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John Nixon

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Accounting for shadows?
« on: November 12, 2009, 02:15:44 PM »
Not sure I've seen this addressed, or if it's even worth addressing. Do architects ever take shadows into account when designing a hole? I'm thinking in terms of using shadows (for specific times of day, of course) to add misdirection, depth perception miscues, etc to how a player perceives a hole. Or reads a green.

Randy Thompson

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Re: Accounting for shadows?
« Reply #1 on: November 12, 2009, 02:56:09 PM »
Von Hagge is the king of kings in that department, I think its valid if you have some natural features to work with but not creating artiifical featuires to make it work! About one, maybe two percent of golfers will actually catch what you are trying or were trying to do, not quiite sure if that is good or bad. Will be interesting to see what the rest of the site has to say...good topic!

Tom_Doak

  • Karma: +2/-1
Re: Accounting for shadows?
« Reply #2 on: November 12, 2009, 04:34:47 PM »
The most important aspect of shadows is keeping in mind how shadows in the winter months (when the sun is lower) will affect getting adequate sunlight to high-traffic turf areas (greens and tees).  Usually this is just a case of removing enough trees, but not always ... a steep slope such as a quarry wall on the east side of a property can have some important ramifications if greens are close to that edge.

As for utilizing shadows for visual drama, there was a lot of talk about that 20 years ago, when sharp-edged grass bunker faces were the style for many designers.  In some cases it was overkilled.  Now that bunkers have replaced shadows as the main wow factor, there is not so much emphasis.  Still, when you are out on a construction site every day, it would be crazy not to notice the patterns of light and shadow in the early hours and late in the day, and design around them to some degree.

Patrick_Mucci

Re: Accounting for shadows?
« Reply #3 on: November 12, 2009, 06:08:08 PM »
Von Hagge is the king of kings in that department, I think its valid if you have some natural features to work with but not creating artiifical featuires to make it work! About one, maybe two percent of golfers will actually catch what you are trying or were trying to do, not quiite sure if that is good or bad. Will be interesting to see what the rest of the site has to say...good topic!


Randy,

Agreed, Bob was/is very inclined to incorporate shadows in his designs.

The problem I see with shadows is maintaining the feature that's creating them.

Tom Doak, that's a good point.
In South Florida, the "healthy, growing" sun in the winter is from 7:00 am to about 2:00 pm.
And, if I recall correctly, Bob Von Hagge seemed to favor the afternoon shadows, which could be quite dramatic.

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