"The Architecture Should Accommodate That Shot"

[Tom_Doak]

Peter:

I will take a shot at answering that myself.

Absolutely, there is a "range of recoverability" around the greens at Ballyneal.  As I told one of our interns when we went out there last month, one of the things I learned from my time in Scotland is that every contour has a good side and a bad side ... the same contour that makes a little chip shot impossible from one side serves as a backstop from the other side, if you'd just had the sense to get on the other side.  Ballyneal is full of those shots.  There are some places where even the world's best can't get within ten feet of the hole, but only because they put themselves in the dead wrong place, relative to the hole location.

Now, if you hit just a fair tee shot on a hole, it will usually make the next shot more difficult because if you're 180 yards away instead of 125, it's much harder to put your ball in the right quadrant of the green area ... the contours of the ground short of the ideal location will tend to steer balls unpredictably away from the prime spot. 

Indeed, the prime spot to aim at on the green may change if you're further away, because it is unrealistic to get at a certain spot on the green with a long iron or fairway wood approach ... but there are still different places you CAN aim for, and there is one of them that's going to be better than the rest.

John's initial example is a tougher one than most, because that hole is a par five and even if Mr. Mayhugh had hit a better drive, he would still have been playing it as a three-shot hole.  But by hitting a poor drive, he would rob himself of the option to try to get his second shot up close to the foot of the green where he could run his third up to the hole -- not an option that many golfers take, but some do.  And if he was choosing to lay up to give himself a full wedge, his drive would have made it harder to get around the bunkers in the corner and to play to a relatively flat stance for his third ... indeed, because of the poor drive he wouldn't be able to see the landing area for his second shot clearly to pick out a flat area at which to aim.

[RJ_Daley]

In my mind, some of that explanation from TD is why I like the design style of firm and short cut surrounds of some considerable width. 

I guess some folks think that desiring width and short turf in the surrounds is a crutch.  But, I see it as moving the game in a variety of directions and situations for those of us that can't just hit the ball in a small circle target of green.  The fine player may still have that skill despite the conditions of short turf firm surrounds.  But, I think it balances out in that the fine and accurate player may still overcook an approach going for a small target and get diverted and roll to a hollow or other interesting recovery spot in the surrounds, whereas a less accurate player may get that undesirable roll to someplace in the surrounds, but also gets a slight help with using the surrounds properly or fortuitously now and then.  So in a way, I think it balances out matches where the great player still has an advantage, yet the less skilled can compete with luck and sometimes the lucky or useful bounces and bounds from the surrounds.

Wild Horse has that in spades, and Bally has that better than SHGC, IMHO.

[Jed Peters]

This is one of the main things that very good players seem to dislike about my courses.  They seem to like "relentless" courses (to borrow a word from another thread) where the 10-handicap can't compete with them ... with at least a couple of back tees that the 10-handicap can't play from unless he hits his best drive of the day.  They seem to want birdies to result only from big drives.

Agreed. Most of the competitive players don't appreciate the "sporty" nature that you tend to integrate into your drives.

This was the commentary I put forth many times when speaking about Pac Dunes.

[Peter Pallotta]

Tom - thanks, I really appreciate that. (You too RJ.)

The first thought that came to my mind was the "whole-hole" concept, i.e. not designing piece-meal and via constructs like the tee shot, the approach shot, the recovery shot etc, but taking the whole hole as one piece, and designing so that any one piece blends in/fits in with every other.

The second thought -- though your post wasn't about this -- was, "well, if whole-hole, then also whole-course design", i.e., again, not designing the golf course around constructs like one signature hole or a few great holes or even 18 great holes (the so-called "ideal" course), but having every hole blend/fit with every other.

In my opinion, one of the worst things to happen to golf course design was the focus on (and disparaging of) the "breather hole", whatever that means. The idea that there is an "ideal" course out there, and worse that this "ideal" means 18 "great holes" has created more waste and artificiality and "noise" than any other. It's also fundamentally unnatural -- the pace and flow and reality of life/nature/golf courses is a mix of qualities -- and if we're lucky, those qualities are in "balance".

