Long Drives - Is there no ARCHITECTURAL defense

[Mike_Cirba]

shivas/Tom Huckaby;

You're confusing a "once in a lifetime" opportunity for a shot at ego-gratifying glory on the 16th at CPC with what your head is telling you is the smart play in tough conditions if you played the hole on a regular basis.

For a moment, let's give you full membership to Cypress for the rest of your life.  Oh, now and again you'll venture and lower yourself to possibly play some of its neighbors, but for the most part, you find yourself several days a week standing on a first tee that requires you to drive over a hedgerow and it becomes a routine and regular part of your life.  Yes, I know it's not likely in this lifetime, but for discussions about architecture, it's important that one puts themselves into a mindset where they consider how the hole plays on a "regular" basis.

If, after 10 years of play, and hundreds of rounds later, you still attempt to hit that thimble of a target with driver or 3-wood into a direct or quartering wind every single time, then you are probably not the course managers that I know you both are.  

[TEPaul]

Shivas:

Golfers definitely look at holes and risk/reward differently. That hole, #16 CPC even in a friendly better ball match was the one that got me thinking about the purpose and point of "the honor" which led to about a six year proposal to the USGA and R&A. My partner and I were two down but we had the honor and it occured to me that I'd really like to have the option of making our opponents go first so we could have a clearer idea of what to do if they happened to go in the Pacific first, particularly since there was a scenario that the entire match could ride on that tee shot.

A lot of people supported my honor proposal, one being long hitting Jay Sigel who mentioned to me that the thought of having the option of making the opponent go first had also occured to him. When I asked him where and when that occured to him he said on the tee shot at CPC's #16 in a USGA competition!

[THuckaby2]

shivas/Tom Huckaby;

You're confusing a "once in a lifetime" opportunity for a shot at ego-gratifying glory on the 16th at CPC with what your head is telling you is the smart play in tough conditions if you played the hole on a regular basis.

For a moment, let's give you full membership to Cypress for the rest of your life.  Oh, now and again you'll venture and lower yourself to possibly play some of its neighbors, but for the most part, you find yourself several days a week standing on a first tee that requires you to drive over a hedgerow and it becomes a routine and regular part of your life.  Yes, I know it's not likely in this lifetime, but for discussions about architecture, it's important that one puts themselves into a mindset where they consider how the hole plays on a "regular" basis.

If, after 10 years of play, and hundreds of rounds later, you still attempt to hit that thimble of a target with driver or 3-wood into a direct or quartering wind every single time, then you are probably not the course managers that I know you both are.  

Mike, just to hopefully close the loop here, I also gave scenarios where I'd go left, and being a member and playing the hole many times would be one of them.  I made that quite clear. That's again not the case we're talking about here... The whole reason to go for it is BECAUSE ONE MUST, and one MUST because for 99.99% of us it is a "once in a lifetime" type shot.

TH