David
I recently read the following, which was written by a modern day architect, and thought it particularly on point to this thread. If anybody knows who the author is, I would respectfully ask that you not disclose the name until I choose to so that we can discuss its substance without bias entering into the equation!
In due time, I will disclose the author and give credit to the magazine in which it was published:
Perhaps I’ve contracted that dreaded affliction known as nostalgia, or maybe I’ve just become a relic of the past, a soon to be extinct dinosaur, lumbering along, out of step in this modern world of golf. Whatever the reason, I find myself yearning more than ever to see golf courses that emphasize the fun and interesting aspects of golf architecture more than mere length and difficulty.
It’s not that I’m an advocate of overly easy, uninspiring courses. I agree with the classic golf architect Robert Hunter who writes in The Links, “it is not the love of something easy which has drawn men like a magnet for hundreds of years to this royal and ancient pastime; on the contrary, it is the maddening difficulty of it.” But the “maddening difficulty” must be balanced by opportunities for success; opportunities for as many classes of golfers as possible, not just the strongest.
I understand the concern that advances in technology are rapidly out distancing the ability of all but the longest of golf courses to defend themselves; and the reasoning that courses must be made longer and longer for their defense. Within the span of a few days this winter, I watched the PGA Tour event at which on the final day, I did not see a single contender hit more than a four iron to a par five green. I read an article where by his own admission, Phil Mickelson averages 305 yards of carry with his driver; and shook my head in amazement at reports that the South Course at Torrey Pines had been lengthened to over 7,600 yards. Yet another article detailed how Augusta National has extended its course by an additional 300 yards in an effort to combat today’s version of golf at the highest level. Surely, these are exclamation points to the fact that distance now rules.
My concern is that when golf architecture tries to combat distance with distance, i.e. the creation of longer and longer golf courses, it falls prey to the very thing it seeks to control. Golf courses of extreme length reward only players of extreme length. The more priority that is given to any one aspect of the game and the more architecture caters to any one segment of players, the more one-dimensional the game becomes. Nothing could be farther from “fun and interesting.”
Fun and interesting courses are those that tempt, but do not dictate; or as Donald Ross has said, they offer “different ways of playing them, and because they do not present one and only one way to everybody, the interest in the game increases with the diversity of its problems.”
They are courses like Pinehurst #2 that recognize the inherent value of power and encourage its use, but not to the point of giving indiscriminate length an insurmountable advantage. To quote Geoff Shackelford, they have “’intelligent purpose’ that sometimes let short hitters outplay long hitters, and other times will let wise and powerful players be rewarded for putting their talent to shrewd use.”
Fun and interesting courses, and Prairie Dunes comes to mind, defend against length and advances in technology not so much by the one dimensional use of extreme yardage, but by the use of strategy, the prevailing winds and the artistic contouring of their features, especially their greens; and by challenges that are presented with a diversity of ways to meet them—multiple choice equations. Choices demand decisions and the making of decisions sooner or later leads to doubt. Uncertainty in the mind of the player is a far better and more universally fair defense than distance alone. The greater the technical skills of the player, the greater defense that doubt becomes.
Golf courses that present but one approach to any given shot offer the easiest of all challenges to the most technically skilled and powerful players. The process becomes one of pure mechanical execution, a skill that today’s best players take for granted.
Or as Harry Colt, another of golf’s classic architects has warned, “Immediately we attempt to standardize sizes, shapes and distances we lose more than half the pleasure of the game…What we want to have is variety, gained by utilizing all the best natural features of the land…If variety can be strongly developed we also promote the best features of the game—different classes of strokes under varying condition.”
“Different classes of strokes under varying conditions” in an artistic setting—for me, that is much more fun and interesting than being obliged time and again to make an all or nothing attempt at hitting some highly defined, but far, far away target.
Perhaps more than anything, fun and interesting courses are those like Cypress Point and The National Golf Links of America that regardless of length, fascinate us, fire our imagination and keep our interest from the first shot to the last; and upon completion of our round, make us look forward to our next.