Quality or Quantity in GCA study?

[Mike_Young]

I can't be positive but often on this site I hear of people try to accumulate "plays" on golf courses.  I have never been able to play a course once and absorb it like a person that plays it 10 times.  And if I can only see a course once I would nuch rather walk it than play it so that I see it from the centerline and not some bunker or rough or worse...  So IMHO one can learn so much more by studying four or five worthy courses for a longer period of time than trying to "knotch a belt" or "get the Tee-shirt".   Yes or No???

[Bill_McBride]

You can't wear the shirt if you didn't play the course......

[Tom_Doak]

Mike:

Yes and no.

I think I've learned more about routing by seeing a lot of courses and seeing how each of them tackles the ground and tackles tight corners.

I think I've learned more about bunkering and greens contouring by going back to particular courses, over and over.

[Peter Pallotta]

Mike - I marvel at the ability of many posters around here to remember and describe and explain architectural features on many/all 18 holes of any golf course they''ve played, even if they've played it only 2 or 3 times. (The Dismal-Ballyneal boxing match is an example -- so many detailed contributions/analysis from several posters). I don't have that ability at all - I must have some missing or defective gca gene, because even with courses I've played several times I can't remember, hole-by-hole, all the key features/strategies...let alone analyze them. But on the other hand, it does seem to me that, when I'm actually on a course, I can take in and process a lot of information/stimulation at once, and really experience and feel the course and the way it plays...for me, on that day.  This doesn't answer your question, but what I mean to say is this: for me, I'm not sure even 5 plays would get me to understand and remember the architcture afterwards better than I would with just 1 play -- but at the same time I'm not sure that 5 plays would help me feel the course any more deeply and meaningfully than I do during 1 play.  Maybe that is one of the drawbacks of a site like this and of the rating mentality -- i.e. the "afterwards" gets so much more attention than the "during". Useful and good for the professionals and would-be teachers around here; not so useful or desirable for the regular golfer.

Peter

[Jeff Spittel]

Mike,

I'd like to offer you an alternative thesis about quantity. I can only speak for myself, but I like to play me some golf. My goal is accumulate as many rounds as possible in a given year, because that means I'm not at my desk. If they happen to be at "must play" courses, all the better. As much as I enjoy CGA, I prefer to soak it in organically during a round as opposed to conducting a rigorous study of the golf course. That's just me.   

[Ian Andrew]

I've learnt more by walking a course than playing.

I have the time to take the entire area in and not concentrate on what has complicated my journey.
I also don't have to think about the other players along the way.
Finally, I can also stop and analyse what I have in front of me for as long as I want.

When I walk 18, I'm never in a hurry and a golf ball deals with the slopes of the green.


BTW - some have much to teach and need a few times around, but others don't need a second visit, they're not that subtle.

[Adam Clayman]

On paper the argument makes sense. However, when playing a course, for the first time, knowing nothing about any specific hole or features, the aware golfer has to figure out what to do, or at least, speculate what the archie was doing, and/or what the land is doing. This is especially true when blindness is a part of the equation. I could give examples, but reading about how someone played a hole is just about the most boring thing one reads in these annals.

[Adrian_Stiff]

I am in the camp that learn more about a course from walking. I take the view if you are playing golf you are concentrating on the playing of golf, so you only partly absorb the experience. If you walk the course you have a better opportunity to take much more in. The notion that you must have played a course to rate one therefore seems crackers to me, but everyone is different, I can still remember courses I played in 1973 where as some people cant remember last week. I was very surprised talking to a rater after he had played our course how much he remembered and the detail.

[Mark Bourgeois]

I do not believe any one is qualified to pass on the merits of any one hole, let alone eighteen holes, unless he has played them under all the varying conditions possible -- varying winds, rain, heat, frost, etc.

[Peter Pallotta]

I do not believe any one is qualified to pass on the merits of any one hole, let alone eighteen holes, unless he has played them under all the varying conditions possible -- varying winds, rain, heat, frost, etc.

Powerful - or at least it would've been if you hadn't given yourself away the last time you used exactly the same phrase to try to kill a thread.

