What do you gain, when you abstain...

[Scott Warren]

from looking at copious amounts of pictures of a course before you visit for the first time?

I am headed to the US in August and will be playing courses a) by an architect I have never played before (Flynn) and, b) of a style of golf I have never played before (prairie golf).

I've tried to steer clear of much more than a read (dozens of times over) of the respective courses' pages in 'World Atlas...' and 'Planet Golf', but find my resilience weakening, with two months still to go until wheels down in Wichita. Especially with Mark Saltzman's Prairie Dunes thread sitting on the front page of the forum.

For some reason I have tried -- with the prairie courses especially -- to steer clear of getting too familiar ahead of time so I can discover it all with my own eyes.

Is there something to be lost by letting myself get just a little bit more excited by looking at pics of the courses in question? Or am I better to look at as little as possible before I am there in the flesh?

Interested in what others do before such a trip, and why? Does the course's standing/quality play a part in whether or not you like to be surprised?

[Sean_A]

Scott

I really don't do any added photo/writing exploration once I have added a course to my would like to play list.  That said, I strongly suspect you are much more into making sure your play list is realized than I am.  If thats your style, why worry?  I don't get the impression you are not having fun playing your dream courses. 

Ciao

[Scott Warren]

Sean,

You're exactly right that plenty of fun is being had regardless, I guess I just worry that I might detract from the experience of visiting Kansas, Colorado and Nebraska for the first time if I do too much advance homework.

[Tom_Doak]

Scott:

Personally, I enjoy discovering new golf holes for the first time in person, rather than on my computer.

I would also rather judge the course myself, than subject myself to the biases of groupthink.

[Mark_F]

Personally, I enjoy discovering new golf holes for the first time in person, rather than on my computer.

I would also rather judge the course myself, than subject myself to the biases of groupthink.

I wouldn't have thought you were subject to the biases of anyone, Tom. 

[Scott Warren]

Tom,

I feel the same way -- as amazing as my first time at Barnbougle Dunes was, the arrival on each tee was a case of "Oh, here's that great short four with the drive bunker and punchbowl green..." etc. Rather than "Wow, where does this go, what's that? How does that work?"

Given I will get to play each of the three prairie courses numerous times over multiple days, I just feel like maybe that is the best way to discover them and that it may have been a better way to discover a similar style of course at Barnbougle Dunes.

[John Kavanaugh]

There is a class of people who benefit from looking at pictures of courses they choose not to play. If that's you, please do.

[TEPaul]

Scott:

What I gain when I abstain is a method of understanding how and how much my imagination is similar to or different from reality. I have told people in the past who are going to play a course of significance they have never seen before to try to imagine it in as much detail as they possibly can----and to even write down some of the details of what they imagine it will look like and be like. And then when they have seen it to compare the former to their feelings on the latter. I've found it is pretty neat to do it that way. I think the best example is with Pine Valley but I did that when I first went to Prairie Dunes and it was so interesting to compare my imagination to what I saw. I've never been much interested in looking at pictures of something before-hand----I'd rather just imagine it with my mind's eye.

That kind of thing can have some pretty interesting results in some other areas. Years ago when still a teen I worked for a couple of years in the summer for a shipping agency in New York. The company had lines all over the world and my boss talked to this agent in the Bahamas just about every day for thirty years. They became great friends but it was only over the phone----they had never seen one another over all those years. So they decided that was ridiculous and they had to meet. When they finally did it was a shock for both of them because both of them looked nothing at all like what each imagined.

[Brett_Morrissy]

Scottie,
Go with what you know, ask your wife to hide the PG and Atlas, until you get back.

I like to get a bit of an understanding of where things are, like studying a map of a new city, this allows me time to ensure I make the most of the usually limited time. On the other hand, often apart from the big moments - like 4 at Barnbougle - the holes look different in the flesh anyway, but it is exciting seeing it completely fresh also, which is how I first saw Barnbougle.

