[Kalen Braley]

I woke up this morning and was thinking about golf holes with 'Too Many Notes'. For those who don't know the reference, its a scene in Amadeus where its suggested Mozart has too many notes in his new piece, to which he responds there are just as many notes as are required. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6_eqxh-Qok

When we think of the best golf holes, the real crackers as Sean puts it, we often think of them as "I wouldn't change a thing, perfect as is".   But how do we get there? What criteria do we use?  How do we define cluttered or not? How do we define 'done'?

I think about a hole like TOC 17 with the OB, Motel wall, the famous bunker, unconventional green site with yet more OB, etc...one could claim there is just too much going on, yet its often considered one of the best holes in the world. Sebonack #2 with an ocean of bunkers and green patches mixed in and while I've never played it, I imagine standing on that tee and asking "where the hell do I hit it?" Or perhaps any number of holes at Whistling Straits littered with literally dozens of bunkers, strewn about everywhere... on just one hole.

So the question is when does a hole have too many notes and when is it just enough as are required?  I admit I struggle with these types of riddles as my career path has thrust me into a mostly binary world of: it meets the requirement or not, or the functionality works as designed or it does not.

Thoughts? Examples?

[Jeff_Brauer]

You can't describe it, you just know it.


As a designer, though, I can tell you that adding that last brush stroke or not is a typical point in the design process....usually near the supposed end, unless I add the note, then it is next to the end.

[James Reader]

With apologies to Eric Morecambe, I can’t help but wonder which holes might have “all the right notes; just not necessarily in the right order”.

[Jeff Schley]

You can't describe it, you just know it.

Good Jeff. Like class, you know when you see it.

[MCirba]

There's a modern course outside the Philadelphia area in Bucks County where you could remove over half of the bunkers and not really affect play or strategy.   It sure is eye-popping though.

[Dan_Callahan]

I think if Thoreau was still alive and had any interest in golf course architecture, he would answer that question: "I believe in simplicity.... When the mathematician would solve a difficult problem, he first frees the equation of all incumbrances, and reduces it to its simplest terms."

[Tom_Doak]

I think if Thoreau was still alive and had any interest in golf course architecture, he would answer that question: "I believe in simplicity.... When the mathematician would solve a difficult problem, he first frees the equation of all incumbrances, and reduces it to its simplest terms."

Or as Tom Simpson wrote,


"But even if the older and greater courses do encourage a wider range of manoeuvre they give, in spite of that facility, the impression of simplicity.  The educated taste admires simplicity of design and sound workmanship for their own sake rather than over-decoration and the crowding of artificial hazards."

[Peter Pallotta]

Thanks for that quote, Tom -- I'd never read it before, and Simpson writes beautifully. The appreciation/value of sound workmanship 'for its own sake' really hits home.

[Ira Fishman]

Yes, but the number of notes is related to the emotions and introspection that the piece seeks to evoke. Art Tatum and Charlie Parker employed lots of notes; early Miles and Hancock not so much.


CPC 15 and 16 are a flurry of notes; Woking 4 has two or three notes; Foxy? NB 14, 15, and 16?


For a 18 holes, PH2 strikes me as having just the right number of notes. Brora would be second.


Ira

[Kyle Harris]

There's a modern course outside the Philadelphia area in Bucks County where you could remove over half of the bunkers and not really affect play or strategy.   It sure is eye-popping though.

Is it eye-popping or does it prompt your to look away?


Wait.


Maybe the walls need to fall?

[Mark_Fine]

Less can be more but then again the beauty of golf is in the variety of the playing fields.  You don’t get that playing Pickelball   


I just played Walter Travis’ Hollywood GC. They had one hole called the Heinz 57 hole because it originally had 57 bunkers. When Tom Doak restored it I think he only put in 37 on that hole.  The course overall must have over 200 bunkers and frankly it looks amazing (glad I am not the super because they all need hand raking).  Does the course have too many notes?  Travis didn’t think so or he wouldn’t have designed it that way. 


Once again, variety is what makes this game special.  If every course had a fixed 32 bunkers, we might have a lot less to talk about. 

