What Makes A Great Green? by Tom Doak

[Peter Pallotta]

Tom, Jeff - Tom's last post reminded me of a thread I had from a while back that characterized architects as Romantics or Logicians or Hybrids. If memory serves, I pegged both of you as Hybrids, with a leaning towards the Logicians (and, if memory serves, you were both okay with that.)  But the more I think of it and, despite your own 'self identification in this regard, I think there is more "art" in your work than "science". When I think of how greens need to be shaped in order to serve so wide a range of golfers and possible approaches/recoveries, I can only think that qualities like intuition and instinct and aesthetic taste and experience and some randomness/magic have more to do with how well those greens turn out than the science/logic of it all.
Peter

[Jeff_Brauer]

Tom,

Well, a bit of topic drift there, but I struggle with sizing and orientation a bit.  For a presumed high play public course, it occurs that maybe 25% of more of players will probably approach from their max distance of 180-200 yards.

So, if you use the USGA Slope system for an approximate size for 150 yards, probably 22 by 28 yards for average players and only 15 x 20 yards for scratch,  you ignore those guys coming in longer, which might require 27-30 x 33-37 yards.  And, forget the driveable par 4, for the average Joe, reaching the green after a scrub tee shot makes them high five all around.

Of course, the bigger green can always be contoured into smaller parts to challenge the better player, but my original point was just how much thought do we think Maxwell or any ODG really put into that relationship?  Or the living guys?  I see drainage arrows on the sketches in the article and a hint of strategic thinking on the basic plan, but there are a lot of things to consider.

And, not to be simplistic, but the quick study is that not only should green depth present itself from the "favored side" of the fw, but the green ought to have an upslope from that direction, with less depth and slope from the other direction.  The best players look at that first over hazard arrangement.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Tom, Jeff - Tom's last post reminded me of a thread I had from a while back that characterized architects as Romantics or Logicians or Hybrids. If memory serves, I pegged both of you as Hybrids, with a leaning towards the Logicians (and, if memory serves, you were both okay with that.)  But the more I think of it and, despite your own 'self identification in this regard, I think there is more "art" in your work than "science". When I think of how greens need to be shaped in order to serve so wide a range of golfers and possible approaches/recoveries, I can only think that qualities like intuition and instinct and aesthetic taste and experience and some randomness/magic have more to do with how well those greens turn out than the science/logic of it all.
Peter

Peter, off the top of my head, I think you could ascertain I lead more with logic, and perhaps TD leads more with art, but its also clear from his writing that he is very intelligent, as well.  That blend probably helps his success.

Somewhere, you need to blend them all together to get to the end of the race. 

My German heritage is probably to "blame" for my approach, but my mother's side of the family was English (we have a castle, now a public park.....) and there were some rumored landscape artists in the family, so I do genetically have the blend required for artistic and practical design.

Well, that's my story and I am sticking to it!

[Tom_Doak]

Peter, off the top of my head, I think you could ascertain I lead more with logic, and perhaps TD leads more with art,

Peter:


I was going to post that Jeff blew your theory right out of the water with that previous post, but then he beat me to it!


What's funny is that I'm the one who went to M.I.T. for a year, but Jeff's self-described approach is MUCH more mathematical than mine.  And I'm hopeless at drawing / painting / etc.; I'm just really good at composition, and so is everyone who works for me. 


I work more by intuition, as the dividend from having spent so much time on so many great courses.  I just have a good feel for what will work, and I learned to trust that by working for Mr. Dye, who did it the same way.  That approach does not work well on paper; it only works out there standing on the site.  Pete hardly ever gave us any dimensions in describing what he wanted, whether we were doing drawings or shaping a green ... it was just "big" or "small" or "narrow" or whatever, and trusting that our eyes and our intuition would get that part right.  Or he would fix it for us!


Jeff:  I would say that MacKenzie, at least, thought a lot about different hole locations to challenge the better player ... you can see it in his drawings for the greens for The Meadow Club or Pasatiempo.  That's how I learned to think about greens; I just go with Pete's method of not drawing them up, so I can change my mind in the field without being called on it.  It does not change the bid quantities at all.

[Mike_Young]

This stuff hurts my head....