Golf Club Atlas
GolfClubAtlas.com => Golf Course Architecture Discussion Group => Topic started by: Tom Doak on August 27, 2002, 04:30:26 PM
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Mike Hendren asked this on the Oakland Hills thread, but it was lost in the discussion of consulting architects.
For the Tour pros today, I believe strategy is indeed very close to obsolete. For a par-4 or par-5 hole to be really strategic, there has to be a REWARD for proper positioning, and not just a penalty for errant driving.
But it's very difficult to make one angle of attack easier than another, if the greens are soft and flattish (so they can be 12 on the Stimpmeter), and the boys are hitting nothing but nine-irons into them. A Tour pro can stick a nine-iron inside a 15-foot circle most of the time, and you do have to cut the hole on the green.
The only time there's any strategy left is when the conditions get so firm and fast that the players can't stick it where they want, or when there is so much wind that the players can't hit their short irons with precision.
I used to think there was also strategy on any course with severe greens where you can't afford to be above the hole, but if Augusta National and Oakland Hills are "too easy" now, I guess that's out the window.
I'm not really designing courses for that 1% of players, so I'll keep doing what I'm doing and pray for wind, I guess. But is this what it's come to?
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Agreed. For the Tour pros, there's very little strategy. It's all club selection, reading putts, and execution.
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I was thinking about this the other day after I played Talking Stick (North). I think there are very few people that would argue that the course isn't strategic (preferred approach angles, etc.). However, the day we played it, the course was not firm and fast and much of the strategy was lost. You could hit it to the wrong side of the fairway and still hold the green. Had the course been playing hard and fast, it would have been a different story.
Since the US Pros usually only play in England/Scotland once a year (where it is usually hard and fast), strategy is probably obsolete for them.
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Tom;
I really think we're talking about more like .01% percent, but there is no question that technology is the main culprit, and sooner or later left unchecked, that number will rise precipitously and calamitously over time.
However, course conditioning is almost as big a factor, as you alluded to with your mention of soft, flattish greens. I'd also throw in the fact that bunkers are rarely maintained as hazards at that level of play, and are most often much more of a preferable location than surrounding rough!
When you consider that bunkers have historically been the primary features that architects have used to outline and dictate strategy, the overall negative impact of this change is HUGE.
Somewhat sadly, Pete Dye has it mostly right for golfer's at that level, when he uses water as a hazard so frequently in response. Because of the certainty of that penalty, it's mostly the risk/reward "water holes" that have tour players "thinking" these days. Just examine the play at the last hole in the PGA at Atlanta last year, or what we still see on the back nine at the Masters most years.
If bunkers were maintained in a rugged, natural fashion, where there was just as much chance of taking a double bogey as saving par for the best players, we'd quickly see the pendulum swinging towards more strategic thinking. Ain't gonna happen, but it's part of the answer.
I'm sure others will weigh in with "firm and fast" answers relating to maintenance, as well, so I'll leave that argument to them. :)
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Tom, I agree that given the current status of golf course design, maintenance practices and golf equipment, it is very difficult to see professional golf as anything more than a skills competition; the role of strategy has been greatly reduced at the tour-pro level.
I certainly don't see any easy answers to the issue of re-vitalizing the element of strategy. If it is deemed to be of crucial importance to the game's interest, perhaps some "out of the box" thinking needs to be done, either in the design area, or even perhaps in the rules of the pro game.
For example (this is way off the top of my head, so please forgive the whackiness) , what if pros could only use 6 clubs instead of 14 ? Their daily club selection would be a key decision, and depending on what clubs were in their bag, they would definitely have to vary their strategies. Then, if you design a course to be strategic for the 99% with 14 clubs, when the other 1% played with 6 clubs, they too would be faced with some interesting strategic decisions.
Another whacky idea - use 2 pins on some of the greens. One of the pins would be the "normal" pin, and would be worth the normal score, the other would be the "tough" pin and would be subject to no restrictions on placement, as long as it were on the green; it would also carry some scoring advantage. The golfer would need to declare in advance of the hole which pin he were playing to. This would allow architects to design greens with some truly torturous pin placements, but this would offer a strategy option for a golfer trying to make up shots in a hurry.
Crazy, I know, but something along these lines could help to put strategy back in it's rightful place. A computer game designer whose name escapes me once commented that what makes a game interesting is to make sure that the players have interesting choices to make at as many opportunities as possible.
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For the pros, on traditional courses (broad term) the fairway bunkers are not obstacles because they do not come into play ... they routinely blow over them. For someone like myself, even with the modern technology, I still find that those fairway bunkers are perfectly placed to catch one of my slightly offline tee balls (don't ask me why I always find the lone fairway bunker at Olympic Lake ...).
Trees ,whether singular (old Pebble 18th green, old Pebble 15th tee, etc.) , or mass forests (Sahalee, Harbour Town) play more for strategy than fairway bunker placement.
As for the greens, we hear constantly about being on the "right" side of hole, or "below" the hole, and you never want to be on the "wrong" side of the hole, that the strategy is more based on where the ball needs to land so that it can take one bounce and stop.
I always wondered what would happen to the scores if they just put the hole in the dead center for all 18 greens ... maybe it would be so easy that it would be hard ...
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Who was it that said, 'once you've got pros thinking (ie strategic positioning and thinking), then you've got them'? Doubt enters into the equation. Isn't this one of the chief values of strategy?
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Pin placements, and greens:
Unfortunately, TV and players are obsessed with coverage of the above!
Once we get them to include through the green, the true coverage of the game will evolve!
Willie
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Tom this is the challenge of the decade ahead. How does onebuild a stategic course that maintains the same elements for the championship golfer. Most of my shots at Rees Jones involve this exact issue. Oddly enough I do believe it is large landing area with more unpredictable fairways bunkers or similar hazzards combined with smaller undulating greens, miuch like Oakland Hills, with difinite angles of entry. The 5 to 30 handicaper has run ups and ways to play the hole. the green complexes have to have enough character to give one 4 strong pin placements which put a premium on shot placement. Lastly we have to get over this course being a failure if par is broken. The scots only keep score for matches. Just play the hole and do not worry what he scores. Let the course reward the man/woman who has the best control of their game and emotions and the shots to address what defenses the course has to offer. Or should i say let the man/woman who survives in the case of Carnouste. lol
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as odd as it sounds,Muirfield had more risk-reward than the other major setups because there was the constant trade-off of how far back a conservative tee shot would be vs the need to get a shorter approach,especially when the weather was good and therefor a need to get under par to keep up exsisted.
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Strategy is definitely not obsolete and it's not lost, not even for that .01% although it certainly may not appear in the same ways as it did fifty plus years ago--and obviously that has much to do with the distances that .01% are hitting the ball today with all their clubs (not just the driver).
But that strategy can be brought back to those courses even if the clubs used may not be the same ones used fifty plus years ago.
The obvious way to do that (even with the older architecture) is to start to dial down on the effectiveness and consequently the reliance on the aerial option that many of that .01% has come to expect and relie on! How to do that has already been mentioned to some extent on this thread alone.
Firm up green surfaces (not necessarily green speeds but green firmness) on these courses and that .01% cannot then control their aerial shots the way they've come to expect!! And if they can't control those aerial shots they way they've come to expect, what are they going to do about it?
It's completely obvious what they're going to do! They're going to look for other options and other ways to play shots where they want them as effectively or more so than that dialed down effectiveness of their aerial shots! Obviously one of those ways is the ground game or some compromise form of it!
What Mike Cirba said about bunkering is also completely true. The strategic function and strategic effectiveness of bunkering generally, the architecture of much of it in the modern age, and certainly the maintenance of much of it with super sand consistency has basically been gutted!
There's two ways to reenhance the strategic function of bunkering (probably architecture's primary strategic expression over the history of golf). One way is architecturally, the other is through maintenance (or lack of it).
We all know that the sand floors of bunkering will probably never be allowed in this day and age to be the cuppy, iffy, strategically effective situation with the lack of maintenance it used to have so the other way to make bunkering strategically functional is architecturally.
If you hit the ball in a bunker the way to make that bunker strategically functional "architecturally" is pretty obvious! Just make that bunker "iffy" as to recoverability architecturally! That doesn't mean that you can't get out of it and recover totally, it only means that isn't guaranteed architecturally--maybe, maybe not, in other words. That "iffiness" architecturally, is going to get even that .01%'s attention real quick if their recoverability reliance starts to go down!
The same thing goes for firmness "through the green". If that .01% knows their ball is not going to end up where they land it they are forced to really start to read architecture and things like topography!
Greens are the same, if they're firm enough (very lightly "denting" not "pitch marking") those .01% are going to start to look for other ways to control their ball like contours in those greens to play the ball off of for both rollout and break with their approach shots just like they did at Southern Hills at the Open a few years ago.
Or look at some of those Australian courses in the last few years!! The greens were very firm, dialing down on the effectiveness of the aerial option, making other shots and option more used, useable and useful! Same with the real firmness on those courses "through the green". Firm that area up and the driver certainly could be used but at what risk? And the bunkering of some of those Australian (or European courses)!! The sand may have been consistent but the player ran the risk of getting his ball in one of them where the architecture of that bunker might prevent him from recovering as he'd like to! We saw plenty of the world's tour players hitting tops of bunkers and/or leaving it in them because they couldn't get enough height!
All these things can bring back strategies into real effectiveness, even though, again, the clubs being used may not be the same as they once were!
Much of this stuff, I'm calling the "ideal maintenance meld" which basically means taking all the available potential options and strategies the course can offer and "maintaining" it in such a way as no option has complete reliance over another in the mind of a golfer, even that .01%!
That's maintenace! But architects can do things architecturally as well that simply creates doubt in the minds of players, even that .01%. And in my opinion that's simply creating some "iffness" architecturally!
But do architects really have the guts to do that? I don't know, that would be their individual calls!
But that's the way to either return strategy to golf courses or create it!
I don't really think any of this is close to rocket science--but it is like a big jigsaw puzzle and all the pieces have to fit together properly--both maintenance and architecture!
And then of course, days will come when it will rain like hell and the course will naturally be a whole different equation where those .01% can go back briefly to total reliance on their aerial option and probably crucify the course score-wise!
So what? The course will dry out again, and if properly maintained it will be back to playing at it's optimum with all its architectural options maintained in such a way that no golfer can overly rely on one option or strategy over another.
