Is the art of deception a thing of the past ?

Have yardage indicators on sprinkler heads and 250, 200, 150 and 100 yardage markers, combined with distance devices eliminated the visual deception in golf course architecture.

Would Dr Mac's and other early architects' attempts to create deceipt be a waste of time today ?

What can modern day architects do to insert elements of deception, or, is there no such thing today ?

Positioning a hazard, such as a cross bunker, in such a way that it appears to front a green that is actually further away.
That sort of "horizon" deception, as I'll call it for lack of a better word ,is what I probably see most.

Sometimes you'll also see a pretty good dip in front of a green
that is often not seen from a person hitting a longer approach shot. Hit into the rising side of that dip, and the shot stops cold.

The few courses I've played without yardage markers really
feature an added dimension.

We had that discussion a few times during the course of building Sebonack.  And I was having it with the guy who popularized playing by yardage for the masses!

Jack is not a big believer in deception, in fact his instinct is to pull out any deceptive features between the landing area and the green so you can see the green properly.  [He seems not to mind a deceptive tee shot.]  Jim Lipe is welcome to chime in here.

By contrast, some of my associates live for building visual tricks into the featuring of our courses.  I think they do it because it gives them something to think about when they're out there 11 hours a day.

I'm somewhere in the middle.  It's not just that everyone knows the yardages now.  A visual trick shouldn't really have much effect on the member who knows the course, either; it only suckers in the first-time visitor or the player who fails to learn from his past mistakes.  There's some value to that, but it's not part of the strategy of the course for a good player, which is why Nicklaus and Weiskopf and those guys take out the intervening contour.

My attitude is that I don't deliberately put visual tricks into a course [although my associates are doing it for me!], but if I notice one that has occurred naturally I will probably leave it in there.  In dunes it happens all the time, which is why we kept coming back to the subject at Sebonack.

A corollary question:  how many golf courses in the USA have no yardage markers?  How many in the UK or Australia?

That's exactly the question(s) I was going to ask you, Tom.  What percentage of courses do you build that do not have yardage markers?  Were you advocating it or was the client already on board with the idea?  I don't recall seeing yardage markers at Sebonack.  Will there be?

I think it is fine for private courses where such a lack of information fits in with the overall atmosphere, especially classic courses where there is a history preceding yardage markers and an excellent caddie program.  Merion and Pine Valley are excellent examples in my area.

Jeff:

I don't know the answer to your question!

My guess is that they will opt for yardages on the sprinkler heads, although there weren't any out there when we played it last fall.  [Luckily, I know all the yardages within about 5-10 yards.]  They will have caddies, too, so players won't have to do their own math.

Maybe they will have those stinking laser rangefinders that Jack is endorsing!

Wayne:

Barnbougle started without any yardage markers, at Michael Clayton's suggestion.  I didn't think it was wise; it's really hard to judge distances in the dunes, and Australian golfers are not at all used to trying.  I don't know if they've relented or not.

Personally, I don't take a stand on that issue.  It's silly to stand on principle for not providing yardages, when you know the better players will have them anyway [and when you know them yourself   ].  But I do believe that "playing by the numbers" has been a bane to golfers for the last thirty years.

"You have to admit, though, that there's not a big difference
between seeing a yardage marker, and having a caddie tell you to 'hit your 148 club.'"

Craig,

Yes, but members don't always take caddies, so to them the experience is more traditional.  The sprinklers have numbers on them and correspond to books the caddies carry...it encourages their use, which I think is a good thing.

Tom D,

Curious.  Is Nicklaus aware of this website?  How about other touring pros/designers?

Rod Whitman and I are working with Dick Zokol on a new project called Sagebrush, in British Columbia. It's intended to be an ultra-private club. Zokol's adamant there will be NO yardage marks at Sagebrush.

Imagine that, a former PGA Tour player in favour of no marks on the course!

There's a course in Md called Hog's Neck. I think they used to use the metric system on the sprinkler heads. Now that's confusing!

Pat:

I would be glad to provide you a list of about 25 visual deceptions in our last few courses, if you really want it, but I think you know we dabble in that.  I would agree with your premise that the majority of modern designers do not.

Wayne:

I don't know if Jack Nicklaus is aware of this web site.  Believe it or not, in several days of being together, I never had to refer to it once!  I am sure Jack doesn't have much free time to spend here.

Jeff:

Is Zokol not going to know the yardages himself, or does he just not want others to know them?  

Frankly, I think that clubs opt for "no markers" to market themselves as purists, but they are just providing the yardages in other ways.  I still want to know, apart from Culver Academy and The Sheep Ranch, where there are courses in America where people play by "feel".

Pat:

This is an excellent question.

First of all, I personally am a big believer in deception in golf architecture, visual deception, deception of any kind of perception of what one's looking at and attempting to hit too.

I'm sure there are a large number of architectural devices and tricks to maintain deception in architecture despite the increasing prevalence of distance indicators but to me probably the greatest one of all is that old architectural staple----the diagonal angle---of any use or application.

Can one really expect most golfers to lock in on the distance, no matter what kind of device they're using, to cross a particular point of a diagonal angle that offers a fine line between success or failure, penalty or reward?

I seriously doubt it, and even if they can lock in on that particular point on that diagonal angle dictating a fine line of penalty or reward they still have to execute perfectly with both distance and direction (accuracy).

I feel the cleverly constructed mulitiple use of the diagonal angle in golf architecture will continue to maintain deception and will foil most any distance devices in the future.

Would you like a really good architectural examples of what I mean by this?

In so far as yardage markers are concerned, I do not see any harm in marking the sprinkler heads, and only the sprinkler heads. Purists can opt to not look, and players who rely upon them can have a peek.

TK

Tom P:

Okay, I'll bit, yes I would like to hear some of your examples.

However, don't you think the better players disregard the deception as others have stated?  And isn't the deception best/truly applied to the first timers and to those who don't know how to read the landscape?

Heck, I play to an 11 and unless it is the first time to a new course, I find the deceptive features interesting and creative, but they rarely fool me, but then again, I am able to read the ground and make good judgments about distance, my problem is usually accuracy.

All this said... though I am a fan of deception, used wisely and not overdone, and especially the diagonal approach for it does seem to be the most effective manner to make someone think and I like the visual effect it creates as well.

To me, I like and use deception more along the lines of luring the golfer to take a line of play that may lead to the wrong approach.  Not so much attached to the distance thing, but rather to fool the player in choosing the wrong line of attack.  This coupled with contour in fairways, approaches and of course on the green surface, can lead I believe, to more fun and cause players to think beyond just making the correct distance judgment.  Part of this I think goes along with your comment about the combination of distance and accuracy.  I think you have to have both built into the deceptive element in order to be really successful.