Didn't think of it quite this way before.....

[Jeff_Brauer]

Talking with my son and some other college golfers last weekend, they made a statement that sort of shocked me, and I trust, will shock - SHOCK I TELL YOU - you as well.

They say of all the courses played this semester, they like the modern ones.  Why you ask?

They say the old style courses have small greens where the only shot you can play - even in the wind - is the high "moon ball" that drops straight on the green.  However, they like the bigger greens of newer courses, because the greater depth and  width allows them to try different shots, including some bump and runs.

Now, I am fully aware that most older courses once had bigger greens, but our perceptions of older courses equal smaller greens.  The conventional wisdom is also that older courses allow more bump and run.  Not true, apparently.  The biggest single factor according to these talented young gents who play in competition is green size, regardless of course age.  I presume some frontal opening is also required, but they were more concerned with the amount of room on the green itself.

It makes sense, if Pelz is right that distance control is the hardest part of the short game from 100 yards in.  You need some green depth to allow some bail out for those who would think about playing under the wind and using the ground game.

[Joe Hancock]

How many of those classic courses are maintained as they were "back in the day"? I think most are too soft for the design.

Joe

[wsmorrison]

Jeff,

I agree with you, they seem to disregard the approaches to the greens.  While most classic era courses have seen significant green area reductions, the greens probably were smaller on average.  Yet, the approaches were integrated with the greens and are definitely part of the equation.  How many of the college golfers you've had discussions with would consider let alone regularly play run up shots on greens that were designed with that option as part of the possible ways to play the hole?

Joe brings up the important question of maintenance practices having a profound effect on strategic options.

[Jim Nugent]

Jeff, which classic and modern courses did they play? 

[Brent Hutto]

I can think of a handful of exceptions among decent USA courses I've played but in general I can't see why a good player with a scorecard in his hand would ever mess around trying to make the ball swish forward through the soft collars and aprons that surround the typical green, whether it's a 100-year-old classic or something built by Tom Fazio last year. When the apron is softer and wetter than the green, with longer grass and in some cases even a different kind of grass than the putting surface there's just no percentage in forcing such a low trajectory that the ball bounces instead of stops.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Wayne,

I was surprised to hear that they actively consider it.  In competition, they strongly consider all factors that will work to their advantage, and certainly, keeping the ball under the Texas wind is a big one, if the green accepts the shot.  And frankly, these kids are playing a bunch of country courses around Texas that aren't classics in many cases. Its a treat for them to play one of the newer cousres with some design features.

I agree that the best Golden Age courses integrated some surrounding areas into the greens.  One example often given (and sometimes debated) is bunkers a bit further from the greens.  That said, from looking at your numerous Flynn drawings and some Ross and MacK drawings often posted here, I am not sure that distant bunkers were all that common.  After all, a greenside bunker can catch a fly up and run up equally and it makes sense to keep bunkers near the green from that perspective.  

I am not sure that approaches are now as overwatered as some suppose.  With irrigation, I suspect its more constant, whereas in the old days, you couldn't run in up in April, but it got greater as you got to the peak of summer.  For that matter, back when greens only were irrigated, it might have been easier to run it up, with a hard front and then a soft green that allowed you the comfort of knowing the ball would slow down considerably!  Now, as Brent hint, perhaps USGA greens mean that the frontal opening might be wetter and the green might roll out more with its 10+ stimp.  You have to hit it hard to make it jump forward and then NEED the green depth to stop it.  Sounds like back pins might be the best candidate for the bump and run under some conditions.

It may be different in Philly, but with the watering restrictions you have there, I tend to doubt it!  I don't see it down here in Texas.  Granted, the run up shots these guys are talking about may be landing ten yards in front of the green rather than twenty or thirty that might have been typical before irrigation, but its still a bump and run and great judgement is still required.  Its just a little different than it used to be.

Still, the point isn't to debate the virtues of modern vs. old.  I was simply struck by a bunch of what would equate to top club players talking about how they play the game and how the architecture affects it.  Small greens equals limited options in their mind.  

Seemed esp. appropriate on Harbor Town week, since that course gets a lot of raves as a modern, in part because it reversed the 60's trend of big greens to small ones.  Some of Petes stuff (including TPC) has bigger greens, but the complaint you sometimes hear there is that the contours are so convoluted in front of those greens that the run up option is taken away as the best choice, depsite sort of looking Scottish.

It seems like the way to encourage a modern version of the ground game is larger greens to soften the problems of distance control, and making sure we integrate the outer contours as was done in the Golden Age to allow the bounce in to reliably work laterally as well.

Just MHO>

[Mark Bourgeois]

Jeff

MacK wrote that bunkers should be located hard against greens. His rationale was a shot badly missed should pay a greater penalty than one just missed - and having to pitch over a bunker was a challenge proportionate to the miss.

I inferred from his words and tone that this belief was not commonly held.
 Or maybe he actually wrote that - which if not true would be far from the only instance where he teed up a strawman to pound. I will check when I get a chance.

