Architecture and The Rules of Golf - origins

[Tom_Doak]

As I remember this was a subject near and dear to TEPaul's heart, but I'm not sure we ever really discussed it properly.  I'm bringing it up because I had a good discussion about it with one of my proteges last month.


When thinking about what's fair or not fair in architecture, it often helps to think about the origins of the Rules of Golf.


The original Rules made one key assumption:  that you wouldn't touch your ball between teeing up and holing out for any reason, unless there was no other choice.  The Rules were written to explain what to do in those situations: 


If the ball was lost


If the ball was in a water hazard  [John Rattray called it "watery filth" ... I must be related to him somehow]


If the ball was truly unplayable -- and I mean truly unplayable.  Harry Bradshaw lost an Open championship one year because he played his ball out of a broken bottle lying in the rough ... he didn't think about taking a drop because he could technically play it.




So, what did that entail?


The original Rules did not mention fairways, because whether you were in a maintained area or not made absolutely no difference as long as you could play it.  There was no concept of "fairness" for hitting it on the fairway or really for any part of the game.  Everything except hazards is just "through the green".


The original Rules did not mention the green, either!  There was little to no definition between the green and the fairway back then, and it didn't matter, because you were not supposed to mark your ball unless it fell under the same rule as the fairway ... if it interfered with someone else's stroke.  [But even if your ball blocked their line to the hole, you left it in place -- that was the stymie.]


Note:  when the green did make its earliest appearance in the Rules, the definition was "the ground within twenty yards of the hole," because there still wasn't clear mowing definition at many courses.  So, when the hole location was changed, the boundaries of the "green" changed!  And you could have such things as "a bunker within the green".


Also:  The Rules were written for match play, not stroke play.  When further codified, the penalty for most breaches was simple:  loss of hole.  But it didn't kill you in the match.  Assigning strokes for infractions was a slippery slope.


If you ever want to decide what's fair, or not fair, in golf, think back to the simplicity of these Rules and you'll understand the real spirit of the game ... and, by application, what's good or bad in golf architecture.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Tom,
There seems to be some distinction between playing areas. What constituted the 'fair Green' ?   
You are not to remove Stones, Bones or any Break Club, for the sake of playing your Ball, Except upon the fair Green within a Club's length of your Ball.

[Tom_Doak]

Tom,
There seems to be some distinction between playing areas. What constituted the 'fair Green' ?   
You are not to remove Stones, Bones or any Break Club, for the sake of playing your Ball, Except upon the fair Green within a Club's length of your Ball.

I saw that, which was weird since the "fairway" is STILL NOT in the Rules.


There were no definitions to Rattray's Rules.  I am guessing he meant everywhere "through the green," though I could be wrong.

[Niall C]

Jim

I'm by no means an expert but I take the fair green to be what we now call the green.

Tom

Nice thread. A timely reminder that golf should be a fairly simple game to understand if not to play.

With regards the first set of rules and those that followed from it, there was no mention of fairway because there was no such thing as fairway. There probably would have been a broad beaten down path from hole to hole (tees were set at varying distances from the proceeding hole, depending on local rule) from foot traffic but nothing defined either on the ground or in the rules in the way we have today.

The one that has always interested me though is that of the green. Can't recall if the original rule on the green had mention of excluding any hazards within the 20 yards of the hole or whether it was slightly later versions but you are right that the green moved with the location of the actual hole. I believe that technically this law persisted well into the last century.

What's really interesting from an architecture point of view is that greens that survive from the first boom of the 1880/90's to even up to WWI, a lot of them are square greens with the sides being twenty yards/paces each. Places like Spey Bay (1906) still have some and even recently I went round Taymouth Castle and there are some greens which look as though they might be original (Braid - early 1920's) and yes they are roughly rectangular and close to 20 yards a side.

