Golf isn't supposed to be Fun; it's Exhilirating!

[Peter Pallotta]

Or at least it ought to be, exhilarating that is.  And maybe it would be if folks stopped trying to make it so fun.

If I wanted have fun, i.e. if I wanted to eat and drink and listen to music and flirt and laugh and talk, I'd head out on a summer Saturday night to a bustling high-end jazz club in Manhattan for all the food and music and drinks and flirting and talk I could handle, and later that night we'd all take a cab to some 24 hour bowling alley in Queens and giggle as we drunkenly sent one ball after another into the gutter.

What I wouldn't do, if I wanted to have fun that is, was strap my golf clubs into the back of a cart and pile it high with stale sandwiches and crappy chocolate bars and then race around on 200 acres of grass-covered farmland, stopping just long enough to find and hit with pitiable inconsistency a small white ball using a ridiculously ill-suited metal implement over and over again, until I got the chance every half hour to annoy and harangue some poor young cart girl with my anachronistically charmless banter as my equally boorish friends and I ordered and downed one tasteless beer after another, all to the sounds of 80s rock blaring from a bass-heavy portable speaker.

That's not fun.  Interestingly, perhaps, that's not golf either. Golf is many things, but it isn't fun; it is by turns challenging and confounding and engrossing and perplexing and deeply satisfying, punctuated throughout by the highest of sporting highs and the lowest of lows: by close calls, by agonizing indecisions, by long stretches of foolish pride and frustrated ego, by the brave and confident shots and the timid and foolhardy ones, by brilliant 280 yard drives straight down the middle followed minutes later by a jerky timid stroke and a missed 12 inch putt -- and by moments of near out-of-body bliss, the rightness of it all. All of this is not a surface and skittish bit of fun or happiness; it is more a deep, enriching (and even sometimes quiet) kind of joy -- the joy, and the exhilaration,  that is the game of golf.   

Or at least, that's what golf ought to be, and what it can be on the game's most interesting and challenging and (sometimes subtly) complex fields of play -- be that an old English course like Kington or a modern American one like Kinglsey, both of which seem to speak not of sustained/consistent and even-tempered fun but instead of special moments of jolting exhilaration; and that quality exists there because of one thing, i.e. the architecture.

I've written before of my local course; I'm very fond of it, and grateful for it - the easy walk, the steady stream of decent and good golf holes with nary a single head-scratcher, the inexpensive golf it provides. Yes, it is fun, I guess I would say -- and that is both its strength and its main weakness. But there is another course, about 30 minutes further away, and more expensive, and a harder walk as it was built on a much more undulating/severe and windier site -- and it is definitely not fun, and it has several holes that are truly nothing more than connectors, and it even has a couple of poor golf holes, but it also has -- that is, it provides -- moments of genuine exhilaration: a 220 yard uphill Par 3 to a green that heaves and sways and drops off dramatically on three sides into chasms of near death experiences; a short extreme dogleg left Par 5 that practically screams birdie chance when you stand on the tee, but if you don't clear the trees on the left your are in them, probably forever, and on the right the fairway runs out quickly into high native grasses, and suddenly the (wide) fairway seems to narrow to a thin ribbon of fear right before your eyes; a skyline Par 3, the perched green seemingly ringed by deep bunkers and dropping away at the back, and, while you've never been back there, back there always seems scarier than the bunkers, and so you never take enough club.

Seeing photos of Kington reminded me of this other course, and of the exhilaration it provides. And late at night, as I type this, I realize I want more of that type of golf. Golf, I say again, is not supposed to be Fun; its fields of play should instead set something ablaze: sometimes heart, sometimes body, and sometimes soul! I get enough smart/thoughtful designs, as there are plenty of those kind of golf courses around -- courses with all the necessary and proper and expected angles and choices and features/hazards and proportions (even quirky proportions) clearly evident, and with enough width and sensible openings in the front of greens so that the course can be playable and enjoyable i.e. fun for all.  Maybe architects can start messing up a little again, you know: if you need to have a connector hole or two in order to later on freak me out with a complex and frustrating and challenging and potentially exhilarating golf hole, please don't be afraid to route those in, and not to have 18 postcards.  I don't need elevated tees, nor does anyone not in a cart full of stale sandwiches and beer and out looking for fun need a shot from that tee to a wide expanse of fairway that has everything but real teeth to it. 