Yes, Marco, we are paying attention -- which thought should at least provide some comfort in this the hour of your unmasking!

[john_stiles]

And I thought you were supposed to rate  a course while playing, taking photos, and worrying about which logo item to buy when the round is over.

I agree that walking should be required, preferably walking with a few others who are playing.

Have only walked  two courses while not playing, and only walked 9 holes in a group while not playing.

Either of these methods seems preferable to me.  

These seem to add much to the quality of only a few visits.

Maybe you should study GCA whilst not playing ?

Though, you cannot not discount that some, or maybe actually quite a few,  can do it all.

[Adam Clayman]

I do not believe any one is qualified to pass on the merits of any one hole, let alone eighteen holes, unless he has played them under all the varying conditions possible -- varying winds, rain, heat, frost, etc.

Mark, You could take this further to include the fact that nobody should rate courses until they've played all of them.

[Jason Thurman]

The answer to the original post (quality or quantity?) and the secondary threadjack that's developing (walking a course or playing it?) is the same. Both.

I don't trust anyone who zips through a ton of courses, playing each only once or twice. That's the kind of approach that makes people say things like "Tumbling Dice is the best song on Exile on Main Street!"

I also don't trust anyone who relegates himself to just a handful of courses, especially if they're in the same geographic area and serve the same demographics. I didn't know anything until I had played at least 75 courses in 15 states, and I still haven't played enough to really understand what I'm seeing when I go way outside my paradigm.

The guys who only evaluate courses by looking at them drive me crazy. They're prone to "theoretical architecture," where they start to believe that a slope or feature will work in a way that it just doesn't in reality. If you're not hitting balls and attempting to challenge the course, you can't truly understand how it functions in any sort of genuine manner.

The guys who only evaluate courses by playing them drive me crazy. They're prone to evaluating based on how they played, or an experience in a vacuum as opposed to a more global one that is necessary to really understand a course. If you never put the ball and clubs aside while studying a course, you'll never understand its global appeal or lack thereof.

Study of a complex topic requires a multi-faceted approach to be able to understand the whole.

[Andrew Buck]

I am in the camp that learn more about a course from walking. I take the view if you are playing golf you are concentrating on the playing of golf, so you only partly absorb the experience. If you walk the course you have a better opportunity to take much more in. The notion that you must have played a course to rate one therefore seems crackers to me, but everyone is different, I can still remember courses I played in 1973 where as some people cant remember last week. I was very surprised talking to a rater after he had played our course how much he remembered and the detail.

While I'm not sure either provides a good enough understanding to truly parse the difference between great courses, I think it's much better to have played the course.  Yes, this could be subjective to conditions, but there are still some factors that I think you need to experience rather than see.  A dramatic uphill shot that plays 10% longer than the yardage.  A green that's built into a prevailing slope, so it appears to break against the slope, but actually still goes with it.  The option of playing into a slope, or putting air under a chip and so on.  

I do agree you can "miss" a lot in one play, but at least you still discover how certain shots play.

[Sean_A]

I too fall in the middle.  One has to play a decent number of courses, but once that is squared away I prefer to revisit at least as many old friends as I do making new friends.  Since I take this view I am sure walking and watching others play is how I best learn so the more plays the better.  I think about half a dozen plays is enough for me to get a very good grip, but sometimes it takes more.  I don't have much desire to walk courses without sticks, but I do it once in a great while if the whim takes me.    

Ciao  

[Mark Bourgeois]

Peter and Adam,

A golf hole, humanly speaking, is like life, inasmuch as one cannot judge justly of any person's character the first time one meets him. Sometimes it takes years to discover and appreciate hidden qualities which only time discloses, and he usually discloses them on the links. No real lover of golf with artistic understanding would undertake to measure the quality or fascination of a golf hole by a yardstick, any more than a critic of poetry would attempt to measure the supreme sentiment expressed in a poem by the same method. One can understand the meter, but one cannot measure the soul expressed. It is absolutely inconceivable.