That delicate balance or almost quandry as to what's most effective (or least risky) will be the inevitable return of strategy in golf and architecture--it's definitely not obsolete--just misunderstood because it really is such a big jigsaw puzzle--how maintenance needs to be to ideally "meld" into all any course's overall architectural possibilities of playability!
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tom
after watching the am this weekend i must believe that you are correct. bill haas posting a 28 on the front of the south. mr. barnes hitting it 340 and stating that he has an advantage since he hits pw into most of the 4's.
speechless in detroit.
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I agree completely eith the TE Paul book/brief. However i do not think anyone who has watched/played match play has not seen a golfer on any course get hot and run off a bunch of birdies. It is the nature of match play. Please do not run down Oakland Hills anymore I thought the Am was great.
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Agree with everything so far, but here's the option I most want to see--UNDULATING FAIRWAYS!
When was the last time you saw a touring pro, in the U.S., have to hit a shot from the fairway from a severe stance? They practice all day from a level lie and they play courses every week with level fairways.
But it's very difficult to make one angle of attack easier than another, if the greens are soft and flattish (so they can be 12 on the Stimpmeter), and the boys are hitting nothing but nine-irons into them. A Tour pro can stick a nine-iron inside a 15-foot circle most of the time, and you do have to cut the hole on the green.
Yes, a Tour pro can dial it in all day long from a flat lie, but can he do it from a downhill-sidehill lie? Can he attack that front-right pin with the ball above his feet? Just watch how much trouble players get into after laying up at #15 at ANGC and having to control that shot from a downhill lie. Any strategy dictated by the greens (size, shape, firmness, speed, angles, etc.) is amplified if the fairways are sloped or undulating.
Consider the 14th at Pasatiempo--do you aim to the right, going for a flat lie but a more difficult angle, or do you play left for the better angle but take your chances with the stance you'll get?
Consider the 18th at Merion--do you lay back to the top of the hill for a flattish lie, or hit it farther and take your chances with the stance?
But I'm not talking just about gradual slopes like at #15 ANGC or #18 Merion; what I'd really like to see are truly rumpled fairways like you might find at Highlands Links, a few of the holes at Prairie Dunes, and many British courses. You could easily design holes where there is a flatter side or a rumpled side to play to (like Pasatiempo #14), or you could design holes where the fairway gets increasingly rumpled or sloped the closer you get to the green.
You can firm up and shrink the target all you want, but from a flat lie they'll still dial it in. Make them adjust their stance, ball position, and trajectory and they are forced to think about what they can and can't do.
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it's sad...for a tour pro in ideal conditions there is no such thing as a difficult golf course...In the late 80's before the technology boom the pros banned PGA West from ever hosting a tournament(essentially becuase the course was too tough). If that course was played today by the pros under ideal conditions, they would shoot lights out(okay maybe not lights out, but you get the point)...It just shows just how far we have come in the past 15 years
just to prove how strategy is obsolete...would a tour pro ever use the contours of a redan to get the ball to the back left hole position? the answer is no..it's all about darts!
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Tom,
I don't know about Oakland Hills but Augusta still has never had a winner with four rounds in the 60's. I don't know if this fact is meaningful but it is some defense for fast and undulating.
You stated.... "For a par-4 or par-5 hole to be really strategic, there has to be a REWARD for proper positioning, and not just a penalty for errant driving." ...and continued with..."But it's very difficult to make one angle of attack easier than another".
I'd like to see a hole where the penalty for the player would come from not taking the aggressive line.
Play safe off the tee and your next shot is so hard you might wish you were wearing Depends and your chances for par were no better than 50/50.
Take the aggressive line but miss... no better than a 50/50 chance for par/recovery.
Take the aggressive line but make... no more than a 50/50 chance for birdie.
This probably doesn't fit with strategy as known but neither do the players on Tour. I have a notion, quite possibly wrong, that Tiger Woods and the like were never expected by anyone, and not just from an outlook of length.
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For the best players the answer is for the most part Yes! I think it was about a year ago that Pat Mucci said it best. He stated something along the lines of, "For the best players there is no such thing as a strategic golf hole with a variety of options. They quickly figure out the best way to play it and the options and strategy disappear".
I think the one variable that changes the validity of that statement is the weather!
Mark
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Matt Kardash:
You wonder if even a touring pro might have to think seriously about using the old traditional run-in shot on a redan instead of throwing a "dart" at a back left pin?
If you give Karl Olsen the proper weather and tell him Tiger & Co. is coming to town you can bet your ass he could make the course and that hole play so Woods and friends would think very seriously about playing that traditional run-in redan shot! And he could do it without in any way sending the course over the top for those guys!
How? Woods could try his moon shot fade over the redan bunker or a piece of it but would he really want to try that option? Maybe, but probably not! That's the point! If those tour pros just send some high missles over that redan bunker, they could do it but given the ideal maintenance meld for them the chances are they would be chipping back from off the low side of that green--or worse! I've seen that course setup in such a way that even a tour pro's "dart" will not work half as effectively as some form of redan shot!
But you never want to give any golfer, certainly not a tour pro, a clear indication of what will work best and what won't. That's what that ideal balance (or maintenance meld) is all about! Ultimately that ideal balance becomes a bit of a quandry. Anything might work but how well?
The only way to do that is to dial up the effectiveness of some options and dial down the effectiveness of others so everything becomes something less than completely reliable!
If you have complete reliabliltiy of any option (certainly like an aerial one today), like currency that's intrinsically more valuable than other currency (Gresham's Law) the intrinsically more valuable currency will never be used!
Same with strategic shot options, but in the converse! If you make one completely reliable, the others will never be used!
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Tom,
What happens when it rains for two days before the tourney?
Mark
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i'm thinking that, for the pros, men - and women too more & more for that matter - golf is beginning to resemble tennis or 9-ball: few variables. tees may be pushed back, but you're still hitting to astro-turf fairways (no side hill down hill lies as someone commented) and from there hitting darts to damp and flattish - fattish - greens: hole after hole after hole. like tennis, few variables. there, the racquet is always the same, the court is always the same (well, on hardcourt surfaces anyhow, on which the vast majority of tournaments are played) and your opponent always plays the same - or 9 ball, again, same cue, same balls, same surface. football on the other hand, if played outdoors on grass has a chewed up field, not to mention that the very shape/design of the ball itself introduces a huge variable. maybe the pros should have to play with elliptical golf balls? or maybe more serious consideration should be given to maintenance meld (this is the best golf concept i've ever heard of, by the way - an idea whose time has come!) and shaggy bunkers and much "uglier" fairways. personally, i love to play tennis, and even to take a look at the us open for a few hours during its 2 week stint. but basically, it's not one of the "great" sports because by its very nature it's got too few variables. even old baseball, queen of the damned, has lots of variables: steroids, change ups, splitters, spitters. maybe maintenance meld is the only way back to the garden for golf. :)
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Tom,
What happens when it rains for two days before the tourney?
Mark
Undulating fairways help overcome that problem as well (except on par 3's!).
We've all heard of courses tearing up and recontouring their greens. Has anyone ever heard of tearing up the fairways and recontouring them?
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i know what you mean TEPaul, but i dunno..the pro's hit it to high and too far...i know, i hit the ball essentially as long as any of the longest tour pro..i played a game today..the hole was 373, and my drive plugged twenty yards in front of the green..there is no strategy to defend that!..today i hit a 7 iron 190 to a par 3...i play golf and i agree that it's ridiculous that i as well as lot of people can do that!..i don't know if i made any sense here, but i'm just saying if someone(like a pro) can hit it high and soft they don;t even have to consider strategy....tiger woods hits a 3 iron higher than most people on this board hit a wedge!..and it's the truth
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Tom Doak- I haven't digested the entire post but I was wondering what would you do IF you were designing for that 1%? How Would,Could,Should you incorporate strategy into a design for the best of the best? Wasn't that the intent of the stadium course, or was it just difficulty?
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Mark:
I already mentioned in a post in this thread alone that when it rains like that before a tourney the whole strategic equation will change with shot choices and options, period, end of story!
That's completely obvious, particularly to the likes of tour pro golfers! There's no reason to get upset about it, depressed or in a give up mode either if you're a tournament committee!
When that weather change happens the aerial option and the complete reliability of it is back in spades to the tour pro and there's no reason why a tournament committee should fight that!
If a tourney committee really wanted to be headsup to that type of weather change and shot reliabiblity change (aerial option) that would be the ideal time to go to a pin set up that's really tucked, made intense and toughens things up to the aerial option.
That's the time to put a real premium on trajectory, distance control and accuracy for the super ball control aerial option! Sure a course might need the architecture to do that but that's what we talk about on here--some do, some don't!
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Tom, Congrats on your 3000th post! :o :)
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Is strategy obsolete? Not when you play The Old Course!
Watch a group of good players go around there and you will see a number of different approaches to many of the holes. Does anyone think 4 tour pros would all try the same line on 14 if the wind was from the left? What about the road hole? Some will try and bust it up to the narrow part of the fwy and some will lay back and take the chip and putt route.
Strategy can still be built, but it takes bold architects, IMHO.
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Matt:
I don't care how high Tiger hits the ball there is a point when a green to any height or trajectory he has will not work as well as another option.
As just an example of a very slight refinement or indication of this very point, it's my distinct belief that the real reason Woods lost the PGA is the greens themselves became of bit of a conundrum to him and Steve Williams as to what they would reliably do once his ball hit them.
Clearly, to me, Woods was expecting one thing quite often and he wasn't getting it! This had nothing to do with his execution, only his choices of clubs and shots and how they reacted on the greens.
I'd consider myself a very interested student of Woods and I've noticed for a few years, I believe, that Woods can go ballistic if he dialed something in and he fails to physically execute it!
Vagaries and luck and such don't seem to get much of a reaction from him one way or the other if he executed physically what he thought was right and called for!
With today's excellent close up TV photography they're very good at focusing in close on him when the ball is in the air. You can see his eyes flick up and down from the ball's trajectory to the target and you can tell when this is happening when he's very impassive he's done what he wanted to do physically! If the ball does something he didn't expect when it hits and reacts on the ground he seems to take it in relative stride msot of the time (if the shot was executed as planned and intended)!
I feel he hit the shots he wanted to in the PGA and the ball wasn't reacting on the green like he and Williams expectecd it to many times! That's why he had all those longish putts all tournament with shots he expected to turn out better.
