Name 5 factors that help signify good golf architecture

[Mike Nuzzo]

270 is 2% of golf courses - I don't calculate waterfalls/hole.
With about 150 courses in Houston - there would need to be three with a falls.

I'll take 270 bet too.

[John Kirk]

The course features short, logical walks between green and tee.  It means a lot.

[George Pazin]

Ain't the waterfalls, it's what they represent...

[John Kirk]

2a.  When standing at your ball and pondering the next shot, the architecture helps the player clearly imagine the type he/she wishes to execute.

2b.  The architecture yields a compelling variety of imagined shots.

[Matthew Petersen]

I was driving around town this afternoon and got to talking with my wife Laura about what factors signify good golf architecture. She came up with a darn good list:

1.  Green Complexes - strategic interest and lack of boring designs
2.  Forced Carries - too many causes Laura to have no fun
3.  Tee placement - how they set up angles, and the way the tee is canted to the ideal playing corridor
4.  Bunker placement
5.  "Doglegs" - how doglegs fit into the routing - left vs right quantity.

I thought that was a pretty good list.

What would your list look like?

I am struck by your #2 and #5.

I played Rees Jones' Quintero this weekend and was, frankly, quite disappointed in the course itself. There are a number of reasons for that but these were two of the biggest. The course has scarcely any holes with a dogleg at all and of the 3-4 that don't play dead straight I can only think of one where position off the tee is used strategically in the way I think a good dogleg should function.

The course also featured the flattest greens I've seen anywhere, let alone on a course featuring so many holes with severe changes in elevation.

[Chris Ord]

- opportunities for the ground game
- width emphasized as much as length
- variety of lengths and green sizes for the par 3's
- plenty of green contour
- not a big fan of o.b. (one should be able to hit a miraculous recovery shot instead of taking a 2 stroke penalty)

[Tim Gavrich]

I'll give it a shot.  To many golfers I know, five things that affect how much they like a course (the architecture, writ loose), in no particular order:

1. The ability--the realistic option, at the least--to hit driver on every non-par 3.
1a. No forced layups.
2. Conditioning--get the most mediocre course to have smooth, fast greens and golfers will flock to it, even if the "layout" isn't so inspiring.  When I ask people what they thought of a golf course, a comment on the condition of the place--the greens especially--comes in the first few sentences almost every time.
3. Water hazards--I think the chance to lose a ball in a pond or stream or lake or ocean goes a long way toward giving a golf course that perceived "championship" feel.
4. (At public/semi-private/resort courses) GPS in the golf cart.  I am convinced that this has saved dozens of mediocre golf courses from ruin in the last few years.
5. Chances to make birdies.  Genuinely reachable-in-two par 5s and a genuinely drivable par 4 somewhere in the round.  No one of any handicap likes a long slog of a course.

I am a sucker for greens with sideboards and backboards, where you can hit a ball up a slope and have it roll back down with a chance to go in the hole or at least get quite close to it.

[Sean_A]

The answers I like

Variety - If a course is taking you on some sort of journey, there should be easier parts that need to be taken advantage of, and harder parts that need to be negotiated without giving up too many strokes. There should be up and down and right and left and some sort of ramdomness to bunker placement.

the ability to simply find your ball and play it again

"walk in the park" factor

a sense of discovery

width emphasized as much as length

Bunker placement

variety of green complexes

Ciao

[John Kirk]

3.  The architecture presents shots in which the best line of attack is significantly away from the objective (hole).

That's a Doak principle.

[Mike Tanner]

These are the factors that I value in good golf architecture:
1. The course's routing and construction provides the feeling that it was incorporated into the land rather than imposed on it and can be walked
2. Golfers are encouraged to find multiple options for getting from the tee to the green (they all don't have to be immediately apparent)
3. Variety in the design of the par-3s, 4s and 5s as to length, direction of doglegs and shot values
4. Green complexes that reward the ground game as often as the aerial approach
5. Composition and placement of hazards so that mis-played shots incur stroke penalties, not lost ball penalties 

[JNC Lyon]

Waterfalls
Golf Cart-Friendly
Kelly Green Fairways
Stimpmeter Readings of 13+
Cold Towels at the Turn

[JNC Lyon]

Also...accuracy of yardage markers.

