[Matt_Ward]

George --

Hold on Mr. Pittsburgh -- I never rejected randomness every time it happens. I just don't believe in it being overemphasized. There's a big time different between the two things IMHO.

The base of ANY game is some sort of consistency -- the notion that if you as a player do "X" you will get "Y" outcome. I never said -- once again for those who miss it -- that luck or randomness has no place in the game. Clearly, in any round, the player will have to adjust for situations that go beyond what execution alone can provide. The issue is one of proportion and balance.  

The R&A simply bastardized a few set-ups for recent BO's. This notion of making the fairway sooooooooooooo narrow only means inevitably the "bounce" of the ball will determine such a prestigious event. I mean why have any fairway at
all -- let's just grow hay and see who "lucks" it out with the best lies from the hayfields.

I salute Curtis for the win and in beating the top world players that day on the leaderboard. But, George -- common -- wake up and smell the coffee OK -- the set-up made it a POINT to overinflate the aspect of luck / randomness beyond what I at least consider to be appropriate.

Dan K:

I do concede the names you mentioned for Sawgrass winners is impressive -- but I still state that Sawgrass as a TPC site was more about being able to survive a poorly created site where wind and fronting bunkers simply precluded anything more than an aerial game.

[George Pazin]

Shivas -

That's an interesting theory, but I think it falters somewhat in that the magnitude of breaks can be so different that it's unlikely they'll necessarily cancel each other out.

[George Pazin]

Hold on Mr. Pittsburgh -- I never rejected randomness every time it happens. I just don't believe in it being overemphasized. There's a big time different between the two things IMHO.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. What I'm saying is that each time you cast aspersions on winners like Curtis, you are showing that deep down you don't really believe in rub of the green and that you are rejecting each instance of randomness, in spite of protests to the contrary.

By attempting to not lessen but rather eliminate randomness, the game suffers, IMO. I think that's the heart of this disagreement.

[THuckaby2]

George:

These last few posts are absolutely Huckabian in the attempts at consensus and overall nice-guy attitude.  Of course I concur wholeheartedly with every word you say.  

One nit, though:  just where are these courses where randomness is stamped out?  I sure don't see many.

Thus I find this much ado about nothing, but then again, that's how I take damn near every issue we talk about here.

TH

[Matt_Ward]

Shivas:

I just wish the people who keep "barking" on this thread would give me (you too) a break!

How's that for real randomness?

George P:

What aspersions? I saluted Mr. Curtis for his win -- I just understand that the set-up of some of these events (e.g. Carnoustie and St. George's) was mindboggling. Here you have two stellar courses and somehow the braintrust of the R&A decides it's best to interject man's hand. Wonderful.

George -- you must not be reading what I print -- here goes again for the upteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeenth time -- I never said to eliminate randomness but let's not forget what the core of the game is about. It's about skill -- as Shivas has written an equal number of times.

[George Pazin]

Huck -

You are too kind to many courses - but we already knew that. I see the desire to eliminate randomness in the overly smooth fairways on many modern courses. I see uniform bland bunkering. I'd rather see things that make the game more interesting.

By way of example, I think that Black Mesa was far more entertaining than Paa Ko, even though I really sucked at both, since I am in a real funk right now with my game. I thought Paa Ko was pretty bland - not the views, obviously, the golf. The views & the company were tremendous. I'm not entirely sure if the difference was due to any desire to lessen the random features at Paa Ko, but it certainly seemed more bland playing wise, with an emphasis on beauty of surroundings.

Matt -

I r-e-a-d your posts just fine, and c-o-m-p-r-e-h-e-n-d them as well. I just don't b-e-l-i-e-v-e you, for all the reasons I've stated and restated. Congratulating Curtis in one breath and damning the R&A in the next does not leave a very good impression, I'm afraid to say.

Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken. - Tyler Durden.

[Mike Hendren]

First, forgive me for not slogging through this entire thread.  My take:  "Unfair" extracts more than two shots for a poorly played or conceived shot and more than one shot for an indifferently played or conceived shot.  

