Was George Thomas right?

[Mark_Fine]

Given there are multiple threads going on right now about greens and with the tour playing at Riviera this week, I thought it might be interesting to remind everyone what George Thomas thought about greens and putting.  Thomas is arguably one of if not the greatest golf architecture strategist of all time.  His book Golf Architecture in America is a must read (multiple times) for anyone serious about the topic.  In his book he expands at length about “too great a value being placed on putting”.  Thomas advocated that the game would benefit in many ways if a putting stroke only counted as half a stroke (Ben Hogan would surely agree)  

We all realize this is not going to happen but if you read Thomas’ logic about putting and putting surfaces, he raises some good points.  Hitting a beautifully shaped 300 yard tee shot around a deep hazard to the perfect position on the fairway followed by a precision 4I from 200 yards to 10 feet from the pin counts the same as the two putts it takes from there to get the ball in the hole  I know most of us here are purists and a stroke is a stroke, but it is a little crazy if you really think about it.  

Clearly Thomas believed that there was more skill involved in getting the ball onto the putting surface than there was in putting it into the hole once one got onto the safety of the green.  In his book, he discusses this at length.  On the other hand, if that 10 footer is through a valley and up over a three foot mound and has four feet of break, maybe the two putt is just as hard as the other two shots and should be valued the same    

[JESII]

To make a 15 foot putt, the player has a 1.18% margin of error.

To hit a shot to 15 feet from 200 yards, the player has a 2.5% margin of error.

To hit the ideal 10 yard section of fairway 300 yards away, the player has a 1.67% margin of error.

[Mark_Fine]

Jim,
How about the margin of error on a 1 foot putt?  All counts the same - one stroke. 

[Tom_Doak]

Was putting the weakness of George Thomas' golf game?

[DMoriarty]

Thomas's thoughts on putting are a good reminder that even great architects are sometimes capable of bad ideas.

[Mark_Fine]

Tom,
It is actually a good question.  He wasn't much of a golfer so he probably suffered in all categories

The problem as you know is to try to make the game fair and equitable is all but impossible and it wasn't meant to be fair and equitable in the first place.  But most games/sports where competition is involved gravitate toward this.  

One thing we all have to admit is that putting IS the one aspect of golf that has fundamentally changed/evolved the most from the early origins of the game.  For better or for worse is very subjective 😉

What is your opinion about what Thomas had to say?  

[Michael Moore]

In my experience, one hundred percent of the players who could cover five hundred yards in two shots figured out how to reward themselves.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Probably one of the more wrong headed ideas ever thought about golf.

In case anyone hasn't read it, or can't recall, here's the gist of it:

 

Absurd.   Just what I need - a heads up match where I scramble my way to a 5, and lose to a 5. 

[Sean_A]

Just what I need, to walk over and check out if a guy is on the green to figure out half strokes  Guys are taking golf too seriously when this sort of stuff is talked about.

Ciao

[Thomas Dai]

What about the quality of the putting surfaces in George Thomas' day?

Slow, long haired greens that arn't particularly smooth seem to be a great leveller in putting terms. Has the gap between good and bad putters increased as the quality of putting surfaces have increased? Also, in GT's day, I wonder what proportion of golf balls were actually round and rolled properly?

atb

[Jim_Kennedy]

Just what I need, to walk over and check out if a guy is on the green to figure out half strokes   Guys are taking golf too seriously when this sort of stuff is talked about.

Ciao

How true, and imagine if the two guys both hit 'expert' drives and 'expert' approach shots to the same area of the green, but one was 1" on and the other was 1" off the green surface. That blows poor Robert's 'better-man-deserves-to-win' theory all to hell.

On the other hand, it might be a fun format for an occasional informal match.  

[Tom_Doak]

What is your opinion about what Thomas had to say?  

Well it would change the strategy of golf considerably -- greens in regulation would become more important than anything else, so most people would aim at the center of the green most of the time.

But the thing most people miss is that it wouldn't just minimize putting; it would minimize short game play.  By Thomas' proposed values, missing the green and getting up and down would be a half against a guy who hit the green and three-putted!  If you missed the green, a good recovery would only save you half a shot, unless you holed it.

To me that's what is always missing in the debate about greens and greens contouring.  It's not just about putting, at all.  It's about short game skills, and missing on the right side of the hole.

[Niall C]

Mark

If I'm honest I've never read Thomas's book or at least I don't recall reading it but I'm intrigued why you think he's "one of if not the greatest golf architecture strategist of all time". Like most people on this thread I think his idea on putting is bunk. Using statistics to justify a nonsense idea sounds like a man in search of "fairness", which is probably one way of ending up with a fairly humdrum course.

To explore his idea further, by reducing the value of putting, he's effectively reducing the options and therefore surely that is anti-strategic, no ? To give an example involving Ben Hogan, Hogan won the 1953 Open at Carnoustie by 4 shots. During the comp, he reportedly played short at the par 3 16th each day and then successfully chipped and putted for his par. Under Thomas's scheme he would have been 2 shots worse off. Do you think he'd have done that if Thomas's scheme was in play ?

Niall

[jeffwarne]

no

[Mike Nuzzo]

"and not really made a bad shot on the green"

George Thomas made Doak's argument all to easy.
He assumes the shot to the green was good, by Tom's argument it actually wasn't good as he hit it to the wrong side (as he couldn't be expected to 2 putt from his location).

