The One Dimensional Strategy of Tobacco Road

[Erik J. Barzeski]

Tobacco Road is as much an object of land art as it is a golf course in the traditional sense, so I think it needs to be evaluated in a different way. Strategic merit is all some golf courses have to recommend them (not that this is a bad thing). But if you're setting aside the epic and fascinating physical product while you nitpick the basic strategic elements of the course at Tobacco Road, you are fundamentally misunderstanding it.

Though I know you weren't responding to me specifically, I don't disagree, but the "art" should come secondary to the actual golf. I don't need to pay $150 or whatever to look at a piece of art, particularly when the twosome behind me is pushing us to keep up the pace.

Like I've said I tell people to see (and play) TR once, and make up their own mind. It's interesting as art, but ultimately I find the most interesting courses the ones that are interesting to play, not just to look at.

But yeah, go there once and get your pictures. Then decide if the golf is good enough to return. IMO.

I’ve played TR a half dozen times. The only one dimensional thing about it is that it requires the player to hit quality shots. It asks the player to hit it left to right and right to left. The pucker factor is high. Even a straightforward hole like number ten asks for three well struck shots. I’m not sure I understand how it can be one dimensional.

This one confuses me a bit. I don't think you have to work the ball to play TR at all, and I think the pucker factor can be kept quite low while playing to the wide areas of the course and taking on little risk. I shot 70 the second time I played there and never felt much pressure. I hit towards the fat sides of greens, toward the wide parts of fairways, etc.

And three well struck shots on… a par four? If you meant #11 instead, yes, it does require three reasonably well struck shots, but the driver only has to go 250, the second is a 6- or 7-iron, and the third is a 60-yard pitch (or chip). Where people get into trouble is trying to make it a two-shot hole, requiring a 195-yard carry uphill 20 feet or whatever.

[JC Jones]

This thread has been fascinating, but I have always thought that much of Tobacco Road's brilliance is wrapped up in some ineffable quality it possesses that extremely few other courses (that I've seen, anyway) have.


Sure, if you want to apply a mainstream rubric for evaluating golf courses to TR, it's going to come up short against the likes of Pine Needles and No. 2 and a lot of other courses.


So what? Strantz was doing something very different at Tobacco Road than, say, Ross, which makes that sort of straight-up comparison reductive.


Tobacco Road is as much an object of land art as it is a golf course in the traditional sense, so I think it needs to be evaluated in a different way. Strategic merit is all some golf courses have to recommend them (not that this is a bad thing). But if you're setting aside the epic and fascinating physical product while you nitpick the basic strategic elements of the course at Tobacco Road, you are fundamentally misunderstanding it.

Ed touched on this a little in his reply but I will say this: now we are at the point where we shouldnt be evaluating TR as a golf course?  This goes to the first line of my original post.  If we have to evaluate TR as something other than a golf course in order to validate it then it isnt a good golf course. 


Tommy, I have to disagree with you.  I broke down how I feel the strategy is one dimensional there and I didnt even get into the lack of variety in both shots required and options for shots.  There is next to 0 ground game at TR; the entirety of the course is ignoring the visual distortion, pointing and shooting through the air to a target.  You know I share your love for Ballyhack.  A course people frequently try to associate with TR because Lester tried to hit 18 home runs there and its risk/reward everywhere.  TR is no where near the strategic golf course (and conundrum creating course) that Ballyhack is.

[Jay Revell]

Mike strikes again...here we are 20 years later still debating the art he left behind. I think he would much prefer to be argued over regularly than widely accepted and easily forgotten. In fact, I imagine this thread would bring him a sly smile. The Road is one of the ultimate Rorschach tests in golf and the men who built it know they created something that can't be easily described or packaged in a singular way. It takes a special genius to deliver a piece of art that inspires such regular and varied view points. The Maverick lives on through those who become entangled in thoughts about his work. Just as he would have hoped.

