Is Most Architecture Better For Average Players?

[Phil Benedict]

How many holes on a typical course really challenge the scratch player?  I'm not talking about Pine Valley or Shinnecock but the vast majority of courses.

By the same token, making a par on any hole is rewarding for a player in the 10-15 handicap range.  The so-so hole for the scratch player (routine par, occasional birdie) is more interesting for somebody who makes a par every other time or less. 

It seems to me that most courses will hold more interest for the mid-level handicappers and higher.

[Ken Moum]

I'm inclined to think so.

I recently watched some of the best players in town play my home course in the City Match Play, and on hole after hole, it was nothing more than connect the dots from one good shot to another.

There was almost no thought about strategy, trouble avoidance or anthing else. On a few holes, you could see they were thinking... and it produced some tentative swings.

Despite the fact that it's easily the most architecturally intersting course in town, it isn't long enough to get to those guys.

Ken

[Matt_Cohn]

What do you mean "challenge"?

And while we're at it, what's a typical course?

[Rich Goodale]

A "Scratch" player will probably shoot 2-3 over par on his median round, and I don't know a golf hole out there that can't be bogied by any player, including Tiger Woods, so Matt is right--you really need to define "really challenge."  I played in a 36-hole Open this year with a very solid and well kent scratch player who shot 83-79 on a par-67 course with a slope of 118.  As they say, s**t happens....

[Steve Lang]

  from 2005..

The average 18-hole score for the average golfer remains at about 100, as it has for decades, according to the National Golf Foundation, an industry research-and-consulting service. Among more serious recreational golfers who register their scores with the U.S. Golf Association, the average handicap index, a scoring tool, has dropped 0.5 strokes since 2000. On the PGA Tour this year, the average score of players has risen, by 0.28 strokes, compared with 10 years ago.

since shooting 90 is bogey golf and shooting ~80 is half bogey golf,  i'd say that most gca is lost on average players

[Rich Goodale]

Steve

I'm sure your numbers are right but wonder if your conclusion is too....

To me where GCA really shines is how it deals with the imperfect shots, which are 95+% of them, even for Hogan.  Anybody can design a course which creates strategic alternatives for a series of perfect shots, but how many really tweak your interest when you find yourself severly offline.  The great ones, I will argue.

Rich

[Phil Benedict]

The inspiration for this thread was Kmourn's discussion of the 13th hole at Valhalla.  It's really was a nothing hole for the pros.  The tee shot was an iron to a pretty wide fairway with a wedge second shot.

But for a mid-handicap player it's loaded with interest and it's probably terrifying for the high handicapper.  What do you do if you hit it in a fairway bunker?  Where do you lay up and so forth?

One of the recurring GCA themes is the relationship between difficulty and strategy/interest.  Most courses present elements of challenge for mid to high handicappers that don't even hit the screen of scatch players.

[Peter Pallotta]

"Anybody can design a course which creates strategic alternatives for a series of perfect shots, but how many really tweak your interest when you find yourself severly offline.  The great ones, I will argue."

Rich - that brings to mind 3 questions I have that are always there: 1) HOW do the great courses manage to keep the golfer's interest when he's severely offline?, 2) is the "how" a result of exceptionally good planning and design, or is it mainly a happy and even unforseen accident that we should just be grateful for and that is recognized (in judging a course great) only after the fact, and 3) does it really all come down to the green complexes?

Your views, per favore

Grazie
Peter

[Sean_A]

Steve

I'm sure your numbers are right but wonder if your conclusion is too....

To me where GCA really shines is how it deals with the imperfect shots, which are 95+% of them, even for Hogan.  Anybody can design a course which creates strategic alternatives for a series of perfect shots, but how many really tweak your interest when you find yourself severly offline.  The great ones, I will argue.

Rich

Rich

I couldn't agree with you more.  Of course, we may differ on what "tweak your interest" means! 

Peter - short and to the point.

1. Great use of the land.  This of course means the land must be available in the first place.  If not, the archie has to make it up as he goes along.

2. I would say in the main yes, because the archie has to find ways to use what god gave him.

3. No.

Ciao

[Peter Pallotta]

Sean - thanks. But how much outside of the expected/normal field of play does this great use of the land have to extend to qualify (as exceptional DESIGN I mean)? Golfers find themselves in all sorts of severely offline positions - do you mean that the good architect actually plans/designs for all those situations, or that interesting land takes care of handling the majority of those situations all on its own? 

