The Sanctity of Area

[Kyle Harris]

In 1854, we moved the starting point of the hole to a separate and completely new area called a teeing ground. Prior to this, one simple teed the ball within two club lengths of the previous hole. Prior to this, the golf course really only had two "areas" as far as rules were concerned: The Hole and the Green. I believe that prior to this, the rules addressed situations found on the Green without attempting to draw distinctions as it pertained to area or location.

In the 160 years since, the rules have further expanded this idea and now we have five areas granting or eliminating certain privileges and rights as to what the golfer may or may not do in playing a stroke. These are obvious exigencies of the modern game compounded by the popularity of the sport and games within it.

However, there seems to be a concurrent development of the idea that the areas should proffer further benefits to the golfer based on...... well, I don't know and that's the desire for this discussion.

For me, some of the more odious assumptions based on area are the following:

1. The golfer should draw a perfect lie in the fairway every time because the golfer placed the ball in the fairway.
2. The distinction between fairway and rough and the following analogy that fairway:good rough:bad
3. That a ball, located on the putting green, should be stoppable within three feet of any hole location
4. That a bunker should collect balls into the very bottom

Etc.

It'd be extreme to trace all of this back to the first instance of adding a new area to the golf course in 1854.

Where and how and why did the intrinsic rewards of playing good shots become so tied to areas and not as tied to result?

[Phil McDade]

Where and how and why did the intrinsic rewards of playing good shots become so tied to areas and not as tied to result?

When competitors started playing for money.

[Mike_Young]

Kyle,
Follow the money....there is a game and there is a business...both called golf...

[Kyle Harris]

I am not quite sure I buy organized competitive golf as the initial driver for there being an ethos surrounding position on the golf course. Hugh Wilson was exploring the ideas during the development at Merion and his oft-used, stricken from publication, digression about bunker principles seems to indicate that he explored the idea from the aspect of sporting fairness and not competitive fairness.

The Hugh Wilson quote, from 1916:

The question of bunkers is a big one and the very best school for study we have found is along the seacoast among the dunes. Here one may study the different formations and obtain many ideas for bunkers. We have tried to make them natural and fit them into the landscape. The criticism had been made that we have made them too easy, that the banks are too sloping and that a man may often play a mid-iron shot out of the bunker where he should be forced to use a niblick. This opens a pretty big subject and we know that the tendency is to make bunkers more difficult. In the bunkers abroad on the seaside courses, the majority of them were formed by nature and the slopes are easy; the only exception being where on account of the shifting sand, they have been forced to put in railroad ties or similar substance to keep the same from blowing. This had made a perfectly straight wall but was not done with the intention of making it difficult to get out but merely to retain the bunker as it exists. If we make the banks of every bunker so steep that the very best player is forced to use a niblick to get out and the only hope he has when he gets in is to be able to get his ball on the fairway again, why should we not make a rule as we have at present with water hazards, when a man may, if he so desires, drop back with the loss of a stroke. I thoroughly believe that for the good of Golf, that we should not make our bunkers so difficult, that there is no choice left in playing out of them and that the best and worst must use a niblick.

This is absent of any monetary driver, and even absent of the idea of fairness.

It becomes a question of "should..." a word that is oddly missing from the rules of golf as it pertains to golf courses.

[Brent Hutto]

It stands to reason.

The great mass of golfers are not willing to just show up and play golf, preferring instead to break "playing" down into a bunch of constituent parts each of which can be perfected using specialized practice and practice facilities. They need a driving range to perfect their "full swing", an elaborate "short game area" to work on various bits and pieces of their "short game", a separate "practice green" to perfect their "putting game".

Naturally they also can not be satisfied with a big old field with grass mown down around the hole and flagstick and some sort of marker to designate the place to tee off. They need to be able to know exactly when they succeed or fail in the execution of their soon-to-be-perfected specific skills. They need a clearly defined "fairway" so they'll know if their tee shot was a success or not. They need perfect grass on the "fairway" and horrible grass in the "rough" so that there's a clear-cut penalty for failure on the tee shot and the maximum possibility of success with the "iron game" assuming success on the tee shot.

