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Golf Architecture 101: The Three (or Two?) Schools of Design · Designing Golf

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: What is the first thing you should learn about golf architecture.
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  Speaker 1: The obvious place to start is the so called schools
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: of golf course design. Most people say there are three
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: such schools. I say there are probably just two. We're
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  Speaker 1: gonna dig into that today. This is the first installment
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  Speaker 1: of our Golf Architecture one oh one series where I
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  Speaker 1: discussed some basic concepts with PJ Clark. PJ is friday
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  Speaker 1: Golf's podcast producer champions to her correspondent and relative newcomer
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  Speaker 1: to the topic of golf architecture. So today with PJ
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  Speaker 1: Clark the schools of golf course Design. I'm Garrett Morrison,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: and this is designing golf. PJ. Let's let's set some
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: levels here. What's your basic familiarity with golf architecture.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: I would say I've I've acquired some familiarity through osmosis
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  Speaker 2: over the last you know, nine months or whatever.
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  Speaker 1: Just being colleagues with us kind of kind of does it.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, I think I I think I, you know,
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  Speaker 2: subconsciously know more than I would give myself credit for, maybe,
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  Speaker 2: but uh uh out outwardly facing what I think I
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  Speaker 2: know is probably not that much.
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  Speaker 1: Have you have you found the topic intimidating in the
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  Speaker 1: past or pretentious in the past, is that.
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  Speaker 2: It is incredibly I mean, I it just it seems
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  Speaker 2: like it's a it's a lot of information, not in
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  Speaker 2: like a bad way, but it's uh, I just I
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  Speaker 2: don't think I'm good at golf enough to like really
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  Speaker 2: know what I'm looking at. I'm more concerned on like,
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  Speaker 2: you know, can I just try to scratch out a
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  Speaker 2: bogie here? Like, I'm not really concerning myself with much
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  Speaker 2: more than that. So, uh, maybe this will make me better,
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  Speaker 2: I hope.
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  Speaker 1: So maybe. Yeah, that's that's a topic to debate. I
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  Speaker 1: think whether knowledge of golf architecture actually makes you a
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: better player, I would probably be better at golf if
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: that were completely the case. But I certainly don't think
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  Speaker 1: it hurts and and I think that mainly what it
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  Speaker 1: does is it allows you to enjoy the game in
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  Speaker 1: a different way. You know, for me, that's that's the
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  Speaker 1: main motivation for it. You know, you contacted me not
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  Speaker 1: long ago on Slack just asking for some recommendations for
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  Speaker 1: golf architecture reading. What was your motivation to do that?
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  Speaker 1: So why do you want to know more about it?
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  Speaker 2: I mean, I as I'm going through and i'm producing.
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  Speaker 2: You know, you you chat with all of these architects,
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  Speaker 2: and it's it's it's I want to be like, you know,
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  Speaker 2: compelled by the conversation more than I already am, or
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  Speaker 2: like more enthralled, like it's cool to just like be
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: there and listen to fine. But then as I'm you know,
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: trying to cut clips or like find a good segment
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  Speaker 2: for social or trying to figure out, you know, what
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  Speaker 2: to put in the show notes, like what am I
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  Speaker 2: emphasizing what is important to people? It's an audience that
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  Speaker 2: I am not necessarily as familiar with or or as
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  Speaker 2: a part of as I probably should be. So that
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  Speaker 2: was my main kind of emphasis in in you know,
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  Speaker 2: getting to the true ethos of what we do here.
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  Speaker 1: I guess well, from that small invitation, you've gotten a
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  Speaker 1: full blown offering of a golf course architecture one oh
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  Speaker 1: one series. I'm excited to do these. I think it'll
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  Speaker 1: be pretty fun. It'll be it'll be like a return
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  Speaker 1: to my teaching days. You know, I was a teacher
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  Speaker 1: before before this, and you're young enough that you could
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  Speaker 1: have been one of my students when I when I
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  Speaker 1: was teaching.
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  Speaker 2: I'm ready, I got a notebook and everything.
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  Speaker 1: You've got the notebook, you're I mean, you're you're an
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  Speaker 1: a student already. All right, So so today we're talking
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  Speaker 1: about the schools, the schools of golf course design. These
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  Speaker 1: are these are not literal schools, right, they're they're more
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  Speaker 1: general philosophies that golf architects adopt in designing holes. And
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  Speaker 1: traditionally we talk about three schools of design. Those are penal, strategic,
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  Speaker 1: and heroic. I think penal and strategic are are the
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  Speaker 1: really important ones. So we'll spend the most time on those,
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  Speaker 1: but I'll briefly address heroic at the end and talk
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  Speaker 1: about what that is. But basically, these are like three
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  Speaker 1: different ways of approaching the design of a golf hole.
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  Speaker 1: They were developed at different times in history, they were
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  Speaker 1: popular at different times, but a lot of courses have
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  Speaker 1: examples of all of them. Right, different holes that are
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  Speaker 1: either penal or strategic or heroic you can kind of categorize,
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  Speaker 1: but not all holes like fit neatly into one or another.
