Miss Nearly Pay Dearly

[Ryan Book]

A popular conversation point is maintaining playability alongside challenge for higher-caliber golfers. While getting irritated by the life vest of fringe around Sawgrass's island green and the protection it affords players who attack dangerous pins, I came up with a simple rule of thumb that the nearer you land when attacking a target, the more direly you should be punished. Although it fits somewhat with the idea of "risk and reward," my larger idea was that those who suck at golf (frequently myself) are least likely to save par (or bogey) so hazard placement should be graduated as to not put them on their back foot versus someone who narrowly missed the target.


Putting this idea to words, I found instances where weaker players are punished directly by flawed design (Rees Jones' bunkering at Cog Hill is featured) and other instances where weak players suffer for lack of maintenance (Triggs Memorial highlighted).


This idea seems common-sense enough but I haven't seen it explicitly stated elsewhere. The narrative often seems to be that by offering wide fairways etc. we are protecting poor golfers from misses, versus ensuring that misses do not destroy pace of play.


As usual, open to your ideas on golf course architecture...but not necessarily jazz music.


Miss Nearly, Pay Dearly: Measuring Hazards Proportionally to Capability

[zachary_car]

"I changed all this by so arranging the hazards as to open up an avenue of play for the weaker brothers by remodeling several of the greens one, excepting on the short holes I had my eye only on the good player, the good player who brought off what then were considered good shots....but not quite good enough" - W.J.T., "Twenty Years of Golf."


Unless I'm missing something, aren't you just restating what Travis, Low, et al. on the strategic-school side of the early 20th century debates already did?

[Ryan Book]

Out of context, this seems to be suggesting that Travis arranged the hazards so that weaker golfers could choose any avenue to avoid them entirely and therefore take a potentially painless route toward bogey, not because they have an appreciation for the strategy involved but that their survival instincts would direct them away from the hazard. My suggestion is that a mid to high handicapper who appreciates the strategic intent of a design will still attempt to use that strategy to achieve a lower score...and is of course more likely to miss badly while doing so.


Travis's method suggests "easy route" and "difficult route" depending on the player's capabilities. That's all well and good, assuming poor players and their tendency to miss end up in the "easy route" they aimed for.


A huge caveat to my post, of course, is that maybe high handicappers should take a hint and not play Cog Hill No. 4 to begin with. 

"I changed all this by so arranging the hazards as to open up an avenue of play for the weaker brothers by remodeling several of the greens one, excepting on the short holes I had my eye only on the good player, the good player who brought off what then were considered good shots....but not quite good enough" - W.J.T., "Twenty Years of Golf."


Unless I'm missing something, aren't you just restating what Travis, Low, et al. on the strategic-school side of the early 20th century debates already did?

[John Kirk]

Thanks for the good topic.  I don't think I agree with the premise.

In the example of greenside bunkering at Cog Hill, the B player has a more difficult recovery, and perhaps in this case the bunker shape and/or size might be adjusted.  However, the difficulty of the next shot over the bunker from thick rough in position B might be just as tough.

The real problem is the fronting left bunker and the immense size of the fronting right bunker.  There's way too much sand here.  In this example, the average bogey player is not given the option to play away from the trouble by aiming left, avoiding the bunkers and trying to get up and down from left of the green.

There are so many examples of championship courses like this where there's no option for the thoughtful but less talented player.

Aim over a bunker to challenge a pin tight against an edge of the green, but you miss your target and short-side yourself?  That's a desirable result.  I disagree that the penalty for a missed shot should become greater as one's miss becomes smaller.

[Ryan Book]

Your points about the Cog Hill green in question are valid in that perhaps I shouldn't have chosen such an intentionally penal course for discussing this topic because, as you noted, the basic tenets of playability have been thrown by the wayside.


For the record, however, I think the B player has the easier recovery in the image you describe but that depends on the relative definition of "recovery." Player A might be thinking par ("get near the flag") while player B (me) is more likely to be thinking "don't worry about the pin, just get on the green, dummy."

Thanks for the good topic.  I don't think I agree with the premise.

In the example of greenside bunkering at Cog Hill, the B player has a more difficult recovery, and perhaps in this case the bunker shape and/or size might be adjusted.  However, the difficulty of the next shot over the bunker from thick rough in position B might be just as tough.

The real problem is the fronting left bunker and the immense size of the fronting right bunker.  There's way too much sand here.  In this example, the average bogey player is not given the option to play away from the trouble by aiming left, avoiding the bunkers and trying to get up and down from left of the green.

There are so many examples of championship courses like this where there's no option for the thoughtful but less talented player.

Aim over a bunker to challenge a pin tight against an edge of the green, but you miss your target and short-side yourself?  That's a desirable result.  I disagree that the penalty for a missed shot should become greater as one's miss becomes smaller.

[Kyle Harris]

Putting a deep bunker next to the putting surface does little to challenge better players and just frustrates bad players.

Putting some steep real estate between the bunker and the putting surface makes better players look foolish. So make the near miss get shunted far away from the green and drawn into a bunker. That equilizes the miss from the bad player.

[Ryan Book]

Do you have an example of a hole in mind that does this well, which I might consider?

Putting a deep bunker next to the putting surface does little to challenge better players and just frustrates bad players.

Putting some steep real estate between the bunker and the putting surface makes better players look foolish. So make the near miss get shunted far away from the green and drawn into a bunker. That equilizes the miss from the bad player.

[Kyle Harris]

Do you have an example of a hole in mind that does this well, which I might consider?

Putting a deep bunker next to the putting surface does little to challenge better players and just frustrates bad players.

Putting some steep real estate between the bunker and the putting surface makes better players look foolish. So make the near miss get shunted far away from the green and drawn into a bunker. That equilizes the miss from the bad player.

Pick a Links.

Especially where the slopes around the green funnel the ball into a bunker that is separated by 5-10 yards from the green's edge.

[Kalen Braley]

I like where Kyle is headed with this.

It could also apply to undulating greens like #6 at ANGC.  When the pin is on that upper right shelf you see all kinds of near misses that are redirected 30-40 feet away down the slope where they now face a challenging two putt.

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