So forth and so on. Regularized, pigeonholed, broken down into  clearly separate components that can be evaluated in much more detail than simply writing down the number of strokes taken on each hole. The one thing to be avoided at any cost is a fuzzy outcome that does not clearly fit into succeed/fail results or an in-between situation that doesn't clearly demand and reward a certain skill.

In other words, as a famous golfer is wont to say, "It's a process".

[Kyle Harris]

Brent,

So why play shots on a golf course then? Is there a need for context?

Everything you describe can be accomplished either on a range, practice green or at TopGolf^TM (one hits the target or doesn't). That sort of satisfaction does not lend itself to the golf course.

Is not the only true measure of a successfully played stroke in golf the maximal increase in odds of holing the subsequent stroke?

[Brent Hutto]

Well for me if it's not outdoors and I'm not hitting off grass it's not golf. So TopGolf and the like are something else entirely.

But I do meet golfers who I think could be satisfied with either an indoor simulator or at most a glorified driving range. They are somewhat of an aberration but the root urge behind those guys is still the same. It's to turn golf into a series of distinct skills tests.

I'm totally at the other extreme. I think we could have a game not only equivalent to but superior to its current form by eliminating all distinctions between "areas" of the course. I'd be happy if the game consisted of just a handful of rules.

Tee it up between the tee markers.

Play it down until you've holed out in the designated hole.

Mark your ball if a competitor asks you to but otherwise you don't touch it, no matter if you're on "fairway" or "rough" or "bunker" or "green".

If you can't find your ball or can't play it, either pick up and go to the next hole or else return to the spot of your last shot under stroke and distance penalty.

If somebody wants to outlaw grounding the club and practice swings EVERYWHERE, sounds good to me. It would save me having to watch moronic "routines". But otherwise, no distinction between "bunkers" or "hazards" or anywhere else on the course. Do whatever you like as long as you don't improve your lie or move the ball. Then hit.

Now you might quibble over this or that other minor rules that would arguably improve this simple game or provide for some particular situation that arises. But by and large it's all arbitrary nonsense. Why can you make cluster divots for five minutes in the fairway before hitting an iron shot but if your club brushes a grain of sand in a "bunker" it's a penalty? Why different procedures for being in the grass on one side of a red painted line vs. the other side? Why can you clean mud off the ball on the putting green but not in the rough?

Once you start defining stuff it's impossible to quit. As you pointed out, the Rules have been growing in complexity and sheer bloody-minded nitpicking since the day someone first put pen to paper to start regularizing the play of the game. It's never going to stop just like hackers are never going to stop pounding range balls in search of that swing improvement that lets them whittle their 12 handicap down to single digits, maybe.

[Pete_Pittock]

In 1854, we moved the starting point of the hole to a separate and completely new area called a teeing ground. Prior to this, one simple teed the ball within two club lengths of the previous hole. Prior to this, the golf course really only had two "areas" as far as rules were concerned: The Hole and the Green. I believe that prior to this, the rules addressed situations found on the Green without attempting to draw distinctions as it pertained to area or location.

In the 160 years since, the rules have further expanded this idea and now we have five areas granting or eliminating certain privileges and rights as to what the golfer may or may not do in playing a stroke. These are obvious exigencies of the modern game compounded by the popularity of the sport and games within it.

However, there seems to be a concurrent development of the idea that the areas should proffer further benefits to the golfer based on...... well, I don't know and that's the desire for this discussion.

For me, some of the more odious assumptions based on area are the following:

1. The golfer should draw a perfect lie in the fairway every time because the golfer placed the ball in the fairway.
2. The distinction between fairway and rough and the following analogy that fairway:good rough:bad
3. That a ball, located on the putting green, should be stoppable within three feet of any hole location
4. That a bunker should collect balls into the very bottom

Etc.

It'd be extreme to trace all of this back to the first instance of adding a new area to the golf course in 1854.

Where and how and why did the intrinsic rewards of playing good shots become so tied to areas and not as tied to result?

Is your premise askew, in that the first hole would necessarily already have a teeing ground?

