Is there a line between Playability and Pandering?

[Ira Fishman]

The question posed by this thread is worth exploring, but for reasons that escape me, no one seems to want to mention directly by name any courses that fall on either side of the line.  That makes it very difficult to evaluate the question properly.


Ira

[Peter Pallotta]

That's one of the many limitations of my posts on here, Ira. I promised myself a long time ago that if I had a positive comment I'd name names (specific architects and/or courses), but that if I was going to be negative I'd only speak in generalities and never call out a specific course or architect. Nothing on this website, it seems to me, is worth the risk (however small that risk is) of damaging a professional's reputation or impacting negatively on his/her career. Unfortunately, I have sometimes broken that promise. On this thread, though, I don't have to -- so sure I am that, in general, this pandering is taking place! 

[Sean_A]

George - we all have our own (differing) experiences; and those experiences influence and inform our posts here.
My guess is that Sean plays the majority of his golf on courses designed before 1930; and that for a special treat he'll play a modern course like the Renaissance Club.
I play the majority of my golf on courses designed after 1970, mostly modest publics built on what used to be farmland; and when friends want a special treat and a 'fancier' experience we play the Country Clubs for a Day built in the late 90s and early 2000s.
A lot has changed, fundamentally, in those 70 years, from the 1920s and 30s to the 1990s and 2000s -- both in terms of how and why architects built their courses, and, more importantly, in terms of the average golfer's expectations (in terms of difficulty and score etc.)
Not surprisingly, Sean doesn't understand/agree with my POV and I don't understand his.
I see pandering all over the place (including via what I read here about some big name modern courses); he doesn't. Naturally, since even when he thinks of courses that might fit the bill he thinks of a (golden age) course like Gullane.
The one great golden age course I have played is Crystal Downs. It was probably a 'resort course' back in its day, and today it is not overly long and does not have a high slope rating, and is eminently playable -- and yet it kicked my ass from start to finish, and I shot some 15 strokes higher than my average. Meanwhile, I play a CCFAD that is longer and might even have a higher slope rating than CD, and I can score 5 strokes lower than my average.
Why? Because that designer is pandering to the average golfer and providing width for its own sake and hazards that are out of play save for a vicious slice or hook and greens that have meaningless contours with big flat areas where (not coincidentally) the pin always seems to be placed.
At CD, on the other hand, I could play pretty easily out of the rough, but if I was on the wrong side of the fairway (as I often was) I was in more trouble than I realized; and I could hit quite a few greens and have many putts for par and even for birdie, but if I ended up above the hole or on the wrong side of a shelf/slope (as I often did), I again had no idea until afterwards of how dead I was. And that is the difference, to use Ian's original distinction, between playability and pandering.
Peter

Pietro

Ohhh, I understand your PoV...its just that I don't think you are a good enough player to be pandered.  Talk to me when you shoot par on a regaular basis  .  What you call pandering (I assume anyway because you won't name courses...which sort makes this thread pointless) I call getting players around the course in a reasonable and happy manner.  Its fine if you don't want that and instead wish to be challenged for your 85, but do recall that we share a common trait which is a lack of skill.  I have said it before...I have never seen a course I thought was too easy...which is really what folks are saying about pandering.  I have seen more than a few I thought were too tough adn a whole lot more I thought were dull, but never too easy.

So I guess I am saying there is a line between playability and pandering, its just that very few golfers are good enough to identify it.

Ciao

[Peter Pallotta]

Sean - good post, thanks for the clarity on stating your view. I have to note, though, that you ignored my point re: the differences between the courses you play and the ones that I do. I too would be all for courses that got me around in a reasonable and happy manner if those courses were like Cleeve Cloud and Sherwood Forest and Cavendish. Again, it's not about score in an absolute sense. It's about an engaging and imaginative and subtly challenging 85 as opposed to an 85 that, in retrospect, and despite all the signs and signifiers of quality architecture, could not possibly have been any higher. 
I know I'm not making it easier by not naming names, but it still should be fairly clear: my point is older than Bernard Darwin, ie a rabbit wants to sometimes be made to feel like a tiger, yes; but please don't make the ruse so obvious (especially not in a "subtle", "strategic" and expensive way) that I don't get any fun out of it.
Peter

[Sean_A]

Honestly Pietro, I have not deliberately skipped these expensive modern courses which in a less than subtle manner have made shooting 85 too easy.  However, I don't frequent many modern places and that is mostly by choice. This thread is the first time I have caught wind of Fazio courses being easy to score on. 

