Latest / Designing Golf / Golf Architecture 101: The Uses of Out-of-Bounds

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Golf Architecture 101: The Uses of Out-of-Bounds · Designing Golf

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: There is no worse feeling in golf than standing there
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: helpless as your ball sails out of bounds. If it
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: was a tee shot, then suddenly you're hitting three. And
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: if you make a par from there, you'll write down
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: a double bogey. So it's not surprising that a lot
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: of golfers just don't like seeing white stakes anywhere near
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: a playing corridor. They object on principle. At the same time,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Many of the most famous, most revered holes in golf
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: feature out of bounds as a hazard. So there's got
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: to be something to it. In this episode of our
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Golf Architecture 101 series, we're discussing the uses and misuses
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: of OB in golf course design. I'm Garrett Morrison, and
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: this is Designing Golf. All right, as usual for our
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Golf Architecture 101 series, I'm joined by my Friday golf colleague,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: PJ Clark. PJ, how you doing?
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: Garrett, I'm doing great. Ready to learn about out-of-bounds before
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: a very pivotal out-of-bounds controversy at the President's Cup that
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: we're predicting ahead of this podcast, I'm sure.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that is the reason for the timing of this episode.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: I wanted to tackle it now because we've got the
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: President's Cup coming up at Medina Course 3, the newly
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: renovated Medina Course 3. OCM did the work, the firm
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: consisting of Jeff Ogilvie, Mike Cocking, and Ashley Mead, a
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: firm very much on the upswing in the U.S. They're
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: originally from Australia, but doing a lot of interesting work
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: in the States now, including this kind of reimagining of Medina.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: And a few of the new holes at this course
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: are use out of bounds in interesting ways, you know,
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: and among those holes are the first two that competitors
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: will play in their matches. So these are normally holes
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: five and six for members, but in the President's Cup,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: they're going to be the first two because the PGA
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: of America always has to reroute the course, obviously, but,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: you know, before they play a tournament at a place,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: they can't just leave it be. But in any case,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: We will talk about one of those holes in depth
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: in this episode, but I would imagine that people are
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: going to have some takes about this. You know, first
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: hole of the day out of bounds tight against the
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: left side of the fairway and the green second hole,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: the same thing. People are going to have some thoughts,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: I would imagine, PJ.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think from a content perspective, it's great.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Going to give some early week juice. I'm sure people
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: are going to be very upset when you're making captain's picks.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: You know, Seabed's pretty controversial. Didn't take Potty because you
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: don't know if Potty can keep it on the planet.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: Potty might have gone out of bounds on the first
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: couple holes. So it's going to come into play at
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: some point. Somebody's going to hit a shot pretty close
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: to that fence, and I'm excited to see it. I appreciate...
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: the out-of-bounds gods and the content gods kind of linking
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: up here because this is going to bring some much-needed energy,
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: I think, to the first couple of holes.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: Is out-of-bounds a topic where you yourself come in with
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: some feelings and takes?
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: Like, yes and no. I think my take would be
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: just don't hit it there. Right? I don't know how
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: much more of a take I have than that. I
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: will say... the, the, like the, at least in the
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: Medina example, I know we're going to get some more
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: specific examples. That fence is like, that fence is in play.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: It's pretty close. Yeah. Like that thing is, I was
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: even surprised. Like I had heard about it going in,
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: but then being on the ground there and seeing it
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: in person, I was surprised at how close it was
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: and how little room there is to the left side
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: of that fifth green. Um, I I'm sure it's in
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: play just generally for like member play. I don't know
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: if it'll necessarily be in play. If guys are hitting
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: the irons off the tee in the president's cup, but that,
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: that is like, that's a real hazard, which is, um,
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: you know, a lot of the golf that I, I
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: play on long Island here is like, it's a lot
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: of like marshland that it's like, it's more identifiable that,
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: you know, you go into a bad place, a lot
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: of water, a lot of like reeds, marsh stuff. Um,
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: But just having on course, out of bounds is kind
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: of a foreign concept to me. But seeing it play
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: out at Medina, it's kind of jarring for sure.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Medina is an interesting one. And we'll get to
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: specifics later, as you mentioned. But having that fence right
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: there is definitely provocative because it's not technically at the
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: property boundary. It is inside the property boundary. And we'll
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: talk about some of the reasons for that. But just
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: to set a baseline here, This is a one-on-one episode.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: I would imagine that most listeners know what out of
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: bounds is, but I feel the need nonetheless to explain it, right?