On one of the days his ball would release and go over a green and on another day when he expected it to release some it would stop dead!
Throughout the PGA the way he and Williams expected the ball to react on the green wasn't happening although he was hitting the shots he intended to a lot of the time?
But the unusual thing about the PGA is I don't think it was the PGA setup or the Hazeltine setup (green firmness or lack thereof and the variability of same throughout the tourney) that was bolluxing him--it was just mother nature and natural rainfall and his inability to estimate properly it's effects on green firmness and how his ball would likely react to it!
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Tom Doak:
Several weeks ago I followed Lee Janzen for eighteen holes at Waterville. The experience erased any lingering doubt that golf really is a better game for people who lack the skills of a professional golfer.
What stood out watching – and listening – to Lee play was how preoccupied he and his caddy were with getting the correct yardages and whether their range finder was working properly. Actually hitting the shots didn’t seem to be much of a concern. It was almost like pushing a button. The challenge was all about getting the yardages numbers right, as if the caddy was really the person playing the game.
All very mechanical, it seemed to me. Not much fun. Not much thought, if any, to “strategy”.
What exactly is “strategy” when you know in advance how your shot is going to turn out? Isn’t something lost? Isn’t the game better when you have to question how likely it is that you will execute the more daring shot, i.e., when your chances may be no better than fifty-fifty?
I can’t imagine there is much “strategy” left for the professional level golfer, not based on what I saw with Janzen at Waterville. But, for us mortals it is still part of the game, thankfully.
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Tim Weiman:
It sounds to me that during that round you followed Lee Janzen at Waterville his aerial shots were finding the greens (and possibly the proper positions on them) and holding on them with total control and with monotonous regularity!
What if that were not the case on those greens at Waterville? What if the only way Janzen could rely on that type of control and aerial game was with really fine-tuned spin control from say more lofted clubs? What would Janzen do then?
I say he would look for other options and strategies to play the golf course, perhaps more defensively at times and more aggressively at other times!
What you saw was not just the excellent ball striking of a top tour professional or a lack of architectural challenge from the course, in my opinion.
What you saw was a maintenance situation that allowed Janzen to rely on one type of option all day long--the aerial option!
If Waterville had dialed down the effectiveness and reliability of that aerial option Janzen would have likely started to look for other options and shots selections and if he had done so the inherent strategies of the golf course probably would have shown themselves to a much greater degree, even for him!
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Your Doyenship
I have to agree with Tim. As I said before many times on this forum in the past, I've seen top pros hit and stick approach shots to "unreachable" pins on greens so firm and fast that Karl Olsen will have only seen them in his dreams, over the past 20+ years. This is not something new. Once a pro gets to the fairway, he can "dial it in" from anywhere, obviously with less confidence the more distance to carry, all other things being equal.
Strategy is not at all dead for the 99.9% of us who can't dial it in, as others have said, nor even for the pros. As some have said, creating uncertainty and increasing risk/reward on the tee shot is the key. The great courses still have it. Those that don't, today, maybe aren't as "great" as we thought they were, at least in terms of challenging the top players.
Cheers
Rich(ard)
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I must agree with Tim. Since yardage information is available everywhere from yardage books, sprinkler heads, range finders, Sky links, GPS and just the plain ole bird house at the 150 stake. Not many people, the pros in particular, play by feel anymore. When the game was on the ground, you had to negotiate hazards to run the ball to the proper postion in the fairway in order to run the ball from the best angle to the green - Pinehurst #2. Since you know the yardage to clear a hazard, you can take a extra club in order to clear it without giving it a second thought. This seems to be especially true if the player is driving the ball to within 125-100 yards of the putting surface. If you're carring enough wedges, you just pull the one where you can take a full swing to get it there.
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Rich and Rick Noyes:
I'm afraid I'll have to roundly disagree with what you just said about a tour pro's ability to "stick" or "dial in" his aerial shots with complete control and reliability!!
I might not know much but my eyes sure aren't lying in the last few years. I've been seeing courses all around the world but particularly in Australia and Europe (but also now in America) that are dialing down bigtime on the effectiveness and reliability of the totally controlled aerial option for even a Tiger Woods! They're doing it simply by dialing up on the "firmness" of the green surfaces to that point where even the tour pros can't control their aerial shots with reliability!
I know how good those guys are but eventually green surface can get to the point were it's either very iffy or sort of "no can do" even for them!
At that point even they will look for other shot choices and shot options!
If you haven't noticed that recently here and there you should remember to look again!
Rich:
Don't underestimate what Karl Olsen is capable of with maintenance and course setup! I've seen both ends of the spectrum at NGLA but possibly not at the extreme softness and slowness that you saw when you were there. That's a real shame that you saw it like that because it only makes it harder to imagine what the other end of the spectrum is really all about and really like and that would definitely be applicable to the tour pro too!
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Tom:
There is hope, please don't despair. However, the answer is counter-intuitive, and may come as a shock: reduce the length of courses substantially; allow the guys to hit drivers but also "hang" themselves following failure; tight clever green complexes, a la Commonwealth G.C. in Melbourne, Australia; careful fairway turf selection; a move away (half of the time) from greens where the borrow and amount is obvious, to the old-style greens that are seemingly flat and appear to present straight putts. In reality, every second putt goes slightly to the right or left. By the day's end, the gofer has pulled out every strand of hair.
Cut swathes through the tress to create wind tunnells that swirl in and out throughout the course of a round and create uncertainty. This was the case of Royal Melbourne in the 30,40s.
Make courses appear easier than they really are. This brings about insane arrogance, and before long, the payers score is GONE!
The reintroduction of driveable par-4s that signal bogey, double-bogey upon poor shotmaking. In keeping with good principles, the safe route will uusually be rewarded with a par for the good player, or an easy bogey for the high handicapper. More holes like Riviera's 10th and RMGC West Course 10th will excite and infuraite players.
A mix of holes that dogleg to the right and left is a huge help. Today, too many golfers get comfortable with the one tee-shot pattern.
Turn off the irrigation and pipes: keep courses alive, but barely. The number one stiffling curse to your profession!
More urgency in building 90-110 metre par-3s holes will keep a lid on scoring.
Experiment with leaving the traps unraked around the course for one month and see what it does to scores. This reverses the trend and would promote golfers to aim for the diffiicult greenside rough, in prefernce to death-defying bunker conditions.
More imagination shown by the people at clubs when setting the pin positions.
Throw in confusion by keeping the fronts of greens open. A whole generation has grown up just "bombing" the ball from long range over the frontal bunkering.
More confusion: rather thana clear dilineation between green, apron and fairway, have the whole thing merge into one. With this scenario, careless golfers will often leave their approaches twenty metres short of the green, and be furious about the deception.
Confusion again: this time by building 2-4 bunkerless holes per layout. Are not the 14th at Dornoch, 1st and 18th TOC brilliant holes?
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Strategy is becoming obsolete. Equipment is a factor, but the biggest culprit is maintenance practices. The majority of courses are far too soft. My home course has for years been very soft -- ironically the superitendent doesn't play golf.
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Paul:
I'm not despairing at all! I'm just sometimes sort of amazed that so many people, even some on this website, don't seem to be able to see the obvious!
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I agree with Rich(ard) on this one. By all means make the greens as hard and as fast as possible. But they will always be subject to the vagaries of rain and wind. It's not always possible to control how hard greens will play.
Bottom line is that if the big boys are approaching from the fairway, its game, set, match. They can all dial it in.
You are left with creating defenses against them at the tee. Make the fairway hard to hit. Or make them lay up. That's what happened at Muirfield (with some help from the weather).
If I'm right, that's not good news. Absent a remarkable architectural imagination, it implies US Open set-ups. You get the Tom Meeksization of golf course architecture. The ability to hit it straight and long will overshadow all other golfing skills. (It's always been important. But if my hunch is right about the future, it will become the only skill that really matters.)
Bob
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One situation where strategy matters is when an overly conservative shot leaves a blind shot into the green.
Tom Doak did this three times at Apache Stronghold. On the long par-5 first, you have to flirt with the left bunkers with your lay-up to get a look at the green. On the par-5 eighth, you have to play near the right-side fairway bunker to see the green on your second. On the thirteenth, the longer a carry you attempt over the right fairway bunkers, the more of the green you can see for your second shot.
I think these are good holes for all players because there is a lot of risk-reward, but they're playable holes, when a shot is blind, you don't need to add a bunch of nasty hazards to make it difficult.
I agree that angles are less of a consideration for good players today. But in addition to the comment about sidehill lies, which I agree with, I think line of sight is an important strategic consideration. I for one will take a good degree of risk if that's what I need to do to see the flagstick on my next shot.
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I simply cannot agree that with the ideal firmness on green surfaces the big boys can dial it in at will! If that were so true why then have I been seeing all the touring pros occasionally miscalculate and bounce even their aerial wedges right over greens with no functional spin, no suck and no control?
The spin on these shots that they have so come to expect control from is just not working effectively in some cases! How could that be if not for the firmness of the greens in question? These guys are very good golfers indeed but they are certainly not above the laws of physics and "grip" and "control" (or lack thereof)! I saw so much of this last year in a few of the tourneys in Australia and those pros were approaching from the fairways and sometimes with lofted irons!
You can tell me all day long that you can't prevent them their reliable highly controllable aerial shots but I'm sorry guys I saw the contrary to that way too much to accept what you're saying!
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I'll second Tom Paul here. Don't you guys remember the umpteen times you've seen a perplexed look from someone hitting the green in an Open, only to watch it bounce over in horror? How often, during a non-waterlogged US Open, do you see guys hit shots that hit & stick? I'll agree, you are at the mercy of the elements, but, for God's sake, at least give the course a fighting chance! How about all the whining during this past year's Bay Hill about how firm things were? The problem is, the Tour's idea of firm & TP's idea of firm are pretty far apart.
I don't care how much spin you can put on a ball, a shot that hits a downslope like a redan will not hold if the green is firm enough. Period.
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ironically the superitendent doesn't play golf.
A superintendent who doesn't play golf is like a chef who doesn't taste the soup before it leaves the kitchen. :'(
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GeorgeP:
I really don't think my idea about the ideal firmness of green surfaces that dial down some on the effectiveness and reliability of aerial shots and what we're occasionally seeing on some of the recent pro tournaments is that far apart!