Ciao   

[Mark Kiely]

Sean, I believe you may be painting with too broad a brush on this topic. I think what people are talking about in regard to pandering isn't a blanket "it's easy to score on" course. It's courses with certain features that make the player feel like they accomplished something more impressive than what their shot might have warranted.


The Fazio course I alluded to earlier in the thread was Primm Valley (Desert), which I still consider a really fun course. But while playing it (one of few Fazio courses I've ever played), a light bulb went off in my head that said, "Oh, so THIS is why he got so popular!" because the course presents itself as a stout, championship layout but several drives seemed to be overly rewarded as long as they were halfway decently struck, thanks to banked fairways that kicked everything back on line. On that course, it was mostly the drives where pandering came into play. (Hit a draw, hit it straight, hit a fade... it really doesn't matter as long as you're decently accurate.) You still had to execute on approach shots to avoid some pretty penal bunkering around the greens.


Anyway, that's my interpretation of pandering, and if I misrepresented your position, I apologize.

[Tom_Doak]

I was wondering about the revetted pot bunkers that are usually encountered on links courses in the UK. For sure they are not natural, and yet, they are not only accepted, but admired as much for their difference to many inland bunkers (flat and uninteresting) as their difficulty (many a true .5/1 stroke penalty depending on lie and aggressive inclinations).


Certainly these courses could pander to the visiting golfers by putting in more 'natural looking bunkers' that are both more playable and less of a penalty, but I'm not sure that makes a course better. Only easier.


Edit: I'm not saying that a more natural-looking bunker can't be penalising, only that this is a mere excuse for making the hazard less penalising to ensure the player has more fun (because in their mind lower score = more fun).

Tim:


This is a very good example.   When the first course was built at Bandon Dunes, I understand that David Kidd advocated for more revetted bunkers, but that Mr. Keiser overruled him on the grounds that revetted bunkers were too frustrating for too many American golfers.


Of course, they still went with the smaller, grass-faced bunkers; it was Pacific Dunes that went for the more "natural-looking" bunkers [quite a few of which were already part of the landscape].  I didn't built them to be easy, and they are not easy, but I only went that direction because I knew that Mr. Keiser wouldn't let me go in the opposite direction [revetted].  And, even though I would not say that my rationale for bunker choice was "lower score = more fun", I would say that part of it was "prettier bunkers - more fun", which may not be that different as I make it out to be, especially from the client's perspective.


Indeed, the whole notion of the "retail golfer" brings the idea of pandering into view on the horizon.  From there, it is only the architect who can stop himself from crossing that line.  Some would probably say that Old Macdonald panders because the gorse has been cleared so thoroughly that it's nearly impossible to lose a ball, but I would counter that there are still a lot of ways for that course to frustrate you.

[Sean_A]

Sean, I believe you may be painting with too broad a brush on this topic. I think what people are talking about in regard to pandering isn't a blanket "it's easy to score on" course. It's courses with certain features that make the player feel like they accomplished something more impressive than what their shot might have warranted.

The Fazio course I alluded to earlier in the thread was Primm Valley (Desert), which I still consider a really fun course. But while playing it (one of few Fazio courses I've ever played), a light bulb went off in my head that said, "Oh, so THIS is why he got so popular!" because the course presents itself as a stout, championship layout but several drives seemed to be overly rewarded as long as they were halfway decently struck, thanks to banked fairways that kicked everything back on line. On that course, it was mostly the drives where pandering came into play. (Hit a draw, hit it straight, hit a fade... it really doesn't matter as long as you're decently accurate.) You still had to execute on approach shots to avoid some pretty penal bunkering around the greens.

Anyway, that's my interpretation of pandering, and if I misrepresented your position, I apologize.

Mark

You are probably right.  I guess my points were 1) most golfers aren't good enough to worry much about pandering...they simply sound cocky and 2) I am surprised to never come across these courses which too often help golfers stay on track.  I suspect there aren't all that many courses of this ilk which makes them easy to avoid if guys like banging their heads against 90 instead of 80  That said, I usually do dislike two features which could be deemed pandering.  First, road map bunkering and second, saving bunkers...especially bunkers adjacent to water.  Even these design features are ok in small doses.