[A.G._Crockett]

Sean, Tim - thanks.
You helped me understand my issue with all that I've read about TR.
For me: there's much too much the 'hand of man' there, too much the 'mind of man'.
I've got enough of my own doubts, fears and quivering indecisions to want or need an architect laying even more on my shoulders!
If it was (or appeared to be) Nature that was adding to my confusion and insecurities I wouldn't mind -- it would feel like a test the benevolent universe was offering me, for my learning and ultimate benefit.
But if it's another person creating this test, no thanks -- unless maybe it was a flawless test, beautifully executed. Then I could at least appreciate it for what it was, in and of itself, regardless of how it impacted me.
P
   

Pete,

There is much less of the "hand of man" at Tobacco Road than most believe; don't forget that it was a sand quarry for an asphalt company.  Many of the "excavations" that you see where there before Mike Strantz ever set foot on the property.

The best example, perhaps, is the 13th green.  It sits down in a hole, and has the tallest flag stick I've ever seen anywhere; unless the pin is right in line with the walking path that cuts thru the "dunes", you can't see more than the top of the stick, no matter where it is on the 30+ yard wide green.  A well-struck 3rd shot can be a tap-in birdie, or might never be found.  That bothers a LOT of people; I love it, because I've never seen anything like it, before or since, and I find it absolutely thrilling even when I can't find my ball.

But the point here is that the hole that is the site for the 13th green wasn't dug by Strantz; it was already there, and it was literally the first thing he saw when he first came on the property.  At the very moment he saw it, he told the owners that he would put a green there, and he built what I consider to be one of the really cool par 5's I've ever seen back from there.  The same is true of the pit guarding the inside of the dogleg and the green on 11, another unique and VERY cool par 5; it was already there, and Strantz built the golf hole around the quarry hole.


I have no way of knowing how much dirt Strantz had to move at TR, but I promise you it was a LOT less than most courses and a lot less than most people believe.  There simply wasn't any need.  I won't claim that TR is the most natural of courses; that's something that never much worried me anyway because besides TOC they're all artificial to one degree or another anyway.  But there a damn sight LESS that is "artificial" about TR than most believe.

[A.G._Crockett]

prorsus credibile est, quia ineptum est

Ronald,

I know what this means, but I don't know how you are applying it to the matter at hand.

[Erik J. Barzeski]

Oh boy.

Yeah, it's exhilarating to lose golf balls. Nothing I love more.

[Kalen Braley]

Oh boy.

Yeah, it's exhilarating to lose golf balls. Nothing I love more.

Erik,


I think you're eliminating a lot of top notch courses if danger of losing golf balls is one of your criteria...

[Erik J. Barzeski]

I think you're eliminating a lot of top notch courses if danger of losing golf balls is one of your criteria...

That's not what I said.

[Kalen Braley]

I think you're eliminating a lot of top notch courses if danger of losing golf balls is one of your criteria...

That's not what I said.

Fair enough, perhaps I was just reading into it.  Even if it just applies to being exhilarating I still think it doesn't work well.  For example CPC 15-17, Pebble 4 thru 10, ANGC 11-16 all seem to fit the definition with plenty of chances to lose multiple balls.

[Erik J. Barzeski]

Fair enough, perhaps I was just reading into it.  Even if it just applies to being exhilarating I still think it doesn't work well.  For example CPC 15-17, Pebble 4 thru 10, ANGC 11-16 all seem to fit the definition with plenty of chances to lose multiple balls.

Those aren't this:

[Peter Pallotta]

Thanks for that, A.G.
There's a long discussion implicit there.
Jeff E says we're going to go to NC and play the genteel courses and then TR too.
Maybe we could have that discussion then
Best
P

[JC Jones]

Mike strikes again...here we are 20 years later still debating the art he left behind. I think he would much prefer to be argued over regularly than widely accepted and easily forgotten. In fact, I imagine this thread would bring him a sly smile. The Road is one of the ultimate Rorschach tests in golf and the men who built it know they created something that can't be easily described or packaged in a singular way. It takes a special genius to deliver a piece of art that inspires such regular and varied view points. The Maverick lives on through those who become entangled in thoughts about his work. Just as he would have hoped.

Jay, I enjoyed your piece in the Golfers Journal and is sure you’re deep in the Strantz sauce right now.  However, unless you were addressing someone else, your reply does nothing to address the points I made and I don’t believe I have said that I hate the golf course.  Further, my point isn’t about acceptance or whether it doesn’t fit any mold of a golf course.  My point is that it IS worth seeing as a piece of golf art.  As a golf course, however, it’s not magical; it’s pretty straight forward.  It doesn’t have the quirk it appears to have.

