What does Friar's Head add to the portfolio of great courses?

[Jim Thornton]

Tom-

Yes, there are no yardages on the scorecard, although that doesn't bother me nearly as much as the fact that they don't list strokes for handicap purposes.  I think most of the caddies have a makeshift card with strokes, but it always leads to a discussion on the first tee when you set up the match.

Jim

[Bill_McBride]

I played my only round with Tiger Bernhardt, and we were so fascinated by the architecture that we didn't bother to play a match.

(That was for my pal Mayday!  )

[John Kirk]

Bstark, I like the description of #9.  Because there is sandy waste between the end of the fairway and the green, is it worth trying to drive the green?  Since the green is very sloped, dominated by the "ant hill", it seems short (20-50 yard) shots would be very difficult there.  I'm wondering if the percentage play is to lay back to full wedge distance, so much so that other options aren't worth trying, unless you're a member fooling around and learning your home course.

Billy McBride, I'm not as big a fan of the #7 green as you are.  That middle right pin sitting on a shelf is a birdie/bogey pin.  If you miss two yards left of your target, the result is an 80 foot uphill putt, nearly impossible.  I probbaly have it in for #7 because I've pushed my second shot out into the big sand hazard twice.  I love the greens at Friar's Head; it's just that #7 with all its undulation, is not one of my favorites.  I like the greens at 1, 5, 8, 15 and 16, for example.  I think everybody agrees that 5, 10, 14 and especially 15 are fantastic golf holes.

I'm trying to prompt some opinions about the overall test that Friar's Head presents.

1.  Does it test the player's ability to judge uphill/downhill approaches?
2.  Does it test the player's ability to play off uneven lies?
3.  Does it test the player's ability to play in the wind, and is the turf firm enough to amplify the need for trajectory and spin control?
4.  Does it yield a broad complement of putts and short shots?
5.  Does the course design suggest curved shots (draw, fade) in both directions?

A great course should do these things.  Here are three characteristics I see at Friar's Head:

A.  I believe the design suggests several long iron shots, at holes like 3, 4 and 13, more than the typical golf course.
B.  Many greens have significant back to front cant, and as a result...
C.  The course yields many long uphill putts.

To me, Friar's Head has an intangible synergy, just a real good feel to the round out there.  It doesn't blow you away, just a nice, fast-paced  rhythm to the golf there.  Some of the holes are visually unspectacular compared to other great courses studied here.

[Bill_McBride]

Bstark, I like the description of #9.  Because there is sandy waste between the end of the fairway and the green, is it worth trying to drive the green?  Since the green is very sloped, dominated by the "ant hill", it seems short (20-50 yard) shots would be very difficult there.  I'm wondering if the percentage play is to lay back to full wedge distance, so much so that other options aren't worth trying, unless you're a member fooling around and learning your home course.

Billy McBride, I'm not as big a fan of the #7 green as you are.  That middle right pin sitting on a shelf is a birdie/bogey pin.  If you miss two yards left of your target, the result is an 80 foot uphill putt, nearly impossible.  I probbaly have it in for #7 because I've pushed my second shot out into the big sand hazard twice.  I love the greens at Friar's Head; it's just that #7 with all its undulation, is not one of my favorites.  I like the greens at 1, 5, 8, 15 and 16, for example.  I think everybody agrees that 5, 10, 14 and especially 15 are fantastic golf holes.

I'm trying to prompt some opinions about the overall test that Friar's Head presents.

1.  Does it test the player's ability to judge uphill/downhill approaches?
2.  Does it test the player's ability to play off uneven lies?
3.  Does it test the player's ability to play in the wind, and is the turf firm enough to amplify the need for trajectory and spin control?
4.  Does it yield a broad complement of putts and short shots?
5.  Does the course design suggest curved shots (draw, fade) in both directions?

A great course should do these things.  Here are three characteristics I see at Friar's Head:

A.  I believe the design suggests several long iron shots, at holes like 3, 4 and 13, more than the typical golf course.
B.  Many greens have significant back to front cant, and as a result...
C.  The course yields many long uphill putts.

To me, Friar's Head has an intangible synergy, just a real good feel to the round out there.  It doesn't blow you away, just a nice, fast-paced  rhythm to the golf there.  Some of the holes are visually unspectacular compared to other great courses studied here.

To your last point, I don't think that having a few holes that LOOK unspectacular is a problem so long as they play well.  The great links courses are good examples.  Rye, Deal and Sandwich that I just saw have some of those holes where there's little definition and it certainly doesn't detract from the overall high quality of those courses.