Peter

[Tom_Doak]

Peter:

This topic of "breather holes" has come up several times of late.  I think it deserves its own thread, although it's too late for me to start it tonight.  I will have somewhat different things to say about it than you think -- the result of working not in a vacuum but on real pieces of ground.

[mike_beene]

Sclaff. I believe John Jacobs uses the term in "Practical Golf". That's good enough for me.

[Garland Bayley]

Sclaff. I believe John Jacobs uses the term in "Practical Golf". That's good enough for me.

My dictionary says it is an old Scottish golfing term. John Jacobs would be a "Johnny come lately" to the term.

Great post JK.

[Jay Flemma]

Only a matter of time before Bob Huntley chimes in with his beloved "foozle".  I still don't know what a foozle is.

"Foozle" was the term Bernard Darwin invented / appropriated to describe the abject mishits of rank amateurs.  He used the term throughout his classic, "Golf Courses of the British Isles" as he took the reader around the great courses of the early 20th Century. 

Nice McB!  Well done pulling that one from the history books.  Hey!  Brother William!  I nominate McBride to be the new head librarian   Or at least assistant librarian...

[RJ_Daley]

I think put McB in charge of the travel books and mag sections! 

[Scott Coan]

The wide variety of common mishits should be considered from each tee for each level of player, and reasonable, varied and interesting penalties should be established for those misses.  The architecture should accommodate those shots.

This is a really interesting comment and I wonder if it should only apply to miss hits.

Case in point is very long par 4 uphill dogleg right.  The inside corner of the dogleg sits in a depression that is not in view from the teebox.  The first-time player sees what they think is the inside corner and they take a very aggressive line going just left of the corner with everything they have.  They have hit what they think is the perfect drive, cutting off just as much of the dogleg as is possible.

To their consternation, this perceived inside corner of the dogleg is just that, PERCEIVED.  Once they come up over a rise they see that the corner actually pinches in quite a bit more to the left than they can see from the tee and this corner is completely TOAST.  It is at the bottom of a finger canyon with knee to waist high grass.  Any drive taking on this corner hits the sideslope and bounces straight into the haggis.  It is so dead that you don’t even bother looking for your ball.

The real bummer is that you think you have hit a perfect drive!  No provisional has been hit as everybody in the group thinks the shot is fine.

Should the architecture accommodate this shot?

[Tom_Doak]

Scott:

To me that's a bad hole.  If the hollow was grassed and your aggressiveness gave you a blind second shot out of the fairway, it would be a great hole ... but to sucker someone into losing their ball is awful.

[Sean_A]

Scott:

To me that's a bad hole.  If the hollow was grassed and your aggressiveness gave you a blind second shot out of the fairway, it would be a great hole ... but to sucker someone into losing their ball is awful.

Couldn't the same thing be said for any blind hole which turns at the landing zone leaving long balls lost or has lost ball rough either side of a too narrow fairway?  I really irks me when this sort of stuff happens.  If a shot is gonna be blind the archie should bend over backwards to give the player every opportunity to at the very least find the ball.

Ciao

[John Mayhugh]

John's initial example is a tougher one than most, because that hole is a par five and even if Mr. Mayhugh had hit a better drive, he would still have been playing it as a three-shot hole.  But by hitting a poor drive, he would rob himself of the option to try to get his second shot up close to the foot of the green where he could run his third up to the hole -- not an option that many golfers take, but some do.  And if he was choosing to lay up to give himself a full wedge, his drive would have made it harder to get around the bunkers in the corner and to play to a relatively flat stance for his third ... indeed, because of the poor drive he wouldn't be able to see the landing area for his second shot clearly to pick out a flat area at which to aim.