Keeping the issue close to home, I would like nothing more than to be pandered to by having tall grass cut on some dunes so balls come back down the slopes. 

Ciao 

[Jeff_Brauer]

It would be interesting to define pandering when the average golfer hits only 6-10 shots a round that are totally solid.


I sometimes play the new forward tees on my courses, at 4500 yards (which, some would say is pandering in itself) I don't shoot much lower because I lose my strokes in the short game and putting.  I believe most golfers could say the same.


From a historical perspective, which panders more - a 60 yard wide CBM or Mac fairway with no grading, or a 45 yard wide Fazio fairway with slight concave slope?  Seems to me, either one would save just about as many balls from exiting the play corridor. 


The Fazio fairways look better to most golfers, getting them comfortable over the shot.  Granted, the CBM wider and natural contours fw has less chance to be near and edge and not the middle. 


So, on one hand, the "intelligentsia" here cheer for wide fairways and for balls being seldom lost, and can have recovery, but jeer when it is done a certain way?  Sounds like prescription design to me.....which is something most here would also lambast, LOL.


Another thought, but I wonder if the 1950's, including RTJ and DW were really the right way to go - turf and trees on the outskirts, to minimize lost balls.  Introducing natives to save irrigation sort of changes the fw design dynamic, and design adapts a bit.


Just trying to out young Mike Young here.

[Kalen Braley]

Couldn't agree more with Sean and his comments in general on this thread.  Golf is hard enough, given there are so few players who can regularly achieve par on most holes in one round


P.S.  I'm still waiting to hear any kind of logical definition on how one differentiates between Playabilty and Pandering....

[Tom_Doak]

Couldn't agree more with Sean and his comments in general on this thread.  Golf is hard enough, given there are so few players who can regularly achieve par on most holes in one round


P.S.  I'm still waiting to hear any kind of logical definition on how one differentiates between Playabilty and Pandering....

Pandering is making it look like you have a bunch of "options" off the tee, but they're all as big as a parking lot, and then it really doesn't matter which of them you've taken because the greens are receptive from all angles.

[Kalen Braley]

Couldn't agree more with Sean and his comments in general on this thread.  Golf is hard enough, given there are so few players who can regularly achieve par on most holes in one round


P.S.  I'm still waiting to hear any kind of logical definition on how one differentiates between Playabilty and Pandering....

Pandering is making it look like you have a bunch of "options" off the tee, but they're all as big as a parking lot, and then it really doesn't matter which of them you've taken because the greens are receptive from all angles.

I think this is where a disconnect exists between what the average player has control over, vs the tiny minority who can hit to a certain part of the fairway or green to take advantage of a tucked pin or a small green tier.


Take your average 16 capper...who is just trying to find any part of the fairway, and find any part of the green with thier approach shot.  Being out of position is very common for the average golfer, whether it be in a fairway bunker, behind a tree, in the rough, or on the wrong part of the green where a 2 putt is difficult.


While I think the pandering aspect of design is certainly true for the 2% of golfers who have game to take advantage, I don't know if it even really factors in for the other 98%.


So to me its a question of...should we be concerned with building courses to challenge the 2% and punish everyone else? Or build for the masses even if the 2% can shred them?

[Sean_A]

Couldn't agree more with Sean and his comments in general on this thread.  Golf is hard enough, given there are so few players who can regularly achieve par on most holes in one round


P.S.  I'm still waiting to hear any kind of logical definition on how one differentiates between Playabilty and Pandering....

Pandering is making it look like you have a bunch of "options" off the tee, but they're all as big as a parking lot, and then it really doesn't matter which of them you've taken because the greens are receptive from all angles.

If this is the definition then in my experience there isn't much of a problem to worry about or deal with.

Ciao

[Peter Pallotta]

Oh for goodness sake, Kalen, you and Sean are driving me nuts. What could be easier than telling the difference? I'm not a masochist, nor am I cocky - I just want to play interesting and meaningful golf.

Play-ability actually rewards good/smart shot-making; pandering merely appears to do so. With play-ability, there are clear but not insurmountable disadvantages to poor choices and mediocre execution; with pandering, poor choices and mediocre execution again and again prove not to result is any such disadvantages.

