[Jason Thurman]

A)   Into the evaluation of a course’s architecture?

B)   Into recommending one course over another?

[Nigel Islam]

My take is conditioning IS important, but basically only on the greens. Now I don't think they have to be super fast, but a good surface running at a decent speed is sufficient to move on to the routing and layout of the course. A few weeds in the fairway, but great greens, good layout. I'll take that anytime.

[Tom_Doak]

a)  If you are building a course that is dependent on good conditioning to work, then it had better have good conditioning.
     example - If you have to hit an approach shot over water, and the fairways are not groomed and full of divots, that doesn't work.  But I would not apply the same reasoning to a hole that was designed to accommodate a running approach but is too soft and wet, because you can still hit the aerial approach there.

a)  The problem with weighing conditioning as a part of "architecture" is that conditioning is an independent variable.  It changes, just like the weather.  Just because the conditions were bad when you were there a year ago, doesn't mean they will be bad for me.  So, how can you make that a factor in the architecture?

b)  Same problem as the last paragraph, except that here, you can make some assumptions about what the conditioning is likely to be, without downgrading the architecture for it.

[Patrick_Mucci]

A)   Into the evaluation of a course’s architecture?

NONE

B)   Into recommending one course over another?

SIGNIFICANT

[Jason Thurman]

Nigel, I started this thread in response to a brief exchange on your thread for "Best Courses in your City."

Pat, Tom, I tend to agree with you on Part A with one exception: drainage. Obviously any course will be wet after a deluge, but do you think it's fair to downgrade a course a bit if it's still wet three days later while a course down the street has dried out?

Maybe the real question for me is where conditioning ends and architecture begins. Is drainage an architectural feature, a conditioning quality, or both? What about trees? Isn't part of the reason we advocate for fewer trees a function of the potential turf improvement? And if so, is it at least occasionally fair to hold turf issues that result partially from too many trees against a course's architectural merit?

[Nigel Islam]

I understand the question better now. I think one has to also think about how many great courses have evolved under the watchful eye of a great superintendent. Royal Melbourne and Oakmont would be two examples that come to mind. Pinehurst, Pasatiempo, and NGLA evolved as well under the original architect.  In essence the caretaker had every much to do with how great the course became as the architect did. I think that might explain why you get a course by a great architect that is pretty forgettable and a few miles down the road a "Doak 10."

Sorry, I think that was just a long winded way of saying I agreed with Tom Doak's second a)

[Patrick_Mucci]

Nigel, I started this thread in response to a brief exchange on your thread for "Best Courses in your City."

Pat, Tom, I tend to agree with you on Part A with one exception: drainage. Obviously any course will be wet after a deluge, but do you think it's fair to downgrade a course a bit if it's still wet three days later while a course down the street has dried out?

Depends.

One course might have been built on a swamp while the other course down the street was built on high ground.

Can you cite some actual examples ?

Maybe the real question for me is where conditioning ends and architecture begins. Is drainage an architectural feature, a conditioning quality, or both? What about trees? Isn't part of the reason we advocate for fewer trees a function of the potential turf improvement? And if so, is it at least occasionally fair to hold turf issues that result partially from too many trees against a course's architectural merit?

To take down trees today, you need permits, so again, it's possible that one course was impeded from tree removal while another enjoyed carte blanche.

[RJ_Daley]

A)   Into the evaluation of a course’s architecture?

First, I think we have to acknowledge that there have been great courses, designed by great archies that have been lost to conditioning neglect, incompetence, a club culture of wrong minded management, where the architects intent had been subverted to a membership that desired lush green, over treed, and narrowing, rough happy, soft approaches, etc, etc.  With that said, when a course's original good to great architectual design is obscured by the mismanagement of the facility, I'd ask how many people in a position to "evaluate" courses (I suppose that means raters) are competent enough and knowledgeable enough in construction principles and design techniques to even find the great design, so obscured?  I think it is just an unfortunate fact and reality that these raters and evaluators are going to miss aspects of good to great architecture and will factor in the conditioning as a practical reality.

 B)   Into recommending one course over another?

