Wasn't there the time-tested principle of shots being proportionally rewarded or

[Garland Bayley]

... penalized commensurate with their execution?

Wrote Lou Duran on the bunker too nice thread.

I always cringe when I see such writing. It was a favorite of Matt Ward's, who always made me cringe no matter what.

pro·por·tion·al
 [ prə páwrshən'l ]  

    related by ratio: related by or possessing a constant ratio

If you want proportional, then lay out a completely flat course, with flat greens and no hazards. Then you come closest to "possesing a constant ratio" of penalty (and reward).

What you want for a hazard on a golf course is a disproportional penalty. If it is not a disproportional penalty, then why would it make you think about the shot you are about to play?

Can we please stop with this nonsense!

[Lou_Duran]

GJ Bailey - are you addicted to posting on GCA.com?

Mr. Sheehy, please, can you cure me?

It is a curious thing how we come to opinions on a variety of subjects.  I know Matt Ward and we are the lesser for no longer having access to his vast knowledge of golf courses and architecture.  He was one of the relatively rare guys on this site who commented almost exclusively from personal experience and could play at least as well as he talked/wrote.  I often disagreed with his conclusions, but never doubted his integrity and effort- he truly carried the water.  Instead, we are regaled by an abundant amount of idle chatter and man-love, mostly worth somewhat less than the price of admission.

How often have we heard that golf is a reflection of life?  Aren't proportionality and balance basic tenets of what we seek if not expect?  Do we really want randomness of results?  Do we not have a sense of fairness built into most of us?  What a better way to kill golf than to disassociate results from execution.

But what can one expect from an individual who finds great meaning in Warren Buffet's "My Philanthropic Pledge" and uses as a signature the populist lament decrying the disproportionality of societal contributions to rewards- "I've worked in an economy that rewards someone who saves the lives of others with a medal, rewards a great teacher with thank-you notes from parents, but rewards those who can detect the mispricing of securities with sums reaching into the billions."  Of course, Warren does this precisely- exploiting market and political inefficiencies, all the while laughing his ass off on the way to the bank and gaining the love, respect, and protection from the many who would otherwise enjoy taking him down.  Austin is not the only thing keeping Weird!  

[Garland Bayley]

Lou,

You never doubted his integrity? Even after it was clearly shown and admitted that he talked up courses for rewards such as food, travel, and lodging?

[Sean_A]

How often have we heard that golf is a reflection of life?  Plenty.

Aren't proportionality and balance basic tenets of what we seek if not expect?  Are we talking about golf?

Do we really want randomness of results?  Let me think - yes. Counter question, do we really want graded results based on the number of feet the target is missed by?

Do we not have a sense of fairness built into most of us?  Concerning golf, no?

What a better way to kill golf than to disassociate results from execution.  I don't think this was advocated.

Ciao

[Garland Bayley]

Lou,

I pity someone who would resort to slandering someone by posting such garbage about Warren Buffet.

Maybe you should get help.

[Garland Bayley]

GJ Bailey - are you addicted to posting on GCA.com?

No, but perhaps since such an idea comes to your mind, perhaps you are.

[BCrosby]

If you like proportional punishments, you will love Joshua Crane.

Bob

[Alex Miller]

Should golf really be measured in the first time around a course? I think that is the premise that Garland is relying on. Here are my thoughts as they may or may not pertain to the question posed.

If a player misses executing a shot by the slimmest of margins once they are aware of the strategy being imposed on them on a certain golf hole (this does not mean a lack of options, that's just part of strategy), then their miss was just as bad as the result is. If there's a creek to be avoided and the player barely misses a shot and ends up there, well guess what: they actually really f**ked up! How do I know this? Not by the quality of their strike, but by the result! Totally fair!

In assessing the "fairness" of a course, I think golf is best viewed after holing out, not before teeng up. If any golf hole is deemed unfair, I think it's because the player doesn't understand the strategy or the severity of the mistakes in execution they made.

It is fair because it is.  