[Kyle Harris]

Mike strikes again...here we are 20 years later still debating the art he left behind. I think he would much prefer to be argued over regularly than widely accepted and easily forgotten. In fact, I imagine this thread would bring him a sly smile. The Road is one of the ultimate Rorschach tests in golf and the men who built it know they created something that can't be easily described or packaged in a singular way. It takes a special genius to deliver a piece of art that inspires such regular and varied view points. The Maverick lives on through those who become entangled in thoughts about his work. Just as he would have hoped.

Jay, I enjoyed your piece in the Golfers Journal and is sure you’re deep in the Strantz sauce right now.  However, unless you were addressing someone else, your reply does nothing to address the points I made and I don’t believe I have said that I hate the golf course.  Further, my point isn’t about acceptance or whether it doesn’t fit any mold of a golf course.  My point is that it IS worth seeing as a piece of golf art.  As a golf course, however, it’s not magical; it’s pretty straight forward.  It doesn’t have the quirk it appears to have.

Hmm.


It more seems like you're saying it has the exact quirk it appears to have.

[Carl Rogers]

TD had a thread about valuing "originality" and having an "open mind" & for me applying my own golfing limitations to the bail out areas and the unique experience of just being there.


The Clubhouse is interesting also.


A fan of TR I am.

[Ian Andrew]

Jay, I enjoyed your piece in the Golfers Journal and is sure you’re deep in the Strantz sauce right now.  However, unless you were addressing someone else, your reply does nothing to address the points I made and I don’t believe I have said that I hate the golf course.  Further, my point isn’t about acceptance or whether it doesn’t fit any mold of a golf course.  My point is that it IS worth seeing as a piece of golf art.  As a golf course, however, it’s not magical; it’s pretty straight forward.  It doesn’t have the quirk it appears to have.

I've gone to museums all my life. I never liked Cubism. My wife took me to a show called the Great Upheaval. Whoever put it together, understood that we might need some help to fully enjoy what they had assembled. We needed the context for the work. We needed to have the details laid bare. The "why" became a revelation and it helped me understand the reason for Cubist paintings..

I needed a little context, but I also needed to look at the work with a far more open mind. The show allowed a fresh perspective and it worked for me.


A suggestion assuming you'll go back ...

1.  Play a match where the choices become harder because there's no longer a score on the line. I think wanting to keep score ruins the experience at Tobacco Road for a lot of people.

2. Commit to finding all the things "you actually do like." It allows the overall concepts and style to be in the background. See if the change of mindset has you enjoying the decisions or details more.


By the way, my wife still didn't like Cubist painting after we went to that show, but she does like the sculpture. I love the painting, but don't like the sculpture. Not every course is for everyone. I find Tobacco Road crosses the line of what works and what's "acceptable" often, but I enjoy that tightrope walk. That's actually what is the biggest draw, but I also like playing the course too. It makes me make dumb decisions and pay a horrible price. I like that too.

[Peter Pallotta]

Ian,
for some reason your post reminded me of a quote from The Little Prince, something like:
“Grown-ups love facts and figures. When you tell them you've made a new friend they never ask any important questions, like 'does he collect butterflies?' or 'what does his voice sound like?' Instead they ask you 'how old is he?' or 'how much does he weigh?' or 'how much money does his father make?'.  For grown-ups, they think it's only through facts and figures that they can learn anything"

[Tim Gavrich]

This thread has been fascinating, but I have always thought that much of Tobacco Road's brilliance is wrapped up in some ineffable quality it possesses that extremely few other courses (that I've seen, anyway) have.


Sure, if you want to apply a mainstream rubric for evaluating golf courses to TR, it's going to come up short against the likes of Pine Needles and No. 2 and a lot of other courses.


So what? Strantz was doing something very different at Tobacco Road than, say, Ross, which makes that sort of straight-up comparison reductive.


Tobacco Road is as much an object of land art as it is a golf course in the traditional sense, so I think it needs to be evaluated in a different way. Strategic merit is all some golf courses have to recommend them (not that this is a bad thing). But if you're setting aside the epic and fascinating physical product while you nitpick the basic strategic elements of the course at Tobacco Road, you are fundamentally misunderstanding it.