Now I can understand where the 20 yards/paces comes from for those greens but why are they square ? My pet theory if you can call it that is that a lot of the early greenkeepers in the early boom years would have been greenkeepers for bowling clubs that were numerous then and still are today. Contemporary comment in the press often referred to, usually decrying the fact, that a lot of greens were built flat like billiard tables or bowling greens.

Niall

[BCrosby]

Tom - Great question. One of the most central to the history of the game.


I like your take, but I come at it from a slightly different place. The big rules event was the promulgation of uniform rules in late 1899. For the first time in the game in Britain, 1. everybody was to play under the same rules everywhere (the US had slightly different timing and slightly different rules, but not terribly relevant here) and 2. the R&A took sole jurisdiction over rules disputes.


Previously in Britain, clubs were free to adopt their own rules (and many did, especially in England. Some were pretty wacky) and rules interpretations were usually left up the individual clubs.


All that raised the question "Well, if we are all going to play under the same rules and cede authority to interpret them to the R&A, what sort of rules should they be?" If you could no longer jigger rules to suit the tastes of your club's members, the R&A rules suddenly became a big deal.   


There were lots of arguments in the 1890's about the 'inequities' of the older St Andrews codes (then the most followed code). In particular there were long, acrimonious debates about the unfairness of the stymie, the 'lost ball' rule and other rules.


Laidlaw Purves, most professionals, Hutchinson (to some extent) and others argued for rules that were simpler and based on principles of equity. The defenders of the older St Andrews codes included B. Hall-Blyth, John Low, H. Colt, Croome and others, all of whom were on the first R&A rules committee formed in 1897. The new uniform code they promulgated in late 1899 followed, with some tweaks, the 1891 St Andrews code. That is, essentially, the basis for the rules regime we have today.


Relevant for the discussion here is that the first uniform code in Britain was in many respects a rejection of 'fairness' as a central notion in the rules. By 'fairness' most meant that 'undeserved' outcomes should be minimized by the rules. Conservative 'Tories' objected to such notions. Undeserved outcomes are just golf, they argued. Sometimes similar shots have dramatically different consequences and that's o.k.


The Tories at the R&A, who wrote the new code, carried forward the traditional rules with all their quirkiness and (perceived) inequities. The stymie, the lost ball rule and other older rules were retained.


So the issue of 'fairness' was at the heart of debates about rules at the most pivotal moment in their history. (By 1950 or so what John Low called the 'Party of Equity' had prevailed re: eliminating the stymie rule and the lost ball rule. Whether those were good or bad developments we can debate at another time.)


I think the same issues were in play with the emergence of the first theories of 'strategic' golf architecture which were being articulated at about the same time. Interestingly, the same people were involved in that debate too. John Low, H. Colt, H. Fowler, Crumbo Croome, B. Darwin all took part in both the rules debates (they were all members of the R&A rules committee at one time or another) and the architectural debates of the era.


So yes, the question of 'fairness' bridges rules and architectural issues circa 1900, a critical period in the game's history. I think it is still a living, breathing issue, though not often recognized as such. It should be.


I've gone too long.


Bob
 


 


 






         

[Thomas Dai]

Really good thread.
Need to consider early period equipment and what's come along since - a couple of examples -
Once upon a time a ball would float so playing it from water was possible...now balls sink so can't be played.
Once upon a time a ball didn't go very far so seeing the end of its flight was easier and thus losing one less likely .....now balls go so far you don't necessarily see where they finish so a loss is more likely.
Atb

[Niall C]

Bob

Setting aside the political or philosophical aspect to it, was it not the case that the different sets of rules from HCEG onwards were much of a much-ness, and that the "need" for a rules authority was to deal with the local variations that caught visitors out as well as the ever growing need to give rules decisions ?

Niall

[Jeff_Brauer]

And so it follows that the rules never really affect architecture.....at least, I can rarely recall even a discussion of the rules in the 40 years of designing and redesigning courses.  Occasionally, some pro would lament whether to mark a water hazard as lateral or not, but I never really cared.

