"Out of Character"

[David_Tepper]

Frequently one will read here or elsewhere that a given hole or feature on a golf course is "out of character" with the rest of the course. The vast majority of time, the inference is clearly that this is not a good or desireable thing.

Does anyone have any thoughts or comments on how we have arrived at this manner of thinking? Was there a point in time when the notion of having 18 holes similar in "character" became the ideal?

If the land form under a green site on a given course presents a GCA with a chance to design a green with contours and/or bunkering markedly different from the other greens on the course, should the GCA take advantage of what is there or should the green site be made to conform to the character of the course?  

[THuckaby2]

David:

GREAT question.  I too wonder why this is seen as a bad thing.  To me variety is what it's all about in this game - so if one hole is different from all the others, that to me only is bad if it is so wildly different as to be jarring to the senses.

Case in point our local fave Harding Park: the 18th was mentioned many times in descriptions as being out of character with the rest of the course, with the connotation being negative most definitely.  To me, heck they take 17 holes to get you to a forced carry over the lake that dominates one's thinking from the drive in... but at least they do get there.  And it is one hell of a fun tee shot.  It's the shot everyone looks forward to on the drive there, talks about on the drive home.  Out of character?  Yes, in that it's the only forced carry over water, but who cares?  The lake is never out of presence the entire round.

I think though that getting at the 2nd part of your post, if one green is wildly contoured, or has numerous deep bunkers, where the rest of the course has flat greens or no bunkers, well... that gets to the "jarring" feeling that makes this a negative.  I can't think of any examples.  I guess if some natural landform allowed for this, then it's better to take the land as it is instead of bulldozing it into conformity... But there can't be many landforms where one tiny part is so different than the rest... can there?

TH

[Sean_A]

David

This is bizarre that you bring this up.  In general I agree with you.  Out of character is usually viewed as bad.  However, this past weekend at The Dixie Cup, I thought #12 at The Road and #8 at Pine Needles were out of character.  

The 12th hole at The Road was OOC because there was a large opening to the green that was designed to be taken advantage of in terms of using the contours to run the ball at the hole (if the course is dry enough!).  The green was quite unique as well.  Sort of high banked on left and right and funneling to a flatish back portion.  While I didn't think it was the best hole on the course, it was the sort of stuff I would appreciate a daily diet of.

#8 at Pine Needles was the best hole on the the resort in my opinion.  It was not like any other hole on either course.  A 380ish dogleg turning right with a bowl fairway.  I real choice of how much of the leg to chew.  It looked fantastic from the tee.  Very natural, which I think many of the holes at Pine Needles didn't seem to offer.  There was a steady diet of turning holes with bunkering on the inside of the leg and bunkering that that seemed to be lower than the fairway.  A very modern look.  The 8th looked like it could have been built 100 years ago.  It fit the land perfectly.  

Ciao

Sean

[Kirk Gill]

A course that I used to play decided to add a new 9 holes so that they could have a nine hole and 18-hole course. Because of the location of the land they needed to use, their 18-hole course now consists of 9 old and 9 new holes. The new nine and the old are just totally out of sorts with each other, even after the years of growing in and changes made to the old nine to bring it up to the "quality" of the new. I don't know that I prefer the old nine or the new nine, each has its merits, but I just don't care to play the course any more because of the mixed up quality it has.

The problem is partially aesthetic, and partially just the way they play. The newer greens are much more undulating and there are many more fairway bunkers on the new part. I know the difference, and can adjust accordingly.....but..........for whatever reason, I'd rather play a course that is less schizophrenic. It's not that I hate variety in a course........but I like there to be an underlying concept to a course that plays out over a round........and this course doesn't have it.

[THuckaby2]

Kirk:

I'm with you there - I've played courses with two nines that are wildly different like that and you're right, each nine in and of itself can be fun but the full 18 always leaves one with a weird feeling.

That too gets to the "jarring" effect.  

I guess there's just a limit to all of this.

A little OOO is Ok, especially if the OOO hole(s) is/are stand-alone good.  But too much is a bad thing most definitely.

[John Kirk]

Another excellent example is holes #13 and #14 at Plainfield.  I believe they replaced holes that were lost from the original design.  Unlike the rest of the course, which is both hilly and unusual, these two holes are very flat and straightforward.  They don't look like they belong.

Other than #13 and #14, Plainfield is a great golf course.  Only the best players could master it the first time around.  I enjoyed it immensely.  There is a fine description in the GCA archives.

[Jason Topp]

I agree that this criticism is probably used too much.  For me, the primary criteria for judging a hole is whether it is interesting or not.