I'm amazed that we are seeing as much as we are although it isn't as prevalent on the regular weekly PGA Tour tournaments as some of the other more premier tournaments. But basically I'm seeing more of it than I ever expected!
But the idea is not to dial the effectiveness and reliability of any option down to nothing or obviously even a tour pro won't use it. The idea is to dial the effectiveness and reliability of any option (ground or aerial) in whatever direction is necessary to bring their reliabilty (or unreliability) into a bit of a balance. When you do that any player is going to start struggling with even the choices he makes.
The fact of Bay Hill this way was a total disaster. They dialed down the aerial shot option to nothing by making the greens so firm no aerial shots were holding and they dialed the ground game option (the approaches) down to nothing by wetting them so the ball almost plugged. Basically the pros were left with no reasonable or even semi reliable option at all!
But frankly I think the greens for firmness at Hazeltine were about perfect this way and the interesting thing is they changed during the natural rain but apparently not to the extent Tiger Woods thought they had.
It was clear to me he was doing the things he wanted to do with his choices but the ball wasn't doing what he thought it would when it hit the green!
And you know what? I think the whole thing this way for both Beem and Woods translated all the way back to their overall strategies emanating from their tee shots.
Beem hits it real long like Tiger and he went with a driver all week more than almost any other competitor. Woods, in the converse stuck with his super conservative mode off the tees all week.
And the payoff was that the green surfaces were just at that firmness that Beem was able to just control his approach shots onto those greens because he was probably generally using 2-3 clubs less than Woods!
That was sort of the break even point to me with those greens--wedges were holding just that much better than Woods 7 irons (because he was using 2 iron from the tee where Beem was using driver!)!
That 2-3 club difference between Woods's conservative mode and Beem'ss aggressive mode all tournament was the ultimate payoff because wedges were just doing what Beem expected on the greens and Woods's 7 irons basically weren't.
So it ultimately came down to the green surfaces and filtered all the way back to the tees and those two golfers' overall strategies and the difference in them.
And if that isn't "strategy" then I don't know what strategy is!!
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Is the ultimate goal here to make a hole which is impossible for a pro to birdie or is the goal to make the hole a challenge which requires thought and execution. We can make all greens so hard that they will reject any aerial shot and then put hazards all the way around resulting in an unplayable hole. What I want to see for the 5 to 20 handicapper is more holes with risk/reward options where the risk is not necessarily length off the tee. Too often we speak of a risk/reward situation where the only chance to be able to go at the green is to hit your best tee shot in the absolute perfect direction which you might do 10% or 20% of the time when you are pressured into doing it. I like holes that give you an option which might require accuracy rather than length.
The first hole at Augustine Golf Club in Virginia has a split fairway with an environmental area in the middle. The green is at a 45 degree angle from the fairway and the fairway is longer and wider to the left, and narrow and shorter to the right. If the pin is back right you have to play to the narrower right fairway in order to have a shot at it. I think that a strategy that puts a premium on accuracy is often more interesting than a strategy which emphasizes length. Not everyone who plays the game, and even plays it well, necessarily carries the ball 260 yards and today's designers cannot lose sight of this fact in trying to make the game enjoyable for all who play the game and take it seriously. I know that some of this has to do with playing the correct tees but making a few holes impossible for some players while the balance are interesting and challenging does not do anyone any good. Thought should be given perhaps to a setup which can be played which is a combination of tees. It was recently suggested to me that when playing a course like the Ocean Course at Kiawah the best way to enjoy the course for the average but serious golfer when the wind is blowing pretty hard is to play one set of tees into the wind and another when you are downwind. We need to be inventive in our shot making and perhaps we need to be inventive in how we play the course.
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I don't know what's so difficult to understand about this whole equation of firmness and such. No one is looking to create a situation that makes any hole play impossible for anyone certainly not a tour pro.
Options for any level of player just need to be well balanced--not removed altogether!
As to distance and strategic playability various tees do help and compensate different levels of golfers but even that isn't completely necessary as in the old days everyone played from the same tee markers!
The strategies in those days revolved around different levels playing to the same holes in different ways and in a different number of shots anyway!
This whole notion of GIR and that it might somehow apply in the same way to different levels of golfers has seriously skewed understanding of what real architectural strategy is, in my opinion!
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TEP
I wasn't trying to dis Karl Olsen. I just do not think that it is possible to make NGLA as firm and fast as true links courss such as TOC, Dornoch, Lytham etc. The day I played NGLA in the morning I played Shinnecock in the afternoon. It had not been watered and tined and was playing fairly firm and fast--about normal early autumn NGLA speed according to mein host. It was nothing like links golf, at least IMHO.
George P
Very good players can indeed "stop" short-mid irons hitting into downslopes on firm and fast greens. I have seen it done many times, the most recently two weeks ago.
Cheers
R
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i don't consider watering down or firming up a golf hole an architectural practice. I was pointing out the fact that no matter the hazard, no matter the location of the hazard, if the player knows the yardage and is confident in his/her ability to carry that yardage, the hazard loses its effectiveness in determining play, except for club selection.
I can live with firm greens as long as the approach is just as firm. I heard on pro at Pinehurst flying a shot into one of the par-3's, can't remember which one, but it hit the green and rolled off into one of the "chipping areas". His comment was "Oh, that's fair," sarcstically. I wanted to yell out that maybe that wasn't the shot to play!
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TEpaul is right.
There still is strategy on the tour, but alot of it depends on the course setup and the course. Don't forget too, that the guys you are seeing on the weekend on TV, are the guys that are playing the very best that week.
Strategy tends to come in the form of how aggressive you can be playing into the green. If the greens are extremely firm and the pins are tucked, your angle of approach certainly dictates how aggressive you can be.
Also the L wedge changes everything. A tour pros short irons and weges tend to go either short or long, not right or left. This really helps alot. This is the biggest difference between tour pros and really good amateurs.
So what do you do about it. You build courses where angles of approach have trouble short and long. Pete Dye does it constantly, greens tend to be small and angular. A great example of hole where there is strategy for any player is the 6th at Shinnecock. The more down the left side of the fairway you are the more aggressive you can be with you approach. From the right side of the fairway you are hitting at a very shallow green, as the green is fairly deep, but not wide, therefore you cannot be as agressive. A great example of a short hole with strategy for anyone is the 8th at Pine valley. A drive down the left side gives you a straight in appraoch to a resonably deep green, but again a very narrow green. A drive down the right side leaves a very shallow anlge for your second.
Resort courses with huge greens with trouble mainly right and left are sitting ducks. Pacific Dunes falls into this category. The 16th at PD is close. That is a very shallow green fromt the right. That is how you incorporate strategy for tour pros. Even if the conditions are a little soft if you are constantly fighting for angles to be aggressive you still have strategy, but somebody is going to be hot and light the place up. So instead of alway looking at the winner, check out and see how the guy that is 50th is playing the course.
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Isn't the ultimate strategy in golf to overwhelm the player with options? Let the player select a shot type based on his ability to commit to the shot and then execute it?
The proliferation of the aireal game has much more to do with over-watered,lush green conditions than particular architectural features, as many above have stated the ability to fly a golf ball a precise distance and stop it quickly will negate even the greatest architecture to some degree.
The casual golf spectator/ player turns his TV on to see birdies and eagles, which sells the ad spots ect,ect. Even the European Tours venues are falling victim to the same soft, lush, americanization. Par is no longer a good score. Pro golf has become a dart game and a weekly putting contest. Is it likely that the trend will be towards firm and fast so that all except wedges won't hold greens and all the humps and bumps and random bounces (the architecture,what's on the ground) comes in to play? No. If we turned on the golf every week to watch pros missing greens and making bogies the PGA would have to change their tag line to "These Guys Suck."
Which brings us back to the ever widening gap between the pro game and our own. Balls,clubs, maintainence practices, continue to take the pro game farther away from ours. Let them play theirs and we will play and appreciate ours.
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For what it's worth -- I agree with Tom MacWood. As Gomer Pyle would say ... "Surprise, Surprise."
It behooves many courses today to use LESS water and try to achieve firm and fast conditions. Too many are simple overwatered and as a result turf conditions allow for the kind of pinpoint play you see from the better player.
I can sadly recall playing the famed GCGC with Pat Mucci last year and tee shots were hitting and barely moving out of their pitch marks. This was happening even after days and days of hot and dry weather.
I'm not saying that firm and fast conditions are the ONLY answer but it's long overdue for many superintendents and the people who are entrusted at any facility to stop with all the water usage. The game will become even more challenging even with the technology gains made in the last few years.
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Dan Belden,
I’m not sure I understand your comment about Pacific Dunes being a “sitting duck”. To my knowledge, Mike Keiser didn’t have hosting a PGA event in mind when the course was built. Are you saying the course is a “sitting duck” for people who actually play the course?
Moreover, I’m wondering about putting PD into a “category” of courses with trouble “mainly right and left”. Do you see many courses where the trouble is somewhere other than “right and left”? Wouldn’t something like Pine Valley fit this description better? What tee shot at Pine Valley has a fairway bunker like #2 at PD? What approach shot at Pine Valley has a greenside bunker like #8 at PD?
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Tim:
PD is only a sitting duck in the context of conducting a Tour Event there. I think that minus some really bad weather twenty plus under wins. That being said, so what. It was never designed to have a tour event there. Thank god it wasn't because Bandon is so hard it wouldn't make any sense to have another brute there. The only complaint I have with PD is that I would prefer not to have 4 par 3s on the back nine, otherwise I love the place. The greens on the whole are very big, open in front, and they are not that hard to hit. That is all I am saying. And it is interesing to me that any kind of constructive criticsm of a Doak golf course is met with almost instant hostility,even if it is not criticism. PD is not that hard of a golf course for the expert player, so what. It is still a blast to play
As for fairway bunkers like number two at PD, that is fine, but I am not talking trouble if front and back for driving, I am talking about trouble back and in front on approach shots. So I completely disagree with you that Pine Valley mainly has trouble right and left, while PD doesn't. PD was designed for a ground game that lets you run the ball onto the green. Pine Valley lets you do this on some holes, but often the worst trouble is short or long. And as for fairway bunkers on a direct line, what about the tee shot on 6 at Pine Valley, or the 2nd on 7, or the tee shot on 16, I guess those fairway bunkers don't count. How about the approaches on 2,7,10,12,14,17,18. And as for PD, on hole like 4 the trouble is definitely on the left, and vice versa for 13. But on the whole you can run a lot more shots onto the green at PD,than you can at PV, and that makes the game easier for all players. It also means that a touring pro does not have to be as accurate with the drive to be aggressive going into the green, less strategy. Shallow firm greens that sit at proper angles to the line of play require strategy to play from even the best touring pros. Once again perhaps the best example of this is the angle at which the 6th green at Shinnecock sits in relation to the fairway. If you want to play the hole aggresivley you have to be in the left side of the fairway, more strategy.