This is exactly what I found.  While the architecture accommodated my poor tee shot, at least one (possibly more) high quality shot still was required to secure a chance at par.  I really like this approach.  It's possible to recover and stay in the hole, but you have to really play well to avoid losing shots.  Lost shots are more fun than lost balls.

[John Sheehan]

The wide variety of common mishits should be considered from each tee for each level of player, and reasonable, varied and interesting penalties should be established for those misses.  The architecture should accommodate those shots.

Once they come up over a rise they see that the corner actually pinches in quite a bit more to the left than they can see from the tee and this corner is completely TOAST.  It is at the bottom of a finger canyon with knee to waist high grass.  Any drive taking on this corner hits the sideslope and bounces straight into the haggis.  It is so dead that you don’t even bother looking for your ball.

The real bummer is that you think you have hit a perfect drive!  No provisional has been hit as everybody in the group thinks the shot is fine.

Should the architecture accommodate this shot?

Scott,
What exactly do you mean by "accommodate" in this instance? 

This just sounds like either a very bad design, or a maintenance issue - hard to tell from you description of "waist high grass." 

Would maintaining this section differently alter you opinion of this hole?  Would it change the player's ability to recover?

From your description, the hole contains either a true blind tee shot, or if not, then what amounts to a deceptive view.  In either case, it seems that the result of that shot is a lost ball. 

Short of eliminating the blind or deceptive nature of this hole, is there anything that could be done to "accommodate" the shot?

[John Kirk]

This is a really interesting comment and I wonder if it should only apply to miss hits.

Case in point is very long par 4 uphill dogleg right.  The inside corner of the dogleg sits in a depression that is not in view from the tee box.  The first-time player sees what they think is the inside corner and they take a very aggressive line going just left of the corner with everything they have.  They have hit what they think is the perfect drive, cutting off just as much of the dogleg as is possible.

To their consternation, this perceived inside corner of the dogleg is just that, PERCEIVED.  Once they come up over a rise they see that the corner actually pinches in quite a bit more to the left than they can see from the tee and this corner is completely TOAST.  It is at the bottom of a finger canyon with knee to waist high grass.  Any drive taking on this corner hits the sideslope and bounces straight into the haggis.  It is so dead that you don’t even bother looking for your ball.

The real bummer is that you think you have hit a perfect drive!  No provisional has been hit as everybody in the group thinks the shot is fine.

Should the architecture accommodate this shot?

Wouldn't that piss you off to no end?  To challenge the inside of the dogleg, execute the shot properly, only to find your ball at the bottom of the canyon?  For that reason alone, the result is BS, even if it your first time around a course.

The architecture should accommodate that shot, and it didn't.  Shit, it should embrace it.

I've noticed when playing a Doak course, a Coore/Crenshaw course, or the few great Golden Age courses I've played, that the driving options off the tee are decipherable, if one analyzes his/her options.  Although visual deception may be used, it's a good assumption that a properly executed shot on the chosen line will yield a desired result.  The best result may not always occur with the most aggressive shot, but a desired result should occur.  A mishit on an aggressive line should result in some level of trouble.

Without naming the course, I remember playing a Golf Digest top 50 course a couple years back from the proper (second) set of tees.  We came upon a short par 4, a sharp dogleg left.  A bunker guarded the left corner, and since the hole was short and I wasn't hitting the ball great, I decided to hit an easy driver down the middle.  I pushed it slightly, and it went 25 yards through the fairway.  I spent the rest of the day wondering why the architect would build it that way.  I think I could have carried the corner with a 5-wood.

I would generalize by saying both Doak and Coore/Crenshaw courses are perceived by some of the golfing public as "tricked up", because the greens complexes tend to be more severe than other architects.  To me, their courses are logical from tee to green without exception.

[Bill_McBride]

I think put McB in charge of the travel books and mag sections! 

Accepted, depending of course on the offered compensation.

That's what I figured, fuggedaboutit.