[Peter Pallotta]

We're about 2-3 weeks away from golf season here, and my first round will be my first in almost 6 months. I'm looking forward to it very much. But as I daydream about it, I find myself coming back to the same kind of 'shot' time and time again. For whatever reason, I rarely imagine myself on a tee with a driver in my hand, smashing a long one down the middle of the fairway. Even less do I imagine being on the green and making a long, curling putt for birdie; and least of all do I find myself thinking about executing a great bunker shot or a difficult chip. No, what I daydream about most is a wonderful mid-iron approach -- sometimes drawing it in and gaining extra yards, landing just short of the green and rolling up and to the left to nestle close to a pin tucked behind a bunker; and sometimes taking an extra club and trying to hit a high arching fade to a perched green that lands soft and trickles over to the right. In short, I find myself -- when I think of playing golf again -- thinking most of all about 2nd shots. THAT, after a long lay-off, seems to be, for me, the seeming essence of the game. Perhaps that means that the desire of my heart is a great 2nd shot golf course.

What's yours?

Peter

[John Kavanaugh]

I'm sorry but you rambled and I lost interest. What's the what's question? 

[Peter Pallotta]

You can't participate. You haven't had a long enough lay-off so you're likely not daydreaming about golf.

But if you WERE daydreaming about golf: what kind of shot most occupies your mind, and what does that tell you about the kind of golf/golf courses you like best?

Peter

[John Connolly]

Yes, the approach. That has always been the sweet spot of golf. One has read the script - one is following the plot. You realize you are an obedient student of the game. There is a self-actualization on the perfect approach. A golf dream realized.  What's more? The collective unconscious infuses your perception - it is a shot shared and understood by all who've come before you. There is hard-earned fellowship in a glorious approach shot.

[Bill_McBride]

Does it mean anything that my favorite club as always been the 5 iron?

[John Connolly]

Does it mean anything that my favorite club as always been the 5 iron?

It means you're a good golfer.

[John Kavanaugh]

I'm sorry but you rambled and I lost interest. What's the what's question? 

What's the what's question?  Have You been drinking the good stuff again?   

[John Kavanaugh]

I'm sorry but you rambled and I lost interest. What's the what's question? 

What's the what's question?  Have You been drinking the good stuff again?   

Uh yea, Sorry guy, drink your Tito's and like it.

[Jon Cavalier]

Is it weird that when I daydream about golf shots, I never actually dream about the ball going in the hole? It's always a shot knocked stiff, but never in. Never really thought about it before, but odd.

[John Kavanaugh]

A dream is about reality, a wish results in a conclusion.

[RJ_Daley]

Actually, I dream about a hole in one, since I never had one.  I dream about them in anticipation of the season, and anticipation of being scheduled to play a particularly good or significant golf course among those we talk about on GCA.com.  My vision isn't just any whack at the ball and sending it towards some non-descript green.  It is a dream of seeing the hole architecturally, realizing the shot calls for fade or draw or precise placement to a smallish landing area and needs to take a slope, back up, or some shot requiring a pure strike, and making that swing one in a 1000 attempts to pull it off. 

I guess my nightmare would be making the elusive HIO, on a total dog track, total uninteresting green complex no better than a target green on the driving range.  Yuck. 

[Colin Macqueen]

Gentlemen,

"….that the desire of my heart is a great 2nd shot golf course"  I agree entirely with this sentiment.

For myself it is the intended feathering of a medium hybrid which thrills my golfing soul. It doesn't happen too often by any means but when I imagine this shot and then pull it off  "…there too the desires of mine heart".

Cheers Colin

[Brent Hutto]

I hardly ever have actual dreams about golf other than the recurring one where everybody is teeing off without me while I run around frantically trying to figure out where my golf clubs are.

But when I daydream about golf, apparently my desires are more modest that most. The thing I picture when daydreaming or imagining golf is a ball flying high through the air on a gentle left-to-right curve (a lefty high draw shot). Honestly, I am too modest about my skills to even dream of balls going into the hole. But oh how I wish for that perfectly shaped shot flying Far and Sure high into the air.

[Eric Smith]

If I had a box just for wishes
And dreams that had never come true
The box would be empty
Except for the memory
Of how they were answered by you
                                  Time in a Bottle - Jim Croce

[Daniel Jones]

My daydreams also typically involve an approach. But, going beyond that, they also rarely involve the well struck, straight ball off the fairway. It seems I have a thing, or at least my memory has a thing, for the semi-miraculous. The 6-iron off hard pan, sliced over water and around a tree to less than a foot. The low, almost punched Equalizer from 90 yards that one hops off the flag and stops. The 3-hybrid hooked around a cross-bunker that runs up onto a par-5 in two. And yes, even the bunker shot off the downslope to a short-sided pin that lands in just the right spot.

[Peter Pallotta]

Thank you, Eric, for putting the melody of that lovely old song in my mind this morning.  Note: my modesty prevents me from assuming that in typing "answered by you" you in any way are referring to me....

What are your golfing daydreams about? So far I got a lot more "approach shots" that I would've imagined -- which I keep thinking is an interesting way to identify what we most like about golf courses. 