[JC Jones]

Scott,

I think that Texas having one of the top 5 rates of teen pregnancy shows us what we need to know about the value of abstinence education.

[Jeff Taylor]

What would you think about an arranged marriage where you could not see your wife until the wedding night?
Ever plan a vacation without investigating where you might go?

Can't imagine a scenario where preparation does not help the experience. You will still discover. You will still be surprised. You won't have to worry about traveling across the globe to realize that you should have hit a particular shot but didn't. Only to kick yourself for the entire plane ride home.

OK, I am being dramatic. I prepared for my trips to Scotland and Bandon. It never occurred to me not to. I never felt that I short changed myself. Some can say that I lack the understanding of the principle of surprise. My response is to remember that studying the Old Course was nothing like playing it.  

Fear not. Read on. The playing experience will still be uniquely yours.

[Jeff_Brauer]

I often use photos, write ups, etc. to preview courses.  Sometimes, I don't, like when I accidently found Cape Arundel on vacation a few years back.

If I preview, some courses - like Crystal Downs - wow me when I get there and know on the first tee it will be someplace special.  Others don't, and others just look different in person (better or worse) than the photo essays make them look.

I see no harm in previewing, but I see no overall pattern either.

[Jeff_Brauer]

From the owners side, I tell them that I expect more and more previewing of players considering playing their course, so consider your website.  Sadly, that also may mean designing to a certain set of expecatations even more than before - I am currently considering dropping a par to 71 with and "extra" but spectacular par 3, and the discussion is whether or not it will harm or hurt rounds by the first impression on the internet.

Similarly I believe golfers look at yardage - not only for the over 7000 yard tag, but more specifically, if they like to play 6300 or 5700 yards, that there is a tee set near those yardages.

[TEPaul]

JC:

Bull-ticky!

Texas and its mentality in all things just might be the best and purist representation of the true American spirit and mentality.

If we can't conquer the world through some form of empirialism, either militarily, politically, financially or whatever, the next best method, albeit longer term, is to spread our seed as early and as liberally as possible. It's basically a long term numbers game. If we can't conquer the rest of the world first at least eventually we might out populate them. Of course it definitely helps to work the flip-side on the rest of the world---eg all kinds of population control methods from Planned Parenthood foisted on the rest of the world to financial aid in voluntary sterilization programs, all the way to financially supporting the Third Reich right up to 1942.

Don't think that WASP hierarchial world was not clever and super-future thinking this way. Their 2-3 essential tenets over this last century and more was population control of the more benighted folks of the world, to the creation of one of the world's most effective security apparatuses (think OSS, NSA, CIA etc), and to financially leverage all our friends and many of our potential enemies (ie Russia and Germany, Vietnam, Iran, Iraq, Afganistan etc).

Prescott Bush, Uncle Herbie Walker, Averill Harriman et al were some pretty clever globalists and Texas was one of their most important areas of financial operations!  

[JC Jones]

The Chinese and the Indians are way ahead of us on the population game!

Though your post brings to light one of the potential reasons why the Bush family was so instrumental in the founding of Planned Parenthood.

[TEPaul]

"Though your post brings to light one of the potential reasons why the Bush family was so instrumental in the founding of Planned Parenthood."


#41's mother was one of the founders of Planned Parenthood. It was actually a brilliant "perception" moved considering some of the stuff they'd been involved in earlier and before the war.

[Chris DeNigris]

Blue Titleists?

[Dan Herrmann]

Scott - as an example, I went to Sutton Bay in South Dakota last year - I only saw a few photographs and was essentially going in "blind".

Other than the fact that the course was eroding into the Missouri River, I found the place to exceed my expectations in terms of fun, shot values, and sense of place.  I'm glad I didn't see a lot of photos ahead of time.

In a similar vein, I took a "gator" tour of the new Doak course at Dismal River.  The pictures are wonderful but don't do the place any justice - the "on the ground" experience is SO much better than what you see in photographs.