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: The stroke and distance. If you hit your ball out
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: of bounds, you count that stroke, you add a penalty stroke,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: and then you hit another ball from the exact same
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: position that you hit your bad ball. So this is
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: more severe than a conventional hazard penalty where you can
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: generally advance your ball to the place that it crossed
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: into the hazard. So, you know, often out of bounds
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: comes in the form of property boundaries. That's kind of
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: the most natural situation for out of bounds. It can
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: also protect different parts of a golf facility itself, like
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: maintenance buildings or clubhouse or practice areas or whatever. But
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: mostly in this episode, we are going to be talking
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: about property boundaries because that's kind of like the classic
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: instance of out of bounds used in golf course design. Now,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: there's also internal out-of-bounds where a course or a tournament
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: can just decide to designate certain parts of the course
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: OB on certain holes. So, you know, if you're playing
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: one hole, the tournament could just decide, okay, the neighboring
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: hole is out-of-bounds. What do you make of internal OB
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: in that fashion, PJ? Okay.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: This comes up, I feel like it comes up maybe
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: like once or twice a year always that during a
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: practice round, Victor Hovland will take, it's always Victor Hovland,
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: will take an interesting route off the tee and try
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: to scam his way into a shorter shot into a hole.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: It is often Victor Hovland for some reason.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: It does. It feels like it's always Victor Hovland.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Riviera especially. He's just like looking for the shortcut. I....
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: I get it from like a core setup perspective of
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: why you would want the hole to be played as designed.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: But from a competitive standpoint, I, I feel like if
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: you're Victor Hovland, good on you for like trying to
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: find the advantage and, and trying to play up the
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: wrong holes. And if, if, you know, they make the
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: rule the next year because you took advantage of it, congratulations.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: So I, I understand for the, um, From a course
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: design standpoint, if you're holding a competition, you would like
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: the course to be played in the way it was
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: designed or set up. I know at Riviera, a perfect example,
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: the PGA Tour put a giant scoreboard there next to
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: the tee, so they can't cut over anymore.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: And there's a famous instance at Inverness where the USGA
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: planted a tree in the way of a shortcut on
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: one of the par 5 holes there.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I get it, but I think I'm overwhelmingly,
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: and maybe this is because I'm a child of the
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: Jordan Spieth era, like pro-creativity, get weird with it, like
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: take the openings. If you see the shot there, go
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: ahead and do it. I would say, yeah, I think
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: internal OB is kind of lame, I guess, from that standpoint.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: That's my feeling about it too. I have no problem
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: with property boundaries. OB or even OB that like protects a,
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: a driving range or something. And, you know, before we
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: recorded this episode, I tried to think about why, right?
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Because there, there isn't necessarily any obvious reason why internal
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: OB should be more objectionable, but I think it's just,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: it's arbitrariness, right? When you have a property boundary, that
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: is something that feels integral.