[MCirba]

I like where you're going Herr Harris!

[Andrew Bernstein]

It stands to reason.

The great mass of golfers are not willing to just show up and play golf, preferring instead to break "playing" down into a bunch of constituent parts each of which can be perfected using specialized practice and practice facilities. They need a driving range to perfect their "full swing", an elaborate "short game area" to work on various bits and pieces of their "short game", a separate "practice green" to perfect their "putting game".

Naturally they also can not be satisfied with a big old field with grass mown down around the hole and flagstick and some sort of marker to designate the place to tee off. They need to be able to know exactly when they succeed or fail in the execution of their soon-to-be-perfected specific skills. They need a clearly defined "fairway" so they'll know if their tee shot was a success or not. They need perfect grass on the "fairway" and horrible grass in the "rough" so that there's a clear-cut penalty for failure on the tee shot and the maximum possibility of success with the "iron game" assuming success on the tee shot.

So forth and so on. Regularized, pigeonholed, broken down into  clearly separate components that can be evaluated in much more detail than simply writing down the number of strokes taken on each hole. The one thing to be avoided at any cost is a fuzzy outcome that does not clearly fit into succeed/fail results or an in-between situation that doesn't clearly demand and reward a certain skill.

In other words, as a famous golfer is wont to say, "It's a process".

Brent,

I've seen this line of reasoning from you before, so I have to ask: what is your beef with practice (or practice ranges)? I'm not sure I understand the obvious animosity.

[Mark Fedeli]

Brent, those were a glorious couple of posts.

Kyle, I'd guess the decline of match play has at least a little to do with it.

[Phil McDade]

Brent,

I've seen this line of reasoning from you before, so I have to ask: what is your beef with practice (or practice ranges)? I'm not sure I understand the obvious animosity.

Practice ranges add to the cost of the game, take up space that could otherwise be better utilized, and are largely unnecessary.

[Andrew Bernstein]

Brent,

I've seen this line of reasoning from you before, so I have to ask: what is your beef with practice (or practice ranges)? I'm not sure I understand the obvious animosity.

Practice ranges add to the cost of the game, take up space that could otherwise be better utilized, and are largely unnecessary.

Like I said, I don't get this line of thinking. Practice ranges aren't evil. They provide players a place to work on their games (off the actual course) so that the sport can be more enjoyable for them. I like them to warm up in the morning, hit a few balls if I can't play a full round, and try to work out kinks in my long game. There's nothing wrong with any of those three uses. They're not integral to the game, but in my opinion, they make it more fun. What's wrong with that?

[Mark Fedeli]

Practice ranges add to the cost of the game, take up space that could otherwise be better utilized, and are largely unnecessary.

My game would like to agree with that last part.

[Phil McDade]

Practice ranges add to the cost of the game, take up space that could otherwise be better utilized, and are largely unnecessary.

My game would like to agree with that last part.

Then why aren't you out on a golf course working on improving your game?

I don't view practice ranges as evil -- there is a quite good and fun driving range near my home, complete with couches and drink/food service, that's open both at night and during our cold Wisconsin winters. But it's mainly a driving range, with a little pitch-and-putt course and 36-hole putt-putt course attached. Fine for them -- they do provide a service.

But without getting into a long tangent on sustainability in golf (and golf courses), Brent's notion of getting back to a simpler kind of game, with less rules, is one I'd endorse, and along with that I would argue that golf course themselves should take this approach, and NOT provide a range of services such as driving ranges, practice grounds, putting greens, and such. Just go out and play.

[Brent Hutto]

I have nothing against practice ranges any more than swimming pools, tennis courts or a table in the locker room for old guys to play poker. None of those are how I choose to spend time but they are popular amng those who do.

But you can have golf and you can have golf courses without needing a driving range. Practice is for those who feel a need to try and make golf some sort of pursuit of a race where the finish line never gets closer. It can also be a relaxing game where every round has its own finish lines, rather than being one step in a "process"!