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  Speaker 1: I think the important thing is and the reason it's
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  Speaker 1: it's good to learn about schools of design is that
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  Speaker 1: it allows you to start analyzing what a golf architect
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  Speaker 1: is doing right. It provides a framework for understanding pretty
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  Speaker 1: much any golf hole or course, you know, seeing it
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  Speaker 1: through the lens of the penal school, the strategic school,
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  Speaker 1: and the and the heroic school. That makes sense.
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  Speaker 2: So far, Yes, I think I'm with you to this point.
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  Speaker 1: At the very least, you're tracking along. Okay. The next
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  Speaker 1: step is trying not to giggle when we say penal school.
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  Speaker 1: Once we get to that point, then we've really become
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  Speaker 1: the serious golf architecture scholars. So penal school, what is that?
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  Speaker 1: There's a common misconception I think that the penal school
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  Speaker 1: refers to a very difficult or brutal kind of golf course.
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  Speaker 1: That's not really what it is. A penal golf hole
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  Speaker 1: or course can actually be very easy. It can also
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  Speaker 1: be really hard, but it doesn't necessarily have to do
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  Speaker 1: with level of difficulty. So what it actually is, I think,
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  Speaker 1: is it's a philosophy of design that tries to create
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  Speaker 1: a very fair playing field by penalizing poor strikes of
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  Speaker 1: the ball and rewarding good strikes of the ball. That's
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  Speaker 1: what it's really occupied with doing, penalizing the poor strokes,
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  Speaker 1: rewarding the good stroke.
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  Speaker 2: That that sounds like something that that should be done generally.
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  Speaker 2: I feel like I ideologically that makes a lot of
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  Speaker 2: sense to me.
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  Speaker 1: It stands to rationality, right. That that's why it was
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  Speaker 1: developed in the first place, because it's like a very
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  Speaker 1: reasonable way, a very common sense way to approach golf
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  Speaker 1: course design. Right. So you know, penal design, it's a
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  Speaker 1: it's a way of placing hazards. Right, You're placing hazards
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  Speaker 1: to catch wayward shots, and in doing that, you're penalizing
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  Speaker 1: the poor strikes of the ball. If you hit the
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  Speaker 1: ball far enough and straight enough, you will be rewarded
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  Speaker 1: by being on the fairway or being on the green.
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  Speaker 1: It's kind of a or B, black or white. That's
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  Speaker 1: penal design. So I want to I want to try
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  Speaker 1: to help you understand each school of design by imagining
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  Speaker 1: a golf hole, very simple golf hole, straight away par four,
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  Speaker 1: four hundred yards. Okay, that's it. We just have we
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  Speaker 1: just start with a T box and a green straight
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  Speaker 1: away four hundred yard middling, medium, medium, par four. All right,
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  Speaker 1: So how would we place hazards on this hole in
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  Speaker 1: order to create a penal design? See some of these features,
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  Speaker 1: you know, can can change in nature. You know, they
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  Speaker 1: don't have to be bunkers, they don't have to be
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  Speaker 1: water whatever. The placement of the hazards is what we're
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  Speaker 1: talking about. So I'm imagining, if I'm a penal architect
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  Speaker 1: and i want to turn this straight away par four
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  Speaker 1: into a golf hole that fits my philosophy, I'm going
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  Speaker 1: to put a cross bunker, like a bunker that goes
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  Speaker 1: across the front of the fairway, because you know, if
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  Speaker 1: somebody tops the ball or somebody hits it really thin,
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  Speaker 1: I want them to end up in that bunker. I
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  Speaker 1: don't want them to end up in the fairway. And
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  Speaker 1: you've seen you've probably seen players like hit a low
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  Speaker 1: ball that ends up going farther than their normal drives right,
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  Speaker 1: and so as a penal architect, I'm trying to avoid that.
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  Speaker 1: I'm putting that cross bunker there to catch those shots.
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  Speaker 1: Then I'm also considering hooks and slices. So I'm gonna
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  Speaker 1: put bunkers, maybe multiple bunkers, maybe one long or two
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  Speaker 1: long bunkers down both sides of the fairway. All right, Now,
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  Speaker 1: I've penalized the wayward shots. So if you hit the
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  Speaker 1: ball straight, you're in the fairway. Okay, now the green,
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  Speaker 1: I'm gonna put a bunker in front of the green,
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  Speaker 1: another cross bunker in front of the green, because if
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  Speaker 1: somebody comes up short, if somebody doesn't hit it far enough,
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  Speaker 1: I want them to be in that bunker. I don't
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  Speaker 1: want them to then bounce onto the green and then
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  Speaker 1: hooks or slices. Two bunkers on both sides of the green,
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  Speaker 1: then a bunker. Long. Somebody hits it thin, they'll end
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  Speaker 1: up in that bunker. This is kind of an ideal
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  Speaker 1: penal hole right now. Now a couple of other factors.
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  Speaker 1: I want the fairway to be fairly flat, because if
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  Speaker 1: somebody hits the fairway, I want them to be rewarded.
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  Speaker 1: I don't want them to have some kind of funky
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  Speaker 1: lie because of the little undulations in the fairway. I
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  Speaker 1: want I want them to get a level lie. And
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  Speaker 1: then I want the green to fairly flat. Two, because
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  Speaker 1: if they hit the green, I want them to have
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  Speaker 1: a fairly simple putt because they're being rewarded for that
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  Speaker 1: good approach. I don't want them to have some double
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  Speaker 1: breaking putt.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So that's that's my golf hole. That's the ideal penal
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  Speaker 1: golf hole. How do you feel about that golf hole?
