GCA brush-offs from disinterested amigos: Thanks, but no gracias!!

[Ronald Montesano]

Quote from Chaz Rymer's thread on Television for 2012, courtesy of Kalen Braley

"I think Charlies got it exactly right about architecture.  I've tried engaging my buddies on this stuff and it just don't take...I don't see how the average weekend warrior will sit thru an hour long program of that kind of stuff."

What types of brush-offs have y'all received from those to whom you've attempted to explain gca? John Lyon, KLynch and I ganged up on my brother-in-law on Black Friday 2011 at Ravenwood. Later, he messaged that "you guys are too into it for me. Wow." I admired his honesty. He's a typical golfer in my book: looks forward to his 1-2 weekend rounds and 9 in a league after work, but could give a bountiful shit about the who, how and why of the direction, shape and consistency of the holes.

What y'all got?

[Kalen Braley]

Ronald,

The brush offs over the years I've got is easily in the double digits amongst friends, family, and co-workers.  They just plain could give a crap....and can't fathom how one would want to travel thousands of miles, at a fair expense, to play a handful of courses, and see nothing else.

But then again, I realize this is a teeny niche....there are likely sites similar to GCA.com for bridge building, bird cage construction techniques, cheese making,  trains, skyscrapers, etc, etc.....

[JMEvensky]

Quote from Chaz Rymer's thread on Television for 2012, courtesy of Kalen Braley

"I think Charlies got it exactly right about architecture.  I've tried engaging my buddies on this stuff and it just don't take...I don't see how the average weekend warrior will sit thru an hour long program of that kind of stuff."

What types of brush-offs have y'all received from those to whom you've attempted to explain gca? John Lyon, KLynch and I ganged up on my brother-in-law on Black Friday 2011 at Ravenwood. Later, he messaged that "you guys are too into it for me. Wow." I admired his honesty. He's a typical golfer in my book: looks forward to his 1-2 weekend rounds and 9 in a league after work, but could give a bountiful shit about the who, how and why of the direction, shape and consistency of the holes.

What y'all got?

I disagree with the premise.The only golfers who truly don't care about architecture are the ones who play on TV and the ones who can't get it airborne.Everybody in the middle cares to some degree--they just may not know it.

I concede that very few care about whether Tillinghast or Ross designed XYZ Country Club,whether a particular green is a Biarritz or a double plateau,or how Pine Valley was created.

But every golfer wonders why a bunker was put in a certain place or why the holes go in a certain route around the property.They may not lay awake at night wondering about it,but they sure as hell think about it every time their ball lands in that bunker or have to walk 200 yards out of their way to a tee box.

At its essence,golf course architecture is a pretty understandable idea.There's a piece of ground with 18 holes on it.An architect built the holes in a certain way to provide a challenge and enjoyment while working within certain financial and/or zoning parameters.

The surest way to turn off any prospective acolyte is to try and impress them with knowledge that someone read on this website.

[Ronald Montesano]

Kalen...any good stories?

JMEvenski...disagree but respect

IDGAF is the typical response to the question "So, do you know why that green/fairway/bunker ...?"

[Kalen Braley]

Ronald in my dozens of attempts to talk about bunker placement, fairway grass types, hole layouts, and ponds.....IDGAF is the response I've gotten at least 90% of the time.

As for stories...I can even count the numerous times I've invited others to go play "X",  which were always one of the best courses in the region but usually required some light travel (a couple of hours), and got the typical response of..."I'd much rather just stay here and play muni X".

But this one time I was playing in a 4 some of friends/co-workers at the local course here in Liberty Lake that was just re-done two years back.  The first couple of holes I was trying to initiate conversation with "I like what he did here..." and "I wonder why he did this..." kind of stuff.  By the time we got to the 3rd tee, it was pretty much a unannimous "just STFU and play golf" from everyone else in the group.

[Garland Bayley]

Ronald,

The brush offs over the years I've got is easily in the double digits amongst friends, family, and co-workers.  They just plain could give a crap....and can't fathom how one would want to travel thousands of miles, at a fair expense, to play a handful of courses, and see nothing else.

...

Yes, because that is boring and egotistical. Like measuring yours in the whip it out thread.

However, I don't ever recall getting the brush off when explaining how a golf hole could be made better by removing certain penal characteristics, and perhaps replacing with a risk and reward option. Especially when the playing partner has just suffered a watery death in a forced carry.

[Joel_Stewart]

Not to long ago I was playing with two members of Cypress Point.  I told them I thought the course was over conditioned and looking more like Augusta.  One guy said in a gruff voice, "a course can never get over conditioned" and walked away.