[BCowan]

But without getting into a long tangent on sustainability in golf (and golf courses), Brent's notion of getting back to a simpler kind of game, with less rules, is one I'd endorse, and along with that I would argue that golf course themselves should take this approach, and NOT provide a range of services such as driving ranges, practice grounds, putting greens, and such. Just go out and play.

  Absolute absurdity.  low key practice facilities are causing the price of golf to rise?  Are you serious?  Is the head pro's $150k a year salary have anything to do with it?  Because some people like to practice and get better at the game, that bothers some people on here, another ludicrous statement.  You want less rules, then you want to set the rules.  Of course using the highest end practice facilities as ur example for the norm is another GCA exaggeration for the norm.

Practice is for those who feel a need to try and make golf some sort of pursuit of a race where the finish line never gets closer. It can also be a relaxing game where every round has its own finish lines, rather than being one step in a "process"!

   Are you sure you aren't the miserable one?  Your outlook is so negative and judgmental. 

[Daniel Jones]

To Kyle's question of area vs result.. How much has this been driven by what we are spoon fed every week on television? Compare what we've seen in two days at Royal County Down vs basically every week on Tour, and I think we have at least part of the answer.

A player finds a divot in the fairway...gasp! Ball comes to rest in front of a pebble in the bunker... for shame! USGA exec says tee boxes will be on uneven ground... &%#*!

Point being, would we as golfers come to expect less than perfection or generally accepted norm for an area if these "anomalies" happened more often on the small screen?

[Mark Fedeli]

Daniel, add 'lift, clean, and place through the green' to that list. Absurd.

[Kyle Harris]

Gentleman!

The old canards of television and the death of match-play are much too late and worn out to be credible for this line of thinking. Hugh Wilson in 1916 did a more succinct job than most golf architects do nowadays and explaining a methodology by one such area in the bunker. He is all but going after the mentality of C.B. Macdonald and the band of Knights Template. The schism had already begun long before televised golf and medal-play driven purses.

Is this not the direct result of the concurrent codification of the rules between 1854 and 1890 and the expansion of the game unto built-for-the-purpose sites well inland from the links?

To say that the rules around these areas have gotten more complex through the years is misleading to say the least because I believe that through the 1950's the definition of these areas were more complex. At one point, an arbitrary distance from the hole was a defined area.

I argue that the perception of fairness is directly correlated to the ability of the golfer to detect the presence of man. The more maintenance practices do to mask their presence and the better golf architects mimic nature or hide the hand of man, the more accepting a golfer is of the fight against nature that is the Sport of golf.

Max Behr had it right.

[Kyle Harris]

In 1854, we moved the starting point of the hole to a separate and completely new area called a teeing ground. Prior to this, one simple teed the ball within two club lengths of the previous hole. Prior to this, the golf course really only had two "areas" as far as rules were concerned: The Hole and the Green. I believe that prior to this, the rules addressed situations found on the Green without attempting to draw distinctions as it pertained to area or location.

In the 160 years since, the rules have further expanded this idea and now we have five areas granting or eliminating certain privileges and rights as to what the golfer may or may not do in playing a stroke. These are obvious exigencies of the modern game compounded by the popularity of the sport and games within it.

However, there seems to be a concurrent development of the idea that the areas should proffer further benefits to the golfer based on...... well, I don't know and that's the desire for this discussion.

For me, some of the more odious assumptions based on area are the following:

1. The golfer should draw a perfect lie in the fairway every time because the golfer placed the ball in the fairway.
2. The distinction between fairway and rough and the following analogy that fairway:good rough:bad
3. That a ball, located on the putting green, should be stoppable within three feet of any hole location
4. That a bunker should collect balls into the very bottom

Etc.

It'd be extreme to trace all of this back to the first instance of adding a new area to the golf course in 1854.

Where and how and why did the intrinsic rewards of playing good shots become so tied to areas and not as tied to result?

Is your premise askew, in that the first hole would necessarily already have a teeing ground?

Hadn't thought of that! However, it seems somewhat reasonable to just start within two club lengths of the final hole.

I am sure someone actually knows the answer for this.