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: You know, you can't go there.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: It's, it's, it's fundamental. this is the golf property, that
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: is not the golf property, you can't go over there.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: It feels right that you would be penalized for going
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: outside of the proper golf property. Whereas if you just
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: go on to another hole, you're still on the golf course,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: and the golf course should be played as just that.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: If you want to go up another hole, that generally
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: shouldn't be advantageous. If it is advantageous, maybe that's some
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: sort of design flaw, or maybe it's the result of
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: runaway distance gains, whatever. We can have that debate. But
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: it feels like you should be able to use any
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: part of the course to get your job done. Whereas,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: you know, if you exceed the not natural boundaries, because
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: they're not natural boundaries, but the inherent boundaries of the
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: golf course, that feels right. And so I think that's
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: probably why in this episode we're mainly going to be
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: talking about property boundary holes, because those ones just kind
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: of feel the best. It feels like the out-of-bounds is
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: proper in that case. So before we get into how
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: OB can be used in golf course design, I want
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: to bring in a guest lecturer. This is, I believe,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: a first for the 101 series. A while back, we
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: did almost back-to-back episodes on the idea of fairness, where
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: I brought in Bob Crosby to contribute to that idea.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: But we haven't done it in the same episode before.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: I am not a rules expert. This is probably the
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: domain of golf that... that I feel the most insecure
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: about my knowledge of, but I have had this curiosity
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: for a long time about why the OB penalty is
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: more severe than just the regular lateral or cross hazard penalty.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: So I decided to call up Craig Winter, who is
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: the senior director of the rules of golf at the
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: USGA and talk to him about about the history and
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: logic of the out-of-bounds rule. Here's that conversation. Craig Winter,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. Thank you for being here. Good
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: to be here, Garrett.
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, excited for this one. I'm going to learn from
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: you too, I think.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: I think I'm mostly going to be learning from you
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: because my knowledge of the rules is very superficial, I think.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: In this episode, we're talking mainly about golf architecture and
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: out-of-bounds and the relationship between the two. But before getting
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: into the heavy architectural side of things, I'd like to
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: talk about the out-of-bounds rule itself. So why don't we
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: start with a little bit of history? What are the
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: origins of the out-of-bounds rule in golf?
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the easiest way to start here is
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: to take us way back to the first known code. uh, 1744, uh,
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: at Leith. And, uh, the, the out of bounds rule
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: was actually not present in, in that code. And, and I, uh,
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: I mentioned that because a lost ball was when you, you,
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: you lose a ball, you have a stroke and distance requirement, um, progression,
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: which I'm sure we'll get into later is, uh, is
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: going to be part of the story, but the, uh,
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: the very first code of rules did not recognize out
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: of bounds. Now that was a local set of rules and, and, uh,
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: golfers obviously didn't hit the ball that far and perhaps
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: out of bounds was not all that needed, but, but
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: the first kind of formal out of bounds rule was
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: Isle of Wight. And that came to us 1886, I
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: think was the approximate date of that rules code. So
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: that was 140 years till it was kind of formally
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: part of the, the call it the Pantheon of the
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: rules of golf. And that was a stroke and distance rule.
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: connected penalty to hitting the ball off the property. North
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: Berwick touched on that a little bit earlier by saying
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: a ball that was over the wall, this is back
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: in the 1850s, was deemed lost. So it was using
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: the lost ball construct to require stroke and distance, but
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: first official use of it, Isle of Wight. And it
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: gets more interesting from there, certainly.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Yes. I mean, there's a long and winding road of
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: history that leads us to the modern version of this rule.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, we could spend probably a couple of hours
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: going through all the different key iterations of the rule.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: But I'd like to zero in specifically on one. I
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: wonder if you have researched this one in particular. But
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: at one point briefly, I think in the 1840s, the
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: RNA temporarily adopted a three strokes and distance OB rule.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Is that correct?
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: I think that was lost ball. I might, I might
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: be off. I think it was lost ball. I don't
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: think there was OB because the, the, yeah, the, as
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: I understand it, the RNAs code, even initially that was
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: obviously St.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Andrews.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: That's what that, yes, that, that ultimately code was about
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: lost ball. They didn't actually formally recognize out of bounds
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: until they got into the 1899 code. which was no
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: penalty here. It was just take distance. And I think
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: that's the wine detail that we'll follow here as we
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: go through. That was kind of the first recognized universal code.
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: And we didn't have stroke and distance connected to hitting
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: a ball off of the golf course there at the
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: old course and at any other courses then that would
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: obviously latch on to the RNA as a governing body.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Very interesting. So why don't you just give me a
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: general overview of how the out-of-bounds rule evolved from that
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: 1899 code, is I believe what you said, to effectively
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: what we have today? What are the big, you know,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: kind of stopping points in that history?
