I have never felt that I need to play a course to have a valid opinion that would be worthy of sharing with my friends.  As an obvious example I don't need to play the 12th at Augusta to understand the subtle nuances of the shot.  I can sit here right now and imagine either coming out of the shot and dumping it short right in the water or over compensating and hitting it long left...I could hit the shot a million times and not know any more or less about the architecture than I know now.

I know the tree removal at Oakmont opened up the course and made it a course I enjoy more without ever having seen it before or after..

As a more obscure example...The 18th at The Old Course is a more interesting finisher than the 18th at Sebonack considering they both seem to be cut off the easy finish model..

Why aren't these opinions valid and what others might you have...the more obscure the better..

John:  But what if I told you that I have played the 12th at Augusta National several times, and when I came over the top and pulled my approach it didn't wind up in too bad a spot, and I usually got up and down for par because the green is so flat?  

I wouldn't believe you for one thing..and obviously the pull long is better than in the water.  That is why I hit that type of shot so often.  You have been far too busy the last couple of years to get up and down from long left to the Sunday pin..

John,
Opinions of holes/courses that one has not seen in person or played can still be valid and useful to hear.  However, there is no substitute for seeing or playing a hole or course in person to truly appreciate it.  Unless you've walked up the 18th fairway or down the 10th at Augusta, you can't appreciate its severity.  Until you've seen Old Head in person, you might think it's an 11 from the photos.  Unless you walk the grounds (ideally with a caddie and clubs in hand) at Pinehurst #2, you can't get a true feel for the complexity of that design.

Think about it this way, could you ever say that a particular course is your favorite if you never played it or saw it in person?  I sure couldn't say that, at least not with any conviction.
Mark

John,
You are right on many holes but the 12th at ANGC???......what about the "venturi effect" ( you know like in carburetors, not Ken V) that is created by the wind in that corner?  you couldn't know that w/o playing there....
could you?
Mike

Mike,

If it is truly an unpredictable wind effect how could I learn more than what I know now by playing it once or even a dozen times...It might just be me but I just don't learn all that much that often..

 I can't tell you how many times I've actually gone and looked carefully at holes I've never played and gotten distinct impressions and opinions of them and then gone back and played them and gotten a very different opinion.

You or anyone else, John, can certainly form an opinion of any hole or course by just looking at it never having played it but I for one would never take seriously someone's opinion until they played it. And again, the reason is because my only real reference is my own experiences of just looking at holes vs playing them. Sometimes I'm just amazed how different the two opinions can be.

I can't tell you how many times I've actually gone and looked carefully at holes I've never played and gotten distinct impressions and opinions of them and then gone back and played them and gotten a very different opinion.

You or anyone else, John, can certainly form an opinion of any hole or course by just looking at it never having played it but I for one would never take seriously someone's opinion until they played it. And again, the reason is because my only real reference is my own experiences of just looking at holes vs playing them. Sometimes I'm just amazed how different the two opinions can be.

Tom,

Could you give an example..I just don't get how that could happen.

Mark,

What is an example of looks hard plays easy..I can't imagine.

"Tom,
Could you give an example..I just don't get how that could happen."

John:

Perhaps the best example I can give you in recent years is my vastly different opinion of NGLA just looking at it vs actually playing it after not having been there for maybe forty years.

I'm glad you asked because I've probably never thought it all the way through. I think, for me anyway, it's probably somewhat of a spatial thing, most particularly with what I consider to be really good and interesting golf architecture, like NGLA. To bridge that gap between what a hole and a course like that one just looks like and what it's like to play I definitely have to be hitting a golf ball.

I think I have pretty good spatial sense, certainly better inside than outside like most people but with the best kind of architecture or the kind I like best that can be thrown off bigtime and sometimes even both ways although generally things tend to look longer to me than they really are.

Just think of NGLA, for instance, there's just such a variety of cool and interesting and often deceiving stuff going on between you and your target, hole after hole. Sometimes long grass, dips, high ridges, big berms, a water carry that's so deceiving, diagonals, convex, concave sloping ground all around, hazards inside the fairway lines, elevation deception, blindness, you name it.

