Perspective and Depth Perception - The Gentle Downslope

[Pete_Pittock]

One of the architectural challenges thrown at the golfer at Silvies Ranch is the lack of perspective during the approach of a couple of holes. This is sort of similar to a skyline or infinity green. Craddock 15 and Hankins 9 are the two that come to mind. Both are fairly wide, have a gentle falling away down-slope. The down-slope tricks the eye because nothing is there to be visually attractive. It led to indecision and my original thought was the architect should have added something. After some though, what was presented was fair game.  Must have experienced it before and not recognized what was going on.

[Tom_Doak]

The hardest courses of mine to judge distances are The Sheep Ranch and The Loop, because of the lack of features to give you a sense of scale.  You don't see it too often in new courses, because everyone builds so many bunkers.

[Jeff_Brauer]

On a current project, (and a few recent ones) I have built at least one green with the "normal" flanking bunker actually 20-30 yards short of the green.  Works best on slightly uphill approach shots.  Too early to know if they work, or even if they did, whether that could be a core design principal or trick to use more often.


Agree sense of scale can affect overall view of distance calcs.

[Pete_Pittock]

        Thanks. I was thinking that a gentle downslope has nothing to "stop" you vision, thus leading to depth perception being hard to fathom, as opposed to the flat or a gentle upslope. Your perspective is, hopefully about 6 ft above, so that provides perspective in the last two instances, but not the first.
         I was able to solve my problems by going side to side, and eventually find some feature that helped the perception.

[Brett Hochstein]

I am a fan of this sort of trick and leaving things vague and undefined.  It messes with you mentally not just in that things become harder to judge, it also often leads to frustration when you don't score or execute well on something that your mind innately tells you has to be easy for the lack of hazards. 

[Kalen Braley]

I'm with Brett on this one.  I think uncertainty thru visual deception is the mark of a masterful design, even if difficult to achieve.


One such concept is this:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_hill


There's a road about an hour from here with a section that you swear is going downhill, until you look to the left and see the water in the creek going the other direction.

[Thomas Dai]

Undefined, lack of features etc is nice as is a downslope combined with a minor element of hidden ground.
Both can even make using the look-through rangefinder less effective, especially on less than full shots and/or if the pins don't have different coloured flags for front, middle and rear pin positions.

The 16th at Edgbaston, UK, is a hole that comes to mind.
atb

[Carl Rogers]

By the 8th ot 10th round, local knowledge eliminates the confusion, partuclary when the gentle downslope has a slight crown to it. Multiple examples at Riverfront.