[Ronald Montesano]

Garland, so you're suggesting the sneak-attack approach?

Joel, that took some cojones...more of a full-frontal than a sneak-attack.

Garland, I agree with you that a subtle and practical suggestion is quite serviceable.

Joel, you can't win them all!

[Bruce Hardie]

A friend of mine has a standard opening line with his playing partners to decide whether to try and talk GCA with them over the course of the round.

"What would you change on the course?"

Sometimes he asks the followup question of "Why?" but it usually doesn't come to that. When suggestions usually include things like:
- There should be a shade sail over the barbeque area
- They should put some nets in front to the carpark to stop stray balls damaging cars
- The girls don't make a good enough coffee
he doesn't usually force the issue on the conversation.

[Tommy Williamsen]

Fifteen years ago I took a pretty awesome trip with my two best friends.  Among others, we played Olympic, Pebble Beach, and Cypress Point.  Through every round I would do a running commentary about this hole or that shot that Arnie hit in the 66 Open and such.  Only years later did I learn that they each would trade off walking with me.  Something like, "Don it is your turn to walk with Tommy."

[Andy Troeger]

I think there are a few things that make people more willing to discuss GCA topics from my experience...

1. The first comment or two should be very general and preferably not made until after you've played a couple holes. Blasting someone out of the box (Kalen!) with comments about specific features will make your group think you've got screws loose.

2. If you're playing a familiar course, asking something about what the person's favorite hole and why is a much easier way to start conversation than asking about the Redan characteristics of the 4th hole. The terminology we use here should be avoided at all cost unless the audience shows significant interest.

3. On a new course, saying something like "that's a cool hole or feature" sounds far less odd than talking about the strategic merit of blah blah blah.

Starting with generalities allows you to gauge interest and perhaps build interest without sounding like a geek or losing them with stuff that belongs in this forum!

[Ronald Montesano]

Betraying my age, it reminds me a bit of the Seinfeld bit with Keith Hernandez, when the bro-mance is in full flower. You DO have to string golfers a long, tease them a bit, before unleashing the elements of architecture on them.

I think part of the reason is that a golf course is considered to be a thoroughfare. Think how often you travel a road; do you ever ask yourself, how could this have been improved? The thoroughfares/fairways of golf courses are taken for granted by the majority of the golfing population, whose primary purpose is to use golf as an escape from life's usual thoroughfares.

I'm enjoying the direction of this thread, as I believe it will help many of us (present company included) to re-assess the ways in which we broach subjects.

I shudder to think how people who play with Shivas react to his Real Golfers/Bozos distinction. Seems to me we should be in the business of bringing people into the fold, not isolating them from it.

[Scott Warren]

After bashing my mate (a former Golf Digest ad sales rep) over the head with 1001 reasons why 13 at The Lakes is a great hole as we walked from the tee to our drives, he looked at me, shook his head and said: "All you architecture wankers can't get enough of short par fours. Why is that?"

[Cory Lewis]

A recent article about the Dormie Club in a local NC golf magazine said the 7th hole had elements of a Redan.  The other golf pros I work with asked me what a Redan was.  As I launched into my explanation of the 15th at North Berwick and Charles Blair MacDonald and NGLA they started rollling their eyes and told me they wished they had never asked.

[Mike_Young]

Think about a golf course like a grand prix race track.  Each and everyone of us could drive the track and have fun with it but how many of us could actually "drive" the track and understand the strategy and where to be on each turn, out to come out of each turn, and where to break so that we could maintain optimum speed and cut each 10th of a second.  The average golfer sees a golf course the same way.  From what I see with the guys I play with, it is not that they don't like golf architecture.  They just don't have respect for it.  Everyone of them thinks they know what could be done to improve the course and where they should plant the next tree to block the bunker shot toward the green.  And if they ever serve on the green committee then they could begin building courses and maintaining courses tomorrow.  They also understand maintenance less or at least as little as they do architecture but they know what they consider good.  But the sad truth of what they really like and respect is the assistant pros that come around about every two years with the tales of how they should have been on the tour but they came down with an ingrown toenail or something.  These guys will go out and play with a couple of them; hit it 290 ( maybe in the fairway on two holes) and convince them they need to be sponsored for a year.  If that guy tells them a hole needs lengthening or a green needs to be moved it might just happen.    

[Ronald Montesano]

Young Mike...very insightful post. Taking my thoroughfare and extending it to the race track is connective tissue! Who doesn't respect virile young guys over old dead guys, anyway?