But heck, don't take my word for it. Ask architects like Ian A who first raised the topic and Tom D who first noticed such pandering in Fazio's work for a "logical definition"...

Peter

PS - just saw the other posts/definitions.

Please, enough of this false modesty and/or supposed realism. I'm an average golfer who plays with persimmon, and you know what? Like most average golfers I can sometimes aim for and hit a specific side of the fairway.  But if and when I *don't*, it really sucks to get to my golf ball and realize that neither my choice nor my mishit makes one hell of a bit of difference, since the green/contours open up and accept a shot just as well from here as it would've from there. What the hell's the point of that? The game is reduced to just swinging a club...

[Kalen Braley]

Peter,


This topic brings to mind the famous Ron White quip:


"I had the right to remain silent, but I didn't have the ability"


I can appreciate terrific features as much as the next guy, but just because I can see what looks like the best way to play a hole doesn't mean I can execute it most of the time....even if I hit it exactly where I want a couple times per round.  And the vast majority of golfers are in this bucket. 

[Sean_A]

Pietro, call me a skeptic, but as I said before, where are all these 50 yard wide, concave fairway, punchbowl green courses which funnel shots to the hole no matter where the ball is hit?  Sure, I see holes of this sort, but not a single course in the hundreds I have played would I characterize as pandering...especially using Doak's definition.  I think the case has been grossly exaggerated. I simply do not see design that black and white. Sorry, maybe its time to smoke a ciggy 

Ciao

[Kalen Braley]

Pietro, call me a skeptic, but as I said before, where are all these 50 yard wide, concave fairway, punchbowl green courses which funnel shots to the hole no matter where the ball is hit?  Sure, I see holes of this sort, but not a single course in the hundreds I have played would I characterize as pandering...especially using Doak's definition.  I think the case has been grossly exaggerated in a flase either or scenario...I simply do not see design that back and white. Sorry, maybe its time to smoke a ciggy 

Ciao

Sean, this site needs a like button.  For that post, i'll give you this..

[Peter Pallotta]

I had my ciggie, but now I'm actually annoyed. I like knocking around ideas as much as the next fellow, and have made allowances for your points of view (e.g. we play different courses), and I've tried hard to explain/define what I see. But if you just want to keep saying, in essence, "bullshit - you're lying, I don't ever see what you're describing" then there's nothing much to discuss. Several of us, including many folks whose opinion you should respect much more than mine, seem to know exactly what I'm talking about. I'll have to satisfy myself with that. Let's get back to more objective and honest discussions like which private clubs are "10s" and which 500 courses are the best in the world; no one is spouting bullshit on those threads...
Okay, best
Peter

[Sean_A]

Pietro

On the contrary, folks, including yourself, have not been forthright in offering specific examples for discussion. We can talk all day in circles about theory. Unfortunately, I don't have much time for vague discussions of theory without firm examples. I may be an outlier, but I learn through application to reality. Simply stating that such and such course or designer is pandering does not a discussion make.


Ciao

[Ken Moum]

I had my ciggie, but now I'm actually annoyed. I like knocking around ideas as much as the next fellow, and have made allowances for your points of view (e.g. we play different courses), and I've tried hard to explain/define what I see. But if you just want to keep saying, in essence, "bullshit - you're lying, I don't ever see what you're describing" then there's nothing much to discuss. Several of us, including many folks whose opinion you should respect much more than mine, seem to know exactly what I'm talking about. I'll have to satisfy myself with that. Let's get back to more objective and honest discussions like which private clubs are "10s" and which 500 courses are the best in the world; no one is spouting bullshit on those threads...
Okay, best
Peter

On a typical day around here, I usually agree with either Sean or you... so this difference of opinion is intriguing.


For context, I'm a 70-year old 17 handicap, headed down, having been as low as 5-6 in my 40s and, like Sean, I am having a little difficulty finding examples of what you're talking about in the ~400 courses I have played.


Now, I have had EXACTLY the experience you're talking about on first play of a course.  Where it seemed as if the course was "helping" me stay out of trouble. But at the moment I can only think of two.


First was Briggs Ranch, a Fazio course in San Antonio.  It was also the first course of his I'd played, and still is. I was playing pretty well in those days and IIRC I shot a pretty easy 75.


