Hello Tom, I am the other half - Matthew's dad. These questions are the result of Matt's and my recent visit to Bandon, and my upcoming trip to RCD and a few others in Ireland, and 8 hours in the car to talk about his golf experience playing Bandon, Pacific and OM. In addition, he walked all of Preserve and started talking with an Englishman also out on Preserve for a tour, and which courses he liked at Bandon and why. (The non-scientific pole of two had it OM, Pacific, Bandon).
This is a big generalization, but I often think of the courses in the Open rota and the few courses I have played in Scotland as having rather simple, rather flat, not particularly difficult greens, but sometimes being brutally difficult through the green - 18th at Carnoustie - comes to mind.
Matt and I started discussing the issue of when a hole is made too hard because you give no relief to the player either from tee to green or on the green, and when a challenge becomes simply not any fun.
In my mind, golf should be a test, but one that you can "pass" with reasonable thought and skill. But I have played holes that I think are nearly impossible for the average golfer to ever make a par on because of its design. I carry an 8 handicap, so when my two best can’t make par, I start thinking not only about what I could have done differently, but also about the poor golfer (including Matt and my wife) who can’t drive it 280 yards (or 300+ downwind).
So, it got us thinking and talking, “If an architect wanted to add interest, would you choose to do it on the green, or through the green.” I think you are right, that question assumes that the land is uninteresting through the green, so it necessitates building an interesting green. But we all know that difficulty can be manufactured with bunkers, water, long rough or width of the fairway relative to the length of the hole. I don’t want to fall into the trap of equating difficulty with interest.
Using a cape hole as an example. Often the land is very flat, including the area where the green would be located, but that last shot is basically a forced carry over water – a difficult shot. Would you choose to keep the green a little flatter to somewhat remove a three putt from the equation because of the difficulty of the last shot, or would you add contour to the green? Would your answer be different if it was a par 4 versus a par 5, so the last shot was 175+ yards vs. 100 yards? Would your answer be different if the tee shot was also a forced carry over water?
Using one of your holes to further illuminate our discussion, the road hold on OM. I remember the hole this way: avg+ difficulty drive, difficult green to hit, relatively flat once on. As that hole illustrated to me, it was only difficult on the second shot. That doesn’t mean someone couldn’t have made a double very quickly (I could see that happening if you missed the green), but you didn’t make the drive difficult by placing too many bunker in the fairway, or slide the hole over so the gorse choked the landing area, or make the landing area so tight that the hole would be rated: very difficult drive, difficult second, avg difficulty once on.
Or, in the end, it is always a balancing act – not only on any given hole, but also over the entire course – and that every hole on the course must be viewed with an eye towards its contribution to the course, and cannot be viewed in isolation.
(PS. We both made par on the road hole)