Marco

[jeffwarne]

I too fall in the middle.  One has to play a decent number of courses, but once that is squared away I prefer to revisit at least as many old friends as I do making new friends.  Since I take this view I am sure walking and watching others play is how I best learn so the more plays the better.  I think about half a dozen plays is enough for me to get a very good grip, but sometimes it takes more.  I don't have much desire to walk courses without sticks, but I do it once in a great while if the whim takes me.    

Ciao  

Sounds about right.
As much as Sean rides me about my "death marches" overseas---around here, even with a wealth of great choices, I tend to gravitate to repeat plays at the same low key places-although I do get my fair share of course variety in competition.

The word "study" gives me a stomach ache and chills, and is definitely not something I've ever set out to do.
I play golf and new courses for enjoyment, camaraderie, sightseeing, and adventure (and the occasional wager ) and mainly to get away from it all, not to learn anything on purpose.
If it happens by accident along the way, so be it.

I will say I learn a lot about the course I work at by watching members play when I'm teaching , rangering, or "hiding", but I'm sure I wouldn't want to do any of the above on my leisure time

[Josh Tarble]

This is a tough question for me...on one hand, I feel like I've played enough golf on different courses to know how to best play a new course based on my personal game.  On the other hand I'm not sure I can distinguish whether a course  is a 8.0 or an 8.5 (or whatever scale you want to use) based on one go around.  However, I do think it's possible to say whether it's closer to a 4.0 than an 8.0 or vice versa.  There are so many nuances to the best courses that it would take repeated plays to truly understand it, but I think a person can know fairly immediately whether a course is great or not.

[Ally Mcintosh]

Jeff,

One of the few downsides about getting involved in GCA is that I can’t help but “study” every new course I play or walk….

…Unfortunately this numbs the pleasurable excitement that new courses used to give before I actually analysed everything.

So I agree with your sentiment.

[Peter Pallotta]

Peter and Adam,

A golf hole, humanly speaking, is like life, inasmuch as one cannot judge justly of any person's character the first time one meets him. Sometimes it takes years to discover and appreciate hidden qualities which only time discloses, and he usually discloses them on the links. No real lover of golf with artistic understanding would undertake to measure the quality or fascination of a golf hole by a yardstick, any more than a critic of poetry would attempt to measure the supreme sentiment expressed in a poem by the same method. One can understand the meter, but one cannot measure the soul expressed. It is absolutely inconceivable.

Marco

Even if you had a head cold and a sprained ankle the first time we met, I'm pretty sure I'd still get a sense of whether or not you were an interesting fellow with an intelligent approach and a pleasing personality, and thus someone I'd like to meet again. And people are vastly more complicated and nuanced than any golf course.

[Jason Thurman]

Even if you had a head cold and a sprained ankle the first time we met, I'm pretty sure I'd still get a sense of whether or not you were an interesting fellow with an intelligent approach and a pleasing personality, and thus someone I'd like to meet again. And people are vastly more complicated and nuanced than any golf course.

[Mark Bourgeois]

There are so many nuances to the best courses that it would take repeated plays to truly understand it, but I think a person can know fairly immediately whether a course is great or not.

Josh, a little food for thought: Bobby Jones hated St Andrews Old at first and for a few rounds past that, at which point -- speculating a little here but not too much -- he thought it was just okay.

Peter, would you still want to meet (even once) if -- when -- you found out I was a plagiarist?

[Peter Pallotta]

It would depend on who who stole from....

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mike:

Yes and no.

I think I've learned more about routing by seeing a lot of courses and seeing how each of them tackles the ground and tackles tight corners.

I think I've learned more about bunkering and greens contouring by going back to particular courses, over and over.

Tom,

I understand the "yes" part of your reply, but, I don't understand the "no" part of your reply.

In both cases you visited the site and made your observations.

Are you saying that visiting the site once, to clarify/enlighten you on a specific issue, was all you needed relative to that specific issue ?

I thought that Mike was looking at this from a global perspective, one where the golfer drinks in all of the architectural features, and not just a specific feature.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mike,

Have you forgotten what CBM advised us on page 295 of "Scotland's Gift" ?