[Lou_Duran]

Bob,

I think golf courses have too many variables to be summarily quantifiable or standardized (I haven't found much consistency in slope and course ratings).  The Crane essays didn't interest me.

I am not a proponent that every long hole should have a large green, or that a short hole must have small targets.  I never suggested a strict set of rules that must be blindly followed without fail in golf course design.  Golf is a very traditional game.  People have expectations, more than that, requirements, that if A happens, B follows, at least most of the time.  If it doesn't, chaos and all sorts of unusual behavior ensue.  It is probably the reason why there are relatively few hole types and critics complain that there is little new in golf.  Serendipity and rubs of the green in small dosages are good; Muirhead's shark jaw hole at Stone Harbor not so much.

Sean,

I am talking about golf.  Didn't Richard Choi speak to balance in the "bunkers are too perfect" thread?  And world traveler Michael Whitaker uses the lovely sentiment "Solving the paradox of proportionality is the heart of golf architecture" from Tom Doak as his signature.  Yeah, I do think that balance and proportionality play a big part in gca.

You want random results?  You'd be happy if your well-executed approach would end up next to the flag or carom into the hay 50 yards away?  If you do, join GJ Bailey and go out as a two-some, hopefully, very far away from where I am playing.

How you play without a sense of cause and effect is puzzling, and really not what I've witnessed in our matches.  Again, no one is advocating that if a shot is hit within X feet to the target it should come to rest in Y feet.  One of the charms of golf is learning how to hit shots in varying conditions and the satisfaction one gains when, on occasion, it comes of as planned.  Positive or negative reinforcement is effective, even when it is intermittent, so long as it is consistent.  Perhaps the actual process of getting the ball from point A to point B is not as important to you as being out with your mates in the outdoors.  It is to me.

As to what was advocated, against my better judgment, I was responding to a whacko making a ridiculous straw man argument (something about a constant ratio).  I won't make that mistake again.  

[Jeff_Brauer]

GJ,

There have been many oft and generally accepted proportional design theories, such as short shot, small target, long shot, big target, or long hole, wide fairway, etc.  The first in the above sentence is pretty well rooted in science - a 1 degree off line shot goes twice as far right/left at 200 yards than 100 yards, no?

All of them have some merit, none should be followed blindly.

[Tom_Doak]

world traveler Michael Whitaker uses the lovely sentiment "Solving the paradox of proportionality is the heart of golf architecture" from Tom Doak as his signature.    

I saw this thread and couldn't remember who was using that quote as their signature.  Michael Whitaker it is.

Anyway, as I said way back when, it's a paradox.  If reward and punishment were strictly proportional, the game would be incredibly boring for the good player, and so hard for the beginner he would quit after a few holes of his first round.  

You've got to get away from that, to be very forgiving of bad shots [because a bad player is going to make bogey or triple bogey without any punishment at all], and at the same time threaten a pretty good shot with a severe penalty from time to time, or at least make it hard for the good player to get birdies.  I do the lion's share of that at the greens, because I figure that no one is too frail to putt well, but obviously people with bad short games disagree with my approach.

[Garland Bayley]

Yeah, what Tom says.

BoohYaah

[Sean_A]

Bob,

I think golf courses have too many variables to be summarily quantifiable or standardized (I haven't found much consistency in slope and course ratings).  The Crane essays didn't interest me.

I am not a proponent that every long hole should have a large green, or that a short hole must have small targets.  I never suggested a strict set of rules that must be blindly followed without fail in golf course design.  Golf is a very traditional game.  People have expectations, more than that, requirements, that if A happens, B follows, at least most of the time.  If it doesn't, chaos and all sorts of unusual behavior ensue.  It is probably the reason why there are relatively few hole types and critics complain that there is little new in golf.  Serendipity and rubs of the green in small dosages are good; Muirhead's shark jaw hole at Stone Harbor not so much.

Sean,

I am talking about golf.  Didn't Richard Choi speak to balance in the "bunkers are too perfect" thread?  And world traveler Michael Whitaker uses the lovely sentiment "Solving the paradox of proportionality is the heart of golf architecture" from Tom Doak as his signature.  Yeah, I do think that balance and proportionality play a big part in gca.