Dan, believe it or not I love PD, Belden
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Well, I guess I overstated my position a little. I agree with Tom Paul's clarification - I would also like to see the conditions right in the area where someone is forced to choose, not simply forced to take the ground approach. I still think the Tour's idea of firm & at least my idea of firm are pretty far apart. A well struck shot may be able to hold a green, but not just any shot like we see week in & week out.
I still don't believe anyone can stick a shot hitting a downslope & hold it - I don't care how many times you say you've seen it, Rich, though I do think we are talking degrees here. By sticking it & holding it, I mean to absolute lack of forward movement that we see all the time on the tube, rarely even one forward hop. Someone who can hit the downslope & accurately gauge the amount of forward kick certainly deserves to be rewarded. Next summer I will set up camp on one of the fallaway greens at the US Amateur at Oakmont & chart shots all day to see if anyone does it!
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P.S. to Dan Belden -
I don't think Tim's reaction was one of hostility - he simply asked you to clarify your point, which you did quite well , I think. Do you seriously expect anyone on this site to leave a statement like the one you made go unchallenged? :)
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Dan Belden:
As I think George Pazin pointed out, this is a discussion group. When statements are made, it's not unusual for people to ask for clarification. If that is "hostility", then I'm not sure how we would discuss any topic.
There is no problem criticizing Tom Doak's work. It just wasn't clear what point you were trying to make. Citing Pacific Dunes when we were discussing whether "strategy" still exists at the professional level just didn't make a lot of sense to me. Clearly, it is not a golf course designed with the pros in mind.
As for your comments on the approach shots at Pine Valley, in fact we don't disagree. They do have trouble long and short just as many tee shots have trouble left and right.
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Matt Ward:
I agree with you that firm and fast turf conditons may not be the ONLY thing but it sure is close to that overall if you really think about it, particularly on some styles and types of architecture!
I really do make a huge distinction when talking about firm and fast though. I think whenever anyone talks about firm and fast they should strive ALWAYS to break the subject down into TWO VERY distinct categories! "Through the green" and then the green surfaces themselves!
And it's necessary to go even farther than that in my opinion to a point where there is an "ideal balance" between the firm condtions "through the green" and the firmness of the green surface. The most necessary point "through the green" is naturally the "approaches"!
But the most important ingredient of all, I think, is the firmness of the green surfaces because that's the only area today that you can possibly begin to "dial down" total reliance and reliability to the ever-present aerial game of very good players!
And I believe that it's even becoming very apparent today to what exact degree you need to dial down the effectiveness of the aerial shot green approach! It's actually extremely identifiable for both players and supers! It really is that point where aerial approaches to greens will only lightly "dent" the green instead of "pitich marking" it by bringing up even a slight amount of subsoil!!
That's the "ideal" green surface firmness to dial down reliance on the aerial game because at that point players start thinking about other compromise shots and choices for effectiveness! And of course the approaches need to be ratched up in firmness to the point where players will have some faith and reliance that a ball bouncing through an approach onto the green really will work as visualized. There's nothing worse in this vein than trying that run-in approach, hitting the visualize shot and having the ball stop dead in the approach.
Clearly we've seen so much of that in modern times with "approach" overwatering that faith in that compromise shot has been almost totally lost and the shot is rarely if ever tried or thought about.
So that kind of thing is the "ideal maintenance meld" to me (but only this part of it since there are so many other interesting maintenance factors involved in the "ideal maintenance meld")--not just firm and fast but those two distinct areas and how they "balance each other" for partial reliability. And they really do have to be "partially reliable" or somewhat demanding in execution or even somewhat "iffy" in effectiveness to a degree because if either was totally effective the other would probably cease to be used as an option. In this way the whole thing really is something like "Gresham's Law" but in the converse!
Again, firm and fast isn't the ONLY thing but it really is a great deal! Modern age golf has seen so much of the aerial game and because of it we've almost forgotten that prime aspect of age old golfing that is "how the ball BOUNCES!!??
Also, some have asked--what about when it rains?
Well, naturally when that happens the whole equation is thrown into another dimension and the reality of that is as long as the course stays naturally wet and soft the aerial game will be back in spades and the ground game will be almost totally ineffective for a time!
So what? That's just part of the interest and variability of golf and it happens to be naturally emanating! But the course will dry out again and ideally return to that "ideal balance" inspiring or even requiring multi-optionalism!
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I'm going to go out on a bit of a limb here, but how many PGA and/or USGA events do you see them watering down the fairways and greens? I venture to say - Never! I've attended numerous Professional events and I am always amazed at how much roll those guys get. Heck at Colonial last year the ball didn't stop until it hit something. I kept thinking I can hit it 320 yards in these conditions as well!
I think weather and soil conditions play as big part as anything in the firmness of golf courses for championship play. And as I've said many times, firm approaches are the key to shot options. If approaches are soft, the ONLY option you have is aerial (regardless of the firmness of the greens).
Mark
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TEPaul:
Let me clarify what I said earlier.
Despite all the information available about not over-watering I have seen plenty of examples from all my trips throughout the last few years where plenty of courses ARE STILL DOING IT!!!
Doesn't anyone get it?
Don't they understand that the "bounce" is part of the game?
Don't simpleton members at many clubs understand that "green" is not the golden rule in terms of turf development? Do they not know that strategy is impaired by this total ignorance. Do they not know that their individual course will be improved for all levels of players?
Look, I don't doubt that technology has played a HUGE role in much of the disucssion relating to how courses play and what needs to be done in regards to "strategy."
However, too many people who are entrusted with preparing golf courses seem to believe that it's better politically to throw tons of water down because it will keep the uneducated masses happy because they will have lush, green turf. I know as silly as that sounds from my experiences it's true.
Last year in playing GCGC I was shocked to see a course whose reputation is based upon being firm and fast be reduced to lush and overwatered conditions. The same deal applies to a great many courses on Long Island.
I just finished playing Mansion Ridge, a Nicklaus course just outside of NYC during a Met Golf Writer's outing and what do you think I found -- a course so overwatered you take racoon pelt divots from the fairways -- even after days and days of hot and dry weather!!!
I know the GCSAA has done plenty to educate its members about firm and fast conditions and how such a situation does better the quality of turf, but it seems either some superintendents don't "get it" or they are being overruled by members who can't take care of their own lawns. but are dictating that water be used in such heavy handed manner.
How turf is prepared is one key aspect to the fulfillment of strategy. The unknown bounces of the ball are, in my opinion, fundamental to the game and much can be gained in terms of restoring strategy if course conditions followed this route.
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Mark:
I couldn't agree with you more that we're seeing so much more in the way of firm and fast conditions certainly at the premier tour events and amazingly at regular tour events too, to a larger degree! Mostly this is on the fairways or "through the green" but we're seeing more in the way of quite firm green surfaces too, certainly more than in years past.
But I do disagree with you, to some extent, when you say that firm approaches are KEY to shot options! Firm approaches are NECESSARY to shot options and very necessary but they aren't key, in my opinion, certainly not as key as really firm green surfaces--at least at the tour level and the level of the real good amateur!
Why would I say that? Simply because you can have firm approaches all day long but until and unless you have really firm green surfaces too golfers as good and as aerially inclined as tour pros will simply not choose ground approaching to greens (even if it's very available) unless you begin to remove some of the reliability of their aerial option into green surfaces!
Almost all today's touring pros, particularly the ones who grew up and play in America, are aerial specialists first and foremost and so are all the young good players in the wings coming up to follow them! I see this stuff all the time in the good tournaments I work like the PA State Am at Oakmont!
They want to hit the aerial shot, they insist on hitting the aerial shot, it's what they know and are completely used to and comfortable with--and they all do it extremely well! The only conceivable way of stopping them from that automatic inclination is to firm up the green surfaces first to a point where their even fairly well struck aerial shots to greens aren't that reliable anymore!
I can't tell you how well I can see that now particularly after spending hours on Oakmont's #1 & #10!! You virtually can't hit aerial shots into those two greens, particularly if they were just a bit firmer than they were (they weren't as firm as John Zimmer wanted them only because it rained the weekend before). But still with the rain aerial shots into those greens were "iffy", to say the least! But still that didn't stop most of these young golfers from trying it! Those two holes and their greens (runaway) were virtual labatories into the point I'm trying to make here!
Generally you don't want to take that aerial shot option away from them completely (and in this way Oakmont's #1 & #10 are not the ideal examples) only create a bit of doubt as to how well it will work (compared to what they grew up with and became used to) and then and only then will they start to look around and start to choose those firm approaches and other options!
That's not only creating available options but sometimes SOME availbable options still aren't used by some golfers if other options are completely reliable! The only way to make them use them all is to create an overall balance between the available options that leaves golfers a bit unsure as to which will work best and which won't!
That's the "quandry point" (which IS the "ideal maintenance meld" in the area of this firm and fast issue) where all options become not only available but also begin to be used more often!
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This week I played two courses, Stockbridge GC in Stockbridge, Ma. and The Links At Unionvale, Unionvale, NY.
SGC is older than dirt (1895) and TLAU is 4/5 years old.
Both of these courses were maintained very green with little to no brown on the fairways. They both played firm and fast. No fairway plugs anywhere, even in the low spots, and nothing more than small dents on the greens, even from towering wedges or punched mid irons w/ lots of spin.
My take on this was that a course doesn't have to look brown to play in the condition that is admired by many, firm and fast.
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Dear Tim and Gib:
Forgot last night to put in a little disclaimer that I did not feel any hostillty from Tim's post. I have in the past taken some unusual criticism for some critique of Apache Stronghold and PD, nevertheless I love a good challenge.
I thought PD would be relative to the strategy question as Doak started the thread. I think the term sitting duck came about because I remeber what the guys did to Ballybunion in the Irish Open without any weather. PD reminds me of Ballybunion because they are both so much fun to play.