[Sean_A]

1. The golfer should draw a perfect lie in the fairway every time because the golfer placed the ball in the fairway.

AGREED

2. The distinction between fairway and rough and the following analogy that fairway:good rough:bad

Well, when fairways are as narrow as they are today...this distinctin should be less stark.  Back in the day though with large fairways, the distinction is reasonable.

3. That a ball, located on the putting green, should be stoppable within three feet of any hole location

Almost exclusively an issue of green speeds that didn't exist back in the day.  So if the result of slower greens means more putts finishing closer to the hole...I have no issue with it. The design should be the decider if this can be the case, not overly speedy greens.

4. That a bunker should collect balls into the very bottom

Depends on the number of bunkers and their severity.  If there are only 40 bunkers on the course then it isn't an issue to me to make them 15 feet deep and nasty as hell.  If there are 100 of the things, well then no, less severe is a better way to go because the immediate penalty is already taxing and usually overbearing in terms of design balance.

I would like nothing more than to see the rules of golf simplified, but not uncodified.  The guys suggesting rules changes based on Stableford as the defacto play for handicapping purposes are heading in the right direction.  I do think medal play is partly responsible for the over burdening rules and I don't think it is a coincidence the the codification in rules happened circa 1900 when a ton more players hit the scene and medal play was increasing in popularity...probably due to the slow flip flop of professional players becoming more important figures in golf than amateur players.  The Great Triumvirate were likely a large reason for this flip flop.

Ciao

[Matthew Mollica]

I argue that the perception of fairness is directly correlated to the ability of the golfer to detect the presence of man. The more maintenance practices do to mask their presence and the better golf architects mimic nature or hide the hand of man, the more accepting a golfer is of the fight against nature that is the Sport of golf.

Max Behr had it right.

Love this. Bravo Mr. Harris!

[Kyle Harris]

Sean A.,

Until you can show me in the rules of golf the definition of Fairway and Rough I think we are going to disagree. There isn't one and that is a key point here. "Through the green" implies a general golf course area where the club may be ground in addressing the ball. Therefore, I don't agree with the premise that a ball lying in a fairway, which is truthfully only distinguishable because the turf is mowed different than other areas, has anything to do with entitlement to a lie.

The areas of the golf course have bearing only on what a golfer may or may not do in attempting to play a stroke.

Hole location on the putting green is the major factor in whether or not a ball can stop within three feet of the hole when played from the putting surface, or did they actually use the fall-away portions of putting greens built before 1930 for hole locations? Surely you don't suggest that maintenance practices causing slower green speeds in earlier times were such that a ball could reasonably stop anywhere on the putting green.

[Mike_Young]

Kyle,

I still see it as a $$$ issue and a "because we can" issue.  Take other areas such as furniture or houses or cars.  Early dining tables had hand planed marks all over ( now we like that) and once industrialization had devleoped a way to provide a completely smooth surface tables became completely smooth.  And it goes on with the various systems in our automobiles or anything for that matter.
I remember in 1982 Paul Latshaw was at Oakmont and took a Toro G3 greensmower and had his mechanic add two reels to the outsides making it the first lightweight fairway unit.  It was used in the 1983 US Open and Toro took it from there.  They went back and developed a manufactured lightweight fairway unit thus bringing a new look to fairways.  Green committees and supts decided it was the way to go and it evolved.  Until then the 1/2 fairway was considered very good and the Masters was being cut with Toro 11 blade transport frames.  BUT that unit could last 20 years and not many parts were sold.  A lightweight unit could be put in for a five year lifespan and mucho parts could be sold.  PLUS THE BALL WOULD GO FURTHER ON THE NEW PAIRWAY CUT  In 1982 less than 100 walking greens mowers were sold by Toro anywhere.  The triplex had been around and had played a major part in the demise of , or shrinking, of many greens across the country.  By 1988 the walker was the fad.  Today Titleist pushes the ProV as it's top ball and even though 99 percent of us could play every bit as well with the softer pinnacle, we buy the ProV.  
I appreciate and agree with your thought process on this issue but advertising and marketing can never be overlooked when it comes to why so many things are over the top today.  It has almost made the came out of reach for many.