Revisiting the Line of Charm

[Kyle Harris]

In the Lancaster Country Club thread, I made mention of the reverse camber 15th hole appropriately named "Devil's Elbow" by the club.

This got me thinking about the line of charm yet again and it's diminished application in golf architecture. It seems that even classic era courses are losing small examples of the line of charm, either through tree plantings, shrinking green and fairway contours or the over-dominance of equipment.

Most courses of which I am fond feature a few examples of using the line of charm, but for the most part play angle and sightlines are congruent. However, it seems that the more I play a course, the less I think about the line of charm. I hear of great uses of lines of charm on such courses at Bethpage Black, yet I am hard pressed to find any true examples of the line of charm on all but a handful of holes.

Does subsequent playings of a golf course diminish the effect of the line of charm vs. line of sight axiom as experience is gained and the "correct" way to play the course is practiced?

Are there ways to mitigate the effect of subsequent playings, either in flexible rigidity (multiple tee angles of attack and large greens) of setup or through the use of visual deceptions that are only realized in certain conditions?

[Kyle Harris]

Sean,

Basically, does the line of charm (which I define as a line of play not following the "natural" sight lines of hazards, fairways, etc. forcing the golfer to "fight" his mind, eyes and instincts and find the best line of attack) lose its effectiveness after subsequent playing?

If so, is there a way to mitigate this effect through architectural or setup means?

As for my mental state... no reason for concern yet.  

[Kyle Harris]

Sean,

It certainly does. At Hoylake, does the line of charm change from day to day as conditions and setup dictate?

Once you've found the line of charm, is it possible to lose it again?

[TEPaul]

"Basically, does the line of charm (which I define as a line of play not following the "natural" sight lines of hazards, fairways, etc. forcing the golfer to "fight" his mind, eyes and instincts and find the best line of attack) lose its effectiveness after subsequent playing?"

Kyle:

Yeah, some attempts at "line or charm" architecture probably does lose its effectiveness after subsequent playings.

However, the best of the "line of charm" architecture has such integrity and so much in the way of "pressure points" (as Behr said) that it never really does lose its effectiveness because day after day the golfer knows he just has to deal with it or give up more than he'd like----eg in the way of distance or angle.

Frankly, in my opinion, Max Behr's "line of charm" concept has always been something of a misnomer or just generally understood (compared to what Behr really meant by it).

It shouldn't be "Line of Charm---it should be 'Line(S) of Charm" because the essence of it is to put some obstacle feature right where the golfer wants to go instinctually---eg what Behr called the "Line of Instinct" (he gave a few examples such as the direction of right at the green even if it was a two shot or three shot hole).

It was the taking away the line of instinct as an option by placing a hazard feature at its exact location that created the Line(S) of Charm (of how to avoid it but come as close to it as possible).

The Line(S) of Charm is knowing you can play left of it, right of it, short of it or over it. And this was just one other reason Behr was never a fan of rough.

(I don't think your definition of "Line of Charm" is what Behr had in mind).

[ForkaB]

Sean

Your example of the 6th at Deal is very interesting and also ties into Kyle's idea of the effect of experience on the "line of instinct."

When you stand on the tee at the sixth you can see the players on the green and they don't look too far away.  It looks like the green is reachable, but what is down that right hand side over the hill that you can't see?  What is the penalty if you hit it long but a bit right?  Since you don't know these facts, your "line of instinct" shifts to hitting it short left, which is in fact the (a?) "line of charm."

This is how I played the hole in my recent two rounds there, when we played into a 1-2 club wind.  Now, into the wind, the 2nd shot is not that difficult from that short left ladning area if you can get some metal on the ball with a lob wedge, but I still wonder.....

....what really is it like to the right of the green?  Are the chances of finding yourself in a reasonably good lie with a little pitch to the green good enough to make the original line of instinct the right one, particularly downwind, where as you imply, pitching and holding the green from 30-90 yards requires a world-class short game?

