A Modest Proposal

[George Pazin]

[Hello all. Feel free to ignore this if you don't agree with the premise. Thanks.]


I've been doing a lot of thinking over the last few years about the premises underlying my ideas on golf course architecture. And mostly it comes down to this: I don't think most people, most golfers, or even most architects, really understand how golfers play golf. When I read the many (terrific) reviews of golf courses on here, there is an underlying premise that I don't really abide, that golfers make choices in advance and plan and play accordingly. That would seem obvious to most, but I think it is inaccurate, or at least incomplete, and lacking.


To this end, I would like to propose the following:


Track your shots, all of them. Feel free to choose the sample you desire - your next round, 10 rounds, 20 rounds, 1 season on your home course, whatever. Track them all. I have been doing some limited research and there are apps that I think fit this. If you have one, feel free to suggest it to anyone and everyone interested. I'm leaning toward the Hole19 app, but am open to suggestions.


Beyond tracking your actual shots, I'd like to ask the following: try to assess what you intended before you hit each shot, and try to assess that in some manner. I have to admit, I don't know how to do this. Were Brent Hutto still posting, I'd ask he offer a suggestion or three, but I haven't seen him post in a long time (he's probably out actually enjoying the wonderful game... and he's a professor of statistics, for those who don't recognize the name).


My aim for this is the following, as alluded above: I don't think many understand how people actually play the game. And I think the assumptions many - the USGA, archies, etc - make are woefully inadequate.


If you are not interested, fine by me, just please ignore this. Most probably will. Or rip the idea on here and I'll try to respond. If you are interested, feel free to ask questions and/or message/email me for clarification.


Thanks, have a Happy and healthy New Year. Fairways and greens to all.

[Mike Nuzzo]

Happy New Year George
Yes. I think a great golf course should pose an interesting shot no matter where you are.

[Peter Pallotta]

Edit - sorry, wrong thread.
Peter

[Ira Fishman]

George,


If you looked up the definition of “Mediocre Golfer” in the dictionary, my picture would be alongside it. However, I think there is a huge chasm between plan and execution. For me, a well-designed course is one that encourages me to plan even if I probably will fail to execute. And then it is even better if I get another chance at planning after the first failure of execution or the second.


Take for example the 4th at Mid Pines which is the subject of one of my favorite threads on GCA. Am I confident I can get past the tree? If so, which side of the tee gives me the best angle? When I fail to execute how brave should I be in trying to stay on the green with a made up shot? And when that fails do I just laugh at a Snowman on a short par four?


Probably most golfers do not do a lot of planning, but I would posit that the better the design, the more planning that occurs.


Ira

[Garland Bayley]

My impression is that most golfers try to hit it to the center of the fairway, then try to hit it on the green, most likely at the pin.

This is why playing with low handicap strangers at Bandon, they are vehemently against bunkers in the middle of the fairway, and will complain for holes after being caught in one that they shouldn't be penalized for such a good shot.

[George Pazin]

Happy New Year George
Yes. I think a great golf course should pose an interesting shot no matter where you are.

This wise young man knows exactly where I'm headed...

[V_Halyard]

I'm in when the snow melts.
One of my better and smarter golf buddies that helped me actually try to learn the game had a recurrent teaching tip that has always stuck with me:


"Stop. Look. Why the hell are you aimed over there?"


I belive this "Teaching aide" is aligned with what you're proposing here is't it George?

[Tim Gallant]

George,


For clarification, are you hypothesising that in general, golfers don't have a plan for each shot? To what degree are you defining a 'plan' - is it merely 'I'm trying to hit the green', or more of a 'I'm aiming at the centre of the green. With my normal fade (read slice), if I miss, I'll leave myself an easy up-and-down'?


I don't think I have ever played with someone that if I asked them what they were trying to do with their last shot, they would respond 'I don't know!'. As others have stated, execution is an entirely different matter 

[Sean_A]

I think I know where you are heading George...width...hit it..find it...hit it...repeat as necessary.  Most golfers are not good enough to execute their shots even if they know where they want to go.  As Nuzzo says, the issue then becomes how wide is wide enough and how does the archie make all shots interesting...assuming there is land and money to create the width. 

