The Art of Psychological Warfare

[Mark Brown]

Speaking of Dye, how about a discussion of the many means of playing with the golfer's fragile psyche.

1.Six foot pins have been mentioned
2.Making holes look more diffcult than they are - or intimidation
3.Depth perception - one would be the deception of fairway bunkers being placed 20 or 30 yards short of the green by Ross, Mackenzie...

What else ? I'm tired of talking to myself but there's many more.

[Tom Dunne]

4. (or 2a, depending on how you look at it) Visual clutter. Out of the gazillion bunkers at Whistling Straits, how many truly come into play? But it must be really hard to tune out all that white noise.

[T_MacWood]

Depth perception was a very effective weapon, not only the deceptive greenside bunker that is actually twenty yards in front of the green, but also the dip or valley in front of the green, which makes judging distance difficult. Both, unfortunately, have been affected by the universal use yardage marks on sprinklers.

[ForkaB]

I think that caddies predated etchings on sprinkler heads, vis a vis giving the player a precise knowledge of distance.  My understanding is that they had caddies, even in Ross and MacKenzie's day.........

Also, having and actually believing the distance are two very importantly different things.

[Brent Hutto]

Yesterday I had what for me is a routine shot on my home course. I had laid up short of a Par 4 green after hitting my tee shot into the trees. The distance was 64 yards to the center of the green and 79 yards to the hole, which was cut on a little shelf on the very back left corner of the green.

Now I had paced off the distance from a yardage marker that I know is accurate. I've played this hole 100+ times and have hit a partial wedge third shot probably 50 of those times. I absolutely know how far I had to hit the ball to get it back to that shelf. But there's always something about the contour of that green [1] that makes hole locations on the back portion look closer than they are.

I took a couple of practice swings, nice big swings to get the ball back there almost 80 yards. Then I stepped up to the ball and totally chickened out as I started the downswing. Right at impact I gave the club a nice little flip with my hands and sent it sky high, landing on the front of the green 70 feet from the hole.

Why is it so damnably hard to do what your brain knows you have to do when your eye is telling you something different? I swear next time I have that shot I'm going to close my eyes instead of taking a look at the hole right before I start the swing.

[1] Edit: The thing about the green is that the front part of the green slopes up and then there's a ridge or fold across the middle that obscures a little bit of the green before sloping up some more to the back. That few feet of visually missing green has a disproportionate effect on my distance judgement.

[TEPaul]

This general subject is the single biggest and most potentially effective area in which golf architecture and golf can move to a new level of interest in the future, in my opinion!

This is an area that has fascinated me in the last few years in its possiblities. In a broad sense we're probably talking about a myriad of architectural applications that might be generally labelled "visuals".

In a fundmental sense I believe that architecture in the last century moved too much in the direction of the "art principle" of "Emphasis" The other "art principles" applied to golf architecture were Harmony, Proportion, Balance and Rhythm.

I have no problem with those latter four as they all seem to be vaguely the look or work of Nature as man may've simply "found" golf holes (in the original pre-architecture linksland. Those early wholly natural courses were essentitally an early attempt by man to play the game of golf across a wholly natural landscape in what might be referred to as the "path of least resistance"!).

But "Emphasis" as an "art principle" is generally considered to be an attempt to lead the eye to the most important point, and after that to other details!

The only problem with that, in my opinion, is golf architecture got into an "Emphasis" application of not just  leading the eye to the most important point but that point (the "most important point") too often became the place that a golfer should go! Ultimately, this results in pyschologically leading the golfer around a course in an obvious way, or what many of us call "shot dictation".

Why did architecture get into that obvious "emphasis"=leading a golfer around by shot dictation? Probably simply as a attempt to merely examine physical "skill"----and in the process requiring the golfer to use real intelligence and imagination of choice became sort of lost or forgotten.

But reevaluating "visuals"---"Emphasis"---leading the eye---to areas that are not necessarily the only or the best way to go although they may look like the most important is the real architectural opportunity of the future of golf architecture in my opinion.

Would it be "pyschological warfare" in a visual sense? Absolutely it would---visuals and psychology would be the essence of it all.

There're so many different things we could think of to do this but probably the majority of them in one way or another would involve some form of the vertical dimension (height).

[TEPaul]

I think another possible use of the "Art of Psychological Warfare" (the subject of this thread) could be the visual re-application (psychologically) of that old and primary expression of the architect to create strategy---the bunker!

To do that though would probably take some reordering of perceptions of what should be and what shouldn't be in golf architecture. One of those is the prevalent perception on this site of the idea of the bunker being "eye candy". I take this site's definition of that to be a bunker that really doesn't come into play.