Maybe, after you play the hole many times you just know that in a certain wind, bombing straight at the green is the line of both instinct and charm?  Maybe somebody like Noel who has played the course many times can chip in (as it were) here?

One of the guys I played with in my recent two rounds was a reasonably long player (2HCP) and a very experienced hand at Deal (regular Halford Hewiit player).  He didn't even think of going for the green on either day.  I wished I'd asked him what he might have done down wind.

As a corollary, the 1st at Brora is very similar to the 6th at Deal, design wise.  I know that hole very well and have played it 30-40 times, in all sorts of winds.  I've only tried to drive it a few times, and successfully only once, fairly recently (in the last 3-4 years).  On that occasion, I just "knew" that it was the right play, i.e. my line of instinct and the line of charm were one.  Without my considerable experience of the hole, however, I doubt if I could have found that out.

[Tony_Muldoon]

The hole I’ve played which most vividly brings this to mind is the 13th at Seacroft.  This is the plan



You really have to see it, those black dots at the end of the fairway indicate another range of low sandhills.  In practice the whole second half of the fairway is blind!  I’ve played it twice and all you can see from the tee or standing over your second is the green, winking at you from a raised plateau.  Unless you have hit a very good drive you have to force yourself to play away from the direct line to the hole over the dune to a hidden fairway with a big bunker waiting for those who get greedy.  

Seacroft has no yardage markers on it at all and without the card (recent introduction) the line of charm on this hole must have tempted many players into trouble.

 I wish I had some pictures but you can see from his the second fairway is completely hidden.  If the wind is from the north then a direct approach on the hole will be futile.

Here’s Ran’s take from his review.

"13th hole, 500 yards: The most famous hole at Seacroft, the 13th is somewhat of a rarity in links golf: a sharp dog-leg (this one to the right). The player attempting to reach the green with his second must fire his ball out over what looks like No Man’s Land up a bunker-infested slope toward the green with the marsh below on the right just a few of yards from the green. The green is the spot on the course affording the player the best view of the North Sea, but it is only a glimpse across a mile of the marsh.
 

The second to the 13th: Where is he going??  The green is on line with the right edge of the right bunker."

I've tried to copy the picture here  but without success if you go to the course review you can see it there. From the position of the player, just in front of the three bunkers, he has followed the line of charm but either hit a Tiger drive or has chosen to lay up at the end of the first fairway, either unaware of the distance advantages availble on the second one or unable to bring himself to hit away from the line of play.

[Mark_Fine]

I always find people get confused between the concepts of "the line of play" and "the line of charm".  The "line of play" can be defined in two ways; first it is that line that a player ultimately takes. Second, to the golf architect, it is a line drawn on a plan (or multiple lines showing alternative paths) that a golfer would ideally follow to get from A to B. Whether the golfer follows through with this is another matter.

"The line of charm" is the provocative path. It is the line that attracts the golfer and is often an instinctive route that shaves off distance and/or cuts the corner. It almost always falls close to hazards. It thwarts the line of play that the golf architect has in mind and puts the golfer in charge.

The best golf course (hole) designs offer exciting possibilities/options that pit these two lines against one another. Hazards are used to suggest a line of play and to entice players toward a line of charm that will catch their fancy and create temptation.

Accuracy, of course, is at the heart of the idea of the line of charm but carry and length are also quite important. The interest of a golf hole is in hitting a shot accurately and in my opinion, the best holes are where the risk and rewards are are left up to the golfer.

The problem with many courses, particularly modern designs, is that the line of play and the line of charm are one and the same - down the middle of the fairway.   Many classic designed courses end up this way as well, as fairways and greens shrink, bunkers get removed, trees are planted, etc.  The great classic courses were meant to be played along the edges which is where you often find the line of charm.  

