Can designs that flaunt the rules be good

[ward peyronnin]

Our course at home has a dramatically laid out hole that many players favor visually.

However the hole is an abortion from a rules of golf standpoint.......impossible to mark properly regarding the hazards in play and therefore requires a drop zone for tournament play...even from the USGA. This is my major undisputable criticism of the hole.

I don't care for the hole overall for other reasons as well but my question is should a complete design that can be considered an exemplary and timelesly designed golf hole be allowed to  blatantly create untenable situations as far as rulings apply or does that constitute a final fatal design flaw?

i apologize if this is a redundant question...i am not on site as much as i would like to be anymore.

[mike_beene]

can you give a little more detail? I can't visualize what you are talking about.

[Tom_Doak]

Ward:  I'm having trouble visualizing exactly what you are talking about with the hole on your home course.

The one real mistake I've seen is to build holes that some people just can't finish because of a crossing hazard, and then have to make up a local rule for a drop across the hazard that's clearly flaunting the Rules.  For example, on that famous Desmond Muirhead par-3 at Stone Harbor, with the island green and island bunkers, they had a local rule that after two balls in the water (or a bunker shot into the water) you could drop a ball at the back of the green and finish from there!

I've always felt the safest way to handle things was to build holes that didn't have any features which might require you to take a drop ... if the whole property is playable, you'll never need to know the Rules.  Or at least, that's what I thought until the Dustin Johnson thing last year.

[BCrosby]

Tom -

That's the problem with the 17th at the TPC in Ponte Vedra. An exciting, fun hole, but if you can't carry the water, there is no way to finish the hole. Which is a problem in posting a sccore for a medal round. I've seen a couple of newbies burn through any number of balls and then finally drop one on the green.

Which gets to what I think Ward is talking about. Holes like the 17th push the boundary conditions of the game. A green that some players simply can't reach is not a situation anticipated by the rules. So you are forced to concoct a local rule.


Bob

[Bill_McBride]

I'm still trying to figure out what Wardo is trying to say a bout the hole.  It doesn't sound like a forced carry.....or is it?

I've never liked the 18th at Pumpkin Ridge's Witch Hollow course.  Two forced carries over wetland, and a long third to the par 5 green if you can't make the second carry.    It's always felt like a forced hole caused by a routing glitch. 

[John Kavanaugh]

What Ward is talking about is the nuance between a water and a lateral hazard.  He does not like what is a lateral hazard along side a green marked as a water hazard.  I personally lobbied for the red stakes along the green to be changed to yellow because too many people would drop onto the green no matter where they entered the hazard.  It would not be a problem with a rules official on site but was impossible to enforce when left to the player.  It is not a design problem, it is a rules problem.  Simply said, it is now a case where everyone who hits a poor shot into the water goes to the drop area. 

I personally can't stand the lateral hazard rule where people choose where they crossed the hazard.  A penalty should not be proportional to ones conscience.

It is a very, very difficult hole which now will result in most likely a double bogey as marked as opposed to just a bogey if you could drop onto the green.  The 17th at TPC could have the same problem if it were square.  I guess there is no lateral on a circle.

The hole is pictured on Ran's review.  It is the 16th as shown on the second picture down.  I believe Ward wants the left hand side of the green marked as a lateral.  I could be wrong as Ward ran from me last time I saw him at the bar.

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/courses-by-country/usa/victoria-national-indiana-usa/

[John Mayhugh]

An aerial view of the 16th.





And from the ground.

[Mike Hendren]

Barney, as a good player how often to you hit the green and how often to you find the water?

Mike

[John Kavanaugh]

Barney, as a good player how often to you hit the green and how often to you find the water?

Mike

I am playing there later today.  In the interest of the jinx let me say this.  There is not a chance in hell of me hitting that green.

[Anthony Gray]

  I have played this hole. And would really like it if it played from 100 yards. I do not like the idea of droping a ball on the green.

  Anthony

[Anthony Gray]

  I have played this hole. It is hard on hard. I would really like it from 100 yards. I do not like the idea of droping a ball on the green.

  Anthony

[ward peyronnin]

yes it is 16 at victoria and 17 at tpc.

while they are dramatic holes they are just impossible to mark so that reasonable options for what i believe the rules of golf promote are possible to achieve.

when the side of the green was marked red i overhead the tail end discussion of competitors on the course sharing the advice to take driver and blow it over the left side of the green whereupon you could take a drop on the green and be putting for par...marked as John advocates it requires a drop zone. I am sorry but the rules official in me just won't warm up to a hole that promotes such confusion and awkwardness. there are other reasons i amnot a big fan of the hole as played but they aren't relevant

i don't have the luxury of thinking of other examples right now but i will work on that tonight

[Jeff_Brauer]

Ward,

I think we had a discussion on this years ago.  None of the gca's who participated could recall a situation where they designed a hole a certain way just because of the drop zone or rulings.  Oddly, in fitting a hole to the topo - and your hole at VN is an extreme case - that is the prime consideration.  I doubt many gca's would even really know the rules well enough to consider them.