The other was Elie, where I had my lowest score ever in Scotland, a remarkably uneventful 81.    (FWIW, I managed 82 at TOC and Brora this summer.)






But the deal is, I'm not so sure either one of those qualify for what you're talking about.  Because I have since played Elie and had my lunch stolen before I'd played a half-dozen holes.


I have not been back to Briggs, but two of my friends that day proved that Fazio was definitely not pandering to higher handicap golfers. One of them had approximately 30 bunker shots.


So I have to ask, of the courses you think pandered, how many of them have been played multiple times, and did you shoot this "easy" 85 every time?


If not, then I have to question the concept.


Golf is a remarkably silly game, one that seems so simple one day as to be childs' play, and a day or two later it's as difficult as quantum mechanics.


All of my golfing life I have been a member (or season ticket holder) at one golf course which means I have played my home courses hundreds of times.  None of them are particularly difficult, but my scores on them vary by at least 25 strokes, sometimes  by 10-15 on consecutive rounds.


These days, I'd love to see course or two that actually was pandering....




Oh, and by the way, your earlier comment about a course with a high slope rating yielding easy scores 5 shots under your average is either something you imagined, or it's a further indictment of our currently course rating system.


Being a GHIN hater, I'm hoping it's the latter.


K

[Sean_A]

Ken

It is interesting you mention TOC.  Of all the courses I played with a rep as very good to great, TOC must be the poster boy for pandering if you believe in the concept.  I am not convinced it is the design which is at fault so much as the hole locations and forward tees which tourists play. Someone mentioned earlier that it could be construed that simply offering shorter tees is a form pandering...In any case, if TOC is pandering to tourists I don't mind so much.  Most tourists will have had their lunch handed to them on 3 or 4 courses out of 5 they play while on tour in GB&I.  There is no harm in offering folks a chance to tell a good story about their day at TOC.  In any case two,  I don't think of TOC as pandering, but simply offering enough rope for punters to hang themselves...which may be the very definition of playability.  As you rightly say, on any given day we have to play with the game which turned up and it often isn't pretty.

Ciao

[Ken Moum]

Ken


I am not convinced it is the design which is at fault so much as the hole locations and forward tees which tourists play.

Ciao

That's a great point, as much as I hate to pay the tariff, I've spent several months in Arizona for the last 7-8 years, and end up playing whatever I can get a "reasonable" price on through one of the evil tee-time booking companies.


And I don't think I have ever seen one of those resort courses play at it's card yardage. Not that I mind as the greens are usually so firm in the winter that I can't really score anyway. A lot of days it's like playing #10 at Royal Dornoch 10 or 12 times.  Hard green, and no way to bounce one on.


k

[Kalen Braley]

Ken,


Excellent post in reply 69. 


This site is chock full of really good to great players and I think sometimes the playing abilities of you and I, which is far far more representative of the average golfer...gets lost.


You can put bunkers, hazards, nasty patches of rough, undulating terrain, etc.....just about anywhere on a typical par 4 hole and the average player is gonna find nearly all of it after just a few playings.  So I don't know how something like pandering is really achievable by even the best of of architects when you consider the hundreds of thousands of rounds played by a wide spectrum of players, most of whom are going to be widely variable from round to round in where they end up hitting the ball.

[Jim Hoak]

This thread brings up an issue that I have been amazed isn't discussed more on this site--the business purpose of the golf course being constructed.  Is this a housing development with the course being built to sell lots?   Is it a course being built to hold professional or top amateur events?  Is it a public course where speed of play is the concern?  Etc.
Being specific, I think Tom Fazio--often vilified on here--has done a very good job of building courses to his primary business model--having a golf course as an accessory to a development that is meant to sell lots for home sales--often to retirees.  The users of the course are usually greatly varied in ability, many women golfers, who want pretty views from their homes, numerous teeing options, fun, tricky greens, and the camaraderie of golf.  Playing a "top" golf course is not their primary objective, nor should it be Fazio's objective in building the course.
All golf courses don't need to be built with the same objective.  When we judge a course on this site, I think that too often we become one-dimensional in our thinking.  Doesn't the question of Pandering vs. Ideal Golf construction come back to the issue of what the course is meant to achieve?

[John Kavanaugh]

This is the pay more to play less model and the rubes are eating it up.