That and the first putt was a bad shot too.

[David Stamm]

Thomas's thoughts on putting are a good reminder that even great architects are sometimes capable of bad ideas.

Precisely.  Thomas is one of my favorites, but his ideas about putting are.....daft.

[Jeff Fortson]

So someone that took on a tucked pin and hit it to 15 feet but their ball happened to roll one inch into the fringe would have to take a full stroke from that position, but the person that played the easier shot to the fat of the green and ended up 40 feet away would get to take a 1/2 stroke from that position?  Total nonsense.  Golf Architecture in America is my favorite golf book ever.  Thomas is my favorite deceased American architect.  But this concept was ill-thought out in my opinion.  There are times it is the "better" shot to end up just off the green than on it (rare but sometimes true) and this concept couldn't compute that.  

I just think back to a couple Scots walking their sheep and picking something to try to hit their rock at and agreeing to see who could hit that target in the least amount of strokes.  It is the simplest concept ever and how anyone could try to over-think it is beyond me.  

Jeff

[Tom_Doak]

To be fair, Thomas' chapter was about how if the values for full shots and putting were different, you wouldn't have to do so much artificial construction or spend so much maintaining greens in order for the game to be fair.  He thought the effect of putting on scoring required more expenditure, and that designers had to build more bunkers to "defend par" [my words not his] because otherwise golfers got up and down too easily and the long strokes weren't rewarded.  [One of his illustrations in that chapter was the 10th at Riviera, which had no green side bunkers in his original design.]

He didn't really say his idea made sense for all existing courses as they had been designed.

But he was more worried about "fairness" than some other designers are.

[Mark_Fine]

Well said Tom! 

There are lots of things wrong with Thomas’ concept, but it is interesting to ponder.  I would suggest trying it sometime in match play with a friend and see if your perspective/opinion changes

Some of the best discussion from threads on GCA is “offline”.  There you don’t have to be as politically correct and sugar coat responses.  No one likes to be ridiculed and/or bashed in public setting.  Old saying (although all of us sometimes don't abide by it), if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything or at least try to be polite/diplomatic. 

Anyway, I just got an email from someone that used to post here (maybe even more then Pat Mucci   Here is what he said:

"I just saw your thread on Golfclubatlas.com on George Thomas's treatise on half strokes for putts. In my opinion, the central reason for his idea and proposal on half strokes for putts is probably as much misunderstood, or more so, than some of the things Max Behr wrote. However, it also may be one of the most brilliant ideas ever conceived in architecture if one understands the essential purpose of it. Basically, if one bothers to actually consider it for his ultimate conclusion it was about economic efficiency in golf architecture. Of course, it did have an application or purpose in the philosophical idea of risk/reward/skill in golf, but basically like many of those early laser-minded geniuses such as Thomas, Behr, and to some extent Mackenzie, it just flew right over the head of about 99% of golfers."

[Garland Bayley]

Was putting the weakness of George Thomas' golf game?

Perhaps he was a good putter. Therefore, finding difficulty with the rest of the game he put more value on it than putting.

[Garland Bayley]

I think Thomas idea is an attempt to get back to the nature of golf as it originated. Think about it. The first hole at St. Andrews was a three shot hole. That devalues putting! It is the improvements in the golf ball that have caused putting to become too important!

If golf is played in the sand dunes, with obstacles sporadically on the ground on the way to the hole, then the game is interesting with 4 and 5 shot holes too. In fact, when the feathery became obsolete, some of the architects of the day advocated removing six greens, and playing longer holes to diminish the value of putting that was increased by the length the ball travelled.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Mark,
Do you feel like you've been mistreated on this thread? I hope not.
 
The given-name Thomas has thought and written about this a few times in the past.
 
The surnamed Thomas has to employ a formula for green sizes (larger) and fewer traps (to accommodate the weaker player) which all stems from his view that the variables of yardage that constitute short and long par 4s and par 5s do not have the same value, and the 1/2 par idea is supposed to make the scoring adjustment between the longer and shorter player on those holes.  

I wonder if he'd even have given his concept a second thought if there was a more inclusive handicap system in 1927?

Here's the link to his book. The relevant chapter begins on page 308.

http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015020689009;view=2up;seq=356
 

[Mark_Fine]

Jim,
Not at all.  And I am not advocating Thomas' half stroke for putting idea.  I have always found it interesting though.  That said, unless the architecture changes, it is nothing but a different way to keep score. 

What I am starting to ponder, much more now especially since I am getting to have an impact on many courses, is how to make the game more fun and faster to play for the majority of golfers.  It is one thing to design for private club members and golf purists, it is another to design for the average player who would be just as content to spend their time on some other outside/fresh air activity.  It is easy to forget that the far majority of  golfers can't break 100.  It doesn't mean courses for the masses need to be dumbed down, but it does mean they need to be better thought out.  Golf architecture has always cycled through trends and I believe we will be entering another one soon. 

[Jim_Kennedy]

Mark,

I can't remember when I saw the last Golf Digest "Best New Affordable Golf Course" article ?  Does anyone build those anymore? 

[Mark_Fine]

Outside of the super high end, more courses are closing than being built.