[Thomas Dai]

From previous threads herein it would seem that things like the positioning of OB, the designation of yellow/red hazard markings etc can have quite an effect and here ought to lie a close linkage between architecture and the rules.
Atb

[Jim_Kennedy]

Jim

I'm by no means an expert but I take the fair green to be what we now call the green.


Niall

Niall,


Yes, but there was nothing defining the parameters of the green during this same period.


'Fairway' was the nautical term for a 'navigable channel or customary course', and the proximity of the links to ports led to the term being adopted by golf, or so says the Scottish Golf History site.

They also lay the preoccupation with 'fair play' on the Freemasons. 

[Tom_Doak]

And so it follows that the rules never really affect architecture.....at least, I can rarely recall even a discussion of the rules in the 40 years of designing and redesigning courses.  Occasionally, some pro would lament whether to mark a water hazard as lateral or not, but I never really cared.

Jeff:


The one Rule that's had an effect on my designs is the drop rule regarding a water hazard.  I don't like having greens right up on the water, as Mr. Dye often does, because if you play a ball off the green [or from the fairway, running through the green] into the water, dropping on the green as a remedy just gives me the creeps.


In general though, I try to keep opportunities for penalty strokes away from golfers on my courses as much as I can.  I'd rather give them places to pile up a big score without a penalty.

[Tom_Doak]

What's really interesting from an architecture point of view is that greens that survive from the first boom of the 1880/90's to even up to WWI, a lot of them are square greens with the sides being twenty yards/paces each. Places like Spey Bay (1906) still have some and even recently I went round Taymouth Castle and there are some greens which look as though they might be original (Braid - early 1920's) and yes they are roughly rectangular and close to 20 yards a side.

I never thought of that!  That 60-foot dimension shows up a ton in golf architecture, even to this day.  I remember Perry Dye once telling me that greens were 60 x 90 feet.


One of the old architecture books [I think it's George Thomas's book] has a couple of diagrams of holes at St. Andrews, and instead of showing the whole "double green," it just shows a dashed circle around the flag, with the front bunker at the 8th inside the circle!  I was puzzled by that for several years until I read somewhere about the 60-foot dimension being the accepted standard for many years.

[Steve Lang]

In general though, I try to keep opportunities for penalty strokes away from golfers on my courses as much as I can.  I'd rather give them places to pile up a big score without a penalty.

Tom D, thankyou very much!   


My summer "home course" is Black Forest, I've nicknamed it "the home of unfinished business" and some days the evil places are avoided, and then one gets to the greens!  Fun being a masochist golfer...   and then there are the rules..

[BCrosby]

Niall -

As far as I can tell, most Scottish clubs adhered to more or less traditional rules until 1900 (when the uniform rules kicked in). There were some variants, but no major ones I know of. Would love to hear some examples to the contrary if you know of any.

The issue circa 1900 was the English clubs. They had adopted some pretty far out stuff. Low talked about them at length in an essay in 1906 defending the need for uniform rules based on older Scottish codes. The gist of his argument was that the (largely) English attempts to craft 'fairer rules' was a fool's errand, for a number of reasons, and that traditional codes were best, also for a number of reasons.

It worth remembering that the explosion of golf's popularity in the last decades of the 19th century was really the explosion of golf in England. With their money, numbers and political/cultural clout, by the late 1890's the English had become a powerful force in the game. They brought a different perspective (more moralistic, more Victorian) to the game. Which is why the rules many English clubs were adopting couldn't be simply ignored as a fringe element.

Compounding things was the Amateur. By the mid 1890's some competitors had learned the game using different rules, which led to confusion and arguments.

Pretty much everyone agreed by 1895 or so that uniform rules were a good idea. The issue was, first, on what codes should they be based and, second, who should have jurisdiction over rules decisions? The English lost out on both points to the R&A when they formed the first Committee on the Rules in 1897. (My understanding is that there were some English clubs who didn't adopt the R&A's rules for a number of years.)

