Jason:

VARIETY is the key to this without a doubt.  So please help me with a sanity check.

IF a course consisted of nothing but "ground game" approaches - that is, if it were SO firm and fast, with nothing to be carried, that every single approach and shot around the green had by far the greatest chance at success being kept along the ground - then wouldn't a little variety in the way of an obstacle or two be a good thing?

This came up in a discussion of the "sleepers" at some famous UK links.  God save my golf soul for forgetting which course.  But anyway, several usually logical folks decried these as being stupid, inappropriate, whatever, just because they took away a ground game option.

My take - and that of Rich Goodale, of all people - was that they were in fact a good change of pace, and actually ALLOWED for variety in terms of one's shot choice - that is, with those in the way, one had to put some air under the ball - thus putting variety into a course that had less before.

Does this make any sense?

My sanity awaits your decision.

 

 
I was hoping you'd see that, Rich.

All in good fun.  We just tend to disagree on so many high-profile things here, well... although we do agree on far more important issues, it's just fun for me to point things like this out from time to time.

Rye.  Gulp.  Shivas will never forgive me.  But I shall cop to my diminishing memory rather than go back and edit that post.

 

BTW, we remain right about the sleepers at Rye.

TH

Jason - I like to live dangerously.

But you have confirmed my sanity - thanks.  11 at PD illustrates this perfectly.  Not that PD is filled with nothing but ground game shots, but for the most part that is what's involved.  The forced carry at 11 is a great change of pace.  That's pretty much what Rich and I were trying to explain about Rye... that these sleepers, as odd and forced as they might appear, do provide a change of pace, and that is a good thing.

TH

10 at Prairie Dunes is another example of a forced carry that is visually intimadating on a course loaded with ground game options and that generally plays firm and fast.  

Personally, most of my favorite forced carries in the game are on shorter 3 pars.  Although, the go for broke heroic carry like the approach to #8 at Pebble gets the juices flowing too!  

Jason, isn't Pacific Dunes and the wind a wonderful thing?  The first time I played PD I hit a very solid 4-iron on #11!

If the conditions are such that everything is firm and fast then the only way to force some aerial shots is the occasional cross bunkering at the greenside.  All's fair in love and GCA!

But even then at Pacific Dunes you get some alternatives.  Take #13 for example, where you can circumnavigate the right front bunker by playing out to the right and catching that slope just... right....and onto the green!

Beechtree #5 is a great second-shot ground game hole.  
I'd be interested in candid opinions on this hole--I love it--
the last time Cory, Kyle, and I played this hole, we watched the group behind us play "aerial" approach shots, and all shots bounced well through the green.  

In contrast, having played Beechtree before, I knew of the firmness of the fairway, slope down to the green about 30 yards out, and played a knockdown 6 iron from 150--landing it well short, allowing it to run down the hill, and settle about 12 feet away.  

Many of the other greens here are quite receptive, and fun, to approach on the ground, or with less-than-aerial approaches; 3,4,6,7,8,9 on the front, 12,13,14,17, and 18 on the back.  

Any thoughts?