[John Chilver-Stainer]

I recently played at Wick - yes in Winter at 5C with a light breeze which added some wind chill factor but some sunlight to provide some perceived if not actual warmth.
Believe it or not we had to queue up at the tee!!!

Wick is a hidden gem links course in a great setting with lots of subtle natural undulation.

While preparing a tee shot on a long Par 4 the outlook offered more or less a  straight ahead drive with no obvious changes in slope , however I noticed to the right of the landing area that the fairway cut had been widened quite considerably and there were some bunkers way off the line. I mentioned to my playing partner - “I wonder if the ball’s going to bounce off down there?

There was a right to left breeze and I started  my ball more or less on line down the middle of the fairway. It then disappeared over a slight blind fall off and then reappeared bounding down to the right maybe 40 yards or more off the original line of play into this offline catchment area.

On examination the landing area in the fairway had a diagonal fall off that wasn’t visible from the tee of maybe 3m in elevation that had propelled the ball off line to the catchment area.

My question - do you have an other extreme examples of fairways that propel the ball sideways that are difficult to ascertain off the tee?

[Brad Klein]

Wick is like a milder version of Royal Aberdeen; a great front nine along the dunes line and a rather mundane incoming nine on the flats.

One of the best example of fickle fairway contouring is the 13th hole at Bandon Dunes. On a good downwind day (out of the summer-prevailing north) it's possible for me to contemplate hitting the green in two, but everything depends upon the bounce off the tee shot and whether the drive ends up in a playable position or one of those maddening side hollows. It's been the difference between being able to hit a full-bore second shot or, from the same distance and yet a completely different stance and lie, just laying up with a short-iron.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Cherry Hills 18 can predictably roll the ball left when the fw is cut tight.  In general, these should become more common as fw get tighter overall.  In the old days, I figured you could have a cross slope of 7-10% depending on grass types and whether the fw also sloped downhill or uphill along the line of play.  Now, its 4-6 tops wherever we want a ball to nicely stop in the fw.

Do we think we will see wholesale fw flattening, similar to green flattening that has become common?

[BCrosby]

The 16th at Mid-Ocean offers a blind drive to a fw that falls off dramatically into a ravine on the right. Next time around you know the fw is effectively half as wide as you might think. Ditto for the 6th at Mid-O.

But shouldn't local knowledge of the course count for something? Or as Tom Simpson asked, how interesting can a course be if local knowledge is not an advantage?

Bob 

[jeffwarne]

I'd say about 5-6 holes at Pennard minimum have this effect at least for the first time player,and the rest slope "wildly predictably" and have to beshaped and placed.

the unpredictable becomes more predictable as local knowledge increases

[Matt_Ward]

I am a big time fan of fairways that feature spines that separate one side of a hole from the other.

For example, I believe, the 11th at Rock Creek has this element. The spine is not prominent but the hole does feature an optimum left side which can be attained with a well-played tee shot. Those who push the tee shot a tad too far right will have their shot propelled away towards the right and this provides for a tougher and a slightly blind approach.

The same type of feature is in play at the 17th at Black Mesa. Here the play is to try to get the ball again down the left side but the area is a bit narrower and requires another well-controlled shot to attain the preferred landing area. Those who push the ball will find it racing further and further away from the desired landing area.

In both cases I just mentioned the less ideal tee shot is not punished in a draconian manner but it doesn't provide the maximum best you can attain.
In addition, as some have already mentioned, you need to factor in the present wind conditions on a given day before pulling the trigger.

I'd like to see more elements of this type on fairways because it then marries both distance and direction from one's tee game.

[TEPaul]

I think the title of this thread should be analyzed and discussed at some length. To me the key word in it is "unpredictably." The reason I say that is I sure have seen a lot of fairway where it's pretty easy to see that the ball will "predicatably" be propelled off line but an aweful lot of players still complain about that and continue to claim that constitutes poor design! 

We have one of those fairways at my club---GMGC.

[Doug Ralston]

Unpredictable is momentary, right?

There is a course north of Cincy, Pipestone, where one hole has a hidden fairway you must NOT hit on the fly. If you do, it WILL funnel you leftwards into a lake. It will! It did!

A possible solution is to hit the ball into the right rough, which it marginally playable. Or you can pop it up short and hit a fairway wood to the green. Or you can try my ingenious solution. Never go there again! Stupid hole.

Doug

[BCrosby]

Tom -

Yes, "unpredictability" is an odd concept in golf. It has a temporal aspect. What was unpredictable yesterday is predictable today. Put differently, the unpredictable in golf has a short shelf life.

I think the real issue here is golfers frustrations with contour. Contour is an architectural feature that does not advertise itself the way hazards do. Because of that lack of advertising, many golfers feel it it's not right that contour should have such profound effects. They feel like they weren't properly alerted; that it sneaks up on them.