Most of the time the interest is going to come at the green end of the course and this is really the only way to accomplish across the ability spectrum interest.  Of course, this means courses need to be wide or recovery shots become fairly boring and too repetitive...making for a boring day.  Trying to create interest in fairways/rough for all levels of players is a difficult task unless we accept that a large percentage of hazards and features are not in play for most golfers on most days unless specific set of golfers is targeted.  Using an infinite number of tees is a way to mitigate this issue, but I don't see why it is an issue for one.  Second, the amount of wasted land/maintenance can be silly. Third...a good walk spoiled.

All that said, not all courses need to be for all golfers. 

Ciao

[Kyle Harris]

This is why playing with low handicap strangers at Bandon, they are vehemently against bunkers in the middle of the fairway, and will complain for holes after being caught in one that they shouldn't be penalized for such a good shot well-struck shot.

True enlightenment begins when they realize the difference.

[Rick Lane]

Fascinating thought, George.   “Most golfers”would mean 15 to 25 cappers?  If that’s the premise, I think most golfers try to “not be dead” on each shot.   Which on the tee shot means width and a place to try to play away from trouble, like water or trees, and on the approach means not short sided or being in the wrong place given the green general slope.  Yes, we don’t achieve this all the time, but we try, so we succeed sometimes.  It’s how I taught my wife to play, and when I take a new person to my home course, it’s how I coach them around. “ left is better than right”or “short is better than long”.   I have no idea if you Archie’s design for this, but I think it’s how people play?  A low capper friend of mine taught me this: on every shot, there are four quadrants, left, right, long short.   Two of them are bad, two of them are good.  Make sure your miss is in one of the good quadrants. 

[John Kavanaugh]

In the air comes before where.

[Thomas Dai]

As a famous champion player once said - “Golf is a game that is played on a five inch course - the distance between your ears.”
Atb

[A.G._Crockett]

George,
Interesting premise, that I agree with in part, but not completely.

I am hesitant to paint with too broad a brush about what GCAs do or do not understand about how golfers play golf.  For the most part, I think that they DO understand that they are creating a golf course that must be playable for not only truly bad golfers, but challenging to some degree to good golfers.  And that is difficult work; it's not that they don't "understand"; it's that there are a LOT of different golfers of radically different skill levels.  I play a Fazio course now as my home course; I think he was brilliant in terms of WHERE he put bunkers, but not so much on what those bunkers are like, as I think most players find them to be much too penal, with little chance of recovery.  So did Fazio "understand" or not? 

As to the golfers themselves, I think that the great mass of them/us are playing "golf swing" rather than golf a lot of the time, just to try to make solid contact and advance the ball in the general direction of the hole.  Hit it, find it, hit it again.

But I think that we all aspire to more than that, and at some point, better golfers really do play the golf course with course management at or near the front of their mind for each shot.  My inability to execute a shot doesn't mean that I don't know to a certainty where the shot should (or should not!) end up IF I hit the shot I intend.

As to programs, I'm possibly among the most OCD guy I know.  I've kept track of rounds for many, many years on a computer program, and started last year using Arrcos 360 as well.  I love Arccos, and I think I got a fair amount out of it; reconfigured the long end of my bag when I got good info on how far I was actually hitting each club over a lot of rounds, got wedge distances that were really useful, and got really good data about what I was actually good and not good at as a player.

The other thing that I've come to realize as I age but still try to play competitively is that there are very few par 5s that I'll be able to get to in two, and more and more par 4s that I can't get to in two.  More to the point, I make more 4s if I play ALL of those holes like three shot par 5s, so where to "miss" the green with my second shot is the key to the hole.  Pat Mucci used to write about the pleasure of learning to "tack his way around a golf course" while he was ill and weak, and that's truer and truer.

I don't know if all of that addresses your premise or not.

[Kalen Braley]

I agree with George in overall concept.


For most golfers, even if they are trying to hit a specific part of the fairway or green, most of us are thrilled to death by getting the ball anywhere on the fairway, or anywhere on the green, even if woefully out of position. And I'd bet if you ask most golfers would you rather be in the short rough with a great angle to the pin, or in the fairway with a lousy one, they'd take the later.


