[Ira Fishman]

Many of you have extolled the benefits of evaluating a course by walking it without playing.  Recently when we were in Mid Pines/Pine Needles, I wrenched my back so ended up walking each course while my wife and our friends played.  It was eye opening--I noticed aspects of and features on each course that I only vaguely picked up when I played them (and I have played both 8 or 9 times each). 


I kinda just let my eye wonder without having any particular plan for assessing or any particular questions I was trying to answer.  Is that the best way to go or is it good to have a plan/questions?  I definitely intend to walk but not play again on courses that I already have had the pleasure of playing.


Thanks,


Ira

[Tom_Doak]

Just let your eye wander.  And watch what the other golfers do!! If you are paying attention to them you'll learn three times as much about the course than you would while chasing your own ball around.

[Carl Rogers]

6 weeks before Beechtree closed, my friend Scott  Weersing & I went to play there.  The second day, there was a frost delay and he & I rode around in a cart and looked at the course ............ very enlightening.

[Tim_Weiman]

IRA,


I have always felt walking a course first without playing it is a much better way to study the architecture.


It was my experience at places like Pine Valley and Crystal Downs that convinced me.


I first saw Pine Valley during the 1985 Walker Cup which only had about 2,000-2,500 visitors and we were free to walk all over the course. Playing first would have made me way too nervous about what score I would shoot.


Crystal Downs might be a better example. There is just so much to see that playing it without walking it first would make one miss way too much, IMO.

[Thomas Dai]

Walking the course in reverse routing, ie starting at the rear of the 18th green and finishing on the 1st tee, can be enlightening way of viewing/analysing a course and the individual holes.
atb

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Since giving up playing golf I have benefitted from walking a few courses, especially those too difficult for me now to attempt such as Royal Liverpool.

[Peter Pallotta]

Ira - I think the key might be that you walked the course while watching others actually play it. For someone of Tom's experience it might be different, but for me, if I walked an empty course I'd no doubt have all manner of 'insights' into the architecture and all sorts of 'ideas' about the design -- but they'd probably all be wrong: theories only, and products of my imagination instead of an informed understanding grounded in how real golfers really play the course during a real round of golf.
Peter

[Ira Fishman]

Peter, there is no question walking alongside three players helped immensely.  I could see how their shots played out, the angles into the green, the choices of pitching v. chipping, etc.  Plus I read putts for them on occasion which required paying attention to green contours, particularly shoulders off of bunkers and subtle elevation changes. 


One thing that really stood out at Mid Pines is the beautiful contours around the bunkers--on many it looked like a wave breaking.  I probably would have missed that if one of the player's balls had not rolled slowly into a bunker on an early hole.


Having said all of that, I am sure that my theories about design and strategy remain as uninformed and idiosyncratic as if I had just walked by myself.  But it was great fun to pretend I knew what I was looking at.


Ira

[Mark Pritchett]

While one can certainly glean a lot of perspective from walking a course, I feel (at least for me) that playing a course gives me a better grasp of the design.  Especially on the greens. 

[Tommy Williamsen]

I have walked a course with a friend playing when I had back trouble. I hated it. All I wanted to do was grab a club. I don't think I learned much about the course. I could see where to hit a shot and where not to hit one, but the feeling of exhilaration, disaster, or anticipation, which is so important, was lacking.

[Ira Fishman]

Tommy, I suspect the difference is that you are an excellent golfer, and I am not even close to being one.  Even when I am playing, a great deal of my enjoyment derives from the walk and the course.  And when playing with my wife, from the company of course (just in case she ever sees this thread).


Ira

[Phil McDade]

Tommy, I suspect the difference is that you are an excellent golfer, and I am not even close to being one.  Even when I am playing, a great deal of my enjoyment derives from the walk and the course.  And when playing with my wife, from the company of course (just in case she ever sees this thread).


Ira

Ira:


I've always thought this issue -- learning about courses by playing them vs. walking them -- bifurcates along playing ability lines. Like you, I'm a lousy golfer, and find that I learn more about really good courses in particular by simply walking them several times, vs. trying my lame game on them. One insight for this came from, of all places, Rick Reilly's funny book, "Who's Your Caddy?" when he looped a round for Tom Lehman in his prime. Lehman cared not a whit about the golf architecture -- he just lasered shots all round long, like there was nothing else to look at save for a tiny patch of fairway that he knew he could hit, and a flag he always chased.


Golf architecture is more interesting the lousier you are at golf.

[V_Halyard]

I had one of the best days at my own home course walking, talking and sharing "before and after" discussions with Don Placek last week. I learned a ton about what I thought I already knew.

