[Melvyn Morrow]

Bryan

What I find very interesting is not your shot but the reason behind your intention.

You would prefer to play the 1st fairway then chip the last 100 yards that IMHO is what I have come to perceive is wrong with the modern game, its teachings and I suppose it final goals. To think that you would indeed not play the 18th fairway just astounds me.

The movement away from thinking challenging golf seems have emigrated with the preponderance for the aerial game over the ground game. A serious omission in one’s learning curve at the very least and a massive weakness in the armoury of the modern golfer. AS I have mentioned we have seen the ability of the older players in Norman and Watson decimate the other players during poor conditions on a Links course by understanding their options.

I feel your first error of golfing judgement, was not facing the potential hazard and playing the ground in front of you, clearly the first challenges was not within your skill comfort zone, so you seek the easier approach. You decided not to play the course because your game was not up to the challenge or were nervous that you might not win, either way you left yourself out in the cold avoiding to play the actual game of golf.

Please do not take this as criticism, you play the way you were taught, I play the way my father taught me and that was face the challenge. If I lose, hopefully I would have understand where  I made my made error(s). Succeed and I had learnt from past efforts.

To play golf I keep saying we need to Navigate the course not hit the ball over the bloody course on each and every hole – where is the fun in that. When will we learn that we have other choices. The only way to play is play the course. You will never win unless you face the course head on and rise to her challenges. Circumvent the course puts you outside and can in some cases leave your intention open to question.

You may well disagree, but it’s your game that has to leave the comfort of the 18th fairway not mine, but then IMHO I have played the course in whatever weather conditions and seek only to do my best which is the best way to play the Royal & Ancient Game of Golf on TOC at St Andrews.

Just my opinion as I have some connection to the 18th Hole on TOC.

Melvyn 

[Doug Siebert]

Melvyn,

It isn't that I can't play the uneven lies - obviously I'm getting plenty of them prior to the 18th hole.  But when offered a choice, why shouldn't I choose a strategy I'm comfortable with, even if it isn't the one the architect has envisioned for me?

If you so enjoy a challenge, let me ask you this:  When you play the 17th, do you always aim for the pin, or do you sometimes play out to the right of the green?  On my last visit I had a 7 iron from 170ish from the wispy rough on the left.  The pin was directly over the Road Bunker, and from this angle there was no way to go around it to hit any portion of the green, so my caddie naturally advised me to play well to the right and try to get up and down.  I ignored his advice and hit it straight over the bunker as high as I possibly could hoping to stop it on the green.  I actually made about as good of an effort as I could hope for, I hit a towering shot straight over the bunker and the ball bounced several times and got to rolling while still on the green, before it just dribbled off the back.  I was able to chip a 4 iron off the blacktop into the bank to kill it and ended up with a tap in par.  I knew going in that it might not be physically possible for me to leave the ball on the green from where I was, but I'd never been in the bunker or on the road, and both seemed like they would be a more interesting place to play my third from than the green anyway.  And it sure was fun to try, and to see the look on my caddy's face when it appeared for a moment as though I might have pulled it off!

Like I said, with today's equipment I'll try to drive 18, but if I can't I'd see no reason to play from uneven ground when there's a flat lie.  Some might argue its bad strategy - after all, I have to go directly over the Valley of Sin and from that angle would be forced to play an aerial shot.  I know how to play the running shot, I think I'm actually pretty good at it by American standards (I have to use it a lot since I drive into the trees on our tree-lined courses so often) but playing it on a hole with the VoS in front and OB behind?  I think I'd rather hit a nice high SW, a shot I feel like I have more control over.  That's a dangerous shot off a funky lie, but pretty simple off a flat lie.

At any rate, part of the challenge of golf is finding the strategy that works best for one's own game and psyche.  The game would be quite boring to me if everyone was forced to play (or at least attempt to play) every hole with the same strategy, whether that's the architectural intent, the way Tiger plays the hole, or the way my dad plays the hole.  I'm sure many would be quite frustrated if they were forced to play using my strategy - you can't imagine taking the easy way out on 18 by aiming at the 1st fairway, all those guys who care about shooting the lowest score above all else would be horrified at being forced to go for the green from where I was on 17...it may have turned out well for me that one time, but on my next visit it might cost me a triple.  But I won't mind, it'll give me a great story!

[Gareth Williams]

Tom

Would you also put the 9th on the Old at Sunningdale into that comparison with the 10th at Riveria?

[Melvyn Morrow]

Doug

We can come with whatever excuse we wish or like at the time. We mention great course routings on this site. Place many a designers on a high pedestal for his informative and challenging designs, then we proceed to play outside of that course to compensate for our weakness, perhaps even inability, more possibly fear of exposing the real weakness not in our game but of trying to understanding the game. In other words we overcompensate with technology knowing it will hide some of our own worries and inabilities, first and foremost of being able to read a design to enable us to successfully navigate the course to the best of our natural ability.

My first priority is to try and play the Hole, by that its means trying to remain between the rough and not venturing onto another fairway. As I said before play the course, after all we may well have praised the course and its designer in the past, so we should show willing and play what has been designed not how we think parts should have been designed due to our own weakness.

Doug, do player today play the course or do they with a little help form technology daze down from the cosmos only noting the point of contact between ball and ground. Let’s not forget that our Green Fees allow us to utilise the whole course, that’s the non LZ areas, but because many drive today much is missed as their LZ in the only thing many focus upon. Leaving large areas of our golf courses virtually unknown. The forgotten words of navigate, penal and one’s own ability seem to have been lost to golf since WW2, play another fairway is not a reasonable way of trying to recapture them IMHO.

Melvyn

[Carl Rogers]

Riverfront hole no. 7 .... 320 yards or so from the back tee
The course is just barely a pre Pro V1 ball and big titanium driver, early-mid 90's design but not opened until 1999

I have yet to play with some one that could drive the green, but for those that could, a precise shot is required otherwise the near miss is an exceedingly difficult flop or pitch into a bermuda rough bank or a difficult greenside bunker (easy to play over and away from if you are 80 yards away).

Pre Pro V1 it would be a short 2 shotter only, now it has more options.

[Scott Warren]

Doug S,

I think you made a very good point about the alternate avenues all players use to approach the hole based on their own strengths and weaknesses and the conditions of the day. That's golf in a nutshell and your post explained it eloquently.

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