Fun but Challenging

[cary lichtenstein]

The "weak hole thread" led me to ask this question: How important is having fun or enjoying your round of golf? I would think that courses that are challenging yet allow you to shot a decent score are preferred over course that beat the player up.

[David Wuthrich]

I think that fun is important, but I also enjoy getting beat up every now and then on a well designed course.

[Ally Mcintosh]

I think that fun is important, but I also enjoy getting beat up every now and then on a well designed course.

The fun can sometimes be in taming a course that can beat you up if you take your eye off the ball. So I agree.


Fun and difficult do not have to be mutually exclusive.

[Lou_Duran]

I think that fun is important, but I also enjoy getting beat up every now and then on a well designed course.

The fun can sometimes be in taming a course that can beat you up if you take your eye off the ball. So I agree.


Fun and difficult do not have to be mutually exclusive.

Jeff Brauer designs large golf courses (economically) which tend to look more difficult that they actually play.  I nearly always have fun on his courses, and generally score well on them.

Jeff's former associate John Colligan has built a successful renovation and restoration practice (along with GCAer Trey Kemp) with the slogan "golf is meant to be enjoyed, not endured" as a cornerstone principle.  Brauer and Colligan design courses which challenge a variety of golfers without severely punishing bad shots.

I do think that there is a big difference between excellent club courses (CPC, Pasatiempo, Quaker Ridge) and top championship courses (Pebble Beach, Olympic Lake, Winged Foot- West).  Perhaps "fun" is not the best way to describe it, but for me, a 72 at Pebble Beach would be considerably more meaningful than the same score at CPC.

There probably is a distinction also between challenging courses and those which "beat the player up".  10+ years ago, I played Bethpage-Black and Winged Foot-West on back-to-back days.  I hit the ball decently both days, nearly broke 80 on the Black from the back tees; didn't break 90 on the West from the second set.  It just seemed that the West course smacked me down every time I made the slightest error while the Black allowed me to redeem myself to some extent.  I had "fun" on the Black and long to return; not so much for the West.

[John Kavanaugh]

I prefer courses where 80 is par for the scratch golfer for the same reasons many of you play hickories. You are eight bad shots ahead of the game before you ever tee off. Let's be honest, we lose most of our shots to par during the simplest of executions. The very same shots you face on an easy course. It's a scam...you can suck with permission. Paradise.

[Cal Seifert]

Fun is everything, it's why we play.  To some people fun is trying to reach the dogleg on #1 at Bethpage or any other course that is a brute and to others its playing a golden age ross course at 6200 yards.  Personally I'd take the latter.

[Ally Mcintosh]

Lou,


I also agree with you that there is a difference between challenging courses and ones that beat you up.


I'll even posit that the more challenging a course, the more "fair" it needs to be to allow it to remain the most fun.


Now that statement will probably get a few up in arms, erroneously of course.

[Peter Pallotta]

Ally - played a wonderful par 3 this summer: only 155 yards to a large green, but the green was tucked in between a large, high rock outcropping on the right side, and a sandy hazard sloping down to a wide river on the left -- making the target seem much smaller, and the shot much more difficult, than either 'actually' were. And yet, that's still a key part of the game, i.e. not only hitting a good shot but hitting it with (serious) trouble lurking all around.
So it was in its way a challenging golf hole. One of my playing partners hit it long, over the green; one hit it short; and one pulled it well left -- into the hazard. I, of course, hit the middle of the green and two-putted for my par.    That was fun.
Which is to say: there in microcosm is what for me characterizes a fun but challenging hole, i.e. the request/demand to hit a (good) golf shot of a kind that for most golfers is do-able/feasible; but with hazards that tend towards the severe, not so much to serve as a 'penalty' as to make the initial golf shot more thrilling, and thus more fun. 

[Ally Mcintosh]

Of course there is, Peter. Especially on holes that appear a lot harder than they are.


I'm really equating challenging to length in my statement above. Short courses can use a variety of methods to ensure they are challenging and as long as those methods keep the course playable, there will be fun, fair or not.


But there is a level past which unpredictability is no longer fun. The longer the course, the lower that level.


Repeat plays will determine whether unpredictability enhances the golf course or detracts from it. Most people never usually play a course enough to find out how that penny falls.

[Thomas Dai]

Challenge, where you have a chance, is acceptable. There is also however, what I shall term "over-challenge" - forced carries, lack of width, excess length, etc etc. This isn't acceptable....slow play, looking for balls, etc etc. All relative to the standard of player though.
As Lou's post above mentions - "Golf is meant to be enjoyed, not endured."
atb

[Ian Andrew]

Perseverance is an essential part of the game.
A good score is not enough to create pleasure for me.