I do think though that some people underestimate how hard the greens are on tour. Personaly the hardest greens I have ever played was a two week stretch on the then Nike tour, Playing in Richmond, VA and Cary,NC. The greens were turning black in the afternoon.
Perhaps a interesting question would be can you design a course with alot of strategy for the tour pro, and still be playable for the average guy. I played Whistling Straits a couple of weeks ago, and it has strategy galor, but is it playable for the masses?
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Matt:
Thanks for the clarification but if you've been around as much as you say you have and I have no doubt you have you know as well as I do to what extent most clubs and courses "get it" and "don't get it"!
You're just as familiar as any of us of the overall effects of what we've called the "Augusta Syndrome" for decades now! The total ironic joke is that Augusta itself in the Masters has never even been remotely close to what the real "Augusta Syndrome" is out in the rest of the country. Although the course has been an immaculate color of lush green for years now the balls have also rolled out very well but for some odd reason those who get caught up in the real "Augusta Syndrome" (massive amount of over irrigation) haven't apparently noticed the rollout at the Masters and the lack of it at their own courses!!
But if you've been out there that much you must know too that things have started to change that way and to an ever increasing extent! So I wouldn't dispair if I were you!
Have you been to Eastern LI in the last few years, have you been to Oakmont, Merion, Lancaster and a slew of other wiser clubs that are beginning to "get it" now in a bit of a rapid succession?
It's happening, Matt, and in an ever increasing extrapolation!
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Jim Kennedy:
What you said there is music to my ears! And yes, it's often a bit of a misconception that a course, fairways, greens, whatever HAVE to brown out to some extent! They can, of course, and sometimes do but the ideal condition for firm and fast is a much lighter green that often has a bit of a sheen to it!
For some odd reason I call that look the "dull green sheen"! It's not only very visually apparent on fairways but also on green surfaces. When I see it I just know a course is where it should be in most all apects--certainly with firm and fast! Courses that look like that are basically firing on all eight cylinders and are at the "ideal maintenance meld" in that particular aspect!
At this point I've gotten good enough at identifying it that I can pretty much just tell how firm and fast a course is through me eyes only without even hitting a ball on it or seeing one hit!
I really feel this is a coming thing and I'm beginning now to think even bigtime!
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TEPaul:
When places as distinguished as GCGC don't "get it" I have my doubts. The sad reality is that the "movement" is only really just getting started.
Too many clubs are still in the "dark ages" (for the aforementioned reasons I gave in my previous post) when it comes to the whole concept of linkage between "firm and fast" and the enhancement of strategic options when playing for all levels of players.
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Matt:
Maybe, but it's a lot better than it was last year which was better than it was the year before and so on!
And don't forget, none of us can really show up at a golf course we aren't that familiar with and tell if firm and fast conditions are definitely not being maintained or not ever maintained!
Unfortunately, it's a bit more complicated than that particularly coming out of about five decades of over irrigation!
If only it was so simple as just turning off the water but it surely isn't! We can't forget that grass, like any other living thing, needs time to be conditioned to another process too. And worst of all we have to consider the subsurface, the soil, how well it perks, how well roots can penetrate and grow longer and stronger and all those good things!
Unfortunately, those things like subsurface and soil conditions, necessary to healthy strong root structure can sometimes make the process of getting to good firm and fast conditions both expensive and even problematic to remediate.
One of the best bits of advice I ever heard in this vein was from Dave Wilbur, that a golf club cannot automatically assume and conclude that what can happen at the club across town or even across the street can happen at their course--or at least not easily!
It's probably a sad truth but if this firm and fast thing really starts to roll there will be clubs that will probably ruin their courses by making easy and dumb assumptions on this and not doing the transition process right.
We already almost had some assumptions like that at our club. Someone who probably has some power said he thought we should just tell our super to turn off the water!
I said I liked that direction but maybe first we should consult with the grass and while we were at it look underneath it and see what was there.
This is all real necessary and then you find out the truth about what the process of transitioning from maybe years of over irrigation to real firm and fast is going to be and what it entails.
Ever hear the word hydorphobia? Well, if you and your club are thinking of transitioning to firm and faster conditions I hope it's a word you're not about to hear! It can mean study, money, remediation of soil and subsurface and then of course your club will want to know at what value this firm and fast conditioning comes to!
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In another thread concerning recession and golf, we have been lamenting the poor business conditions in the industry.
What is demanded by the casual player is a green verdant park. The purists among us demand rock hard fairways and linoleum greens.
I am positive that these conditions are attainable given the quality of today's irrigation systems and the technology they utilize. ANGC would be the perfect example as TE Paul pointed out in his recent thread.
The one thing that seems to be missing at a large portion of today's courses is the limitless monetary resources to control the application of H20. I costs money to have greenskeepers on the golf course either firing off the aerial water or dragging hose.
I play at what can be a fairly strategic golf course. But the superintendent is often handcuffed by constraints of budget, and the torn by the various factions of the membership. Strategy can be put back into golf if one of two things happen.
1) Funding is such that irrigation can be mangaged constantly during hot weather
or
2) We reeducate the players in this country to accept some brown spots, some incredibly tight, firm lies and teach players more than one shot. I would also suggest issuing ear plugs to cover the sound of all of the whining when high approach shots go bounding off the back of the greens!! ;)
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Ah, Hell, screw all this super concern about whinning and assuming what golfers today want and don't want!
I'm convinced that nobody really knows what golfers generally really want including Tom Fazio although he appears sure he does know!
What golfers want or at least logicially will accept is good and interesting golf anyday and that means you know what! This concern about verdancy and acres of manicurism is bullshit!
What golfers want is what you give them if it's good golf and that's already once been totally proven. Where golf has gotten to noone much really understands anyway or how it got there!
If some incredibly rich people at Newport, Fishers and Maidstone can still manage to have plenty of fun on courses that don't even have fairway irrigation systems anyone can have fun on firm courses!
The hell with this overconcern about whinning for lush green and all this other immaculacy, just take it away from them and give them good golf again--they'll like it fine--even finer than they could ever conceivably imagine! They did once and they will again!
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Dan Belden:
Everyone remembers the four extraordinary days in Ballybunion during the 2000 Irish Open, but there wasn’t much concern about the course being a “sitting duck”. In fact, just the reverse was true.
During the Wednesday practice round the players had a very difficult time and there was concern the course would play too difficult. So, the decision was made to back off cutting the greens and go easy with the pin positions. By Saturday morning some people felt officials went too far accommodating the players, especially given the weekend weather forecast.
But, nobody really cared. It was a long struggle to bring the event to Ballybunion and everyone was thrilled was how things turned out. The parade Saturday night and band playing the Rolling Stones “Sympathy For The Devil” brought tears to my eyes. Then, too, I’ll always remember Darren Clarke explaining (between pints) that “he wasn’t here to play any of that Tiger Woods golf……this is Ireland”.
Trying to build a course that satisfies both professionals and “the masses”, might still be a worthwhile objective. But, part of what people appreciate about Pacific Dunes is that Keiser/Doak didn’t get hung up on this objective.
Several years ago a very good golfer told me he was bored with Cypress Point because it was too easy. He preferred playing PGA West from the tips. To each his own!
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TE
Point taken, now we can kidnap and hogtie the members it takes to pay for it.
Nothing wrong with idealism if you can make it pay. And by the way, most hackers don't have a clue of what a good golf course is. They just want the cart girl to be well endowed, under dressed and provide cold beer on a regular basis.
Newport, Maidstone and Fishers exist and survive in a space unavailable to most.
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Tom Doak,
Interesting discussion you have sparked. I couldn't agree more that it is becoming harder and harder to design strategy into courses, especially when teens are hitting so far that they lay waste to what used to be considered long.
As I was renovating Roanke Country Club last year I was amazed to find the kids playing in the Scott Robertson Memorial hitting so far. Hunter Mahan, who played in the US Amateur final last week drove the 10th hole at RCC, a mere 367 yard par four.
Like you, I try to design for the other 99% because thats the audience that I want to please, but every now and then it would be nice if the pros could challenged. I am afraid it's going to have to continue to be by the USGA in the way they set up the courses, but that represents another small segment of the market. Only when the PGA Tour, LPGA Tour, and European Tour start setting up some difficult scenarios will we find strategy being an integral part of playing the game again. Unfortunately, every time it get a little too hard (Carnoustie, Saturday at Muirfield, Bethpage) the pros take whinning and moaning to a galacticly new level.
Anyway, I admire your stuff and hope you keep on pushing the envelope. Regards.
Lester
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Cos:
I guess you're right--I'm probably just spewing idealism!
The rate I'm going today with some pretty uncharacteristic posts I guess I must have fallen out of the wrong side of the bed last night without realizing it!
So, let them have their beer and cart girls if that's what they really want and I'll save my firm and fast ranting for another day and another place.
I have to try to always remember;
"Golf is a great big game and there's always room in it for everyone!"
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Tim Weiman:
Real nice post there about Ballybunion, the Irish Open and particularly Darren Clarke!
I like that guy a helluva lot! Ever since he met Woods in the World Match play finals and caught him coming out of the final turn into the home stretch I thought he plays golf in a way we should all take note of!
The thing that really got my attention with Clarke on that day was with all the hoopla on the first tee of the finals he just sauntered up to the tee with a big cigar, nodded right, left, forward and aft, took a puff of his cigar, flipped it on the ground, stuck the ball on the peg in the ground all with super efficiency of motion and ripped one down the middle as if it wasn't much a big deal!
Now, who couldn't admire a tour pro like that?
And so as not to get off the subject of this topic, my recollection of the way Darren played that final round was just about textbook match play strategic from beginning to end--so much so, in fact, that it appeared to trip up Woods who seemed to get out of sorts strategically at just the wrong match play moment!
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Tim:
That was really interesting about Ballybunion.. It would be interesting to find out how they set up the course on the weekend. Did they stay with the easier setup.
.
As for the guy who prefers PGA West to Cypress, unless his name is Tiger I wouldn't put too much stock into that one. And even at that I think that Tiger would take Cypress every time.
As for courses that are playable for the masses and a touring pro, I would think that Shinnecock has got to be pretty close to the top of the list. I would like to hear your take on that, and that of Tom Pauls.
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Dan:
I think you're asking how Shinnecock plays for the touring pro and also for the member level. I think the course has enormous elasticity of play and particularly setup that way, if you know what I mean. I believe many of the really great world class courses (that double as championship venues) have this particular asset in one interesting way or another!
