Course management and knowledge of GCA

[Rich_M]

Does expertise\knowledge of golf course design correlate with good golf course management when playing?

[bg_in_rtp]

Course knowledge and knowledge of the underlying architecture do play a role in good course management.  They help to understand where the actual land challenges end and the visual deception begins.  

But I'd argue that shot execution and being able to control one's emotion/ego play as much a role in course management.  

And after a while, local knowledge probably overcomes course architecture knowledge.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Not for me.

I tend to want to play to the deepest darkest hazards the Game knows. I'm there for the challenge.

[Norbert P]

Each one educates and each one adds interest in interaction and more input to behold and ponder.

Ignorance may be bliss but enlightenment is to revel in.

[A_Clay_Man]

Whats great about the game is that knowledge is only part of the prize.

[TEPaul]

For those who think that golfers such as touring pros don't have very good course management abilities to consider golf architecture basically have no idea whatsoever about all that goes on in the heads and games of the touring pro and first rate player.

This old cliche of Pete Dye--"When you get them thinking then you've got them where you want them" may have been true once and for a short time when and where they were offered something radically different like his TPC Sawgrass. But basically that cliche is today trite, cute and just not true!

But no one, including Pete Dye, should underestimate a really good player's ability to figure things out, including the ramifications of architecture on their scoring, and to a very large degree and to compensate for it intelligently.

Many of these players may not be students of architecture per se but they have a real subliminal ability, at least, to sense it and play accordingly (course management). If they didn't have that they basically wouldn't be at the level they are!

Ask Tom Doak some of the things he's admitted he's learned from talking to touring pros about what they notice about golf architecture!

[A_Clay_Man]

Did anyone notice on yesterdays telecast of the WGC Justin Leonard talking to his partner Furyk and describing (using his hands) the slope at a certain point ahead in the fairway.

This was possibly the first time I have ever seen two pro's discussing strategy as it realtes to the canvas. My first impression was how great Dye is, making these guys actually think about some of the subtleties. My second impression is there just is not enough of these "little things" week in and week out on tour.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Rich M,

Could we then conversely conclude that the greatest golfers in the world, the PGA Tour pros, make the greatest architects in the world ?

I'm with Tommy Naccarato on this one.

[Rich_M]

Patrick,

How about a slightly different way of looking at it..among the professional golfers who have become golf course architects is there a correlation between course management skills and design ability..Nicklaus, Player, Crenshaw??

[TEPaul]

"Could we then conversely conclude that the greatest golfers in the world, the PGA Tour pros, make the greatest architects in the world?"

Patrick:

That's a real leap of logic. Understanding how to play architecture is not exactly the same thing as knowing how to conceive of it and create it! Plenty of people can drive cars really well too but that doesn't necessarily mean they can also  design them and make them!

[Jeff Goldman]

Saw another good example of a player thinking about course architecture today at (I think) 13, with the green sloping front left to back right and water on the right.  I think it was Leonard who hit it to the front of the green and letting it roll pretty close, using the slope perfectly, while 2 others in the group went aggressively at the hole, and the ball ran through.   Too bad the wind stopped blowing.

Jeff Goldman

[Steve Lang]

 

Aren't course knowledge and course management really independent of knowledege of course GCA, a much bigger thing?  

I would tend to believe that the pros, having seen so many courses in so many conditions, should intuitively know how specific course conditions and weather will impact different shots.. if they're doing their job well.. its just a matter of how keenly aware they are of what's needed to get the ball in the hole.  Akin to "age and treachery beat youth and skill"..

[ian]

I'll relay my favourite Pete and Alice story. Doug played with Alice the one day and she came over to see Doug in the trees and said, you wwill be wise to pitch the ball out and try to scramble out your par. This was repeated a few times despite some possible openings to the green. Doug had a gret round. He played the next day with Pete, and upon hitting the ball into the tree, was preparing to play safely out. Pete convinced Doug that the opening was there and he should try the shot. Pete convinced Doug to do this a couple more times. Doug said he hit the ball better and had a lousy score.

So.......no I don't think so.

[Doug Siebert]

I'm with Tommy N. on this, knowing what is the smartest play for your score, within your limits, etc. is one thing, but man is it ever boring to actually play that way.

When I was on the Road Hole last, I was in the wispy left rough with a 7 iron in my hand, aiming directly over the Road Bunker and trying to stick it.  There's probably only a few foot circle where I actually could have made that shot, but I came damn close, just trickled off the back and onto the blacktop and chipped it up a foot away for a tap-in par.  That's a hell of a lot more fun than doing what my caddie suggested and playing well right of the bunker away from the green and that ever so deliciously tempting back left pin.

The thing is, I WANT to play from the Road Bunker, I've played the hole twice and have yet to play from it.  If I keep going for the pin, I'm sure my time will come soon enough, and I'll get to enjoy something that everyone should try at least once.  And I feel the same whether you are talking golf's most famous hazard or some challenging or nearly impossible spot on an unremarkable course no one has ever heard of before.  Its not that I am aiming for them, but the challenge of taking on shots that the odds don't favor and then figuring out how to extricate myself from the inevitable results of that folly is one of the big reasons I keep coming back for more.  Probably why I play better on the days I'm just a bit off -- when I'm hitting them all where I aim I get mentally careless and throw away shots with stupid stuff.

And I think I learn more about architecture actually facing those challenges instead of just noticing "yup, that Road Bunker looks pretty nasty, the odds say that since I'm not Tiger Woods, I should stay away from it."  Hell, Tiger was more fun to watch his first few years when he was fearless and stupid, now he plays more like Nicklaus and stands a better chance to keep winning the big ones in his 30s and perhaps beyond but is less entertaining -- part of the fun watching him for me was seeing him take the occasional triple bogey to show even he's human, those are pretty rare with the new course management aware Tiger.  

[TEPaul]

To me the responses to this thread show the wide spectrum of the way various golfers look at golf and approach it. And there's a lot to be said for that. It also proves to me how correct Bobby Jones's remark was;

"There's golf (recreational) and tournament golf and they are very different".

Not that one is better than the other, not at all, just that they truly are very different and course management and a concern for score vs heroics (course management) is basically the essence of that fascinating difference.

Golf, as a game, is very lucky to have its two distinct formats as well as its offering of just fun and interesting nonconsequential (in a scoring sense) shot making! For solely recreational golfers the latter mode is one of golf's true assets and seductions!