[TEPaul]

I bet they do, particularly ones who become interested in golf course architecture, even if it may be almost completely subconscious or subliminal. If that's true I wonder what amount of the time they get penalized by a hole or course generates the most respect.

Or do they subconsciously and subliminally mostly just want to see others get penalized? Does that generate their respect for holes and courses?

What do you think?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Generally, it's like taxes - we all want someone else to pay dearly, while we skate relatively free.  Now, on famous courses, I think most people accept a higher score gracefully, expecting it to be tougher.  How would you feel coming off Pine Valley with a career round?

Actually, I did have a career round at PV - I shot 72.



















































......rained out after the 14th!

[TEPaul]

JeffB:

You know for those who've got some real experience with Pine Valley, considering what their career round there is and particularly compared to what most or some of their other rounds there are would be a very interesting thing to consider.

It kind of goes to some of the point of my "experience" factor thread that I deleted this morning for lack of participation and replaced it with a simple perion (.) on a thread entitled "Deleted" which has generated a ton of discussion this morning.

[Peter Pallotta]

Tom -

I think that golfers want justice, and that in response (most) architects create just fields of play. Golfers want penalties meted out predictably and in equal and proportional measure - they want to have the penality fit the crime. I think that was Joshua Crane's philosophy, and I think the reason Crane's philosophy has won the day (over that of Behr's, for example) is because the American game has expanded from its private club roots and now has tens of millions of mostly public course players. These players don't play one course over and over again (as did the members of the old private clubs), and so don't get a chance to watch a great course reveal its nuance of various hazards/pitfalls over time; they don't get to watch how that course metes out a seemingly undeserved penalty to Golfer A today and to Golfer B tomorrow, and so don't come to realize that the course is indeed just, at least in its own quixotic way. What the want instead, arriving at a new course every week, is that the course immediately appear and play and punish predictably and proportionally.

Peter
Jeff - you had me going there.
 

[TEPaul]

PeterP:

Very good response and I have no doubt you are very right about what you say, particularly in the domain of public golf courses. Or at least that seems to have been the general perception.

I understand that and I guess I've accepted it to some extent as a prescription for public golf courses but perhaps unwillingly, at least intellectually.

I say that because it seems to me a public course really shouldn't be that much different in this vein from a really good private course perhaps even like a Pine Valley. The members and their friends come back time and time again to a Pine Valley willingly and expectantly don't they? Are they all or always only good players? Of course not.

So why couldn't the same be said about public courses? I don't care where a course is or whether it's called private or public, I know I, for one, would be more than willing to come back again and again no matter what it was called to try to unravel its mysteries and nuances and complexities if they'd tripped me up the times before.

I know it seems very counterproductive and also counter-intuitive to say but perhaps some of these architects today, even the best of them, who rail against the detriments of difficulty or at least complexity of golf architecture, should begin to rethink some of their old standby suggestions and philosophies.

After-all, it is pretty hard to deny that in golf and architecture the various forms and degrees of penalty really are the currency of difficulty, and even, perhaps interest! There really is at least one or perhaps two very strange ironies or perhaps anomalies about Pine Valley as hard as it looks and as dangerous as its reputation is and as many trees as there are there and that is compared to most courses it is actually not that easy there to lose one's golf ball or to even have to use penalty "Rule Relief". That alone is worth a good deal of thought and consideration and even discussion.

One of those of course is something that most people who are not that familiar with PV have never considered or even heard and that is Pine Valley does not really have and never has had what we generally call "rough"---that is rough "Grass".   

[Peter Pallotta]

That's interesting, Tom.  I can't comment on the PV experience, but maybe it's about a golfer's perceptions/views of justice in general -- views that have been shaped by many things and that he brings already pre-formed to a golf course.  And maybe what has changed over the years is that more and more golfers (public and private) are bringing the legal and worldy and societal concepts of justice to the golf course, and applying/expecting those concepts there in the same way they would in life. In others words, golf has become another part of general life instead of a unique version of it or escape from it, an escape to a world with its own rules and truths, and to fields of play that must be accepted on THEIR terms instead of our own. You are willing to do that...   
Peter

[Mike_Cirba]

I know a few I'd suspect secretly want to get spanked, as well.   