To bring this back to gca, the same basic issues were in play at the birth of strategic gca. Low in 1901 and later is arguing that concerns with 'equitable' hazards (think: Victorian golf courses) was a dead-end and that an entirely different function for hazards was needed.

And, God bless him, Low sketched out that new function for hazards and, as they say, golf architecture has never looked back.

Bob 

[Peter Pallotta]

So the spirit (of golf) and the letter (of the law) were at one time, one. The rules made no differentiation between roughs and fairways and greens and tees because the golf courses themselves were similarly undifferentiated. And this was the early and essential character of the game.
Which means that golf architecture today, if it wishes to support or celebrate golf's fundamental nature, should strive for one uniform field of play, with no lines of demarcation: one type of grass, cut to the one same height, over one singular landscape with randomly placed (and naturally evolving) hazards that relate to "tees" and "greens" and "fairways" and "rough" in no discernibly-patterned way whatsoever. Good. There you go,
architects - you have your marching orders! Make it so 

[Tom_Doak]

 golf architecture today, if it wishes to support or celebrate golf's fundamental nature, should strive for one uniform field of play, with no lines of demarcation: one type of grass, cut to the one same height, over one singular landscape with randomly placed (and naturally evolving) hazards that relate to "tees" and "greens" and "fairways" and "rough" in no discernibly-patterned way whatsoever.

Grazed, actually, and not cut.  There was certainly unmaintained vegetation and "rough" at the margins, but the margins were not fixed or controlled.

[Adam Lawrence]

 golf architecture today, if it wishes to support or celebrate golf's fundamental nature, should strive for one uniform field of play, with no lines of demarcation: one type of grass, cut to the one same height, over one singular landscape with randomly placed (and naturally evolving) hazards that relate to "tees" and "greens" and "fairways" and "rough" in no discernibly-patterned way whatsoever.

Grazed, actually, and not cut.  There was certainly unmaintained vegetation and "rough" at the margins, but the margins were not fixed or controlled.

And also, mainly played in the winter -- when the grass was short enough

[Kyle Harris]

Perhaps the greatest threat to the game as we know it today is the Populist Rules Movement (those decrying the inequity of OB and Lost Balls, for example; or those that feel the Rules are in any way complex). In that light, Tom Doak's thoughts on this thread are a breath of fresh air because the rules remain simple.

Is not the crying about OB and a Lost Ball a strike against the golf course/architect/maintenance meld more-so than the Rules?

[Colin Macqueen]

Gentlemen, Excellent thread.


"And also, mainly played in the winter ----- when the grass was short enough"


Ach yes!  Because summer in Scotland and England was so damned hot and sweltering!


Cheers Colin

[Kyle Harris]

One place where Tom Paul and I diverged a bit is the idea brought forth by Max Behr that golfers are more accepting of features if they appear natural.

I agree and Tom Paul does not.

That point seems relevant to this thread, as well. The clear evidence of the hand of man not only invites criticism but invites more hands of man to alter the course (or Rules!).

In some ways, I feel the USGA/R&A/PGA have dropped the ball epistemologically about the rules. How much more equitable would the rules seem if one is taught that the overriding idea of golf is that one may only advance the ball by playing a stroke and every rule in written to preserve this idea? If you can't find your ball or your ball no longer is within the confines of the golf course, the only equitable and simple thing to do is replay from the original place and add an extra shot for the privilege of doing so. How much more natural does that sound? The added shot is a bit contrived, but also represents the metaphorical movement of the ball from it's unknown lost position or OB back to a place where a stroke may be played.

Therefore:

Rule #2: The ball may only be moved closer to the hole by playing a stroke resulting in the ball stopping on the golf course in a found position; namely through the green, on a putting green or teeing ground, in a bunker, or within a penalty area.

Rule #3: Any ball not located on the golf course must be replayed from the original location of the stroke with the addition of one stroke.