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so golfers today, they've been familiar for quite some time.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: It's stroke and distance. It's that one rule that you
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: often choose not to follow knowingly. I'm going to just
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: drop and play on, or I don't want to go
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: back and stop play and slow things down. But the rules,
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: that first kind of formal transition from individual local clubs
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: creating rules of golf for their golf course, that pivoted
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: in 1899 to this, what is effectively a universal code
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: or about that time, people started looking more to the
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: RNA as a governing body. And That was around the
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: same time that the USGA was also spreading our wings
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: here in the United States. And the first rules there
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: were only distance. You would hit it out of bounds
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: and you would have to come back to where you
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: last played without ultimately having the additional penalty. And that rule,
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: we're going to see kind of a tracking of history.
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: It was in that same space for quite some time.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: It was distance only.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: And you'd hit.
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: Ultimately your first shot out of bounds and you'd come
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: back and you'd be hitting two from the tee. That's
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: very different clearly than what we have today. Yet lost ball,
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: if you've lost your ball on the golf course, you
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: would still have the stroke and distance penalty. And that
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: decoupling of those two rules, I think will be interesting
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: as we track through this. The distance only rule actually
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: was still present when you get up to all the
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: way through the teens and then Once we got into
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: the 1920s, that's when stroke and distance kind of saw
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: its first worldwide adoption, this universal code where out-of-bounds turned
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: into stroke and distance as we know it today. But
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: there was a local rule option that was very clearly
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: present that if a course committee thought that that was
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: too penal, it was too much of a penalty to
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: have stroke and distance, then it could just be distance.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: And ironically enough, and probably to no surprise because golfers...
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: don't love this rule as it plays out, that local
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: rule option became something that was actually pretty common throughout golf.
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: So common, in fact, that when we got into the 1940s,
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: the USG actually changed to that version as their rule.
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: And if listeners don't know this history, what was largely
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: happening from, we'll say, the late 1890s up until the 1950s,
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: The RNA and the USGA, while they both wrote the
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: rules of the game, they were effectively independent of one another.
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: The RNA would make revisions. The USGA would make revisions.
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: And those rules weren't aligned. Obviously, there was a different ball.
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: That's a big part of the history. But the nuances
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: between the rules were, in fact, different. And we were
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: one of the first to kind of jump into this
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: space of experimentation that started in the late 1940s and
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: it tracks through the 60s. but distance only. And the
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: reason for that, just plainly from the USGA, is that
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: this is actually what most clubs are doing. So we're
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: going to change the rule itself to match ultimately what's
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: happening in practice. So the rule was no longer stroke
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: and distance. For those that are saying that stroke and
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: distance is too penal and they have kind of a
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: history of playing the game for some time, as we'll
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: see this moves all the way into some of the
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: late 60s and that was part of the past of
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: probably their history in playing golf.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: So how did it come about that the modern stroke
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: and distance rule became the widely agreed upon or standard
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: kind of global out-of-bounds rule?
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: I think the easiest way is to say that the
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: governing bodies felt like there was value in a worldwide
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: universal code. 1952 was the first joint rules code. The
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: RNA and the USGA met in 1951 and created a
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: single code that would govern the game worldwide. And so
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: the kind of history I shared where there were different rules,
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: the stymie on one side, not the other, that ultimately
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: as golf became more global, it made sense to have
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: a single set of rules to govern the game of golf,
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: which we still have today. And once we got into
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: the late 60s, that really kind of took over and
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: took precedence that stroke and distance was, in fact, the
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: best option. And I think it's helpful just to take
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: a step back. And a lot of what I've talked
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: about has been distance only or stroke and distance, and
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: that very rightly focuses on the penalty. But the governing
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: bodies and, frankly, clubs even before that, they were struggling
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: with not only the penalty, but ultimately how it fits
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: into the strategic sign of the whole, how How penal
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: is this? Does it make sense to have this one
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: be distance only or stroke and distance? How much do
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: we want golfers to have, we'll say, fear? or concern
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: for the boundary? Pace of play was certainly a concern.
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: And so all of those types of considerations were, they're
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: also in rulemakers' minds. I mean, we hear different stories
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: that do come about from golf and they play into
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: ultimately decisions around governance. But There were even the lateral
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: drop option that we think of today from a red
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: penalty area. That was an attempt. There was a lot
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: of experimentation that happened from the late 40s into the
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: 50s and even into the 60s where there were a
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: lot of attempts that ultimately, when looked back upon, they
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: all had one very challenging aspect that they couldn't overcome.
