[Peter Pallotta]

I think it's one of the most interesting I've seen in a long time. It addresses (directly or obliquely) several key points that feature into so much of our gca.com discussion:

1. The confusion between golfing choices/options and architectural subtleties/sophistications.
2. The belief that providing for the use of a putter from off the green single-handlely bestows bona fides on a design
3. The potential for unintended (and golf-diminishing) consequences of heavily contoured greens
4. The love for width off the tee, without reference to the (sometimes) lack of meaningful relationship to/impact on the next shot.  
5. And on the positive side: an excellent (and heretofore severely under-utilized) term, "hidden elasticity".

[Garland Bayley]

Probable means duel thread.

[Josh Tarble]

Here's the exact quote....it's very interesting.  I need to think on the subject:

I don't get the sophistication of having bunkers that run the length of the fairway on both sides of every hole.  Greens that offer no options of using internal contours to get the ball close to the hole but reject balls from all four sides thus requiring every shot to be played to the middle of the green.  And most importantly zero options when you are within 15 feet of any green surface.  You run the ball along the ground or you lose.  I'm not saying that it is not great golf, I'm saying that it lacks any real world sophistication for the resort golfer.

I will give the place all the props in the world for giving up prime time revenue to host amateur tournaments and a hidden elasticity that allows a resort golfer to feel like he is playing a championship course.  Now that I have played the renovation I do get why Mike Davis played God with his obtuse shortening of certain holes.  It really is the only way to make one hole play differently than another.

I still believe that Rustic can win this.

[Alex Miller]

I think point 2 is very worthy of discussion and has not been talked about much, if at all.

[Gib_Papazian]

That was easily the most thoughtful and salient thing Jaka b has written since his first banishment. It raises relevant points of discussion without being provocative. The medication must be working.

 

[Doug Siebert]

I agree with everything he said.  I've never been impressed with courses that are a steady diet of crowned greens that reject all but the perfect shot.  Not saying you want a course that's the opposite (though that is better for less experienced players or in a scramble type situation where "unfairness" to better players is not an issue) but such courses are unimaginative and not something I'd rate very highly as a quality test of golf.  If you want to play a course that demands nothing less than a perfect shot every time, please don't invite me because I'll tell you all the ways I think it sucks.

[Philip Hensley]

I respectfully disagree with the assessment of Pinehurst #2.

1) The fairways are lined with bunkers AND waste areas, which are not the same. Sometimes the waste area is firm with tiny grass strands poking through. Sometimes it is a hard pan which can help a lesser player get additional roll towards the green once their ball first hits the ground in front of the fairway. (And pros, too. I saw John Senden in a practice round at the US Open on the no. 2 hole. He shoved his drive far right and just dropped in the hard pan off the fairway. His next shot was a low long-iron that ran about 15 feet of the ground for about 185 yards and rolled the last 20 up onto the putting surface.) And sometimes they are actual bunkers with soft sand. Having a wide variety of sandy scrub, hard pan, and soft sand bunkers makes a miss off the fairway a different play every time. Most amateurs are decent at playing out of 1 or 2, but not all 3 types.

2) I agree that internal contouring cannot be used to work the ball, but the internal sloping of the green or the overall slope of the terrain does allow for one to hit at a fat part of the green and have the ball release to the hole. This can be from the fairway or around the greens.

3) From in front of the green the best shots probably are low running shots along the ground. During a recent round there we had a short-hitter that would have had to hit long irons/hybrids/woods into greens but instead would essentially lay-up on many of the par 4s so that he could chip/pitch the length of the green. When he tried to fly the ball to the hole it rarely held. When he hit to the front of the green and played a release he was able to have a long chance at par.

However, from any other side of the green a ground shot was almost impossible through the dormant bermuda (although we did see a local member use putter to get to 3-feet from the 8th tee to the 7th green after his approach went long). Unless you were over the back of a steep green (#3, #8) and the pin was in the back the best shots were from those that took a sand-wedge and worked a lofted pitch around a green slope try to get close to the pin. I know a lot of the pros were putting from off the green with putters and hybrids all week but I did not see many amateurs that had the touch required to pull off such shots.

[Brent Hutto]

I play a couple or three times a week at a course that could arguably be placed in Doug's category "...a steady diet of crowned greens that reject all but the perfect shot". And my own golf game is such that executing a "perfect shot" is just not going to happen more than once in a blue moon.  Let me venture a point that's contrary, although not deliberately so on my part, from the prevailing opinion of such courses.

On a course with greens receptive of less-than-perfect shots I'm going to hit anywhere from 4 to 10 greens in regulation, depending on what tees I choose and how short my approach shots are. On my home home that number is more like 2 to 5 GIR and it doesn't really go up all that much even if I move up to a really, really short set of tees.

But here's what happens. I am faced with a greater variety of more interesting "third shots" from around the greens I do miss. So my scoring suffers (and my handicap index has climbed since joining) but I find the game more interesting than I have in years. Now don't take me wrong. Courses like Pinehurst #2 do seem to suffer from John's contention that any shot other than a putter or similar from around the greens is a mistake. Not sure that's totally true at my home course. Or maybe I'm just an idiot. But an awful lot of the time I do see a place to land a chip or pitch shot on the green and use contours to work the ball close to the hole.

So I tihink there's still some subtlety in play here. Crowned, impossible to hit and hold greens can indeed be one-dimensional and repetitive to play. I've not played Pinehurst #2 so I can't say if that's true or not. But it's also possible to have that sort of domed greens and create a round of golf with plenty of interest and variety. My own club seems that way to me, as have Royal Dornoch (lots of borderline unfair elevated greens there) or to a much less extent the Ocean Course at Kiawah.

Maybe #2 is indeed too far and over the top. But not every course with a steady diet of crowned greens requires 18 holes of putting from 10 yards off the short grass.

[John Kavanaugh]

We were informed at the start of the round that all sandy areas including greenside are to be played as waste areas. Taking practice swings in greenside bunkers defies the spirit of the game. The golfer is being enabled to cheat by testing the integrity and structure of what is clearly a hazard. For what benefit I can only guess. While I'm not going to call it a design flaw it is very close.

[Peter Pallotta]

JK - thanks, but you're really not helping here, just mucking up the thread. Why don't you take a well deserved break and sit back to simply bask in the compliment....

Brent - good post, and I think I know what you mean. But I have to think about that some more

Peter

[Philip Hensley]

I don't disagree with your assessment of grounding the club JK. I never played pre-reno. Post-reno the first time we played it they had a distinction between bunkers and waste areas. For whatever reason they changed that and now you can ground the club anywhere.

Another thing I forgot to mention earlier has to do with those that say the greens aren't receptive enough. They certainly are hard to hit in general, but especially if you are trying to pin seek from out of position. But I never felt like the only option was to aim at the center of the green only. Definitely not a course you can just fire at the pin all day, but I don't think it's as severe as some are claiming.

[John Jeffreys]

I find the variety of lies found in the sandy wire grass areas to be more sophisticated than 3 inch Bermuda rough. In my foursome we determine the rules for our game and play 117 bunkers as they were intended, as hazards.

[Matt MacIver]

Re bunker vs natural area, #2 is just like most resort courses...a caddy sizes up his player on the range and decides whether to institute "local rules".  Goes hand in hand with pace of play, their attitude and whatever bet they have going amongst them. Seen it often enough now.  I end playing how I want to play.

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