[Brent Hutto]

Until the late summer of 2007 I'd never understood with the fascination with fairway bunkers. Of the courses I had played up to that point, none of them had fairway bunker that struck me as anything other than a spot worse to be in than the rough if my tee shot were offline.

Then I played the first few holes at Ganton on the last day of my 10-day trip across the north of England. Maybe it was the cunning arrangement of the bunkers (and believe me, the bunkers at Ganton are like Mastercard "Everywhere you want to be") or the fact I was actually getting the ball up in the air and in the intended direction more than usual that day or simply the accumulated mental effects of a week and half of playing golf in such an invigorating series of settings.

But suddenly, for the first time in my life, that daydream of a ball flying high and long with a gentle draw curve was superimposed over real life. For that hour or so I was "daydreaming" my ideal shot with my eyes wide open and seeing how such a shot could perfectly fit the demands of the fairway and its bunkers. So I've got to say, that picture of a perfect shot flying over a well-bunkered fairway can be every bit as stirring as seeing it home in on a flagstick.

The difference is, every hole of every course has a flagstick that you can imagine zeroing in on with a high draw (or a skulled lucky bounce off a sprinkler head if that's the way your dreaming rolls!) but in my experience only the great courses let you have the same experience with a driver in your hands.  

P.S. And only a subset of the great courses let a player with <90mph clubhead speed have that experience with a driver in his hands. Ganton is one, the Ocean Course at Kiawah another, certain Mike Strantz courses come to mind and a few UK links or heathland courses with visitor tees that happen to match up with my personal driving distance potential.

[Eric Smith]

Thank you, Eric, for putting the melody of that lovely old song in my mind this morning.  Note: my modesty prevents me from assuming that in typing "answered by you" you in any way are referring to me....

What are your golfing daydreams about? So far I got a lot more "approach shots" that I would've imagined -- which I keep thinking is an interesting way to identify what we most like about golf courses. 

Peter,

The beauty of the song is it is about his son and it carries the day for me as well.

As for golf daydreams ... forever it seems I dreamt of Cypress, so here again I'll lean on Croce:

If I had a box just for wishes
And dreams that had never come true
The box would be empty
Except for the memory
Of how they were answered by you
                    Ode to Drinkerhoff - Eric Smith 

[Benjamin Litman]

I think the emerging consensus about approach shots reflects that they are the most important shots in golf. No other shot matters more. The approach shot can rescue a poor drive or ruin a good one, and the approach shot most determines what the golfer ultimately scores on a hole. For the regular golfer, a good approach can lead to a prized par (or birdie), while a poor approach can lead to bogey or, usually, even worse. And approach shots are played from everywhere and every kind of lie, depending on the placement of the drive.

[Dave McCollum]

A rite of spring, the start of the golf season, syrupy phrases from Jim Nantz, and the ultimate approach shot golf course rendered to perfection.  It’s a TV cliché burnt in over the years.  I often watched the Masters before I played the game.

[JLahrman]

I would also say the approach shot. Specifically, an approach shot that I successfully keep very low under a headwind. A good example would be my approach to #4 at Pacific Dunes the first time I played the course four years ago. After starting (approximately) double-triple-double, I hit a great drive into a howling head/crosswind on #4 by aiming it left of the fairway bunkers. I had about 165 in, punched a 4-iron that I knew was perfect the minute I hit it. It never got more than about 15 feet off the ground, and ran up to 8 feet from the hole. I can still feel that shot coming off the clubface, and think about it every time I am faced with a similar shot to put me in the right frame of mind.

I proceeded to leave the birdie putt short. I try to omit that part of the story.

[Peter Pallotta]

Thank you, gents - this is getting more interesting to me all the time, ie. that so many, in thinking about golf and its charms, focus on approach shots first and foremost (and not on drives or chips or putts).  What 'hint' might this provide, if anything, to architects in terms of their designs? You gents will know the top moderns far better than me -- in general, do they put a premium on/highlight approach shots?

Peter

[Dan Kelly]

Peter --

Great question. (I managed to find it!)

Never a drive (of my own, anyway; I have daydreamed about some others' drives).

Hardly ever a putt.

Sometimes a bunker shot. (I've daydreamed about the one last fall that saved me from handing over a signed dollar bill to Mr. Topp -- one I owe him now, alas [for the first time!], because he kicked my butt during our first Minnesota round of 2015, and neither of us had a pen and a dollar bill at hand.)

Almost always an approach shot -- from little pitches to full 3-woods ... or even drivers on long par-3s. (Played my home course yesterday. It's soggy. And it was EXTREMELY windy. Ball was oscillating on tee. I hit a passel of 3-woods and long-hybrid approaches -- none of which I will be daydreaming about.)

I think those of us who dream about great approaches dream of them stiff rather than in for the same reason that Bobby Jones said he'd rather hit it close than hole it. I paraphrase: Hitting it close requires skill; holing it requires luck.

I don't know what any of this says about golf-course architecture -- except maybe this (my bias): Since there are so many golfers of so many different lengths and abilities, architects should make great approach shots possible for as wide a spectrum of players as possible on as many holes as possible.

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