Mystery in design

[T_MacWood]

I recently read a quote from an obscure architect and garden designer by the name of Charles Paget Wade:

Mystery is most valuable in design, never show all there is at once.

Is mystery something that has been lost in contemporary design? Today it seems to me there is an emphasis on clearly defining all the features of a hole - the hazards, the fairway, the green, etc. Some of my favorite holes are ones in which some of the fairway (or green) is visable but some of it blocked by a hazard or some landform: 11th Winged Foot, 10th Shinnecock, 11th Oakland Hills, 16th NGLA (among others) come to mind.

Could we use more mystery in modern design?

[TEPaul]

Tom:

Personally I think there can never be too much mystery about a golf course or its architecture.

Certainly various forms and degrees of blindness is probably the easiest way to create mystery (for obvious reasons) but there are more ways than just that.

Creating various perceptive visual deceptions is another way and believe it or not one of the best at doing that sometimes is Tom Fazio. He has done it well on various holes by a technique of using semi-imperceptible dips to skew one's sense of distance and he's also done it well occassionally through the manipulation of "scale".

Both can create a certain amount of mystery.

[T_MacWood]

What are examples of Fazio's visual deceptions?

[Dan Moore]

I understand that soon to be opened Erin Hills has a fair amount of blindness or partial blindness both from the tee and from the wrong sides of the fairways.  I haven't seen it yet myself however.  

[ForkaB]

Tom

I haven't played a huge number of modern courses, but of the ones I have I don't think that the premise holds.  I can't think of one that does not has some significant mysteries in its design.  #1 at Pacific Dunes is just the most obvious example.

[Mike_Young]

IMHO, we continue to overthink golf architecture.....

[T_MacWood]

Rich
I haven't played it but I'm not surprised Pacific Dunes has a blind or semi blind hole. The second at Lost Dunes has a dune guarding the green where the pin can be hidden. Its been a few years since I've played there but I don't recall Sand Hills having any blind holes (there may be a drive at 10 or 11 that is blind but my memory is fuzzy). The 10th at Friars Head is another exception. And the best hole IMO at Victoria National (#3) has a green tucked behind a waste pile. Controversial Tobacco Road is another. But these are the exceptions from my experience and interestingly they are also designed by architects considered to be the cream of modern crop.

[Mike Nuzzo]

IMHO, we continue to overthink golf architecture.....

Does "we" mean you've included yourself as an overthinker?

Rihc,
There isn't a lot of mystery in Texas.

[ForkaB]

Mike

I do remember some deception at Dallas National, but it was so subtle that I can't remember much of it 2 1/2 years later!

Rich

[Mike_Young]

IMHO, we continue to overthink golf architecture.....

Does "we" mean you've included yourself as an overthinker?

Rihc,
There isn't a lot of mystery in Texas.

Mike,
No doubt.  
I saw something the other day that said something like this...
"remember that amateurs built the ark, professionals built the titanic"
Half this stuff we create all of the myths about was only in the guy's mind for a few minutes IMHO.....evolution has created so many of the good golf courses.

[TEPaul]

"What are examples of Fazio's visual deceptions?"

Tom:

I'm sure no expert on Fazio courses but one that has been well recieved and fairly highly thought of by a number on here--Galloway---has a number of visual deceptions (mysteries) on perhaps 3-4 holes.

This is of course mostly for first time players;

The second hole, a very fine short par 3 right on the bay has a "waist" in the middle of it that's not easy to detect from the tee which can easily cast the ball left into a chipping area low and left which is about as difficult to recover back onto the green from as it is to get back onto the green from the left and below Shinnecock's great par 3 #11. Of course the basic effect of this visually deceptive feature is it really doesn't pay to shoot for the midsection (back to front) of that green (which most will inherently do as it can be windy and a tough shot being right on the bay) and this puts a real premium on getting to the front or the back of the green which is a whole different story for a number of reasons. But the overall theme is none of this is very visually apparent the first time.

The next hole has a green section on the left which is incredibly visually deceptive to tell what's going on from the approach area. When you get up there it looks and plays a lot different then one might have thought it would from the fairway.

I doubt those things just happened by accident, although I guess anything is possible.  

The use of dips is a deceptive feature that can skew visual distance preception that Fazio wrote about in his book.

[TEPaul]

Tom MacWood:

The fact is Sand Hills has a number of holes where a portion of the green is blind if one hits the ball in the wrong place in the fairway. Personally, I think they may've done that about one too many times on the course (given that the par 3 8th is also that way) and that's one reason I think the 4th green would've been even better placed about 30 yards to the right of where it is on a natural left to right slope. They obviously placed it where it is to get it as close to that massive blowout on the left as possible.

[T_MacWood]

TE
Having a blind approach because you are on the wrong side of the fairway does not really involve mystery because you can simply walk over a few feet to see where every thing is. I'm talking about shots where all of your target or a large portion of your target is totally blind (you can't see the fairway or even people in the fairway or in the case of the green the flag or anyone on the green)...where your ball lays will be a mystery until you get to it. The tee shot at the 8th Cypress Point is an example. There is a certain excitement and anticipation that is generated.

When I think of mystery in design I think of linksland, and playing through, around and over dunes.

[Matt MacIver]

We recently renovated our course, and it was his goal to take all the blind shots and hidden hazards out of play -- wanted the golfer to be able to see all the trouble in front of him.  He further said he didn't want to see any mis-hits (read: worm-burners) reaching the green so he built some up and otherwise guarded them.  

But at least he did make some pretty cool greens, with interior contours that don't break just as you think they might.  So we have that going for us...which is nice.  

[Doug Ralston]

Twisted Gun sits on top a formerly strip mined mountain. It is wide open and the wind can be very crisp. The pins tend to lean and perhaps even put pressure leaning the cup itself sideways. Whatever the reason, the club decided to put in shorter pins [4 ft].

The result is a very interesting visual effect. From fairways, a large part of judgement of distance to the green is the angle of sky those pins occupy. When it is hanging in the sky, with nothing behind it, and is only 4 ft high, you will swear it is further away; being used to the longer ones. On the first hole that happened, I did not look for yardage, but pulled a 5-wood and hit the ball 50 yds (!) past the green!

Mystery solved? Well, yes, I knew intellectually that the effect was visual. But it was still kinda hard to adjust my body's desire to hit it longer than I knew it had to be. Odd effect.

[BCrosby]

On the Fazio and mystery thing, his P No. 8 has a large number of blind drives and blind approaches. Not a very good course (escpecially for one time resort play), but if you want an example of modern blindness, it's there in abundance.

Bob

[Mike_Sweeney]

When I think of mystery in design I think of linksland, and playing through, around and over dunes.

I think Mystery can be much more subtle that the standard blind shot:

Tee shot at Carnegie Abbey Par 3 #11



Walk down the hill and the Mystery unravels!