You want random results?  You'd be happy if your well-executed approach would end up next to the flag or carom into the hay 50 yards away?  If you do, join GJ Bailey and go out as a two-some, hopefully, very far away from where I am playing.

How you play without a sense of cause and effect is puzzling, and really not what I've witnessed in our matches.  Again, no one is advocating that if a shot is hit within X feet to the target it should come to rest in Y feet.  One of the charms of golf is learning how to hit shots in varying conditions and the satisfaction one gains when, on occasion, it comes of as planned.  Positive or negative reinforcement is effective, even when it is intermittent, so long as it is consistent.  Perhaps the actual process of getting the ball from point A to point B is not as important to you as being out with your mates in the outdoors.  It is to me.

As to what was advocated, against my better judgment, I was responding to a whacko making a ridiculous straw man argument (something about a constant ratio).  I won't make that mistake again.  

Lou

I think(?) your comments to Bob are about how I feel about the game.  Of course, the big issue in your comments is expectations.  I think you are right that many golfers see golf as a target range.  The wider the shot the more severe the penalty.  This is the part I take issue with.  There is nothing wrong with treating golf as a game of inches, feet, yards and tens of yards - its all good.  I would also say that there is nothing wrong with retaining luck (bad and good) as an integral part of the game.  Some believe there is enough luck which occurs randomly without archies building it in with punchbowl greens etc.  I disagree because my number one tenet for design is variety - which is something often given lip service to, but not employed nearly enough.

Ciao

[Michael Whitaker]

This is perhaps my favorite subject related to golf course architecture, as is evidenced by my signature line below.

I have been using that tag line for nearly eight years and am TOTALLY CRUSHED that Doak has just now figured out who has been quoting him all this time.   

Back in 2005 a friend who rates for GolfWeek and I had a discussion about The Ocean Course at Kiawah. He is not a great fan of the course and marks it down for its "lack of proportionality." When I asked him to be specific he relayed that in his opinion missing a fairway by a foot resulted in the same punishment as missing by a mile, and he felt that was poor design. He felt that punishment should be "proportional" to the crime and a small miss should not suffer the same consequence as a wild miss. When I posed the question of "proportionality" on this board Tom Doak responded with the referenced quote.

I hope this thread will generate a lively discussion and that Mr. Doak will participate fully. I tried years ago to learn more about his "paradox" theory, but to no avail. When he states that something (anything) is the HEART of golf course architecture I want to know more about that subject!!!

[Andrew Buck]

This is perhaps my favorite subject related to golf course architecture, as is evidenced by my signature line below.

I have been using that tag line for nearly eight years and am TOTALLY CRUSHED that Doak has just now figured out who has been quoting him all this time.   

Back in 2005 a friend who rates for GolfWeek and I had a discussion about The Ocean Course at Kiawah. He is not a great fan of the course and marks it down for its "lack of proportionality." When I asked him to be specific he relayed that in his opinion missing a fairway by a foot resulted in the same punishment as missing by a mile, and he felt that was poor design. He felt that punishment should be "proportional" to the crime and a small miss should not suffer the same consequence as a wild miss. When I posed the question of "proportionality" on this board Tom Doak responded with the referenced quote.

I hope this thread will generate a lively discussion and that Mr. Doak will participate fully. I tried years ago to learn more about his "paradox" theory, but to no avail. When he states that something (anything) is the HEART of golf course architecture I want to know more about that subject!!!

Thanks for the background on this.  I agree this is a great topic.

As it relates to the bunker thread, I do believe this is a reason an abundance of bunkers don't make good hazards on "most" courses, especially those that are budget conscious.  There is no doubt that they provide a more stern penalty for the poor player than the expert.  I find that a different discussion than if we should fail to maintain bunkers, which would only make it harder for the poor player.  

I do think there is something to be said about some level of proportionality, however I don't think it should exist on every hole, nor can it be the case in every situation.  

[Eric Smith]

When I asked him to be specific he relayed that in his opinion missing a fairway by a foot resulted in the same punishment as missing by a mile, and he felt that was poor design.