The part I agree most with George on, is most players rarely think about more than 1 shot at a time, because its difficult enough to execute on the 1st shot,,,and trying to plan the entire hole is a wasted exercise.  For most of us, its a hit and hope and trying to solve the puzzle on a shot by shot basis

[Derek_Duncan]

I agree with George in overall concept.


For most golfers, even if they are trying to hit a specific part of the fairway or green, most of us are thrilled to death by getting the ball anywhere on the fairway, or anywhere on the green, even if woefully out of position. And I'd bet if you ask most golfers would you rather be in the short rough with a great angle to the pin, or in the fairway with a lousy one, they'd take the later.


The part I agree most with George on, is most players rarely think about more than 1 shot at a time, because its difficult enough to execute on the 1st shot,,,and trying to plan the entire hole is a wasted exercise.  For most of us, its a hit and hope and trying to solve the puzzle on a shot by shot basis

On topics like these I find myself agreeing with Kalen almost all the time.


I would only add that I agree that "most" golfers stand over a shot and think almost entirely about the swing/mechanics, and give only cursory thought to the hole or where they're playing other than "straight." Of course, members who play the same course over and over know where the good and bad spots are and will consider that as much as possible.


The point of good architecture, or striving for good architecture, is to try to shift that intense focus from the internal thought (head down, arm straight, finish backswing) to the external perception -- what is that out there?, look at all that fairway, should I steer left or right of that bunker?.


There's probably a proportional relationship between how good the architecture is to how much the course draws the average player's attention away from his or her own swing thoughts.

[Jeff Taylor]

"try to assess what you intended before you hit each shot, and try to assess that in some manner. I have to admit, I don't know how to do this"

Maybe it's "method" that you are in search of. Why wouldn't one assess the shot from the ground up, assess elevation, wind direction and force, and then determine what the best plan of attack would be that considers the risk involved. For me, good golf course architecture forces me to be disciplined in this approach. Nothing more boring than a 2nd shot on a par 5 that just calls for advancing the ball.

[Carl Nichols]

"Everyone has a plan 'til they get punched in the mouth." 

[Ira Fishman]

"Everyone has a plan 'til they get punched in the mouth."

Has to be first time Mike Tyson has been quoted on GCA.


Ira

[George Pazin]

Thanks for the responses. I am serious about compiling the data, thanks AG for the suggestion, I will look into that app as well.


I personally believe everyone has a plan, on most every shot. I also believe that plan doesn't matter nearly as much as most golfers, and even most architects, believe. My apologies for any architects who are offended by that, you should know by now I hold the architects who post on here in extremely high regard. Almost as high as the supers... I have a great deal of respect for anyone who works in our wonderful game, and especially those who dedicate their lives to the playing fields, both in design and upkeep. The hours they work are far beyond those of mortal men, and each deserves fulfillment in a greater fashion than he likely receives.


The premise of my study is essentially this: the misses of all golfers border on random. As much as people say to plan for your misses - or as one poster mentioned above, plan for the two quadrants - but I just don't think it's that simple. The best golfers in the world hit 70% of fairways and 60% of greens. I'm sure their misses are not at all like mine, but I still believe the miss is not planned for by most, not in any meaningful sense. It's what happens from there that the game gets most interesting.


I personally believe in shot accommodation, as opposed to shot options. And I'm not talking about grounders, as my friend JK alludes. Neither I nor most high handicappers hit grounders on any sort of regular basis. When you shoot 100, you are hitting an extra shot or two on each hole. Don't get me wrong, that is A LOT. But it's not grounders; that is partly one thing I hope to illustrate with my study. Beginners hit grounders. And there is a place for beginners out there, too, but that's not what I'm talking about.


I'll try to address some of the specific questions individually later. Thanks.

[V_Halyard]

"Everyone has a plan 'til they get punched in the mouth."

Has to be first time Mike Tyson has been quoted on GCA.

Ira

No Doubt.

[Kalen Braley]

"Everyone has a plan 'til they get punched in the mouth."

Has to be first time Mike Tyson has been quoted on GCA.

Ira

No Doubt.

As a high capper its often bewildering and amusing to watch first hand when a low capper thinks they've been punched in the nose...


...and i'm there thinking to myself, "I'd take that every day and twice on Sunday"