[Scott Macpherson]

There are lots of good answers in here, but for me, one is missing.

Great courses have an element of DANGER.

They have shots on 2 or 3 holes that require accuracy, execution and courage. This is an important part of what differentiates the good from the great courses. e.g Would you think so highly of Cypress point without the 16th hole? Or Augusta without the 12th and 13th holes. Or TOC without the Road Hole? I doubt you would.

scott

[Mac Plumart]

JNC...with the 100 degree heat here in Atlanta, those cold towels at the turn are truly a welcome piece of GREAT architecture!!

[Tom Johnston]

But don't we have to distinguish between architecture, construction & maintenance?  Yes, a great architect can design a course that is appropriate to the setting (reasonable to construct) and reasonable to maintain.

But a few years after construction, aren't the course conditions mainly due to how it was built and then maintained, whereas the routing and strategy of the holes are more due to architecture?

My six factors:

1) Variety of approaches to a hole
2) Variety of defenses vs. a good score (or par) - (not just) length, hazards, greens, tightness of fairways, length of rough
3) Harmony with the natural terrain
4) Variety of holes on the course
5) Testing every shot
6) Fun for players of both high and low handicap

[Adrian_Stiff]

But don't we have to distinguish between architecture, construction & maintenance?  Yes, a great architect can design a course that is appropriate to the setting (reasonable to construct) and reasonable to maintain.

But a few years after construction, aren't the course conditions mainly due to how it was built and then maintained, whereas the routing and strategy of the holes are more due to architecture?

My six factors:

1) Variety of approaches to a hole
2) Variety of defenses vs. a good score (or par) - (not just) length, hazards, greens, tightness of fairways, length of rough
3) Harmony with the natural terrain
4) Variety of holes on the course
5) Testing every shot
6) Fun for players of both high and low handicap

I think too many architects (mainly the pro-golfer ones) forget about the very basics of designing a golf course, it has to function properly in order to grow great turf. Sadly too many on here dont recogonise it and wont embrace the combination of doing whats best for the turf and the golf. Hardly anyone included it in their 5 factors that signify good golf architecture.

[George Pazin]

1) Good walk

2) Interesting shot selections

3) Great walk

4) Vexing shot selections

5) Great flow that, along with interesting shots, makes a great walk.

[Jay Flemma]

Vertical movement in the earth (fairway undulation to create different lies, and variety of uphill, downhill shots)

Horizontal and diagonal sweep of fairways to create angles

Internal contour in the greens

Center line hazards

An interesting routing

[Scott Stearns]

Gas Carts

[Adrian_Stiff]

I despair with this site!!!!! Things must function...pretty houses sometimes dont work.

If it has centre line bunkers ......its great architecture WTF.

[Ben Voelker]

I came up with my list without reading any others and came up with variety, variety, variety.  Some of these may overlap a bit, but this was my instinctual list...

1) green complex variety (angle to fairway, internal contour, slope direction, hazard locations, uphill/downhill approach, etc.)
2) driving angles
3) hazard variety (mounds, ridges, bunkers, hollows, swales, fescue, water, trees, gorse, etc.)
4) routing, specifically for walkability
5) yardage variety (different length par 3's, 4's and 5's)

[Bill Brightly]

1. Great green complexes
2. Skillful use of the land in the routing
3. Variety in the routing  (not an up and back layout)
4. A proper amount of shots with high "fear factor" (pucker your cheeks and hit it) but not TOO much
5. A course that really makes you think on every tee

[Matt_Ward]

1. LAND -- the site dictates so much -- few places succeed with pedestrian sites. Land is no less than 60% of equation for me.

2. ROUTING - the course must be able to max out all features of what the site provides and do so in such a way that provides for the best series of holes -- this includes providing for equal measures no matter which way the wind blows.

3. CONDITIONING -- the course must be prepared to allow those design elements to flourish. Does not need to be ANGC in shape but must be able to allow such features to come to life on a steady and repeated basis.

4. GREEN COMPLEXES -- the course needs to include greens of varying shapes and sizes that accentuate position play from sound approaches and deft driving of the ball.

5. SHOT VALUES -- courses that require the most skillful usage of the greatest range of shots -- this includes shot shaping when called upon and the wherewithal to hit high and low shots when called upon.