This is easier to answer, in my opinion.  Yes, I think conditioning should factor into whether one recommends one course over another, no matter how prestigious a reputation the architect or screwed up maintenance meld has obscured or ruined the joy of the original intent of the designer.  Why in the heck should a course, public or private be recommended if the folks in charge of its maintenance meld can't do it justice.  Why reward them with patronage?

[Sean_A]

A)   Into the evaluation of a course’s architecture?

B)   Into recommending one course over another?

Jason

IMO, its very difficult to separate maintenance and architecture for a great many courses I play and especially the ones I enjoy the most.  The two are intrinsically linked.  

A. If I find exceptional conditions (not talking about course work/green maintenance/extreme weather situations), either good or bad, I tend to bump up or down a slight amount.  If the good or bad conditions are consistently present I will bump up or down my opinion a notch.  Its quite rare for this to happen because I don't know that many courses that well.  I think the only exception I made to this was for Merion.  I know it rained like something the devil brought on the day before I played and yet the course was in incredible condition.  Honestly, there were no signs of a 2-3 inch deluge.  

Usually when I downgrade a course its because vegetation (trees, rough, gorse) have encroached to the point of essentially altering the architecture.  It doesn't matter much if a wonderful course is buried, its not wonderful while buried.  The prefect example I have for this situation Blackwell.    

B. Recommendations are always best if you know a person fairly well.  For general recommendations the time of year is the main consideration.  I might happily suggest a course in summer that in winter I would say stay away from (Edgbaston & Painswick are classic examples).  Generally, in season, I don't worry about conditions unless I think the person in question is a condition junkie and to be fair I am probably as hard as anybody I know in that regard so long as f&f is the standard to judge by.  However, knowing most people don't really want f&f, for instance, I wouldn't suggest Pennard to a condition junkie.  

Ciao

[Jud_T]

Sean,

I agree wholeheartedly that the two are intrinsically linked.  It's purely academic if you have a course with "good bones" that is consistently and/or intentionally NOT presented as it was intended strategically (obviously there are varying degrees of this abuse).  I rarely want to play such a course unless it's a GCA I'm so smitten with or a design that's of such potentially significant historical importance that I'm willing to forego maximizing my golf fun utility quotient for the day simply to see it.  Yet another reason why favorite lists may be more useful than "best".

P.S.  What's substandard about the conditions at Pennard?

[Sean_A]

Jud

Pennard consistently has bare lies here and there.  The greens get a bit crusty so while firm don't roll quite true. Cow/horse shit about.  None of it bothers me much because I am happy to play winter rules 12 months a year - the course is that compelling.  I just try to recreate my stance in a different place (often on the rough if it isn't too inconvinient just to give the fairways a break).

Ciao  

[Thomas Dai]

Jud
Pennard consistently has bare lies here and there. The greens get a bit crusty so while firm don't roll quite true. Cow/horse shit about.  None of it bothers me much because I am happy to play winter rules 12 months a year - the course is that compelling.  I just try to recreate my stance in a different place (often on the rough if it isn't too inconvinient just to give the fairways a break).
Ciao  

and the annual subscription for a male 7-day member at Pennard is....................£655 p/a. A golf course doesn't necessarily need to be flash or immaculate.
ATB

[Jason Thurman]

Sean, you were involved in the exchange that sparked this thread. Someone said to you that "drainage shouldn't be evaluated as part of a course's architecture." You disagreed, and so do I. I think a lot of architects do too. Didn't Pete Dye say something to the effect of "building a golf course is 90% drainage"? If a course has conditioning issues due to poor drainage, I think that reflects poorly on the architect. My club has some really flat sections of ground that drain really poorly. I give our original architects a lot of credit for putting most of those areas in the 130 yards between a tee box and the beginning of a fairway, putting them as out of play as possible. When other architects don't do the same, it produces really poor architecture even if the holes have good strategic features and other positive architectural attributes.

Going further, and something I'm less sure of my own feelings about. I sometimes talk about courses that get a lot of love for "kickplates" and "open approaches" that don't have firm enough conditions to allow for either of those ground game features to come to life. A lot of people will look at such courses and talk about how they architecturally reward the ground game, but they actually don't. It just seems kind of like they would if kept firmer, and so we give those courses points for theoretical features that don't actually work. Should I blame only the superintendent for such features? What if a course is built in a climate that just doesn't allow fast and firm conditions very often, like a Midwestern clay-based site? Should the architect have had the foresight to know that such features would just be eye candy?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Sean & Jason,

Would you identify five (5) courses where the drainage is so poor that it diminishes the Quality of the architecture ?

