[Jeff Schley]

Jeff,


I didn't think you were demeaning anyone.


Brad Klein went to MN to see my Quarry and Wilderness at FB and said if no one told him, he wouldn't believe they were by the same architect.  Nicest thing anyone ever said to me.  A local writer noticed my new project has some small, perfect circular greens and commented he had never seen me do those before.


I think as we age, we all give some consideration to not being typecast any more than naturally happens.  At least, I would like my 2010 courses to be distinguishable from my 1990 courses.  Maybe the "brand builders" like RTJ and TF don't mind the sameness, as it sells, but I would think most do.


Obviously, a certain style has worked for nearly all of us to one degree or another, so yes, we repeat styles.  But, I think every architect ought to have a few out of the box style breakers, and hopefully, those would be among their top 3 courses.  And, I think they do. TF has World Woods Pine Barrens course, styled as Pine Valley, and that would be my pick in his top 3.  Doak is a bit different at Common Ground.  JN has softened his overall style over time.


There have been a few industry whispers that CC are starting to repeat themselves, similar to the accusations against nearly every busy GCA ever.  Frankly, as much as I like variety, that would be a problem I would like to have had!

Gotcha, you are saying that if the architect gets outside their comfort zone and designs, desert courses or treeless courses or whatever the case maybe to get the outside of their normal style you respect this risk.  I can see that as adding tools to the toolbox.  I do remember going to PGA West back maybe 20 years ago or so and playing the Stadium Course followed by the Nicklaus Tournament course.  I said to myself, wow this Nicklaus course is so much easier to drive the ball and you see each green, that is seemed easy!

[Jeff_Brauer]

Jeff,

Your PGA West story also illustrates some differences of opinion on strategery.

Not atypical for pros to consider strategy to be the course allowing many different shot types, so no one is at a disadvantage.  However, that leads to wide open and no real advantage, so sometimes strategy is lost.

Not atypical for Dye to required a shot type off the tee due to angle, but then balance out the shot types, a la his famous fade/draw/fade/draw pattern of holes.  And, when fairways narrow with those angles of play,

sometimes strategy is lost.

As to your main point about my point (?) your explanation is true in real life (i.e., we all bring style assumptions to most jobs, and most owners hire on past style)

But the purest design process would be to analyze every site to determine what it's own style should be, and then do that, regardless of what you have done before.  Start with a blank slate, no preconceived ideas (other than water moves downhill, LOL)  Under that theory, the architect shouldn't actually have a comfort zone.  Alas, we all do.

So, every final design is a blend of factors.  I agree, its hard to judge if you don't consider who the owner was, the budget, the environmental restrictions, etc.  They all affect the final product. However, some are purely the architects fault.

I recall my old boss chiding some of his contemporaries. Usually toiling under modest budgets and goals, every so often one of the mere mortals would get a nice commission, and then design the same course they put everywhere else.  Dick Nugent said, "They had a $4M budget and delivered a $1.5M course." (Or had a world class site and delivered a muni)

[John Kavanaugh]

Check out percentage of courses that have failed.

Well, you have to be willing to work for an owner who might fail.  Some guys are interested in great sites, some are interested in deep pockets.  We would all love to have both, of course.  But it's the jobs you choose to take or pass on that ultimately define you.


A fairly high % of Tom Weiskopf's projects have failed or struggled.  I don't think that has much to do with the designs; it's more about that he took the jobs that Nicklaus passed over, or where the client didn't have the $$$ to sign Jack.  And then his project in the same town would hit the market a couple of years later than Jack's, so it was more vulnerable.


I do know Tom Fazio when he was very young was the foreman for his uncle on a job where he had to tell the construction crew there was no money to pay them one week.  I think that probably had a lot to do with his sales pitch of "if you have to ask, you can't afford us".  But so many of those projects were compromised by development considerations!  Like Donald Ross, Bill and Ben and I have been very lucky to work for clients whose first priority was golf.  It's sad how often that is not the case.

Sadly the last post on a page rarely gets read and the above deserves better. I always liked Weiskopf, felt like we had a lot in common. Thanks for that take on his designs. I wonder if he is bitter.

[Tim Gallant]

Proportionally speaking, the more you wish players to challenge a bunker, the less severe you make it, no? 

Jeff,


I played around with this in my mind. I think the logic has to do with the balance of the risk vs. the reward. The architect can just as easily make the advantage of being close to the hazard so great that the risk is worth it's weight.


I'm reminded of Tom Doak's assessment of the 12th at North Berwick (before more bunkers were added). Im paraphrasing but he said something along the lines of: it was advantageous to be on the left and challenge the bunker because the route into the green was far superior to the other side of the fairway. The bunker was a shot penalty for sure (no hope of getting it to the green). So it wasn't that players challenged the bunker because it was less severe, they challenged the bunker because the reward outweighed the risk. That is, until they landed in that bunker and experienced the penalty. Then they would shy away from it for a time, until the lure of the angle outweighed the risk again.
Therefore, I don't think that players look at a hazard and think 'the penalty isn't too severe. I'm going to challenge it'. I think they ask 'am I prepared to for the consequences if I don't pull this off?' If the answer is yes, then it doesn't matter how big and bad the hazard is. As has been said though, I agree that the answer may not, or possibly even should not be so obvious. Having variety of both hazard difficulty, and strategic merit will likely yield interesting golf.