Ed touched on this a little in his reply but I will say this: now we are at the point where we shouldnt be evaluating TR as a golf course?  This goes to the first line of my original post.  If we have to evaluate TR as something other than a golf course in order to validate it then it isnt a good golf course. 

There's a difference between not evaluating TR as a golf course at all and not evaluating it merely as a golf course, but also as land art. I'm arguing the latter. The green shapes and contours alone help it overcome several idiosyncrasies, IMO. And there's the width - which is a great advantage of other courses but somehow a hindrance at TR??? - which constantly prods golfers toward making poor decisions (again, we praise other courses for doing this to golfers but somehow it's bad at TR  [size=78%]).[/size]

[Tim Martin]

This is a fun topic with the divergence of opinions. I’ve played it once and am going to go back after the first of the year to play again because of this thread. I started a dialogue a while back about whether it’s walkable and I was assured that there are a number of short cuts for those that know the course. Finally I was happy to ride the day I played as that was the consensus but I am intrigued with the walk.

[JC Jones]

Jay, I enjoyed your piece in the Golfers Journal and is sure you’re deep in the Strantz sauce right now.  However, unless you were addressing someone else, your reply does nothing to address the points I made and I don’t believe I have said that I hate the golf course.  Further, my point isn’t about acceptance or whether it doesn’t fit any mold of a golf course.  My point is that it IS worth seeing as a piece of golf art.  As a golf course, however, it’s not magical; it’s pretty straight forward.  It doesn’t have the quirk it appears to have.

I've gone to museums all my life. I never liked Cubism. My wife took me to a show called the Great Upheaval. Whoever put it together, understood that we might need some help to fully enjoy what they had assembled. We needed the context for the work. We needed to have the details laid bare. The "why" became a revelation and it helped me understand the reason for Cubist paintings..

I needed a little context, but I also needed to look at the work with a far more open mind. The show allowed a fresh perspective and it worked for me.


A suggestion assuming you'll go back ...

1.  Play a match where the choices become harder because there's no longer a score on the line. I think wanting to keep score ruins the experience at Tobacco Road for a lot of people.

2. Commit to finding all the things "you actually do like." It allows the overall concepts and style to be in the background. See if the change of mindset has you enjoying the decisions or details more.


By the way, my wife still didn't like Cubist painting after we went to that show, but she does like the sculpture. I love the painting, but don't like the sculpture. Not every course is for everyone. I find Tobacco Road crosses the line of what works and what's "acceptable" often, but I enjoy that tightrope walk. That's actually what is the biggest draw, but I also like playing the course too. It makes me make dumb decisions and pay a horrible price. I like that too.

I spent some time at the Phillips Collection in DC a few weeks ago and listened to a talk on Fauvism.  I understand it more now than I did before, which of course helps me appreciate it too.  As a fellow non-lover of Cubism, I think an experience such as the one you had would be fun and beneficial.


With respect to your suggestions, I think if you read back you'll find that I played well at TR and I dont find it to be a difficult golf course (most people's complaint usually revolves around searching for balls all day); and, I commented on the fact that I think the par 3s are quite good, varied and a good amount of fun.


What is happening here is common to GCA, any criticism (particularly of a beloved course) is transformed into total dislike (Ive even seen the word hate used).  Is it possible for me to think a course is not great, but nonetheless good?  Is it possible to think that TR is an interesting work of golf art, but nonetheless a straightforward golf course with not a lot of variety in the questions it asks? 


I would answer yes to both of those questions but many of the responses here are as if the answer is no.  Or, the need to "defend" TR is such that reading what is written is not fundamental to one's response.

[Kalen Braley]

Erik,


Whether or not that approach shot is exhilarating, I can't say.  I was only suggesting that most holes people consider exhilarating would include a lost ball component.  But maybe this discussion needs its own thread? 

[Mark_Fine]

I have no interest in getting involved in this debate but I will say two things, 1) The best of the best courses need to be studied and learned and played many times to really appreciate just how good they really are.  It is often the subtleties and little details that separate the very good from the truly great, and 2) my biggest issue with ANY list of golf course rankings is that they are composed by panelists whom have only had one look around    That is never enough to properly judge a golf course even if you are Tom Doak 

[Erik J. Barzeski]

Whether or not that approach shot is exhilarating, I can't say.  I was only suggesting that most holes people consider exhilarating would include a lost ball component.  But maybe this discussion needs its own thread? 

