I'm one of those golfers who actually likes visual deception in architecture even blindness---not always but certainly enough to provide a real spectrum of variety.

A form of visual deception in architecture I do not recall ever being discussed on here is visual deception as to where a flag is on a particular green even you you can clearly see the flag or a portion of it.

I could probably list hundreds of examples but I'm sure you know what I mean. A real skyline green is probably one of the best techniques and easiest to get this effect but there are all kinds of visual tricks to use to accomplish it.

How do you like this kind of visual deception?

I'd be particularly interested in what Tom Doak thinks of it. It's always interesting to ask him questions like this because frankly it's alway pretty tough to tell where he comes from on all types of things to do with architecture.

Tom,

I thought this thread was going to address the illusion that a post with a lot of words in it is always correct.

 

Joe

I agree that both skyline and back-slope greens are some of the best examples. Logically, the verrrrrry long (deep) green is a prime candidate.



Here we built about 180-ft. of green (back to front) and opened the front, but concealed the back portions. With the oncoming wind and green depth, knowing in advance the yardage becomes essential. Also, the large dunes play tricks with scale — what is a 170-yard shot often looks here as if it is just 130-yards. Even when the golfer knows the yardage, a closer-appearing hole will prompt a lighter swing and thus: the tendency to hit shorter.

I guess one of the best ways to effect all kinds of visual deception in architecture as to where the flag is happens when you begin to get old and your eye sight begins to go like me these days.  

"The 12th at Roxciticus would be a good example."

Patrick:

Excuuuse me?!?

Roxciticus???

Don't you go throwin' around fancy-smancy Latin words with me, Pal. Roxciticus my ass!

Tom,
Salmon Run in Brookings OR, Hole 7. The hole is 169 yards and the green depth is 50 yards. The green is flat and level, and the green is at (my) eye level when on the tee. The V brothers would have an advantage Absolute loss of depth perception, even with trees to the side. The only saving grace, if you are smart, is checking the hole location when playing #6.
Mackenzie did a good job at Pasatiempo #7.

Generally, I find bunker-distance illusions contrived and easily put out of one's mind upon subsequent rounds.

I prefer the absence of visual cues to active deception and for this reason I find elevated greens (often) fun.

Isn't the absence of visual cues an important minimalist strategy to defend par yet create interest (or is it the other way around); i.e., not "minimalism for its own sake" but minimalism as an actual school of design?

Mark

I'm a fan of designs that give great visual perception with a good drive or layup, but provide visual deception for a poorly struck or place ball.

So many well designed holes have this critical feature.

Jeff, that's interesting.  Do you mean a poor / nonexistent view to the green, that you have to drive to a certain location to "open up the view"?

Or are you saying there's actually some deception from the wrong angle, like a view to the horizon, particular to the angle, that makes depth perception difficult?

Thanks,
Mark

In this era of exact approach shot yardages, the visual deception does a great job of playing with the golfers mind.  It is amazing how many top level players hit poor shots because they could not reconcile the difference between the true yardage and what their visual perception was registering. Barona Creek has a couple of greens where the pins can appear back when they are really front pins.  One of my friends hit it 70ft long on the 7th today because he thought the long miss was safer--wrong, he earned a snake.

Mark: You and Tom have hit the nail on the head on this one !

Ross bunkering was always the most deceptive, but it has lost its input with the range finder in play.

I agree with Robert, and disagree with those who say visual deception of bunker distances is a lost art.  Even with the yardages firmly in hand, those bunkers introduce an element of doubt, unless you are playing blind.  And doubt is much more dangerous than just guessing the wrong number.

I also agree with Jeff that holes which give you a better look at the approach from one side of the fairway than the other are compelling, which is why I build a lot of them.

Jonathan:

No, you didn't find it, nobody mentioned it except me.

"However, I am not a big fan of greens where you can't judge the hole location.  I build them often, unintentionally, because I tend to choose slightly elevated locations for greens and any green at or above eye level makes it hard to judge the hole location.  [Macdonald's elevated greens are deceptive for the same reason.]  But I'm doing it to find a well-drained green site, not to fool golfers.  I actually think it's a weakness of my work."

TomD:

I wonder too why you think that's a weakness in architecture.

There's that old saying in architecture that in some cases it comes down to a form of a chess game between the player and the archiect or perhaps more appropriately between the player and the land. There's deception of all kinds in chess and there's sure plenty of visual deception on natural landforms.

I realize architects may not want to resort to just outright trickery (some may've called it flukishness) in some form of visual deception but nonetheless why not use all the forms of visual deception that various natural landforms offer on their own? (in that sense the tee shot on Maidstone's #17 is one of the best examples of totally natural landform visual deception I have ever seen---in other words the tee shot landing area looks from the tee nothing like what it looks when you get out there. Like the 13th and 14th at The Creek that is also very much predicated on how high they allow the reeds to get at any particular time).

There are a number of holes I know of, and some on my own course where despite playing the course a thousand times I still sometimes can't exactly figure out where the pin is on the green for a variety of reasons.

To me this is great stuff because unlike some of the other examples given on here of bunkers hiding open ground over and past them, for instance, or even the example of Maidstone's 17th those techniques really only fool a golfer once---the first time.

Those greens where it's sometimes hard to tell where the pin may be on them despite playing them hundreds of times are capable of "holding the con", if you know what I mean. I like that and I don't view it as some form of blatant trickery or flukishness in architecture and certainly not a weakness in architecture.

So, I wonder why you view it as a weakness in architecture.

Don't you think that designs that often make you use just your experience and your imagination are some of the best kind?