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  Speaker 1: Does that all make sense to you?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean and like you said, I assume you
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  Speaker 2: could replace that front cross bunker with a pond so
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  Speaker 2: that you can you can just go into the water
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  Speaker 2: then instead of a bunker or whatever. Like I guess
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  Speaker 2: my main question would be does it does it matter?
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  Speaker 2: Like do you care? Are you putting like you want
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  Speaker 2: to penalize hooks and slices off the tee? Say like
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  Speaker 2: are these ten yards off? Are these twenty yards off? Like?
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  Speaker 2: How extreme? Like I hit a draw and I tend
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  Speaker 2: if I leave it open, I my miss is like
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  Speaker 2: way right generally right, and like if I'm really pushing
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  Speaker 2: it right at like am I? If I hit it
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  Speaker 2: too far right? Am I over your bunker to that point? Then?
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  Speaker 1: Interesting? It depends levels of difficulty. Remember how I talked
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  Speaker 1: about like a penal golf hole can actually be pretty easy.
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  Speaker 1: So just imagine that hole that I laid out for you.
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  Speaker 2: Like what you laid out I think is like a
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  Speaker 2: pretty simple Like I would feel good about playing that
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  Speaker 2: hole a flat fairway of flat green, Like I feel
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  Speaker 2: like it's pretty straightforward there.
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  Speaker 1: But if I made the fairway twenty yards wide and
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  Speaker 1: put the hazards where I put them right close to
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  Speaker 1: the fairway. Yeah, then it would start to get really hard.
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  Speaker 1: If I made the fairway eighty yards wide, then it
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  Speaker 1: would be pretty simple, pretty easy. So it just, you know,
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  Speaker 1: a level of difficulty. It kind of depends. Now you know,
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  Speaker 1: there's there's another way to approach this, where you would say, Okay,
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  Speaker 1: if we want the ideally fair golf hole, then what
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  Speaker 1: we'd do would be to make the penalties more severe
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  Speaker 1: as you get farther away from the fairway.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So maybe you have just rough on the sides of
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  Speaker 1: the fairway, and then a few yards off of the
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  Speaker 1: fairway you have bunkers, and then a few yards farther
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  Speaker 1: off the sides of the fairway you start to have
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  Speaker 1: trees or water. Yeah, and so the penalty gets greater
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  Speaker 1: the greater the misses. The concern of the penal architect
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  Speaker 1: is to make the ideally fair golf hole. Now, okay,
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  Speaker 1: you've already said this seems like a kind of rational
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  Speaker 1: way to approach building a golf hole, make it fair.
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  Speaker 1: What do you think are what would be the problems
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  Speaker 1: with designing a golf hole like this? Do you think I.
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  Speaker 2: Feel like, well, I was just gonna say, I feel
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  Speaker 2: like it's a lot easier to make it harder than
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  Speaker 2: it is to make it easier, Like it is easier
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  Speaker 2: to throw water or bunkers or grown out rough for
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  Speaker 2: out of balance, whatever that it is to like give
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  Speaker 2: somebody truly a flat, lie truly a flat, like a
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: well sloped putt, like any of those things. I feel
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  Speaker 2: like it's easier to put obstacles in the way than
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  Speaker 2: it is to actually reward people.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, probably true. And it could get away from
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  Speaker 1: you a little bit as an architect, right if you
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: start piling up too many obstacles, if you get over
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  Speaker 1: enthusiastic about it, then you end up with a kind
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  Speaker 1: of monstrosity of a hole. Now, what about what you're
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: thinking about when you're playing this hole, when you're standing
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: on the tee, do you have any choices in front
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  Speaker 1: of you?
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  Speaker 2: I mean, I guess like you could take less than
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: driver to in the hope of hitting it straighter, Like
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  Speaker 2: if I'm just trying a four hundred yard hole, if
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: I'm just trying to punt, you know, six iron six
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  Speaker 2: iron kind of thing, like I don't know that could
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  Speaker 2: that could be a thought of mine if I'm really
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  Speaker 2: trying to not hit it in any bunker.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, if the full priority of the golf hole of
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  Speaker 1: the design is on hazard avoidance, then maybe you consider
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: clubbing down and trying to hit a straighter shot. So
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  Speaker 1: you know, certainly a course analytics, a course management expert
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  Speaker 1: would advise you against that, would advise you to get
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  Speaker 1: it as far down the playing field as possible. But
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  Speaker 1: that's neither here nor there. I mean, this is the
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  Speaker 1: design is kind of motivating you maybe to think about
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  Speaker 1: trying to hit it as straight as possible. But I
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  Speaker 1: would just point out that that's basically all the golf
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  Speaker 1: hole is making you think about. It's making you think
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  Speaker 1: about hitting the fairway and hitting the green, and that's
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  Speaker 1: basically it. And that can be fairly boring on repeat
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  Speaker 1: plays because you're not getting much dynamism in playing this hole.