Difficulty can be variable within a clever design.
Pinehurst #2 proves playability and difficulty are not defined by the same elements.
A low flight player or weaker player can enjoy the space and room.


An elite player must contend with the approach shots there.
The weakest player can play short and manage the hardest part of the course.

[Tom_Doak]

Pinehurst #2 proves playability and difficulty are not defined by the same elements.
A low flight player or weaker player can enjoy the space and room.


An elite player must contend with the approach shots there.
The weakest player can play short and manage the hardest part of the course.

Ballybunion is the same.  That's one of the things Tom Watson said about it after his first visit, that resonated with me when I first saw it.  You are generally not in too much trouble if you can hit the ball somewhere in front of the green with your approach.  You are in big trouble if you miss the green to the sides with your approach ... often to either side!  Like Pinehurst, the targets are narrow and the shaved banks exaggerate the difficulty of recovery shots.

[Ronald Montesano]

Assuming I make it to the RTJ Trail (concurrent thread) in March, I'm looking forward to playing the Ross Bridge course from 8K yards (http://www.rtjgolf.com/rossbridge/). I'm 5'9" and 52 years old, but that type of test doesn't come along every Dyngus Day. Will I enjoy it? Sure, but not because I'm fixated on numbers. I expect to shoot higher than my average, way higher. I will hit some great shots and laugh at some unfortunate ones.


I think about other sports, and how one three-point basket, or one TD pass, can erase a game's worth of failings. We don't have that luxury in golf. One eagle erases...very little. We need to be on point as much as wrestlers, boxers and MMA combatants.


Now, I aligh with those who prefer width, the ground game, and the challenge as magnified by well-placed bunkers, playable swales, and undulating greens. No one bleeds out (of golf balls) but you need game to score.

[Jack Carney]

To me scoring is a small component of fun. I might be disappointed by the way I played but still had fun. The first time I played Myopia is a great example, didn't break 80 but had just a great time seeing it for the first time. Went back; several times; and played much better - did I have more fun? Maybe but in a different way for sure. When I think back on the course I generally think about that first round for some reason not the better shots I hit on subsequent visits. I always want to play well on visits to great courses but i know I won't hit all the shots well. The good news is that the great ones have a bunch of fun shots to hit and I'll hit my share. Therefore, I really don't focus on the quality of my play but on the quality of the opportunities. Kinda funny - in thinking back over other classic greats that appears to be a theme with me. Therefore I guess fun to me is a bit different. I do love to hit the heroic shots, already mentioned, that great courses offer but have fun with the opportunity as well.


When I play my home course this is probably reversed as my focus is more on my play. Interesting to think about it.

[Lou_Duran]

Tom Paul often commented that "golf is a big world".  It is a testament to the pull and resiliency of the game that we can enjoy it in many ways despite coming at it from so many different perspectives and circumstances.

Me, I can enjoy club courses and those which provide a stern, fair test; old or modern; links and those on other types of soils and sites; by myself or in the company of others.  But no matter what, for me, completing a hole and putting something on the scorecard is an integral part.   I doubt that I am in the minority.

P.S.- I really miss Tom Paul

[Wade Whitehead]

I think the best golf courses reveal themselves over time.  The requires repeated plays, preferably in different conditions.

A first time guest of mine at Ballyhack once remarked (over lunch), "That's one hell of a hard golf course."  That evening, over dinner and after a second tour, he said, "That's one hell of a fun golf course."  Options that aren't immediately obvious become apparent, gradually, and the initial impression of difficulty weathers some as preferred lines, subtle bounces, and strategic options begin to appear.

In a way, the fun is disguised - or at least overshadowed - by the initial challenge.

This is true at other places too.  Pine Valley, Bandon Trails, and Tobacco Road all come to mind.

WW

[Thomas Dai]

One, if not the greatest, fun aspect in golf is the thrill of getting a hole-in-one. Achieving one is also a challenge. But it’s not a challenge if the par-3 in question is so long that you can’t reach the green! No chance, no challenge (no fun?).
So, should par-3’s in particular have a tee that’s waaaaaaaay forward?
Atb

[Peter Pallotta]

Lou touches on the relevant point.
There are many different ways to have fun playing golf, even for the "average golfer".
I think that's important to remember -- lest we end up with too fixed and prescribed a notion of what qualifies as top flight golf course architecture.
I mean, even in the areas of art, philosophy and theology, the experts now agree that the Dark Ages weren't nearly as dark as the Renaissance first made them out to be.