Nonetheless, I analogize a golf course to a piece of music or a written story.  Inserting punk rock in the middle of Mozart creates variety, but it would take a lot of creativity to do so in a manner that makes for enjoyable music.

The best example of a hole that doesn't fit that I played in the last year was at Big Fish in Hayward Wisconsin.  Generally, the front nine is a links-like course.  The 7th hole is a Florida-like par five that wraps around a lake.  While the hole is in and of itself just fine, it strikes a sour note to me given the setting.  

[michael_j_fay]

John:

#13, #14 and #15 at Plainfield are additions to the original. Which begs the question: Why are these  #13 and # 14 so out of character and # 15 fits in pretty well?

You want way out of character look at # 5, #6 and # 15 at Oak Hill East. Across the street at CC of Rochester you get that old jarring feeling on three of the holes on the back side, where Trent Jones replaced three Ross holes with three holes that totally break the continuum.

I think the out of character holes are those that differ from the others so significantly that the player gets the feeling that he has been ported to another place and time. On a very good golf course this is quite disconcerting.

I feel that the original intent of many of the early Architects was to continue the theme throughout the course. The holes run consecutively without breaking the theme. There were no "signature holes" (at least not intentionally) as they were building golf courses and not selling real estate. Signature holes are a marketing ploy. Whenever I see a "sinature hole" advertised I am fairly confident that I am going to see a number of less than good golf holes on the track.

[michael_j_fay]

By the way the Plainfield Country Club did not lose any holes. The original # 17 and # 18 became the driving range. The # 12 hole was married to # 13  (a par four and a par three respectively) and the 575 yard par five #12 was created.

Present day #13, #14 and #15 were added.

[Doug Wright]

David,

Perhaps having prompted your thread with my statement on Golspie #16 being "out of character," let me comment, though Michael Fay and Jason Topp above say it better than I can.

One of things I like about golf course architecture is the architect's ability to make a course fit the land and surroundings and provide interest. One of the great things I appreciate about Scottish golf in particular is the naturalness of many of the courses and holes, starting with The Old Course. If a hole there (or anywhere, for that matter) is or looks unnatural or different from its surroundings (including the surrounding holes), I don't think the hole is as enjoyable to play as the rest.

An interesting side discussion would be why I like "quirk" and don't like "out of character."  Is quirk the flip side of "out of character," the Mona Lisa smile on the otherwise mundane?

[John Keenan]

Put me in the camp that doesn't mind out of character.

I played a course in St George Utah was very traditional on the front 9 while the back 9 played through what I guess were lava beds. Great stuff. To a man the group I was with totally enjoyed it

On Harding as a native San Francisco I love 18 a great closing hole. Out of character I would say not as the lake in effect surrounds Harding yet only on 18 does it come into play.

Ok I may be a bit bias on Harding but overall a group of wholes or even one whole that stands a part adds something  that I find good

[THuckaby2]

John K - we are copacetic on Harding - well said.  The course in question in Utah is ENTRADA.  I know it well.  Too well.

That is definitely a course with two starkly different nines that works well.  Both nines are good, the buildup to the lava is fun.

TH

[John Keenan]

Tom H

Good catch on ENTRADA amazing when you turn on to the  back nine.

I should know the name as I have a golf towel from there.

[Kirk Gill]

For those who have played Bandon Trails - does the character of the course change as it makes its way from the seaside dunes into the pine forest and back? Or at Friar's Head - does the character of the course change that much as it goes from dune to field to dune?

The character of a course isn't necessarily dictated by its surrounding landscape as much as by the design of the course itself. On the course I mentioned earlier, the land forms of the old and new nines are very similar. But the design of the holes are very different, the fairways are straight-edged on the old nine, snakelike on the new. The greens are different, the bunkers are different.........and it bugs me, for whatever reason.

[michael_j_fay]

I think that out of character is more the aesthetic that the general theme of Architecture abruptly changes, not the topography.

At Misquamicut in Rhode Island the first ten holes wander through some very hilly terrain with the promontories used for teeing grounds and greens. When the player gets to the 11th the entire topography changes to essentially beachside flatness. The topography is totally unlike the first ten holes but the theme remains. Ross used the natural lay of the land to create the next seven holes. He employed much smaller promontories or for that matter built them to create the holes.
Even with the drastic difference in the type of ground the theme remains true. The course was created to fit the natural surroundings and therefore the continuum is unbroken.

In returning to the Clubhouse (18) Ross continued the theme on the same type of ground as the first ten. It was there, he employed it and did so on all 18 holes.

I am not familiar with ENTRADA but from the previous posts it seems to me that the same type of golf and strategy is used on both sides.

