Looking back for a glimpse into future of design

[Thomas Dai]

"The golf business and all of its brilliant solutions have been losing golfers for the past 15-20 years, and I would put most of that down to driving the costs up to unsustainable levels with ever-better standards for design, construction, turf management, equipment, yada yada.

When I think of the game of golf, as opposed to the business, I think about the year I spent in the UK, where people like my recently-departed friend Archie Baird - a retired veterinarian - could belong to multiple clubs, and play golf seven days a week with his friends and his dog in tow.  Golf in the UK was not shaped by business interests.

Archie was a member of Gullane, Kilspindie, and the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, which he could afford because they got by with a maintenance staff of four [Muirfield, of course, had the luxury of six].  They didn't have the desire [or the manpower] to go out and move six sets of tee markers on every hole every day.  Golfers from 18 to 80 played off the medal tees for club competitions, and off the "daily boxes" otherwise, no matter how short or long it was set up to spread out the wear and tear.  Archie would be 100 yards short of the 18th hole at Muirfield in two, and hit a little 7-iron up there to ten feet, and wait with his stroke in hand to see if he even needed to make his putt in order to beat you.

Golf is about taking the course as you find it, doing your best, and enjoying the day.

The people who think everything should be re-tailored to their satisfaction are not true golfers.  An overseas friend of mine said to me years ago, "Americans are going to ruin golf," but there are a lot of Americans who would love golf as it exists in the UK, if the golf business were not dead set on pretending that culture of the game doesn't exist."



Writing like this needs to go in a frame on a wall!
(Apologies to TD, hope it's ok, for adjusting a couple of sentences from his post)


As an aside, the anecdotes from Jeff W about Steve Elkington are terrific.
These guys, eg Elk and Co, are good, incredibly good, brilliant even.
But we don't realise how incredibly good they are ......... because these days we just see them on TV drive with 460cc clubs, hit mostly short-irons and wedges for their second shots to soft greens and putt.
And it's a total cop-out to wow at the scores theses guys shoot in relation to par when they're playing on courses with effectively a bunch of short par-4's and holes categorised as par-5's but which are for them are really only par-4's.
And that imo is boring. Really boring and getting more boring by the week.
Roll the bloody ball and equipment back such that the TV guys and some others are required to regularly play the kind of shots Jeff describes Elk playing and bring more interest and excitement back to watching the TV guys and some others. And, nudge, nudge, more interest and excitement usually brings with it higher TV ratings/$£.
The guys we see on TV and some others are good, incredibly good, let's have the opportunity to highlight just how exceptionally skilled they really are.
atb


atb

[Jeff_Brauer]

Jeff B./ Jeff W.--how many shots did SE mishit? I caddied for a friend in an Open Sectional who was paired with him. We figured he mishit 5 shots in 36 holes. It was something to see.

Not many.  I (and others) figure Elk had the best swing of his generation.  No unnecessary moving parts. I will say, my side won $5 off him, handicaps included, of course. 


He was my unpaid design consultant (friend of owner) and didn't mind a semi blind drivable par 4 and a few other quirks the true card and pencil card probably wouldn't care for.


Another story, as I am always asking pros how they play when I get a chance.  I tee him up on a hole for the question, saying "On this one the wind blows right and fw angles right at 270 yards, what shot do you hit?)  His answer? "Straight, of course." 


Only pro I know who said they played that way.  I once had Larry Nelson co design some courses and we had that schtick, only his answer was "a draw" every time, no matter what the target.  Did it with Bruce Lietzke once, and, his answers varied from "A fade", "A fade", to "A really big honking fade!"


Only Lanny Wadkins said he would play a shot pattern the hole called for, and then, even only when he was on his game.  Other pros told me Faldo was the only great player of that era to consistently tailor his shot to the conditions.


But, I digress...….

