Why do they want us in the "middle"?

[Mark_Fine]

One of the great attributes of "classic" courses is that the great architects of the past often wanted the golfer to "play along the edges" rather than down the middle!  When I review a golf course, especially an old one, I look to see if and where those angles of play still exist and have not be eliminated by trees or shrunken fairways, etc.  If they remain, plus points, if not, a significant deduction.

Why do most modern architects want us almost always down the middle??  I see this as one of the big differences between old and new.  Why?

Mark    

[Lynn_Shackelford]

;)Match play back then, medal play today.  Also in the middle it is easier for the designer to create holes for all abilities to play from different tees, one of today's "musts."  The 150 yard tee shot from the golds or reds should confront the same challenges the golfers do from the blues and blacks.  This is wrong in my opinion.  Loss of variety.  In summary "let's be fair."  And don't forget the developer doesn't want golfers on the edge for fear of hitting into someone's backyard.

[Lynn_Shackelford]

Hey Mark,
How come I get 3 stars with my name, you get 3 stars but you have 6 times the number of posts?

[Jeremy Glenn. (Guest)]

Mark,

Another reason is that there are no house down the middle.

Seriously, modern courses are often quite restricted when it comes to space available, mostly width.  Since every develloper wants a 7,000 yard course, within 150 acres of housing, what's an architect to do?  Holes are narrowed to save space.


That, and wide holes obviously require more maintenance than narrow ones, driving up costs.  Put it this way:  Every extra yard in average fairway width equates to roughly an extra acre to maintain for the course.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Mark, Are you finally seeing past all of the containment?

It is obvious that, (and listen up all of you associates who are tired of such design mundane design principles:)) that the golfing consumer really does hates being un-naturally contained with tons of earthmovement to create parabolic-dished/stadium-like golf holes.

To make it even worse is to observe how bunkering is placed in this containment. I will lay a dollar to a dime that players will forego this containment and not even know it, just so they can feel good about drawing outside the lines of bad taste. Unfortunately what they are left with is unplayable spots of cart path bordered coastal scrub and sage as well as eco-freindly preserves for the unjust.

There is no other word for it other then OVER-DESIGN.

I don't know if you can credit Pete Dye for this trend, (Or at least the extent of other architects interpreting as the easist way to prevent liability) It is a horrible precident that has not only ruined many a great site but has also probably many talented architects in the making.

Now I may be so bold to suggest this, not even being in the business, but I hate un-natural containment. I think it ruins every principle that the game was founded on. and while it does keep many an architect out of the courts, shame on us as golfers to think that we are not in some sort of dangerous situation when stepping out on the links of our own choice and by our own doing.

Yes, golf courses can be dangerous places, but so can freeways. It still doesn't stop us from using them at our own risk everyday does it?

[A_Clay_Man]

The best use of natural containment I've ever seen was done by another Dye, Ken. At Paa-Ko Ridge.

As far as Pete goes, Ive seen the un-natural stuff on the borders of courses, I assume mostly for privacy and occasionally between holes. But Ive rarely seen any Pete Dye that has used the moundings as a catch-all, for us hacks.(maybe a little in Palm springs)
 As a matter of fact the first and second holes at Blackwolf Run (river) have some obnoxious looking things that are, much worse of a hazard, than any of his Gobi-like bunkers.

Pete does seem to emphasize the use of mounding to block visual unatractiveness. If used in this context, and is out of play, is it acceptable?

[Mark_Fine]

Lynn,
Never understood the stars either ??

Tommy,
You know I've never liked containment mounding!!  I think safety is part of it and avaliability of land could also be an issue.  

Being forced to the middle is just something to take notice of when you play different courses.  It's one good indication of the strategy incorporated in the design.
Mark

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mark,

I have a slightly different take on it.

It seemed to me that going down one side was usually fraught with risk, sometimes penal, but if the shot was executed, the player was rewarded with a better angle of attack on his next shot.

That feature seems to have been softened or blurred over the years.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Mark, So courses like Lehigh, Riviera, Oakmont, etc. aren't safe?

Weren't you the same Mark Fine that really liked a large majority of Fazio courses? (Lets use The Quarry At La Quinta and Pelican Hill as examples because I know we have both played them.)

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Mark, After reading Brad's drainage post, you say, and I quote:
"Some might find this peculiar, but one of the neatest things to watch is a golf course "drain".  After a thunderstorm at Lehigh, I love to watch how Flynn moved the water across his golf course.  You just shake your head in amazement.  It is shear genius!

I too agree with that thinking, but........

Where do you think that all of the water draining down from Fazio-like containment is supposed to end up? (Hence the purpose of ugly fairway drainage swales and the exact hilight by brad on how the old guys used to be able to do it.)

[TEPaul]

Lynn Shackelford:

Why do you have three stars next to your name with only 30 posts? Post have nothing to do with it for you---because you're a STAR!

