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Phil McDade

  • Karma: +0/-0


I think any course that makes you think about where to put the ball, either from the tee, or from the fairway, is inherently more interesting to play. A narrow, one-way-to-play, corridor-like golf course is in some ways less demanding -- it basically takes thinking out of the equation and merely requires proper execution.

That's a hell of an official party line.  

So let me get this straight...you think brilliantly, and then butcher the tee shot...and it doesn't matter because the fairway is a gazillion yards wide...so you get the opportunity to think brilliantly again, and you do, but this time it's from the worse angle, and you butcher the approach too, and you're still fine, albeit shortsided or whatever...so you get up to the green and you think brilliantly again, and butcher that shot, and you're still fine, but facing a slider from the wrong side of the hole... and then you brilliantly read the putt and ginch your stroke so you make bogey......where does that put you vis-a-vis the total dumbass who hits all the stupidest shots imaginable on the same hole but executes them flawlessly?

Let's add "interesting" and "requires thinking" to the list of code words...  ;D



...and this is the thanks I get for defending the proposed cheater-line rule....

I will expound later tonight (off to pointless errands...), but, Dave, I plan to use the words Lawsonia and Nakoma in my defense......

Dan Moore

  • Karma: +0/-0
Don't strategically placed centerline bunkers take width and make it effectively narrow?  

Not necessarily.  You would still have width if you lay up short, or if you take the risk of hitting over the bunker.  A well placed centerline bunker creates "options" (lay up, go left, go right, blast over) and "strategy", both of which make for "interesting" golf in my opinion - easy golf in Shivas's opinion. ;D

If designed properly couldn't the forced carry be hard and the layout leave a a difficult 2nd.  I agree that all those options even if presenting some difficulty are more interesting and fun than a course that is narrow, optionless and hard.



"Is there any other game which produces in the human mind such enviable insanity."  Bernard Darwin

Phil McDade

  • Karma: +0/-0
Well, the examples I'll use are two courses I've played more than a few times (and I know Shivas has played one of them, and I believe views it as a better course than Pebble Beach).

One is Lawsonia Links, a Langford/Moreau design, and the other is Nakoma in Madison, which has design links to Tillie. Both are very good courses (at least in the occasionally rarified air that is my golfing circle), and both are enjoyable courses that offer -- for my crappy, 18-handicap game -- a fair amount of challenge and difficulty.

One is far more enjoyable to play than the other -- in my view -- and it is that way in large part because its wide playing corridors provide a degree of strategy largely absent in the other.

To play Nakoma is to be confronted by two basic strategies -- put the ball in the fairway, and keep your damn ball on the green below the hole. It's a pretty classic tree-lined, parkland course, with pretty thick rough, trees lining each side of the fairway, fast greens (many of them tilted back to front), and greenside bunkers pinching green entrances. Oh sure, to be in the exact middle of the fairway provides a better shot at the green than being on the side of the fairway, but it's a matter of degree, not an entirely different strategy required to play the approach. Off the fairway, for the most part, you have to punch out. Not sideways, but trees will almost always impede a direct line to the green from the rough. Once on the green, being below the hole means a decent run at a one-putt and a pretty sure two-putt. Above the hole, and you risk three-putting (I once hit an approach shot -- after being warned not to by a regular there -- four feet above the hole. My next putt was 10 feet below the hole. I three-putted.)

Lawsonia is far more interesting to play. Yes, a good deal of that has to do with better terrain, more interesting green sites, and particularly the use of the terrain to create blind and semi-blind shots. But an underrated part of L/M's design at Lawsonia is the use of wide fairway corridors to provide a degree of strategy absent at a place like Nakoma.

Take the 3rd. A dogleg right par 4 in the mid-300 yards, with a classic L/M pushed-up green site, a very deep bunker guarding the inside of the dogleg, and a deep bunker fronting the right side of the angled green. The fairway is wide and open, and provides a choice on the tee: A) Bomb it over the fairway bunker? B) Skirt/play close to the fairway bunker to try to shorten the length of the hole? C) Or play well left of the bunker? "A" provides the shortest approach, but risks taking on a high-lipped, penal fairway bunker, and you still have to take an aerial approach over the right greenside bunker. "B" -- for shorter hitters like me, who can't carry the bunker -- also shortens the hole, but still has an element of risk (the banana slice ending up in the fairway bunker), and still requires an aerial approach over the greenside bunker. Or, you can try a running approach shot that stops short of the green and pitch and putt your way to par. "C" lengthens the hole a lot, so your approach is longer, but it opens up the green, and you can use either an aerial or running approach.