As for the early post regarding the fairness of the 16th at North Berwick's West Links, I must totally disagree.  For all but the most accurate players, the play there is onto the front shelf of the green regardless of pin placement.  From there, all putts to the back shelf are straight as the break right into the valley is precisely offset by the break left out of the valley.  

Regards,

Mike

[DPL11]

DPL11:

I don't doubt that bunkers have become less of a factor because of the predictability issues but there's other ways to enhance their placement -- furrows are not one of them.

By the way you tap danced around my example -- do you believe it was appropriate for the USGA to "add" a tree to a US Open course after the players had arrived at the site? In my mind that's another over-the-top element that really was unnecessary and showed how foolish the USGA was.
 

Matt,

I am not that familiar with the Hinkle tree. I must be much younger than you.  

Doug

[THuckaby2]

George:

Aye, well there's the rub.  I preferred BM to Paa-Ko, but I sure as hell wasn't bored at the latter, nor do I think I ever would be.  The views coupled with quite a few damn challenging shots would be enough to keep me interested long-term without a doubt and no way would I ever call it bland.

In any case, I guess interest is in the eye of the beholder in all this.  It just seems to me that the people on each side of this seem to go out of their way to LOOK for the negatives they perceive... Me, I tend to look for positives.  I saw a hell of a lot of them at Paa-Ko.  But you're right, I see them on every course.  Dave M. and I have covered this fundamental difference many times before (so Dave, go easy on me if and when you respond to this - as I say, I have no dog in this hunt).  

So sure, I don't doubt that what you are seeing exists... I just figure that even if that exists on a course, well there are damn near always other things that are "positives", if that's what you are looking for.  If you don't want to find them, then they won't be found.

Perhaps that is why I don't see courses where randomness is stamped out... I don't go looking for it's lack, if that makes any sense.  I just figure it can and does happen anywhere... I have yet to see a golf course where every shot is rewarded or punished with perfection, nor have I seen one with absolute randomness... and I hope I do never see either... hey I dig randomness too but 100% would get old after awhile just as much as 100% perfect "fairness" would too.

TH

[TEPaul]

Matt Ward said:

"TEPaul:
To be quite direct -- you are out in the deep left field seats if you thought the original 7th hole at Stone Harbor was indeed a fair hole."

Matt:

Alright then I'm going to be quite direct with you too. I know exactly where you're coming from on an issue like this--eg fairness or unfairness in golf, and personally I think it's really sort of sad. At the same time I truly admit a golfer with your outlook about the game and architecture and this issue of fairness or unfairness has a ton of company today and to me that's even sadder.

A hole and a course like Stone Harbor, and particularly that old #7 hole before it was redesigned, I'll reiterate, was, in my opinion, one of the slimest margin for error holes I've ever seen!

The architecture of the whole course was radical as could be and the look, style, playablility was at the outer edge of the spectrum but you know what, I liked the course just because it was all those things. I like difference in architecture, particularly if it really is different, not just some formulaic, standardized expectation because I think difference adds tremendously to the mosaic of the whole art of archtiecture. But UNFAIR? Not to me it wasn't because I just don't look at fairness or unfairness in golf or in architecture even remotely the way you do apparently.  

The only time I'd call something unfair in golf and architecture is some example like that putt I described over a year ago at Pebble Beach in a tournament when NO ONE could get the ball to stop anywhere near the hole. That wasn't chance, luck, randomness or anything of the kind----that was an out and out "NO CAN DO" situation for EVERYONE, all levels of players, in other words (and it also created about a 7 hour round!). That I would call unfair because no one could do it!

But the 7th hole at Stone Harbor, even originally? That could definitely be done from 190 even with wind because I did it a bunch of times with plenty of others even though all of us also experienced the times we didn't do it!

So that's not unfair to me because my definition of what's fair or unfair in golf obviously is nothing like your definition. Again, the old 7th hole at Stone Harbor was simply a super slim margin for error hole with an extraordinary high level of intensity. Even some dumb-ass golfer who knew nothing could look out at that hole across the water and tell that. It was super intense but not UNFAIR to me.

