“Angles Don’t Matter”

[Ally Mcintosh]

There really is a lot of defensiveness on this thread when the only message is pretty straightforward:


- Good course management says completely forget what the best angle in to the green is. Play the tee-shot that is most likely to keep you out of trouble but ideally on the fairway.


That is a true statement. Even in firm and fast situations, I am just trying to hit the fairway (anywhere on the fairway) with my tee shot. It is - of course - the argument for 70 yard wide fairways. That approach to design gives slightly more room for angles in to the green mattering. But it can come at the expense of an element of challenge in your tee shot.


The above - really very simple premise - does not mean that architects stop using angles because they can get in to everyone’s head (even if they shouldn’t) and they add to the game, even if only aesthetically.


It also has nothing to do with designing “diagonals” (which can be mistaken for angles) which are more about choice of distance vs risk.

[Niall C]

- Good course management says completely forget what the best angle in to the green is. Play the tee-shot that is most likely to keep you out of trouble but ideally on the fairway.

Ally


I'm not sure I totally agree with that. If staying out of trouble and playing percentages is good course management then perhaps playing away from every best position if it comes with a risk might in some circumstances hold true, but only depending on what you are looking to achieve eg. a decent score over 18 holes or winning the hole in matchplay. It also assumes that having decided to play safe that the player can still hit a shot that stays out of trouble. All your doing is increasing the margin for error rather than eliminating it. It also assumes that the players ability to rectify the error eg. getting up and down out of the bunker, is less than say the players ability to capitalise on a more aggressive approach. I'm sure there are other caveats that could be added undermining the basic contention.


Niall 

[Erik J. Barzeski]

"The angles discussion has always been about scoring."  In your mind... Seems a bit arrogant on your part.

No. Nearly 100% of the time, when the phrase "angles don't matter" has been uttered, debated, etc. it's been about scoring. It's been about how it affects the shot, and the likelihood of hitting it close, or hitting a "good" shot. It's BS to pretend that it hasn't been, and posts like yours there come off as a way to salvage some sort of "see, I was right, they do matter, because I'm going to change the context and pretend it was about this other thing the whole time." For example…

This site is about golf course architecture and angles DO MATTER in golf course design.

Angles in this conversation haven't been about the esthetics. They've not been about draining water properly and efficiently. They've not been about how it makes you feel. If you want to talk about design, or drainage, or how this slope blends into that slope… find a different word. The "angles" conversation has been about scoring for a decade plus. Pretend otherwise if you want, but that's all it'll be: pretend.

- Good course management says completely forget what the best angle in to the green is. Play the tee-shot that is most likely to keep you out of trouble but ideally on the fairway.

Yes.

That is a true statement. Even in firm and fast situations, I am just trying to hit the fairway (anywhere on the fairway) with my tee shot. It is - of course - the argument for 70 yard wide fairways. That approach to design gives slightly more room for angles in to the green mattering. But it can come at the expense of an element of challenge in your tee shot.

One of the reasons why angles don't matter to scoring is that the angles are often so small. On even a 40-yard wide fairway, a shot played from 5 yards from the left edge and a shot played from 5 yards from the right edge from 160 yards are coming in from angles that are  less than two minutes on a clock. When you overlay the shot pattern over the endpoint… it becomes apparent that even a shot that would appear to skirt a bunker or whatnot from the one side and needing to cover it from the other isn't quite that way - both are either going to end up in it almost as often or both are going to fly it and it doesn't matter much for that reason.

The above - really very simple premise - does not mean that architects stop using angles because they can get in to everyone’s head (even if they shouldn’t) and they add to the game, even if only aesthetically.

https://x.com/iacas/status/1851954214836007254

Those slides are from the "summary" section, but I went into the bullet points in more depth in the presentation itself

Ball is rolling covers the first three:

• Lower ball speed (and again, 10-handicap 50-year-olds often don't meet this threshold at all, and less so with clubs that help players get the ball airborne than 30+ years ago)
• Firm conditions
• Recovery shots
• Greenside shots

"Other" is partly the catch-all other type of stuff Craig wants to pretend the conversation has been about with the artistry of the architect to slope this shape to mirror the background mountain or whatever. It's in there because, every so often, someone tries to pull a Craig and ignore the reality of what this topic has meant for the last ten years.


"Other" also covers the rare exceptions like the 12th at ANGC (a pretty small target) where the literal angle of the green favors lefties over righties - pulls go longer, pushes go shorter. Most architects seem to think that you can get away with one of these types of designs that punish a player for simply which side of the ball they play from in a round, but more than once in a round of 18 holes might start to get you into trouble.

It also assumes that having decided to play safe that the player can still hit a shot that stays out of trouble.