[Jason Thurman]

Umm, there are like a million. I'm saying drainage should be an architectural priority just as much as strategy, variation, risk/reward, and an intuitive routing. Any course with drainage that is less than the best the property could produce has failed at a major aspect of design.

Of course, not all sites can drain spectacularly. Even though Mid Pines has drainage issues, I give Ross credit for minimizing the affect that the poorly draining areas of the site have on play. Likewise with Metairie. Sure it has a few spots that stay wet, but considering it's two feet below sea level I give the architect a lot of credit for building a course that drains better than the surrounding area.

I'm more concerned with sites that have multiple poorly-draining spots that could have been avoided or better handled. Here are a few examples:

Lassing Pointe - A Northern Kentucky course on pretty exciting terrain that just didn't move enough dirt in a few spots to get the fairways to drain. Several of them are constant problems for turf growth and playability really suffers. It's a knock against the architect that they didn't either route around those areas or shape them for better runoff and percolation.

University Club of Kentucky - Actually has two courses, both with multiple low-lying areas that could have been avoided. In this case, the drainage issues reflect a systematic problem with development in that they tried to put 36 holes on a property that really lacked adequate size. Some good holes, but nothing so significantly interesting that it was worth incorporating poorly-draining areas.

Yahara Hills - Perhaps the worst example. A Madison, WI muni on flat terrain designed with the purpose of providing affordable public golf. Such a no-frills project should have focused primarily on drainage in my mind. I'm not sure what they focused on instead, but drainage wasn't it. I played a tournament a few years ago at Yahara and its sister course down the road, Odana Hills. We played Odana after a torrential morning deluge and found it completely playable. We played Yahara the next day and it was still soaked, which is typical.

There are countless other examples. University Ridge in Madison is another good one. The bottom line is that I think getting drainage right needs to be as much of an architectural priority as anything else, and a course that doesn't get it right has therefore failed at one of the most important aspects of design. There's room for some leeway in the case of swampy sites or other poorly draining properties, but in my opinion the architect should figure out a way to get the areas in play to be the same ones that drain best on a given site.

[Sean_A]

Pat

In a market with year round golf, drainage becomes extremely important.  There isn't much point in belonging to a club which may be on and off temporary greens for five months a year.  

Here are six courses I like a lot, but won't play at certain times of the year because of drainage

Edgbaston
Harborne
Painswick
Pyle & Kenfig
Players Club - Stranahan
Worcester

Here are four courses I like a lot, but suffer drainage issues period

Cavendish
Blackwell
Tobacco Road
Mid Pines

There are many more courses which I don't care for which suffer as well, but what does it matter - I wouldn't play those courses anyway.

Unlike Jason, I don't always blame the archie.  Many times the archie was given a site without a sufficient budget or even the technology (old courses) to mitigate drainage issues.  

Ciao

[Patrick_Mucci]

Sean,

How many times have you played Mid-Pines ?

Tobacco Road ?

[RJ_Daley]

Yahara Hills - Perhaps the worst example. A Madison, WI muni on flat terrain designed with the purpose of providing affordable public golf. Such a no-frills project should have focused primarily on drainage in my mind. I'm not sure what they focused on instead, but drainage wasn't it.

I have to agree in part and slso disagree, Jason.  Agree that there are 'some' low spots and they aren't well drained.  Those low spots were routed in swampy-silty land, before wetland issues were so prevalent.  But, YH is anything but a flat terrain.  There are plenty of hills- thus the name.    I'm not sure how the chronology was now, but either Art Johnson routed it, and Killian&Nuggent finished it, or vise versa. I played there a couple times a week in the 80s.  There is plenty of elevation change, but flat FW grading and maybe they skimped on sub surface drain lines.  Green pads are both built up from low spots and a few hill top sites.  Conditioning is a muni level approach, and overwatered in my decades there... don't know about Trigve (the newish super's approach - but he is a very good player).

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