But to a golfer like you it is unfair because you look at fairness and unfairness differently than I do. To you, if you hit a shot you think is perfect and some random occurrence like  a bad bounce or bad luck happens you obviously think first to blame the architect, blame the course, blame anything at all except what it really is---just bad luck, chance, a random unfortunate occurrence.

Max Behr's point about this type of thing in his comparison of golf a "sport" vs golf a "game" is just this very thing, that the "game mind" of man, just like you, wants to remove this type of chance and random unfortunate occurrence from golf so that it rarely if ever happens and as a consequence the physical skill of the player can be almost completely isolated so as to highlight physical skill totally as to what the game should be. This is precisely why, to use his tennis analogy as a game that the field of play in tennis should be completely standardized--eg so as to remove chance from the recreation and to isolate and highlight physical skill alone. Behr sees nothing wrong with that in tennis, mind you (he was an excellent tennis player), just that this was never the way golf was meant to be.

And his further point was that those who wish to minimize luck, chance and randomness in golf and its architecture are simply driving golf closer to what a game is and what a sport is not.

A so-called "sportsman" Matt, in Behr's terminology, would look at an unfortunate bounce on something like the 7th hole at Stone Harbor as just that---bad luck, bad chance, a random occurrence that was unfortunate and just go on with no thought to removing such an occurrence from golf somehow.

Others such as Behr concluded that the "game mind" golfer who blamed these occurrences on the architecture, the architect, golf, whatever, anything other than merely chance were basically approaching golf selfishly with an inflated sense of self that it was not acceptable that natural and random occurrences should happen to them. That they thought they had some right somehow to both control and dominate Nature itself!

I know the type well, frankly, as in my years of tournament golf I faced a good many golfers who certainly had more talent, more skill, more ability than I did but I could manage to beat them sometimes simply because I could understand this particular aspect they did not understand or chose to ignore or argue with and could not handle the same way I did.

Furthermore, I think it's ridiculous that some of you are trying to discuss all these various examples of what's fair, what's not, how a good player may have some advantage over a lesser player in this area etc. That's fruitless, in my opinion, because, again, the randomness of nature (chance, luck, unpredicatable occurrences) which is and should remain a significant element in golf and its architecture does not make these distinctions in the slightest.

Over time everyone has approximately the same opportunities to experience good luck and bad luck. The ones who label what they preceive to be bad luck as an "unfairness" to them, though, will never be able to handle it as well as those that accept it as just the fates of chance---like the golf sportsman!

When you mentioned that par 3 hole at Lahinch, I believe it was, was not very good architecture because you hit what you thought was the perfect 9 iron at a left pin and the ball hung in the rough from which you made a bogie showed me how you look at this issue and of what mind you are--a "game mind", not a "sportsman's mind".

Not that there's anything inherently wrong with the way you look at it other than it's sad to me to see golf and architecture have to go this way. However, I do believe in the philosophy that;

"Golf and its architecture is a great big thing and there's room in it for everyone."

But personally, I completely disagree with how you look at this issue and I do understand that you disagree with me on it. And again, you do have a lot of company today which I think is unfortunate. And I'd also say that if all golf and architecture was the way you seem to believe it should be, I for one, would not be half so interested in the subject.

But again to hear you say to me;

"To be quite direct -- you are out in the deep left field seats....",

really just makes me laugh. I very rarely say this on here Matt, but in your case I should. On some of the deeper issues on the essence of golf and its architecture I just don't think you get it, despite all the golf courses you play and talk about. To me that's a shame--sort of a waste really.

Are you completely sure that tennis might not be more interesting to you? At least it was always supposed to be a game that attempted to isolate and highlight skill alone!  

[TEPaul]

"I think this is where I point out that nobody ever said golf is supposed to be fair."

Shiv;

Thank you very much--that's all I need to hear. I think that's a very fine thing to say because I can pretty much assure you that there's absolutely nothing about a standardized tennis court that's supposed to be anything other than completely fair!  

