Hole Quality Variance and Course Assessment (i.e. the Tobacco Road Problem)

[Tom_Doak]

Tom,

Maybe my thoughts there were a bit muddled but it looks to me like you understood the point. Some people might see a lot of negatives as disqualifying--or at least counting strongly against a course--while others are inclined to discount those negatives if there's also a lot that's really special. It seems that the other responses to my post understood the point too and have taken different positions on it.

I agree that people won't agree on how to weigh these things.  And if we need everyone to agree on how to do it, then I guess it can't be done. But I don't care if we agree. There are far more important things that people will never agree on. Still, we have arguments about them and in doing so, we might learn something about how to think about these things that we hadn't thought of.

I'm with A.G. on one point: I'd play Tobacco Road every time I go back to the sandhills. And that's because faults and all, it's so interesting. Whether I want to play a course again is related to how I'd rate it, but they're not the same thing.

Brett:


What your post does do, is explain why Tobacco Road's failures in the rankings can be so different than the popular perception that Stewart A. mentions above.  It happens because a signficant % of rater types are low-handicap scolds, and they will disqualify the course from consideration for some of its over-the-top features.  If enough people do that, a course can't get ranked highly, no matter how many of the other guys really like it.


Indeed, some of the holes the public likes the most are the same ones that disqualify the course in the raters' eyes.

[Sean_A]

Brett

I more or less am the sort that is looking for unusual holes and will forgive the odd stinker hole. While I like TR, it rides a fine line with some holes and long, narrow green concept. Painswick is another example of the type. There is enough cool stuff to forgive the poor stuff. I don't have a formula or specific number of holes/elements which would make me dislike a course. I did play Cullen last year and it's many mundane holes somewhat spoils and the experience. As you explained about TR's 17th, the course needs an edit to something less than 18 holes. There is too much mundane stuff to keep the round moving with 18 holes. The other option is to systematically improve the holes, if the club has dosh. There is a sleeping giant there either way.

Ciao

Sean,

For clarification, do you mean "wide, shallow green concept" rather than "long, narrow green concept"?  I ask this sincerely, and btw, I haven't played at Painswick.

I can't think of a green at TR that is especially narrow given the club that you are hitting on the approach.  3, for instance, is an extremely deep green, but you're hitting a short iron in.  The 9th green isn't long and narrow because of the angle; the issue there is going thru the green onto the hill, or not having enough carry to get up there in the first place.  16 might be considered somewhat long and narrow, though not unusually so, except that there again you are hitting a short club in.  The front of 18 is narrow, I suppose, but there is plenty of width in the middle of that green, and room to miss on the left.  Those are the only greens I can think of that would fit the description of long and narrow.

By contrast, 1, 6, 8, 11, 13, 15, and 17 would be what I would consider wide and shallow.  The rest of the greens are, at least to me, pretty "standard", at least in terms of width and depth, and on the holes where you are hitting a longer club in, there IS a pretty clear place to miss and be ok.  I'd put 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 11, 12, and 18 in that category.  That leaves out 7; that green is huge and difficult, and without a great place to miss and be ok, but it's a hard green to miss completely.

There are a lot of courses, great, good, and not so good, where the pin location might make a difference of several clubs on an approach from the same spot; Streamsong Black leaps to my mind because I just played it in November.  In fairness, I don't think TR is one of them; the big greens there are wide, but not deep.  All of this is important, and ties into the relatively low course rating and the relatively high slope rating.  Good players who are playing well don't have much trouble hitting greens and even getting close at TR; bogey golfers who can't hit their intended line can easily take 40+ putts in their round.

I guess it depends where you are standing . But yes, wide and shallow is overused. Although, I disagree with Brett about the 6th. It's wide and and shallow, but the variety of tee shots makes the hole pretty cool if you can get past the nasty walk from 5 green. Which hits two of the three main issues I have with TR. The third is its always wet.

Ciao

[Anthony Gray]

 From the initial post


 What courses have both awesome holes and horrible holes together? Or a few very good holes along with a few very bad holes?

[Kalen Braley]

Anthony thanks for bringing it around full circle.

If you're looking for an example of a mostly bad/mediocre course, that still has a good enough reputation based on a couple of good holes and one top notch, then look no further than TOC...but not the one you're thinking of.

Its The Old Course at Half Moon Bay - 15 holes of mediocre housing encroached crap, followed by two decent holes 16 and 17, and ending with the epic 18th hole right along the coast. 

Yes it may be an exception, but just goes to show you can charge steep triple digit green fees for one barn burner hole.