That, to me, is a pretty good golf hole (and Lawsonia has about 12 others like them), in part due to the width of the fairway corridor that -- combined with other features of the hole -- makes a golfer think both on the tee and on the approach shot. It's multi-dimensional, where the typical tree-lined par 4 at Nakoma is one-dimensional.

For the record, I'm a lousy golfer, always have been, have always admitted to being so, and don't aspire to be any better. But I do like to think I have gained over the years an appreciation for compelling golf architecture, and what makes one course more interesting to play than another.

Kalen Braley

  • Karma: +0/-0
I agree with what has been stated regarding courses that don't require an approach from a certain position.  If there is nothing there to punish being in the wrong part of the fairway then it is easier.  

But on a well designed course like PacDunes I can think of at least two holes where you can be in the fairway less than a hundred yards in and face a brutally tough shot into the green.  This is what the spirit of this is about.  Design green complexes that demand an exacting approach and the player needs to put the ball in the correct part of the fairway.

John Kirk

  • Karma: +0/-0
Might it be possible that a wide course could be designed today that would still be difficult, by using undulation and clever hazard placement?

Playing from the rough takes real skill, not only to execute shots, but also to "read" the lies.  However, I don't think it's the most entertaining type of difficulty, and the players' comments at this week's tournament seem to support that opinion.

Despite the narrow fairways, there are certainly examples of playing angles out there.  Angel Cabrera's closing birdie on #9 was spectacular.  A 338 yard drive in the extreme left edge of the fairway, giving him a great look at a front right pin, tucked behind a bunker.  138 yard sand wedge (!?) to 2 feet.

And just like that, 19 players are elminated from weekend play.  Ooooo that's harsh.

Dan Moore

  • Karma: +0/-0
Exhibit B for the Prosecution:  The Old Course.
"Is there any other game which produces in the human mind such enviable insanity."  Bernard Darwin

Tiger_Bernhardt

  • Karma: +0/-0
I am in the Lynn Shackelford club on this one.

Joe Hancock

  • Karma: +0/-0
Dave,

I think, in almost all cases, I agree with you. But, as an example of width and conditions not necessarily being easier, consider the 1st hole at Kingsley.

If the fairway was mowed with only one option off the tee, and that happened to be the current low route of the fairway, that would mean that the upper route would be mowed at rough height,  at least. There would be no reason to aim there. But, what can happen with the upper route mowed tight and with the fast, firm conditions, the hillside can actually have balls release and run backwards something in the neighborhood of 90 yards or more. The next shot becomes much more difficult because of zero visibility of the rest of the hole, and makes reaching the 600 yard opening hole in reg unlikely.

If I butchered that as an explanation, I apologize.

Joe
" What the hell is the point of architecture and excellence in design if a "clever" set up trumps it all?" Peter Pallotta, June 21, 2016

"People aren't picking a side of the fairway off a tee because of a randomly internally contoured green ."  jeffwarne, February 24, 2017

Phil McDade

  • Karma: +0/-0
Dave:

I agree that Cabrera played a wonderful hole in the gloaming on Friday, but if that's his strategy (I assume he was thinking before he pulled driver there), it didn't work so well today -- 4 of 14 fairways, compared to 9 of 14 fairways each of the first two days.

Riddle me this -- I seem to recall someone (in the face of much GCA spite) arguing on behalf of the play at this year's Masters, despite record-high scores. The winner sliced and diced his way through the course -- never going for a par 5 in two, and using Augusta's width, angles and varied approaches on how to play holes to his advantage.

Wasn't Johnson's win a pretty good test case for thoughtful approaches to wide playing corridors?


Phil McDade

  • Karma: +0/-0
Well, here's a sampling from back in April:

"And how many guys got suckered into laying up left on #15 to get the flat lie, instead of recognizing that the smarter play was to take the more downhill lie from the right to get the better angle.  Isn't that the living, breathing definition of a strategic choice? Hell, even Vijay made a strategic decision to go for #15 today.  He made 5.  I think he played the hole superbly."

"Uni-directional from your version of what par should be maybe, but but that just reinforces my point for me.  Your view of par is low.  Therefore the scores are only going in one direction - up from there.  That's not my view. There is a TON of choice out there.  A ton. I can name, what, 20-30 fundamental strategic decisions out there that I saw players have to make just from today's viewing.  Hell, there are 5 or 6 shots out there that have 2 or 3 strategic decisions all within one single shot!  And there are God-only-knows how many subtle ones that I can't even pick up on TV...The only thing that's been taken away is the ability to whiff a driver 40 yards offline and have a free look at the green."
Whether to lay up is arguably tactical.

