I started this topic after I took an impromptu twilight trip to Disneyland on Saturday after arriving in Anaheim for a conference. Lines were short as the children were heading to bed and a buddy and I crushed Disneyland Park, riding just about everything that two adults can justify.
I've been to Disney parks twice, both as an adult. What stands out every time that I go is the brilliant attention to detail and the way that the rides go beyond just engineering as much speed, height, and "thrill" as possible. Instead, they find this exceptional balance, ebb and flow, and energy. Put simply, they're just ridiculously fun rides that can be enjoyed by almost anyone regardless of age or stomach strength and the attention to detail creates an illusion of an alternate reality. For a brief time, you're transported away from life and into a world of fantasy.
Much like the trend toward longer and more difficult courses in golf, there’s been a trend in theme parks during my lifetime to build bigger, faster, scarier rides. In my youth, I viewed riding “big” rides as some sort of test of intestinal fortitude. It was a right of passage to become tall enough to ride something, and then to find the courage to do it. I suspect the same recesses of my brain that made me want to prove my grown-up-ness by getting on a scary ride also make many golfers want to play very difficult courses from very long tees.
Perhaps the best example of bigger, faster, scarier rides that I can think of is the Son Of Beast debacle at Kings Island. Several people on this thread mentioned The Beast as they’re favorite ride. It’s a classic wooden “runaway mine shaft” coaster. It’s big – the longest wooden coaster in the world with a maximum speed of almost 70 mph. Yet, it’s a very enjoyable ride. It carves through mature forest, is delightfully rickety but generally not too rough (though some days it can be a little jarring, depending on track conditions), and builds to a wonderful “double helix” climax. It’s easily one of my favorites.
Sometime around 2000, the park built Son of Beast. It was the tallest, fastest, and only looping wooden coaster in the world. It looked ferocious, and it was. Even if you were lucky enough to ride when everything worked (some pretty serious injuries occurred when the loop failed on at least one or two occasions), it was a brutal ride. Even as a teenager, I’d be sore for hours afterwards. Looking back now, I can’t imagine what possessed ANYONE to ride it. It was completely awful, but I suppose that aforementioned recess that makes us want to prove our manhood was enough to talk people into thinking they wanted to ride.
The ride was imploded a few years ago. The ride failed for a lot of reasons, but all stemmed from its overzealous size and speed. At the end of the day, it was big and scary and completely without nuance. It’s probably the worst ride I’ve ever ridden, in the sense that as I think back on the five or six trips I took around its track, I can’t think of a single good memory. All I remember is engaging my neck muscles to make sure I didn’t slip a disc.
I see a lot of parallels between golf architecture and theme parks. An obvious one is the importance of ‘pace of play.” No one likes long lines or long waits on tees. But I think the great ones do a lot of other things similarly too. There’s emphasis on creating a real experience and escape, whether it’s done by winding a coaster through the trees or dropping a boat down a ramp and into a lagoon where pirates come alive, or whether it’s done by making bunkers blend into the landscape and maintaining the character inherent in a property. There’s also emphasis on thrill, whether it’s a rollicking roller coaster or the 16th at Cypress. But there’s also some need for restraint, and some need for nuance. There’s a place in the world for 110 mph coasters, but not if they beat the living hell out of everyone who rides them. There’s a place in the world for very difficult golf courses, but it sure helps if they provide some options and challenges feasible for a higher handicap player.
And I think the key to enjoyment of courses and parks is the same – in the end, it’s all about fun. That sense of cavalier enjoyment is ultimately what keeps us coming back to both. And while fun can come in a lot of different forms, it’s always best perceived if we can turn off that part of our brain that makes us feel like we can somehow better prove our manhood by taking on an unpleasant slog.