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: And that was, all the way back to some of
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: my earlier comments, decoupling the penalty for a lost ball
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: and the penalty for hitting a ball off the golf course.
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: And the one reference point that is unique between both
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: of those is where you last played from. And ultimately,
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: the distinction between hitting it off the course and losing
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: your ball on the course, it made sense to marry
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: those two rules, have the same penalty that applies. There's
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: a philosophical connection between those two things, progression in playing
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: the hole. You start from the tee and you continue
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: to play a series of strokes. And It made sense
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: back then to the governing bodies in the late 60s
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: to really create a single choice under stroke and distance,
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: which to this day still carries the way. There's the
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: provisional option, obviously, to help with the walkback. There's a
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: local rule that was recently introduced that provides what is
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: in effect a provisional ball-like option if you don't play one.
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: But ultimately, stroke and distance for a ball that's out
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: of bounds and also a ball that's lost They make
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: the most sense with respect to this idea of progression
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: and how the game is played.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Okay, so if I'm following your argument correctly here, one
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: of the reasons, or perhaps even the main reason, we
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: have the stroke and distance OB penalty today is that
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: the lost ball penalty sort of had to be stroke
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: and distance. You know, it couldn't just be, you couldn't
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: just treat a lost ball like you hit it in
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: a a hazard because you know where do you where
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: do you drop it it's lost so if you were
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: to say institute an OB penalty that would just be
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: distance or would just be stroke as in sort of
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: like a like a hazard penalty where you would drop
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: it where it where it crossed and etc then you
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: would have a situation where the OB penalty is less
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: severe than the lost ball penalty and that just doesn't
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: doesn't make sense. Is that, is that the argument kind
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: of that, that emerged in, in this time as, as
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: the governing bodies were looking to, to unify the rules? Yeah.
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: When, when that transition happened, that was the key. I mean,
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: the wrestling that was happening was, was just trying to
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: figure out if there was an alternative that would work,
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: but there continued to be, and, and you can pretty
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: easily kind of put yourself in this position as a golfer.
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: Did my ball go over the fence or did I
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: lose it here next to the fence? And if the,
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: penalty was that different, ultimately the procedure. You go back
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: to the tee for both, for example, but with one,
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: you're hitting your second. With the other, you lose the ball,
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: you're hitting your third. That's a pretty consequential decision. And
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: it also, it did have some of the safety aspects
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: of how aggressively were players taking on out of bounds.
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: And that gets into some of the strategic elements that
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: you'll be discussing, you know, the wanting to press against
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: a boundary when otherwise perhaps it probably isn't the smartest play.
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: Those types of discussions were part of it, but it
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: truly was the consequence of having certainty that your ball
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: was out of bounds versus not or close to it
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: and having such a significant difference in the penalty.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, that makes sense from a kind
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: of internal logic standpoint of the rule. I came into
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: this discussion wondering if the governing bodies at some point
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: decided we want to disincentivize playing close to OB or
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: risking OB because often what's on the other side of
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: OB is somebody else's property. And that became more and
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: more of a factor as golf evolved over the centuries
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: and decades because, you know, the early courses were often
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: out in the middle of nowhere. Modern courses are a
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: little bit more hemmed in by, again, other people's property
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: and And so OB is no longer something that no
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: longer feels responsible to kind of use it as a
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: tempting hazard, like play close to this and get a reward.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Often clubs are trying to point players in the other direction.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: So was this emergence of the problem of damaging other
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: people's property something that the as they established a new
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: OB rule? In other words, did they want to disincentivize
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: players playing close to a property boundary?