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  Speaker 1: There's not much variety from day to day, and so
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  Speaker 1: that could potentially be an issue.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I feel like if you're if you have
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  Speaker 2: you know, eighteen holes, whatever you take out the part threes,
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  Speaker 2: if you have fourteen holes of bunker lined fairways, then
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  Speaker 2: you're kind of getting into the same thing. No matter
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: if it's you know, three hundred and thirty yards or
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  Speaker 2: six hundred yards, it's kind of the same system of
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  Speaker 2: I just want to play this as straight as possible,
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  Speaker 2: and however long it takes me to get down there,
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: it takes me to get down there.
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  Speaker 1: There's not very there's not really that many ways to
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  Speaker 1: design a penal golf hole. Now, there are some courses
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: that do this pretty successfully find some variety in these concepts,
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  Speaker 1: but ultimately you're kind of trying to when your priority
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: is fairness, the variety of the golf course is a
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: little bit limited.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: Now.
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  Speaker 1: I'd also raise another point here, and that is that
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: penal golf courses tend to be harder for average players,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: players like you and me, and easier for really expert players,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: because you know, what really expert players are good at
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: is hitting it long and straight, you know, and that
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  Speaker 1: helps on any golf course. But on a golf course
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  Speaker 1: where that's the only requirement, where that's all you're thinking about,
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  Speaker 1: all you have to do, then a PGA Tour pro
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  Speaker 1: is going to ace that test time after time after time,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: whereas a player like you're, you know, we occasionally have
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: trouble just getting the ball off the tee. Yeah, those
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: golf courses are set up to punish us.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: So is that more of a like a I don't know.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: I don't want to call it like a systemic failure.
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  Speaker 2: But there are more of you and me than there
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: are PGA Tour pros for sure, that's right. So is
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: that a good thing or a bad thing?
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: Well, I guess it depends on what the purpose of
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: the golf course is. I mean, you're familiar with Bethpage Black, right, Yeah,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: that is a golf course that prides itself on being hard.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: I would say there are maybe some strategic holes out there,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: but for the most part, the concepts are fairly penal,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: as in, the hazards are kind of flanking and and
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: et cetera.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: Right, that was my biggest takeaway, Like, I remember the
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: first time I ever played there that, like, the greens
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: are not that bad, and that's what I was most
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: worried about. And I did not have a tough time
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: on the green. I put it really well, and I
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: was like, these are not fast and there's not a
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: lot to them. It's just getting beat up on your
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: way down there is what kills you.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, Yeah, And you know, if you it's a
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: fairly it's a fairly straightforward test on a lot of
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: those holes. Right, you got the bunkers on the sides
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: of the fairway, you got the bunkers around the greens.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: If you're on the green, then then the greens are
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: relatively simple most of the time. So the primary test
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: is physical, right, you know what you need to do.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: You got to hit the fairway, you got to hit
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: the green, and if you don't do that then then
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: it's rough. Yeah, yeah, right for sure. So in any case,
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: that that is an example of a you know, beth
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: Age kind of sits in between some of these categories.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: But but I think it's probably a good working example
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: of what a penalal golf course design can look like.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: Now on this point of it tending to be harder
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: for average players than for expert players, there's an interesting
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: historical narrative to tell here about when penal architecture was
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: popular and when strategic architecture started to emerge, and why
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: it is that a lot of architects decided to move
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: on to a different philosophy or different approach to designing
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: golf courses. One example was Royal Saint George's. This is
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: an Open championship golf course. It hosted its first Open
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: in eighteen ninety four, and this was a modern golf
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: course at the time, which means that it followed a
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: kind of penal philosophy of design. Now, the land was
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: wild that you know, it's like linksland, wild, rumpled linksland
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: with some crazy holes. But the hazards that were built
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: tended to be penal in their intent. Their intent was
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: to capture these wayward shots. There are these bunkers that
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: you had to carry off of each t and there
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: were different results, rewards and punishments depending on how good
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: your strike was. In eighteen ninety four, players were playing
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: with the old Gutta Percha golf ball, some equipment that
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: is extraordinarily hard to use, and so even really good
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: players were challenged to make these carries consistently because of
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: the vagaries of the equipment. Eighteen ninety four Open Championship
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: were all Saint George's, a primarily penal design. The winner, J. H.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: Taylor shot three twenty six over four rounds. His rounds
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: were eighty four, eighty eighty one, eighty one. That won
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: the Open Championship. Okay, then It was a very different time,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: but the course was hard. Ten years later, a couple
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: of things that it had happened with the equipment. Golf
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: had gotten more popular, more science had entered into the
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: construction of the equipment. The biggest thing was the change
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: of the ball from the old Guta Percha ball to
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: the Haskell ball or the wound ball that just went
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: way farther. Nineteen oh four Open Jack White, not of
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: the white stripes, this was this is a golfer. He
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: shot two ninety six, That is thirty strokes better than
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Jay H. Taylor's winning total. Jack White shot eighty. He
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: didn't start off well eighty seventy five seventy two to
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: sixty nine. Raking seventy was an incredible idea in the
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: eighteen nineties, but it had become less so as the
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: equipment had gotten better and as the players had gotten better.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: Suddenly Royal Saint George's wasn't that hard anymore, because all
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: of a sudden players got good enough to consistently make