At least, that's what is seems to me right now, at 1 am...

Peter

Edit: and it just occurred to me, like a revelation: maybe that's why, when I know I can play alone (and not bother anyone) and late in the season for sure, I play with a set of old persimmon woods and blades. Yes, I can hit some real squakers and scuttles off the tee, but oh, sometimes, sometimes: a solid strike, and that sound, and the golf ball rises and actually fades, it actually moves, just as I intended, off the fairway bunker on the left and back to the centre of the fairway, 230-240 yards of carry and then the roll; and I follow that -- oh, once a month maybe, once every few rounds -- with a 7 iron, a Hogan blade, that is struck just right and it too actually moves, but this time from right to left, and lands on the green 150 yards away and rolls up close. Fun? I guess -- but no: Exhilaration!   

Edit #2:  Oh, the Par 5 8th at Crystal Downs, the only Par 5 to this day that I've ever loved. The perfect, and perfectly exhilarating, golf hole.  I think, i.e. for my tastes, in my necessarily humble opinion, that several of the highly touted Par 4s there are "fun"...they are good, maybe even great, golf holes in their way. But the 8th -- it stands alone, right at the top; I find myself wishing that, for what will very likely have been my one and only time at Crystal Downs, I had brought my persimmons instead.   

Good night, and good luck

         

[Tim Leahy]

And, get off my lawn!

[Duncan Cheslett]

Golf can be "fun", but mostly it isn't. 


In the highly competitive environment of the average UK golf club, "fun" never really gets a look-in.  The game becomes an intense battle between the golfer and the course, and by extension his competitors. A really good shot is exhilarating beyond measure, a poor one pits you into despair. "Fun" it aint.


The most "fun" I have when playing golf is when the scorecard is forgotten, and i am exploring an unknown course with my wife or my brother, just enjoying the chat and the company interspersed with hitting balls. Much the same is found on GCA get-togethers, when the scoring is very much secondary to the appreciation of the course.


How I wish I could educate my golfing buddies at my club into the appreciation of the sheer "fun" of exploring and pitting one's wits against a course in good company, rather than the side-bets being the be-all and end-all.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Peter,

I agree...Golf should be fun, dammit!

So, forgetting our architectural bias for a moment, what makes it fun, or exhilarating?  I suspect its mostly good shots, with perhaps a few bad shots that get good results.

I have told the story before about playing golf with some fellow architects.  One of the architects managed to reach a par 5 green in two shots, and made birdie.  High fives all around, some whooping and hollering, and one happy camper.  In the 19th Hole, he revealed that when he got to the green, he was thrilled that the putt was reasonably flat, giving him a small chance for eagle, and a near certain birdie.
 
We all realized that if we saw that reachable par 5 hole as designers working with a greens committee, we would instinctively recommend something to “toughen it up” and “defend par.”   After a moment of silence, what occurred next could only be described as a “lightbulb moment“ - Why do architects focus on preventing birdies, when they are exactly what golfers want? 

Peter Lynch is well known as the wildly successful manager of the Fidelity Magellan Fund from 1977-1990.  He always said that good investments were usually found right in front of his own eyes, rather than in investment research, charts and formulas.  Specifically, found many great investments when he was out with his family or at the mall.  For instance, if his kids ate at a certain fast food place, or purchased clothes at a particular store, he bought that stock.

Years ago, as a landscape architecture graduate interviewing for my first job, I talked to the City of Chicago Parks District, who were hiring.  They required all first year park planners, specifically those designing children's areas, to just sit and watch kids at existing parks for almost the full first year.  At the time, LA's were into new fancy ideas, like wood structures, but the guy said if you really look, most kids like the old metal toys, the classics were still the best according to him. (Even if I sound like Melvyn Morrow a bit here!)

Now, I did watch my kids and grandkids play, and yes, swings, slides, etc. do remain their faves, but they will play on nearly anything, if its the only choice they have.  Now, in Texas, of course, those would be plastic so as not to burn toddlers hands all summer.  (Sorry Melvyn, but you can't stop progress) but my point remains.......

