Can you evaluate a course with one play?

[Niall C]

Our old friend Patrick Mucci used to contend that to properly evaluate a course you had to play it multiple times in various weather and presumably times of day and season.


My response was, and is, how many courses have you ever played a second (or more) time where you changed your rating by more than one point, up.or down, on whatever scale you use?


I can think of only one in 50 years of playing.

Mike


Firstly, I think Pat used that ploy to shut people down and to big his own multiple plays of PV, NGLA etc. However valid you think that argument is, it certainly wasn't conducive to having a good discussion.


In terms of changing my "rating" of a course, I'd say it happens quite a lot to me. Particularly courses that are more variable in terms of conditioning and that are weather dependant. The more you play a course the more likely you are see it at it's optimum in terms of condition etc. and therefore at some point you will likely gain a higher opinion of that course.


Now and again it goes the other way and the "hello" that Anthony refers to turns out to be a bit of an exercise to flatter to deceive.


Niall

[Mark_Fine]

There are VERY FEW if any golf courses out there that any of us play where we don’t arrive without some preconceived bias or ideas whether it be from knowing the course is on some list, recognizing that it is a Doak or a C&C or an old Raynor or, reading about it here, talking to a friend,….

The point I am making is that if most of us stood on the first tee with a completely open mind about what they are going to play and experience (we all try), most who have seen a lot of courses will know what range to put it in BUT it will take more than one round on most all designs to accurately settle on a final assessment.

One point difference for me can be the difference of whether a course is in my top 75 (at least an   vs a 7 which might drop back to 300 or so.  A 6 vs a 7 could drop it back to outside my top 500.  Even a half point matters and you can’t figure that out precisely on one visit - No way!  Don’t get me wrong, we all try but most architects shutter at the thought. 

[Sean_A]

For those of you who answered 'yes, you can evaluate a golf course after one play' -- would you trust everyone else to be able to evaluate it too?

Mike C and Tommy W have played 1000+ courses, many of them highly ranked. I've played maybe 100 courses, some of them very good indeed, but only one of them ranked.

Should Mike and Tommy believe that I
too am able to evaluate a golf course after one play? (Hint: I wouldn't if I were them)

I trust other people. Where else would I get ideas of where to play?

Ciao

[Peter Sayegh]

No.It surprises me that anyone would say otherwise.

[Kalen Braley]

I gave similar response in a thread a few weeks back, i'll summarize again.

1)  Can you evaluate a course having never seen it?  Yes you can, but safe to say, not sure anyone else would or should even bother with it.
2)  Can you evaluate a course having only walked it?  Yes, but your opinion would/should be taken with a grain of salt.
2)  Can you evaluate a course with just one play?  Yes, but your impressions may be heavily scrutinized/questioned, (exception perhaps for well traveled and seasoned folks in the biz who really know what they're looking at.)
4)  Can you evaluate a course after 10 plays?  Once again yes, and your viewpoints certainly have validity and should be more or less taken seriously.
5)  Can you evaluate a course after 50+ plays?  Yes of course as you've now arrived in Pat Mucci territory where you can post in green and comments will be considered gospel! 

[Thomas Dai]

I trust other people. Where else would I get ideas of where to play?
Ciao

Good point. After a while, often quite a short while, you know what kind of courses your mates, acquaintances etc prefer and you can make choices yourself based on their thoughts. And vice versa as well.
Atb

[Philippe Binette]

You can get the overall feel in one play... and determine if it's a ok, good or great course... (on the doak scale 3-4, 5-6 or 7-8)


But sometimes your play prevent you to see the entire course properly. .
When i play garden city, my tee shot on 14 was on15th fairway and my tee shot on 15 was on the 14th fairway... made par on both hole but can't tell you what the holes are about

[Ulrich Mayring]

I think you cannot *not* evaluate a golf course after one play. Or ten. It doesn't matter. You always evaluate, but the most valuable evaluation is the one after the first play. Not because it's the most accurate - it is probably far from that. But because most others, who read or hear your opinion, will be in just that situation: they have never played the course and wonder whether they should.
It is of no value to most people to know how great a course would feel after 50 plays - unless they were thinking to become a member. In most cases they want to know how great their first round would be.
So I think the most valuable Top 100 list might not be the one drawn up by experienced raters, who have played the courses multiple times. It might just be a Top 100 compiled from thousands of people playing the course for the first time.