Mike,

Funny how folks see things differently. I can recall being "walled" in a number of greenside bunkers when we were at Porthcawl a few years ago and thinking how great the design was because of it!

[Garland Bayley]

If you think about the statement, it makes no sense when applied to what we consider dear about the game.

For example take Raynor's Prize Dogleg. If you challenge the corner and succeed, you are rewarded. If you miss by just a little bit on the inside of the dogleg, you are penalized very disproportionally for the small size of the miss. If you miss by just a little bit on the other side, you receive nearly the reward as for the ball placed as intended.

[Thomas Dai]

Dr MacK's rules numbers 10, 11 and 12:-

"10: An absence of the need to look for lost balls.

11: A course so interesting that both low and high handicappers are stimulated to improve their games by attempting shots they have hitherto been unable to play.

12: A course arranged so that the high handicapper or even beginner should enjoy their round regardless of their score."

These might not necessarily be gospel but they're a pretty good starting point, although variety is nice.

All the best.

[BCrosby]

Mike -

I agree about the importance of the issue. 'Proportionality' issues are a subset of the broader question of what duties gca has to being 'equitable'.

That was what my piece on Joshua Crane was about. His debates with Mack and Behr turned on that question. See my poscript if you want a quicker entry into some of those discussions.

These issues have been debated since John Low when he articulated for the first time in 1903 the basic principles of strategic golf architecture. It was not by accident that one of Low's main points was that "no hazard is unfair". The role of equity in architecture is one of the biggest issues debated over the years. During the early Golden Age you had Low and Darwin doing battle with Taylor, Garden Smith and others. Crane, MacK, Behr and others carried on that debate in the 1920's. The debate is still very much alive. Your conversation at The Ocean Course is one example of the issue's continuing relevance. Almost any discussion of the pros and cons of a course will eventually bump into the issue.

I think I know where Doak comes out on this stuff. But I too would love to hear him expand on it. It is at the heart of a lot of important gca questions.

Bob

[Adam Clayman]

I've seen too many great shots from the worst spots to make proportionality matter. The term sounds like it's origin is something a good player wondered about after not getting the results they wanted.
Maintenance plays a bigger role in the paradox then does the archie. And thats why the maintenance meld is so important to the enjoyment.

[Michael Whitaker]

How so, Adam?

[Adam Clayman]

Michael, From firmness (and overthrow) to tree plantings, or removal of trees, it's the superintendent thats responsible after the ribbon cutting. Haven't you ever played anywhere when missing the fairway by 20 yards was much preferable than 2 yards? The long lush rough, adjacent to the fairway, is usually the reason why. While areas outside of the over throw are recoverable, with a creative bold shot. Chopping out is neither. These are all decisions by the super, or god forbid, a committee. Prairie Dunes might be an exception because their surrounds are directly proportional. In other words, you miss the corridor of fairway and first cut, and you're hitting 3, 5, 7....

A superintendents understanding of the finer points is rare. Most only know what's difficult, because thats the culture they grew up in.

Thankfully we, and they, are getting exposed to a different reality. One based more in having the maintenance accentuate the architecture

[JWL]

I am quite sure that a players view on proportionality will be directly proportional to a players ball striking ability.   

[Lou_Duran]

I am quite sure that a players view on proportionality will be directly proportional to a players ball striking ability.   

Ditto for width, bunkering, trees, water, and defending par/"creating interest" primarily with the green complexes.

My perspective on Tom Doak's paradox is that some semblance of the expected is necessary, with enough variance and serendipity so as not to be routine or monotonous.  Scale and the way the major design features are incorporated into the natural surroundings are big parts of it (unless one has $$$$ as Fazio did at Shadow Creek).

[Garland Bayley]

JWL,

I'm thinking that a huge percentage of golfers playing the standard bunker fairways and green; left and right, will think that proportionality is the right way to go. Therefore, when they go to this hyped place called Bandon, they are flummoxed and don't like it.
Doesn't matter a bit about ball striking ability.