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it did play a part. And I think this
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: is the timing that you're speaking of. When we look
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: back at what was happening in the mid-60s all the
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: way back into the late 40s, golf was starting to
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: show up in different places that weren't quite as remote,
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: or ultimately houses were showing up around golf courses. And
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: all of the different experiments that were happening were having
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: some of those consequences. And when we got to, I think,
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: you know, the pendulum was swinging back and forth, but
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: the 1952 revision that I had referenced was kind of
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: in the beginning part to middle of this experimentation. And
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: Joe Dye actually wrote in Golf Journal to effectively all
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: golf courses saying you might want to revisit ultimately how
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: you place your boundary stakes, even encouraging that they maybe
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: get moved back further, because that rule did at that
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: time change for a stateside to stroke and distance. It
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: was the same for the RNA. And that lived for
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: a bit of a time, four or five years. And
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: then the USGA went back into experimentation. And when they
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: went to the lateral drop, the one stroke penalty, the
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: reasons for moving away from that were They were multi-part,
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: but part of that conversation was about people now, golfers now,
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: favoring more aggressive lines towards out-of-bounds. And ultimately, there are
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: some safety consequences, concerns that do come from that.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's just occurring to me now, and
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: I had not thought of this before, that a lot
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: of the great OB holes in golf, a lot of
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: the great classic holes that use a property boundary for
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: strategic purposes, the standardization and unification of the OB rule.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: And so at a lot of these courses, at St. Andrews,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: for example, there might have been a number of different
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: theories over time of what that OB on the 16th
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: hole or on the 17th hole would have meant strategically
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: for golfers. And so not all of these courses were
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: built with, of course, the modern OB rule in mind.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it would be a less severe Or it may
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: have even been a more severe local rule, but it
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: would have been far more variable what the original designers
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: of these courses meant by that OB line. And that's
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: pretty interesting, isn't it? It is indeed.
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: You know, the reference I made to North Berwick back
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: in the mid-1800s, I don't have any record. It's possible
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: reaching across the pond would have a better idea of
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: how this played out.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: There was a....
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: An 18, late 1880s, mid 1880s rule at St. Andrews,
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: where if you hit it into the greenkeepers area, it
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: was deemed lost, which is similar to, you know, it
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: it's over a fence. You can't play it. It's out
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: of bounds, but they were using the deemed version. But
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: prior to that, I don't, I don't know of any
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: situations that were similar to that. So it is possible
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: that early on golf at St. Andrews was You hit
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: it over the stone walls and you were certainly fine
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: to play it back over the top of them onto
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: the golf course. North Berwick went a different way many,
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: many years before that. And how golf ultimately dealt with
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: that situation was to get where we did today through
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: a lot, obviously a lot of play. But as the
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: game evolved, as frankly, the golf ball went further, there
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: had to be more consideration for the consequences of somebody
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: hopping a fence, whether it's their land or it's another
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: golf course next door. playing balls from anywhere that they
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: end up doesn't really make sense in the scope of
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: the game. And so the concept of being able to
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: play the ball from, or being allowed to play the
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: ball as it lies, also has a kind of a
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: history and tying into the way the rule ultimately evolved.
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: A lost ball doesn't mean you can't play it. It
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: means you can't find it. And out of bounds is
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: a very, you know, very basic, understandable, no play zone,
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: if you will, in the game of golf, you hit
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: it off the golf course, you're not allowed to play it.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: I think more, modern in the way that we look
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: at the game of golf and how architecture gets, gets
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: fit into this conversation is the, the internal out of
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: bounds concept. That's what most golfers will look at now
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: because they've been living in the last 60 years of
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: what does affect the same, the same rule for all
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: you go back and you take a penalty stroke. Well, uh,
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: I'm still on the golf course. I'm just on a
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: neighboring hole.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: But that has a different, reason. It's not about necessarily
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: the property. It's also safety, you could say, but a
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: lot of that's architecturally related to maintain the integrity of
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: what the designer was trying to ultimately test the golfer with.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: So to put a cap on this, we've gone through
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: basically the rationale for the modern OB rule or how
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: it emerged through this kind of debate about what OB
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: should mean. What do you say to golfers now who
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: complain about the modern OB rule, who say, why is
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: this more severe than your penalty area rule? What is
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: kind of your brief persuasive response to those individuals who
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: don't like the stroke and distance standard?