I suspect many of us architects would design completely differently if we spent most of our time playing with average foursomes, a la, real golf in America.  And that would probably be much shorter and simpler courses where the golfers find their own fun.

One such example, BTW is the 12 hole challenge course at Monarch Dunes in Nippono, CA.  All par 3 holes, one almost a par 4.  Regular and Big Cup.  My group was asked if we were drinking we were having so much fun, making so much noise at all the near miss birdies and makes in those big cups.  No, just enjoying some exhilarating golf!

[Tom_Doak]

I suspect many of us architects would design completely differently if we spent most of our time playing with average foursomes, a la, real golf in America.  And that would probably be much shorter and simpler courses where the golfers find their own fun.

So, what is stopping you, exactly?  Clients?  Your own stubbornness?


I think one element of it is peer pressure.  That's one of the reasons I never wanted to join the club.  Hearing speeches every year from Steve Smyers and Jack Nicklaus would never lead to building courses that are fun [or exhilirating] to play.


I have used "fun" in my marketing materials and in the way I talk about golf for 25+ years, but I agree with a lot of what Peter has written.  For most golfers, fun means having some birdie chances along the way; it doesn't mean a golf course that's a pushover.  Jeff proposes providing that with flat greens ... I prefer building a few short par-4's and short par-5's with greens that are not flat, so when you do make a birdie, it feels like you've accomplished something.  There is a fine line between designing for the market, and pandering to the golfer.


You rarely see easier golf courses chosen as great ones.  Maybe it would help if someone re-wrote the definition of what a great course is all about.  "Being able to host a Tour event and have scores around par," is not fun for anyone, even those Tour pros.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Tom,

Of course there is a balance between easy and pandering.  If you make it too easy, the thrill is gone.  That said, I think too many CCFD were designed way too hard.  I basically agree with your last sentence, and it basically agrees with my post.  I have long thought that the championship label was too pervasive, too much one size fits all.  Nothing wrong with great munis, executive courses, etc. each judged by how well it fits its target market, even if only marginally adaptable to the Tour.

Like you, I have probably never designed a project where the sentence "if the tour pros or college kids ever played here....."  and quite a few more where no one mentions the average player.

Nothing is really stopping me. I have been promoting the shorter courses for a decade, and design that way now.  You hint that "a few birdie chances" is okay for average golfers.  I disagree. Based on the reaction I get to the shorter courses, its more like "I had 13 chances to make birdie/par. Why didn't you shorten the other five?"   It's about having a chance at par, not always making it, so shorter courses that are nearly full featured (although recognizing how hard golf really is) is probably the way to go, a la the Challenge Course.  For no other reason than, while average golfers handicap isn't going down, the media blitz means their appreciation of the aesthetic is going up.

As to listening to Steve Smyers, I actually did get in a verbal tussle with him a few years ago on alternate golf.  His basic take, the traditional "Leave rules and structure of the game to the USGA."  But, that is not to say other discussions aren't had.  I think you would learn a lot from ASGCA meetings, as we all do, from listening to each other. You actually never know where a helpful idea or concept may come from.

Case in point, I was designing a Redanish type green on a reverse slope last night when Ron Forse put up a Facebook post with a sunken green on a reverse slope, which happened to fit my needs perfectly as inspiration.  So, you never stop learning, or at least put some new facts in your head to crowd out some old ones.

[Peter Pallotta]

It may be that I'm out of touch with what most people want and enjoy -- but golf really does seem to me a different game/sport than any other I've ever played.  It's not that I want a course to be too hard or too long; but I can't convince myself that someone of my skill level and temperament and lack of dedication to practicing should have 13 or 16 or 18 chances at making a birdie. If having all those chances is what average golfers consider "fun", then I am indeed out of touch.  But if I stopped using my head and words and just went with my feelings, I'd even more strongly *feel* that the 8th at Crystal Downs is the perfect golf hole. My feelings are that it says "golf" better and more clearly than any other hole I've played -- and it is not an easy/birdie-able hole. Strangely, it is not really a hard hole either; and yet, I don't remember ever feeling so proud of myself as a golfer as when I was standing there with a PW in my hand in the middle of the 8th fairway, preparing to hit my third shot; and I don't remember ever being as nervous/scared/excited over a PW as I was that day.  I remember it so well because I was so totally *engaged* in what I was doing; and it was the architecture that created/fostered that level of attention and engagement.  Rightly or wrongly, that is why I'm using the word "exhilarating"; "fun" is too pale a word (and experience) to describe it. 

