Oxymoron - Penal School Courses that You Enjoy

[Niall C]

Tim


Stop trying to ruin my argument.


Niall

[Niall C]

"I think you are forgetting the water at 3, 5, 6, and 10 as well. [/size]"[/color][/i]

OK, now that I've had a chance to regroup, the 3rd is a burn in front of the green on a short par 4. Call that penal if you like but that is generally the nature of good short par 4's. The "water" on the 5th and 6th is no more than a drainage ditch and hardly frightening. The sort of thing that you could readily bounce a ball over. The ditch on the 6th is also at an angle and doesn't go all the way across. As for the 10th, well what a marvellous golf hole (OK, I'll give you that one).


Niall

[Adam Lawrence]

"I think you are forgetting the water at 3, 5, 6, and 10 as well. "

OK, now that I've had a chance to regroup, the 3rd is a burn in front of the green on a short par 4. Call that penal if you like but that is generally the nature of good short par 4's. The "water" on the 5th and 6th is no more than a drainage ditch and hardly frightening. The sort of thing that you could readily bounce a ball over. The ditch on the 6th is also at an angle and doesn't go all the way across. As for the 10th, well what a marvellous golf hole (OK, I'll give you that one).

I think a burn in front of a green is pretty much the definition of penal really. I wouldn't agree that it's the nature of good short fours. No such burn at Riviera 10 

[Sean_A]

Niall


I get the impression you are stuck on "penal" means bad and so look for ways to say obviously penal holes requiring a forced carry are not penal.  Just as we separate penal from difficult, we must also disassociate penal from poor architecture.  The hammering the British archies gave to penal architecture is one of the worst things they did.


Ciao

[Adam Lawrence]

Yeah, I agree with Sean. Strategic design may overall be better than penal, who would argue? But the fact that a hole is penal doesn't automatically make it a bad one. Lots of holes we laud are essentially penal. Take the fourth at Rye (or for that matter the Sea Hole there too). Clearly penal -- miss the fairway either side and you're in deep doodoo.

[Niall C]

Sean/Adam


I don't think penal bad per se and indeed like a lot of penal hole designs. I also think that you rarely get designs that are black or white in terms of whether its penal or strategic. My defence of Carnoustie over its being difficult as opposed to over-whelmingly penal had nothing to do with trying to absolve Carnoustie from being bad. It's not, it's a terrific course that is simply very difficult in relation to par. A far cry from the lazy walk in the park that is Castle Stuart but hey, each to their own  .


As for my comment on the 3rd it was a reference to the best short par 4's generally requiring a high degree of accuracy either in the tee shot or approach rather than purely having water involved somewhere.


Niall

[Sean_A]

Niall


Of course, the penal/strategic debate is a continuum.  That said, a forced carry is the ultimate in penal architecture and that is quite black or white, depending on how you see colours to architecture 


Its the other end of the scale which is harder to figure out.  What is the ultimate in strategic design?


Ciao

[Niall C]

Sean


I think you'd agree that you get degrees of forced carry. As I referred to in an earlier post having 50 or 60 yds of gunge in front of the mens tee, whether that gunge be gorse, heather, thick rough or water is not going to be a concern for most golfers and I doubt you would right off the hole as being penal. If the carry was 150 yards plus that would be another matter.


Likewise, the positioning and extent of the forced carry. With reference to the 3rd hole at Carnoustie and indeed the first at TOC, where you have a shortish par 4 with a burn bang in front of the green, then do you say that is penal architecture ? Bearing in mind that generally players would be hitting a short to mid iron approach.


Then there is the burn in front of the 18th green at Carnoustie. That's a more dicey approach and for many, maybe not all, asks a serious question of whether to go for it or lay up. Risk reward or strategic, take your pick, but I don't think that in this day and age with modern equipment etc that a reasonably competent golfer who decided to lay up would consider his next shot as being penal just because he had to cross a relatively narrow body of water that was well short of the intended landing area. Obviously if instead of a burn you had a lake that extended 100 yards back from the green there would be no argument that it was penal design, especially or perhaps if there was no room to go round it.


So, I don't think it's entirely black or white in terms of cross hazards making a hole penal.


Niall
 

[Mark Pearce]

Niall,

I think you are again conflating the difficulty of the hazard with its nature.  Yes, the burn on the 1st at TOC is Penal in nature, as is a 50 yard carry off the tee.  Neither is brutally difficult but yes, both are penal.

[Niall C]

Mark


Disagree with regards the relative difficulty of getting your drive over 50 yds of rubbish and hitting even a short iron into a green with a burn slap bang beside it. Which would make your pulse go quickest ?


The issue is not the nature of the hazard as such but how they are used in the context of the hole, which makes it penal or not, which in fairness is what I think you are saying and what hopefully I was trying to say. In other words cross hazards, deep bunkers, gorse etc don't make a hole penal per se but it depends on how they are used.


Niall

[Jud_T]

There's a big difference to the strategy and carry of a burn which is 10 yards across and a tee shot which is 160-200 yards carry over water or deep hay, although I guess technically both are penal architecture.  If only someone had had this discussion with Van de Velde....

[Adam Lawrence]

Mark


Disagree with regards the relative difficulty of getting your drive over 50 yds of rubbish and hitting even a short iron into a green with a burn slap bang beside it. Which would make your pulse go quickest ?


The issue is not the nature of the hazard as such but how they are used in the context of the hole, which makes it penal or not, which in fairness is what I think you are saying and what hopefully I was trying to say. In other words cross hazards, deep bunkers, gorse etc don't make a hole penal per se but it depends on how they are used.


Niall

No, I agree with Mark. The burn is penal. The 50 yard carry is penal. Easy, but penal.