Mark Fine:

"Why do they want us in the middle?" I think there're so many reasons for that as to be mind-boggling!! And whatever those myriad reasons not one of them has done a thing for interesting golf or it's architecture!

I have a feeling though that this kind of thing you mention might be an indication of an interesting fundamental division between the "Modern Age" of architecture and what came before it, to a very large degree!!

Look at it this way. The biggest architect and the standard setter after WW2 was RTJ and mostly you can't go that wrong on his type of courses if you're in the middle. Compare that to an architect and architectural thinker like Max Behr!

Basically RTJ flank bunkered both sides of holes and that had to send golfers into the middle for safety--although that's definitely not very optional!

Behr, on the other hand, as a fundamental for creating his "lines of charm" concept often recommended taking the middle away from a golfer. He did this by placing say a bunker in what he called "the golfer's line of instinct" (sometimes the middle) thereby creating other "lines of charm". One of the necessary ingredients of Behr's concept was width, obviously, and rough was not something he much advocated either.

Behr's basic intent, as it was with many of his contemporaries, was to create optional routes and strategies that any golfer might feel were his own--and not the architect's!!

After WW2 golf architecture's intent became more of requiring a golfer to do what the architect told him to do and that in almost all cases was play it to the middle!

Pre-WW2=golfer's choice
Post-WW2=more architect's dictation, less golfer's choice=middle!

[TEPaul]

Personally, I feel the simplest way for real interest to return to golf architecture is for everyone to really become familiar with the underlying prinicples behind Behr's "Lines of charm" and I see a lot of architects doing that more and more today!

[Jeff_Brauer]

TEPaul,

What you forgot to mention is the context of the RTJ style - the pros were running roughshod over traditional courses, and the USGA felt they needed to "toughen them up", for the 1951 Open.  Sounds a bit like ANGC in 2002, doesn't it?  Jones made a name, and stuck with the style, as in that period, golf in general became fixated with difficulty.  

Then, as now, everyone (including a certain golf architecture web site) focuses on the relatively small number of tournnament courses.  A tournament course, designed for tournament play should be different than a course designed for everyday recreational play!  If I visit  a course once a year, and play for a bazillion bucks, I want predictability.  If I plunk down my $35 (or whatever) to play everyday of my life, I want a little zaniness.......

This, BTW,  is not a new problem (or quirk of human nature, as I like to call it)  I was reading MacKenzie last night while watching the Lakers/Kings game and he had a chapter saying about the same - good players in competition want no hazards where they normally hit the ball - ie, no brainers.

[Mark_Fine]

Tommy,
I think Fazio can do some good work but of all the courses of his that I played, I only give Shadow Creek, Galloway National and Victoria National 8's or better.  I think the GW panelists like his work a lot more than I do judging by the numbers  

By the way The Quarry and the Pelican Hill courses are only 6 and 5's respectively.  

But forget about him and look at most other architects today, they want us down the middle most of the time.  

Pat,
You're saying the same thing as I am.  
Mark

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tommy Naccarato,

In certain jurisdictions, Flynn wouldn't be able to build that golf course today.

Many developers are forced to recapture the water, and recycle it back onto the golf course, and not let it carry the fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides off the golf course through the natural waterways.

Flynn's genius would be STYMIED by modern day environmental regulations, just like everyone else.

It's a different world, requiring different methodologies.

I don't like it, but we're stuck with it.

To really horrify you, what if the environmentalists succeed in eliminating the grandfather provisions for drainage, forcing all courses to modify their existing methods to conform to current regulations.  (recapture and recycle)

[Wil Schreiner]

Patrick
Can you be specific, which jurisdictions? What are the details on the requirements or limitations?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Tying together a few other threads, another reason for narrower fairways are turf restrictions, combined with longer courses.

Even if a maximum acreage of turf is not legislated, on the occaisions where I have tried to widen fairways, I get objections from owners (no one else has that wide a fairway, its different.  side note: that's the point), contractors (that will require more fill and more clearing) and superintendents (that will take more time to mow, fertilize and spray)

None of this is new, except the legislation part.  In Colt's book, he mentions making fairways as wide as you can afford to mow.  For a lot of reasons, most courses pull them in because of cost.

Then, it has become so standard, many don't understand wide fairways anymore, and worry about their handicap as much as having fun, so they want to toughen the course, and as Augusta shows, the first reaction is to narrow fairways, add length where you can and speed up the greens!

[Patrick_Mucci]

Will Schreiner,

Send me your Email address and I'll provide you with a partial listing as a start.

[Wil Schreiner]

Patrick
How can the group benefit from your knowledge if you send it to my e-mail address? If you aren't confident in your information that's another story, go ahead and send an e-mail. No need to pass along less than accurate info.

