Optical Confusion ar Yeamans

[ward peyronnin]

What a thrill to return to Yeamans's Hall; it just seems to get better and better. There are so many characteristics that make this a remarkable course.

Today I was struck by the realization that Raynor almost continuously messes with the visual perception framing the golfer's shots. Distances are very hard to feel/determine out there; tee ball carries, angles of play, carries to greens. He accomplishes this with a variety of techniques one of which is the oversized flat bottomed bunkers strewn across a visually wide and flat surface whose scale is so hard to see at first. He also deceptively raises those greens which don't possess the demonstrable push up elevation. Cross bunkers are placed short of the preferred line of play off the tee to the green and promote the player subliminily hitting away from them towards bunkers in play.

I would be interested to learn of other optical confusion techniques and those architects who seem adept at their use primarily in the setting of a dominant playing characteristic of a course such as Cuscowilla and not just isolated holes here or there.
The Confidential Guide has many categories of course evaluation in the back but I don't see a "Most optically confusing " group.

[Tom_Doak]

Ward:


What makes you think Raynor created any optical illusions on purpose?  I've never read anything he said on the subject, and I don't remember Macdonald writing anything about "optical confusion" either. 


Everything at Yeamans was built to a blueprint; do you think Raynor visualized all that stuff on paper instead of on the ground?


That said, there are all sorts of optical devices on some of my courses.  Most of them were actually created by the guys who work for me ... I approved them but the majority weren't my idea.

[Peter Pallotta]

Ward - good post, you describe what you see/don't see at Yeamans very well.

I would never have guessed Tom's answer. On the few courses I've played that feature 'optical confusion' I was sure that the architect must've spent days planning to get every just right.

Peter

 

[Tim Martin]

Ward:


What makes you think Raynor created any optical illusions on purpose?  I've never read anything he said on the subject, and I don't remember Macdonald writing anything about "optical confusion" either. 


Everything at Yeamans was built to a blueprint; do you think Raynor visualized all that stuff on paper instead of on the ground?


That said, there are all sorts of optical devices on some of my courses.  Most of them were actually created by the guys who work for me ... I approved them but the majority weren't my idea.

If I lived back with the ODG's I would have followed Raynor and Charlie Mac around as these guys seemed to get "lucky" pretty often.  

[Joe Sponcia]

Ward,


(Same Architect, different course) I feel the same way on approaches at #1, #4, #11, and #16 at Lookout Mountain.  I shoot the yardage, but I have trouble believing it.  On #1 and #11 in particular, the green is staring right at you and with it being so large and with such pitch back to front, it always 'appears' closer than the yardage says.


I also get the same sense/confusion on #1, #2, #4, #7, #12 and #18 at Camargo.

[Joe Bausch]

Photos of Yeamans Hall from a handful of years ago:


http://xchem.villanova.edu/~bausch/images/albums/YeamansHall/

[John Kavanaugh]

If you want to read what an engineer was thinking look at what he built.

[ward peyronnin]

Well Tom I just played the course on a brilliant early winter day and the perception was pretty consistent through so many of the holes. Maybe the shading was just dramatic this time of the year. Maybe this works better where topography is not so dominant and something else can work to enhance interest?

Spectacle bunkers like Colt and Allison at Sea Island are another example and the infinity green at Cuscowilla which Raynor also set up on the Short hole at Yeamans( he could have put that hole anywhere).

I would enjoy knowing examples of what you have used successfully and also what courses you recall that used this device as one of the predominant design tools

[Stephen Pellegrino]

Of all the golf holes that I've played, the 5th hole at Yeamans stands out in my mind as the one that confused me the most...and I loved it. Seeing that tee shot for the first time, everything was laid out before me, and I understood not one bit of it. Bunkers and mounding (which is bunker which is mounding?) strewn at various distances across the widest of fairways. I'll never forget the wonderful confusion I felt, and the uneasy feeling I had at the top of my backswing after choosing a line (based on what I read in the yardage book) and pulling the trigger. I can see why some would detest that feeling, but since that moment I have wondered why more architects don't ape that feeling of information overload. I've seen it done with a myriad of bunkers, but never as well as this odd amalgam of bunkers and mounding.

[Sean_A]

The 5th is confusing for me as well.  I think its because the land is so flat there that its hard to get an overview of the hole...which has a ton of hazards. 


To me the most consistently deceptive aspect for Yeamans are the ridges across greens.  Loads of times there is a ridge formed between two bunkers which acts as a false front or kick away plate if one doesn't approach from the correct angle.  It means that for a guy like me with no spin, I have to hit deeper into the greens than I really want to.  It also means that driving placement is critical.  Yeamans is one of the best driving courses I know of.


Ciao