Garland,
You haven't been ignored, yet! Just have been in the mindset for the appropriate rejoinders.
I'll start with Peter's comments.
Kyle - you wrote earlier: "I think a most important area to critique a golf course is in how the green to tee walks mesh with the holes immediately before and after."
That seemed to me a charmingly unusual choice, and so I'd like to ask for your own personal hierarchy of values when it comes to the architecture itself (leaving mainenance aside for a while). That is, if can you jump ahead to a time when you actually have a free hand to design a golf course, what ,say, 5 elements/qualities would be most important for you to have manifested in that course.
Thanks
Peter
Green contour as it relates to the fairway and hole layout
Green to tee walks
Tee location
Efficacy of bunkering
Width
My values are set in the idea that golf is really a game where one is in a constant state of introduction and removal of an object ball from natural elements. The tee is the introduction point (perfect lie, complete control over club selection and decisions) and the hole is the "exit point" from the hole from which the golfer may remove his ball from nature and advance it outside the game to the next introduction point.
How the points where the ball is advanced outside the game ("in pocket") are managed and integrated with the rest of the golf course, for me, is one of the highest keys in the effectiveness of both the routing and the golf design in general. Let's take the walk between the 14 green and 15th tee at Cypress as an example (though I've never seen it). The player is both walking through a natural area with the ocean in sight, and then is set on the tee of one of the more natural holes in the world (followed by an even more natural hole with the ocean as the hazard). Therefore, the balance between the interruption of the game with the ball in pocket is kept with the reintroduction of the golf ball into some of the more natural and rugged areas of the golf course.
Extending this a bit further, we can look at the other areas of the golf course as variables in the influence of nature and luck on the ball's journey out of the hole. The game then becomes one of percentages where certain areas of the golf course will allow the player to advance the ball to the hole. Success of the shot becomes based in the change in how likely the player is to hole out the next shot - the more change, the more successful the shot. Conditioning of the golf course starts to creep in at this level, as such factors are instrumental in the likelihood that a shot is holed - especially as it comes to hazards, bunkers and firmness of greens.
I also am beginning to believe, more and more, that handicaps should be based off of an "perfect" score of 3 per hole. Can you think of a hole where 3 is a bad score?
Mike,
I worked briefly with sprigged Seashore Paspalum on greens in the Tampa/St. Petersburg area. From what I gathered, the Paspalum greens to the north were doing just fine, but much further south and the disease pressure was pretty high. We were dealing with brown patch and mowing heights of over .200.
Eric,
I loved the new Star Trek movie, but I do hope they maintain that story arc and not continue the current Next Gen storyline for some time. I'll definitely have to take PSU winning the 2010 National Championship...
I have to say, I sat in the Tennessee section of the Outback Bowl and the fans around me were both nice and accommodating - but apparently lost track of time since we play 60 minute games in the Big Ten.
