I play ugly courses worse.

[Peter Pallotta]

That's all; that's my observation/experience, i.e. that I play worse on ugly courses. I confirmed this a few days ago when I played again a truly charmless course: sloppily designed, badly re-routed to add blah housing, every tee box and every green raised in exactly the same way, like 18 ice cream sandwiches and 18 deep dish pizzas respectively. I can't be bothered to hit such ugly greens when I can't even stand looking at them long enough to take good aim; I can't hit a 60 yard wide fairway when I notice that the boys on the mowers have decided over the last week to only mow 35 yards of it.  What a dreary experience, characterized by haphazard play and the surrounding ugliness. Blah.

Peter

[Mark Bourgeois]

On the contrary, perhaps we should laud this architect for developing an entirely new way to defend par. That he managed to do so without resorting to length, the crutch of the unimaginative, may be further cause for hosannas.

I call upon the authorities to amend their course rating formulae to incorporate the design ugliness factor and the maintenance indifference factor.

Can I get a witness?

EDIT:

And my I add as an addendum, cometh the hour cometh the man. This Pallotta fellow may be of no consequence on indifferent courses but certainly he is a lion on Homer's Elysian plain and (of course) be very much at home on the home of golf's very own Elysian Fields.

[Ronald Montesano]

Cork came out easy tonight, huh Mark?

That's some brilliant prose...I have no follow-up.

Pedro, I think that I play ugly and pretty courses equally well. If I'm on, I'm on.

[Mark Bourgeois]

Mid-morning here at RJTT, Ronaldo, but yep we're celebrating big-time after we all passed a surprise drug test!

[RSLivingston_III]

For me, I absolute concur if I can amend this to include uninspired architecture. And it is a casual round
Surprisingly I can overcome it during a competitive round. Not sure what that means.

[Colin Macqueen]

Gentlemen,
Someone on this forum must have the ability and see it as their duty to get Peter onto Cypress Point in the near future. He seems to need a stroll in Paradise not so much to improve his golf game as to improve his prose which has taken a dark and foreboding turn. Allow Cypress Point to soothe his soul, calm the storms of his heart and still the anxieties of his mind.  Peter all you have to do is have the courage to wait!  I am sure some pretty prose will result.
Take care sir,
Colin

P.S. As they say life is too short for ugly courses to play a part.

[Mark Bourgeois]

If that's the secret, Colin, I hereby recant my beliefs stated in Reply #1 and renounce the execrable, abject, and pitiful in golf architecture.

[Peter Pallotta]

Thanks, gents, and Colin for the kind words.  But let no man question Mark B - seemingly an effete, a dandy, a gourmand of the esoteric and the obscure, but I tell you, that man has courage!  His point about creating a whole new ranking/way of judging architectural merit is sound thinking (and, ahem, implicit in my original post)...but I lacked the courage to make it explicit!! (And that lack of courage, along with a weakness for lanky brunettes with wicked jaws, has been the ruin of me, and a soft man's heart for a woman's tears my downfall....).

Peter

 

[Adam Clayman]

Peter, I feel your pain, and also feel that Max warned us about the reason. This lack of inspired play, doesn't require a visit to 17 mile drive to fix. I'm hopeful, somewhere closer and more easily attainable, can and will, get those juices flowing, again.

Was it the mind's eye that was blinded? Or, was it just blatantly offensive?

[cary lichtenstein]

Every once in awhile, I wallked off a course after nine holes. Each time the course was ugly and the front nine was unbearabily slow

[Mike Nuzzo]

I concur Peter
The uglier the worse I play too
one of the worst rounds I've had in recent memory was Silvertip... ugliest course I've ever seen to go with an even uglier swing
later that week at Banff and Jasper it felt like I was playing with the wind at my back

I also played a recently renovated course here in Houston, I wish I had the shanks...

cheers

[Peter Pallotta]

Adam, gents - the course was both blatantly offensive (ugly) in and of itself, objectively, and also to my mind's eye, subjectively. I don't play many 'great' courses, but I do play several good, modest and well designed courses, by veteran designers who both know their stuff and -- more importantly -- care.  At this course, I was saddened and angered by the obvious lack of care, or even interest -- it was as if he thought that a bunch of rubes and hicks who wouldn't know the difference would be playing the course and so slapped down whatever took this absolute least amount of time or thought.  I felt an underlying sense of contempt through the whole thing, and just couldn't get in the mood to try to play well. Like Cary, I should've just walked off...

Peter

[Joe Perches]

I play worse on ugly courses

In concurrence, I also play worse when badly dressed.

[Mark Saltzman]

I should've just walked off...

But then you're not playing golf when you could just as easily be playing golf.  Ugly or not, I'd keep going.

[Sean_A]

I am not sure what an ugly course is.  Does anybody have pix of ugly?


Ciao

[JC Jones]

I feel no sympathy for Mr. Colada.  In fact, he was offered such a salve for the burn of bad architecture last week.  He passed, however, claiming to be taking his soft, gin-drinking bureaucrat hands to the wilds of Canada.  I do find his return here inspiring; though I think it is more a result of finding a nice B&B on the forest's edge.

[Adam Clayman]

Let's let this thread die (No offense Peter) because if the USGA and R&A get wind that the uglier the course, the worse the play, they will start awarding their championships to the ugliest courses just to protect par. ... Oh wait....

[Jud_T]

The real question is why any of the enlightened GCA brethren are playing ugly courses to begin with.... 

[Carl Rogers]

It is easier for me to concentrate on my game when not much to look at or study.  Trip to Bandon last Feb taught that lesson.

[Dan Kelly]

At this course, I was saddened and angered by the obvious lack of care, or even interest -- it was as if he thought that a bunch of rubes and hicks who wouldn't know the difference would be playing the course and so slapped down whatever took this absolute least amount of time or thought.

Just curious, Peter:

Is the course in question a "success"? Is it/was it crowded?

[Peter Pallotta]

It was pretty full, Dan, yes.  The price had gone up since I last played it a couple of years ago (by quite a bit actually).  And more housing had necessitated further re-routing. But it is the plainest/most modest of 3 or 4 courses that are nearby a modest-blue collar beach resort town..and the closest to where I was staying by far -- hence the reason I was there again to try to get in a quick round.  It was uglier than I remembered, and the 'lack of care' more evident. So - yes, people get to play golf there....but with so little more effort by the designer/staff, it could yield, to me at least, so much more pleasure.  

JC - you know me, sir.

Peter

[Dan Kelly]

Peter --

My point was: If the course was crowded, maybe he was right in thinking "that a bunch of rubes and hicks who wouldn't know the difference would be playing the course."

A depressing thought, yes, but I see lots of cause to think it -- and not just in the matter of golf-course design.

Dan