No, it doesn't. Maximizing your chances of shooting a good score does not guarantee a good score. How the heck have you been reading and participating in this conversation for ten years to say something as off as that?

All you're doing is increasing the margin for error rather than eliminating it.

No shit.

I'm sure there are other caveats that could be added undermining the basic contention.

Nothing you just said "undermines the basic contention." At all.

[Niall C]

Erik


I was communicating with a fellow adult. I think I'll wait for their response and carry on the conversation with them.


Niall

[Erik J. Barzeski]

I was communicating with a fellow adult. I think I'll wait for their response and carry on the conversation with them.

Typical reply: a non-response to the actual topic with a personal attack/comment thrown in for good measure while also pretending you're the "mature" one. Super obvious; so tired.

[Niall C]

Oh for sure, it was a non response to you, at least in terms of the points I was making to Ally. Ally and I agree on a lot of things but not everything. We can and do however have reasoned and respectful discussions and that was what I was endeavouring to do in responding to his post. Your "no shit" and "what the heck....." post doesn't really come into that category.


Niall

[Mark_Fine]

Angles matter the most on best most thought provoking golf holes.  This is not rocket science.  For example, I would wager with Any pro that they can’t get the ball up and down on #10 at Rivieria if I am allowed to choose the angle of their approach shot 

[Michael Felton]

- Good course management says completely forget what the best angle in to the green is. Play the tee-shot that is most likely to keep you out of trouble but ideally on the fairway.

Ally


I'm not sure I totally agree with that. If staying out of trouble and playing percentages is good course management then perhaps playing away from every best position if it comes with a risk might in some circumstances hold true, but only depending on what you are looking to achieve eg. a decent score over 18 holes or winning the hole in matchplay. It also assumes that having decided to play safe that the player can still hit a shot that stays out of trouble. All your doing is increasing the margin for error rather than eliminating it. It also assumes that the players ability to rectify the error eg. getting up and down out of the bunker, is less than say the players ability to capitalise on a more aggressive approach. I'm sure there are other caveats that could be added undermining the basic contention.


Niall

Hi Niall,


I think it's safe to say that optimizing strategy does not eliminate the possibility of putting the ball into trouble. As it happens, there are a certain number of penalty strokes/awful spots you'll wind up in if you play optimally. Heck I watched one of the players in the US Open at Shinnecock hit one onto Southampton GC from the 12th tee. If you never hit it in the water/OB, then you're very likely being too conservative. Basically you don't want to aim too far away from the trouble. Take 18 at Sawgrass again - you could aim it 20 yards into the rough on the right. You'll virtually never hit it in the water if you do that, but you'll also play 80+% of your second shots from the rough and it will be very hard to make many pars and you'll make a ton of bogeys and probably a few doubles. Better to aim it right quarter or even right edge of the fairway, so maybe 3-5% of the time you wind up in the water (talking PGA Tour level players), but you'll have 50-60% of your shots from the fairway and 35-45% from the rough.


The way the strategy works is you have a certain number of shots that you would expect to complete the hole in from every position on the course. From 200 in the fairway, for a PGA Tour player, that's I think about 3.15 strokes. The rough I think is about a 0.25 add, so 3.4 strokes from 200 in the rough. Then there's sand and recovery areas (think in the trees). Then you map out where your shot pattern will put you for every possible target. Add up all the likelihood of where you'll end up with the strokes to hole out and then minimize it. Obviously no one is doing that for every shot, so what Erik's book and Scott Fawcett's DECADE are doing is coming up with a model for how to figure out something close to optimal on the fly. The fun part is that what feels instinctively like the right thing to do is frequently not optimal, so there is a certain amount of fighting what you "want" to do with what you "should" do. Getting past that is a skill and the ability to do that is likely going to be impacted by how much left-brained you are vs right-brained.


For an example of how hard it can be to figure that out - especially for a higher handicapper, take the 5th hole at Pebble Beach. Par three with water right. There is a bunker short and a bunker long left. The water is obviously not a good spot to hit it, but if you're a 15 handicap, then your shot pattern is pretty large. If you aim at a target such that your shot pattern does not include the water at all, then you're starting to bring the rough behind the bunker on the left into play. That is a really hard shot off a downslope towards the water, and a fairly hefty number of your second shots are going to wind up in the water. Better to go in there with your first shot than your second, so ideally you'll be including some penalty area bound shots in your set of outcomes from your tee shot.

[Connor Dougherty]

I'm late to the party here, so forgive me if these points have been made.


While Lou/Scott and others have championed that "angles don't matter," they are frequently fond of the same courses we are, although there are some exceptions (i.e. Fawcett's disdain for the 2nd at Talking Stick).