I have a lot of respect for Shinnecock but this is why I like NGLA better, and why I like the actual architecture better.

Even Maidstone, there's just so much interesting stuff between you and your target---not every hole but a whole lot of them.

I like my course and plenty of others but if I have a complaint about it this would be it---from tee to green its visual connection is pretty standard stuff---not as much interesting stuff between you and your target.

And I think most know how deceptive TV can make a hole look compared to being there and certainly hitting a shot on it.

ANGC is probably a little different because so many of us have seen so many golfers playing it year after year it's a bit easier to relate to, at least to what their games are on the course.

But everyone tells me one's opinion of ANGC is so different when you go there for the first time even after seeing it on TV for decades. And then if you actually play it you probably say occassionally "Tiger hit it where? You're kidding me!"

I had a great time playing Old Head one time in about a 30mph wind and the only problem was the caddie I had had caddied in Tiger's group a few days before and he kept telling me on about every shot where Tiger hit it. At the end of the day, though, I managed to break 80 from the tips in that high wind and Tiger lost two balls and I played the entire round with one.  

AG,

Which hole at Tabacco road in between 1 and 18..I promise you those play exactly as hard as they look.   I hope you're not saying that blind shots play easier than they look because you can't imagine the architect provided a bail out you can't see..

John:

I think that we can get a sense of holes we see played countless times on TV and so all of the back nine at Augusta is imprinted in our golfing minds without ever stepping on the property, however, and I've never been there, all that have tell me television doesn't come close to showing the true movement and undulation of the property.  Therefore, I would say that TV alone cannot give anyone a genuine sense of any hole or course.

I also don't believe walking a course without playing it is a full experience GCA wise.  If an archie does their job well looks will often be deceiving and play (sometimes multiple times) is the only way to fully appreciate any particular hole or course.  

When wind affects play as it does so often on great courses different wind conditions fundementally alter play and therefore bring hazards into or out of play, all of which can only be experienced through play.  

If one were peeling an onion, tv viewing of a hole (even those like 12 at Augusta) would be the very first layer, walking a course inside the ropes would be a second layer, playing once a third and playing multiple times a fourth and so on.

The very best courses reveal new layers after dozens of rounds and that is what keeps us all coming back to them.  

For instance, I've played the 11th at Shinnecock three times now, still have not hit the green and have played it in 5, 4 and 2 (holed out from the front left bunker to a back right pin last time ).  It's rapidly becoming my favorite shorter par 3 and it's kicking my butt.  Only through playing the hole multiple times does one fully realize how tough and good it is (truly the shortest par 5 in America).  Even though I watched pro after pro miss that green on Wednesday of the U.S. Open, I didn't realize how it played until I was the one staring at those nasty pot bunkers and that tiny green and the wind was blowing and I had absolutely no idea what club to hit.  

Quote from: John Kavanaugh on December 02, 2005, 09:48:33 AM

Why aren't these opinions valid and what others might you have...the more obscure the better..

These opinion are valid, so long as you are not so married to them that they cannot change after you play the course/hole. Opinions are great for discussion, and the way you personally develop your opinions keep this discussion group lively, but an educated opinion has to have weight over an uneducated opinion every time.

JES,

I've played Victoria National hundreds of times...Tom Doak toured it once, without playing, I think before completion and I'm sure has seen a few pictures...whose opinion would be "more educated" and carry more weight.

John:

There is no question that you know Victoria National way better than I do.  [It was open when I toured it, but they did not invite me to play, and I didn't ask.]

However, since you ponied up a lot of $ to join it before you'd played any of those rounds, one could also assume that you are predisposed toward liking the design to prove that you weren't an idiot in joining to begin with.

No member's opinion of his home course is without bias, any more than any architect's opinion of one of his designs.  However, in both cases, we do have more facts to go on than the punters who play once and slice into the trees and tell us that hole sucks!

P.S.  That is my normal procedure for whether I play a new course I've gone to see ... whether or not I'm invited to play.  So, are you saying I should never comment on the clubs which are too stuck up to invite me to play?