The Exceptions

[Charlie Goerges]

In another thread Tom Doak said this:

it has been my mission since 1982-83 to try to show the world all of the exceptions to those rules, the spirit of the game as it was in Scotland back then [and mostly still is], as it could be applied to golf architecture.

I'm curious about those exceptions and I'm hoping Tom and anyone else who has thoughts on this could chime in and talk about those exceptions and what they are and why they are good. Anything from hypotheticals to real-world examples, photos or words are accepted and appreciated.

[Tom_Doak]

A couple of examples:


Does every course need lots of teeing options?
   Yes, if you're trying to please everyone.  But Garden City and Pine Valley and most links courses in the UK used to set out ONE tee box for men and that's where you played it from that day.


Do you want boundaries in play very close to the golf holes?
   Generally, no - it can be a big safety problem if you don't control what's happening next door.  But some examples of great golf holes with boundaries very much in play would include the 17th and 18th at The Old Course, the 9th at Muirfield, the 4th at St. Enodoc, and the 2nd at Talking Stick (North).  Royal Liverpool was a fairly featureless property back in the day and they made artificial o.b. hazards within their property on half a dozen holes and it was the thing that made the course tick . . . now they have backed away substantially from that ethos and it really bothers me that they have capitulated to conventional wisdom.


Do you want fairway surface drainage to go into the bunkers?
   Generally, no, because in a big rainstorm the face of the bunker would be eroded and the maintenance crew would have to shovel sand back uphill.  But, lots of links pot bunkers gather drainage and golf balls, and it's okay because they don't have the sand going up the face of the bunker so there is no erosion.  You would only want to do that in free-draining sandy soils in a place where you didn't often get major storms, but if you have such a place, then you can take advantage of your location to do something that other courses cannot do.


What should be the minimum size of a green?
   Most superintendents would tell you a green should be at least 5000 square feet to spread out wear and tear.  The biggest green at Pebble Beach, the 18th, is still smaller than that, and a couple of those greens are more like 3000 square feet.  The 7th green at Barnbougle is less than that.  It might make the superintendent's life a little harder to build one of those, so you don't do it all the time, but if you want compelling golf, making every green bigger than average is not going to provide as much variety as you might want.

[Don Mahaffey]

Tom, at Wolf Point Mike and I wanted bunkers that would gather shots. Not all of them, but some of the small center hazards do. The drainage solution in a high rainfall heavy soil site was to build bunkers drainage almost like a USGA green gravel layer and no flashed sand.  It worked and while a little more costly on a per unit basis, that little bunker impacted a large area because it gathered balls, and it didn’t require a lot of earthmoving to prop it up to stay dry.   I’m surprised we don’t see it done more often but no water ever draining into a bunker has become a hard rule in most cases.

[Tom_Doak]

I’m surprised we don’t see it done more often but no water ever draining into a bunker has become a hard rule in most cases.

It's because architects and contractors and shapers have had it drilled into them that you can't let water drain into a bunker . . . so they don't stop to think about how and when they could make it work.  But when you've traveled everywhere and you notice stuff like that on great courses -- IF you know enough to notice it -- then you can break the rule and get away with it.


Another one, discussed here previously, is my personal dislike of catch basins within the tightly mowed turf.  Most of the professionals in the field [cue Jeff Brauer] will tell you drainage is super important and you can't let it run on the surface for too long or you'll get erosion, so catch basins are inevitable . . . and they are, on heavier soils, where water drains across fairways.  But that doesn't mean you can't hide them better, or route the course differently to need fewer basins, or as you say, make the bunker your catch basin.


When we had our pre-opening event at Pacific Dunes in 2001, one of the people who came out was TEPaul, and I mentioned to him the first day that one thing we disliked about the original Bandon course was all the plastic drain caps.  Then when he played golf the next day on Pacific, he was just absolutely blown away that he couldn't find one anywhere.  We had used a trick I learned from Dave Wilber at Kingsbarns [which they learned from St. Andrews] to bury a loop of perforated drain pipe a foot underground at all of the lows, and the site was sandy enough that it worked for a bunch of years.  You can find a handful of drain covers there now, but it's probably 200 fewer than other architects would put in.  I just thought the site looked so natural that I hated to ruin the suspension of disbelief with a bunch of plastic drain caps.

