[Adam_F_Collins]

I was just caddying for a guy on my home course. It's old school, lumpy and bumpy with some tiny greens.

There are two par three holes which play longer than they look. And after many rounds, I still marvel at how this illusion is achieved. In both cases, I think it comes partially from the green being elevated more than you think it is. One hole has a ridge between the tee and green which aids the illusion that you're on level ground.

The other looks level (isn't) and also has a prevailing wind in your face - but even then, you can't believe it when you read 144, play for 160 and come up short.

Routing seems to be key as well - which, if you're not careful, you can lose track of its direction. It seems to me that directional changes in routing can be a very effective tool in defending the course if done well - particularly with occasional players.

In this age of GPS and detailed yardage guides, what are some ways the designer can use to make a shot play longer than it looks? Especially ways which they can do this that remain challenging for repeat players.

[wsmorrison]

The use of raised top lines at the rear of bunkers, especially cross  bunkers hides the landing area behind and tend to foreshorten distance perspectives.  

Angles of toplines and orientation to the green is also used in a way that hides diagonals and makes the front of the green seem perpendicular when in actuality the distance to the green can be a club or more from one side of the bunker to the other.  

Indian Creek Country Club has a number of examples of both of these features.  They are very effective in the illusion of distance.  The shots are longer than they look.

[Ian Andrew]

You can use subtle illusion like the 15th at Pine Valley. The fairway narrows and rises as the hole goes, which makes it look like forever from the tee.

I don't think this is a design technique that too many architects are going to employ, just like deception bunkers, yardage and yardage guides have lessened the effect.

[A_Clay_Man]

Adam, Another trick was used successfully at Shadow Creek. By making the bunkers smaller as they get closer to the green, uphill, the hole looks longer.

[Tom_Doak]

Anytime there is a valley across the fairway that you can't see the bottom of pretty clearly, your eye tends to melt the contours together and you think the distance is shorter.  So, if the forward tees on the par-3 block the view down into a valley, the hole will look shorter than it is.

[Tom Dunne]

Capes and pseudo-Capes often look really long, at least to my eye. The 16th at The Abaco Club looks at least 100 yards longer than its 390 on the card.

Then there's the 16th at Bandon Trails, which looked to me like about a par-8 when I first saw it....

[Michael Moore]

Stuff in the foreground.

Bill Coore showed me a hole under construction that was 240 yards downhill and had a bunker eighty yards from the green, and I'm all "why is that bunker there" and he's all "so that the hole will look shorter" and I'm all "this is 2003, people will know the distance for sure" and he's all "it will still in be in their minds, somewhere".

[Anthony_Nysse]

Adam,
  As for a maintenance, I've always thought that if the fairway was mowed from tee to green, instead of the checkerboard, it made the hole look longer.

Tony Nysse
Asst. Supt.
Long Cove Club
HHI, SC

[James Bennett]

You could eliminate any ' framing backdrop' to the green.

Or you could use higher pins.  But thats akin to architectural cheating.

I like the large bunker well short of the green idea (see above).   My club had a couple of holes with these, and they were effective.  Unfortunately, they got filled inover a decade ago, either for maintenance reasons or because they caught the average golfer.  Oh well, they might get rebuilt one day.

[Jim Thompson]

James,

Curious as to how removing the backdrop makes a green look closer?  Isn't it the opposite?  Doesn't the backdrop make an item look closer at that principal is best seen when skyline greens are traditionally overshot?  Help me understand.

Thanks!

JT

[ChipOat]

Wayne Morrison and Tom Doak gave 2 of the examples I know best - Flynn's IC bunkers being one of many times I've seen that and Flynn's bunker short of #5 green at Shinnecock being another good one.  I've been fooled by that trick at a lot of places, it seems.

An example of Tom D's thought is #4 at Merion.  Because there is a swale about 20 yards short of the green, and also because it's downhill, trusting the yardage is often tough to do.  Many shots intended for the middle of the green end up 60 feet short on the front edge.  And only the most confident players are really able to play to a flagstickj in the back 1/4 of the green.  #18 is also a good example of the swale effect but the shot to play there is probably Tom Paul's low runner so the deception has less effect on club selection.

A third example, which strikes me as difficult to build, is to have some kind of cavernous drop-off in front of a slightly uphill green.  #'s 16 at both Merion and Cypress didn't look so obviously uphill to me (maybe I just wasn't paying attention), but they are.  Merion's #16 is almost a full club longer than the yardage without any breeze at all.  I think the false front on that hole adds to the effect as there is green surface "down below" that you can see even though ending up there qualifies as coming up short.

[A.G._Crockett]

James,

Curious as to how removing the backdrop makes a green look closer?  Isn't it the opposite?  Doesn't the backdrop make an item look closer at that principal is best seen when skyline greens are traditionally overshot?  Help me understand.

Thanks!

JT

I can't explain this, but I know it's true.  It happens in a basketball arena as well, when there are large spaces behind the goal; shooters come up short repeatedly until they make the adjustment somehow.

[wsmorrison]

Chip,

What do you think of the deep swale in front of 18 green at Merion East?  I think that too is an outstanding example of the sort of foreshortening trick that you and Tom refer to.  From a typical landing area the ridge before the swale melds with the level of the green and creates a distance perception that seems a lot shorter, despite what the caddie says.  This and knowing the rear portion of the green runs away from you really creates a subconcious process that can make one hit shorter.  Listening to the caddie helps big time.   I just take the club he gives me.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Adam,
A small green on a long par 4 can make the approach appear longer, at least to my eyes. I think it's because it looks out of scale with the rest of the hole, especially if the fairway has some width and is slightly downhill, letting the player see the whole green surface.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Adam C relates the 12th at Shadow Creek, which is intended to look longer than it plays, but the previous hole has oversized bunkers and green, in an attempt to make it look shorter than it really is, which is the point of Adam F's original post.  I think the 12th, with its forced perspective, works better than the 11th.  I suppose in addition to oversizing, it would take a fw cut gradually increasing in width to counter act forced perspective to be effective, but I wonder if that would just look weird to the eye.