I think the answer to most of your questions about Friars Head is an unqualified "Yes," and as usual your analytical skills highlight why this is such a terrific course.  I'd love to play it again and again.  It's a great walk and a thoughtful course that demands all of the player's skills.

[mike_malone]

 I resisted my usual word" manipulated" to describe my feeling for FH. I wouldn't go that far. But, when so much thought goes into the design of these courses I feel like the unusual or unexpected is limited. I chose "guided" because I was only mildly pushed to an experience rather than dragged around my the hair.


    Can C+C resist making a short par four with a centerline bunker right where you want to hit the ball?

    Thank you Bstark and John Kirk for your additions.


     Whoever that Jim Thornton guy is , he knows natta about golf course architecture.


    I heard from Simon Template this morning, a much more accomplished student of gca, who told me he sides with me.

[Jim Thornton]

Mike-

Everything you know about golf course architecture would fit neatly on the head of a pin.

Jim

[mike_malone]

 Jim,

     Stay with me here while I get a little philosophical on you, but THE HEAD OF A PIN IS A LOT OF SPACE FOR KNOWLEDGE.

[Jud_T]

Wow-only only on page 3 before the obligitory pissing match! 

[Bill_McBride]

Jim,

     Stay with me here while I get a little philosophical on you, but THE HEAD OF A PIN IS A LOT OF SPACE FOR KNOWLEDGE.

Jim is thinking of a very very small pin.

[Kalen Braley]

Mike-

Everything you know about golf course architecture would fit neatly on the head of a pin.

Jim

Jim,

I hate to go all geeky on you....but as one who works in the biz with several friends in the biz who know much more than me...

Devices can easily store 20 Gigabytes of information per square inch.  Given a pin head is 1/16th of inch in diameter, that works out to about .0031 square inches...(I googled it). So after doing the math, it works out to 66.5 Megabytes of information could easily fit on a pin head.

As a reference point, you could take all of the information on this website, and all the books ever written on golf architecture, and compress it into zipped up txt files, and it could all easily fit on a pin head.

So it would seem Mike is a complete and utter genius.   

P.S.  There are several products in the hopper that can store massively more information per square inch than 20 GB.  There is even a standard for 1 Terrabytes per Square Inch...1 TB = 1000 GB.

P.P.S. You should have aimed for something much smaller like a quark!! 

[Jim Nugent]

Wow-only only on page 3 before the obligitory pissing match! 

Not a pissing match, I believe.  I'm enjoying the repartee.

[Jim Thornton]

Jud-

I value breaking Mike Malone's stones more than the very air that I breath.

Don't you worry about ole' Mike....he's got the hide of a rhino....and a face to go with it.

Jim

[mike_malone]

 Kalen,

   So I guess that means I'm only a genius when it comes to gca. That's okay with me.


      What I'm trying to achieve here is some discussion about what FH did architecturally that hasn't been done already. Clearly the execution of their concpts is superb. The construction and the look of the features is first class. But architecture is about what kind of feel are we trying to achieve. I'm still wondering what this course has that sets it apart from other well constructed courses.

   My feeling when I was there was that I coold have been at several different courses that I played at various times during the round . I couldn't grasp the dunes/potato field dichotomy as significant enough of a concept to carry the course to greatness.

[Dean Stokes]

Mike,

I've read this thread from the beginning and I'm still not sure what you want to hear. Friar's is a very good golf course in a beautiful area of this country that provides a fabulous golfing experience.

What would you have done architecturally to set this course apart from other well constructed courses?

How much more can be done architecturally that has not already been done on the thousands of courses around the world?

Who could have done a better job on this terrain than C+C and what may they have done differently?

Thank you in  advance.

[mike_malone]

 I would have done more of what they did on #10. My sense is that they know everyone sees their effort by comparison to the Dell at Lahinch. But they don't just  copy it they have only a partially blind shot and a deep green that slopes from front to back. This impressed me as a great example of taking the site but doing something unexpected and imaginative. The remaining holes felt like C+C templates.

    It is hard to do something special but C+C are among the best now.

    Dean,

      I go with my feelings and sometimes I can't put it into words. In this particular case I decided that it was the feeling of commonality with other courses that made me feel uninspired.I expect to be inspired by the great courses. I fully accept responsibilty for being totally off base on this line of questioning but the responses keep me asking.


     

[Jim Thornton]

Mike-

I can't stand to watch this anymore...if I was your cut man, I would have already thrown in the towel.  You bring new a whole new meaning to the term "tomato can".  For the love of god, somebody stop this.  Even the beating that Larry Holmes administered to Gerry Clooney pales in comparison to this.