[Charlie Goerges]

Great stuff! How about blindness? I know architects tend to avoid it, are there good examples that should be talked about more? I know the topic has been covered, my apologies.

[David Wuthrich]

Tom, at Wolf Point Mike and I wanted bunkers that would gather shots. Not all of them, but some of the small center hazards do. The drainage solution in a high rainfall heavy soil site was to build bunkers drainage almost like a USGA green gravel layer and no flashed sand.  It worked and while a little more costly on a per unit basis, that little bunker impacted a large area because it gathered balls, and it didn’t require a lot of earthmoving to prop it up to stay dry.   I’m surprised we don’t see it done more often but no water ever draining into a bunker has become a hard rule in most cases.

Don,


Loved the collection bunkers at Wolf Point!  You and Mike did a wonderful job and I never saw an issue when I was fortunate to be there!

[Ronald Montesano]

Charlie:

Great topic. My amateur take on blind holes is, allow the good shot to have a chance to make the target, and allow the great shot a chance to get close. As they say, a shot is only blind once.

[Tom_Doak]

Great stuff! How about blindness? I know architects tend to avoid it, are there good examples that should be talked about more? I know the topic has been covered, my apologies.

Well, lots of people will tell you that a great course should never have a blind shot.


Royal County Down has blind tee shots at the 2nd, 5th, 6th, 9th, and 11th, and blind approaches at the 2nd and 3rd and 13th, to boot.  And it's routinely ranked in the world's top ten.


Would you be likely to build a new course with five blind tee shots and have it ranked in the world's top ten?  Probably not.  But you're not likely to get any closer by making sure not to have any blind tee shot.

[Thomas Dai]

Seem to recall photos etc of spots that in yee olde times were wet, damp and scruffy, areas, places that water used to naturally drain into or flood into, that have morphed over time into something more formal and bunker like?
Atb

[Jeff_Brauer]

I’m surprised we don’t see it done more often but no water ever draining into a bunker has become a hard rule in most cases.

It's because architects and contractors and shapers have had it drilled into them that you can't let water drain into a bunker . . . so they don't stop to think about how and when they could make it work.  But when you've traveled everywhere and you notice stuff like that on great courses -- IF you know enough to notice it -- then you can break the rule and get away with it.


Another one, discussed here previously, is my personal dislike of catch basins within the tightly mowed turf.  Most of the professionals in the field [cue Jeff Brauer] will tell you drainage is super important and you can't let it run on the surface for too long or you'll get erosion, so catch basins are inevitable . . . and they are, on heavier soils, where water drains across fairways.  But that doesn't mean you can't hide them better, or route the course differently to need fewer basins, or as you say, make the bunker your catch basin.


When we had our pre-opening event at Pacific Dunes in 2001, one of the people who came out was TEPaul, and I mentioned to him the first day that one thing we disliked about the original Bandon course was all the plastic drain caps.  Then when he played golf the next day on Pacific, he was just absolutely blown away that he couldn't find one anywhere.  We had used a trick I learned from Dave Wilber at Kingsbarns [which they learned from St. Andrews] to bury a loop of perforated drain pipe a foot underground at all of the lows, and the site was sandy enough that it worked for a bunch of years.  You can find a handful of drain covers there now, but it's probably 200 fewer than other architects would put in.  I just thought the site looked so natural that I hated to ruin the suspension of disbelief with a bunch of plastic drain caps.

TD,


As for collection bunkers, I believe a 6" ridge wouldn't stop too many balls unless they were just out of momentum, and it would probably keep all but the biggest storms out of the bunker (assuming you did some sort of drainage device) and be unnoticed by most golfers outside golf architecture nerds.