[Brett Meyer]

Clearly I've struck a nerve here, which is great. Thanks everyone for your input!

But I (George Carlin voice) have a few problems with some things that people are saying or at least suggesting.

Mark and Tom, I'm not sure where this idea is coming from that the criticisms that I'm raising have anything to do with anyone's game. My criticisms of 17 were about a lack of editing and I argued to A.G. that all of the things that he mentions as virtues about that hole would be retained if the green were just the right ~1/3. I would make a similar criticism of the 15th.

Perhaps the raters are low handicap scolds, but I don't know why that would make them more likely to call out the over-the-top features of TR than a course like Pinehurst no.2, which I think is much harder for low handicappers. Actually, another one of my issues with TR is that it's relatively much harder for high handicappers than low handicappers. If you can put your shots within 20 yards of where you're aiming, it isn't hard at all. I play probably half of my rounds with guys who struggle to break 100 and they had a horrible time with it (personal experience and stories).

But that's not what motivated the main points in the thread. My issue with TR is that I think that there are several bad holes and I think this because there's just too much going on on these holes. And from a ratings perspective (the point of the thread), I'm not sure what to make of this. It's not at all a problem with the wildness per se; I love the 11th hole. But many holes could be edited down to one wild idea rather than 4 or 5. And I hold it against the course that it doesn't do this.

If you want to read more about what I think about Tobacco Road generally, I've written about it in great detail on my website.



Sean, I think that we agree that wide and shallow greens are overused at TR. My issue with 6 is that the shallow part on the right side extends too far out. Most can't reliably hit that right part of the green because it's probably 35 ft. deep. But if the pin is all the way on the right, to play safe, you have to aim 80 ft. left of the hole. That's a bit silly for a hole that's 120 yards. My suggestion here would be to eliminate the right 1/3 of the green. You'd still have a shallow area at the right side, but you could play safe 30 ft. away from it to the left rather than 80 ft.

You make an interesting point about mundane land and the number of holes. I've never played Cullen, but I'd agree that I'd rather see 14 pretty good holes than 9 pretty good ones and 9 mediocre ones because you had to have some holes run over both good and mundane land. Still, that's a harder issue for me than TR, where this kind of trade-off isn't even necessary. Just some editing.

[Kalen Braley]

Brett,

I think this thread in interesting in at least attempting to introduce a new way to evaluate courses.  GCA has certainly attempted these activities countless times in the past, with far longer threads with much more back and forth bickering.  (Including my personal favorite when people lose their minds trying to figure out why a course moved from say 26 to 35 on a list...when there is just no logical basis that's going to be found.)

I've never been a big fan of the hole-by-hole matchplay method because its so dependent on where the better or lesser holes happen to lie in the routing.  For example the 1st and 2nd holes at Cypress Point or Pebble are nothing to write home about sure...but if you tried to compare CPC 12 to Pebble 12, its not even a comparison in the same galaxy.  However I do think perhaps ranking all 18 holes from best to worst and then do the comparison, would be more interesting.

I like what you've suggested here thou.  To rank each hole from 0-10, add them all up and divide by 18 for a final average score.  On paper, it would at least be more objective than trying to assign a final number after a 4 hour round in touchy/feely/irrational fashion.

And starting with TR is either a stroke of genius...or madness... as its hand's down the most polarizing course we discuss on GCA year in and out.

[Tom_Doak]

I like what you've suggested here thou.  To rank each hole from 0-10, add them all up and divide by 18 for a final average score.

I actually used to do that, when I was nineteen or twenty years old, and just seeing many of the great courses for the first time.  And I am a big fan of the idea that the most important quality of a golf course is the quality of the 18 individual holes.


However, rating 18 things instead of one thing is still a subjective exercise.  The multiplication of numbers makes the process seem less subjective, but it's arguably more subjective, because when you like a course you just give the "6" holes a "7", and now that course is ten points higher than the other one, instead of just one point higher!


Also, the more I did this, the more I realized that some of the things I liked about golf courses were not factored in:


a)  The flow of the round
b)  The variety of the holes


And if you start adding in points totals for those outlying factors, too, it will start to overwhelm you.

[Mark_Fine]

Tom,
Amen!  Wow agree 

[Brett Meyer]

I like what you've suggested here thou.  To rank each hole from 0-10, add them all up and divide by 18 for a final average score.  On paper, it would at least be more objective than trying to assign a final number after a 4 hour round in touchy/feely/irrational fashion.