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: those carries, and the course wasn't offering much else in
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: the way of challenge. And this is when a group
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: of thinkers, a group of architects started to theorize a
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: different way of building golf courses. And they started to
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: look at some of these courses that had been built
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: in recent times and say, these don't seem to be
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: that interesting or challenging anymore to good players. As players improve,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: they just kind of end up murdering these golf courses
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: that were initially really hard. Why is that? And so
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: they started to come up with different ideas about how
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: a golf course could be broadly challenging not only for
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: expert players, but interesting and fun for average players. And
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: part of the solution to that problem was kind of
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: the invention of strategic golf architecture. And that's what we're
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: going to get into next. After we talk about Club
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: TF for a moment, I want to talk about Club TF. PJ.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: What what's your favorite part of Club TF.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: I like the hangouts. I mean, the TGL one that
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: we just did was incredible. I know, the big plans
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: for the February hangout. I think the kind of community
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: interaction is really cool, and how many people tune in
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: and always comment on all the articles and are really
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: kind of bought into Club TFE has been the kind
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: of biggest revelation to me, I would say.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that community and Club TFE is really incredible. It's
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: a bunch of avid golfers golf nuts, so we all
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: have that in common right off the bat. The hangouts
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: are part of it. We do a monthly virtual hangout
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: where some of us get together and maybe with a
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: couple of guests and just kind of have a casual
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: chat about something or other. The last one was incredible
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: where you guys played a golf course that was a
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: virtual golf course that was designed by Club TFE members
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: their version of a TGL course, and there were some
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: truly incredible holes. The next one is actually going to
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: be a wine themed hang out. I'm not sure if
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: we've announced that yet, but I'm going to be involved
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: in this and we'll give me an excuse to drink
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: a little bit of wine with some wine knowledgeable people.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: So we do that kind of thing on a monthly
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: basis to build this community and to keep in touch
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: with people. We also have events, and CLUBTFE members are
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: often at Club TFY only events or just at the
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: public events that we hold. You get early access to
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: those events if you're a Club tf member. And then
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: this comment section this uh, these or multiple comment sections
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: on different articles are a great place for people to
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: discuss things and get to know each other, and lots
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: of friendships have formed there. So that's one of the
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: greatest parts of CLUBTFE Friday Golf's membership. Go to the
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: Frida egg dot com slash membership to see what CLUBTFE
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: is all about. All right, let's talk about strategic golf
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: course design. Let's do it.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: I'm ready.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: This is an attempt to introduce some thought and tactical
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: complexity back into the game.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: I like that, so design, I like the sound of that.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: At least we'll see.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so sounds like something you could do, right.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: I would like, yeah, I know what I would like
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: to do. And then that it's the doing it part
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: that's kind of hard for be on a golf course.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Well, you've already identified one of the potential issues with
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: the strategic school, but we'll get to that eventually. So
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: the main intention of the strategic architect is to make
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: sure that it's not just the player's ability to physically
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: strike the ball that matters. It's also the player's ability
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: to choose smart targets and to manage risk reward situations
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: to analyze the golf course and come up with a
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: good plan of action. Strategic architects want to test that
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: aspect of a player's ability. They think that's important. Players
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: are given options and forced to make decisions, and if
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: they make good decisions, they will gain some sort of advantage.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: So let's go back to our four hundred yard straight
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: away par four. We're going to take away all the
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: bunkers and then we're going to do everything we need
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: to do With two bunkers. We'll put one bunker at
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: the front right portion of the green. Okay, so if
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: you're on the right side of the fairway, you have
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: to play over that bunker. If you're on the left
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: side of the fairway, the bunker's not in your way.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: You have a clear path to the green. So it's
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: right there, front right portion of the green. Now we're
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: going to create our second bunker. This one will be
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: a fairway bunker. Okay, so do you remember which side
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: of the faraway is better.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: I want to be on the left so I don't
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: have to play over the bunker.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: There you go. We're gonna put the bunker right there. Yeah,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: we're gonna put the fairway bunker right where you want
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: to be. Okay, So now you have a choice. You
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: can play away from that fairway bunker and be safe,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: but you're left with a tough approach over the green
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: side bunker if you try to play closer to that
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: faaraway bunker. If you take on that risk and you
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: don't go in the bunker, you'll have an easier approach shot.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: That is strategic design at its most basic. There's a
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: hazard right where you want to be, which creates this
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: risk reward scenario. You have to make a choice on
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: the tee about how how aggressive to be right, and
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: that choice has subtle or delayed consequences, either positive or negative.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: These subtle penalties that happen are a big feature of
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: strategic golf course design. You know, in penal architecture, it's
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: kind of a or B. There's the there's the clear
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: penalty for the wayward shot. You know what's happening to
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: you in strategic architecture. Sometimes you're on the fairway and
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: you think I'm okay, but then you get to your
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: next shot and you're like, I'm actually not okay. Yeah,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: that's the subtle or delayed penalty. So what's your reaction?