"TEP:  I dont' think Matt really believes that any time he hits what he thinks is a well-struck shot that he is entitled to a positive result.  He's said a dozen times at least that he accepts rub of the green."

Shiv:

I guess I'm glad to hear that about Matt too because some of the things he sometimes says about architecture leads me to believe otherwise, despite what he may have said to the contrary a dozen times.

But if it is just "rub of the green" that Matt Ward has said a dozen times he's willing to accept that's completely meaningless in this discussion about luck, chance and the randomness of golf's architecture. "Rub of the green" basically refers to what happens when a golf ball is accidentally stopped or deflected by any outside agency which generally refers to things such as referees, markers, forecaddies, observers and things not part of a competitors side. Golfers generally and the Rules of Golf doesn't exactly contemplate the bounce of the ball, good or bad across golf course architecture to be "rub of the green".

But it wouldn't surprise me if Matt thought that!    

[CHrisB]

Re: the British Open setups:

Doesn't anybody concur with me that (at least in theory) the pervasiveness of random results that occurs in the British Open would tend to de-emphasize the relative importance of luck in determining the winner?  By that I mean that if everyone is getting some sort of break (good or bad) on every shot, isn't that the statistical equivalent of flipping a coin 280 times?  

This would be as opposed to a US Open set up, where a player might get maybe 10 or 20 breaks (good or bad) during a 72 hole tournament, significantly increasing the statistical likelyhood that he would have a number of breaks significantly over or under the average number for the field as a whole.  

Matt: logically, doesn't this dispursion of breaks in the British Open argue strongly in favor of the theory that Ben Curtis (despite any preconceptions about his ability) must have displayed the greatest relative amount of skill during the tournament because the influence of "breaks" on his score relative to the rest of the field would be, statistically, nil?  

Shivas,
I wholeheartedly concur and I think that is the irony in the US Open setups: in trying to reduce luck and randomness in an effort to "identify the best player", they actually increase the impact of a lucky break when it happens. Many times the difference between a great shot and disaster is so small that a lucky break can be huge, and in order to remain standing at the end you have to play very well but get the breaks also.

[A_Clay_Man]

Who could ever forget the flat teeing ground?

[Matt_Ward]

TEPaul:

The company I keep regarding opinions on Stone Harbor's original 7th hole is something to keep in mind. Read Tom Doak's take on Stone Harbor / re: Confidential Guide -- he must be in the same seats as me -- you know the deep left kind.

Clearly, Tom you have an unassailable eye regarding golf architecture.

If the folks at the club thought sooooooooo much of the hole they would have kept it as is. Not to be as you know.

The hole was quite simply a laughable aside when playing -- you simply played a shot for the thrill of it but you never took the hole seriously.

Tom -- when you say "I don't get it" you really need to look in the mirror and ask it the other way around -- do you get it! For anyone to seriously argue the original par-3 7th hole at Stone Harbor was a finely designed hole is simply the height of something I cannot define. The margin of unplayability you highlighted in your example at Pebble Beach was no less an issue when playing the original 7th at SH. The introduction of luck and randomness has a place in golf -- I've conceded that enough times already please don't lecture me about my narrow sense of understanding golf and how to handle adverse situations when they arise.

The original 7th at Stone Harbor was simply nothing more than getting the numbers right on any lottery ticket -- pure luck. By the way save typing a retort we will simply disagree on this and just about every other topic as you well know. But, as you say Tom -- architecture has room for everyone -- including you and me.

[DMoriarty]

This is your position?:
. . .
That's it?

Well, I guess I've been reading 6 pages of nothing, then.  

Had you been reading carefully from the beginning you'd have figured this pages ago.

Have your forgotten your original premise:

Shivas, that isnt my premise and it never has been.  It was absurd exageration for emphasis.  I've told you this from the time you first brought it up.  It is parody.   If followed a quote of Matt and is followed by something like anything else would be unfair.  It is bush league for you to keep harping on this when you know exactly what I was doing.  

Dave, you sure you're willing to step out on the limb so much with that first one?

