Rich:
You raise a most interesting subject here---and probably one that's more important and meaningful than most all golfers understand or recognize while playing. It's a most interesting subject and frankly one I cannot remember ever being raised on this website at least not this way. So congratulations on a most interesting thought---well presented!
I was just reading the Hidden Creek threads. Mike Cirba and Geoff Childs remarked that some courses, or perhaps courses to be good or great ones need to "quicken the pulse" somehow---perhaps on approach shots and recoveries.
They mentioned the likes of Merion East and PVGC. Those two most definitely do that---eg "quicken the pulse" (for years on here I've identified those two courses (and HVGC) as the three around Philly that have what I call a "high intensity level". By that I mean, particularly in tournaments, they are the courses you pretty much stay on edge all day---you never really have an opportunity to sort of relax---you realize all day long that something could go serious wrong at almost any time or any place---and that keeps your pulse quick most all day. Competing on courses like those three is a real mental work-out every time, in other words---a quick pulse sort of takes more adrenaline and drains you over the hours. (I've had more noticeable headaches following competing on those courses than any others I'm aware of!
).
Hidden Creek is not that way---it's almost the opposite in fact. Courses like Merion East, HVGC and most particularly PVGC are very VISUALLY intimidating---in other words any golfer can see where the danger areas are that can just clobber you. Those courses look hard to score on and they pretty much are--if you make mistakes of too great a degree. There are some courses that look harder than they are and others that look easier than they are. Hidden Creek is very much the latter---perhaps one of the most interesting of that type in modern times in an architectural sense. By that I mean it's extremely subtle in how one needs to play it and particularly how one needs to play the recovery shots you're talking about on this thread.
How does Hidden Creek accomplish that architecturally? With mostly really big greens that have an absolute ton of subtle little shifts and breaks and borrows in them---but interestingly not with some of the matching complexity and demand around the greens (out in those rough areas you mentioned) of the likes of HVGC, Merion and PVGC. Many of the greens are big enough where this stuff is just not that easy to see or take in visually even with one who may be half trying to concentrate. And the ones that are smaller are noticeably complicated within and also without in certain spots (#8, #11, #13, #18).
Bill Coore and those who created Hidden Creek say they intentionally did a course that had very little "WOW" factor---and that they knew that some may not understand it or appreciate it. I don't believe they were just talking about a course that didn't have things like waterfalls or eye popping topography or architectural features of stark visuals, or other eye-catching meaninless to play architectural stuff. I think they mean more what I'm talking about here----this course just doesn't look hard to play and score on----but there's no question it certainly can be and perhaps most of the time and particularly most of the time in precisely what you're talking about here---recovery from places where most players miss the ball.
To recovery from places where many golfers miss the ball on courses like Merion, HVGC and PVGC the shots are "pulse quickening"---you can see what you have to do and you can see that actually executing what you have to do is really demanding. At Hidden Creek there is very little of that---eg what you have to do or can do looks multi-optional and fairly simple to execute. But it's not---it just isn't because of all these subtle little breaks and borrows and shifts and almost imperceptible twists and turns in those generally big greens. You may even hit the recovery you visualize and instead of having a 2-3 ft putt you have a 10-15 ft putt time after time which of course most of you don't make
---even if you miss within those greens and far from the pin.
Bill Coore always said he thinks this course is harder to score on than the other great one they built simultaneously---Friar's Head. I think this description is why he feels that way. I feel Bill Coore is not a man who exaggerates---he really does understand the results---even in scoring of what he creates. Coore also talks about the beauty and interest in golf architecture of what he often generally refers to as "difference"---how one course can be so different from another in interesting and nuancy ways.
This is a good example---eg what happens to you with recovery shots compared to courses like Merion, HVGC and PVGC with their "pulse quickening" approach and recovery shot demands.
To use a bloody analogy---most all golfers can see on "pulse quickening" courses like HVGC, Merion and PVGC that they can and do open you up with a machete and make you bleed all over the place if you miss in the wrong places. But with Hidden Creek, it tends to constantly nick you, almost impercetpibly with little razor blades (the size and nuancy architecture of the greens themselves) hole after hole if you miss your approaches somehow. But in the end the net effect may be somewhat similar to the others---you can bleed a lot (lose strokes) but perhaps just little by little. If you're playing decent and concentrating decently at Hidden Creek I bet there are few of the so-called "others" that Merion, HVGC, PVGC often extract from even very good players.
My bet is there are ton of golfers who play Hidden Creek who probably say, day after day "I thought I hit the ball well but for some reason I didn't get much out of it"
There's another interesting thought on courses like Merion, HVGC and PVGC regarding approach shots that generally occurs to golfers playing them that clearly doesn't exist much at Hidden Creek that I'll mention later.
Excellent subject, Rich, and well presented.
There are a few former members of Hidden Creek who were, should I say, of rather generous egos who actually quit the club because they said they didn't like the greens---that they were driving them crazy, they 3 putted so often!
Is it any wonder? These were not sophisticated golfers in the little "differences" in golf architecture Coore sometimes speak of. It takes a sophisticated golfer to really understand the beauty and the "score meaning" of the architecture of Hidden Creek. The same cannot be said about Merion, HVGC and PVGC. What's good to great about them is not hard at all to see. Most, even the unsophisticated in the little differences and nuances of golf architecture, tend to pick it up on the latter almost immediately.
Hansen and Coore and Crenshaw took a bit of a chance with Hidden Creek this way and they knew it going in and they know it now. I, for one, am very glad they did---I admire them for doing it that way.
Roger Hansen said (and I'm very glad he did) at the recent meeting at Hidden Creek, that he's never been in the business of understanding he's going into something with the idea of losing money (I think some Golfclubatlasers needed to hear him say that the way he did). And that's even more reason why I admire him for taking the type of risk with C&C's ideas for this course and Hidden Creek's architecture and playability that he did. Of this I am not speculating because I was right there listening to them at least twice while the course was both under construction and when it was just finished. I heard them say; "We hope most golfers understand what this course and its architecture is all about but we recognize that some probably won't".