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: To that kind of golf hole in in contrast to
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: the to the penal design.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: It has me thinking like a similar thing of The
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: only thing I would even consider on the penal hole
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: would be like is it worth taking less the driver
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: just to try to keep it on the planet in
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: a worst case scenario. Now I would be thinking if
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: I take less than driver and I come up like
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: short of that bunker to the left, but then I
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: have a longer, quote unquote easier shot into the green,
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: it adds maybe you know, two or three times more
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: wrinkles of club usage, or you know, how aggressive do
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: I want? Am I okay? Going to the right further
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: with a driver and then having you know, a wedge
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: or a low iron in my hand and trying to like,
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: can I do I feel more comfortable going over a
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: bunker with that versus the longer iron anything like that.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: That would That's what would be going through my head
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: at that point.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: Very nice. I mean, basically, two bunkers. We haven't done
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: really anything else to our straight away part four, Right, Yeah,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: two bunkers, and all of a sudden you're thinking through
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: all those scenarios, not just do I challenge the bunker
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: or do I don't do I not challenge the bunker,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: But do I do I hit a shorter shot that
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: might be straighter that will get me to that side
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: of the fairway? Or do I hit a longer shot
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: that's out in the safe part of the fairway and
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: take that shorter shot that might not be from as
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: good of an angle. You're already thinking through all these
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: possible situations that could happen, and that is what strategic
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: architecture is supposed to do. It's supposed to engage the mind.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: So this this might be a maybe not a one
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: oh one question. It could be a two oh one,
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: It might be a one oh two. I don't know.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: I'll see where this goes. This could be a really
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: stupid question too. You guys talk about angles all the time,
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: like do angles matter?
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: Arguably too much?
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like at what everybody always talks about do the
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: crux of do angles matter? Or should we should? The
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: PGA tour approaches do it right and everybody bombs it
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: wherever they want. I guess that would be my main question.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: For normal people. Golf angles probably matter a little bit more.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: I would assume.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: Maybe that's a controversial issue. This is something that people
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: get surprisingly worked up about.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's that I've gathered that.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: It's a little bit odd, to be honest, how angry
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: people sometimes get about this stuff. I think we forget
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: that we're talking about golf. But but yeah, I mean
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: that that analysis that you just indicated is a really
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: legitimate one and a critique of strategic architecture that could
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: be made. And that is this in the scenario that
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: I just laid out, what somebody would who is giving
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: good advice about course management would tell you is that
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: your priority shouldn't be to chase an angle. It should
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: be too avoid that fairway bunker. And then once you
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: avoid that fairway bunker, then you just take what you get.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: You take the bad angle, You try to get as
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: far down the fairway as you can while avoiding hazards,
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: and take what you get from there. And the reason
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: for that, they will say, is that the potential penalty
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: of being in that fairway bunker is a lot greater
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: than the potential advantage you would get from playing close
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: to the fairway bunker and not going in it. And
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: so simple math would tell you my first priority should
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: be to avoid the fairway bunker, and I shouldn't worry
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: about those angles. But what I would say to that,
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, there are a number of responses to this.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: There are different things you can do in the design
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: of a hole that we'll talk about that might tempt
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: you to get a little bit closer to that fairway
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: bunker than you should. But my basic response to that
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: would be, you have the option. And that's the point.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: If you're saying, I'm going to play away from all
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: fairway bunkers on your strategic golf course, that's what I'm
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: gonna do. That's great, that's your choice. What the golf
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: course is allowing you to do is to make that
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: informed choice. Not everybody's going to make that choice, and
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: that's part of the beauty of it. Now, another point
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: to keep in mind is that none of us is
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: really as accurate as we think we are. And this
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: is a point that course management experts often emphasize. You
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: shouldn't be trying to like skirt a fairway bunker by
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: four yards, because your dispersion pattern off the tea is
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: not four yards. Yeah right. You should be looking at
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: the middle of the fairway most often and just considering
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: out from there, like your likely misses and trying to
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: avoid the places that those misses might take you. So
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: that that is something to bear in mind as well.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: But again, the course is the course. It's going to
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: tempt you to do some things that you maybe you
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: shouldn't do. Not everybody is math driven and the way
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: they think their way around a course, and so the
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: golf course architect's job is not to prevent the data
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: driven player from just avoiding hazards all over the golf course.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: It's to make an interesting playing field for everybody to
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: engage with and think about. And I think having those
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: different options is part of what allows the game to
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: be fun, even in an age when everybody is saying
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: you should play a golf course the same way. Does
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: that make sense as as a response to what you
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: were wondering.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I mean that that totally does make sense.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: It's the ability to do whatever you want is I
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: guess the the emphasis here, and then however you want
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: to money bullet your way from there is kind of
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: of up to you at that point.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I mean that is the art argument that
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: a strategic architect would me. And you've probably noticed that
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: I have a bias here that I like strategic golf
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: course design, and I should admit that bias as our
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: guide through this subject. But some people might say that
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: the way that expert players play courses now where they moneyball,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: it should change the way architects approach designing golf courses
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: for that population of players. I'm not sure that I
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: agree with that, but I think that there's something to
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: be explored there, and maybe there's a new school of
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: architecture that will emerge from that. I think that would
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: be pretty interesting and exciting. But we are talking about
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: a philosophy of architecture that was kind of theorized for
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: the first time one hundred and twenty five years ago.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: The game was very different back then. Players played their
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: ball a lot closer to the ground than they do now,