[Mike Hendren]

Scott:
I would also rather judge the course myself, than subject myself to the biases of groupthink.

Tom,

In deference to your butt boys, you should have added, "not that there's anything wrong with that."

Bogey

[James Boon]

Scott,

I remember a few years back when we were both at The Berkshire, that we discussed how we had looked for pictures of the courses on the web and found very little and yet we both seemed to love the experience of discovering everything for the first time. I also recall this lead us both to reduce the amount of pics we posted in photo tours, for a little while anyway... 

As several people have said, seeing the course for real is often quite different from what the photos on a computer will have appeared like so I've got to the point where I dont see any harm in doing some research and finding books, pictures or whatever. Hey maybe there can be a real benefit to doing some research beforehand? I recently played Turnberry and even after all the information that was available, I wasn't really expecting to love it that much for several reasons, but that meant what I discovered in the flesh was a real excitement as I did in fact thoroughly enjoy it!

At the same time, maybe seeing everything for the first time in the flesh brings back memories of what it was like as a kid to experience a course for the first time, before the days of interweb forums such as this? But then most people I know found this website when doing an internet search for what courses to play or to find out more about a certain course so perhaps its not a bad thing afterall? 

Cheers,

James

ps If you do decide to do a bit more looking at sexy pictures before your trip, try and get hold of this book...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Perry-Maxwells-Prairie-Dunes-Elliott/dp/1585360732

[Ken Moum]

For some reason I have tried -- with the prairie courses especially -- to steer clear of getting too familiar ahead of time so I can discover it all with my own eyes.

Is there something to be lost by letting myself get just a little bit more excited by looking at pics of the courses in question? Or am I better to look at as little as possible before I am there in the flesh?

Well, I played PD for the first time last year, having looked at it for four days during the Women's Open, and lots of pictures on the Web.

And there was NOTHING in any of those pictures that prepared me for what it looks and feels like standing on a tee, looking at all that tall grass and gunch with a club in my hand.

Over Memorial Day weekend I went to Nebraska where I played Wild Horse and Awarii Dunes, and I can tell you without equivocation that as cool as the pictures are, they convey NOTHING about playing them.

The same thing applies to my first--and only--trip to Scotland.

I had hundreds of photos, and StrokeSaver copies for virtually every course we played.  Dornoch, Brora, Boat of Garten, Nairn, Nairn Dunbar, North Berwick, and New, Jubilee and Old at St. Andrews.

I also have hundreds of pictures of them taken during the trip.

And virtually no picture I have ever seen gives me a real sense of what it's like to stand on the ground with a club in my hand.

Look at all the pictures you want, the land isn't anything like the pictures.

K

[Craig Disher]

Scott,
I'd abstain. But if you decide to peek I think you'd find that most photos (like mine for example, I'm really inept) only hint at what the course is actually like. I find photos useful primarily as a reminder.

[Doug Wright]

Scott:

Personally, I enjoy discovering new golf holes for the first time in person, rather than on my computer.

I would also rather judge the course myself, than subject myself to the biases of groupthink.

This is my approach also--same with movies, I try not to read reviews before seeing the films.

[Dan Herrmann]

perfect example - you have no idea how steep ANGC #10 is till you see it.  In fact, the walk from 10 tee to 12 green is one big elevator shaft. 

[Jeff Tang]

Count me as one who looks at pictures and does a bit of research before going to a course.  This is especially true if I'm only going to play the course once and / or it is known for having some very good architectural merit.  I don't have as keen an eye or as much knowledge as others on here and I don't want to risk missing something in person that I should have been paying attention to.  A good example is last year when I played Shoreacres.  There's a lot going on there and I'd hate to have missed something in person and had to rely on seeing it in photographs afterward.  That said, I probably still missed a bunch but probably less than I would have had I not known what to look for.