Kalen,

This isn't what I was suggesting! I went hole-by-hole in a previous post giving scores to a few individual holes because someone else did it. I just did that to point out which holes I didn't like and (briefly) why.

You could rate each hole 0-10 and average them and that's a bit like what I said in my first post about just doing a simple goodness-minus-badness. Even there though, I wasn't just thinking about individual holes for goodness-minus-badness, but also about the broader factors that Tom mentioned in his most recent post.

The big thing I wanted to get at was this idea of what, for rating purposes, to make of a course that has several egregious problems but also so much greatness. So this is the case when you start to have 3 or 4 0s or other really low scores. I think that it's reasonable to argue that after several egregious mistakes, what you've done right can't save you. Red flag. You're off the top 100 list (or demoted from a 7 to a 6; whatever type of ranking interests you) or at least shouldered with a serious burden of doubt relative to other contenders. My first inclination when I played Tobacco Road was to do that. But it's hard to get over how good so much of it is.

[Mark_Fine]

Brett,
Wouldn't you agree that if someone knowledge like you is giving holes 0s when others who are also knowledgable are no where close to giving those holes those low scores, it just shows how subjective rating a golf course can be.  You think you are right and so do the others. 


What I do know is that few if any architects want to start a course with all their best holes.  Of course they don't want any bad holes but most great courses don't have too many anyway.  Even a course with say five holes that are all a 10 would be a downer if they all were the first five - 10, 10, 10, 10, 10 and then it went to 9s and 8s and finished with two 7s.  A well orchestrated routing and layout, however, makes all the difference and a course like this overall might even end up a 9 or 10 overall


By the way, even the wrong hole that is a 10 might not be considered a 10 or at least not as well respected if it is in the wrong spot.  Take the 16th at Cypress Point.  How great would that hole be if it were #1.  Same with #17 at TPC Sawgrass,...  You get my point. 

[Kalen Braley]

Tom,

I certainly understand your point in that a level of subjectivity will always exist in any course rating system.  However, I do think some methods are better than others.

For example while some may prefer Golf Digest because it tries to use measurable categories, others may (and do) criticize it exactly for that, for trying to apply quantitative measures to a subjective thing like a golf course. By default I tend to align with the former, but also understand why the later is important to.  And just because some may not like the categories GD uses, doesn't mean it should be tossed out, but perhaps just tweaked.  (The methodology can be solid, even if the categories are not).

Coming back to TR, it seems that those who don't prefer it, will cite a few holes as justification for thinking such, just like many others can justify dropping big dollars on The Old Course at Half Moon Bay and will endure 3.5 hours of mind-numbing golf to reach the spectacular ending.

I guess I would just hope people try to evaluate things in the aggregate instead of using a few negatives or positives to form a strong opinion in either direction.

P.S.  To clarify I'm not attacking the your Scale, overall I like it because it seems to try to assign a relative rating, not an absolute one.

[Sean_A]

Clearly I've struck a nerve here, which is great. Thanks everyone for your input!

But I (George Carlin voice) have a few problems with some things that people are saying or at least suggesting.

Mark and Tom, I'm not sure where this idea is coming from that the criticisms that I'm raising have anything to do with anyone's game. My criticisms of 17 were about a lack of editing and I argued to A.G. that all of the things that he mentions as virtues about that hole would be retained if the green were just the right ~1/3. I would make a similar criticism of the 15th.

Perhaps the raters are low handicap scolds, but I don't know why that would make them more likely to call out the over-the-top features of TR than a course like Pinehurst no.2, which I think is much harder for low handicappers. Actually, another one of my issues with TR is that it's relatively much harder for high handicappers than low handicappers. If you can put your shots within 20 yards of where you're aiming, it isn't hard at all. I play probably half of my rounds with guys who struggle to break 100 and they had a horrible time with it (personal experience and stories).

But that's not what motivated the main points in the thread. My issue with TR is that I think that there are several bad holes and I think this because there's just too much going on on these holes. And from a ratings perspective (the point of the thread), I'm not sure what to make of this. It's not at all a problem with the wildness per se; I love the 11th hole. But many holes could be edited down to one wild idea rather than 4 or 5. And I hold it against the course that it doesn't do this.

If you want to read more about what I think about Tobacco Road generally, I've written about it in great detail on my website.



Sean, I think that we agree that wide and shallow greens are overused at TR. My issue with 6 is that the shallow part on the right side extends too far out. Most can't reliably hit that right part of the green because it's probably 35 ft. deep. But if the pin is all the way on the right, to play safe, you have to aim 80 ft. left of the hole. That's a bit silly for a hole that's 120 yards. My suggestion here would be to eliminate the right 1/3 of the green. You'd still have a shallow area at the right side, but you could play safe 30 ft. away from it to the left rather than 80 ft.