So what? If you looked across a wholly natural linksland landscape would every natural sand dune, bunker, etc come into play? Of course not, since Nature never understood what a golfer or golf architect thought the arrangement should be.

Actually some architects such as C&C and Doak and Hanse seem to be getting into some of this these days---basically tying whole sites together with bunkering here and there and everywhere as it is in Nature's own arrangement. The trick to this new application, in my opinion, would be to make those bunkers visually appear to be in play although the may not be---or even the reverse of that, to make them look like they weren't in play although they would be.

Visual deception=the art of pyschologial Warfare, but in a good way for golf! It simply makes the gofer think a lot more than he's become used to doing.

[TEPaul]

Rich:

Interesting what you said there about caddies and actual distance. The caddies of PVGC are the only ones I've ever seen who regularly tell the player what distance the shot "plays like", and sometimes that might be all they tell the player. If a player who doesn't know the place or the caddies happens to ask them what the actual distance is he might become pretty confused or actually freaked out---as it might be quite different from what distance the shot "plays like". I've always found the approach to the 2nd green is the mother of all variations that way. One who doesn't know that hole had better listen to what his caddie says the approach "plays like" or he's bound to hit a good shot and have it come to no good!

And that is the basis of that great "Rocky story". While caddying for two Japanese gentleman at PV, one big and strong and the other small and weak, Rocky, rather than telling the player what distance the shot "played like" simply handed the player a 5 iron (as what the shot "played like"). The Japanese gentleman flew the ball about 30 yards over the green and looked at Rocky's and his decision accusingly!

Rocky simply said;

"Whoops, right club, wrong Jap!"

[A_Clay_Man]

There are some interesting visual deception possibilities in mountainous regions. What's interesting, is some of them come from features that are not integral to the golf course. i.e. A steeped ravines along side or beyond the field of play

It might just be the scale of the whole thing, that causes most of the deception, or fools with, the minds eye. But whatever it is, the entire subject could be the foundation for abhorring the constant containment, long,  that many a modern course designs-in, for pace considerations.

Having any elevation change short of the green, or within the field, and within the line of play, is a different form of illusion.

So, I guess it is unfair to only gauge a courses soul, by it's features found only within the O.B. stakes.

[Bill Gayne]

I think the majority of golfers are like the guy that shows up at a gun fight with a knife as his only weapon. If it's "warfare" the architect has many weapons but should use them with great discretion. Many players won't recognize the psychological ploys and even fewer have the golfing ability to react. Over use of these weapons leads to frustration and complaints that the course is over the top and "tricked up."

[T_MacWood]

Rich
I was a caddy through grade school and into junior high, and none of us gave yardages, nor did we even know the  yardage. I don't recall ever being asked or anyone in my group being asked...and that includes a couple of NCAA tournaments. My guess is most caddies in the good old days were of that type , except for a  few elite clubs with their grizzelled vets (sadly caddies are an endangered species now-a-days).

Adam
That's a good one. The most confusing deception I've ever run into was on the greens at The Broadmoor playing in a thick fog. Everything breaks away from mountains and we couldn't see the mountains. Putts that looked like they should break a foot one direction, broke up hill the opposite direction two feet.

I had a similar experience at Westbrook CC which is built upon a steep hillside in Mansfield...everything breaks toward the low point of the property and a nearby river. They both happen to be Donald Ross courses.

[ForkaB]

Tom MacW

When I was a wee caddie with attitude, all I cared about was making sure I got some sort of tip.  Nobody asked me for or cared about yardage.

These days, when I caddy (exclusively for friends), I may know the yardage, but nobody asks me.  It's more of a "I'm thinking of 6?", "You got it, Pro!" sort of relationship.

However, certainly for at least the last 30 years or so, most god caddies will know yardages, and often be asked for them.  The fact that to 99% of all golfers this fact is irelevant bothers them not, nor should it.

[Doug Siebert]

I think that caddies predated etchings on sprinkler heads, vis a vis giving the player a precise knowledge of distance.  My understanding is that they had caddies, even in Ross and MacKenzie's day.........

Also, having and actually believing the distance are two very importantly different things.

I've always been really annoyed by all the "traditionalists" who claim that yardage markers on sprinkler heads, strokesaver yardage books, GPS on carts, etc. are somehow bad for architecture because golfers know the correct distance.  I've always believed as you do, that caddies provided that information, or at least were capable of doing so -- I'm not sure if any caddies in Ross' day knew you were 158 yards or even close enough to say "about 160" or not.  But certainly nothing stopped them from measuring distances from various landmarks quite exactly and writing them down in a book for those golfers who cared.  In a windy place with lots of ground game like TOC in the hickory days, maybe knowing 158 yards didn't matter much, but I'm sure it did on some courses, or some more analytical golfers could have insisted on knowing and their favorite caddie would comply even if he laughed at the guy in the pub after the round with the other caddies.