[TEPaul]

Peter:

Beautifully said really. Not much question about it in my mind if one takes a pretty long view of things. But if that was the way golf and architecture once was and was supposed to be and should be then what in the hell happened? How did it start down some road that led it to a lot more of say Crane's general perception of the way things should be in golf and not the perceptions of people like maybe Behr or Mackenzie, since they were the primary ones arguing against him and what they perceived his underlying ideas to be which they felt were fundamentally detrimental to golf and its future?

I hate to say it, I really do, because I know I'll get clipped on here for it but I think it pretty much had to do and has to do with the lack of real leadership in golf and architecture over time. Golf and architecture's natural leadership, including most of the architects, began to just cave in to the natural instincts of man that the things they do, should be, need to be, always as predicitable and standardized and defined as they could possibly get away with.

The natural leaders just took their eyes off a particular fundamental or even principle of what made golf so unique and interesting in the first place compared to other games and sports. And now all these years later most of them don't even know what that was or they've forgotten it----randomness, natural unpredicability, luck, bad luck and good luck all rolled into some undifferentiated and unexplainable stew. In that vein of the importance of a natural leadership that must lead I'm completely on board with one C.B. Macdonald who most today would probably be very surprised at his sentiments and philosophy in this particular way.

Or the other possiblity is, of course, that I'm just completely and fundamentally wrong about all of it!

[Mike_Cirba]

Seriously, although I see where Peter was going I don't think it's a public course golfer's mental foibles that are responsible for the tyranny of fairness present in the game....quite the opposite in many ways perhaps.

I'm reminded of a round with three private course golfers I played with at Lederach where the bitching started by the second hole because someone drove into a blind bunker I told them was there. 

We're pretty used to finding random things to negotiate and shoddy conditions and having to play over, through and around them without complaint or expectations of layers of carpeted green, wholly visible perfection consistently meting out perfect justice with the eqanimity of Solomon...I'm not sure too many private players have bounced their chip shots off the upside-down rake handle doubling as the flagstick for the day or a bunker of mud, or seen the architectural wonders some of the lesser known practicioners of the art have conceived over the years.     

[Jim_Kennedy]

Tom,
'Most' golfers would rather be amused than abused, except for the Catholics  , and I somewhat agree with Mikey as to where the tyranny of fairness mainly resides (although I think it's rise is directly related to the ever larger prizes paid to professional golfers over the last 70 or so years).

Although you're right when it comes to the GCA buffs, remember The Emperor's glee filled post about purposely hitting a shot into the DA bunker at PV just so he could abuse himself?

But all in all, 'playing for the penalty' is more predominant as you work up through the rank and file of golfers, i.e., it's the stronger player who is looking for the more stringent challenge (even though he may want it to be a fair one).   

[JESII]

Golfers do not want to be penalized, they want to be rewarded.

Avoiding a penalty area might be that reward...

The presence of penalties implies there will be a reward for skill, that is what golfers want...especially those with an interst in gca.

[George Pazin]

Similar to what Jim said, but from a different angle, with penalty comes challenge. Challenge begets interest. Interest begets fun.

[Mike Wagner]

For me, I simply like to be challenged.  I think most of us like to conquer the challenge - that's it.  Do I want to play PGA West Stadium course every day?  No.....my god, NO!  However, I love to play it every couple years (it means I'm at least in the desert) - to take on the challenge.  Play well and you capture one of those hard to hold reasons we play golf...

[Jon Nolan]

Golfers do not want to be penalized, they want to be rewarded.

Avoiding a penalty area might be that reward...

The presence of penalties implies there will be a reward for skill, that is what golfers want...especially those with an interst in gca.

I like this.  I think it explains the type of guy who thoroughly understands why he's short-sided in a ten foot deep bunker.  He's not moaning.  He knows he deserves it.  He relishes in the opportunity to extricate himself and sink that putt or even walk off with a well played (from there) +1 or +2.  That might be what he talks about first over drinks later in the afternoon.

Makes me wonder if GCAers are the type of sport fans who readily identify their teams' shortcomings.  Or do we have among us those who have never seen a foul called against deserved or a foul called in favor improperly beneficial?

(If the latter I think I've seem some of you chime in on espn.com's reader comments.)   