As to the little loop of 4" pipes around basins, many of us used them.  One of my last big projects, they clogged in fairly sandy soil within a year and that was the superintendent's biggest complaint a year in. In all my years, I found that subsurface French drains just don't work as well to collect water, and also eventually fail, needing to be repaired (i.e., strip off sod and thatch and replace sand above the pipe) or replaced (if the old flex tube type drain).  To quote Groucho Marx, "Who am I supposed to believe, Tom Doak or my own experience?" It doesn't make sense to me to under engineer something functional in the name of aesthetics, including not using catch basins and/or using the smallest ones for reduced visual impact, when inlet size is usually the biggest factor in capacity and performance.  Granted PD was a spectacular site, but even on my best sites, there were always man made things like nearby power lines that would stand out to me as being bigger distractions to the fantasy that golf courses are natural.


Ditto on those long swales, although the use of sod and/or turf nets seems to help with the erosion during grow in, if you can find the right fw variety.  I agree that is probably better, when possible, to place adequately sized catch basins in the rough to cut off any drainage that might have crossed the fairway  -  less visible and more functional at the same time.


But, of all the exceptions you love to point out, my guess is that the science of drainage is the one thing that has been pretty constant forever, nature being what it is.  Blind shots may go in and out of fashion, but does good drainage ever really do that?


Maybe the solution is for some enterprising drainage company to come up with an artificial and porous turf that allows drainage through and looks closer to natural.

[Thomas Dai]

Some of the GB hilltop courses that I frequent have above certain putting surfaces circa 1’ high lips with circa 6” deep grass channels behind. They would appear to have been constructed and seem do a good job of deflecting excess rainfall and significant run-off away from usually cut-n-fill or slightly benched greens. putting surfaces. Simple features easy from a maintenance aspect I imagine. Think I’ve seen them occasionally above cut-n-fill/benched tees too.
Atb

[Tom_Doak]

But, of all the exceptions you love to point out, my guess is that the science of drainage is the one thing that has been pretty constant forever, nature being what it is.  Blind shots may go in and out of fashion, but does good drainage ever really do that?

Hi Jeff:


I figured you'd show up right about here.


Honestly, I wish you would stop pointing out scientific but hypothetical examples of why the drainage I've put in on my courses is inadequate, and cite an example where it didn't work.  Some of those drains at Pacific Dunes clogged up over time, others have not, but overall the course drains very well while taking much more rain than most.


The Rawls Course was the most complicated drainage system we've done, and yes we did use catch basins there, but we minimized them by creating some long swales that took a lot of the surface drainage in big storms.  I don't think we put any catch basins inside the fairways there, either, IIRC.

[Charlie Goerges]

Let’s hear some of your favorite exceptions Jeff! I think it’s your 9th at the Quarry is totally blind from the right side of the fairway? Maybe some other exceptions to the “rules”?

[Jeff Schley]

The blind shots I love are the punchbowl holes. Fishers is even a blind tee shot going left side of fairway and approach. Piping Rock's is a joy.
I don't enjoy RCD, when combining the blind elements with the very tight gorse it is just too difficult and not enjoyable for me.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Let’s hear some of your favorite exceptions Jeff! I think it’s your 9th at the Quarry is totally blind from the right side of the fairway? Maybe some other exceptions to the “rules”?

Charlie,


Yes, and I hear about it, LOL.  A few years back we did a master plan there and one of the projects was to remove the trees on the right, but mostly because the valley fw and green were too shaded.  But then, people started walking down the formerly treed slope and it was so steep too many fell on their kiesters.  I haven't seen it but I think the next project is to grade the slope back, and possibly turf it so it is easier to walk.


I have never minded the concept of not being able to hit the green with a straight shot from every inch of the fw, especially when a straight shot allows you a clear line, but most golfers don't like it.  It's just one of those things, as TD notes, that eventually get drilled into you that you should have a shot at the green from the fw, which eventually alters the original design.  I guess the majority rules in some of these situations.


For that matter, I have built a few blind holes, especially tee shots.  When I need to do that, I like to be extra attentive to finding some way to mark the line, like aiming at a house or water tower, etc. in the background, cutting a slight valley in the ridge to indicate the centerline of the fw.  Also, while I think the world has too many "bunker left, bunker right" greens, if I have an uphill shot situation, it would be the one place where I placed matching "bunker left, bunker right" to mark the line.  I also tended to just make the green round, with no tucked pins, and if I could get a punch bowl effect, so much the better, and that was typically not hard to do on an uphill hole.  If not, then I made sure the green surrounds, other than the wing bunkers, were fairly simple, often fw height, just to help golfers find their ball that they could follow from the fw.