This is a tough concept for some to understand and one of the challenges in "restoration" efforts.  Education about the line of charm plays a big role in getting master plans approved and explaining to members/golfers how their course has evolved.    

[Dave Bourgeois]

Mark,

Now that's an explanation  that even someone like me can understand.  Would trying to hit a draw along the tree line and on the right side of the waste bunker on #5 at Bethpage  Black qualify?

[TEPaul]

""The line of charm" is the provocative path. It is the line that attracts the golfer and is often an instinctive route that shaves off distance and/or cuts the corner. It almost always falls close to hazards. It thwarts the line of play that the golf architect has in mind and puts the golfer in charge."

Mark:

That is a good basic explanation of "line of charm" but, again, I think one of the reasons the term has been misunderstood is it's rarely, if ever, explained as Max Behr, who created the concept and term, intended it.

You said the "line of charm" is the provocative path.

Actually the provocative path (usually directly at the eventual target) Behr referred to as the "line of instinct".

It was the 'breaking up' of this "line of instinct" with some hazard feature that created the "line of charm". In other words the architect put some hazard feature such as a bunker right at that precise point the golfer instinctively wanted to hit the ball.

Because that removed that point on the "line of instinct" as an option that created the "line of charm" but obviously as there were up to four separate ways a golfer could deal with that hazard feature placed precisely at that point on the "line of instinct" he wanted to hit the ball (left of it, right of it, short of it or over it) that created line(S) of Charm.

When people try to explain what the line of charm is exactly they sort of get it mixed up with the "line of instinct".

Mackenzie described it adequately a couple of time, one being;

"Some of us would go even further, and say that no hole is a good one unless it has one or more hazards in a direct line to the hole. Max Behr, who is one of the best American golf architects, states that the direct line to the hole is the line of instinct, and that to make a good hole you must break up that direct line in order to create the line of charm."

Mackenzie probably should've just said "lines of charm" since this concept can create up to four separate choices but maybe he said "line of charm" simply because the golfer has to choose one of them to hit his single golf ball. But that does not obviate the fact that a hazard precisely in the "line of instinct" where the golfer wants to hit the ball creates a number of lines of charm as potentially viable options.

Also, this is why Behr was a big fan of fairway width and was never much of a fan of rough---eg he could place hazard features at that precise point along the "line of instinct" where the player wants to hit the ball and that precise point would be surrounded on all sides by fairway.

Basically, this kind of thing was derived from their observations and analyses of TOC.

On the other hand, Mackenzie refers frequently to the term and the "dog-leg" in combination.

[TEPaul]

Actually Max Behr is given credit for the "line of charm" concept perhaps because he dedicatedly reused, promoted it and apparently gave the concept the terms of "line of instinct" and "line of charm" but if one really wanted to trace the basic concept back to its active architectural origin it would probably have to go to John L. Low and Stuart Patton who just after the turn of the century placed that famous bunker on Woking's 4th hole in the middle of the fairway and thereby created a firestorm of both controversy and architectural inspiration.

[TEPaul]

There's one other thing about the "line of charm" concept that should probably be mentioned and that is there appears to be much more of it that has been done recently by various modern architects than was ever done before in the entire history of golf course architecture.

[Kyle Harris]

Tom,

Thanks for the clarification, when I was saying "Line of sight" I meant "Line of instinct." For the purpose of my initial posts, they are one in the same, as I am unfamiliar with Max Behr's usage.

What's really stupendous about the 15th at Lancaster is the way the framing features play into the instinct of the golfer. First, the eyes are drawn away from the bunkers at the inside of the dogleg by the ground sloping away from the bunkers and a gap in the trees down the left side. The slope of the ground makes the fairway disappear over the horizon of the slope and the gap in the trees leads the golfer to think that the fairway continues down and to the left. Furthermore, since the bunkers on the right obscure the fairway even further, the golfer can't see that the hole really doglegs right.