[Peter Pallotta]

Tom - a very good post, thanks.  I happen to think that you're fundamentally right, but that  the one major thing Behr got wrong (or at least didn't anticipate) was that professional architects would by and large become followers instead of leaders. And maybe Behr should've seen that coming, i.e. I think that almost all professionals in almost all professions tend to follow the natural instincts/inclinations of their clients instead of trying to lead those clients to better/higher things; and I can't blame them for that, since it seems that few can survive as working professionals for very long if they insist on leading instead of following.  I think what may have happened (and what broke CB Macdonald's heart) was that the principles of great golf architecture and the fundamental uniqueness of golf's fields of play were pretty quickly superceeded by the rules of commerce and the demands of the marketplace.  The irony, of course, is that Macdonald's NGLA has survived and flourished as an example of both architectural and financial excellence.

Peter 

[Wesley Harden]

Similar to what Jim said, but from a different angle, with penalty comes challenge. Challenge begets interest. Interest begets fun.

I agree.  I am consistently eager to play two specific courses that always beat me up.  Both courses are challenging, punishing severely for all misses, but the rewards for a solid round are far greater.  I initially disagreed with the question posed in the post title, but maybe you are on to something.  I don't want to get penalized, but I know I would enjoy golf less without it.

Also, this is my first post.  I have enjoyed reading through your discussions for quite some time.  I am excited about the opportunity to participate.

[Patrick Kiser]

I will offer this for thought...

Fairness, just, right, equal, predictable ... all words deeply ingrained in the American culture?

Is that really the case elsewhere in the world?  Scotland and/or Ireland in particular?

As for getting penalized, I think as long as the player feels they have a second chance in recovering ... they might not be so averse.  Although, if it even affects their pencil pushing card score ... then it's not fair now is it?

[Ronald Montesano]

Concerning the career round, the golfer who always defines it as lowest score will complain the loudest about the penalty, the randomness, the rub o' the green.  In contrast, the true aficionado will measure the risk and the reward and respond accordingly or, on helter-skelter days, damn the repercussions and go full-bore at the penalty.

[Niall C]

In the last few years I've been lucky enough to play both Kingsbarns and Carnoustie 4 or 5 times each. Both outstanding courses in their own way. Carnoustie in comparison is on a fairly flat, bleak looking site but is unrelenting in its challenge whereas Kingsbarns has a much more varied topography and a number of quirkier holes.

At first sight I would think most golfers would prefer Kingsbarns, as I did. However after playing the courses the first couple of times I began to enjoy Carnoustie much more and I think the reason being is the challenge. Kingsbarns, as intended, "looks hard, plays easy". The fairways are wide open and its not that difficult to play to your handicap and consequently the shine wore off fairly quickly for me. Still a lovely course to play but doesn't stir the blood nearly as much as Carnoustie.

The reason why ? Definitely the challenge. So do I want to get penalised ? Absolutely not but its the threat of penalty, and trying to avoid it that provides the challenge and the fun.

Niall

[Rich Goodale]

Tom

The greatest thrill in golf is pulling off a shot to the green you have planned, exactly as you have planned it.  It doesn't really matter whether or not you have played that shot from the tee, the green, the rough, a bunker, or some ghastly position that even the architect never even contemplated when designing the course.

No golfer wants to get penalized, secretly or otherwise, but anybody who gets angry when he is rightly penalized does not have the right to call himself a golfer.

Rich

[Rich Goodale]

Could be, Dave, but only if you add the codicil that any true golfer must have been reduced to raving lunacy more than one time in his or her golfing life......

[TEPaul]

Dave Schmidt:

I think you are getting warm in your last post. When I say if most golfers may secretly want to get penalized somehow most on here seem to think it must mean they might take some pleasure in that. That is not it at all, perhaps quite the opposite in fact----as an awful lot of people are capable of doing things secretly or even otherwise in which they probably take no pleasure at all in doing. Man is a complex beast for sure in how he looks at and feels subliminally about himself in relation to the world around him.

[George Pazin]

Also, this is my first post.  I have enjoyed reading through your discussions for quite some time.  I am excited about the opportunity to participate.

Welcome to the site, don't be shy.

[Peter Pallotta]

Golfers also want to believe in the impossible. 

Like the point guard who knows his range is 20 feet but who throws up a last ditch shot from 25 feet to win the game and just KNOWS that it's going in -- for that brief moment, he believes in the impossible; he believes that 2+2 equals 5. 

Peter 

[Tags:]

Tags:

[Tags:]

Tags:

Call to undefined function theme_linktree()