I have also designed alternate routes where one is blind and the other allows you to see your shot (typically on second shots on part 5s)  I reason that if you can play where you can "stay within your headlights" then an optional blind shot is fine, a la the Alps hole at NGLA.


And, as Tom notes, the key to great architecture is to know when to break the rules and get away with it.  Or as my mentor used to say, you should break the rules a few times for each design, but if you did it on every hole, you would just get goofy golf, not interest.  In listening to golfers over the years,  I came to the conclusion that a few quirky holes gave the course a sense of place (if nature driven) but only a few are "allowed" until the golfers start complaining.


TD,


I didn't say your drain basins didn't work at PD. I just said they never worked for me, at least long term.  And my view was to not build something that would become a maintenance problem over time.  I guess we each have our own version of balancing practicality and art, which as you say, could change from site to site.  The number of times I got to work on a sandy site can be counted on the fingers from one hand, so that certainly influences my opinion.

[Kyle Harris]

Time is a maintenance problem.

And for some of us, job security.

[Tom_Doak]

And, as Tom notes, the key to great architecture is to know when to break the rules and get away with it.  Or as my mentor used to say, you should break the rules a few times for each design, but if you did it on every hole, you would just get goofy golf, not interest.  In listening to golfers over the years,  I came to the conclusion that a few quirky holes gave the course a sense of place (if nature driven) but only a few are "allowed" until the golfers start complaining.

That's funny because that's exactly what I am doing, but I don't have the sense that many other architects today are doing it . . . or else their rules are much more strict than mine.

[Tim Martin]

Great stuff! How about blindness? I know architects tend to avoid it, are there good examples that should be talked about more? I know the topic has been covered, my apologies.

Charlie-I don’t know at what point the ethos changed on blind shots but they were used pretty regularly by the Golden Age designers as there are plenty of revered holes from that era with the feature. Tom Doak cited eight examples from Royal County Down and noted it’s routinely considered one of the greatest courses on the planet. Yale is another where it’s used pretty liberally to great acclaim. Modern construction techniques allow vast amounts of dirt to be moved which was not the case in the Golden Age. For those that embrace “quirk” I think the variety of Alps hole renditions prove to be a suitable example that are compelling/fun to play.

[Charlie Goerges]

Great stuff! How about blindness? I know architects tend to avoid it, are there good examples that should be talked about more? I know the topic has been covered, my apologies.

Charlie-I don’t know at what point the ethos changed on blind shots but they were used pretty regularly by the Golden Age designers as there are plenty of revered holes from that era with the feature. Tom Doak cited eight examples from Royal County Down and noted it’s routinely considered one of the greatest courses on the planet. Yale is another where it’s used pretty liberally to great acclaim. Modern construction techniques allow vast amounts of dirt to be moved which was not the case in the Golden Age. For those that embrace “quirk” I think the variety of Alps hole renditions prove to be a suitable example that are compelling/fun to play.

I don't know when it changed or if it has changed. Mackenzie was critical of blind shots in writing and I'm sure others were too. The equipment for construction now does allow making larger changes than back then. I wonder if the designers of RCD or Yale would have eliminated some/all of those blind shots if they'd had the chance?


Nonetheless, here we're talking about exceptions to the rules. What are some more of yours?

[Jeff_Brauer]

IIRC, most of the golden age books show the designers then were also against blind shots, although some noted that blind tee shots were more acceptable (if they couldn't route their way out of it) than approach shots.


My opinion has always been that blind shots weren't favored by the GA guys, but they did have to accept it more often because earth moving was more expensive (relatively) than today.


It's sort of like the fascination (and myth?) here with centerline bunkers, which some say were common.  I've looked at a lot of old plans and none of the famous guys seem to have used centerline bunkers, at least not often.  Or, they used them the way I think of them - to split double fairway holes, with each side having enough width to contain shots.

[Charlie Goerges]

I have also designed alternate routes where one is blind and the other allows you to see your shot (typically on second shots on part 5s)  I reason that if you can play where you can "stay within your headlights" then an optional blind shot is fine, a la the Alps hole at NGLA.