Shivas, my points are rarely beyond mundane, which makes it all the more fascinating that you and Matt have such a hard time understanding and agreeing with them.  Matt started this thing by trying to make a case that sometimes courses disadvantage better players, and that this was unfair.  He even tried (and failed) to give examples of such situations.  So Matt, your brother in arms, doesnt agree with what you find so obviously true.  

DaveM, your second point is an absolute crock.  "No golfer every gets the exact result they deserve"  

Your right shivas, that is going too far.  Sometimes golfers get what they deserve from within 2 feet.  But I will stick with golfers rarely get what they deserve from outside of 10 ft.  I am not saying that they never get the result they want, just that there are almost always factors beyond their control which help determine the outcome.  So when you stick your eight iron, you just got a little lucky.  Even if it was exactly what you were trying to do.  

The game is and always has been about skill, getting the ball to go where you want it to go.

I think this is where I point out that nobody ever said golf is supposed to be fair.  I think it's folly to equate fair and unfair, respectively, with rewarding good shots and penalizing bad shots because that presumes that one is entitled to a fair result in golf.  We have enough so-called entitlements in this country, without the entitlement of a reward for a shot well struck.

Whaaaaa?  Matt started this thread by stating that courses that do not consistently reward good shots and punish bad shots were UNFAIR[/i].  So, conversely, courses which reward good shots and punish bad shots are FAIR[/i].   Matt wants more FAIR courses, by his definitions.

TEP:  I dont' think Matt really believes that any time he hits what he thinks is a well-struck shot that he is entitled to a positive result.  He's said a dozen times at least that he accepts rub of the green.  This is really just a matter of degree.  I think Matt wants to play a course with one shot (at most) that is, as a practical matter, like dropping a ball into a Pachinko Machine.  

Look Shivas, Matt wants to minimize random elements.  So he may say he doesnt want to get rid of them all.  So what?  He also says there are plenty of courses that have too many random elements.  So yes it is a matter of degree, but Matt is much closer to one extreme than the other.

I think Matt wants to play a course with one shot (at most) that is, as a practical matter, like dropping a ball into a Pachinko Machine.  I think Dave M wants every shot to play like one to some extent.    

This is an absolute crock and you know it.  

So Shivas, let's get back to Architecture.  We've both seen NGLA, and so has matt.  Let's talk about the Redan.  Do golfers always get exactly what they deserve at the Redan?  Are there no random elements at work there?  Is it good architecture or bad architecture?  

[Matt_Ward]

David M:

Hold the phone -- I know you'd like to get a spot on the show "The Practice" with all your lawyerly skills and the like -- but I started this thread with a simple definition of fair and unfair.

Dave you said ... "Matt started this thing by trying to make a case that sometimes courses disadvantage better players, and that this was unfair."

EL WRONGO AMIGO .. Please read the original definition I posted to start this thread ...

"I personally believe courses / holes that don't have some sort of "consistent" identifier with rewarding / penalizing shots can be "unfair." I neither expect, nor can one hope for 100% consistency in doling out the same result time after time after time but when a hole / course routinely fails to provide some sort of "consistent benchmark" you have a situation where unfairness can be more the "rule" rather than the exception."

Help me with my English -- but where is the word "better player" inserted? Your the guy who inserted the "better player" aspect into the whole discussion. I have consistently stated that randomness and other elements that might be encountered when playing are certainly a part of golf -- I just favor less of them than you.

There are no situations in golf -- nor should there be -- where the word "always" can apply. However, it's important to me when playing a course that complete reliance on randomness / luck is not what lies at its core. Pure and simple.

Now -- fire another salvo with some edge of your seat splitting of hairs.  

[ed_getka]

David,
  I will be very interesting in Dave's response to the Redan question. When we played NGLA Dave hit what I thought was a PERFECT shot, a draw that was heading right to the kicker slope, that I fully expected to feed his shot right to the hole. Instead, Dave's great shot landed in a little depression and the ball just died there basically out to the right of the green. That was bad luck in my opinion.

