Been wondering:

[Tom_Doak]

TD and all,

For both the handicap golfer and the elite player, it seems to me that the 390-440 yard hole is currently as dead and lifeless as a stone...It's often too much for the former group and a rather "feh" test (along the lines of PM's remark) for the elite player.  Of course there are very fine ones, but more often than not in my observation they tend to the heroic or penal and do not invite a decision or manner of play, they invite a straight ball clubbed to the first third of the green. This is why they do not challenge the elite players and often defy the 10 HCPs

On the elite front, more and more it seems to me that our classic short fours (too many to fully list - but I'm thinking riviera 10, ANGC 3 Oakmont 17, WFW 6, PB 4, TOC - 9,10,12 and 18, NGLA 2 [least discussed hole on that fine course]) are the kinds of holes that make for an exacting test (because 3 is so attainable?) plus a great watch. I love observing the brute force and finesse strategies in play when the field comes to a hole such as these.  One recent example was on Olympic #7, which was pivotal each day of the tournament. 

And reverting back to my own 9-12HCP, my god does a course populated with such beauties and their kin make for a good time for me.  (TD, do you remember or have had a chance to re-visit my "secret" favorite that we discussed?...it is such a course, everything solvable, Diet-Raynor, never a sour round)

Short "4s" and Long "3s," followed closely by "4.5s" (card em' as you will) seem to be the best types of holes to use in greater combination, whether we're talking about our own game or the finest at exhibition.

cheers

vk

V:

When I worked for Pete Dye he said much the same thing you said in your first paragraph above ... only back then the useless "medium" par-4 was 390-420 yards.  Today it's more like 410-460 yards:  Too long for the bogey man to reach in two, not long enough to make the professional break a sweat.

But, many of those 410-460 yard holes were put in specifically 30 years ago to test the good player, while holes in your interesting range (280 to 340 yards) were lengthened so that they don't pose much of a quandary to the elite golfer.

Dr. MacKenzie wrote that sometimes the best solution for a bad hole is to shorten it, rather than to lengthen it.  Unfortunately, that observation has gone right over the heads of most green committees for the past 90 years.  It's precisely the holes that some people describe as "awkward", that make good golfers think.  Just stop and think about who is trying to change them.

[Ronald Montesano]

AClay writes "The most glaring of which can only be described as an inner examination of one's character. A fortitude that feeds off competition, mano y. mano."

and then he goes on...Adam, I have to assume you're speaking of the professional game...most amateurs can't repeat their last name to the inquiring officer, much less their swing.

I would suggest that an inner examination of one's character should not ever take place on the golf course, unless one is prone to cheating and is uncertain whether to do so. As far as fortitude goes, let's say I beat you 10 and 8...I've demonstrated 10 holes worth of fortitude. What if we have an 18 hole medal contest, where we MUST go the distance? And what if, spotting me a 6 stroke advantage with 4 holes to play, you start your comeback and eat away 3 strokes on 15 and 16? I'm sh&$&* myself and you're smelling blood...now that's a contest! (not that I want me staining the shorts to be the only image/scent you have of me...)

How repetitive were swings by Furyk and GMac on the 72nd hole at Olympic this year? I recollect that it was medal play.

[Kyle Harris]

Adam Clayman,

I think you may want to consider adjusting the color of your monitor, the rose-tint through which you view this board is showing.

To say the mano a mano mindset is a product of format is a bit misleading in my opinion and much more likely attributable to human nature. Indeed, match play continues to be the more gamey version of golf to medal play's more sporty character. How are all the gamesmanship tactics to which you allude in any way an examination of the sportman's ability to golf? One can simply ignore the match and play a medal round in their head and likely achieve similar results. The object of the game is still to get the ball in the hole in the fewest amount of strokes possible given skill and conditions. Rightfully so, I cannot impede the progress of my opponent (the stymie remains a stupid concept).

How is the desire for a repetitive swing the exclusive haunt of medal play? Guess what, I think the mechanical and repetitive swing that produces a 64 in medal pay is likely winning a match 4 and 3. The former at least proves the golfer overcame the entire golf course while the latter simply shows the golfer bettered an opponent.

The thing that match play will never be able to provide on a consistent basis is that of shot urgency. Only in very specific contexts of certain matches MUST a competitor execute a shot. In medal play, each shot is thoroughly examined in the context of the entire round. This forces the golfer to integrate with the architecture and removes the gamey elements of the opponent and the match context from the picture.

[Adam Clayman]

Ronald, I was wrong to try a play semantic games with Patrick's wording. My perspective was more about the amateur, and, how a higher handicap player can beat a lower one in match play, but rarely, if ever, in stroke.