Tim,

Most good players I know weigh the consequences in terms of "Am I going to recover 2 out of 3 times" in making that decision.  If it isn't close to a 2 to 1 ratio for success, they don't do it, because somewhere down the line, they need to make two birdies to offset the bogey.

 It doesn't really matter how great the advantage is on

par 4 holes, where the most strokes you can gain with a better angle advantage is one, and statistically probably an average of the old half stroke advantage.  So, I would think there would be far less tendency to take a risk, unless you happened to be playing the driver very well that day.

On par 5's it is two (barring hole outs on either hole type)  strokes to be gained, so I tend to make fairway bunkers on a par 5 deeper, since even with limited forward movement, a player can still reach a green in regulation three shots.   Basically, unless the golfer thinks he is entitled to a 4 on a par 5, there is no risk of going above par, and the possibility of gaining two strokes and the math says go for it (on bunkers, water and OB complicate the math)

And, for that matter, no one ever empirically proved the entire risk reward concept.  In general, you would logically challenge a hazard with an iron rather than a driver, because the tendency to miss is a lot less pronounced for most players (granted, we are all different, and for that matter, each of us is different on different days and even hours or holes, LOL)

Now, that math is probably different on holes 15-18 when behind in a match, so place in round also affects how I design.  Your take would definitely be closer to the golfers thought process, at least based on my experience of asking good players a lot of really nosy questions.......      


Of course, that is just how I think about it.  When you factor in you might be trying to build a bunker that "theoretically" should be 4 ft deep into a 10 foot hill, something has to give, and it looks too unnatural to build the base of the bunker up to some predetermined height, so its all guidelines I initially think about.  Rarely works out exactly as theorized.

Jeff,


Really appreciate the well thought-out response. In fact, I didn't even consider placement in the round as a variable! Also, you know more good players than I and it is interesting to hear their analytical breakdown. I suppose in the context of good players, they will be thinking 'the risk is too great for the reward', but what if the other side of the fairway is truly at a very big disadvantage? One hole i'm thinking about in particular is the 10th at Riv (sorry to use a tried and tested example), but being on the right side of that fairway is tough. Even with a wedge in the hand it may be a 4 at best. With that in mind, say the left bunker was a genuine shot penalty - would more players still go right?


As you say, I think it also depends on match-play vs. stroke, and a bunch of other factors.

[MClutterbuck]

2. In an interclub match this past Sunday at Hasentree in Wake Forest, NC, which is a Fazio "signature" that I like a lot, I watched one of my opponents, who played college golf and is still just excellent, take three to get out out of a fairway bunker and make double on the first hole.  That hole is a 428 yd. dogleg par 4 and the #1 handicap hole; he played the rest of the round 2 over and shot 75.  (And waxed us!)

Aside from any architecture consideration, pretty bad mistake having your #1 handicap hole as the first. #1 and #2 handicaps should not be the first 2 holes or the last 2 holes of the course.

[A.G._Crockett]

2. In an interclub match this past Sunday at Hasentree in Wake Forest, NC, which is a Fazio "signature" that I like a lot, I watched one of my opponents, who played college golf and is still just excellent, take three to get out out of a fairway bunker and make double on the first hole.  That hole is a 428 yd. dogleg par 4 and the #1 handicap hole; he played the rest of the round 2 over and shot 75.  (And waxed us!)

Aside from any architecture consideration, pretty bad mistake having your #1 handicap hole as the first. #1 and #2 handicaps should not be the first 2 holes or the last 2 holes of the course.

At Hasentree, the #2 handicap hole is the 18th, so they checked two of your boxes.  I was getting one shot off the low index in our group, so that was over in a hurry; my partner was getting three, and we were closed out before the 18th.  None of that really mattered, but I don't think I'd ever seen a course where the 1 and 2 handicap holes were the 1st and the 18th.  Certainly not optimal for match play?

The strange thing, at least to me, about the 18th is that they list it as a par 4 so that the course is a par 71.  The hole is 472 from the back tee and plays uphill the entire way; to me, it played as long as any of the other par 5's.  I don't think it would take much of a tweak around the green to make it a good risk-reward second shot for the long hitters, and shorter hitters like myself can't get there anyway, even from the tees that most members play, which are around 435.

[MClutterbuck]

2. In an interclub match this past Sunday at Hasentree in Wake Forest, NC, which is a Fazio "signature" that I like a lot, I watched one of my opponents, who played college golf and is still just excellent, take three to get out out of a fairway bunker and make double on the first hole.  That hole is a 428 yd. dogleg par 4 and the #1 handicap hole; he played the rest of the round 2 over and shot 75.  (And waxed us!)

Aside from any architecture consideration, pretty bad mistake having your #1 handicap hole as the first. #1 and #2 handicaps should not be the first 2 holes or the last 2 holes of the course.

At Hasentree, the #2 handicap hole is the 18th, so they checked two of your boxes.  I was getting one shot off the low index in our group, so that was over in a hurry; my partner was getting three, and we were closed out before the 18th.  None of that really mattered, but I don't think I'd ever seen a course where the 1 and 2 handicap holes were the 1st and the 18th.  Certainly not optimal for match play?

The strange thing, at least to me, about the 18th is that they list it as a par 4 so that the course is a par 71.  The hole is 472 from the back tee and plays uphill the entire way; to me, it played as long as any of the other par 5's.  I don't think it would take much of a tweak around the green to make it a good risk-reward second shot for the long hitters, and shorter hitters like myself can't get there anyway, even from the tees that most members play, which are around 435.

The course Captain or pro should read up on handicapping a golf course.

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