I wish I had a picture, I may just drive out there and try to sneak a picture in... if anyone asks, I'll say I am looking for my dog who is invisible to everything but a digital image.

[wsmorrison]

Here are photos of 15tee and 15 approach at Lancaster CC.  There are many examples (many better than this) of Flynn tempting the eye with a view of the green and a bunker on the corner (line of instinct) where the line of charm is actually along the outside of the dogleg.

15 Tee



15 Approach



15 Green

[Kyle Harris]

Wayne,

Have they done some tree removal? I don't remember that many pine trees down the left side, in fact, I don't remember any at all.

Thanks for posting.

[Gary Daughters]

Thanks for the photos Wayne.  They are instructive as to the topic at hand and Flynn.

Great discussion.

More pictures would be most welcome.

[Mark_Fine]

Tom,
Those are all good quotes and I cite them frequently in discussions.  The quote from Mackenzie about "no hole is a good hole unless it has one or more hazards in a direct line of the hole." is one Forrest and I asked about in our survey for our book.  Interestingly, 47% agreed with Mackenzie and 53% did not!  Shows you where we are with respect to opinions about hazards.  We talk about Behr, Mackenzie and Low (who really wasn't a practicing architect) and their quotes/thougths on hazards as well as many others.  

Explaining the line or charm and line of play and line of instinct and the provocative or challenging path all very interesting yet can be confusing.  

Dave I would agreed that those lines qualify!

[TEPaul]

Kyle:

In my opinion, that's a hole that needs the trees on both sides of the fairway. It needs them on the right for obvious reasons (#1) but it needs them straight down on the left and on the left coming in with the approach.

I used to just hit driver left of the bunker and I was fine but these days so many are so long they need to place the ball out there with both the correct distance and accuracy. If the hole had no trees on the left long players could just go straight through the fairway with relative impunity.

We had the State Open there about four years ago but I never worked that particular hole so I can't remember how most played it off the tee.

That was an interesting State Open as Terry Hertzog (from my club) came out of nowhere on the last day. John Mazza had a big enough lead on the last four holes his victory seemed sort of a forgone conclusion. And then he sort of started to self-destruct around #15 and in. When he bogied #16 I got on the radio to ask if they knew where Terry was since he finished an hour or more before, and to make sure he didn't leave. Mazza bogied the last two and he went into a play-off with Terry on #18 and Terry won it on the second go around on #18. Terry used to work at Lancaster so it was like a hometown win for him. Lancaster was pretty tough in that State Open and Hertzog shot one helluva final round score.

[Kyle Harris]

Tom,

I certainly understand the corridor between 1 and 15 needing the trees, as well as down the left side between 14 and 15...

However, I think that by creating a gap in the trees at the left side about 230-250 yards out (right at the turn point) you hamper the site lines since the edge of the fairway and hole are no longer defined by the trees. Therefore, playing down the left away from the bunkers feels a little uncomfortable as well and the golfer must choose between what he perceives as the lesser of two evils.

IIRC, most of the evergreens down the left have been cleared out leaving the larger hardwoods there.

[TEPaul]

Mark:

I don't think the "line of charm" concept is hard to explain at all if one just bothers to preface it by explaining what the "line of instinct" is first, and how one creates line(S) of charm from the "line of instinct" by placing some hazard feature right along it at the proper distance. Too many people seem to think the "line of instinct" is the "line of charm".

It's a helluva a concept because often it just makes the golfer have to make a decision from a series of distance and direction options off the tee but I sure wouldn't recommend that every hole have some line of charm concept to it.

The good old-fashioned straightforward one dimensional "Shot Testing" hole certainly has its place in golf and architecture too and some of the best holes in the world are of that ilk.

To me variety is the spice of golf and architecture and there are enough concepts and partial ramifications of them to go around.