I tend to agree with Erik that when it comes to scoring, angles usually don't matter enough to pursue them. It's hard to argue with statistics at the end of the day, and the wealth of data thanks to Arccos makes it harder and harder to argue. Dodo Molinari was recently on the Fried Egg pod and mentioned that TOC may be the only place angles matter and that Augusta was one of his favorite courses.


But angles do two things: create variety in a golf course you may play many times and create shots which are advantageous for some golfers and not others.


A great example of this is the way the 3rd and 9th greens at Pasatiempo are oriented to benefit left handed and right handed golfers respectively based on dispersion patterns.


So while we may argue semantics over whether to play for them or not, there isn't much question as to the fact that angles should still be an integral element of any design, and that with that context, they absolutely matter.


It's not as much about throwing out what we have learned from over a century of golf course architecture discussion as it is adapting that information to modern data and accounting for changes within the game.


FWIW, learning more about analytics has unquestionably made me a better golfer and adjusted the way I play, but only affected the way I look at design in the sense of looking at how we create desired outcomes (I.e. if we are trying to create a "safe play," we have a better understanding of what it takes to accomplish that)


It has also emphasized how critical the design of greens are to creating a "good" and "bad" side to miss on. Part of why so many of the analytics guys love Augusta.

[Michael Felton]

Good points Connor - I do ponder from time to time what actually makes a golf course good or bad. I know there are lots of things you could talk about like challenge or variety or quirk or things like that. I also know it when I see it, but I struggle to actually put into words what makes a specific golf course great and another not great. I suspect that is what really differentiates someone like me who enjoys golf architecture, but would struggle to put a remotely decent golf course together (as witnessed by my couple of forays into the armchair architect challenges we've had on here on occasion) vs someone like Tom D or the other architects on here who probably could put words to why one golf course is better than another. I also think it is fun to try and think of what you could do to make someone using DECADE struggle.


Separately, I know that we talk about chasing angles and what not - I think it's really tough to come up with a situation where it would make sense to chase an angle on a tee shot that isn't either somewhat contrived (split fairway for example) or just easy either way (like a 90 yard wide fairway where you could actually aim for one side or the other). As Erik says, angles matter when the ball is rolling. The one time that the ball is rolling way more than any other is on or around the green. If you're 200 yards out and have a green with a tier in it - for sake of argument let's say the left side is higher than the right side. Flag is on the right side, but fairly close to the tier. If you hit it on the top tier, you either have to hole your putt down the hill or hole a 25-30 footer coming back to get out of it with a par. That's a situation where it would make a lot of sense to aim in such a way as to minimize the chances of putting it on top. I think you could describe that as chasing an angle.

[Craig Sweet]

I typically hit a draw with my mid and long irons. I try and hit my drive where my second shot draw will produce the best result.

[Jeff_Brauer]

"I also think it is fun to try and think of what you could do to make someone using DECADE struggle."

Nice point. I think this is where this or a new thread should go, since so many younger low handicap players are using it.  We've beat the horse on whether angles matter.  If not, or even if so, what else matters to these players?

[Charlie Goerges]

"I also think it is fun to try and think of what you could do to make someone using DECADE struggle."

Nice point. I think this is where this or a new thread should go, since so many younger low handicap players are using it.  We've beat the horse on whether angles matter.  If not, or even if so, what else matters to these players?

That's a great idea Jeff, Maybe you should start the new thread? I'd love to read the comments on that.

[Mark Pearce]

- Good course management says completely forget what the best angle in to the green is. Play the tee-shot that is most likely to keep you out of trouble but ideally on the fairway.

It strikes me that this statement is confirmation that angles do matter.  There is a best angle into the green.  So angles matter, just (very) rarely so much as to alter the correct strategy off the tee (which is (nearly) always to play away from trouble rather than improve the resulting angle into the green.

[Michael Felton]

- Good course management says completely forget what the best angle in to the green is. Play the tee-shot that is most likely to keep you out of trouble but ideally on the fairway.

It strikes me that this statement is confirmation that angles do matter.  There is a best angle into the green.  So angles matter, just (very) rarely so much as to alter the correct strategy off the tee (which is (nearly) always to play away from trouble rather than improve the resulting angle into the green.

Agreed. I think if you go back through the 18 pages, you'll find people saying angles matter (sometimes), just not enough to chase them (most of the time).

[Steve Lang]

   WELL I WISH I HADN'T BUT I SPENT 3 SITTINGS TO GET THRU THE LAST 18 PAGES... yes angles can matter, conditionally and of course with exceptions, sundry caveats, and not usually in the modern pursuit of scoring.  Reminded of TE Paul's "big tent" theory covering all things golf.