[ed_getka]

Matt,
  Your ball will ALWAYS be scuffed after landing on a cart path.

[DMoriarty]

Speaking of splitting hairs . . . My statement was in response to Shivas stating that no one was really advocating fairness in golf.  Whether you used the phrase "better player" or not, you are advocating fairness in golf, and so is he.

Also, Matt, the concept of the "better player" being rewarded and the "worse player" being penalized is implicit in your definition.  After all, it is players hitting the "shots" that are being "rewarded/penalized."  Generally and over time, it is the "better player" is the one who hits the better shots and deserves to be rewarded, and the worse player who hits the worse shots and deserves to be punished.

Similar questions to you regarding NGLA's Redan.  (I'll leave out the "always" language so as not to go down that road to nowhere again):

Does the Redan consistently dole out the results the golfer deserves?  Is it fair?  Where would you put the Redan on your sliding scale of consistency?  Is the Redan good architecture?  

[George Pazin]

Aye, well there's the rub.  I preferred BM to Paa-Ko, but I sure as hell wasn't bored at the latter, nor do I think I ever would be.  The views coupled with quite a few damn challenging shots would be enough to keep me interested long-term without a doubt and no way would I ever call it bland.

In any case, I guess interest is in the eye of the beholder in all this.  It just seems to me that the people on each side of this seem to go out of their way to LOOK for the negatives they perceive... Me, I tend to look for positives.  I saw a hell of a lot of them at Paa-Ko.  But you're right, I see them on every course.  Dave M. and I have covered this fundamental difference many times before (so Dave, go easy on me if and when you respond to this - as I say, I have no dog in this hunt).  

Huck -

There's all kinds of boredom. When I say I found Paa Ko boring, I'm talking relative to BM. Trust me when I say my level of golf is so low that I couldn't find time on a driving range boring.

On this site we tend to slant things toward the examination of the extremes. Sure, one can go out to any course in the world, play it, and encounter some situation that provides for some fun. But wouldn't it be nice if this sort of thing was the rule rather than the exception?

My feeling with Paa Ko was that, with the exception of a few holes (and obviously the vistas), I could have been playing any number of courses. A little more interest would have gone a long way toward making it a course more on the level on BM. To me that's worth noting, not ignoring in favor of being a pie in the sky golfer. I'm a very optimistic person and generally pretty positive with most things in life, but I'm not going to let my general happiness mislead my opinion of a golf course. Put a slightly different way, if I find myself in New Mexico again, I'll seek out Black Mesa again, as well as seeking out Pinon to see how it differs from Paa Ko.

Actually, scratch that, I'll probably just drive over to Lubbock.

[TEPaul]

Matt Ward said;

"If the folks at the club thought sooooooooo much of the hole they would have kept it as is. Not to be as you know.
The hole was quite simply a laughable aside when playing -- you simply played a shot for the thrill of it but you never took the hole seriously."

Matt:

I've mentioned before on here that the original Stone Harbor was without question on the very outside edge of architectural radicalness or perhaps the course even pushed through the envelope of golf architecture and art. The 7th hole was without question the most significant example of that.

As such I think the course should have been left as Muirhead designed it including the 7th hole. The concept of missing the green by an inch and being in water as opposed to missing the green by about ten yards and being in a bunker and having to play back over water back to the green was certainly not lost on Muirhead and that definitely turned the idea of progressive penalty and golf architectural formulaics on its head!

I thought something like that was remarkable even if just for its radicalness and should have stayed as is. I certainly wouldn't recommend that the direction of golf architecture go the way of Stone Harbor's architecture and clearly it wasn't going to do that but again, the course was so different, so radical, so unique I thought it should have stayed as it was and I'd even recommend that it be restored exactly how it opened!  

As intense and penal as that hole was ultimately one should recognize the humor in it and preserve it as an example of the outside edge of radicalness.

But I wouldn't expect someone with your outlook on golf architecture to even remotely begin to understand that.