I don't think that is a great hole.  Just too hard, but at the same time TPC flaunts design convention with no way to play safe and is considered great, because of its fame and who it has brought to its knees besides average players.  Fame will do that sometimes.

I will add "in course OB" to the list to hole types that are bad and should and could generally be avoided by designers by not routing goofy doglegs with no way to stop the short cut.

It brings up an interesting philosophical question, though.  Should the rules support the design or the design support the rules?

[Brent Hutto]

"flout"

Sorry.

[Adam Clayman]

I want to know who played the first 16 holes at TPC and can't make the carry on 17?

And that's from the one guy, who hit the bunker on a fly, only to have the ball bounce into the water. Where's your drop now, Moses?

[JMEvensky]

"flout"

Sorry.

Pedant .

[Ulrich Mayring]

I have been told this story from a number of independent sources and also verified the official result sheet. At a club here in Germany there is a hole with a forced carry of about 140 yards, no dropping zone and no way around it. At the club championship they let 20 handicappers participate, as the club only had a handful of single digits. One of those 20 somethings had problems with the carry and, it being stroke play, thought he had to play this out. He finally carded a 67 on the hole. Apparently at one point someone set off with a cart to get new balls from the Pro shop.

This was all a bit unfortunate, as the leading Ladies, who started about an hour after the tail end of the men, were held up by that. Someone should have told the guy to pick up his ball and incur a DQ in the interest of the field. The course is otherwise a very good design, but there is an area of natural preservation at the problematic hole, which cannot be touched in any way. Still, there should be a dropping zone on the other side, especially since the forward tees are over there already.

Ulrich

[ward peyronnin]

Thanks Jeff You state the question much better than I.

Royal Liverpool is famed for its OB and has in course............does it get a pass for its integrity and age ? Does its character, after all it encloses the ancient horse track from which the course was wrested, absolve? I think it works in this case but I agree with you generally.
 #17 has a cart path too close to the ob fence to allow a proper drop for an unplayable leaving the only option of replaying and ergo a drop zone appears. Cart path location was not what I had in mind but is is part of modern design.

BTY I have enjoyed playing the Sanctuary in Beaufort

Adam Moses has to walk back thru the lake to the original shore and take his drop if I am reading properly if there is a place where he can drop

[ward peyronnin]

Sorry # 17 at The Evansville CC

[Rob_Waldron]

Bob

I believe the self dsignated "Worst Golfer in the U.S" Angelo Spagnola found a way to play #17 at TPC Sawgrass without hitting over the water. He putted his around the water and onto the foot bridge leading to the green. Novel approach!

Ward & John

I have played Vic National and thought twice about the marking of left on #16 as well as right on #18. Seems to me that both greens should have red lateral hazard markings. This was not Mr. Fazio's first rodeo and we can only assume he knew what he was doing. The rules seem to dictate the red marking of the hazards. A wise player who knows the rules should be able to take advantage of the rules, even if it means a drop on a green. As far as John's interpretation of rules being directly correlated with one's conscience, golf is gentleman's game and a gentleman always has the option of taking the high road or the low road. One would think opponents may have a say as to where one drops from a lateral hazard. 

[BCrosby]

Ulrich -

Your example raises the issue I tried to raise above. At present there are no rules governing the architecture of a hole. But do the rules - de facto - make the hole you described and the 17th at Ponte Vedra "non-golf holes" (I'm struggling for the right term.) That is, if it is plausible that some golfers can't finish a medal round because they can't finish (or finish in a reasonable time) a hole, is that a "golf hole" within the rules? I don't know the answer to that or even if there is an answer, but it's a question that such holes raise.

In the same vein, Jeff Brauer asks:

"Should the rules support the design or the design support the rules?"

Good question. I've got a related question. To what extent do golf architecture and the rules have the same basic objectives? Don't they both - at a fundamental level - try to define the consequences of missed shots? Aren't they joined at the hip in that way?

Bob

[Matthew Petersen]

Bob

I believe the self dsignated "Worst Golfer in the U.S" Angelo Spagnola found a way to play #17 at TPC Sawgrass without hitting over the water. He putted his around the water and onto the foot bridge leading to the green. Novel approach!

Clever, but not going to work at Couer d/Alene.

[Kalen Braley]

Bob

I believe the self dsignated "Worst Golfer in the U.S" Angelo Spagnola found a way to play #17 at TPC Sawgrass without hitting over the water. He putted his around the water and onto the foot bridge leading to the green. Novel approach!

Clever, but not going to work at Couer d/Alene.

He could always  putt it onto the boat and back off again on the Island!! 

[Ulrich Mayring]

Come to think of it, any hole is playable without forced carries, because golfers have to have a way to get to the green on foot (or by cart or cable car or boat ...).

In the story I related the guy would, however, have been hard pressed to score less than 67 putting along the footpath around the hazard.

Ulrich

[Brent Hutto]

"flout"

Sorry.

Pedant .

Guilty.

Sorry about flaunting it.

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