Not long ago I was playing golf with three fellows, all good ball strikers.
As the round progressed, all were playing better than their handicaps and we were ll really enjoying the course, the good weather, the company and our play.
Then, on one hole, one of the players hit a good solid tee shot, a nice high drive down the right side of the fairway.
It drifted slightly right and landed in the fairway and took a bounce further right and then another, into a big flanking bunker.
The golfer was really annoyed at the bad break as he could not reach the green from the bunker.
As we approached the bunker and he saw his ball and his predicament, he became even more distressed at his seemingly unlucky break.
But, as I looked at the surrounding terrain, I could see that it was no fluke, no bad break, but an intended consequence.
The architect's placement of the bunker in the DZ was obvious, what wasn't obvious was the subtle slope of the fairway and interceding rough, all leaning toward the bunker.
The architect, not fate had determined the outcome of his drive.
From the bunker he tried hitting a rescue club, clearly ignoring the old Chinese proverb, "Wood in bunker mean wood in head".
It hit into the top grassed face of the bunker and bounced high in the air coming to rest in the rough in front of the bunker.
From there, he hit it left of the green, wedged onto the green and two putted for a double bogey.
On the next tee he was still really annoyed by what he perceived was an unlucky break which led to a double, so much so that he pulled his drive into a left side fairway bunker and bogeyed that hole. From there, his play continued in a down ward spiral.
After the round he mentioned how well he was playing until he got an unlucky break.
I told him that luck had nothing to do with it.
He looked at me like I was crazy.
Not a moron mind you, but crazy not to recognize his misfortune.
So, I told him to grab his drink and come with me.
We got into a cart and drove out to the bunker.
I started at about 30 yards in front of the bunker and asked him to look back at the bunker, adjacent rough and fairway
I asked him to look at the relationship of those features and tell me if they sloped toward or away from the bunker.
He said that he never noticed that the incline was toward the bunker.
Then I asked, so, do you think you got a bad break or the intended result of a drive flirting with the bunker ?
As we discussed his play, he admitted that had he known that the fairway sloped toward the bunker and that his ball hadn't been the victim of a bad break that he wouldn't have gotten so upset.
Now the hole is a slight dogleg right and the fairway quite generous.
The "feature" was probably intended to catch the unwary trying to take the shortest route.
His failure to see the gentle slope and his failure to understand it's influence and retain same in his memory banks led to the demise of his round.
The architect had claimed another unwary victim with the subtlest of tactics.
How often have you seen a round ruined by a golfer's failure to see the peril inherent in the architecture ?
My other favorite architect's tactic that almost universally fools the golfer is a high right to low left sloped fairway with an approach to a green that's sloped from high left to low right.
When the flag is cut far left, golfers invariably miss the green left and when the flag is cut far right the golfers invariably hit their approach far left leaving them a treacherous downhill putt.
Few have the powers of observation to notice the architect's defensive tactics.
How else do architects deceive or lull the golfer into making tactical mistakes ?