 In your medal example, I would be surprised if the playing partner, would even notice what the other guy is shooting, let alone soil himself over it. That's the nature of medal. Impersonal, almost robot like control of one's adrenaline and emotions, while being totally focused on yourself. Match play, feeds off those human interactions, and therefore can examine aspects, other than those inherent to the stroke play mentality.


Kyle, We see it differently. Match play can free up the swing, encouraging heroics and recovery excitement. While medal stifles creative play. Forcing the player to play safe.
 

[Kyle Harris]

Kyle, We see it differently. Match play can free up the swing, encouraging heroics and recovery excitement. While medal stifles creative play. Forcing the player to play safe.
 

A medal player willing to accept making a high number on a hole for that day will feel just as encouraged to be heroic or try the impossible recovery. I find that the higher risk of medal play makes the success that much sweeter. I find the idea of simply trying a shot because the worst I can lose is the hole to be boring and takes away from the experience of integrating with the architecture. The right opponent can make even the most vapid golf course fun in match play (not a bad thing!).

I have no problem with people stating a preference for one format over the other, just don't claim purity or superiority of one format over the other.

[Adam Clayman]

I have no problem with people stating a preference for one format over the other, just don't claim purity or superiority of one format over the other.

You find match play boring, I don't. You think medal allows you to interface more, I find that, in match play and more. 

For decades we've been forced to watch pros play medal, on a never ending sea of mindless modern (post war) designs. They are rarely compelling viewing experiences, unless played on classic or thoughtful designs. i.e.
kapalua, TOC, Merion, Riv, PB, Pinehurst etc.   

I didn't claim any superiority. Although Max Behr probably did, preferring the sport to the game.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Because it wouldn't represent a thorough examination of the golfer's game.

The best golfers in the world should be tested, and that means placing a demand on all aspects of their game/s

It's difficult to  test long irons and fairway woods without lengthening courses

That's just wrong. You could test long irons and fairway woods by shortening courses.

No, you can't.
Certainly even you has heard of "bomb and gouge"

You could test long irons and fairway woods by letting the grass grow a little.

That would penalize the less skilled golfer

You could test long irons and fairway woods by turning on the sprinklers.

Again penalizing the less skilled golfers, especially the ones who wear glasses.

The trouble with you Patrick is that you are so inside the box that it is a wonder that you don't develop a severe case of claustrophobia.
Who said I haven't ?

[Garland Bayley]

Because it wouldn't represent a thorough examination of the golfer's game.

The best golfers in the world should be tested, and that means placing a demand on all aspects of their game/s

It's difficult to  test long irons and fairway woods without lengthening courses

That's just wrong. You could test long irons and fairway woods by shortening courses.

No, you can't.
Certainly even you has heard of "bomb and gouge"

...

Go back and read the thread. Try and understand what Tom Doak wrote. Who do you think knows better? You or Tom?
The claustrophobia prevents you from seeing the light outside the box.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Because it wouldn't represent a thorough examination of the golfer's game.

The best golfers in the world should be tested, and that means placing a demand on all aspects of their game/s

It's difficult to  test long irons and fairway woods without lengthening courses

That's just wrong. You could test long irons and fairway woods by shortening courses.

No, you can't.
Certainly even you has heard of "bomb and gouge"

...

Go back and read the thread. Try and understand what Tom Doak wrote. Who do you think knows better? You or Tom?

Depends upon the subject.
Or do you find Tom to be infallible on all subjects ?

The claustrophobia prevents you from seeing the light outside the box.

That's an interesting interpretation of what claustrophobia means.
My vision remains keen as does my radar and my ability to read and reason.
You should be so adept.

[Jud_T]

Medal play may be the best test of golfing ability.  It may not be the best thing to promote the game or interesting GCA.  Having 10 year-olds grind over Medal scores to the point of excluding Match play so they can start earning Junior Ranking Points on the way toward being easily statistically analysable for college scholarships doesn't make the game more fun for kids.  Watching Spencer Levin heading into Sunday with a 6 stroke lead at the Phoenix Open isn't exactly must-see TV.  And for most golfers, playing a tough Championship course designed to be a great Medal test for the best players in the world isn't any fun.  In fact, based on the grinding and grimacing I've witnessed, I'm not sure it's that much fun for the best players either.  

[Garland Bayley]

Medal play may be the best test of golfing ability. ...

No it's the best test of boring, inside the box, repetitious, unathletic plodding. Who out there has the most shots, and thereby the most golfing ability? Does that person dominate medal play?

