What shots should architecture penalize ?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Donald Ross appeared to create features/hazards specifically designed to penalize topped shots.

Do architects through their individual design styles penalize certain types of shots ?

Like Ross, should they ?

[Mike Benham]

I would opine that some architects do ... some of Nicklaus' early designs "favored" the fade shot which, one could assume, penalizes or does not give the advantage to a player who draws the ball.

However, your question asked about a topped shot which is obviously not the normal or intended shot by the golfer.  

I believe that architect should design holes that reward and penalize the golfer on a variety of shots, fades, draws, high approaches, low running shots, sand, rough, short holes, long holes, carrys over hazards ... if not, the course becomes one-dimensional ...

[ForkaB]

Pat

Bad shots, however defined.

Next question?

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Max Behr would have hated this thread!

[ForkaB]

Yes, Tommy.  It is too succinct.

[Joe Hancock]

Pat,

Great question. I don't know enough to put a certain shot penalized with any particular architect.....but it makes sense. Here's some other shots that could be designed for:

A precision shot, not quite pulled off

A shot not thought through thoroghly(wow, those words are too similar! Help me, Dan Kelly!)

A shot that will occur more than usual due to topography(landing area is sidehill, so approach becomes more predictable)

Joe

[A_Clay_Man]

Not really a shot, but since you mentioned Ross.

 How about distance miscalculations?

[Andy Hughes]

I've always felt that my opponents' miscues were not nearly punished enough, and my shots were treated overharshly. I believe architects should rectify that.

[BCrosby]

Rich -

As William of Ockham once said, "not all bad shots need be punished; not all good shots need be rewarded."

Or something like that.

Especially for weaker players, bad shots are their own worst punishment.  Design features that pile on additional punishments for these players should be used sparingly. That's why Ross used "topped shot" bunkers sparingly.

(I'm not sure, btw, that Ross meant them as such. We'll never know for sure, I guess. I have a pet theory that he often built them as a source for fill dirt and not as purpose built hazards for bad players.)

Pat -

Isn't your question an indirect way of asking whether you prefer penal or strategic holes/courses?

Bob

 

[RJ_Daley]

Big shots with Cohiba's stuck in their gob...

[cary lichtenstein]

Maybe the reply should be that all good shots should be rewarded, and the the worser the bad shots are, the tougher the recovery shots should be

[Mike Hendren]

"The spirit of golf is to dare a hazard, and by negotiating it reap a reward, while he who fears or declines the issue of the carry, has a longer or harder shot for his second, or his second and third on long holes; yet the player who avoids the unwise effort gains advantage over one who tries for more than in him lies, or who fails under the test." - George C. Thomas, Jr.

Interesting concept:  success vs. failure.

Mike

[TEPaul]

Regarding Ross's so-called "Topped Shot" bunkers (probably more accurately referred to as "Fore" bunkers), there probably is no accurate way of determining now what he meant to accomplish with them.

Some say Ross hated topped shots because they tended to run out on firm ground somewhere near a good drive. Some say he used them to create challenge and interest for the shorter and weaker player. Some say he may've even used them as a form of framing and some do say, as Bob Crosby mentioned, they may've been used for nearby fill (ie tees)! The truth is probably a bit of all of that.

Aronimink had some of them that've now been restored, and my course, Gulph Mills G.C., orginally had more of them than I've ever seen anywhere else--on up to 12-13 holes! Unfortunately in the 1940s Wayne Stiles recommended in a master plan that the club remove them all as they were unnecessarily penal to weaker players and they were an unnecessary maintenance and cost feature---and the club took his advice.

Gil Hanse, in the last two years, really wanted to restore them all but the club wouldn't go along with his recommendation.

Interestingly, at the time Stiles recommended their removal a local utility was being put through the course underground and that created a certain amount of fill. The club thought it was very clever to use that fill to cover over as many of those top shot bunkers as possible. Fortunately the club ran out of that fill from the underground utility project quite quickly so today many of those old top shot bunkers are still very visible on the ground (obviously they're grass minus the sand now).

The best of that type of thing though was the highly unique bunker Ross put into the base of the quarry on GMGC's very short little par 3 #4 hole. That was also removed on the advice of Stiles in the 1940s as something way too penal for weaker players.

That highly unusual bunker was something I don't think Gil Hanse had ever seen before and he was dying to restore it and was really disappointed when the club refused to go along with that too.

[Michael Dugger]

In keeping with the G.C. Thomas theme, I think the shot that should be punished the most is that shot which was a risk vs. reward gone bad.

We all the know the concept of risk vs. reward.

Say we tempt a player to make a big carry by incorporating a nasty cross hazard.  If the player bites enough of the hazard off they earn a shot at reaching the par five green in two.  

I think the player who fails in their "cutting the corner" endeavor should face the most difficult recovery.

Earn a lot, loose a lot.  I think that's the virtue to be had in gambling.  It's how it works in Vegas.  Bet a lot to win a lot.  Can't win a lot without betting a lot.  When betting a lot you run the risk of losing a lot.

   

[Michael Dugger]

Regarding Ross's so-called "Topped Shot" bunkers (probably more accurately referred to as "Fore" bunkers), there probably is no accurate way of determining now what he meant to accomplish with them.

Some say Ross hated topped shots because they tended to run out on firm ground somewhere near a good drive. Some say he used them to create challenge and interest for the shorter and weaker player. Some say he may've even used them as a form of framing and some do say, as Bob Crosby mentioned, they may've been used for nearby fill (ie tees)! The truth is probably a bit of all of that.

That's really good stuff to know.  I wouldn't be surprised if it was all true and speaks towards the evolution in golf course architecture.

One question.....regarding the topped shot travelling as far as a good drive.  WOUldn't it still be the case that these bunkers may be very viable options on courses that still play hard and fast?  

