Harvey Penick on GCA

[Garland Bayley]

Here is an excerpt from one of his books.

I haven't been able to travel for several years, but from looking at television and talking to friends and pupils, I agree with Jackie Burke, Jr., when he said, "God is going to make a lot of these golf course architects answer for what they have done to the land."

It's not just some of the architects who are to blame for a decade or more of building golf courses that are tricked up by artificial difficulties such as bulldozer-dug water hazards where water is not meant to be and bunkers that catch only the less skilled players. Real estate developers and green committees have spoiled more golf courses than architects, who, like other artists, do best if left alone.

A pupil told me that while on vacation in Arizona,  he and his wife lost fourteen golf balls in the water during two rounds at a famous resort course. I said, "You must have been pretty wild. The last time I was in Arizona, I didn't see any water. "

No, the pupil said, this course even had a roaring waterfall.

"We had a good time at the course because it was our vacation and an adventure, but it is way too hard for us, " the pupil said.  "My wife and I agreed if we had to play that course every day,  we would wuit golf. "

If lakes or rivers or creeks or wetlands, or for that matter the ocean, are natural to the area, they should be used in golf course design so that nature is enhanced rather destroyed. Ponds are needed for drainage, and these can make the course more pleasing to the eye, or they can be hidden away.

But I see water in front of many greens on modern courses just so the holes look pretty on a postcard. It's not much fun for a high handicapper to play regularly on a course that has no proper entry to the greens. By proper entry, I mean a route where the ball can be bounced onto the putting surface.

He goes on to say Dr. Mac and AWT did work worthy of emulating and related a conversation where AWT told him of discussing a course with a member of that course.

... club member "No one has ever broken par at our course, "

Tillinghast "Why? What's wrong with the place?"

Harvey Penick The Game for a Lifetime 1996

[Jeff_Brauer]

I agree there should be no waterfalls in the desert, few water hazards in front of greens (only if unavoidable....and come to think of it, bunkers, too) and that courses are too hard in general.  We forget how bad we are as golfers......and how many more fun options casual and average golfers have as alternatives.

[James Brown]

Golf courses are definitely too hard.  And too long for the average golfer. 

[Cal Seifert]

Courses have always been too hard and long.  The popularity of the Tour makes long, hard courses better than short ones in the eyes of many.

[Jeff Schley]

Courses have always been too hard and long.  The popularity of the Tour makes long, hard courses better than short ones in the eyes of many.

Agreed.  I like what TOC does, which is close the back tees to all non-tournament play.  I have heard stories of Tom Lehman trying to play the back only to be denied by the started and more recently a Peyton Manning story where he couldn't play the back tees.

If more courses would close the back tees for tournaments only it would help speed up the game and in the end save us golfers from our own egos  .

[Garland Bayley]

I would note that Harvey didn't say anything about courses being too long.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Sort of reminds me of what Pete Dye said was the most popular feature of Pinehurst - No one loses a lot of golf balls.  I think (At $4 per copy) that is a factor in a popular golf course.  Plus, the idea you find it, you hit it, you find it again, you hit it again is most enjoyable, certainly more so than losing a bunch in water hazards or deep rough.


Plus, the open green fronts. I really noticed this in the redo of La Costa, a 1950's tournament style design.  For average golfers, a good shot is one airborne, in the general direction and distance of the green, and they don't hit a dozen of these per round.  When they do, they prefer the course let them find the green, rather than a bunker. Most infuriating is a shot that hits the green, then bounds off to back or side bunkers.  Close behind is hitting a fronting bunker.