Most of the techniques have been discussed.  An addition to Wayne's post is, say, a front right bunker well short of the green and a right side green bunker.  If the front bunker is just high enough to hide the ground in between, but not hide the second bunker, the eye reads them as adjacent to each other, and the visual cue is the first bunker, making it appear shorter.

And of course, any uphill approach, or an uphill slope in the approach area to the green that kills roll can make a hole feel like it plays longer than it is, since there is no help in getting the ball on the putting surface.

[wsmorrison]

Jeff,

Flynn was a master at this.  He tied in the top lines of bunkers with a clever use of angles to make fairway bunkers and greenside 150 yards apart seem to meld together.  Perhaps the best example of this is the 445-yard 6th hole at Indian Creek CC.  The field of fairway bunkers tie in with a diagonal of three bunkers starting short left of the green to close right at the green.  The areas between features are much larger/longer than they appear.

The camera cannot replicate the actual sense you get on the tee but perhaps these photos will give some idea about the genius at Indian Creek and Flynn's mastery of visual perception:

The view from the tee:



The view from behind the fairway bunker field with its 200+ yard landing area; the diagonal bunkers start about 80 yards short of the green on the left and abut the green on the right:



A view from above from Google Earth (with the sixth in the middle and tee at bottom right of photo and green at the top left) that shows the actual distance betwee features.  It is evident that Flynn systematically used perceptual miscues to challenge the golfer.  In this case the bolder line you take over the middle of the bunker field (despite, or in spite, of what what you see and what your mind tells you) the better chance you have of a turbo boost towards the green.  What only appears to be the safer line to the right is penalized by the slope of the fairway that kicks the ball dead right reducing overall distance.  Brilliant!

[James Bennett]

James,

Curious as to how removing the backdrop makes a green look closer?  Isn't it the opposite?  Doesn't the backdrop make an item look closer at that principal is best seen when skyline greens are traditionally overshot?  Help me understand.

Thanks!

JT

Jim

I was having a confused day yesterday!  I kept thinking of ideas and trying to work out whether that looks longer than it is, or plays longer than it is.  Dehydrated confusion I think (not uncommon here I gather ).

I can recall greens set with no skyline and severe hazards at the rear, and people invariably are short there.  Are greens that have a backdrop more commonly overshot than those without, or more commonly underhit - I'll need to think more about that.  Thanks AG Crockett for the supporting comment.  I know the loss of backdrop causes uncertainty, but shorter or longer, I'm not so sure.

The simple optical effect for a hole to play longer than it looks is to make the target look larger (it must be closer if it looks larger).  Hidden ground, larger pins, different sized targets compared to prior holes, slight elevation/rises to the green can have the 'longer than it looks' effect.

James

[Ian Andrew]

James and Jim,

A backdrop clarifies distance.

A lack of backdrop offers some potential, given the right oppotunity - far and near features can combined to play with your perception. Wayne Morrision's Flynn example was really excellent. Just think of features that bleed into other features off site for wonderful results.

[PThomas]

Pasa's 11th HAS to be the longest 385 yards I've ever seen...it's uphill and you have a cross a ditch that runs parallel to the  right side of the green down the fairway...but your tee shot starts from and lands on the other side of the ditch

[Jim Thompson]

Ian,

Not certain that I agree with you, I might in the end.  Given that very rarely is there a uniform distance between a set of objects and their respective backdrops, I think the backdrop often makes things look closer than they are.  On our course holes 2, 3, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, & 17 have backdrops.  Number 2 is the first taste and due to the frontal ramping I think it really messes with depth perception.  Most folks are a good six yards short of their target if they hit from the valley.  When they get to three, which is very well framed, they are short all day.  I bet 80% of those playing for the first time don't even reach the green on this par 3.  Seven has so much going on I don't think the backdrop can be given too much weight.  Number eight is often shorted on 100 yard and less third shots as the distance between the backdrop and back edge of the green really play with the mind.  Number 11 is a short par four that from 120 out looks like about 60 yards as the wood line is right up snug behind it.  12 is a monster par three with only a visual of the lead line of the front bunker, folks are short most of the time regardless of tees they play.  13 has a wood line snug up behind it and a good drive on this par five that leaves a long iron shot in regularly ends up short.  14 does the same trick with a wooded frame to the left and wetland open view right.  Folks always hit too much club on 16, but I think that has more to due with the fact they forget the slope of the green and the fact that the shot is actually downhill.  17 is shorted about 50% of the time as well.  Perhaps varying the distance between backdrops and greens is a good tool in deception.  I wouldn’t say that a backdrop in and of its own right solidifies depth perception.

As for hoop dreams, I played in a regional final game in an open arena gym with white walls and threw up a bunch of long shots / bricks for the first quarter.  Coach told me to start looking at the front of the rim instead of the front of the back of the rim, had 28 that night.  Do any of you look at the front or back of the green for depth conceptualization given different settings?

Cheers!

JT

[Tags:]

Tags:

[Tags:]

Tags:

Call to undefined function theme_linktree()