Can great greens make up for ho hum holes?

[Tommy Williamsen]

I played a Donald Ross course the other day.  Thirteen holes were pretty special but about five holes were just so so.  There were no fairway bunkers and did not require either length or precision off the tee. The shots into the greens were not particularly interesting either.  The holes were built on very flat ground while the rest of the course had hilly terrain that was very interesting and made the player think and execute. The holes on the flats were pretty boring until you got to the greens. Can a great green complex save an utherwise boring hole?

[RJ_Daley]

Yes, I think so.  Yes, I think so.   

[Tom_Doak]

Can a great green complex save an otherwise boring hole?

Heck yeah.  It's probably the best way to save it.  It's hard to place bunkers on dead flat ground that make much sense.

[Cliff Hamm]

If that is the case why are there not more quality courses in Florida?

[Tom_Doak]

If that is the case why are there not more quality courses in Florida?

It's one thing to "save" a couple of holes; another thing to save 18 of them!

[Jamey Bryan]

Tommy

I'd echo Tom's "Heck yeah!"  A really good green makes the approach interesting regardless of terrain (and likely makes the drive more interesting to get into the proper position to attack the green).  I can think of a number of Ross courses in North Carolina which would be really mundane were the greens not excellent.

Jamey

[jeffwarne]

I played a Donald Ross course the other day.  Thirteen holes were pretty special but about five holes were just so so.  There were no fairway bunkers and did not require either length or precision off the tee. The shots into the greens were not particularly interesting either.  The holes were built on very flat ground while the rest of the course had hilly terrain that was very interesting and made the player think and execute. The holes on the flats were pretty boring until you got to the greens. Can a great green complex save an utherwise boring hole?

To take a minority view,
If you have to ask....
was the hole really saved?

[Steve Salmen]

The front 9 at Ravisloe has 9 decent to pretty good holes along with 9 excellent greens. The greens provide both fun and defense of the course, especially the front side.

[Sean_A]

Yes, I think greens can save a few holes, but its a trick that can easily run its course.  I like to see this idea of saving a hole reserved for really wild greens ala The Gate at North Berwick. That hole is a complete dud without the green. 


Ciao

[Adrian_Stiff]

Yes, I think greens can save a few holes, but its a trick that can easily run its course.  I like to see this idea of saving a hole reserved for really wild greens ala The Gate at North Berwick. That hole is a complete dud without the green. 


Ciao

Have just done exactly this on what we considered the least best hole.

[Peter Pallotta]

I can rarely if ever make out the contours of a green from way back on the tee of a Par 4 (or Par 5, of course), and even if I'm familiar with a course and its greens I can rarely make out where the hole is cut/the pin is that day; and so for me a good green can save a ho hum hole only in retrospect, after I've putted out. But a good green certainly adds to the surprise and variability of any given golf hole (and thus pleasure and interest) when I first get a clear look at it, usually as I'm preparing to hit my approach or at the tee on a Par 3. In this it functions more like a prevailing wind: you walk off the last green and work your way over to the next tee, say a Par 3, and I can feel the wind, but only when I step onto the tee does the full import/implications of the wind, that day, on this shot, with that pin position, become clear -- which is a very engaging experience and makes the game continually new moment by moment.  New and surprising/engaging vistas, shot by shot, and new and engaging interactions/experiences moment by moment -- that to me is what makes a golf hole and a golf course work.
Peter

[Jud_T]

If the greens were great why weren't the shots into them interesting?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Peter,

I am always surprised at how well tour pros can discern contours from the approach shot. In a grand opening playing with Steve Elkington, I had one green with a severe sort of Redan tilt.  He noticed it and played accordingly, to about 5 feet.

As to the OP, yes, an average hole with a great green, or at least a bunkerless hole with a severe green seems to have been done a lot on purpose by architects.  It can be okay, but I suspect over time most dull tee to green holes get improved or "improved" somehow with the addition of bunkers, etc.

I don't mind the concept of balancing difficulty with a harder green for an easier hole, but overall, I think that every shot ought to have interest to come anywhere near calling a hole "great."