Peter   

[Jeff_Brauer]

Peter,

Agreed its not easy for several hundred architects to find the exact sweet spot for 25 million US golfers, more worldwide.  Just what exactly is "too easy" and "too hard" (although the latter is probably easier to quantify.

And, I doubt anyone expects 18 par chances, unless of course, they happen to hit 18 good tee shots.  Can you think 1-3 middle shots between tee shot and approach shots are fun for anyone?  Inherently, they are not, IMHO, except on rare occasions.

Actually, one of the reasons I think I like hockey is the high number of shot attempts, any one of which can go in, and the 90+% save percentage of goalies.  Its not a goal that gets you to the edge of a seat, its the mere chance of it.  In basketball, where they make over 50% of their shots, its almost too easy to score, and only the last five minutes really matter.  In football, while there are game breaking plays, stats wise, they just don't make that many touchdowns, there are fewer real chances among plays to score.

If I read you right, we are close.  To me, its mostly about the chances to hit a fw, reach a green, or make a putt, i.e., shorter courses via multiple tees set for the real distances people play.  And within those 18 holes, there should be some harder and easier holes, but few or none aimed beyond the average players skill set.

We have to remember that for them, a "good shot" travels the direction intended, more or less, gets airborne and flies at least 2/3 as far as normal, and then if all that happens, miraculously holds the green (perhaps with some back to front slope help.)  After length, hazards in front of the green are the next consideration.  Whenever I play golf, I note that if the bunkers had just been moved out to the side a wee bit more, there would be one more golfer hitting the green than where I had placed them on about half the holes.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Or, lets put it this way, we have enough championship courses already.  We also seem to have a glut of courses struggling financially.

For most projects, we probably ought to look at the busiest courses in the local and price competitive segments, and see what seems to make them the most attractive to play.  For the destination resort, I could be dead wrong....they probably want to take their one chance to play the best (usually toughest) course there.  For everyday play, probably not.

It's like Tom hinted earlier.  Different courses for different horses (and different times for each horse.)  Maybe more market segmentation, etc.

[BCrosby]

... I don't remember ever feeling so proud of myself as a golfer as when I was standing there with a PW in my hand in the middle of the 8th fairway, preparing to hit my third shot; and I don't remember ever being as nervous/scared/excited over a PW as I was that day.  I remember it so well because I was so totally *engaged* in what I was doing; and it was the architecture that created/fostered that level of attention and engagement.  Rightly or wrongly, that is why I'm using the word "exhilarating"; "fun" is too pale a word (and experience) to describe it. 

Peter - "Engaged" is an excellent word. Good courses do engage the player. I have often felt a let down after a round on such courses. The degree to which "disengaging" (to stick with your term) after a round is deflating or depressing is for me a telltale of how good the course was.

Bob


 

[Charlie_Bell]

I don't know if it qualifies as exhilarating in your book, but watching my shot ride the reverse Redan slope at #7 at Sleepy Hollow -- from a generously elevated tee -- is as fun as it gets. And I've played it only once in my 62 years.

[Peter Pallotta]

Thanks, gents.

Jeff, Tom - I hope you both know that I'm very aware that talking about good gca and creating it are more than worlds apart;  the former is very easy indeed, the latter very difficult. And one of the reasons that creating it is so hard is that there are so many different types of golfers. Jeff's posts brought this to the fore: I do consider myself "an average golfer", but I suppose that mostly relates to/is defined by my average score. In terms of why I play - i.e. for the quiet and beauty of nature combined with the thrill of a properly struck 4 iron when trouble lurks all around -- I guess I'm not average at all....and nor is anyone else!

Bob - yes, thanks, as I typed it I did think it was the word I was looking for. Maybe it's all semantics, but whenever I am that engaged in the various things I enjoy, "fun" is not the word that describes my inner state. Even an wispy/ephemeral word like "present" captures that inner experience much better than "fun".

Peter   

[Steve Lang]

   Peter,

A favorite KT quote: "I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center."