[Niall C]

Adam


So is the hole a penal hole if it has a cross hazard ? Bear in mind that the poster child for strategy that is the Old Course has a good many cross carries if I remember correctly. I'd have thought not.


Niall

[Mark Pearce]

Yes, Adam has understood what I was saying.

Both the 50 yard carry and the burn are penal hazards.  Which is not to say that that makes the holes entirely penal, nor that it places them at the penal end of the spectrum.  Just that those hazards are penal and the hole on which they are therefore has at least some penal nature.

[Adam Lawrence]

Semantics. It has penal elements. Does one penal hazard make a hole penal? I dunno.

[Adam Lawrence]

It's also not one size fits all. Let's take the Old course. The carry over the hotel on 17 is penal, cause if you top your shot tough luck, but it's also strategic because of its diagonal nature.

[Niall C]

Adam


I don't think it's just semantics. I think it is whether you can circumvent the hazard as you can with the "sheds" on the Road hole, such that you have a choice ie pick your strategy.


Back in the day someone like MacKenzie would likely have said that as long as the rabbit can putt his way to the hole by a circuitous route and the tigers can gain an advantage by going more directly at the hole by taking on the risk of landing in a hazard then it's strategic design. That effectively meant anything with a cross hazard was penal since in theory the rabbit couldn't get by it.


That was back when the basic skill of getting the ball airborne was harder to achieve compared to today with modern equipment. Today I don't think that's really an issue for most. These days I think you have to consider more the design/location of the cross hazard before you right off the hole as being penal which in essence is what I'm arguing in the posts above.


Niall 

[Kalen Braley]

Kalen, penal may always be difficult without difficult always being penal.

Mark,
 
When I think of the word penal, I think punishment and penalties, (and the dictionary says same).
 
How is this not difficult in this context?  A difficult course will lead to punishment in the form of actual and mental penalties.
 
Once again, I think specific examples are needed here to differentiate between how something can be penal, but not difficult, or visa versa, because I don't see them as mutually exclusive in any way or form.  They go hand in hand, especially on the golf course.

Kalen,

I think the "penal" style of architecture is a style that asks specific questions of the golfer and punishes failure to achieve the shot demanded.  It does not offer strategic choice.  The 17th at TPC Sawgrass is an example of a penal hole.  It asks the golfer to play a specific shot and punishes failure severely.  Make it 120 yards and make the green bigger and flat and it would be an easy hole.  It would also still be penal.  There are, I agree, few easy but penal courses but such a thing is not impossible.  Similarly, there is no reason why a very strategic course cannot be difficult.  I imagine RMW is an example of that.

Quite correct. A bunker positioned to punish a particular mistake -- say a top shot bunker -- is penal by virtue of its positioning, not by virtue of its depth/difficulty. It could be shallow and easy, it would still be penal.


By contrast the Road Hole bunker is deep and difficult, but by way of its positioning it creates the strategy of the hole. It is not penal.

Adam,
 
You almost had me, but then you lost me again! 
 
I would have to agree on your 1st example.  A flattish top shot bunker 50 yards off the tee would be a good example of being Penal without being difficult.
 
However, to say the road bunker at TOC is not penal is borderline crazy talk.     How many pros have we see had their rounds wrecked there by getting in a spot where they had to play out sideways, and took a double bogey and finished one shot out of the lead.  Much less how many great rounds by weekend warriors have been dashed by taking a big number on 17 due to that bunker.
 
That bunker is absolutely both penal and difficult, no doubt about it!

[Adam Lawrence]

It's not bloody penal! How can it be penal? You don't _have_ to play over it - there are loads of ways of going round it.

[Niall C]

Kalen


Adam is correct about the Road hole bunker. It's about the hole as a whole and not an individual part of it ie. what does the bunker do in the context of the hole ?


Niall

[Kalen Braley]

It's not bloody penal! How can it be penal? You don't _have_ to play over it - there are loads of ways of going round it.

So are you also saying the OB on that hole is also not Penal? You don't have to play over it, and you can play around it.
 
P.S.  I don't think this is a zero-sum game.  A feature doesn't need to be all strategic or all penal....they can be partly both. I would agree that the road bunker does have strategic value, but it also has penal values as well, due to its size and difficulty in getting out of it.

[Jason Topp]

My definition of Penal (and I think the correct one) has nothing to do with the severity of the hazards.  It has to do with the options available to the player.  A purely penal hole has one target off the tee (usually the middle of the fairway) and one option into the green.  Hazards are designed to punish mistakes rather than to pose interesting decisions on the player before hitting a shot.  Such hazards are located either parallel or perpendicular to the line of play.

A dead straight hole with desert on each side of the fairway and an island green is pretty much the prototype of a penal hole.

This concept is a relative one because there are always some decisions that can be made (e.g. - do you hit it to the middle of the green or go for the pin) but on a penal hole, the decisions are pretty constrained.

[Mark Pearce]

Jason is right the severity of the hazard is nothing to do with whether it is penal or not.  The location of the Road Hole bunker and its relation to the green, fairway and other hazards decides whether it is penal.  How deep and difficult to extricate yourself from it has no bearing.  However, it's depth and difficulty do have a bearing on its strategic impact.

[Kalen Braley]

I agree with that in concept Jason,
 
I'm questioning the concept of penal vs difficulty in general terms as its found on the golf course. 

[Jason Topp]

Using my definitions - I think the best penal holes are those for which there is something cool about them.  The Klondyke and Dell at Lahinch strike me as two good examples.

I consider my course - Windsong Farm - as largely a penal golf course.  The center stripe is almost always the target off the tee.  I enjoy the course because there are plenty of cool shots you attempt over a round.  It can become wearying, however, on a bad day.