[Jeff_Brauer]

Mark,


We would just start obsessing over size, placement, edge shaping, etc.

[Peter Pallotta]

In gca, I think of notes as 'signifiers' -- ie, think this, feel that, look this way, don't go there, here's your option.With too many of them, a minimalist aesthetic and expansive sensibility is impossible -- the hand of man is much too evident, making it hard to see and experience the nature/nature of the site.

[Joe Hancock]

In gca, I think of notes as 'signifiers' -- ie, think this, feel that, look this way, don't go there, here's your option.With too many of them, a minimalist aesthetic and expansive sensibility is impossible -- the hand of man is much too evident, making it hard to see and experience the nature/nature of the site.

Peter,


You always have a way of interpreting differently than most. And, that’s why you connect with the few that can actually play with less notes; The ones who can’t will poo poo the efforts of those who can. By that, I mean this: There are architects who don’t think it is actually architecture (or design) unless they purposefully move things around until they can claim it as their own. To leave something as nature had gifted is a weakness of mind and a lessor effort.


The minimalist mind, the gift of frugality and the discipline of restraint are rarely recognized as architecture, even to those who most appreciate it.

[mike_malone]

Less can be more but then again the beauty of golf is in the variety of the playing fields.  You don’t get that playing Pickelball   


I just played Walter Travis’ Hollywood GC. They had one hole called the Heinz 57 hole because it originally had 57 bunkers. When Tom Doak restored it I think he only put in 37 on that hole.  The course overall must have over 200 bunkers and frankly it looks amazing (glad I am not the super because they all need hand raking).  Does the course have too many notes?  Travis didn’t think so or he wouldn’t have designed it that way. 


Once again, variety is what makes this game special.  If every course had a fixed 32 bunkers, we might have a lot less to talk about.

A lot of notes isn’t necessarily too many. I like Hollywood even though it usually isn’t my style. It seems to be just the right number of notes. It’s very loud though.

[Mark_Fine]

Jeff,
You are correct.  We would find something to obsess over 


Peter,
I am thinking about a few courses right now that were "built" on landfills.  I am actually glad the hand of man took over here on these sites     Look at some of the sites Pete Dye had to work with and look what he built.  You may love it or maybe you don't but the variety to me of all the different kinds of golf courses is what I find fascinating. I am sure you will be watching The Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits.  Not a spec of sand on that site to start when Pete got there.  A bland landscape on a cliff next to a lake.  Sand Hills can't be more different than Shadow Creek.  I could go on with examples.  GCA is pretty cool.  Hope it never gets to where every course looks like Pickelball court.  Not many notes on them   


Mike,
Yes Hollywood has a lot of notes but sometimes we like things loud like that and sometimes we are in the mood for soft or mellow or ...

[Peter Pallotta]

Mark -- I think a course can have a lot of bunkers and yet not too many signifiers, ie architectural features don't necessarily have to be prescriptive

Joe -- I think working that way is as much a philosophy as it is a skill set, as much an attitude as it is a technique, and as much a choice as it is a necessity. You have to want to accept Nature's gift before you can even recognize that a gift is being offered.

[Tim Martin]

Too many notes is often the case with residential landscape architecture and like Jeff Brauer said you know it when you see it. Too many plantings in the wrong areas force my eyes to focus on the clutter. Too many and or forced features on a golf course has the same effect.

[David_Tepper]

Chart Hills Golf Club in Kent, England:

https://www.google.com/maps/uv?pb=!1s0x47df242bdd02427d%3A0x5e8b9be2bc723d2b!3m1!7e115!4shttps%3A%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPUVMZGGfD1FNg-JGzvMaclc6-kTaDFVpx73ahA%3Dw215-h160-k-no!5schart%20hills%20golf%20club%20-%20Google%20Search!15sCgIgAQ&imagekey=!1e10!2sAF1QipPUVMZGGfD1FNg-JGzvMaclc6-kTaDFVpx73ahA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjgydKqvt_yAhWiyYUKHRv1CGoQoip6BAh1EAM
 

[Sean_A]

Many of the best notes in gca aren't seen until physically experienced. This is one of highlights of temptation....things aren't what they initially seem to be. That is more difficult to achieve with architecture laid over land rather than in it. Bunkers are an easy targets to criticise because they often provide road maps as to how the hole should be played. But that's what many golfers want, road map design.