[Peter Pallotta]

Jud - a plate of food at a high end restaurant may look wonderful, but I'd be a fool to call the food great before actually eating it myself, and even more a fool if I judged it from 535 yards away (no matter how highly ranked/rated the restaurant was by others). So with a golf hole: on a Par 5, say, the interplay/relationship between the green and the approach and the tee shot and the 2nd shot and the pin placement can't be determined before you even hit your first shot, from 525 yards away, and certainly a green/hole you're playing for the 1st time can't be judged great from back there. It's in the actual playing that we understand and appreciate the green's qualities. So, yes, from the fairway as I settle over my 3rd/approach shot, a good green, with one of its better pin placements, might at that point start making an otherwise ho hum hole more interesting for me as I see its contours and potential options/challenges, and then, depending on the pin placement, I may experience as my final putt approaches the hole, that this "good green" has indeed saved an otherwise so-so Par 5 (and there are a heck of a lot of those around); but I was offering a counter-point to the suggestion that a good green can get a golfer revved up (and saying "oh, lucky the Ross green here is so interesting, because otherwise this hole would suck") while he's still to hit his drive. I raise this because I think some architects miss this point: i.e. they think that if they put a decent green at the end of a banal par 5 golfers will get to the hole already interested in it/liking it; but in fact, since we play golf one shot at a time (just like we eat from a great looking plate of food), what I experience instead is a boring shot and a boring second and then maybe, depending on where i am, an interesting looking green -- which doesn't in itself make me "think backwards" and decide that the golf hole is in fact good instead of boring as I'd originally thought.
Peter


PS - just saw your post, Jeff, thanks -- yes, unless I'm already predisposed to calling a hole great, I won't be experiencing it as such unless there is interest and challenge on every shot, and will only experience how the green might "save it" after I've gotten to the green.

[Mike_Young]

Hair stylist and beauticians for years have been taking 300 pounders and having them spend $250 bucks for a hair style when there is no way in hell it helps the overall.  I see no reason that one could not look at great greens the same way...

[Thomas Dai]

A couple of examples to ponder -


Royal Dornoch's 14th-Foxy is oft mentioned as a great hole but is it really a ho-hum hole with a great green?


Royal County Down regularly comes out in listings as the best links course in the world but is it mainly a great tee-to-green course where the greens themselves are the least taxing feature?


And what about the often mentioned subject herein of width? Would folk rather play a hole that's wide (and maybe even pretty flat/hazardless) with a green/greensite where the angle of approach is crucial and therefore the positioning of previous shots is also critical or the opposite?


And then there's variety where too much of the same thing can be bland/boring after a while?


Just some thoughts to ponder.


Atb

[Bill_McBride]

A couple of examples to ponder -


Royal Dornoch's 14th-Foxy is oft mentioned as a great hole but is it really a ho-hum hole with a great green?

I don't see how you could call it ho-hum with the need to hit your best tee shot and then play across all that broken ground toward the green.   The few times I've played the hole I chose to play my second hole high down the fairway so my third would be a manageable pitch down the length of the green rather than a hack out of deep rough to the short axis of the green.   Foxy is a great hole with a good green. 

[Thomas Dai]

Attempting to play a bit of Devils Advocate here Bill, which is why my sentences all had question marks at the end, and using high profile examples to try to further debate. No slur inteneded on either the hole or the courses mentioned.



Atb

[Jud_T]

PP,


I was specifically talking about the approach shot into a great green.  If you had 18 tree lined, flat bowling alley holes with no fairway bunkering and 18 great greens, it would seem as if you'd have at least 18 interesting approach shots into those greens.  Obviously there can be local knowledge, hidden breaks, different pins etc., but I can't really fathom how a 150 yard shot into a great green can be mundane without the green being something other than great.

[PCCraig]

I'm not convinced that a green can be "great" if the hole itself doesn't enhance the strategy from said green. IE, can a green be great if it doesn't matter where you approach it from?


That being said, is the architect most pressured to build a "great" green on a par-3, given that the approach shots are set?

[Tommy Williamsen]

If the greens were great why weren't the shots into them interesting?

The shots into the greens might be more interesting the second time around. The first time I just hit it into the center of the greens. The most imtersting feature that I saw from the fairway were the false fronts. Taking enough club was the main obstacle. As for the greens they had some ag icicles slope and pretty fascinating undulations. 

[Bill_McBride]

Attempting to play a bit of Devils Advocate here Bill, which is why my sentences all had question marks at the end, and using high profile examples to try to further debate. No slur inteneded on either the hole or the courses mentioned.



Atb

We will sort this out over pints in Ireland next year!