[Tim Gavrich]

My take on holes being "out of character":

A golf course can cover different sets of topography, yes.  However, when doing this, the designer must take extra care to design the "X" holes to have the same design principles as the "Y" holes.  One course of which a friend of mine is a member is Tower Ridge Country Club (Simsbury, CT).  It was built on either side of a road.  on one side of this road (near the Farmington River) lie holes 2, 3, 12, and 13.  The rest, of course, are on the mountain side of the road.  All of the greens are fairly small, and are pitched, with varying degrees of severity, from back to front, EXCEPT for the 2nd.  It's just an insipid, pre-fab-like 2-tier green with the right third higher than the rest.  No pitch otherwise, really.  I think that that makes this hole 'out of character.'  To me, it feels like it just doesn't fit, and disrupts the flow of the course.

Do I abhor variation from hole-to-hole? No, but there is a difference between acceptable variation and disjointedness.  Personally, I can't define it, but I'll know it when I see it.

[JNC Lyon]

Michael Fay:
The holes you listed at Oak Hill are very much out of character with the course, and not only that but they are bad holes on any course. CCR, on the other hand, has allowed Gil Hanse to renovate the Trent Jones holes and to bring the feel of them to a similar standard as that of the rest of the restored layout. These holes (5, 6, 7) are now soften from their original offensive state, and are actually quite fun to play.

For me, out of character as a good/bad thing is determined by how good the holes are in and of themselves. For example, St. George's in Toronto had four greens altered from Thompson's original plan. One was downright vulgar in appearance and contour-no fun at all, and I disliked it. One came on a well-routed par five, where the land and bunkering was great up to the underwhelming green. I felt the hole itself was cool but the green was a disappointment in its lack of interest. Finally, two greens, both of which were moved from low to high points, were full of interest, wild without being unruly. The location and contour of the greens on these two holes capped off already interesting holes in dramatic fashion.

In my book, it is not who designed it, or how it compares in style, but how fun it is to play. So why is changing an original masterpiece so bad? Because the resulting hole is, in most cases, less interesting, and not as much fun to play.

[David Ober]

Frequently one will read here or elsewhere that a given hole or feature on a golf course is "out of character" with the rest of the course. The vast majority of time, the inference is clearly that this is not a good or desireable thing.

Does anyone have any thoughts or comments on how we have arrived at this manner of thinking? Was there a point in time when the notion of having 18 holes similar in "character" became the ideal?

If the land form under a green site on a given course presents a GCA with a chance to design a green with contours and/or bunkering markedly different from the other greens on the course, should the GCA take advantage of what is there or should the green site be made to conform to the character of the course?  

Numbers 15 and 16 at the SCGA Golf Course in Murrieta, California are definitely out of character for the rest of the course, due to the mere fact that they run up against a mobile home community!!

In my opinion, that's a negative.  

[David_Tepper]

Here is one to consider - is #12 at Augusta National "out of character" with the rest of the course (or at least the back 9)?

For starters, the green appears to be far smaller than any of the greens on the course, even the other par-3's. Unlike the other greens at AGNC, it also appears to be relatively flat, with virtually no contours or slope. Other than the bunkers, there is really no place  to "miss" the green that will allow you a decent chance to get up and down for par. That too makes it distinct from most of the holes there.

(Please note I have never been to AGNC and my impressions are solely based on watching the Masters for 30+ years on TV.)

Yet, the hole has become legendary and is far more than a path from the 11th green to the 13th tee.  

How far off base am I on this?
   

[David_Tepper]

David Ober -

Have you played much links golf in the British Isles? Over there, mobile home communities (aka caravan parks) are visible from and/or adjacent too many, many golf courses!

Two other common features are railway lines and cemetaries!

DT

[Wayne Freeman]

I know we've discussed this at various times before, but maybe Tom H. or someone else can explain to me how the 18th hole at Yale fits in with the rest of the course.  I love Yale because there is so much variety and all the other holes can reward good shots.  The 18th is a total enigma to me-  even if you hit a great drive ( either a draw out over the trees, or a fade) to the right center of the fairway, you still have a very tough blind uphill shot which has to be hit just right.  If you hit a safer tee shot to the wider part of the fairway left, you have an incredibly difficult second shot that has to be hit perfect along the left tree line.  Anything to the right will probably be a lost ball in the deep rough separating the upper fairway from the lower one.  Even if you hit a good second shot, you are still left with what may be a very tough 3rd-  downhill off a downhill lie oftentimes with a lot of wind to deal with.  I just don't see how this hole has any merit.  If they shaved the rough between the upper and lower fairways so you could find your ball, or widened the fairway to the left, maybe I could see it.