You make an interesting point about mundane land and the number of holes. I've never played Cullen, but I'd agree that I'd rather see 14 pretty good holes than 9 pretty good ones and 9 mediocre ones because you had to have some holes run over both good and mundane land. Still, that's a harder issue for me than TR, where this kind of trade-off isn't even necessary. Just some editing.

I don't understand why it's silly to aim 80 feet away from a hole if one wants to play very safe. Short 3s really should be precise and a bit of choice when precision is involved is a welcome concept. The problem isn't the 6th per se, it's the total of all the somewhat similar greens. For instance, I dislike 17 because of this and the silly routing issue. I understand when the course was built this snag couldn't be helped. But I would have thought a concerted effort was made to acquire the land between 12 & 13 to eliminate a two bad walks by creating a new short hole. I understand there is some value in retaining the original Strantz routing, but it's more valuable to make a course which flows better.

Ciao

[Brett Meyer]

Brett,
Wouldn't you agree that if someone knowledge like you is giving holes 0s when others who are also knowledgable are no where close to giving those holes those low scores, it just shows how subjective rating a golf course can be.  You think you are right and so do the others. 

Absolutely. I believe that rating golf courses is ultimately subjective as criticism for many things is generally. But--and this is something that I strongly believe--just because something is subjective doesn't mean that we should throw our hands up and agree to disagree. I don't believe that there's a right answer, but here and in most contexts, I'd almost always believe that there's a better one.

I might argue that the 17th hole at TR is a 0 and then I give and underlying principle (less-is-more) that motivates that assessment. You might agree with the principle and some of the other issues that I mentioned about the hole, yet still think it's a pretty good hole because the scope of it is so original, each of the shots to the 4 or 5 greens is so good, whatever. I have no problem with that and you might even convince me at some point to agree with you. I think that this is why a lot of people are strong TR defenders. It is so original. A lot of this stuff you can't see anywhere else. Succinctness be damned; a lot of the best works of writing have problems with that too.

But I care about it and I think that others do too. Anthony and Ward voiced their support for the idea. So then we have an argument about how to do a trade-off between verbosity and originality and the critical process keeps moving forward.

[Tom_Doak]

Tom,

I certainly understand your point in that a level of subjectivity will always exist in any course rating system.  However, I do think some methods are better than others.

For example while some may prefer Golf Digest because it tries to use measurable categories, others may (and do) criticize it exactly for that, for trying to apply quantitative measures to a subjective thing like a golf course. By default I tend to align with the former, but also understand why the later is important to.  And just because some may not like the categories GD uses, doesn't mean it should be tossed out, but perhaps just tweaked.  (The methodology can be solid, even if the categories are not).

Coming back to TR, it seems that those who don't prefer it, will cite a few holes as justification for thinking such, just like many others can justify dropping big dollars on The Old Course at Half Moon Bay and will endure 3.5 hours of mind-numbing golf to reach the spectacular ending.

I guess I would just hope people try to evaluate things in the aggregate instead of using a few negatives or positives to form a strong opinion in either direction.

P.S.  To clarify I'm not attacking the your Scale, overall I like it because it seems to try to assign a relative rating, not an absolute one.

Kalen:


When you go back to basics, there are two ways of doing this:


1.  You can try to define the ideal course -- a definition many will not agree with -- and then rate all courses according to that definition.  That's the GOLF DIGEST method.  They have re-written the definitions of some of the categories over the years, but they still have trouble getting panelists to use their definitions.


2.  You can try to compare courses against each other and rank them based on preference.  That's the GOLF Magazine method.  This takes into account that everyone's preferences are different, instead of trying to force them to think like you want them to.  Then your only problem is trying to get everybody to agree what's a 6 or an 8, so that the people who have never seen Cypress Point or Royal County Down won't give 10's to what a more traveled golfer would give a 7 or 8.*


I think Brett is in the first camp, and just wanting to write a new definition for us.  But I honestly can't tell which camp you're in.




*One reason Pebble Beach is overrated is that if you've never traveled to the UK and can't get onto the top private courses, it's probably the best course you will ever be allowed to play.]

[Brett Meyer]

When you go back to basics, there are two ways of doing this:


1.  You can try to define the ideal course -- a definition many will not agree with -- and then rate all courses according to that definition.  That's the GOLF DIGEST method.  They have re-written the definitions of some of the categories over the years, but they still have trouble getting panelists to use their definitions.