[Brad Lawrence]

I think you can properly evaluate a course with zero plays.  I’ve only been fortunate enough to play three top 100 courses. I should just leave this group immediately if that means my opinion is valueless.

[Tim Martin]

I think you can properly evaluate a course with zero plays.  I’ve only been fortunate enough to play three top 100 courses. I should just leave this group immediately if that means my opinion is valueless.

Can you evaluate a restaurant, book or piece of music with zero personal experience?

[Ally Mcintosh]

I think you cannot *not* evaluate a golf course after one play. Or ten. It doesn't matter. You always evaluate, but the most valuable evaluation is the one after the first play. Not because it's the most accurate - it is probably far from that. But because most others, who read or hear your opinion, will be in just that situation: they have never played the course and wonder whether they should.
It is of no value to most people to know how great a course would feel after 50 plays - unless they were thinking to become a member. In most cases they want to know how great their first round would be.
So I think the most valuable Top 100 list might not be the one drawn up by experienced raters, who have played the courses multiple times. It might just be a Top 100 compiled from thousands of people playing the course for the first time.

This is actually a pretty good counter-argument.


But it does encourage in your face architecture. Why design subtleties for people to discover slowly if they are just going to visit once…. Rankings have a lot to answer for.

[Peter Pallotta]

Ally - and that is a very good rejoinder to Ulrich's very good counter-argument. I'd just suggest that your posts (like many others in this thread) seem to think evaluation is an 'absolute' rather than 'relative' term / process / judgement, as if we can play a course (once or several times) and evaluate it 'purely', as a one-off, *on its own merits*, and without reference (consciously or not) to any or all the other courses we've played.
I just don't think it works that way. The 'relative value' of a course is what we're actually evaluating (whether we realize and intend it or not), and that's why I likely wouldn't be very good at it, ie because I only have 100 courses and only 1 of the Top 10 to 'compare' it to
instead of 1000 courses and all 10 of the Top 10
It isn't seeing a course 'once' that's the problem, it's not seeing enough *other* courses, even once, that's the problem.
 

[Ira Fishman]

In reading the prior posts, including my own, my take is that as much as gca is an art and a science combined, we are instinctive and intuitive enough to recognize great versus not so great on first play. The first time I heard Billie Holiday sing God Bless the Child was the only time I needed to recognize that her gifts as a singer and songwriter were transcendent. The “experts” and “historians” here who like to assert more insight are analogous to the music critics who wanted to deconstruct what I already knew to be true.


Ira

[Peter Pallotta]

Ira - and that's really good too, even if you hadn't used an analogy so close to my heart. But just to say: while I *knew* that Hawkins' Body and Soul was a masterpiece the first time I heard it (heck, the first time I heard the first eight bars), I could know it with such certainty/authority only because I'd listened to many hundreds of hours of jazz music and many dozens of sax solos before hand. Might your experience with Lady Day and God Bless the Child by similar, or was it different?
Btw, just for you:
Lady Day and Pres (and others) together:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TaPIyo51cr4

[Anthony Gray]

I think you can properly evaluate a course with zero plays.  I’ve only been fortunate enough to play three top 100 courses. I should just leave this group immediately if that means my opinion is valueless.

 Please don’t. I can look at at course photos and know I don’t want to play it. Or the opposite.

[Joe Hancock]

Nothing new to add here, but if and when you step onto a golf course that is truly special (I’m thinking Crystal Downs, specifically), you don’t even have to play one hole to know you’re someplace special. You see it, you feel it, you sense it. You go play the course and you know it.


To evaluate a course is one thing. To fully understand and appreciate it is quite another.

[Ally Mcintosh]

Peter,


You are right of course. The only way we truly evaluate is by comparing in relative terms. That happens with all the rankings too. The scoring is a fallacy in these magazines, only covering for how everyone evaluates one course against another (and they all do it differently).