Peter

[Sean_A]

Sean - thanks. But how much outside of the expected/normal field of play does this great use of the land have to extend to qualify (as exceptional DESIGN I mean)? Golfers find themselves in all sorts of severely offline positions - do you mean that the good architect actually plans/designs for all those situations, or that interesting land takes care of handling the majority of those situations all on its own? 

Peter

Pietro

Yes, I think the best archies plan their green sites around accepting shots from certain angles and not from others, but the very best make it possible to pull off the awkward approach much of the time - which to me means that natural hazards and green tilts/slopes are the best forms of defense in these situations.  Slapping in bunkers and water usually serve to punish when a player is well off line.  Otherwise - well there are two otherwises!  First otherwise, why would a golfer risk placing himself badly out of position if the recovery just isn't on?  Second otherwise, if its just a matter of a wild shots by losers like me, why spend extra effort to punish a loser?  But to be clear, sometimes severe punishment is great, it just needs to be tempered on most holes especially if wind and f&f conditions are a feature.

Though, and I think you are suggesting this, it is entirely possible that archies get lucky sometimes.  But to be fair, choosing excellent greensites goes a long way toward eliminating an archies luck.  The really good greensites offer a clear best miss position with the other options being a very difficult par and sometimes (hopefully not too often, but enough to keep the player honest) just a pickup.  For guys who pay attention, this really influences play and can result in guys just unconsciously bailing to the best miss spot.  So I spose I am saying that well used interesting land to a large degree takes care of the offline shots - it just looks like it was accidental.

Ciao

[RJ_Daley]

I think most great architecture is made for mid handicappers, because they see more of it.  Great architecture must provide diversity of shot making, without being over-the-top trickeration.  A scratch player for the most part, hits it where he wants to -off the tee and to the green.  Most scratch use an aerial game exclusively.  In that case, the architecture can be confined to the LZs and greens.  In those specific and narrowly confined areas, one can design the contours and place the hazards to challenge the scratch player.  

But, a great piece of golf course design has contour, hazards, and choice alternative LZs in other places than just the confined intended or traditional LZ areas.  It has out-greens surrounds and contouring to give meaning to the offline or alternative approaches, particularly recovery approaches that are designed to offer the save of par, bogey, with some creativity and skill.    

[Garland Bayley]

I would say that most architecture is for no one in particular. It seems to me that most architecture simply provides a place to play the game with a few bells and whistles added to make it seem like it is more than it is.

Something like Rustic Canyon makes the course better for average players. The width is there, the option of running the ball on is there for those that can't hit high approaches that stop on a dime. The greens add interest to one and all. In reality, many of the great courses of the world are better for the average player, than "most" architecture.

[Rich Goodale]

"Anybody can design a course which creates strategic alternatives for a series of perfect shots, but how many really tweak your interest when you find yourself severly offline.  The great ones, I will argue."

Rich - that brings to mind 3 questions I have that are always there: 1) HOW do the great courses manage to keep the golfer's interest when he's severely offline?, 2) is the "how" a result of exceptionally good planning and design, or is it mainly a happy and even unforseen accident that we should just be grateful for and that is recognized (in judging a course great) only after the fact, and 3) does it really all come down to the green complexes?

Your views, per favore

Grazie
Peter

Pier

3.  Yes--the green complexes are the most important element.  If they are "simples" rather than complexes,  there is little to be gained or lost on the placement of the tee shot, or any other shot, for that matter.  Not too far behind, however, is the character of the land.  The more bumpy and random the more interest.  Compare and contrast the sandy wastes to the right of the 8th at Cypress Point with the "waste bunkers" that used to partly define TPC Sawgrass.  The former are a serious hazard requring serious thought and calm execution to escape, the latter were (are?) just simple tests of one's ability to hit a shot off a hardpan lie.
2.  Both.  Great architects can insert some cool micro-features onto even average land, if they are allowed too.  However, many of the coolest things on the greatest courses are just found, and only appreciated over time.
1.  With great and consistent maintenance practices.  Even the best designed courses on the best natural sites can be screwed up in a shockingly short period of time through incompetence, stupidity and/or neglect.

Cheers

Ricardo