At the same (anonymous) club where Ian Andrew and team did great bunker work on a Travis course, there is a member of the most genial sort of nature. Unfortunately, he's a basher (and a low handicapper) as opposed to a putter (and a low handicapper.) He is connected with the younger players and is a fan of adding deeper tees on every hole. I guess it doesn't really matter, as long as the middle and forward tees aren't altered (a la Augusta), but one does hope that addition of tees is all that the fellow puts his mind to, since length is his systematic, particular challenge when it comes to golf.

And that might be the rub, in the end. Is it that we denizens of this cave see most or all the challenges of the golf course, while those who don't lurk here, see only the length, or the accuracy, or the hazard, or the putting issue, thus restricting their focus to that particular element?

[George Pazin]

I disagree with the premise.The only golfers who truly don't care about architecture are the ones who play on TV and the ones who can't get it airborne.Everybody in the middle cares to some degree--they just may not know it.

I concede that very few care about whether Tillinghast or Ross designed XYZ Country Club,whether a particular green is a Biarritz or a double plateau,or how Pine Valley was created.

But every golfer wonders why a bunker was put in a certain place or why the holes go in a certain route around the property.They may not lay awake at night wondering about it,but they sure as hell think about it every time their ball lands in that bunker or have to walk 200 yards out of their way to a tee box.

At its essence,golf course architecture is a pretty understandable idea.There's a piece of ground with 18 holes on it.An architect built the holes in a certain way to provide a challenge and enjoyment while working within certain financial and/or zoning parameters.

The surest way to turn off any prospective acolyte is to try and impress them with knowledge that someone read on this website.

This is probably closest to my view.

Mike, it's not just architecture. I don't know if it's the internet or what, but everyone thinks he can do everyone else's job better and faster and cheaper, too. It reminds me of the old joke:

How many lead guitarists does it take to screw in a light bulb? 1,000. 1 to do it and 999 to explain how they could do it faster and better.

Fifteen years ago I took a pretty awesome trip with my two best friends.  Among others, we played Olympic, Pebble Beach, and Cypress Point.  Through every round I would do a running commentary about this hole or that shot that Arnie hit in the 66 Open and such.  Only years later did I learn that they each would trade off walking with me.  Something like, "Don it is your turn to walk with Tommy."

  One man's torture is another's delight, I guess, sounds like fun to me.

[Mike Tanner]

About seven years ago one of my casual golf friends invited me to join his group of guys on their long-standing annual golf trip. He knew that I was interested in gca and said "you'll like the course."

So I went and he was right. It turned out to be pretty cool—a 1920s design by Fred Findlay in Staunton, Va. Not long, but the hilly terrain provided plenty of interest. The greens were small and full of movement and the fairways played firm and fast. There was quirk in the form of two back-to-back par 5s and a par-3 finishing hole.

The rest of the group could care less about the architectural merits of the course, but it's one of the top reasons I've stayed interested in the annual trip.

[Dave McCollum]

Generally, I never bring up the subject.  The best way to interest a golfer in architecture is take them to Bandon or a links course and tell them to hit whatever shot the caddie suggests.  Architecture is what happens when the ball hits the turf.

Two types of golfers never to mention gca to:  golfers who play every day and vanity handicappers.  Their obsession is powered by a different fuel.

[Morgan Clawson]

Excellent discussion.

Thought 1:

Here’s an approach that might be worth emulating.

For me, Johnny Miller is the best announcer and Tiger Woods is often the best interviewee. Why?

Both of them help me understand more about the nuances of the pro game better than their contemporaries.

Johnny is really good about pointing out how a player is reacting under pressure. He’ll talk through what a player might be thinking or a special way he needs to hit a shot.

In interviews Tiger will describe very specifically how he hit certain shots.  Before Tiger people didn’t talk about hitting stingers or armsy 9 irons. I don’t know what he means sometimes, but I like it anyway because he’s taking the discussion to a new level.

Now, if both of them talked this technical all of the time it would be too much for most audiences.

But we could take that same approach and throw out architectural insights from time to time. Eventually some of our playing partners would get more interested in golf course architecture.

Thought 2:

Golf course architecture is like art. Most people can’t explain why they like a certain piece of art. It just appeals to them or it doesn’t.  If someone isn’t introspective about why they like a course (other than conditioning, cost or location), it will be hard to get them to appreciate the nuances of the architecture.

[Rick Shefchik]

"Interlachen and Minikahda aren't anything special. You just like them because of their history."

[John Kirk]

I can elicit the glassy-eyed faraway look with a variety of arcane subjects.

I've had fun reading the responses.