Visual deception as a tool to confuse

[Tommy Williamsen]

One of the tools in bag a tricks an architect has is deception. Whether it is a skyline green, placement of bunkers short of the green, placement of bunkers in the fairway, deep gullies, making the green appear smaller than it is, and other types of visual deception. The purpose is to confuse, obscure, and perplex the player. In November I spent a week at The European Club outside Dublin. Pat Ruddy did a bunch of things to deceive. I pride myself on figuring out distance. Before every shot I will “eyeball” the distance, then check it with my range-finder. Periodically I am off a bunch.
For instance, number 7a. The hole from the white tees plays 120 yards. There is a huge gully between the tee and the green with huge dunes left and right. Behind the green is another dune, but it is positioned ten yards or so from the edge of the green. Even though I know the distance, invariably I will be long, because the distance is deceiving.


 

[Tommy Williamsen]

Number 14 is similar to 7a. It plays about 150 yards across another gully. It is framed by two large dunes but has bunkers left and right. The dune in the distance is closer to the green. I tend to be short.

[Tommy Williamsen]

Number 15 is a par four along the Irish Sea. The wind is a factor. It tends to blow behind the golfer. The second shot is uphill to a skyline green. The green is deep and has a little hillock short of the green that is visually misleading. Invariably I am short.


 

[Jeff_Brauer]

Fazio did it well at Shadow Creek, with one hole having forced perspective (big fw bunkers, getting smaller as they get to the 3000 SF green, making the hole appear much further away.  Later, on a short 4, he used large green and flanking bunkers to make that approach shot appear shorter than it is, but the first one worked better.

[Thomas Dai]

Visual deception is one of my very favourite aspects of playing the game (and studying the architectural intent), even more so when little dirt has been moved to achieve it.


However, there can also be the complete opposite of ‘hidden’ deception. Sometimes totally flat and featureless can be hell to play over, no points of reference so loads of visual confusion/deception.


Shame that yardage books, range finders and sat-gizmo’s etc are now available.

Atb

[Ira Fishman]

I too appreciate well done deception.  On the front 9 at Bandon Trails, my eye took me to the wrong line off the tee repeatedly even though Sven was warning me to not be deceived.  I have no idea how C&C accomplished it.


The 18th at Hope Valley has three Ross tricks in one Par 3.  The tee seems elevated because the land in front drops down which causes one to miss just how much uphill the green site really is.  Second, bunkers 15 yards short of green.  Third, the false front both makes the green look bigger than it plays and hides the depth to the back corner.


Ira

[Tommy Williamsen]

Shame that yardage books, range finders and sat-gizmo’s etc are now available.

Atb

Every once in a while I will play without looking through my rangefinder or look at the sprinkler heads. I know some of the yardages because it is my home course, but it still is fun just to eyeball the distance. On links courses in GB&I I hit more low running shots and distances seem to be less important.

[Paul Carey]

I think that the European Club is the most intentionally deceiving course I have played and I love it.  Its also a reason how rangefinders have taken away a fun part of the game.

[Tommy Williamsen]

I think that the European Club is the most intentionally deceiving course I have played and I love it.  Its also a reason how rangefinders have taken away a fun part of the game.

Paul, one of my favorite holes is number five. Standing on the tee you see three bunkers. You'd swear that the one on the left is a centerline bunker. It isn't. It is on the left side of the fairway. Even though I know the truth of that little stinker's placement, I tend to hit it too far right.

[Pete_Pittock]

Best deception of me was at Druids Glen (Keith Foster) outside Tacoma. 6th hole, slightly uphill long (for me) par 3 around 200 (checked the scorecard after 20ish years, 202 from my tees) with a fronting bunker. I played to the open right edge and walked up to find the fronting bunker had forty yards of fairway behind it.

[Tommy Williamsen]

Periodically I will find that slope on greens can baffle me. This is especially true on mountain courses. Greens tend to slope away from the mountain, but on the green it doesn't look that way. The same is true for the Upper course at Baltusrol. I know how the mountain affects the putt, but it is hard to factor it in when my eyes tell me something different.

[Kalen Braley]

Fully agreed Tommy,


There are a few courses here in Northern Utah built into the lower bench of the mountains. One particular course I got downright humiliated on a few greens when playing it for the first time.  Missed a few 20-30 foot putts that ended up 5-6 feet away on what looked to be the uphill side.

[Steve Lang]

   Good deception only really hides a portion of reality, so the synoptic tie-in leads the way...  Other than a first play, should the deception ever really be of issue?

[Tommy Williamsen]

  Good deception only really hides a portion of reality, so the synoptic tie-in leads the way...  Other than a first play, should the deception ever really be of issue?

I suppose I am a slow learner. I have some trouble figuring out distance on uphill shots. I don't think there is much visual deception but the amount of vertical rise can play with feel for which club to use. For instance number one at Ballyhack is very much uphill. I will play with guys who hit the ball high. At my age I don't get the ball as high as I used to. Some of the guys I play with will add only a club or club and a half. It doesn't work that way with me. I will have to take two or even three clubs more.