As with the golf course, the more natural the rules feel, the more they shall be accepted.

P.S. I love that the 2019 proposed revisions have freed the term "hazard" from it's circular usage. Bunkers and Water Hazards Penalty Areas are two inherently different things.

[Tom_Doak]

P.S. I love that the 2019 proposed revisions have freed the term "hazard" from it's circular usage. Bunkers and Water Hazards Penalty Areas are two inherently different things.

Not if they let you take a drop out of a bunker.  And not if they redefine a penalty area to include long grass, desert, etc.

[Kyle Harris]

P.S. I love that the 2019 proposed revisions have freed the term "hazard" from it's circular usage. Bunkers and Water Hazards Penalty Areas are two inherently different things.

Not if they let you take a drop out of a bunker.  And not if they redefine a penalty area to include long grass, desert, etc.

True, but I don't think that one actually survives 2019.

Another notch to your point, because the current/traditional idea of compulsory play from a bunker seems to imply a degree of possibility in extracting one's self from said bunker.

Hugh Wilson wrote on this subject, and it's one of my favorite statements in regard to the Rules of Golf and Golf Construction.

[Tom_Doak]

Another notch to your point, because the current/traditional idea of compulsory play from a bunker seems to imply a degree of possibility in extracting one's self from said bunker.

Hugh Wilson wrote on this subject, and it's one of my favorite statements in regard to the Rules of Golf and Golf Construction.

What's that quote?  I'm curious because the only place I could think of where you might not be able to play any shot to get out of a bunker, was at Merion, before the plants were removed from the bunkers.  But I'm not sure if Hugh Wilson anticipated those.  I suppose Prairie Dunes has some of the same situation.

[Kyle Harris]

Another notch to your point, because the current/traditional idea of compulsory play from a bunker seems to imply a degree of possibility in extracting one's self from said bunker.

Hugh Wilson wrote on this subject, and it's one of my favorite statements in regard to the Rules of Golf and Golf Construction.

What's that quote?  I'm curious because the only place I could think of where you might not be able to play any shot to get out of a bunker, was at Merion, before the plants were removed from the bunkers.  But I'm not sure if Hugh Wilson anticipated those.  I suppose Prairie Dunes has some of the same situation.

“BUNKERS.    The question of bunkers is a big one and the very best school for study we have found is along the seacoast among the dunes. Here one may study the different formations and obtain many ideas for bunkers. We have tried to make them natural and fit them into the landscape. The criticism had been made that we have made them too easy, that the banks are too sloping and that a man may often play a mid-iron shot out of the bunker where he should be forced to use a niblick. This opens a pretty big subject and we know that the tendency is to make bunkers more difficult. In the bunkers abroad on the seaside courses, the majority of them were formed by nature and the slopes are easy; the only exception being where on account of the shifting sand, they have been forced to put in railroad ties or some similar substance to keep the same from blowing. This had made a perfectly straight wall but was not done with the intention of making it difficult to get out but merely to retain the bunker as it exists. If we make the banks of every bunker so steep that the very best player is forced to use a niblick to get out and the only hope he has when he gets in is to be able to get his ball on the fairway again, why should we not make a rule as we have at present with water hazards, when a man may, if he so desires, drop back with the loss of a stroke. I thoroughly believe that for the good of Golf, that we should not make our bunkers so difficult, that there is no choice left in playing out of them and that the best and the worst must use a niblick.” 
 Hugh Wilson, 1916

[Niall C]

Bob
 
Good stuff. It’s kind of ironic in that quite a few of the traditionalists within the R&A were English themselves.
 
Wasn’t the issue that there was some (presumably mostly outside the R&A) who were advocating the setting up of golf unions as in the English Union and the Scottish Union etc, in much the same way that football and rugby had done, with the rules determined by the Unions ? I recall reading some of that debate in the contemporary mags but can’t recall who was on what side.
 
Niall