Which Flynn courses couldn't be built today because of the regulations of their jurisdiction and why?

WSNER@aol.com

[Patrick_Mucci]

Will Schreiner,

You missed the context of my reply to Tommy Naccarato, who was dismissing the inverted drainage technique employed by Fazio and others.

To answer your question,
In any jurisdiction where recapture and recycle may be the only acceptable method for getting the project approved.

Palm Beach County in Florida.
Dade County as well.
Perhaps Martin too.

Atlantic county in New Jersey.

Probably Suffolk County in New York and Plymouth county in Masachussetts.

I would imagine that the entire state of California has considerably different permiting requirements today, making it virtually impossible to design the same golf course that could be designed in the first thirty years of the last century.

Even today, a golf course in Suffolk County that had virtually no environmental issues is being held up by environmentalists, and the course is already designed, built, grassed and ready to play.

Do you think that today's permiting process would offer no impedement to Flynn's design and building of his courses ?

Do you think that they would exist in their identical form if built today ?

Boca Raton,
Indian Creek
Atlantic City
Seaview (bay)
Shinnecock

[TEPaul]

Pat:

What do you suppose they wouldn't allow today with the way Flynn built Indian Creek? I saw the grading plans--awesome!

[Rick Shefchik]

A large part of this discussion has to do with the way in which a course maintains its rough. On most courses I play, I'd prefer to aim away from trouble and risk playing my next shot out of the (usually) light rough rather than risk an O.B. or a ball in a hazard or behind a tree. Such thinking, I'm afraid, has made me an inaccurate driver, but I (usually) don't find the reward of playing out of the middle of the fairway to be as beneficial as missing on the wrong side is penal.

If a course decides to let its rough grow to gouge-out height, then I'm going to aim for the middle of the fairway and hope for the best. Otherwise, I'm hitting away from the trouble, regardless of how inviting center stage might look.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Will Schreiner,

Let me follow up on the impact of regulatory agencies.

I'm sure you're aware of Federal and State regulations and the problems they can cause for a designer/developer.

The Counties are another force to be reckoned with, with perhaps municipalities being the most inconsistent of all.

Sometimes, additional regulatory agencies are superimposed over the municipal and county /agencies/authorities.  Agencies like the Pine Barrens Authority in New York.

I know of an individual who was going to build a 36 hole complex in Long Island, 18 private, and 18 public.
They had satisfied all of the local municipal and county regulations, as well as the State and Federal, when the Pine Barrens Authority (not Society) stepped in and quashed any prospect of building a golf course.

But, I'm sure you believe that Flynn could have overcome these minor obstacles.

In New Jersey, the municipalities became so adept at frustrating development by creating a myriad of self serving rules that the State of New Jersey finally intervened by passing the Residential Site Improvement Standards Act, which set uniform standards for certain types of construction.
This Act is now under fire, because towns and environmentalists want to prevent the draining of water into
creeks and streams which empty into swamps.  Yet, no study has indicated that the runoff water has been detrimental to the swamps over the years, and the environmentalists agree to that, but maintain that, over time the swamps will be irreparably harmed if something is not done to better manage an ever increasing volume of storm water caused by development.

Now, exemptions to the Site Improvement Act are permissable.  In 1998 an exemption was applied for, to date, four (4) years later no definitive answer has been issued by the board.  But, I'm sure Flynn could have moved the process along much quicker.

TEPaul,

To think that courses built between 1900 and 1930 could be built today in their identical form is......... naive.

Do you think Flynn negotiated with the Army Corps of Engineers, The U.S. Fish and Wildlife, South Florida Water Management District, Dade County Environmental Protection Agency, Dade County Water Control, Florida Environmental Protection Agency, Miami/Dade Board of County Commissioners, DOT, The Audubon Society of the Everglades ?  

Did he negotiate with those concerned about Wetlands, Cypress Heads, Aquifer, leachate, irrigation wells, water catchment areas ?

Did Flynn have to worry about the demise of the Wood Stork, the Snail Kite, or any endangered species list ?

Add to this, public hearings and various other agencies that get involved, and you start to understand the magnitude of the obstacles associated with designing and building a golf course, just they way YOU want it with NO ALTERATIONS.

What was your question about Flynn and Indian Creek ?

[Steve Curry]

Mark,

Hi all!

Bill V. and I were talking about this the other day when he was here at BHCC.  I had just had a huge arguement with a member who was complaining about hitting down the middle and ending up in the rough.  I told said member tough $@!# on a hole that calls for a shot down the right side, fairway slopes hard to the left on the left half???

Anyhow Bill says we should have a little match, he and I vs. you and the Super there??

Sorry to all for being gone so long.

Regards,
Steve
 

[Mark_Fine]

Steve,
Sounds good to me.  Talk to Bill and will see if we can find a date.
Mark