Should You Always Be Able to Putt or Chip Dead to the Hole?

[Matt_Cohn]

This thread last year covered much of this topic; I questioned whether it feels okay to have a putt from the middle of the green that you can't stop next to the hole. I still have mixed feelings on that one.

[Rob Marshall]

This thread last year covered much of this topic; I questioned whether it feels okay to have a putt from the middle of the green that you can't stop next to the hole. I still have mixed feelings on that one.

I had a putt today pin high, from the middle of the green, 20ft. Best I could do was 6-7 feet. I didn’t have mixed feelings. If I was pin high 5 feet the result wouldn’t have been any better.

[Carl Johnson]

Go back to the early Opens of the 19th century.  How do you think the guys placing the holes then would have answered this question?  Gutty balls, green maintenance differences, different clubs.  is that even relevant today?

[Ken Moum]

Go back to the early Opens of the 19th century.  How do you think the guys placing the holes then would have answered this question?  Gutty balls, green maintenance differences, different clubs.  is that even relevant today?

Even now, the Scots I've played with and talked to in several trips don't seem think they're owed anything.


As I've said before it's as if they view golf as much a test of character as a test of skill.

[Colin Sheehan]

Hey Tom,
As someone who lobbed that Streamsong critique at you back in May during cans of Coors Lights in the lobby of a Hampton Inn, I had to laugh seeing that! I think my criticism of that green was all the balls finished in the same spot regardless of skill.


At the Old Course, those very diabolical contours become extremely helpful contours to another pin on another day in a different wind. Plus the course gives so many opportunities to attacking golfers, there needs to be unimpeachable firewalls when short-sided.


And I've been short-sided on putting greens before where there was no direct line to the cup...I wouldn't complain about that, it happens all the time. But I think at Streamsong it didn't feel like the golfer could/should have known that hitting an uphill shot onto THE GREEN of a special-occasion resort course would result in four golfers hitting putts that each finished in the same spot where the same coin could suffice as a ball marker for all four players. I definitely didn't see that happen in any of the pairings the past four days.

[cary lichtenstein]

I think when you are building courses for all levels of play, you have to be limited. For the better player, bring it on.

[Adrian_Stiff]

I've been watching The Open at St. Andrews all day and I've seen a ton of shots where it was pretty much impossible to get the ball close to the hole:  the second shot on 12 to that far left pin, anything from short of the 13th, anything from the right of the 15th, all the shots from short left at the 16th, Hovland's putt from in front of the 14th green just now, etc.  Yes, they were all downwind, but it's only a 10-15 mph wind, not a gale.


Of course, I'm fine with all of that, that's the main defense The Old Course has.





But how many times have I listened to criticism for presenting a shot which does the same thing?  At least as many as the examples I just cited.  "I hit it on the top tier on 17 at Streamsong and couldn't putt within six feet of the hole."


Would somebody put together a highlight reel of The Old Course today so I can just send it along to people who tell me my courses are unfair?


P.S.  I know that a lot of the players today would scream bloody murder about these hole locations if it were in any other setting.  That's why the title of this thread is in the form of a question?  Are they right, and they just make an exception for The Old Course?  Or is St. Andrews right and all the rules-makers wrong?

I have always thought that Hole 12 is a bit of a mess. Yeah I like because its TOC, but those bunkers are pretty crazy down the middle for starters. The green's shelf is just too small to be acceptable fairness for a golfer. I thought the same at The castle course that no golfer can be that accurate to get to some of those shelves and the CC seem to have used the 12th hole as a formula. No one lines change to TOC but a 5 metre extension of that same height would sort it. But.... if I had he say I would probably leave alone as its TOC and confine anything new to new tees.

[Eric_Terhorst]

"Always", of course not.  However isn't the consideration different for tournament or resort play vs. every-day play?  A golfer who sees a hole perched in a difficult-to-access spot at Streamsong in his first and only visit this year might find such a placement more amusing than the club player who sees it too often at, say, Ballyneal.  For club play, does an architect instruct the Superintendent--"I built a tough spot here on this long par 3, but don't put the pin in that spot too often"?  In my opinion, arduous hole placements can get tedious, not fun, if you see them over and over again in repeat plays.


For tournament play, especially at the Open and especially at St. Andrews, anything goes.

[Ronald Montesano]

Interesting thoughts sewn into this field. Hope that germination is bountiful and fruitful.

I'm not certain that one can generalize that high handicappers love or hate something, when one is a low-handicap golfer. They may love or hate being in St. Andrews, and they may love or hate being on the Old Course, but the actual experience of the apparent unfairness of links golf is hard to isolate.

This all boils down to Them vs. Other Them. One group recognizes that quirk and uncertainty and misfortune and hilarity and unpredictability are parts of nature and humanitykind is one element of nature. The other group bulldozes historic buildings, plows under as much turf as possible, flattens greens, eliminates tee shots over railroad sheds hotels, and waters down (pun intended) golf as much as possible.

Both Thems hold the others in utter disdain and contempt.

[Ed Brzezowski]

Seems Stonewall North has a few similar locations?  Learn where it to hit it to score well. You don't always deserve an easy shot.

[Mark_Fine]

Tom,
It may have already been mentioned but on Sunday, the best players in the world playing their best golf - only four managed to hit the 17th green in regulation.  I don’t believe there was a single ball short of the hole on the green on #1. I never use the word fair or unfair in golf but many do.  If every hole was like the two described it would be over the top.  It is all about balance and intent.  We have hole locations at Lehigh where they would only be used in a scramble format.  Everyone understands the intent and there is a balance so it doesn’t become goofy golf.  So  I would answer the question in this way - If there is no chance “from any position” to get the ball close to the hole, something is probably not right.  I still wouldn’t call it unfair - just silly or poor course set up.  I didn’t see any of that yesterday at the Open.  Even 17 was fine. It was just brutally hard. 

[Jeff_Brauer]

Mark,


Now there is a concept I never really thought about.....designing a green for a scramble pin.


I think the general trend away from unmakeable putts and some level, unmakeable chips came about because of the old player philosophy of fairness to them.  I have been asked if I could design a green that they can make putts and chips on, but which their opponents could not.  Eventually, cooler heads prevailed (over centuries) and golfers realized they want the course to treat them "right" then they have to accept that it will treat their opponents the same way.


The counter trend is natural, just like everything else.  After not seeing that kind of design in their lifetimes, a few hardy souls ask "Why not?"  And the real answer is in the middle, as a few greens might contain impossible putts in one pin location just for fun, but never should all greens reject all putts from any location, i.e., no problem with the so called scramble pin location.

[Kalen Braley]

Mark,

They do have a variation of the Scramble, that uses impossible pin locations, (usually played in fall when greens are running quick) and dubbed "The Monster Mash" or similar.

I've done two now and the basic gist was, they put pins on slopes where the ball wouldn't stop near the hole.  And if someone in the group got lucky and holed it out, then that was a bonus (To keep things moving along, max score per hole was bogey). 

The 'worst' or perhaps best location I saw, you couldn't get the ball to stop anywhere within 20 feet of the hole.   

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