[David Harshbarger]

Only Lanny Wadkins said he would play a shot pattern the hole called for, and then, even only when he was on his game.  Other pros told me Faldo was the only great player of that era to consistently tailor his shot to the conditions.

At end of last night's Waialea broadcast they interviewed Morikawa.  He said he likes to move the ball left-right and right-left, being a feel player.  He was taking shots you didn't see many others taking, like holding it against a left-right wind at a left pin on one par three.

He and Justin Thomas also both played the same hook (different day) on 18.  Thomas's version on Thursday, he aimed left, played a hook, to ride a strong right-left wind, and hit the fairway 40 yards at least further down around the hard dog-leg left than anyone else they showed.  I have never seen such a ballsy/confident play for real money.  On Friday Morikawa made about the same shot.

[Tom_Doak]

Another story, as I am always asking pros how they play when I get a chance.  I tee him up on a hole for the question, saying "On this one the wind blows right and fw angles right at 270 yards, what shot do you hit?)  His answer? "Straight, of course." 

Only pro I know who said they played that way.

That's the older generation, and with a different generation of equipment.  There are lots of guys who try to hit it straight now:  off the tee, it's a majority of them.


I had a good chance last year before we started our project in Houston to pick the brains of a bunch of players about the course.  The younger guys did not talk too much about it -- I don't think they wanted to give me any ammunition -- but the older guys, to a man, all said "Just do what you've been doing."  They know it's harder to curve the ball now, and harder to play the shots they were good at, so building greens that reward those shots will frustrate the young guys who can see it, but don't want to try it.


Meanwhile, Tiger is in GOLF DIGEST this month talking about how he never tries to hit a straight approach shot:  "I like to let the course dictate what type of shot I'm trying to hit."

[Peter Pallotta]

I think you and Tiger have that in common, Tom, and it's the trait/ability I admire most: in your respective fields, you're both nerds, purists even -- and yet you channel/utilize that quality in the context of broader practicalities and in the service of higher goals, i.e. the (engaging) work itself and lowest (winning) scores, respectively. For years Tiger bested all his contemporaries when the courses/emerging equipment led to bomb and gouge being the successful strategy; but in his heart of hearts, Tiger prefers the old school approach of "playing golf", i.e. engaging with the architecture and letting the golf course and the conditions dictate the required/best shot -- and, not surprisingly, having studied & trained himself to play that way since his pre-teen days, he is better than everyone else at that too! I have a bias in this regard: when I think of my favourite (and most satisfying) musicians, and writers, and painters and golfers, they all share that same trait/ability with you and Tiger. They are able to walk that knife edge, time and time again: on the one side, the 'coldness' of purity & technical mastery for its own sake; on the other side, the 'greyness' of conventional wisdom & common forms closely adhered to for the sake of acceptance/success. I'm not sure anyone can really know how hard it is to walk that knife-edge unless they've tried their best to do it themselves -- especially as part of a career (and not a hobby). I myself couldn't/can't, and that's why I'm not a "professional". But that 'balance', well, that I know is the gold standard, at least for me it is: whether in playing golf or building golf courses or making music or writing a book, it's striving for greatness while not letting the striving get in the way of the 'doing', and it's adhering to personal ideals while not letting ideals stifle the public 'communication' of those ideals.   
Peter       

[JMEvensky]

Nice Peter.

[Tom_Doak]

Tiger was/is a prodigy, pure and simple.  He was enough better than everyone else that he could afford to play the way he thought was right, and not worry about it costing him a shot occasionally -- and the numbers prove out that he gained more than he lost by playing that way.


Most great players have that in them, really, but now they also have a coach telling them to play the percentages, and they become afraid to hit the creative shots their talent allows.  That's the fallout from the all-exempt tour, where it pays to keep cashing checks every week, instead of playing to win.  Tiger was playing to win, and being able to hit the shots the course asks for is going to help you win.


And yes, you can also apply that to writing or music or painting, or to golf course design.  But, don't forget, I've got other people out there hitting some of the shots for me.