Hole By Hole; A Flawed Analytic?

[Adam Clayman]

I've added the question mark so as to allow those who wish to defend the method an opportunity to do so.

I'm not sure who started doing it (Maybe Doak?) but it's been my suspicion for along time now that a hole by hole analysis of a golf course's design, thereby determining it's quality for comparative purposes, is flawed at it's core.
Afterall, if it was Doak, it was a long time ago when one could argue he was just getting started.

Golf, as Haultain eludes, is too complex to make conclusions using such a simple formula.
 
I'm basing this post on a conversation I had last night with someone who has never really delved much in architecture, yet assumed that if one designed 18 perfect holes, (and he defined perfect as what panelists look at as important ) that would yield the best course in the world. This persons assumption that all panelists look at, and, think about the same things, proves his novitiate status.

Thoughts? Examples? Experiences?

I'll share my experience when it first occurred to me. Jon Cummings and I were walking along  Jasper Park and he was telling me about his years of being a panelists. He wanted to impart some wisdom onto me to help me be a better rater. His suggestion was to write down on the scorecard some notation whether a hole was good bad or indifferent. It occurred to me at that moment that to do so, would diminish the impact and evaluation of the whole. Especially in retrospect. After my years of playing lots of golf courses, without an eye toward the architecture, I never had trouble remembering the great holes/features. Yet, on courses that didn't have an over abundance of great holes, I didn't have trouble remembering the whole. Conversely, there's much difficulty recalling ether individual holes, or the whole, on the more commercial or mundane designs. Isn't there?

[Jason Topp]

Hole by Hole is an imperfect analytic but is nonetheless very useful. 

Each hole is a part of a larger story and its fit may be more important than the quality of the hole itself.  For example - 8 and 9 on the Old Course are not particularly noteworthy holes in my opinion but they fit perfectly with the experience of 6 meat and potato outgoing holes, the 6 hole loop and then the (generally) more difficult 6 hole finish.

Even though it is imperfect, I think hole by hole analysis is valuable because it provides some benchmarks for comparison as opposed to a generalized discussion of the entire experience.   In addition, in nearly every instance a course that is superior to another course will come out ahead in the hole by hole analysis. (I cannot think of an exception).   

[Tom Huckaby]

Jason - depends on if you have to keep the hole by hole in order... or if all holes are weighted equally....

I fully believe many courses defeat Pebble Beach going hole by hole.  Many of these would also not defeat it based on the "whole."

If hole by hole must be used - and I agree it does have some value - then a 10 point must system (or something like that) is a better way to make the comparison.

Adam's thoughts do have great merit as well. Consideration of the "whole" is the best way to do all this...it's just very very difficult.

TH

[TEPaul]

Adam:

What are you talking about here? Is it trying to compare two golf courses hole by hole or simply analyzing a single golf course hole by hole?

[John Moore II]

Adam:

What are you talking about here? Is it trying to compare two golf courses hole by hole or simply analyzing a single golf course hole by hole?

I was thinking the same thing. I think looking at a course hole by hole is fine, though in some cases, one hole by itself might seem odd, but when see in the context of the 2 or 3 holes before or after, makes good sense and seems better. But to compare two courses to each other by seeing which first hole is better and so on is silly, and Tom H pointed that out.

[Mike Nuzzo]

It is a rare hole that can't be made decently.
I think the routing is more important to making an excellent course.
But 18 good holes sure does make a good course.

[Anthony Gray]

  Adam,

  Excellent insight. Again I totaly agree 100% with Tom H. Pebble beach is the one course that stands out here.

   Personaly I feel that the routing at PB is flawless. The early holes prepare you for the drama at the water. I have never seen these as week holes. I still do not see how 12 is so horrible. If given the oppertunity to play just one course the majority of golfers would pick PB. But in rankings PB comes up short because of "week holes". PB is a 10 in my book for overall quality.

   Anthony

[Jeff_Brauer]

It seems there are two types of gca critics - the free flow (left brained?) and the right brained, measure it somehow type.  For the free flowers, I doubt any sort of detailed explanation, system, etc. would seem acceptable, since they "know it when the see it."

Just like writing down any good thought about design that we generally follow - like bigger greens for longer shots - the minute it is written down, it becomes cast in stone and seems somehow less desireable.  I think the same sort of holds true for the hole by hole analysis - its done so often its easy to get tired of it, see its faults, etc.

However, as Mike N points out, people have probably been analyzing course design since the week the Old Course opened and any time you attempt it, you must organize your thoughts somehow.  Hole by hole is as logical a place to start as any, and there are flow charts, wind charts, shot sequence charts, green angle charts, fw width charts, green shape charts, uphill-downhill charts, etc. to finish the job if a simple hole by hole analysis doesn't seem enough.

I guess the question to Adam is, what system would you propose as an alternate?  Why would it be better?

[Peter Pallotta]

Adam - really good question. Been thinking about it, just in terms of the few courses I play and know well. Earlier today I was satisfied with Dave's good answer and turn of phrase, i.e. that it's an "under-inclusive method of analysis".  But now I'm not so sure.  We've used all the funny-words before, e.g. a golf course's "narrative" or an architect's "voice". I say funny words, but obviously I believe there's merit in that kind of analysis, or at least I know that it resonates with me.  And the others who have said you have to talk about a course in some way and that the hold by hole way is as good as any - I understand the point, and they may be right. But I think that maybe my problem with it is that there are serious 'down-sides' to a hole-by-hole analysis, e.g. I think it puts too much focus and emphasis on individual shot-tests; that it springs from some old notion of an 'ideal' course, which notion i think has, in the end, been bad for golf and golf course architecture; that it treats the so-caled breather holes not as individual notes of the melody or a part of a larger narrative process but instead as failures....
Anyway, I'm not sure....but you're right to be asking the question I think.  The method certainly seems at odds with the premium that we tend to place on routing around here (but that's probably another question)

Peter       

[Tom_Doak]

Adam:

I'm pretty sure I didn't invent the idea of judging golf courses as the sum of their holes.  Bob Crosby will be here shortly to tell you about Joshua Crane, who did it shot-by-shot.  But in truth, it was probably some professional 20-30 years before Crane.

Up until I was twenty, I used to just rate every hole on the course and then add up the scores.  After doing that for enough courses, I realized it didn't quite jibe with my overall feelings about their relative merits.  Some courses were more than the sum of their parts, and some less.

Years ago I made the mistake of telling Ran that some course (perhaps SFGC) "would defeat [another course] 5 & 4 in a match."  At the time it was only an expression, I hadn't actually compared them hole by hole, but he wanted to compare them, and over the next two years the web site wasted approximately 9 gigawatts of energy making such comparisons between pairs of courses.  I learned I had to watch what I said more carefully.

There is SOME merit in those types of comparisons.  Sometimes people will tell me that such and such is a great course, and I'll ask them which holes are so great, and they've got no answer; other times, they will knock a great course, and I'll point out several holes that are each worth the price of admission by themselves.

However, the general truth is that any system of ranking courses that is derived from the sum of multiple subjective ratings, only becomes more inaccurate the more steps are added.

[Adam Clayman]

Thanx for all the considered replies. I do see some merit in the process but with less credence on the result. As Tom Doak says the results don't always jibe with our feelings. This comparative thang is something I never encountered until finding this site. Tom Paul I did mean this only in comparing one course to another. Since the GW panel rates criteria but makes the overall rating for the course an indepedent value I likely have an inherent bias. I'm short on time now and will revisit when the fed stops redistributing my money.   

[cary lichtenstein]

I think it works as one of the tools in your tool box, but you have to add a subjective factor as a +/- to get your final result.