You mention that Stiles thought they punished the poor players.  Maybe when your ideal maintenance meld is slightly dewy, but if Gulph Mills was hard and fast wouldn't these bunkers be more virtuous based on their role in separating the wheat from the chaff then in their undue punishment of the lesser golfer??

 

[TEPaul]

My own answer to the shots that architecture should ideally penalize are those shots that are close to good or even close to perfect but are a slight overreach on the part of the player!

I think we could very easily find a number of quotations from the older architects that that was the ideal for the hazard feature in architecture--eg Macdonald, Flynn, Tillinghast, Crump, Behr etc, etc.

I very much like Behr's thought on the hazard feature in architecture (penalty) that it was not the business of the architect to make the player aware of when he'd hit a very poor shot---eg, penalizing him with such things as flanking bunkers ("Mrs Grundy bunkers"--Behr's expression to explain a form of architectural moralizing as to good and evil!). Behr said the person whose busines it was to inform the player of his poor shots was the golf professional---(not the architect)!

[ed_getka]

On a course with preferred angles of approach into holes, shots from the wrong side of the fairway should be penalized, or at least not able to get as close to the hole as the player taking the line of charm.
    Drives over 300 yards.

[TEPaul]

M;

Those old top shot bunkers were generally around 100 yards off the back tees. Of course in the early days many of Ross's courses only had one tee---Ron Prichard believes that on some of Ross's early courses everyone was meant to play from the same tee markers. It's sort of odd too but today far fewer golfers seem to top shots then they did in the old days. Even when I was young I remember lots of golfers---and of all levels topped shots---I just don't see that as much anymore.

Some restoration architects such as Gil Hanse really aren't all that concerned why those bunkers were originally there---what they care most about is that they were there originally and for that reason they want to put them back again!

I agree with that but at $4,000-$8,000 a bunker I guess I can see why some clubs don't want to restore them.

[A_Clay_Man]

Thank god your back!

How does a view, like Stiles', fit in to the BWT? Should the consideration for the weaker golfer be taken to the extent of butchering original work?

And it's not like newer or poor golfers weren't around when these course were conceived. The archie had to take them in to account. So I guess it becomes a question of how some third party gets enough chutzpah to alter someone elses art.

I can see where the BWT works, inter-course, but not intra.

[TEPaul]

"How does a view, like Stiles', fit in to the BWT? Should the consideration for the weaker golfer be taken to the extent of butchering original work?"

Adam:

I'm assuming by "BWT" you mean my "Big World Theory" of architecture. If so, this would be another opportunity to explain what I mean by that and what I definitely don't mean by it.

The "Big World Theory" of architecture fundamentally means to me that DIFFERENCE in golf architecture amongst the courses of the world is a healthy thing for the art and for golfers too.

I definitely DO NOT mean by this that every course in the world should ideally accomodate every level of golfer---far from that, in fact! Some do believe that but I don't at all.

There are some truly GREAT courses in the world that can and have managed to accomodate almost all levels of golfers in interesting ways. Some of those, in my mind, would include courses such as Pinehurst #2 or even Shinnecock. On the other hand, and at the other end of the spectrum there're others such as Pine Valley or maybe even Oakmont that was never meant to accomodate all levels of players. Pine Valley, definitely, was dedicatedly designed and built for only a higher level of golfer. Crump didn't want poor golfers playing the course and took a certain delight that it tortured them. He intended that to happen because basically he didn't want them playing the course and he (and certainly later those that ran the club) must have been very bemused that high handicappers for some reason seemed to enjoy shooting a million there!

The important point to note, though, about the "Big World" theory is that since DIFFERENCE in architecture is so important it's extremely important to keep the differences in these courses distinct from one another----and in my mind that definitely does NOT include ever redesigning them to accomodate everyone if that's not the way they were designed and if that's not what they were originally intended for.

Maintaining the distinctions and differences in golf architecture and their sometimes unique maintenance practices is what my idea of the "Big World" theory is all about. Letting golf architecture and even maintenance practices evolve into a sort of "one size fits all" mentality is the opposite of what I'm talking about. We've been through probably 50-70 years of this "one size fits all mentality" in golf architecture and maintenance practices in America and it's time to stop that in my book!

Architects like Wayne Stiles when he recommended to GMGC that all Ross's "Top Shot" bunkers be removed in the name of better accomodating weaker players is the opposite and antithesis of the "Big World" theory to me.

But the fact that practically no architect in the world before perhaps 15-20 years ago ever really respected original design intent is not lost on me either. This is a lesson we should all be learning these days after over 100 years of doing the opposite.

I also subscribe to Doak's theory that there really aren't as many courses out there that need to be preserved or purely restored as some seem to think because they may not have been very good courses in the first place. But for those truly good courses---they should've been left alone---that didn't happen--and so they should be put back the way they were originally intended to be---and after that's done their clubs should understand all that it takes to preserve their differences from other courses--and that sometimes includes some unique maintenance practices (any course's unique "Ideal Maintenance Meld").

[A_Clay_Man]

Yes Tom, BWT is exactly that.

Would it be accurate to conclude that all (or most) of the bunker covering, dumbing down of courses, that occurred post WWII, were basterdizations of the BWT?

Back to the fore bunkers, I don't know that I have ever seen one, in person. Were these randomly placed, or always off the tee shot, ala the orig. 16th at Garden City's?

 Wherever they were, I assume they were out of play for the accomplished golfer, which makes me think that (if they were all center-line) that they also served their purpose, by challenging the line charm for the newer golfer., ala Behr's thesis. Come to think of it,  taking away those center-line obstacles, could've contributed significantly to the lack of inspiration the newer era golfer seems to have evolved into, in many cases. (Similar to the stymie's removal)