Personally I'll play angles more often than not, when I can see or imagine them, simply to keep the old aiming and distance controls tuned up.  I was taught to pick a target, select a stick, and try to hit the ball there.  Fun when it happens, a continuing challenge when not and an amateur game in the end for me. 


Big data is cool but what's your null hypothesis?
     

[Erik J. Barzeski]

Angles matter the most on best most thought provoking golf holes.  This is not rocket science.  For example, I would wager with Any pro that they can’t get the ball up and down on #10 at Rivieria if I am allowed to choose the angle of their approach shot 

The ball is rolling on #10 there, and it's also a very narrow green effectively. I've asked for examples of holes where angles "matter" to even a 5 handicap, and people almost never come up with anything.

Angles, as Edoardo Molinari said, almost never matter (in the way that it's always been discussed). But what does he know, eh? What do I know? You're (general you) arguing anecdotes and stuff you've always believed against actual data, millions of golf shots, by handicappers of all levels.

I think it's safe to say that optimizing strategy does not eliminate the possibility of putting the ball into trouble. As it happens, there are a certain number of penalty strokes/awful spots you'll wind up in if you play optimally. Heck I watched one of the players in the US Open at Shinnecock hit one onto Southampton GC from the 12th tee. If you never hit it in the water/OB, then you're very likely being too conservative. Basically you don't want to aim too far away from the trouble. Take 18 at Sawgrass again - you could aim it 20 yards into the rough on the right. You'll virtually never hit it in the water if you do that, but you'll also play 80+% of your second shots from the rough and it will be very hard to make many pars and you'll make a ton of bogeys and probably a few doubles. Better to aim it right quarter or even right edge of the fairway, so maybe 3-5% of the time you wind up in the water (talking PGA Tour level players), but you'll have 50-60% of your shots from the fairway and 35-45% from the rough.

Yup.

While Lou/Scott and others have championed that "angles don't matter," they are frequently fond of the same courses we are, although there are some exceptions (i.e. Fawcett's disdain for the 2nd at Talking Stick).

There are exceptions, certainly. They're rare.

It's hard to argue with statistics at the end of the day, and the wealth of data thanks to Arccos makes it harder and harder to argue. Dodo Molinari was recently on the Fried Egg pod and mentioned that TOC may be the only place angles matter and that Augusta was one of his favorite courses.

Me linking to that podcast was what kicked off the renewal of this topic and discussion.

But angles do two things: create variety in a golf course you may play many times and create shots which are advantageous for some golfers and not others.

The 12th at Augusta was on my slide in my ASGCA presentation. Like the 10th at Riviera, it's more of an exception (and requires a pretty shallow green to do it).

I typically hit a draw with my mid and long irons. I try and hit my drive where my second shot draw will produce the best result.

Your aiming spot (for the ball's finishing position) isn't going to differ much than someone who hits a fade.

It strikes me that this statement is confirmation that angles do matter. There is a best angle into the green.

This fails in two ways:

a) Often the "better angle" produces the same scoring average as the "worse angle." Thus, the "better angle" is often not the "better angle" at all. It may be visually more appealing or something, but it's often not actually better.
b) You address it here:

… Rarely so much as to alter the correct strategy off the tee (which is (nearly) always to play away from trouble rather than improve the resulting angle into the green.

Yep.

For those who have read this far, I've got another good example of a rare time angles matter, and it's a combo of the things we've talked about before:



It's from the recent video from Andy with Tom about Sedge Valley. It combines width (the angle created here is about 40°, not only about 8° or 12° like we see from many approach shots from the edges of the fairways) and a shallow (from the right-side angle) green, which makes the Shot Zone overlap a lot of the bunkers).

Like the 12th at Augusta, which is also very shallow, it creates its "angles matter" by tilting in a direction that favors lefties: pulls go longer, pushes go shorter.

[Craig Sweet]

Last night I was reading some of Ran's old course reviews and every other word was either "angle", "best angle", "many options" "best angle of attack".....etc.


It reminded me that this is a site dedicated to Golf Course design....NOT scoring.


So sorry Erik, but you lose! 

[Erik J. Barzeski]

Last night I was reading some of Ran's old course reviews and every other word was either "angle", "best angle", "many options" "best angle of attack".....etc.

It reminded me that this is a site dedicated to Golf Course design....NOT scoring.

If you've never considered how GCA affects your ability to score, or influences your scoring, in fact if you've never kept score while playing golf and you only ever consider GCA because of how it looks, how visually appealing it is to you… then you might have a point.

I doubt that's the case. The design affects scoring. Yes, the beauty of the design is relevant (though not to this particular topic), but "risk" and "reward" and "attack" are all related to scoring.

[Rob Marshall]

Erik, in your example above to the right are you saying the scoring average from the good angle to the green is the same as the bad?