I agree though with your point that having and believing are two different things.  And the relative permanence of sprinkler head and published yardage book yardages means any mistakes are long lived.  My home course rebuilt part of the 18th fairway five or six years ago, and the first few months after the course opened I hit three shots at a back left pin that flew long, kicked off the slope, and went OB.  The next time I played after that experience I was intending to step off the 150 yard marker, but started walking from the 200 yard marker.  I counted 57 steps from there to the 150, and 43 from the 150 to the 100.  Oops!  I've seen errors of a similar magnitude at other local courses, though the ones that cause one to come up short by 7 or 8 yards can got unnoticed for years because there are many reasons why that might happen.  I guess going long and bouncing OB several times within a couple months a sort of "in your face" wakeup that makes one want to discover just what the heck is going on!  I even found a wrong distance (luckily before I played my shot) at St. Andrews New, I believe to the left of the 10th fairway where one distance in the strokesaver near my ball looked out of kilter from the rest and based on how far it was off I'll bet they accidentally lasered the hill behind the green on that one instead of the laser target that was being held up in the "exact" center of the green (another source for error I'll not get into)

So does this leave an architect room to deceive and confuse the player?  Hell yes it does!  I won't buy an illusion that makes the green look 50 yards closer, but if its a bit more subtle I might start to doubt the yardage total I'm working from since I know it might be wrong.  Even if the yardage is correct it might drive me crazy and make me step it off a few times, and if the terrain doesn't allow that I'll just always be a bit indecisive on that hole.  I really don't see how the situation is materially different than it was in the Golden Age.  When most players played by eye they might buy a 50 yard deception, but their games were not constructed to require such exact distances as our fly it high and stick it game does today.  And when playing the ground game, either out of necessity or strategy, distances still don't mean a whole lot today.  I might want to know if I'm 190 if I'm trying to hit some low punch into a gale, but it isn't like I'm trying to look at the terrain and fly it exactly 145 and have it roll 45 yards, I'm pretty much playing it by feel.  The distance is just an input into the thought process that controls how hard I hit it, but if my brain was more accustomed to estimating distances, it wouldn't really be necessary for that type of shot since there's plenty of randomness inherent in such a play so having the distance off by +/- 10 yards isn't a big deal.

[Kyle Harris]

Caddies now-a-days give yardages and consult on putts pretty regularly.

I got to the point where I could read the putt from 150 yards out in the fairway  

[TEPaul]

"It's more of a "I'm thinking of 6?", "You got it, Pro!" sort of relationship."

Rich:

Coming from you any player you're caddying for should just use the line that Sundance used on Butch:

"Just keeping thinking, Butch, that's what you're good at!"

(Now hand me my 5 iron would you please! ).

[TEPaul]

Speaking of psychological warfare in architecture it occurs to me that for good players, at least, one of the more psychological courses I've seen in a long time, at least a number of holes, was Ganton, where they played the last Walker Cup! Even after practicing extensively on the course before the competition it was obvious there were a few holes where the players were clearly undecided on the tees as to what to do or what to hit. To me when that happens holes like that are proving they're "psychological" somehow. Probably the best example of that was the highly strategic little 14th!!

[Tom_Doak]

Mark:

See The Anatomy of a Golf Course, chapter 4, I think.

The quote at the front of it is one of my favorites.  It was directly from Pete Dye in an off-guard moment while we were working on the plans for the Stadium Course at PGA West ... I doubt he really wanted to be quoted, but it was just too good to pass up:

"If you get those dudes thinking, they're in trouble."

[Sean_A]

I have always been fond of false front greens.  #3 at The University of Michigan course is still one of my favorites of this type (or of any type for that matter).

Doug, your words about yardage distances etc reminded me of a bad scene.  About 9 years ago I was part of a four ball at TOC in 30-40 mile winds.  We happened to be following a two ball from the The States as it turned out.  This two ball had a habit of consulting their yardage book for every shot. Finally, on the 8th and about two hours and ten minutes after striking our first shots, my mate, Senior Potts suggested to this two ball that our group should go through.  The suggestion Potts offered was in poor taste, but highly effective.  

Sometimes, golfers can have too much information.  

Ciao

Sean

[Mark Brown]

Tom,

Please see my post in the thread "What did it for you?