2.  You can try to compare courses against each other and rank them based on preference.  That's the GOLF Magazine method.  This takes into account that everyone's preferences are different, instead of trying to force them to think like you want them to.  Then your only problem is trying to get everybody to agree what's a 6 or an 8, so that the people who have never seen Cypress Point or Royal County Down won't give 10's to what a more traveled golfer would give a 7 or 8.*


I think Brett is in the first camp, and just wanting to write a new definition for us. 

Tom,

This isn't what I'm doing. I'm just interested in discussing different ways of making a trade-off between strength and weakness, saying that I think TR is an extreme in having a lot of both, and trying to get people's thoughts on how they make these trade-offs. I have my own views and I've stated them, but I don't think that anything I've said amounts to "wanting to write a new definition for us."

Whether you're trying to develop objective criteria for others to use or trying to develop your own preferences, I think that it's important to think about what to make of how to compare something with significant weakness/greatness against something that's just very solid. You might overlook the weaknesses if a course passes some threshold of greatness/uniqueness. I suspect that that's what a lot of people are doing with TR. Or you could go the other way and say that once you fall below some threshold of negatives, you get the burden of the doubt with respect to a consistently good course. I'm more toward this camp and so are a few others. I just wanted to have a discussion about how to do this, and I think that it's been fairly successful.

I certainly wouldn't impose one way or another of making these trade-offs on anyone as part of some set of 'objective' criteria that they must use. For what it's worth, I'm definitely in your camp (2). I don't think that you can make a set of objective criteria. Even if you could, people would apply it so differently that I'm not sure what the point would be.

If I were the editor of whatever ranking system, I'd write up a piece giving a list of suggestions of what to consider and why. But I wouldn't require anyone to demonstrate that they're following it. I would however want reviewers who, regardless of what they think, could justify their preferences in a few thousand words. So I'd want people with experience who can forcefully argue for their positions. Which is what I suspect you have with Golf Magazine now.

[Kalen Braley]

Tom,

I certainly understand your point in that a level of subjectivity will always exist in any course rating system.  However, I do think some methods are better than others.

For example while some may prefer Golf Digest because it tries to use measurable categories, others may (and do) criticize it exactly for that, for trying to apply quantitative measures to a subjective thing like a golf course. By default I tend to align with the former, but also understand why the later is important to.  And just because some may not like the categories GD uses, doesn't mean it should be tossed out, but perhaps just tweaked.  (The methodology can be solid, even if the categories are not).

Coming back to TR, it seems that those who don't prefer it, will cite a few holes as justification for thinking such, just like many others can justify dropping big dollars on The Old Course at Half Moon Bay and will endure 3.5 hours of mind-numbing golf to reach the spectacular ending.

I guess I would just hope people try to evaluate things in the aggregate instead of using a few negatives or positives to form a strong opinion in either direction.

P.S.  To clarify I'm not attacking the your Scale, overall I like it because it seems to try to assign a relative rating, not an absolute one.

Kalen:

When you go back to basics, there are two ways of doing this:

1.  You can try to define the ideal course -- a definition many will not agree with -- and then rate all courses according to that definition.  That's the GOLF DIGEST method.  They have re-written the definitions of some of the categories over the years, but they still have trouble getting panelists to use their definitions.

2.  You can try to compare courses against each other and rank them based on preference.  That's the GOLF Magazine method.  This takes into account that everyone's preferences are different, instead of trying to force them to think like you want them to.  Then your only problem is trying to get everybody to agree what's a 6 or an 8, so that the people who have never seen Cypress Point or Royal County Down won't give 10's to what a more traveled golfer would give a 7 or 8.*

I think Brett is in the first camp, and just wanting to write a new definition for us.  But I honestly can't tell which camp you're in.

Tom,

I'm glad you picked up on that, because I'm not so sure either,

My instincts/comfort zone are to go with the first method, because that's how I've always made sense out of things, in doing  the quantitative analysis in comprehensive manner by including all the criteria/inputs and attempting to come up with some type of numbered list to determine rankings.

However, I've also been around this site long enough, and seen enough viewpoints, (in addition to being dragged around my fair share of art museums with my wife), to understand that doing the above for art or in this case a golf course, it mostly an exercise in futility, because it is in fact so damn subjective.

So this is where I see value in the 2nd option, but then I also must acknowledge its vagueness and lack of detail and the entire thing becomes a recursive function back to #1.