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: and so these angles that I'm talking about, you know,
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: having that bunker on the front right portion of the green,
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: if you're on the right side of the fairway, that's
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: not good. Well to a player in nineteen ohero one,
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: that bunker is really not good because what you're looking
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: to do is run your ball into the green because
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: you can't get your ball up that high.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: Modern equipment hits more consequential for you yeah, than just
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: trying to hit an eight iron over a bunker. Sure,
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: that's right.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: Modern equipment and the way that that players play the
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: game today, especially pro players but also some amateurs, we
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: hit the ball way higher, you know, and it stops
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: way quicker than it used to, and that changes a
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: lot of a lot of these dynamics that we're talking about.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: At the same time, there's plenty that a strategically minded
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: architect can do to intensify some of these scenarios that
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: the architect is presenting to the player. Okay, a couple
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: of things that we could do to our part four.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: One of the most underdiscussed ways to intensify a strategic
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: hole design like this would be to use slope. So far,
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: we've just used bunkers. What if we you know, we
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: have that bunker on the front right portion of the green.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: What if on the back left portion of the green
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: we had a little runoff at the back of the green.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: Then if you're on the right side of the fairway,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: that safe side of the fairway, not only do you
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: have to worry about that bunker, but you have to
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: stop your ball really quickly to avoid having it go
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: down that runoff. Whereas if you're on the left side
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: of the fairway, then you have more kind of room
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: to land your ball. So slope can influence strategy. Maybe
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: the entire green slopes from high right to low left,
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: so that again, if you're on that right side of
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: the fairway, you're kind of hitting down the slope of
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: the green. From that angle, your ball is going to
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: kind of land on a downslope, Whereas if you're on
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: the left side of the fairway, you're hitting more into
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: the slope. So the slope of the green, the general
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: tilt of the green can influence which positions in the
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: fairway are advantageous or disadvantageous. Maybe, in order to just
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: clarify the choice between the right and left sides of
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: the fairway, maybe you put a bunker in the middle
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: of the fairway, and either you have to really take
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: a risk by threading the needle between the bunker and
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: the middle of the fairway and the bunker on the
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: left side of the fairway, or you have to really
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: bail out by going way right to avoid that bunker.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: You can't just kind of go down the middle and
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: split the difference. You have to make a choice. What
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: do you think about bunkers in the middle of a fairway.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: Do you like that? Do you dislike that?
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: I think I like the theory behind it. I think
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: I like the idea of it. It is always as
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: a person who does not hit the ball straight. If
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: I hit the ball straight and end up in a bunker,
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: I'm going to be kind of, you know, mad. I'm
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: not mad, but frustrated because you know, I only get
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: so many of those on a good day, and I would,
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: you know, try to My thinking would be, I can't
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: hit the ball straight anyway, so I'll just aim right
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: at it, and then if I actually hit it, well,
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: I'm screwed. So I think I like the theory of it,
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: and it definitely makes the going left on this hypothetical
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: hole much harder threading the needle. But then my question,
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: my follow up would be, so you thread that needle
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: that is considerably harder than the other side, Now, is
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: it enough of a reward? Like me, thinking about this strategically,
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: I think I would still rather have the bailout right.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: And I'm trying to land a wedge or a nine
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: iron whatever over this bunker that I'm really not terribly
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: worried about. Versus like, is it easy enough to even
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: bother going left here? Hypothetically?
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: Really good point, really good analysis. This exactly what architects
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: have to balance and consider when they're designing a hole. Strategically,
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: when you intensify one part of the hole, you also
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: kind of have to intensify the other part of the hole.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: So if we put that bunker in the middle of
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: the fair we make going left way harder, way more dangerous,
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: and the reward for going left is not good enough
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: for that, We've thrown the hole out of balance. Everybody's
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: going to go right. Well, what if instead of putting
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: a bunker front right, we have a tree overhanging the
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: front right portion of the green, and if you're over
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: on the right side of the fairway, that tree blocks
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: you out. I'm not saying I like that as a
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: as a golf course, des, I mean it's a little yeah,
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: it's a little gimmicky. I mean it's a little silly.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: But that intensification of the choice between right and left
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: and the pathways to the green is kind of what
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: you have to do in response to the problem that
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: you're talking about when a hole gets thrown out of balance. Strategically,
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: you have to intensify different parts of it in order
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: to keep the risk reward balance where it should be.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that makes sense. And then that gives
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: me the normal idiot and opportunity to act like I'm
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: Jordan Speith and like act like I'm going to just
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: hit like this low runner underneath the tree, which for
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: the one time of every thousand that I pull it off,
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: I'm going to feel like I could go win the
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: US Open. So I appreciate that from my standpoint as well.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: There are all kinds of other things that you can
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: do with a strategic hole that we haven't talked about yet,
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: like ways to use slopes and fair ways, other kinds
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: of hazards, creaks, out of bounds lines. All of these
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: have like different characteristics, different effects on the risk reward balance.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: But I think we have basically covered the fundamentals here,
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: so quickly want to touch on what the heroic school
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: is and then we can we can close this one out.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: The heroic school often referred to as as the third
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: school of golf course design. If we wanted to turn
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: that four hundred yard Part four into a heroic hole,
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: we would just require a big carry over water maybe
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: to get to the advantageous position in the fairway. It's
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: kind of like the Strategic School on steroids, right. Instead
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: of these kind of subtle distinctions between different positions in
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: the fairway, there's a really obvious, in your face choice
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: that you need to make, and the aggressive option usually
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: involves a big carry over a scary hazard. Good example
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: of this might be the sixth hole at Bayhill. Do
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: you remember Bryson de Shambau hitting it over the lake
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: at bay Hill a few years ago?