Later I'll explain what we are about to do on the 13th at GMGC with a "line of instinct" application off the tee. The idea is to deceive the golfer off the tee into going straight at the green with his tee shot as that seems like the obvious thing to do. That is until he realizes what he has to go over on his second shot. This will be a Behr "Line of Instinct"/"Line of Charm" type thing with Behr's "indirect taxation" concept rolled into it.  

[TEPaul]

Kyle:

In my opinion, that gap in the trees and the slightly blind LZ might fool somebody a little bit the first time but not again. In those photos that hole looks tighter than it really is, in my opinion. To me the tee shot on #15 is pretty straight-forward once you know it.

But now the next hole is a very interesting one from the tee---eg all kinds of options with both distance and direction.

As Wayne mentioned the 16th green was moved off the hill straight-away to its position lower and to the left now. I guess William Gordon did that but I think that hole is a really good one strategically and multi-optionally. Even if you play it conservatively off the tee you have to be real careful not to leave your approach above the pin or you're cooked.

In that State Open Stu Ingram who can be super long just took out his driver and hauled off and drove it right over the trees, straight at the green and onto the front of the green and almost made eagle with his uphill putt. At that particular position in a routing that's a very neat temptation to have for a long driver. The reward for doing what he did is great but the risk can be too.

[Mark_Fine]

Tom,
Just remember that "the line of instinct" can also be "the line of charm"    Even in the photo Wayne showed, it depends on how far and accurately you can hit the golf ball, that determines the line you take.  The outside line of play is not necessarily the line of charm for a strong player.  It is that risk/reward temptation that makes holes interesting.  

[Forrest Richardson]

Mark and I worked diligenty to define line-of-play vs. line-of-charm. For those of you who need our book, I got a solicitation from Amazon that it is back in print.

From my viewpoint, line-of-instinct is the awkward third-party in the whole concept.

"Charm" is the esoteric feeling that comes along with a situation. A room in a building, for example, can have charm for any of several reasons or attributes. So, too, a golf hole. The "charm" line is that line which makes you think and grabs your attention. It is the direction the needle is moving right before you swing and strike the ball...unless, of course, you are timid and afraid. In that case, the needle may be moving in the other direction...away from peril and trouble. (This definition assumes trouble along the way to the target, not the flanking hazards situation.)

I would describe line-of-instinct somewhere between the line-of-charm and the line-of-play — line-of-instinct is that single point on the aiming chart that each player knows, but rarely follows. In fact, he almost never really follows this path — it is but a placeholder in the mind.

The player always follows the line-of-play...the one he/she creates, not that static version drawn by the golf architect. That one is also a line-of-play, but it is only one idea — later to be trumped by the player, who creates his "own" course.

[TEPaul]

"Tom,
Just remember that "the line of instinct" can also be "the line of charm"   "

Mark:

I guess anybody can call something anything they want to but if one is trying to explain Max Behr's "line of charm"  concept correctly and accurately one cannot make the "line of instinct" and the "line(S) of Charm" synonymous unless all they are looking to do is confuse people.

[Lynn_Shackelford]

What is this a civil and intelligent discussion of architecture?  I must be on another site.

Just to accurately quote a few of the references above.

"...no hole is a good one unless it has one or more hazards in a direct line of a hole.  Max Behr, who is one of the best American golf architects, states that the direct line to the hole is the line of instinct, and that to make a good hole you must break up that line in order to create the line of charm."
Alister Mackenzie

"The pseudo-golf architect will have the faint glimmerings of an idea and will try to catch it with numerous bunkers; whereas the true artist will place just one bunker upon the sore spot and it is done.  Such a bunker is the Road bunker in the face of the 17th green at St. Andrews.  To have placed such a bunker required rare imagination and audacity."
Max Behr

This would be my complaint with Nicklaus and a few other modern designers.  Because they can (budgets and dozers) they place too many bunkers on the course, and on the line of instinct.

[Forrest Richardson]

Too many bunkers is a common problem. I call it the throw-sand-at-the-design syndrome.