Mark

[Mark Bourgeois]

Here it is:

"Hazards are usually placed too far away from the greens they are intended to guard; they should be placed immediately on the edge of the greens, and then (particularly if they are in the form of smooth hillocks and hollows) the player who is wide of them has an extremely difficult pitch, and is frequently worse off than the man who is in them.  A bunker eating into a green is by far the most equitable way of giving a golfer full advantage for accurate play.  It not only penalises the man who is in it, but everyone wide of it."

Golf Architecture (1920), pp 50-51

Mark

[TEPaul]

JeffB:

What you said in your initial post doesn't really surprise me at all and it certainly doesn't shock me. What it does indicate to me is that a whole lot of the more modern day architecture is a whole lot better than most on this website assume it is or give it credit for being. As for the small greens of the old classic courses many of them were probably considerable bigger at one time than they are now.

[Tom_Doak]

Jeff:

I'm not even sure I would call an approach a "bump and run" if it is landing on the green and then running a bit.  That is one of the main differences between Bandon Dunes and Pacific Dunes ... Bandon's greens are XL size so you can land on the front of the green downwind and still finish on the green, while Pacific's greens are small enough that you usually have to think about landing short.  It makes good players uncomfortable; that's why we did it.

Old Macdonald's greens are XXL, so you're going to be able to land the ball and run it back to the hole.  Normally I'm not a big fan of that, but the way those courses are maintained, it's almost impossible to tell where the green stops, anyway.

[Jason McNamara]

I can think of a handful of exceptions among decent USA courses I've played but in general I can't see why a good player with a scorecard in his hand would ever mess around trying to make the ball swish forward through the soft collars and aprons that surround the typical green, whether it's a 100-year-old classic or something built by Tom Fazio last year. When the apron is softer and wetter than the green, with longer grass and in some cases even a different kind of grass than the putting surface there's just no percentage in forcing such a low trajectory that the ball bounces instead of stops.

Hi Brent -

Did you happen to watch the guys this afternoon at Harbour Town?  Boo Weekley played exactly that kind of shot into the par 5 15th (hit short and bounce on to a front flag position).  He had to lay up from a slightly cuppy lie in a bunker, and his 3d was from maybe 85 yds iirc.  He hit it to about 3 feet.  While I am sure it's not the most common shot, sometimes it remains just the right shot.  (That assumes the player has a reasonable chance of pulling it off; Kostis's comment was that the target short of the green was the size of a pie plate).

I haven't been to HH, and I know it's your neighborhood, so I welcome any further thoughts on the course, esp. if you've played there or attended the toon-a-mint.

[Jason Connor]

Here's my thought.  Am I thinking correctly?

I say this due to the change in green speeds.

With super fast speeds on small classic greens (which weren't designed for such speeds) I understand why they think you have to drop it straight down.  The speeds leave less room for error when trying to land at various places and work the ball along the ground.

So I'd argue that in terms of the playability they're talking about, a medium sized modern green at modern speeds is equivalent to a (small)  classic green at "classic" speeds.

[Tom_Doak]

Jason:

That is a fair assessment.  I know I've played some modern courses where I don't think it makes sense to putt from 5-10 feet off the green, even on a tightly-mown approach, because the speed differential between the first part of the putt and the second part is just too much to make a good calculation.  If the ball gets to the green with just a little more speed than anticipated, it's gone!

That's why I don't like bent greens with fescue fairways -- too much speed differential.  At Bandon, the difference between the approaches and the greens is not much at all -- just like in Scotland.

[Mark Bourgeois]

many of them were probably considerable bigger at one time than they are now

Yessir Mr. Paul I reckon they was. Now they're all catty whompus.

[BVince]

I played college golf and competitive golf all over the state of Texas.  The bump and run shot is rarely used by college players unless they are trying to escape from under trees etc.  Under the firmest conditions, you may see these players fly it just short of the green allowing for the bounce, but that doesn't happen all that often and normally on less conditioned courses.  I don't know of any "top notch" players that hit bump and run approaches into greens except for the reason stated above.  Better players have the ability to fly a shot onto the green and get it to stop rather quickly.  Under firmer conditions they may select a club to allow for a slight hop or two when landing on the green.  Thinking about it, the pros play the British Opens in a similar way.  They will carry the ball onto the apron of the green or to a calculated area of the green to allow for the proper roll to get the ball close to the hole.  The higher caliber player, like a college golfer, top amateur, or pro will most likely try to carry the ball to the green versus the "run-up" option.

As far as the contours on the green, it must be taken in consideration for the approach.  I tend to agree that the more defined slope makes the game interesting.  Most "classic" courses have slopes that fit the smaller greensize.  The larger the green, the more slope it can have and remain playable.  I think that the larger greens that are very undulated do make shot values into the green more interesting.  ANGC for example, you often see the pros utilize the slopes by shaping shots into different areas of the green.

What they said makes sense.  More modern designs allow for shaping a shot into the green that is designed to use the defined contours to get the desired result.  I guess I am getting caught up on the bump and run verbage. 

