated.  Exhausted because the course presented strategic choices that required real thought; exhilarated because those options were presented in a manner full of the unexpected or unusual.  Of course a great setting helps engender the feeling of liberation.


Ira

[Mark_Fine]

Tom,
After all these years, we are still aligned 
Best,
Mark

[Niall C]

A lot of the love for "liberating" design seems to come from bad golfers.


They love being able to hit fairways easily, and they aren't worried about their angle of approach to a green because they aren't going to hit the green anyway and are happy with a bogey.


Don't get me wrong, I can only stomach a limited diet of Medinah #3-esque Championship golf courses, but the trend of building these WIDE OPEN courses with no repercussions for missing a fairway or green under the guise of "fun" is going a bit too far, in my opinion. It's kind of like the new course at Sand Valley. Yes...it's fun to play well and make birdies, but after a while you realize you are just banging away at the ball and the birdies begin to ring hollow.

Pat


You took a bit of flack on that one but I'll back you to a certain degree. Where I agree is your statement about building wide open course with no real repercussion for missing. I suspect some took "repercussion" in that context to mean that the ball didn't land in a bunker or in water, but I took it to mean that "missing" had no real bearing on strategy for the next shot. If my interpretation is right then I wholeheartedly agree with you on that point.


Where I disagree is your first statement about "bad" golfers not being worried about angle of approach. I think all golfers are concerned about the next shot. It is the architects job to give them something to be concerned about and to make them think.


Niall