"No man can be a good architect unless he has..."

[Mark_F]

"... a most observant eye for the weaknesses of his brother golfers."

I read the above quote this morning and thought it tied in beautifully with a sentence I read recently from Tom Doak;

"The majority of the complaints I hear involve someone who thinks he has gotten an unfair bounce on his approach shot. Usually it’s the case that he got this bounce because he was on the wrong side of the fairway and attacking the pin from the wrong angle, and that bounce is something I put there deliberately to make it hard from that angle."

This is one of my favourite elements on a course, because I notice so many golfers aim straight at a pin no matter where they are on a fairway.

What are golfers' weaknesses architects have employed on some of your favourite holes?

Do you still succumb?

Are these the sort of features likely to cause wails of indignation amongst other golfers?

Do the wails diminish with time and further appreciation and/or explanation?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Mark,

Where did the first quote come from?  I actually suspect its not a call for features that punish the weaknesses of the average Joe/Josehpine, but a call to eliminate features that punish them, while not hurting the better player.  It would tie in to MacKenzie's quote about the average guy "piling up a huge score" with forced carries, penal bunkers, etc., when one well placed green side bunker could set up strategy for all players.

Not knowing the source, of course, I could be wrong, or even a TV horse! (See how many younger guys get that reference!)

[Mark Pearce]

Was it Max Behr?

[Mark_F]

Jeff,

I think it was a Darwin quote.

I never thought of it in the context you mentioned of not punishing weaker players.

I guess it could have a number of meanings.  At first glance I thought it was about ego, principally luring or attempting players into unwise actions, because so few of us can resist temptation, especially when it appears within easy reach.

[RJ_Daley]

Jeff goes to Dr. MacK and uses the quote and then talks about "features":

"piling up a huge score" with forced carries, penal bunkers, etc., when one well placed green side bunker could set up strategy for all players.

Doak's quote used by Mark speaks in terms of "bounce"

...and that bounce is something I put there deliberately to make it hard from that angle."

Then I consider Jeff's response about his particular disbelief of the extent that contours were considered by the ODGs on the brazenly provocative or amazingly uneducated thread.

I'm wondering if Jeff sees the course primarily more in terms of hazard creation, bunker and water placement features to force angles and strategy, and Doak and many of the ODGs see the ground, contours and greens surrounding contours primarily to achieve strategy.  Does one first see the ground and the potential path of the ball along it or related to it, and one see the flight of the ball, over things and avoiding things?

Are weaknesses to be observed in order to create strategy, those of imagination and ability to make shots after determining to approach byeth ground or byeth air and adjust the stroke, VS deft touch and ability to hit a shot aerially to a spot and stop or spin for position on the hole?

Is this a valid distinction between evaluating weaknesses of different golfers?  If so, does that define the range of architectural abilities?

[Tom_Doak]

I was going to answer this thread (not realizing that I had already been quoted) with one word ... "caddied".  But my meaning was basically the same as the earlier quote.  Caddying for a while will really acquaint you with how great a range of golfing talent there exists out there as a customer base for your golf courses.

When I played in the Dunhill Links tournament two years ago I said at dinner that the caddies we'd had at The Old Course and Kingsbarns would all be excellent designers, because they had way more imagination for using the slopes and backstops on those courses than their clients did.

[Bill_McBride]

I was going to answer this thread (not realizing that I had already been quoted) with one word ... "caddied".  But my meaning was basically the same as the earlier quote.  Caddying for a while will really acquaint you with how great a range of golfing talent there exists out there as a customer base for your golf courses.

When I played in the Dunhill Links tournament two years ago I said at dinner that the caddies we'd had at The Old Course and Kingsbarns would all be excellent designers, because they had way more imagination for using the slopes and backstops on those courses than their clients did.

When Bruce Sorley, a 30 year veteran of Old Course caddying, told me to drive 40 yards right of the center line on #12, that was a good example of imagination.  I thought he was aiming me at the Eden course!  But the angle from there was amazingly benign to a front right pin, and no bunkers in the way at all.

I still had a 3-putt bogey, but it wasn't Bruce's fault.