Why do you think John Daly, and Bubba Watson are such popular golfers?
Tiger Woods?
These guys do things that are wild and unexpected.

[Ken Moum]

TD and all,

For both the handicap golfer and the elite player, it seems to me that the 390-440 yard hole is currently as dead and lifeless as a stone...It's often too much for the former group and a rather "feh" test (along the lines of PM's remark) for the elite player. 

Being a short hitter with a somewhat low handicap for most of the last 30 years, I have thought about this issue quite a bit lately.  I usually play tees that are around 6,000 yards.

FWIW, I'm 65, and until lately I usually got my index into single digits for at least part of the summer... while hitting it barely over 200 yards.

What I concluded is that courses with a succession of par threes around 160 yards, fours around 375 and fives around 510 are nothing but a recipe for failure.  @ 375-390 I am often hitting a fairway wood for my second, while long hitters in my handicap range are hitting LOTS of wedges. Similarly, 160-175 par threes do much the same thing.

Ever since I played Coore and Crenshaw's Sugarloaf Mountain, where the longest and shortest of each par are:

Threes -- 91 - 198
Fours   -- 252 - 455
Fives   --  436 - 544

On THAT kind of course, I can compete.  I have a short iron on the shortest holes, and the long hitters aren't necessarily going to make par on the longest ones.

Plus it's a hell of lot more fun than a course I played recently where three of the par threes were within 2 yards of 155.

K

[Niall C]

Because it wouldn't represent a thorough examination of the golfer's game.

The best golfers in the world should be tested, and that means placing a demand on all aspects of their game/s

It's difficult to  test long irons and fairway woods without lengthening courses

Patrick:

I agree with your first sentiment, but disagree with your conclusion.  You can test long irons and fairway woods on one-shot holes or on par fives.  If you used one-shot holes, maybe we'd have to change the rule about using a tee peg, but that wouldn't be that big a change.

Indeed, though no one seems to want to go there, a more demanding course for the pros might be a course with MORE (and longer) par-3's.

I've often thought that was the Colt etc reasoning behind heathland course layouts like Swinley. Overall they have a short yardage but play tough with long Par 3's, some long Par 4's and minimal Par 5's.  Back to the future?

Tony

I recall reading either a letter or article by Colt in one of the mags where he advocated doing away with par 5's because of the time it took to play a round. Need to try and find that article.

Niall

[Patrick_Mucci]

Medal play may be the best test of golfing ability. ...

No it's the best test of boring, inside the box, repetitious, unathletic plodding.

GJ,

Each time you make pronouncements like the above, you subtract from the sum total of human knowledge about the game.

Who out there has the most shots, and thereby the most golfing ability?

Does that person dominate medal play?

Why do you think John Daly, and Bubba Watson are such popular golfers?

If Daly didn't win the PGA and British Open you never would have heard of him.

Bubba's win at The Masters followed great medal play with an electric shock recovery to win.

Medal play tests the golfers mind and abilities, like no other method.

How much tournament golf have you played and what's your handicap ?



Tiger Woods?
These guys do things that are wild and unexpected.

Winning the Masters with a record low score and a record margin is hardly wild and unexpected, or are you relating to his motor vehicle driving skills.

[David Davis]

I'm thinking it's more fun to watch guys break records than struggle to make par because they can't reach the greens in two accurately due to the fact that par 4's are 540 yds for example.

Funny thing is when you have your clubs top players play a match from the womens tees (and adjust hcps, # of shots accordingly to slope) you see that they don't score any or much lower. I'm not so convinced that many of the courses that really didn't change are that much easier due to the fact that the players hit longer. Instead they have to think more and hit lower clubs off the tees, although I'm well aware this is not the case for all courses.

There's only been a couple 59's, take the Match 2 as an example. The course held up extremely well and in perfect gentle wind conditions against the longest or one of the longest players on the tour.

So maybe it's just a simple as having better architecture and the fact that many of these courses they have to lengthen to make a challenge have poor architecture that doesn't stand the test of time and equipment.

[Garland Bayley]

 

Winning the Masters with a record low score and a record margin is hardly wild and unexpected...

Oh yeah? How did his first front nine go?

[Patrick_Mucci]

 

Winning the Masters with a record low score and a record margin is hardly wild and unexpected...

Oh yeah? How did his first front nine go?

That's your response, "oh yeah, how did his first front nine go ?

I wasn't aware that the USGA, R&A, Masters and PGA Tour were now conducting nine hole tournaments.

When did they depart from the 72 hole format ?