[Matthew Rose]

A par three on the course I grew up playing had two bunkers guarding the green, front left and front right. The left bunker abutted the green but the right one was about 30 yards short and was raised so it was a semi-blind shot.

It was only about a 140 yard shot but it gave me fits for years in terms of hitting the right club, also made more difficult by the fact that the downslope on the back side of that bunker acted as a bit of a random kick plate, so you really had to fly it all the way to the green.

Even if I trusted the yardage, the visual of the shot was often enough for me to hesitate enough in mid-swing to cause some kind of error, usually by backing off 5 percent and coming up short.

[Matthew Petersen]

Periodically I will find that slope on greens can baffle me. This is especially true on mountain courses. Greens tend to slope away from the mountain, but on the green it doesn't look that way. The same is true for the Upper course at Baltusrol. I know how the mountain affects the putt, but it is hard to factor it in when my eyes tell me something different.

I was talking about this with a friend while at the Phoenix Open last week. Invariably, announcers talk about a "Valley effect" for putts at that tournament, where putts supposedly break to Phoenix.


Now, I've lived in Phoenix for the better part of 20 years. I've played TPC Scottsdale and many other courses in that area literally hundreds of times. There is no Valley effect. I grew up in Denver. I played some golf at the Air Force Academy, at the Broadmoor, plenty of other foothills courses where putts that looked like they would break 2 inches right would actually break a half inch left. That's maddening. I've played some courses near the ocean where you get a similar, if somewhat less dramatic effect.


But it doesn't exist at the TPC Scottsdale and I'll be darned if I know why every TV announcer thinks it does. I'm about 95% convinced Gary McCord missed a putt and lost a Nassau in 1985 and made this up and has been going on about it ever since and everyone else just follows along.


End of rant.

[Thomas Dai]

Another aspect of visual deception is how it can alter through the day as the shadows change within the humps, hollows and dead ground areas.
Atb

[Adrian_Stiff]

Another aspect of visual deception is how it can alter through the day as the shadows change within the humps, hollows and dead ground areas.
Atb

Ruined by technology, hardly anyone playing seriously eyeballs it...it's just click on the flag and hit it to that number. :O(

[Tommy Williamsen]

Another aspect of visual deception is how it can alter through the day as the shadows change within the humps, hollows and dead ground areas.
Atb

Ruined by technology, hardly anyone playing seriously eyeballs it...it's just click on the flag and hit it to that number. :O(

Pretty true, yet sometimes when it just feels longer or shorter, I will take a club more or less. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

[Mark Fedeli]

Shame that yardage books, range finders and sat-gizmo’s etc are now available.

Atb

It’s one of the greatest shames. It’s not hard to imagine the game, at all levels, still requiring nothing more than eyeballs and local knowledge. It would be the same exact game as knowing distances down to the yard. And I imagine that when golfers are forced to figure things out with less aid and gadgetry, they would also be a whole lot more accepting of bad breaks and bad luck, and things currently considered “unfair.” They’d be a lot more willing to take the good with the bad since there’d be so much more mystery inherent in the game.

[Steve Lang]

  Mark,


Do you really mean "misery" in your last sentence instead of mystery?

[Mark Fedeli]

Mark,


Do you really mean "misery" in your last sentence instead of mystery?

I’d say it’s more miserable to miss a green when you knew the yardage than when you didn’t.

[Joe Hancock]

Another aspect of visual deception is how it can alter through the day as the shadows change within the humps, hollows and dead ground areas.
Atb

Ruined by technology, hardly anyone playing seriously eyeballs it...it's just click on the flag and hit it to that number. :O(

Oddly, I wasn’t thinking about the whole subject in the context of the approach shot. I was thinking from the tee. Silly me.

[Michael Felton]

This is something I think Walton Heath does well. There are quite a few holes where there are fronting bunkers that are big enough they obscure the bottom of the flag (13 at BPB is the same kind of thing). You stand in the fairway and it just looks like if you clear the bunker, you're in great shape, but often there is another 10-30+ yards of fairway between the bunker and the green. I agree that rangefinders and the like minimize that somewhat, but I still find it in the back of my head if the wind is swirling a bit or I have a questionable lie. It's especially effective when going long is serious trouble, so you have that pushing you to be short and the optical illusion of the hole being closer than it really is.

[Ian Mackenzie]

I think the European Club's entire presentation screams deception.

As in....: How the heck did I get deceived into thinking this is a (world class) links course...?...


Amazing piece of property and stunning (2-3) holes along the water.
From the railway ties in bunkers to the "moat" in front of the 18th green, all this place was missing was a clown's mouth and windmill...


Our entire group concluded the same thing and we wished we played another round at Portmarnock instead of driving there.


Pat Ruddy was a gracious host. He walked with us to the first tee. I took out a 3-wood, blocked it right and the ball ricocheted off the railway ties in the bunker face and landed right smack in the middle of the fairway!!