Actually the real reason the 7th hole was redesigned and the flanking bunkers were brought in against the green instead of being separated by water was to correct a drainage problem---that being there were so many golf balls in that water surrounding the green it was threatening to displace the water and make a golf ball island out of the whole thing!  

[THuckaby2]

George:

Well said.. but again, here's how we differ:  I find courses fun and interesting as the rule, rather than the exception.

But I do agree about a return trip to NM:  if I ever do such, Black Mesa would be first priority, then Pinon (just to see it), both before Paa-Ko.

TH

[Matt_Ward]

George P:

When you say, "My feeling with Paa Ko was that, with the exception of a few holes (and obviously the vistas), I could have been playing any number of courses."

What holes are the exception you are referring to?

I'd be most interested in your assessment specifically of the holes on the entire back nine. Keep in mind IMHO that all of the par-3's, with the clear exception of the 4th and it's absurdly long green (nearly 100 yards in depth with multi-levls like a Macy's department store), are quite good and challenging.

You also have to gauge tee shot placement and sometimes the driver is not the club to use in a number of instances.

I do agree with you that Black Mesa is a clear step beyond Paa-Ko but I also believe the layout is a tad better than you believe. I do agree that you need to play Pinon Hills because it will offer another Ken Dye layout to compare between the two.

TEPaul:

I always appreciate the "stiff upper lip I know better than you" approach you take regarding architecture. Please forgive me -- almighty one.

The original 7th at Stone Harbor was a fun hole for thrill purposes -- it was not designed with practical / sound architectural purposes. Where's our disagreement? Or is it just the usual "I just can't agree with Ward" approach since I certainly don't want to be viewed as following someone else's lead.

Dave M:

Like the approach where you take what someone said and then redress it ACCORDING TO YOUR understanding and then spin it further to mean something entirely else. That's a very good skill -- it just doesn't pertain to what I originally referenced. I'll give that a new name -- a Moriartism.

David, I never categorized players by "better" and "worse" -- YOU DID. I just included a simple definition -- it applies to all types of golfers. You narrowed it to begin your long winded treatise.

You simply forget to include the word "degree" in any statement you make. David -- you're so caught up in making a point you fail to understand the nature of "degrees" in the aspect of what constitues the spread between fair and unfair. Last I checked -- golf is a game of skill -- it is not devoid of the aspects you keep harping on (e.g. luck, randomness, etc, etc) but the aspect of the latter's involvement is really a contributing factor of a lesser sort -- it is not the crux of the game IMHO.

[ed_getka]

Dave,
   Good response regarding the Redan at NGLA. The result of your shot wasn't fair or unfair, it just was what it was. Randomness/bad luck. As you said the vast majority of time that shot would do exactly what you would expect. But I don't think thats an argument for not playing the ground game.

[Michael Whitaker]

I see a hole where if you hit a good shot, it will do what it's supposed to the vast majority of the time.  If not, as in my case, and you get a wierd kick (the exact equivalent of a bad bounce on a grass tennis court), then that's just tough beans.

Here I am, at the Holy Cathedral of The Ground Game, I hit the "perfect" shot, and I get f*cked!  If that can happen at NGLA, it can happen anywhere.

I think it is a given player's expectation of what a shot is supposed to do that is at the heart of this difference of opinion. We've all struck "perfect" shots like Shivas and not gotten the result we expected. But, not everyone has Shivas' attitude about such bad luck to chalk it up to "tough beans." We've all played with someone who considers himself so skilled that when the result he expects from a shot does not happen he blames it on the course... either the design, the set up, or the condition.

These are usually the players who prefer courses that are "fair" and pan courses or holes that don't provide the options or results they expect from their "perfectly" struck shots. In other words, the course must be "unfair" because they are so skillful and they know better than the average golfer how a shot should react. If you disagree with them then you are just a less knowledgeable player who would see the wisdom of their opinions if you only had more game. The problem is that often comes across as arrogance (which I guess it is).

To quote Alister MacKenzie again, "...first class players only too frequently [are] subconsciously influenced by their own particular type of play and only too prone to disregard that of others."

How true that statement is!

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