[Brent Hutto]

Let's get away from "test of ability" and say that medal play, specifically more than 18 or 36 holes of medal play, is the best way to distinguish small differences in ability among a large field of highly skilled players. As such it is the obvious choice any time you line up 100+ of the best players in the world in order to find out who plays the best this week.

But the downside is contra the same feature. In medal play a "stroke lost" to a mistake or a failed bit of risk-taking has exactly the same negative value as a "stroke gained" by an outstanding shot or a risk taken on successfully. By definition, the idea that "a stroke is a stroke is a stroke and they all count the same over 72 holes" is the essence of medal play.

For players of modest ability, a case can be made for a certain measure of risk-taking even in medal play. A handicap player is going to "lose" quite a few strokes along the way even if playing conservatively and will have relatively few chances to "gain" strokes by stringing together good shots along with one outstanding one on a particular hole. Probably the best approach is still mistake avoidance but at least we can fool ourselves into believing risks are worth it.

At the elite level, the identity between "stroke lost" and "stroke gained" leads to a inexorable calculus of steady, cautious play as the optimum strategy. Sure you'll see great players take on a risk that seems quite chancy to the rest of us but in reality the successful tournament professional must judge himself as having a very high probability of pulling off a shot before he will choose to try and hit it in competition (assuming there is a substantial risk involved, landing in a bunker 20 yards from the hole scares no one at that level).

So you can't have one side of the coin without the other. If you want to find out which PGA Tour player is the best this week, give them a 72-hole medal play event. And then accept that "best" has at least as much to do with avoiding "strokes lost" as with achieving "strokes gained". In a triumph of circular reasoning, that equivalence is at the core of what it means to be the best.

Match play, conversely, can have much more situational variation in the calculus of "lost" and "gained" strokes. In some circumstances a "stroke gained" can have its relative value increased and the negative value of multiple "strokes lost" on a single hole can collapse to something very close to equaling a single stroke. More variety, more to think about and generally speaking there will be more risk taking. Even "risks" that have a sizable downside and a substantial probability of failure. Fun to watch.

[Ken Moum]

Brent H.

Nice job of explaining the difference.

I also think that this: "And then accept that 'best' has at least as much to do with avoiding 'strokes lost' as with achieving 'strokes gained,'" is why I find so much of professional golf a total snoozefest.

In fact, except for Suzann Pettersen, I find it almost unwatchable.  Oh, and maybe you could include Creamer, Gulbis, Kerr, NYC, and a couple of others in there as well.

[Garland Bayley]

 

Winning the Masters with a record low score and a record margin is hardly wild and unexpected...

Oh yeah? How did his first front nine go?

That's your response, "oh yeah, how did his first front nine go ?

I wasn't aware that the USGA, R&A, Masters and PGA Tour were now conducting nine hole tournaments.

When did they depart from the 72 hole format ?

My point was that these players make wild and unexpected shots. I.e., they are not David Toms or Zack Johnson. Did not Tiger make wild and unexpected shots during his win, especially during the first 9 holes?
Tiger has spent his career trying to get rid of those wild and unexpected shots by revising his swing to be more boring and consistent as opposed to dynamic and varying.

[Patrick_Mucci]

GJ,

How wild and unexpected could you be when beating one of the best fields in the world by a record 12 shots ?

Don't forget, this was his first Masters as a Pro, and early round jitters usually gets to everyone the first time they compete as a PRO.

Golf is all about getting the ball in the hole in the fewest strokes possible, irrespective of how you do it.

If Tiger, Bubba and Daly weren't scoring well, no one, repeat, no one would be watching them.

If people want to watch wild, unpredictable golfers who don't score well, you'd have enormous galleries.

[Garland Bayley]

GJ,

How wild and unexpected could you be when beating one of the best fields in the world by a record 12 shots ?

...

Very!

Tiger has always been wild off the tee. He has always been able to hit unexpected recovery shots. Some of his recovery shots have been called things like the greatest shot I ever saw, a shot only he could hit, etc. by his peers on tour.

If he played like David Toms and Zach Johnson, there would not be nearly as much buzz about him.

[Kyle Harris]

GJ,

How wild and unexpected could you be when beating one of the best fields in the world by a record 12 shots ?

...

Very!

Tiger has always been wild off the tee. He has always been able to hit unexpected recovery shots. Some of his recovery shots have been called things like the greatest shot I ever saw, a shot only he could hit, etc. by his peers on tour.

If he played like David Toms and Zach Johnson, there would not be nearly as much buzz about him.

And if my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a wagon.