Maybe. My… I can't think of a good word, and "mocking" is about 100x too strong, but it's all I can think of right now, so my "mocking" (see before) of that comment was only in relation to that hole, not "exhilarating" other holes where a lost ball is a real possibility.

On that hole it's faked. It's tall grass set up with a blind (often) flag and a very, very shallow green. There's not really anywhere to miss and yet you can barely miss the shot and lose your ball. That's not "exhilarating" to me. That's just dumb.

A cape hole? Exhilarating, possibly, because you get to choose to play safe or bite off more than you can chew. You're risking a lost ball… but you're also looking to gain. Exhilaration is maybe more (and I haven't workshopped this, just thinking out loud) about risk and reward, not just punishment for a slightly off-line shot like #13 at TR.

I agree it would make a good thread, but I'd be surprised if it isn't here already somewhere.

I have no interest in getting involved in this debate but I will say two things, 1) The best of the best courses need to be studied and learned and played many times to really appreciate just how good they really are.  It is often the subtleties and little details that separate the very good from the truly great

I don't know that TR has any "subtleties." 

[Tom_Doak]

my biggest issue with ANY list of golf course rankings is that they are composed by panelists whom have only had one look around    That is never enough to properly judge a golf course even if you are Tom Doak 

That's why I usually go back to see a course again if I think it's got more to it.  But you have to go see a bunch of them once to help decide which ones to dismiss, too.




I've been to Tobacco Road three times, because it's extremely interesting.


I don't think it's a great golf course.  Seventy posts in here, and no one has said anything about the short game shots at TR; that's because a lot of holes are not built at the right scale for interesting short game play.  [Also, as someone remarked, there's not enough short grass around the greens.]  There are also a bunch of holes like 15 and 16 and 17 where the only approach is to fly it to the hole and make it stop relatively, which, of course, lots of golfers can't do.


Its saving grace is that it's short enough that people don't have to try these shots with long clubs in their hands, so they have some chance of success.  There are holes that give golfers at different skill levels the chance for the heroic play; it's not all designed around the scratch golfer.  [In fact, in many places, it actively tries to mess with the scratch golfer.]


At the same time, almost any golfer will come to a dead end out there somewhere, where there is no realistic good play to make.  I've recounted the story here before about playing it with a couple of excellent junior golfers, about 10 and 12 years old:  their dad really struggled to find them a tee on every hole which would test them but not demoralize them.  They could hit it into the narrowest of spaces, which made some holes much more interesting for them than for you or me; but they would also run into forced carries from Hell.  The 2nd and 13th holes were an absolute disaster for them.


I will happily defend art for art's sake, but I don't think that was Mike Strantz's goal for Tobacco Road, and it almost certainly wasn't his client's goal.  So that part has gotta be fair game for discussion here.


I do hope to find a client someday who wants me to build something as out of the box as Tobacco Road.  I've got some ideas for that, which I can't really use anywhere else.

[Mark_Fine]

Tom,
Would you say there is room for improvement on this golf course or do you leave it as is?  I consider Mike a pretty darn good architect.  His partner is retired.  This is the dilemma many courses face (mostly much older ones).  Who do they call if and when they want to improve it or if they simply want to preserve it or restore it as it like all courses is changing every day. 

[Tom_Doak]

Tom,
Would you say there is room for improvement on this golf course or do you leave it as is?  I consider Mike a pretty darn good architect.  His partner is retired.  This is the dilemma many courses face (mostly much older ones).  Who do they call if and when they want to improve it or if they simply want to preserve it or restore it as it like all courses is changing every day.

If they let anyone mess with it they should be shot.  And by that I mean both the owners and the architect, for good measure. Luckily the owners of Tobacco Road are protective of what they have, and are not likely to let just any architect talk his way in there.


Preservation is not really very hard if that's the owner's goal and the greenkeeper is paying attention.  For my own courses, getting back every 5-10 years will address most things, and on the ones that are paying attention, there is not too much to do.