But contour is every bit as important an architectural feature as hazards and all the rest. In fact most of the GA architects thought contour was the key to great design. MacK says that contour is the reason for TOC's greatness.


Bob

P.S. The more I think about it, the kinds of fw's John talks about at the beginning of this thread are fairly common. I can think of 4 or 5 fw's at AGNC that have such fw's, just to pick a course people know. Which make sense because MacK designed ANGC to rely more on contour than hazards.

[Tom_Doak]

"Undulation is the soul of the game." - George Thomas

I love to use these kind of effects.  In addition to the Rock Creek hole, a couple of our coolest undulating fairways are the 12th at Ballyneal (where you also have to hug the left side) and the 9th at Pacific Dunes (where what you want to do depends on which green is in play).

The one that gave me the toughest time is the 4th at Stone Eagle.  It's a diagonal drive over a ravine to a fairway that is sloping SEVERELY right to left and downhill, toward a pond at the bottom of the ravine.  The problem is that if players try to bite off too much of the dogleg, they may successfully clear the ravine, but then the ball turbo-boosts down the hill toward the pond ... so they often don't really know if they cleared the ravine or not.

There is PLENTY of room to aim to the right and avoid the situation, but lots of people get sucked in.  I've had numerous people tell me that I should have graded the fairway differently somehow, but of course nobody has told me how I could have taken up 40 or 50 feet of elevation change along the edge of a ravine in any reasonable manner.

At the end of the day, I would put this thread right with Archie's earlier thread about luck in golf.  There is no such thing as a fairway that UNPREDICTABLY propels the ball offline.  It's easy to predict if you are observant ... except on the first play.

[Bill_McBride]

This aspect of golf was discussed a bit in the thread on "luck" and the part it plays in golf design.  "Unpredictability" is a prerequisite for "luck."

I see as I'm about to click "Post" that Tom Doak has made a similar comment.  To minimize luck the designer has to maximize predictability.

[David_Tepper]

John C-S:

Let me provide the most obvious response to your post...what on earth were you doing in Wick in the middle of winter?

DT

[John Chilver-Stainer]

David, as you are probably aware, playing golf in the winter in the north of scotland is not such an odd occurrence as some think.

The North East of Scotland has plenty of good links golf to offer. At Wick there were at least another 10 people on the course even if the greens were partly in permafrost condition. As part of the trip we also played Lossiemouth New and Tain, both great entertainment which I could recommend to anyone who enjoys links courses.

Others were planned until the blizzards finally hit.

The big advantage of winter golf in Scotland are no reservations necesary, no crowding so plenty of time to look around and cheap green fees - infinitely better than being indoors.

Of course if I had been in Switzerland I could always have played endless “Alps” holes.

[John Chilver-Stainer]

Tom,

of course your right ”unpredictable” is probably not the best choice of vocabulary - how about substituting unpredictable with “difficult to ascertain wether the ball will be”. 

I too like the idea of the greedy player choosing distance and being taken offline - against the canny player who chooses the placement shot.

If the risk is "hidden" does it add to the drama of the situation or just cause frustration?

[Jon Wiggett]

Here are a few photos of Wick from when John and I played there. The course is a real hidden gem of a links which fits perfectly to the land it is sitting on. The frount nine are fairly flat and the back nine pretty wild. It is a long drive up north to it but well worth the effort.





The par 3 9th. This was the only green that appeared to be man made



The 12th? Green



Looking back towards the tee from the 17th green



The 18th green

[Sean_A]

I'd say about 5-6 holes at Pennard minimum have this effect at least for the first time player,and the rest slope "wildly predictably" and have to beshaped and placed.

the unpredictable becomes more predictable as local knowledge increases

Its difficult for me to remember how unpredictable Pennard was on my first go.  I think the combination of predictable and unpredictable contours, the difficulty in gauging distance and the sheer firmness of the ground all conspired against me on my first few goes.  I was completely clueless as to what was going on.  However, when I finished with the same ball I started with I knew the course was something very, very special.  Any championship course I played with that sort of setup and myself not playing the right shots would have led to multiple lost balls.  This was honest to god a serious turning point for me in how I thought about course design and what I wanted from a round of golf. 

Thinking back, I was surprised with #s 7, 8, 10, 11, 14 & 16.  The two most problematical tee shots were and still are #s 8 & 14.  Both have a bit of spine down the middle of their elephant graveyard like fairways.  A ball hit down the middle can kick either way into the rough and players can often be looking on the wrong side of the fairway - its very difficult to know which way the ball kicked.  This still happens to me regularly on #8 - wandering quizzically from side to side wondering what could have happened to my ball. 

Ciao

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