That is what's fun in golf for me, yeh, I'm one of those 9 year old's... going on 65 now.  Never met a sucker pin I didn't like to try and figure out how to get at.  Perhaps you have to be more of a masochist to have more fun?

[Sean_A]

Pietro


I never thought of golf providing exhiliration rather than a steady dose of fun.  Perhaps that is the core of what I mean by distinctive holes or what I often refer to as All-England, All-Scotland etc holes.  Whatever the label for the emotion these holes elicit I want a few examples on every course I play and a feel a bit disappointed when they are not delivered.  These don't have to be obviously exciting to elicit exhiliration, but that seems to be the case most of the time...I think because the visual impact can add a great deal to the emotion because we immediately recognize something special then complete the experience with its playing.  Maybe this very reason is why subtle archtitecture is a difficult medium to in adding that wow factor and consequently why subtlety is undervalued. 


Ciao

[Jeff_Brauer]

Good points all.  The problem as an architect is we can't know when Peter will pull that perfect 4 iron out of the bag, with trouble all around.  We can't put trouble all around every hole just in case, because it would be too harsh for all the times (60% or more for average golfers) he doesn't.  We need to sort of generically design.

Length solves some problems, hopefully keeping reasonable clubs in hand.  As it happens, by at least USGA Slope stats and general experience, things start to go wrong more often above 5 iron club......so maybe there should only a be a few of those. 

In a way, TPC 17 is a perfect example of a hole that actually CAUSES the thrill, above and beyond the golfers feeling of satisfaction after any well struck shot.  Short enough to do it, all water, creates a sense of why couldn't I do that, but also thrill when you do, even if you think you should have any way.  They say golfers start thinking of that hole well before they get to it, its in their minds that much.

In general, I think the more bland you make the course as a concession to average play, the more you need at least a few examples of thrills.  Actually, I think it was Mac who wrote that a course doesn't need to be a succession of holes that throw you into hysteria (could be wrong on exact words, maybe TD would know off hand) and I agree.  It's possible that we have "evolved" enough mainly through TV, that we need a few more thrill holes than he thought, back before golf was competing with action movies, video games, etc.  Just a guess, and I still think you can easily over do it.

I think surveys show that the actual golf is not as high a factor in reasons to golf as comradery, being outdoors, gentle exercise, etc.  That is always a hard one for me to swallow as an architect, but should figure in their somehow.

[Peter Pallotta]

Jeff - I mentioned recently on another thread that in the last couple of years I have begun to much better understand/appreciate why good architects past and present have focused on the greens. While I suppose I enjoy 'the spectacular' as much as the next guy (well, maybe a little less) I don't really need it in order to get that feeling of exhilaration I'm talking about. It is amazing how, say, just a skyline green that appears to drop off at the back into an abyss, or a severely left-to-right canted green with a deep bunker on one side can not only have me thinking/trying to hit to a specific spot in the fairway but also have me thrilled that my 5 or 6 or even 7 iron has landed safely (or at least on the correct side). In another thread, I compliment Ian Andrew on a course he designed while with Doug Carrick -- it is a housing development course north of Toronto called Ballantrae, built on as non descript a site as you can imagine. (Ian informs me that the entire site had only 4 feet of elevation change, all going from one side down to the other.)  Long before I was posting here on gca.com, and with a group of golfers from about a 6 handicap to an 18 who were even less interested in architecture, my friends and I all thought very highly of the course -- its combination of playability and challenge. When I mentioned this to Ian, he said that he felt Ballantrae had the best set of greens he'd ever done. In short, green contours and surrounds can go a long way in keeping me engaged and exhilarated. (I remember how small and dangerous the 8th green at Crystal Downs looked, even with just a PW in my hand. I don't know if it is in fact either all that small or all that dangerous...but it sure seemed that way to me at the time!).   

Steve - thanks, that a terrific line. But who is KT? (I should know, shouldn't I?...) 

