Managing Expectations

[Peter Pallotta]

With all the talk about and travel to the world's great courses, and the (implicit) expectation of '18 great holes', and then endless top-whatever lists, and almost every golfer being a blogger, and postcard/photo-shopped pictures:

Architects: When designing a course, do you ever find yourself making choices (with features or routing etc) in order to manage the golfer's expectations, e.g. having them sink into and embrace this particular 18 holes (instead of comparing it with other courses) and/or balancing stronger and weaker holes such that the golfer's lasting impression is a more positive one?

Golfers: Do you ever experience an architect/a course that has tried to manage your expectations? Do you think your expecations need managing?

Peter

[Tom_Doak]

Peter:

The sequencing of the holes, and how it causes the golfer to feel about the course, is a part of design that not many of the earlier generation of architects thought much about [or at least they didn't write much about it].  I suspect I've thought about it as much as anyone, because I have thought through it for all of the great courses I've seen.

However, I still couldn't point to very many conscious decisions I've made to do "B" instead of "A" because it would manage the golfers' expectations.  I can see the impact it may have when considering various routing options, but it's more a matter of choosing the one that I think I would like best, instead of choosing one for a certain reaction by somebody else.

[Jackson C]

Peter,

When I play a great old course in Scotland, I have no such expectation.
I am there for the history and experience.

[JMEvensky]

Golfers: Do you ever experience an architect/a course that has tried to manage your expectations? Do you think your expecations need managing?

I don't want anyone managing my expectations for me--how does the guy who designed the golf course know what I do/don't expect? I can't think of anything more artificial or less sophisticated.

I recently had a conversation with a guy about Pete Dye courses.He told me that the Honors Course was lacking because the 18th wasn't as "dramatic" as the 18th at Whistling Straits.His idea was that golf courses should finish with their best hole.

Lucky for him that he'll never have the opportunity to play CPC.

[Peter Pallotta]

Thanks, gents. Jackson, Jeff - I think we speak the same language.

Tom: though I started the thread, I actually didn't expect architects to say that they could "manage expectations", at least not in the way I envisioned. That your study (on the ground) of the old great courses gave you that kind of understanding is probably worthy of a long and detailed thread of its own; but so too is your comment that, even knowing how to 'manage expectations' you choose to follow a different path. If I ever get to know one of your courses or any of the great old courses well enough, I'll revisit both these subjects. 

Peter

[Tom_Doak]

Peter:

I will give you one example from my most prominent course, to show how I think about it.

When we laid out Pacific Dunes, the final routing that everyone knows is the way we all walked those 18 holes the first time I put them together.  After you reach the ocean on #3, you can see #13 just beyond -- but instead you turn left to play south down the coast on #4, you return to the clubhouse after #7, and you get back to #13 later.  [I love having that glimpse of #13 and then realizing you don't get to play that hole until much later ... but I didn't think of it until we were walking the routing.] 

I hadn't even thought about the scorecard of the course prior to walking that routing, but immediately after we did, I realized that it had resulted in the odd balance [four par-3's and three par-5's on the back nine] that Pacific Dunes is known for.  I wondered if Mr. Keiser would approve of something so odd.* 

After some thought, I realized that there was another way to put the same holes together ... if you went from #3 straight to #13, you would have two loops of nine holes, and the par-3's would be a bit more evenly distributed [although there would still be three par-5's on one side, so par would be 37-34 or vice versa].  A lot of clients might have preferred that arrangement, but it would have had other repercussions ... either you would have had an awkward transition from #18 over to #8 [if you played it as I described], or #8 would have been the opening hole and the back to back par-3's would have come very early in the round.

Luckily, both Mr. Keiser and I were on the same page, feeling that the rhythm of the course was better the way I'd first come up with it.  I rarely even mention the other possibility to anyone else because I am sure some of them would think we made the wrong choice, even though I think the success of the course has proved us right.  I would not have phrased our decision as "managing expectations," but it was all based on the experience of walking the course and on how we thought it would feel better to the golfers.


*As it turns out, a lot of people love the course for that odd mix of holes on the back nine, subconsciously -- there are so many par-5's and par-3's on the back that it improves the odds that someone will finish with an unusually low back-nine score -- but we didn't realize that until a year or so afterward when Mike reported how many people had come up to him all smiles after shooting a career low score for nine holes on that back nine.

[Rich Goodale]

Of the very good new courses I have played, only one stood out as trying to "manage" me, but it was not my "expectations" but my experiences they were trying to get at.  I expected nothing when I first walked and then played Castle Stuart, but after these experiences it was clear to me that the architect had designed the course to create a visual and contextual experience as well as a golfing venue.  I love the course, but found the constant framings to be distracting sometimes to the point of annoyance.  The greatest courses offer multiple visual and contextual experiences which vary on the day.  I doubt if the truly great architects are good enough to plan these sort of random ephiphanies, but I am willing to be proved wrong.....

[Jeff_Brauer]

Never really thought of it in terms of managing expectations, just creating variety.  Just yesterday, I made a conscious design decision or two based on variety, flow, reducing difficulty of one late hole, etc.  (on a remodel, where lots of other things were fixed.)

As to comparing to other courses, I don't have a mindset to immediately rank a new course just above or below some other courses I have played!  I do have to manage my own expecations, generally finding that I mentally downgrade a course I have heard lots about while upgrading ones that have not had as much hype.

Bandon is a good example.  After reading so much here, I found I liked the Kidd course way more than I anticipated, and Tom's and Ben's course just a bit less than I anticipated.  All are great courses, but I guess I compare the course to my own, often wrong, self image of it from before playing based on photos, etc.  Similar to me going to the movies.  Not really a Star Trek fan, so when I went to Star Wars, circa 1978?, I was expecting nothing, and came away thrilled, based on my mental image.

I will say that despite great expectations of Scotland, all those courses still wowed me.  With all the newer wannabes, I can only recall being more impressed than the good reviews by a few good courses.

 

[Peter Pallotta]

Thanks much, gents. Rich, Jeff - managing 'experiences' would've been the better way to start this thread. Tom - thanks for the great detail; the sequencing of events (the way you 'told that story') iss interetsing, and telling, i.e. it was only at the end, after a year of play, that you and Mike realized the 'benefits' (vis a vis happy golfers) of staying with the routing that most appealed to you originally.

Peter