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: Yep?
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: All right, So that hole that just kind of bends
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: around the lake. That's a heroic design, I would say,
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: because in order to get the advantage, in order to
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: have a chance of going for the green to two,
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: or in Bryson's case, reaching the green in one shot,
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: you have to make a big carry over this lake.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: That's kind of thrilling. And you saw the effect of
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: the architecture in the crowd's reaction to Deshamba's shot. That
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: was a heroic shot that he pulled off, and that
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: was brought out by the heroic arc pitecture of the whole.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: I'm that's not an endorsement of that whole necessarily. I
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: think there are other problems with it, but that is
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: the essence of heroic architecture. I think it's basically strategic architecture,
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: but just intensified in a different way. This idea, that
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: heroic idea was popularized by by Robert Trent Jones, who
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: is the most popular golf architect of the fifties, sixties,
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: and seventies. He was an incredible self promoter. He wanted
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: to distinguish himself from the golf architects of the pre
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: World War II period and insists that he represented a
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: new wave or a new school of golf architecture. But
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: I don't think there's quite enough of a distinction between
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: strategic and heroic to call heroic a new school. And
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: so that's that's as much as I want to say
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: about heroic. Why don't we wrap up there? PJ Takeaways.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: What is the thing that you're thinking about at this
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: point in our in our golf course architecture one oh
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: one curriculum is what is the big kind of question
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: on your mind or or you know, synthesis or epiphany
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: that you're having right now.
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: I am I am, I am very like analytically mathematically
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: driven with my sports and you know, like going for
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: and on fourth down cool.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: Like, yeah, you're familiar with the analytics debate through football
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: and other sports.
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, Like going for it on fourth down is good.
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: I would never kick field goals. You should go for
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: it and go for two point conversions all of that.
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: Like anything the math tells me to do, I get
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: there and I'm full wholeheartedly behind. So I am. You know, mentally,
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: I think if I have an opportunity to hit driver,
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: it is better for me to just get down there
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: and try to get as close as possible and as
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: few shots as possible and take take my chances with that.
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: But I'm also like, I don't know my rational brain
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: is tied with my math brain in that way. But
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: at the same time, like I just wanted to be fair,
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: Like I think I should be rewarded for a good
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: shot that goes far versus you know, a poor shot
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: that doesn't go as far, or like how I I
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: like the thought process behind the strategic but I think
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: I'm more concerned with just the binary I should be
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: rewarded for the very few shots that I personally hit
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: well versus if I hit a good shot and I
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: still end up not rewarded. I'm going to be angry
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: about it.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: That is a mindset that is going to make exploring
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: strategic golf architecture very interesting. And so I'm so glad
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: that you're bringing that to this And I think that
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: that's I mean, it's a side of this argument about
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: golf course does that maybe doesn't get heard enough.
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: I'm a good process person, Like, even if you don't
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: get it on fourth and two, I will just go
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: down yelling good process, good process, process right, and I
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: will be mad at the results not being a you know,
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: indicative of my good process to get there, you know
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: what I mean?
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, And I think that that mindset is really
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: good for a player trying to figure out how to
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: tackle a golf course. But there are two different issues
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: here that sometimes are hard to separate but probably should
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: be separated. One issue is how should you, as a
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: player negotiate a golf course. The second issue is how
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: should an architect design a golf course to make it
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: optimally interesting and enjoyable for the highest number of players.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: Those two issues maybe are interrelated because the architect needs
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: to respond to what players are doing in order to
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: make it interesting for them. For sure, but they are
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: two separate issues, and sometimes there's friction between an architect
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: and a player and that can be interesting too. Sometimes
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: the architect's job is to bother or annoy the player,
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: and that's part of this game as well. So I
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: think this relationship between you know, what you're thinking about
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: as a player, about how to get better and how
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: to approach a golf course tactically, and what an architect
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: is doing to try to make that endeavor as interesting
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: as possible is to me a fascinating issue in golf
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: course design and definitely something that we're gonna we're gonna
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: investigate further as we as we go along. Thanks for
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: doing this, PJ.
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: This has been awesome. I've had I've had absolutely a blast.
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: I'm I'm I'm ready to figure out what what never
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: punting in golf possibly be for me, because i am
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: I'm really I'm really excited to find that out.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: Never chase an angle is the answer there. This episode
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: of Designing Golf was produced by PJ Clark, with a
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: special thanks to Cameron Hurdis. Make sure to check out
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: Club TFE Thefrida egg dot com slash membership. Lots of
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: fun stuff going on in there. Thank you for listening.
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: We'll be back again with an episode very soon. The
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: next episode is an interview with Jeff Ogilvie and that's
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: going to be in your feeds right now. After the
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: Jeff ogilvy episode will go to a an every two
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: week cadence for designing golf. So that's that's what we've
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: got laid out for you there, all right, We'll be
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: back again in the next episode.