[Jeff_Brauer]

Peter,

Funny, but I was designing up a par 3 after my last post, and a random thought occurred while doing it -

What percentage of golfers think "inventing a shot" and then pulling it off is exhilarating? Thought occurred because this par 3 will call for it.  However, I think that percentage is small, while most prefer the "standard 7 iron" or whatever, opposite of what you say you always liked (and me, too)

I recall building a long par 3 and the construction foreman, a good golfer, kept recommending it shorten 7-10 yards.  After questioning, he said at that length, it was an "in between shot" but at 10 yards shorter, it was his "standard 3 Wood" (as if his exact distance would be the same for everyone, LOL)

So, while I love creative shots, and think short game recovery shots are fun for everyone, I can see why the number of holes with, to use your example, strong cross slopes, is pretty limited.  Its not always about even the average golfer being able to recognize and hit the right shot there.  Sometimes, even the good golfers (scorecard obsessed) don't like it, even if they can hit it.

Some would say you give up a great course for a functional one right off the bat, which is probably true, but on the other hand, its not unlike Broadway Plays where some critical success can be had for a play that bombs at the box office, while a glib, joke filled musical fills the place, but gets average reviews.  Or, if 90% of golfers miss the "greatness" of this or that, is it a successful design?  Or, do you give the customer what they want?  It is one of those paradoxes of golf course architecture......

[Sean_A]

Jeff


To me, this is when golfers are in the hands of archies.  If archies don't want to take risks, I don't really see much point in paying a lot of money for a design.  If we are looking for cookie cutter designs lets pay what it costs for a cookie cutter. There is plenty of space in the golf landscape for this sort of design, but imo it had better to be cheap to build and cheap to maintain. 


Ciao

[Jeff_Brauer]

Sean,

Well, I think that largely that is what happens.  And I agree, basically arguing that there is a diverse golf marketplace and we have largely tried to use one size fits all. Maybe time to split out the categories more clearly, rather than build all "Par 72, 7200 yard "championship courses."  That is what has happened for as long as I can remember. Muni's used to ask for easy courses, but even they have found building upscale pays better. Harder to recoup bond money with $20 greens fees over $40, but of course, there is nuance to "upscale" as well.

That said, and to bring it back to architecture, the sad part is, while clients pay for a signature design, do golfers truly play there because of supposed great design, or because of the label?  Golf club atlas participants are a real minority, 1200 of 24M golfers, or 0.005%.  You would need 200X of us to even get to 1%.

[BCrosby]

... If archies don't want to take risks, I don't really see much point in paying a lot of money for a design.  If we are looking for cookie cutter designs, lets pay what it costs for a cookie cutter. There is plenty of space in the golf landscape for this sort of design, but imo it had better to be cheap to build and cheap to maintain. 

Well said Sean. The price that "cookie cutter designs" pay will ultimately be a lack of interest in golfers returning to play them. A bad thing not just for the course, but for golf.

As a counter example, The Loop is anything but a cookie cutter design and an interesting architectural bet. As Peter might say, the course(s) is/are "engaging" in all sorts of ways. I think the appetite for it/them will grow, but it might take a bit of patience.


Bob

[Kalen Braley]

I think part of the disconnect we see is what the average joe hears and see on TV, vs how it relates to them when they are out playing.


When they hear the talking heads and pros say things like:
"The course was tough but fair"
"The course doesn't use gimmicks to protect par"
"The course was long enough so it wasn't a push over"
"The greens didn't have crazy undulations and you could make putts"
"The greens were running slow at 10 on the stimp"
"The course conditioning was less than perfect"


When you add up those kinds of things, you think of courses that are long and boring slogs with flat and fast greens.  And because this is what the average Joe and Committee member sees on TV, they think, "if this is what the pros want, this is what we should want."


So then the average 15 capper joe gets out on a similar course and they aren't having much fun and then they wonder why... which maybe they think it must be "me", instead of realizing they need a complete paradigm shift in what a course should be for the average player.

[BHoover]

I've found myself being less interested in the game this year. I'm not sure why, but I generally have less interest in playing than I have in a long time.

[Tim Martin]

I've found myself being less interested in the game this year. I'm not sure why, but I generally have less interest in playing than I have in a long time.

It's called the LOY Factor(Lack of Yogi's).

[BHoover]

I've found myself being less interested in the game this year. I'm not sure why, but I generally have less interest in playing than I have in a long time.

It's called the LOY Factor(Lack of Yogi's).

There's probably something to this.