Ciao

[Thomas Dai]

Be an intriguing exercise to have a totally flat piece of featureless, obstruction-less, entirely short grass land with a huge high wall around it to blank out any views and layout 18 holes.
Only have 18 x tee markers and 18 x 4.24” holes in the ground with short flagsticks denoting the positions.
And then just play golf on it.
Varied outcomes and popularity likely.
Each to their own though.

Atb

[jeffwarne]

Whistling Straits-too many notes for my taste,but many love it so more power to them

[Jeff_Brauer]

Too many notes is often the case with residential landscape architecture and like Jeff Brauer said you know it when you see it. Too many plantings in the wrong areas force my eyes to focus on the clutter. Too many and or forced features on a golf course has the same effect.

Tim,


Good point.  As a landscape architect by training, at my own house, I have to be careful to guard against wanting one of every favorite plant, vs keeping a strong single theme.  And/or, in the case of my current house, where I inherited a nicely done landscape, primarily straight lines and close to formal symmetry, not trying to add "naturalistic" curves that just don't fit the current planting beds.


I am trying to verbalize some of my thoughts about either Pete Dye and PGA West and Chart Hills by Smyers.  Obviously, both are among examples of courses designed purposely to have visual overload, which isn't crazy in a visually oriented society.  And, IMHO, as kids, raised on supergraphics on their phones, get into golf, they may expect more than their parents or grandparents generations raised on TV and then color TV, in visual stimulation IF they are going to be interested in golf the way I was...i.e., the beauty of the course.  Right now, we are in a "downsize the bunkers" for cost reasons, but in the next boom, I doubt that visual minimalism will stay restrained.


I think my point is, I tend to try to judge by what the gca was trying to accomplish.  That famous photo of Chart Hills looks great to my eye. I don't think Steve was trying to signal anything, he was just trying to overwhelm the eye, no?  I played PGA West with the late Bruce Borland once.  His question was, did the visuals on every hole tend to diminish each one of them.  Put another way, would a course with one hole of visuals, i.e., just that one hole at Chart Hills be okay as variety, or would it seem too out of place?  Haven't played there, so it is a legit question?


Then, of course, you would be back in the old question of golf course rhythm, i.e., would the 9th at Chart Hills best be followed by a bunkerless hole for maximum variety impact, or would you go from a hole of 20 bunkers to 10, to 5, to 1, and then back up again?


I guess I go back to the idea of just feeling it, although, I think every course sets its own tone of what is too much through a variety of factors, i.e., architect, setting, site quality, and so on.

[Steve Lang]

   Would Mike Strantz have been like Walter Trout?  Who self describes as too many notes and too loud?  https://youtu.be/cuCFknX9dlQ

[Kalen Braley]

Excellent commentary so far, thanks all!

As a point of clarification to my OP, I wasn't calling out those specific holes as "bad", just that they all seem to have lots of notes.  I know bunkers are a popular target for this topic, but other ones i often see: containment mounding, endless tee boxes, plants of all types and varieties, and as much as I hate to say it, over the top greens with undulations and multiple benches.

I think I've only ever played 1 hole which very clearly had far too many notes.  The 9th hole at Soldier Hollow Gold, (now the 18th). I don't have a picture but a description below:

- OB left with the maintenance shack
- A stream between the tee box and fairway
- A pond to the right of the fairway
- Another stream between the fairway and green
- A centerline carry bunker, and another bunker just left of the pond on the right side
- Another carry bunker between the creek and green.
- Cart path running up the left hand side.
- The clubhouse in full view behind it.
- And the kicker?  An elevated tee box so its all staring you in the face.

The hole is center of the frame in this Google Maps view.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Soldier+Hollow+Golf+Course/@40.4845464,-111.4991463,657a,35y,180h/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x874d8a94d0c4f23f:0x3e92379626c946fd!8m2!3d40.4819576!4d-111.5007583

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