Jim

[mike_malone]

Jim,

 You should take your comedy act on the road. How about right now?

[Jim Thornton]

Mike-

Do you think my particular brand of comedy is distinctive enough to take on the road?

Jim

[Carl Nichols]

      What I'm trying to achieve here is some discussion about what FH did architecturally that hasn't been done already.

I haven't played Friar's Head (or any C&C course other than Cuscowilla for that matter), so I can't comment on FH specifically, but I can question the general proposition that a course has to somehow be unique for it to be terrific.  What if C&C took a bunch of ideas that they had previously used, applied them to a new site, and the result was a strategically and aesthetically amazing course?  Would it somehow be less of a course because those concepts had been used before?  In theory, if they applied all of their best ideas from prior courses to a terrific site, why couldn't the result be better than Sand Hills?   

[Dean Stokes]

Carl

this is what I asked Mike earlier but did not get an answer. What more can be done by architects that have not been done in the last 300 years. There has to come a point where you cannot be original.

Why do you think flared jeans come back into fashion every 20 years - designers cannot come up with anything new.

Same thing goes for music. Disco comes back into nightclubs  every decade or so.

I guess if we apply Mike's theory to golf courses there will never be another good golf course built!

As for Friars Head. I'll play there everyday if you let me. The one thing that surprises me the most though is the amount of people who talk about #10 being their favorite hole.

There were 17 better holes on the golf course as far as I was always concerned.

[Tim_Weiman]

Mike,

I saw most of the Friar's Head property early in the construction process but haven't been back to see the finished product. So, it is hard to say much other than I remember feeling C&C faced a challenge tying together the two very different parts of the property.

Friar's Head aside, I do think Carl Nichols has a point to question whether a golf course has to have unique architecture to be something special. For example, I'm wondering exactly what is unique architecturally about even a Cypress Point?

Mostly I'm looking for a place to have its own overall character, something that makes the journey to get there worth it.

[Ryan Farrow]

Friars Head is the most extravagant piece of art in our little world of golf course design.

How does that not add to the portfolio?




I know its an extremely subjective argument, but can someone try and prove me wrong? I would image everyone who has ever walked off that 18th green would be hard pressed to name a more visually stunning golf course. Cypress  might have come close in the early 1900's

[Mac Plumart]

For what it is worth, I think this thread has some very valid points and I am enjoying readings some of the discussion.

Here is what I've learned from it...Friar's Head has some really great oles (I think 10 was the most trumpeted) and the transitions for two distinct types of property was well done.  It is not in the classs of NGLA, Pine Valley, etc.  But in a round about way, that is a huge compliment if you think about it.

My only two cents regarding the value add of Friar's Head is that at a minimum it gives another chance for people to play a C&C course.  I've played one in Georiga and if it wasn't here, I would have yet to play a C&C course...even if the one I played doesn't add anything that hasn't already been added to the knowledge base of GCA.  I think many of the Raynor courses might fit in the same category, but I am thankful for all of them as, similar to C&C, I've only played one Raynor.

I think it is good to have someone challenge the status quo every once in awhile, even it is a vocal minority, as it causes the majority to re-think there premises and change them or verify them.

One point that I think is very interesting is why do so many new courses shoot up the rankings and then fade over time.  Mike implies over-hype/excitement at the beginning and then reality sets it.  I think he is right.  2 more cents from me.

Later!

[Jud_T]

I have no problem with guys who say that in their opinion a given course is a bit too highly regarded and then give specific rationale, I do have a problem if the assumption is that these guys have to reinvent golf course architecture each time out.  I think that sets the bar a tad high....

[mike_malone]

 Dean,

    I tried to answer your question but before I used your name. I don't think someone else should design the course.


      I'm not asking for them to do something different for difference's sake. I gave an example of one hole that seemed to show creativity beyond what I expect to see from them. I'm saying that the holes appear and play much like other C+C holes I have seen and played in such a way that I think is not very imaginative.


    Ryan comes close to what I think gets people about the place, visually stunning and I might add well crafted. But, my focus is on the layout, how it is inspirational to play, and what makes it different than other great courses.

    Great courses that I have played like NGLA, TOC, Ballybunion, Royal County Down left me with a feeling that ONLY that course could give. Forgive me for not feeling that way about FH, but I would need to lie to express a different opinion.

   BTW I played with someone today who had the same feeling as I did. And he makes up his own mind.