I've played the course some over the years but I really don't know the course as well as I would like or at least the little nuances and details of it.
With our Flynn research, though, that should change very shortly! We do have some of the original Flynn topo with hole drawing blueprints, some very interesting "iterations" for the course, some of what wasn't built and some of what was. It's really fascinating stuff and I can tell you Shinnecock was built very much to Flynn's detailed hole drawings and specs. We also know the true story on this Dick Wilson attribution thing that's been floating around for years!
But to me the course is super strong--super strong, and not much different at all now really from "as built". That alone is pretty amazing! That alone tells me Flynn was some kind of real futurist or else they asked for one helluva a championship test and course or both!
I think the members love and respect the course and basically have a ball on it, but I would like to know who plays the back tees and who doesn't and hope to find out that soon.
I'm still a low handicap who doesn't hit it, particularly my driver very far and I know if I had to play that course from the back as I guess I would if I belonged there (for certain things) it would definitely beat me up and leave me drained!
But Shinnecock pretty much has it all in my book--for a whole variety of reasons!
Matter of fact, I'm predicting that in the next 2-5 years Shinnecock will hit the top of the lists! And if it happens to, no way would I ever question that!
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TEPaul,
Sadly, I must agree with Matt Ward regarding GCGC.
TELEVISION has been a horrible influence because it's all about VISUAL presentation, not PLAYABILITY.
When a membership pressures the superintendent to get it green like ANGC (even though that condition at ANGC is brief) the playability suffers and your beloved "Maintainance Meld" goes out the window.
In the end, the members suffer, as the course becomes less enjoyable to play, the way the revered architects intended, and the superintendent becomes disheartened.
But, this is what the uninformed masses want, and the connection to the club's historical past is lost as new generations of golfers, with no prior sense of golf or a club's history join. They certainly have no understanding of
"The Maintainance Meld"
Give me a dictatorship ! Long live Ken Bakst !
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Pat:
Really wasn't questioning Matt Ward about him saying GCGC was soft specifically--just that it's sometimes hard for any of us to tell in a visit or two at any particular course we're otherwise not very familiar with.
But I know GCGC is apparently going in that over-irrigated direction because you told me so some time ago and certainly you know!
If I can help out in any way I'd sure want to do that. But who the hell would listen to me? Most everyone these days thinks I'm crazy and the real pisser is they might be right!
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Dan Belden:
I can't honestly speak to how every hole was set up for the weekend. On the hole I served as marshall (#7 - which played as the second hole for the tournament), they stayed pretty conservative for the weekend as well. I remember someone asking a Tour officials why they didn't go for a tougher set up and the guy really didn't explain.
But, the point worth stressing is that nobody was concerned with the scoring. Everyone was thrilled with the enjoyable weather and the big party scene the event became. On Saturday night the center of town was wall to wall people until four in the morning (including the likes of Darren Clarke and Ian Woosnam).
There was no "macho" concern about how the course was holding up. Instead, members thought of the event as a once in a lifetime thing so why not celebrate the incredible weather and enjoy the whole thing. Besides, the weather was so benign oldtimers could sit back smuggly and say "the pros didn't really play Ballybunion". Actually, some of the players said the same thing.
Was there a sad note to the 2000 Irish Open? Yes, there was. Ballybunion's Captain, some guy who won several Open Championships wasn't able to play in the event......it had something to do with the US Senior Open being played the same weekend.
But, we did get to see Seve hit his opening tee shot into the concession area!
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Wow--there went an hour of my morning (I'm a slow reader).
Shivas,
I agree with your opinion of the BBC coverage. I LOVE the crane view.
Tom Paul,
I agree with your take that, to paraphrase, the average player will take anything they are given for their course and like it, but then we can't continue to charge them $85 a round for "throw-back" conditions. Ideally in achieving non-lush conditions the cost of maintenance would decrease and the average green fee would follow suit.
Much of the talk on this thread has been about ways to "toughen" up golf courses for the pros when the original question was whether strategy was obsolete to them. Unless I'm reading it wrong the majority opinion seems to be that without changes in maintenance practice there's little chance to make a course more strategic.
As far as maintenance goes, it seems reasonable that firming up the fairways and greens might challenge the pros in more and different ways than they currently are. They would have to factor in bounce, speed, and roll rather than stright distance. Additionally, I agree with Jim Kennedy about green not meaning soft. Yesterday I played at a fine course near Tampa called Lake Jovita that was beautifully green, yet the fairways ran (not like a links, but there was good enough roll there) and the greens were firm and difficult to hold even with substantial spin. Firmness and greenness can co-exist with the right turf and management.
Staying with maintenance for a moment I spoke with Steve Smyers a few weeks ago and he said rather than technology "the lawnmower has changed the game more than anything." He said, after playing a round at Winged Foot, the the perfect, tight lies found in any given "upscale" fairway allows advanced players to spin the ball any which way they want. Maybe an alternative is to not only firm the turf under those fairways but also not cut them so short so as to produce slightly uneven lies.
I don't imagine the pros would love to see that.
Lastly, to address strategy (which in part I take to mean options and decision-making), perhaps the NGLA #17 paradigm is obsolete (this has been discussed here before).
Holes such as NGLA's 17th (because it's the model) reward length with length, so to speak. The player who can hit it farther--in this case a long carry over scrub down the left side of the fairway--is rewarded with the preferred angle into the green. The safe player or the player who cannot execute the long left carry plays shorter and to the right, leaving a longer approach from a less advantageous angle. Double penalty.
Why not reverse the two plays? How about a better angle for the player who has to hit the longer shot? The long player is already rewarded with a shorter club into the green, so why not make the angle more challenging? The long player might even chose to play the shorter drive/longer approach shot under certain conditions to have a better angle. That, to me, is strategy and variability.
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Derek,
Why diminish the reward for the risk the long player takes ?
Why reward the safer, shorter shot with a better angle ?
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Why diminish the reward for the risk the long player takes ?
In the context of making holes strategic for the pro player, hitting a shorter club into the green is the reward. Add the preferred angle to that and it's a double reward. This type of hole presents no real options for the advanced player: there's no motivation to play it any other way than down the left.
Why reward the safer, shorter shot with a better angle ?
More difficult to answer, but again, in the context of the pro game, with certain pin positions and wind conditions the angle of attack might be a more important consideration than the distance into the green. For the player who can't pull off the riskier drive, hitting a longer shot into the green isn't exactly a reward, it's just not a punishment.
The idea is to bring decision back into the equation for the pro.
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Derek:
I think that's a fairly interesting take you have there on NGLA's #17!
However, I might say it a bit differently on that particular hole. I'm not sure that the long player who bombs it way down the left side on #17 should have less reward if he pulls the shot off correctly. What I would say is that to take that particular line and length maybe that player should face a bit more risk in doing it.
In other words don't take any of the reward he gets for doing it away just increase the risk more for trying it!
Pat:
You know that hole and that area out to the left of #17 as well as any of us and you have to admit it's extremely generous--very little real risk to worry about there's so much fairway out there to the left!
I've often wondered about that just standing on the tee looking at all that hole tee to green! I just love that hole and the look of it but as wide as that hole is tee to green--one of the widest I've seen, it does seem a bit unbalanced strategically in the way the features are placed somehow.
I can't even imagine why any even semi-competent player would ever think of going way out the right! There's a lot of bunkering out there in the fairway and if you take it all on for some reason what's the reward? Frankly, I don't know, I've never even looked at the approach from over there or tried that angle. But if I were to guess why the right side may be risked up like that I might say it's only for the ladies tees that are waaay over to the right on #17 and an entirely different tee shot angle that plays nothing like the men's tee angle.
There's basically so much bunkering of every conceivable kind going on all over that hole (except way out left) that maybe they need something way out there on that enormous fairway area on the left! Maybe something smallish and very pyschological right around where the good player would get his very good 3-wood of driver to! That would ratchet up the risk some for the long player for the same reward!
Matter of fact I'm drafting a letter in my head to NGLA right now suggesting that! It'll say Pat Mucci suggests that be done--strike that--it'll say Pat Mucci INISTS that be done!
I like that "modify" button:
OK Pat, I realize you may think that would seem a bit pushy, so I'll compromise on my letter. I'll say Pat Mucci asked me to write the letter because he thinks it might be a bit forward of him to do it but this is what he suggests, although he also said if you don't do it he thinks you all are a bunch of a blue blooded architectural ignoramouses!
I think that's a much more subtle and effective way of getting their attention, don't you Pat?
Back again:
I'm not being very economical here! I should get all your suggestions under one stamp. Should I also mention that you suggest they move MacDonald's Gate and their driveway over to the right somewhere and increase the length of #18 by about 65 yds in case Tiger and his cohorts happen to come around again?
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Derek,
You fail to factor in the Risk involved in the longer shot.
If we use # 17 at NGLA.
A slightly pulled driver is in heavy rough, with a shot to a slick green, downwind. That drive also runs the risk of hitting the tree as well.
A badly pulled driver is in the water or deep, deep rough.
A slightly pushed driver is in the bunker
A badly pushed driver is in other bunkers or worse.
TEPaul,
So much of the decision on how to play # 17 is dependent upon wind direction and velocity.
Played directly in to a good wind, or good cross winds, the drive on that hole is demanding.
For good drivers, the slot left of the green seems to be the ideal zone to end up in. Tee balls hit a little left, right or long are not rewarded.
I think the risk reward is just right, although I did hear that Ray Floyd's son drove the green.
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Pat:
Poor analysis of the left side of #17! That's by no means a "slot" down the left side--and way down the left side--that's a huge amount of unencumbered fairway! And for a big hitter if they hit that tree that's a poor drive indeed!
You do have a point about the wind in your face etc but in a really sophisticated analysis of that hole's location and routing direction the prevailing wind is very much either at your back or quartering over your left shoulder enhancing a big hitter's option down that unencumbered left side tremendously.
We're not asking to redesign the hole--this is just an architectural analysis here. And into the wind there is so much else going on in that enormous fairway (other than the left side), cutting down on the ability of a long hitter getting way down the left side on those rarer occasions of into the wind is not of that much consequence.
Derek has a good point here in strictly an architectural analysis and we should all recognize the validity of his point! He wants to cut down on the reward of going down the left side and I say the same strategic effect can be gained by leaving the reward as is but ratching up the risk a little bit!