"Where to lay up is strategic. The trajectory of the 3rd is strategic. Where to let the ball run out with the 3rd is strategic. That's 1 tactical, 3 strategics.  And it all wraps around just one shot...."

"Tell me Tiger's 4 on #13 wasn't awesome.  The way he played waaaay to the right to get the good angle for the 3rd.  The way he took that ball in on the correct trajectory, whereas everybody else came up well short and had to settle for 5. A strategic guy like you should have been jizzing in your pants over that 4."

"Mike, you're joking right? Show you where 2 different players chose two different strategies and both had a fighting chance to make the same score? Did you see how Vijay and Ogilvy played #15? Did you see how Tiger and Ogilvy played #13?
Did you see how Mickelson and Vaugh Taylor played #17? Did you see how Tiger and Appleby played #10? Did you see how Kelly and Appleby played #14? Jeez, Louis -- that's off the top of my head and that's the next morning..."

"Paul, it'd be a great point if the facts actually bore it out.  They don't. Given the straightness of the ball and the torque of modern drivers, the fairways at ANGC today probably play wider than the fairways Jones played in his day. And the statistics also show that there have actually been MORE birdies on #11 and #17 this year in 3 rounds than there were last year in 4. The strategy has actually been brought back to ANGC.  That is, unless of course, you think strategy is smashing a driver as hard as humanly possible into a roughless, treeless plain, then lobbing a square-grooved wedge to the green that comes in so high that angles of attack simply don't matter. If that's your definition of strategic golf, then ANGC at the turn of this century was definitely your kind of place...."

"What made it exciting was that it was nostalgic and surprising. I think a point we're missing here is that there is nothing arbitrary about what's going on at Augusta. The reason the US Open sucks is that from 300 yards out, it's sort of arbitrary whether your drive winds up a foot into in 6 inch-deep rough and you have to hack a sand wedge 40 yards or whether you're in the fairway and you get to attack. Did anybody see a single tee shot yesterday that was unfairly and arbitrarily jipped by the course architecture or set-up yesterday? Didn't think so."

"On Tivo, I just watched Retief hit an IRON on #13 off the tee. That is the first iron I have EVER seen hit off the tee on #13 in 20 years that I can remember... the announcers didn't have a clue what to say.  They were dumbfounded. Are you guys still holding to the position that they've taken the strategy out of the course? C'mon....In Masters past, with no rough, wider than average playing corridors, and the ability for the expert player to play just about any recovery shot they could dream up, we as viewers were afforded the pleasure of watching the world's best players use their imagination and creativity to play recovery shots when they misfired."
 
"Ted, I disagree. The trees turned Retied Goosen into Seve Ballesteros on #5. The trees turned the tournament when Eldrick tried to slide it on #15.The trees caused Appleby to try stuff on both Saturday and Sunday that probably cost him the tournament, not to mention preventing him from getting away with murder on some of those downright crappy drives he hit. Guess what:  the playing corridors at ANGC are still way wider than average. Guess what else:  we watched expert players trying to dream up all sorts of recovery shots both Saturday and Sunday in THIS Masters. The only thing that has changed from "past" Masters is that in this Masters, players actually had to get creative. The biggest blowups in this Masters occurred from the middle of the fairway.  Ask Geoff Ogilvy and Luke Donald."

"Oh, what a crock of crap, Dick. If every stinking year, a guy goes for it and wins by making 3, whereas everybody else goes for it and fails, there is no stragegic decision being made. It is strictly a matter of who executes the best..This is the EXACT SAME argument I used to make about #13 and #15 back when everybody was going for it a few years ago.  Remember the argument I made to Moriarity?? I said the holes were not strategic precisely because all the best players in the world were making exactly the same decisions, didn't I?
And I caught hell for it, didn't I? And now...now that there are actually players deciding NOT to play these holes as par 4s for the first time in a decade, everybody is changing sides and claiming that the strategy has been taken away and that these holes are boring? Retief hit the first iron off #13 on TV since Reagan was President, and you guys are now moaning?
I hate to use allcaps, but GET THE HELL OUT OF DODGE WITH THAT NONSENSE!"

"OK, Zach didn't go for a single par 5 all week. Tell me that all you guys who claimed that only bombers could win the Masters aren't eatinng crow right now. Fess up.  It's Easter.  Jesus even loves short hitters like you and Zach, as Zach just told us all. This was the most strategic, most swashbuckling Masters since 1980.  Admit it...."

Winning score at Masters this year: +5. Winning score at Oakmont this year: Just a guess, but I'd say around +5.

If I think width creates more strategic choices, I'm only parroting the party line of those who enjoyed this year's Masters (with its wide fairways...)