[Adam Clayman]

Bryon, How long ago did you play college golf?
 What would you say your gca acumen was, compared to today?

[Patrick_Mucci_Jr]

Jason:

That is a fair assessment.  I know I've played some modern courses where I don't think it makes sense to putt from 5-10 feet off the green, even on a tightly-mown approach, because the speed differential between the first part of the putt and the second part is just too much to make a good calculation.  If the ball gets to the green with just a little more speed than anticipated, it's gone!

That's why I don't like bent greens with fescue fairways -- too much speed differential.  At Bandon, the difference between the approaches and the greens is not much at all -- just like in Scotland.

Tom Doak,

That's a great point and probably the main reason why the "ground" game is mostly extinct in the U.S.

[BVince]

Bryon, How long ago did you play college golf?
 What would you say your gca acumen was, compared to today?

Adam, I finished up about 3 years ago.  Nice choice with the acumen ten-dollar word.  It tested the limits of my vocabulary.  I must admit that I went to the dictionary to ensure that I understood it correctly, but don't tell anyone.  

I try to play a fairly simple game and understood my weakness of the inability to work the golf ball.  Needless to say, I tend to favor the left side of the fairway.  I think the biggest part of scoring well is learning where to miss the ball and that applies to the original statement by the college players.  Those guys may be more accurate than I was, but I have trouble hitting it accurately enough to utilize the slopes.  If there was a huge ridge or mound on the green, I would try to ensure that I favored the side that the pin was on so if I missed the shot, I would have an easier attempt to escape with a par.  There are some really neat architectural differences between the classic and the modern courses and larger greens (in most cases) appear to be a trademark.

Strangely enough, I find that the better the player the less strategy that is considered into the approach to the green unless the greens are so severe that it must be taken in consideration.  Guys at this level are good and consistent at firing at the pins that it takes a severe hazard to force them to play smart.

[Rick_Noyes]

But dosen't it hold true that today's top players, am and pro alike, play not so much as "reading the course" as they do reading the yardage book?  If you give them a yardage, whether its to the hole or a portion of the putting surface to take the ball to the hole, they know what club that is and how hard to hit it or work it.  Why would they would they leave it to chance by running it, even if there was something in front of them or not?

If the putting surfaces on the "classic" courses are "smaller", wouldn't they also be less contoured and as a result, the worst you could do would be to aim at the middle of the putting surface and still have a decent attempt for birdie?

[BVince]

Rick, I think you are spot on.  The only thing I would add is that even on classic courses these players are going to go pin seeking when the opportunity presents itself.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

One of the main reasons that few players of a good standard these days would choose the running approach is they never need anything more than a 7-iron to reach the green of any par four, rarely as much club as that. The best players on classic courses in the early days needed wood to reach some of the longer par 4s, and certainly had to be adept at running a 3- or 2-iron onto the green. What did Hogan use to the 18th green at Merion?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Byron,

I agree that "bump and run" may be a misnomer for a shot that is still somewhat high and played to the front fringe, or at most 5 yards to the front to "chase out" in current parlance.  That said, I am not sure that playing that shot is any more or less fun or a challenge than the old days when the bump and run may have had to hit 30 yards in front of the green, depending on season.

I also agree that not many players try it, but am encouraged that some do when conditions are right and that big greens was a factor in conditions being right.  I have always thought of green size somewhat in relation to shot length (although not strictly) and also use smaller greens to reward accuracy over length.  Smaller greens, IMHO, also encourage creativity in short game.  I just had never thought about it in terms of larger greens encouraging creativity in approach shots before.

[Michael Whitaker]

Here it is:

"Hazards are usually placed too far away from the greens they are intended to guard; they should be placed immediately on the edge of the greens, and then (particularly if they are in the form of smooth hillocks and hollows) the player who is wide of them has an extremely difficult pitch, and is frequently worse off than the man who is in them.  A bunker eating into a green is by far the most equitable way of giving a golfer full advantage for accurate play.  It not only penalises the man who is in it, but everyone wide of it."

Golf Architecture (1920), pp 50-51

Mark

Tom Doak - Isn't this "proportionality" in design? If the concept is valid at the green (or is it?) why would it not be valid from the tee or fairway?

[Tom_Doak]

Michael:

There is some proportionality there, but I think that is just Dr. MacKenzie trying to enlist the "tough-but-fair" crowd in support of his idea.  He certainly doesn't suggest that the penalty always be proportional to the error of the approach -- he just points out that a swale can be just as effective as a bunker for a recovery shot following a really poor approach.  Most importantly, it only penalizes the approach that's wide TO THE WRONG SIDE, which is a critical difference.

There is always going to be some proportionality in the equation, because a 20-yard recovery shot is harder than a 10-yard recovery shot in most instances.  That's why there is a paradox.

[John_Conley]

Coming from the mouth of your son, who preferred Great Southwest (haven't seen it) to Indian Creek because 4 1/2 hours on a daily-fee was too much to endure...even with the company!!

Interesting comments, Jeff.  I can see how they'd say it.