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Pat,
I'm sure pulling off that drive is no cup of tea. But how many pro's would chose to play to the right? If none of them would see the merit of playing conservatively then essentially it's just a demanding driving hole as you've described it, not necessarily a strategic one.
I'd also like to point out that this is not about NGLA #17 itself but NGLA #17 as the model for strategic driving holes. If the drive to the left on a hole such as this was so truly risky to the professional--as Tom Paul suggests--that he or she might consider playing conservatively, then I could see rewarding that exemplary play with a better angle. But you'd have to do something like put an island fairway out there 275 yards to achieve that. Probably a better way, and a way that accomodates more players, if that's pertinent to this discussion, is to do it with angles so the long player doesn't have a double reward (angle and shorter club) but a single reward (shorter club).
Enjoy your Labor Day weekend!
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TEPaul & Derek,
Since you're talking about # 17 in context with the pros, you can't use member conditions in your premise.
Nuturing the left side far rough and immediate rough would provide all of the RISK you desire.
TEPaul, that slot is narrow between the bunker and the left side rough, and a big hitter who can hit it in the slot can go through the fairway into deep rough.
Since NGLA replicates holes from the UK, let's replicate the condition of the rough from the UK, where finding your ball is half the battle.
The 17th hole reaks of strategy for every level of golfer,
only the conditions need to be changed to increase the risk/reward factor for the pros.
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Pat:
Well, then all I can do is just walk off the amount of fairway which would encompass that entire option of bombing a drive far down the left flank of that hole and opening up in degrees the approach shot into the green! I would like to do that sometimes because in my recollection it's far larger and risk free than you indicate.
But before doing that I could probably get some sense of it from an aerial. I probably have one around here somewhere in a book but I don't feel like searching my library for it now. The only shot I've ever tried on that hole from the tee is basically right at the flag and to the left of the bunkering in the middle of the fairway. My recollection is that long and left from that spot is nothing at all except fairway for a very large stretch. I realize there's a tree there which complicates things for such as me going farther to the left (which very much includes the added distance for me carrying that diagonal bunker).
But neither that diagonal bunker nor the tree (to my recollection) would even be a thought and certainly not a worry for a very long driver! And the pond or the rough way left should not be much concern to a long driver either unless he hits his tee shot way wide of his intention.
This is all based on space and dimension alone which naturally has a direct effect on "risk" and maybe I'm wrong about it for some visual reason but that is my recollections!
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You gentlemen have certainly run with this topic while Jim and I were out working this week! Sorry I couldn't have participated more, but I've read everything above and a few points:
Tom P: I agree with you in general that firmer greens would be the best solution to reinforcing the strategy of golf holes for the pros. Yet only on links courses have I ever seen conditions get to the point where the pros considered landing the ball short of the green -- probably because Americans have still never reached A.W. Tillinghast's ideal of making the approach equally as well conditioned as the green itself. Until we get to that point, making greens really firm makes a course brutal for the 15-handicap and above.
Dan B: I appreciate your analysis of Pacific Dunes, though I was surprised to hear you describe the greens as "very large," since I was trying to make many of them relatively small to contrast with Bandon Dunes.
You are also right to notice that I rarely build penal hazards at the front and back of greens -- esp. in a windy place like Bandon or at altitude like Apache Stronghold where visitors are never sure of their correct club. I've always believed that good players are much better at distance control than average golfers, so a bunker front or back was less likely to do them damage (relatively) than a bunker at the sides. And, since the good player is nearly always hitting his approaches in the air, a bunker in front is a non-factor: it doesn't "help" him at all. (It just makes him less likely to make bogey if he comes up short. As you noted, I'm not trying to make a resort course impossible.)
When I worked for Pete Dye on the planning for PGA West, he assigned me to brainstorm on how to make the short par-4's difficult for the pros. Most of the effort revolved around leaving them with "uncomfortable" shots: they'd have to choose between hitting a hundred-yard approach from a bad angle or a blind line of sight, or else hit a half-wedge from the clear view. As someone noted, the development of the L wedge soon after neutralized a lot of those strategic ideas. (One of those planning sessions was when Pete uttered his immortal words about "getting those dudes thinking," which I quoted in my book.)
We have pulled out all the stops in Lubbock, Texas to make the college players strategize, and in a windy place at altitude, to boot. I hope and pray it isn't too hard to be fun for the rest of the university community.
If that course doesn't make them think, I'm thinking about going back to M.I.T. and inventing a wind machine for 200 acre plots.
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TEPaul,
If you let the rough grow, like GCGC's rough, it would be a treacherous drive, with all the risk/reward you desire.
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Pat:
Of course you're right that if they let the rough grow in to narrow the very generous landing area down the left side of NGLA's #17 it would make the drive somewhat more treacherous and would logically up the risk for the available reward of that area and that long driving option.
By recommending that, however, I think you're suggesting a solution that isn't a particular good one--certainly not the ideal "architectural" one and as such sort of compromises the extreme uniqueness of #17 which is, in fact, the enormousness of the entire fairway area of that hole.
The hole is a short one and one of the fascinations of it is the gigantic "arc" of the fairway area belting around that green.
I really can't think of another hole anywhere that you have available options of approaching a green to the north of you (from way out to the extreme right) or approaching a green to the east of you (from way out to the far left)!
That in itself is much of the uniqueness of that hole but the entire right side has risk/reward features and factors which use fairway bunkering sprinkled throughout the center and right side extremely well. Of course, from center fairway over to the right side you also have that most interesting sandy mound affair (with blind bunkering just behind it) that complicates the approach from center fairway (actually very much left center too) to way over to the right side even more by making the green blind!
So, I think you're someone missing much of the point of the hole by suggesting the left side should be narrowed with rough! What that generous fairway area long and left could use is its size maintained and something architectural (other than rough) that could even be quite small but pyschological to make a very long player think a bit more before bombing a very big drive down the left side and opening up the green to view.
Don't think of this discussion so much in the context of a suggestion that NGLA should actually do this and thereby change C.B's course--it's just a theoretical discussion involving options and strategies and how to "balance" them more effectively!!
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TEPaul,
I think you may have misunderstood me.
I didn't say "narrow" the rough.
I said, just let the rough grow where it is.
That slot is narrow to begin with, but the nearby rough is fairly benign. If you let the rough grow to knee or waist deep, I think you would achieve the risk/reward you desire.
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Tom Doak,
Maybe I'm dense (stubborn for sure) but explain to me what shot options (other than aerial) a pro has if the approaches are soft? Nothing worse than seeing a low 4I for example land in front of a green and check up :'(
I fully understand and agree that firm greens add strategy, but if the approaches do not allow a run up shot, there are NO other options. Even if the greens are concrete, the pros will still have to attach the greens in the air. They'll have to adjust by trying to hit shorter irons and play higher softer shots with more spin.
If approaches are firm, options prevail. This is especially the case for the shorter hitter playing a longer golf course.
Mark
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Pat:
I'm not talking about growing the rough higher either. You may think that area out to the left is a narrow slot--but that's not my recollection of it. The only way to reslove this is for me to get out and measure it, certainly with the generosity of fairway in that area compared to the middle of the fairway and the right side too when you net the bunkers that are in those two areas out of it!
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TEPaul,
I will do so on my next visit, just like I measured the two fairways on # 8, and their elevations.
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Pat:
What is the total width of the fairway on #8--not netting out the centerline bunkering. I'm only talking about the width if you stepped off one side of the fairway to the other side? I did it too!
Tom Doak:
Regarding your second paragraph on your 8/31/3.32pm post.
I too believe there is a degree of green "firmness" at which even a tour pro might be induced to consider at least, a run-up option! He cannot do that or won't, of course, if the approach itself is not firm enough to bounce or filter the ball onto the green.
And if this can be done in Europe, there's no actual reason it can't be done in America too. And if both green firmness and approach firmness are at that point or degree that will create a "quandry" in even a tour pro's mind as to which will work best or worst, he will probably start to try both--and at that point either option should be equally available and effective! At that point there's no real reason why a handicap player wouldn't recognize what's best for him with those two options although obviously a handicapper should try the runup option far more than the tour pro would!
That very green firmness that will induce a very good player to start to think about the runup option I call the "ideal maintenance meld".
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There is an excellent treaty on Attack and Defence in Wethred & Simpson's The Architectural Side of Golf which is required reading for all in this Discussion Group. (There will be a Pop Quiz on Tuesday night, so you all better be ready!)
Back in 1929, when the book was published, it is clearly evident that the Game has the same runaway problems back then as it is today--THE GOLF BALL.
It also clearly defines how the Game would be better served by not so much lengthening the courses as defending the greens with firmness. As far as maintaining firm second cuts of rough, Does anyone know when the second cut actually became a practice?
For those who are of a higher-handicap, yet possess the same love for the game as a Scratch Tiger, I can only suggest that you try to look harder at the Strategic Side of the golf holes you play, may they be Dr. MacKenzie or Ted Robinson designs. (The full spectrum of GREAT to BAD)
Read some of the great books that have come out in recent years describing the whole process of GREAT golf, and not over-rated Golf.
One of the best holes you can look at in flat form on paper is the 10th at Riviera. A classic, short, 310 yard par 4 that is one of the GREAT drivable two-shot holes in the game.
How would one play the hole? When you are going to line-up the direction you want to hit your drive, do you want to challenge the bunkers, the shortest route to the hole, only to be faced with an approach into a sliver of a green? Or....Do you want to play it safe left and then have a longer second that is less taxing and hazardous?
Is Strategy obsolete? Well, I still see the greatest and longest players in the game today still playing it to the safe, short left. Although you still get one every so often that is wanting to gain the advantage, and that is what strategy is all about, Attack and Defense! Therfore, "Strategy" is not dead, only barely sleeping because you have some pretty well-studied guys defining it in this modern age. (Tom Fazio is not one of them.)
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TEPaul,
The courses in Europe may have been designed for that,
Courses built in the US over the last twenty years or so have not been.
You can't force people to play run-up on a course not designed for that game.
In the Bottle Hole thread, under the old GCA format, I listed the yardages from centerline to rough line, and the elevation change from the high left side rough line to the low right side rough line. Unfortunately, I've forgotten them.
RAN,
Any luck on bringing the old format threads into some type of archive or active list on this new format ?