[George Pazin]

This issue is like most any other: it depends on the person walking and observing.


I think the absolute best way to observe A SINGLE HOLE is to sit and watch a number of quality players (tour pros, top ams, whatever) play the hole and see what the results are. Compile where various shots end up and what the results are.


I will admit, this beyond tedious. But if you really want to learn, this is what you'll do. Itzhak Perlman didn't learn to play the violin by playing a piece once. Neither did Eddie Van Halen, if you prefer rock. Nor did Tiger. Or Tom Brady. Or Ted Williams. Or Albert Pujols. Or Sid the Kid. Or Bill Gates and coding. Or Tom D, Gil H, Jeff B, Mike DV, or Mike N, or any other architect designing. Or any other true professional at whatever his profession is.


None of you will ever know as much about printing t shirts as I do (and you should be thankful for that, btw). But that doesn't mean you can't point out something I missed or overlooked! And it's up to me to carefully evaluate all considerations and criticisms.


The notion that any of us can walk OR play a hole once, or a couple times, and really learn something meaningful is beyond silly. You might pick up something, the architect can only hope you pick up the right thing, at least as he views it. He might even learn something from you! I doubt many architects anticipate where I hit the ball.


Yet it is a notion we all indulge, because we all want to be seen as having meaningful, thoughtful opinions.


I'd argue they may be thoughtful, but they likely aren't all that meaningful.


That doesn't mean we shouldn't have fun discussing and debating this stuff on here, it just means we should each understand our limitations.


And I think few of us do, myself included.


Just my opinion, your mileage may vary....

[JC Jones]

I like to start at 1 tee and walk backwards pretending I was a golf ball being played down the hole while droning the course from 18 green to 1 tee.

[BHoover]

I like to start at 1 tee and walk backwards pretending I was a golf ball being played down the hole while droning the course from 18 green to 1 tee.

That’s next-level thinking.

[Ira Fishman]

Be the ball. Just think how Bill Murray would have deployed drone technologies.


Ira

[Jim Nugent]

JC, just curious, how many times have you done that? 

[JC Jones]

JC, just curious, how many times have you done that?

I'd like to tell you but the whole process will be revealed in an expose in the inaugural edition of my new weekly digital magazine, RegionalGolfPost.net

[Steve Lang]

   ... and thus the great fun when playing the Loop, look forward, sideways, backwards and remember for tomorrow, do 180, hit and repeat, enjoy the pics or memory blur later

[MLevesque]

I had the pleasure of walking one of the 147 custodian courses with week.  It allowed me to view the design features; bunkers, fairway slope and green contours from various angles.  If I was playing my own ball I'm sure my focus would have been exclusively on my next shot (or sadly, my last poor shot.)   When I eventually tee it up on this course, I'll be better prepared to answer some of the questions that the architect, course and Mother Nature ask.

[RJ_Daley]

20 years ago when I was able to play, I would arrive at interesting courses I wanted to study or contemplate the golf course design of notable architects of past or present and knew then that I was missing things when trying to manage my game, hit it and find it, etc.  I think that the possible area of advantage to learn certain things while actually playing is related to appreciating greens construction.  That is particularly true if you aren't actually playing an event and are playing casually, where you can drop an extra ball if there is time to try a putt from or to a different position.  Similarly, if you can drop another ball in a casual round to hit that shot from what you thought would be the actual place in the FW or surrounds that you believed was the architect's intent, and so forth.
But now that I am resigned to never being able to play again due to catastrophic unrepairable injuries of both shoulders, I am definitely going to have to practice the method of walking and observing both good and bad players, and pay particular attention to what can be found or discovered from particular shaping strategies and techniques that an architect may have employed to present the challenges of GCA that the land provided.

[Rich Goodale]

In writing a piece on Eddie Hackett, I walked a number of Irish courses 7-8 years ago.  The seemingly now reclusive TE Paul told me once that if you want to walk a course, carry a few balls in your pocket, and roll them when you see an interesting land form and see what results.  I rolled my balls in that gig from 5-10 feet on some greens to 150 yards from the fairway to a green at Carne, where underhanding on a very downhill lie I managed to put my chuck to 10 feet.  It was one of the greatest experiences of my golfing life, better than all but one of my holes in one.


hciR

[Jaeger Kovich]

I’ve been to 67 different golf courses this year. I’ve just walked and taken pictures at 27 of them.

[Ira Fishman]

Jaeger,


Didn’t you do a lot of the work on the bunkers at Mid Pines? As you can see in my posts, it was admiring them when walking without playing that one of the motivations for the thread.


Ira

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