For example, In the Irish rankings that I partake in, I find myself inventing my own frameworks to evaluate. One of them is comparing all the Christy O’Connor Jr courses next to each other. They are all pretty similar by design and land, quite good but none outstanding. And there’s a lot of them…. But because I’ve played many of them only once or twice, I’m probably getting my evaluation wrong… if I’d played them all many times more, I’d likely be far more certain in my opinion of their relative merits.

[Anthony Gray]

Nothing new to add here, but if and when you step onto a golf course that is truly special (I’m thinking Crystal Downs, specifically), you don’t even have to play one hole to know you’re someplace special. You see it, you feel it, you sense it. You go play the course and you know it.


To evaluate a course is one thing. To fully understand and appreciate it is quite another.

 Excellent post. Approaches a spiritual experience.

[Mark_Fine]

Joe,
Interesting comment you made:

"To evaluate a course is one thing.  To fully understand and appreciate it is quite another."

Can you elaborate?

[Mark_Fine]

So lots of people think you can evaluate a course with one play.  Sure you can, why couldn't you.  The question really should be, how accurately/confidently can you evaluate a course with one play? 


Let me put this into perspective; if you were asked to play 100 different courses (each one time), could you accurately and confidently list them from best to worst in numerical order?  Good luck with that 


That is basically what most of the Top 100 lists reflect as very few raters play the courses they are rating more than one time.

[Joe Hancock]

Joe,
Interesting comment you made:
"To evaluate a course is one thing.  To fully understand and appreciate it is quite another."

Can you elaborate?

Sure. To evaluate something, you assign a number or some other value system(my system might top out at “wow, that’s really good!”) to it based on your understanding of said thing. Let’s use Crystal Downs as an example:


If my evaluation of golf courses is less elaborate than, say, Tom Doak’s system, and it is more of a 1-5, 5 being the best I know of….and I show up at Crystal Downs for the first time, I’m going to play it once and give it a 5. I can’t imagine a whole lot of golf courses being much better, based on things like the quality of the golf, the ambiance, the sense of place, etc. I don’t need to know how differently #8 can play based on differing wind directions, firmness of turf, seasons or speed of greens. It’s already part of a 5…..and it’s not too difficult to know you’re looking at a 5 without using a magic formula.

[Joe Hancock]

And, to make this a little more difficult, can anyone evaluate an architect after playing just one of their courses? Why would you, as each site and each client brings a different set of circumstances….

[Philippe Binette]

Brad Lawrence, you can't evaluate a course without seeing it live..


What are the courses that people have seen the most without seeing it live : Augusta National and Pebble Beach...
At least 10 hours of tv every year...


Still, when people go to Augusta (I haven't been)  everybody talk about how steep it is ... and everybody talk about how tiny the greens at pebble are... even if they've been told so 100 times...




You can evaluate a course by walking it, even if you don't play... but you have to see it live

[Ira Fishman]

Ira - and that's really good too, even if you hadn't used an analogy so close to my heart. But just to say: while I *knew* that Hawkins' Body and Soul was a masterpiece the first time I heard it (heck, the first time I heard the first eight bars), I could know it with such certainty/authority only because I'd listened to many hundreds of hours of jazz music and many dozens of sax solos before hand. Might your experience with Lady Day and God Bless the Child by similar, or was it different?
Btw, just for you:
Lady Day and Pres (and others) together:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TaPIyo51cr4

Peter,


Drop the mic.


Ira

[Sean_A]

Ally - and that is a very good rejoinder to Ulrich's very good counter-argument. I'd just suggest that your posts (like many others in this thread) seem to think evaluation is an 'absolute' rather than 'relative' term / process / judgement, as if we can play a course (once or several times) and evaluate it 'purely', as a one-off, *on its own merits*, and without reference (consciously or not) to any or all the other courses we've played.
I just don't think it works that way. The 'relative value' of a course is what we're actually evaluating (whether we realize and intend it or not), and that's why I likely wouldn't be very good at it, ie because I only have 100 courses and only 1 of the Top 10 to 'compare' it to
instead of 1000 courses and all 10 of the Top 10
It isn't seeing a course 'once' that's the problem, it's not seeing enough *other* courses, even once, that's the problem.

Of course you are right. But I think we also evaluate courses against our ideals. And for that you don't need to see hundreds of courses.

Ciao