I like that idea of using blindness on the second shots of par 5s. I find those to typically be the least interesting shots.




Separately, I don't subscribe to the adage that "It's only blind once". It's always blind, but you just get ever more comfortable with it without ever reaching the total comfort you get from full visibility.

[Don Mahaffey]

Re drain basins.
I feel like the nomenclature gets a little skewed with this topic. The way I view it:
1) A “basin” is a shape in the ground.
2) a drainage grate is a surface drainage component, part of a drainage system.


Drain basins, the concave shape with a drain grate in the low, is really what I find most unattractive.  When a course is drained with a series of bird baths, it is unnatural looking and unattractive to me. Ironically, one solution to that look when you have $ to install drainage, but don’t have the budget to sculpt an entire site, is to put in MORE surface components but a lot smaller irregular basins or swales.


I just played 2 world top 100 courses. Courses I would guess most seasoned golfers interested in architecture would not come away from thinking there were a lot of drainage basins.  But there were 100s of small surface components. They were cleverly shaped and the surface components were small and were not edged so grass blades camouflaged them. But they were there, everywhere. And the courses were firm fast and fun. 


I don’t like these hard fast rules like no water can drain into a bunker, or no drainage components in short grass.  Creative designers and builders can break the rules and make it work.

[Tom_Doak]

It's right to say that the Golden Age designers tended to steer away from blind shots because they aren't optimal in terms of the strategy they were trying to introduce into the game.  However, the main way to avoid a blind shot is through routing, not through earthmoving.  Maybe you can stick a tee further back by moving a little dirt, but it's not like you move the big obstacle out of the way, you figure out how to work around it.


I would agree with Jeff also about the relative scarcity of centerline bunkers.  The most famous of them are on The Old Course [no design credit] and the 4th at Woking, where the bunkers were placed by two amateurs, Stuart Paton and John Low.  At the start of my career I was determined to build a centerline bunker on every course, but I only got as far as Stonewall, where I didn't think one would look good in a parkland setting.  By then, I'd realized I wanted all of my courses to be different, not to be the same.  But I did just scrape in the start of a centerline bunker yesterday, at High Pointe . . . on my new second hole . . . as an ode to the original second hole where I'd built one back in the day.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Don,


Good points.  I recall seeing the TPC early after construction.  It appeared that in many areas, the plan was to place 4, 20 feet sticks of pipe, and then a catch basin. It was all too regular, but Dye and almost everyone else got the hang of different spacing, dividing ridges at varying angles, etc.


The "no basins in the short grass" is a more complicated decision than many realize.  In discussing them with the supers who would inherit the course, some wanted them in the short grass for better drainage, some wanted them in the rough where any ponding would be less critical, and a few opted to put then right on the edge of the fw, i.e., get drainage into them faster, while they are somewhat hidden in the rough, but to my eye, those always looked the most artifical of all.


Ditto with your comments on the collection basin surrounding the drain inlet.  They are not easy in all cases to get right.  Supers and construction guys always told me that if you are running a few acres of water to a low, it is a shame to slow it down right at the basin with flattish ground just for looks.  Given how soggy the area around a drain inlet typically gets (even with the "magic bullet" of a 4" pipe wrapped around it ) it is best to steepen the slope the last few feet into the inlet.  Again, some shapers just can't do that artistically and some overdo it, losing the good feel of the fw.

[Matt Schoolfield]

Separately, I don't subscribe to the adage that "It's only blind once". It's always blind, but you just get ever more comfortable with it without ever reaching the total comfort you get from full visibility.

I completely agree. I play Sharp Park pretty regularly, and #15 is a par 3 that is only sometimes blind. Reeds on the former lagoon grow up about 10 feet. They are allowed to grow and occasionally get mowed back, so you can't really see anything about 1/3 of the time. On days when I can see the green, I'll hit it almost every time (it's not a hard shot). Last time I played, it was blind, I hit a perfect iron and came up 10 yards short of the green. It's just wild how much information we have from being able to see where the target is. A blind approach requiring players to remember the distance and how to hit the shot is one way to combat growing reliance on tech.