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: Well, I think it's perfectly understandable to not like the
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: result of hitting a ball off the golf course. Having
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: to go back if you've not played a provisional ball
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: No one wants to do that. But again, tying it
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: to the lost ball rule and having the same penalty
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: for both a ball that's out of bounds or off
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: the golf course and a ball that's not found makes
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: sense to connect those two. And it's frankly very different
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: than the areas of the golf course that are on
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: the course that are in a penalty area. And the
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: example that you shared where the committee is making a
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: decision to basically accept that a lot of golfers either
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: won't find their ball in this area or they will
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: find it, but they won't be able to play it.
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: And that decision around the penalty area is a design feature.
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: And it's also a rules option that is very fundamentally
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: different than hitting your ball somewhere that ultimately you just
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: can't find. You don't know where it is. There's no
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: defined area. The only reference point you have is back
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: to where you played and the same connection as we've
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: talked about. to tie in and out of bounds fits
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: in that same framework much better than it ever would
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: with a penalty area.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: Perfect. All right. Well, thank you so much for coming
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: on the podcast, Craig. This has been enormously informative. Appreciate it.
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: You're very welcome, Garrett.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: All right, PJ, we're back. What are some of your
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: takeaways from that chat with Craig Winter?
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: I would say in the last 25 minutes, however long
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: that was, I thought more about stroke and distance than
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: I ever had before in my entire life.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: You probably heard that phrase more than you've heard it
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: in your entire life as well.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: Well, we were talking about, before we hit record here,
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: is that I... And I know I've said this before
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: in terms of when we did the Golden Age episode,
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: that I... I think it's kind of lost on me
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: the historical context of, of, you know, we stopped designing
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: these golf courses because of the great depression and everything
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: like that. And I think it is lost on me
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: watching golf, showing up to play golf, like, Oh, you know,
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: that's just the rule. That's how, that's how it is.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: That's how it was written. And that there was at
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: one point like an evolution of the rules, um, got
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: us to this point, as I feel like was kind
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: of just explained there.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the unification of the rules of golf took a
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: long time. You know, it was sort of the Wild West,
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: so to speak, before World War II, where different regions
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: of the golf world did things different ways. Individual courses
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: had far more local rules and far more meaningful local rules.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: There was a standardization and unification and universalization of the
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: rules that really only came together in the middle of
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: the 20th century. And this is very relevant to golf
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: course design because golf architects, I think, design holes according
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: to the rules that are in their head, right? They
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: design holes according to how they think players will play
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: them and how they think certain bad shots will be penalized.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: So if you design a hole along a property boundary
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: and your impression is that the local rule is going
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: to be just a stroke penalty and not a stroke
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: and distance penalty, you might use that property boundary in
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: a different way. And so it's sort of an interesting
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: part of the history of golf course design here, where
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: we have these holdovers from a previous era of the rules,
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: but we still play them according to our current rules.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: And that doesn't necessarily make them bad, but it just
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: might make these holes a little bit different. In any case,
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: I think that also Craig offered a justification for why
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: the OB penalty is so severe. Once he started to
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: explain that, you know, if you have an OB penalty
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: that is not as bad as the lost ball penalty,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: that just doesn't really make sense. So you can kind
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: of see the difficulty that the governing bodies had in
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: trying to figure all this out, right?
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there needs to be kind of like a,
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: a sliding slope of, of how bad your penalty is
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: for how bad the shot was. And it's not unlike, uh,
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: you know, a lot of problems when we talked about
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: the course, like championship setup episode is that like, it
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: should get worse. The worst your shot is in theory. And,
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: and I think, um, Craig did a good job of
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: kind of explaining that development. I, this is like, again, I, I,
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: it's just something I never cautiously consciously thought about of like,
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: at some point. Yeah. Like people have to sit down
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: and like make these rules and they change over time
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: and they're fluid and, and it's still changing today. And, um,
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: it's not something that I, you know, I just, show
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: up and hit a golf ball, or I show up
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: and watch people hit a golf ball, and I'm not
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: thinking about all of the domino effects, like the domino
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: meme that got us to the point where we're playing
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: under this current game.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: It's like any... historical story where things are the way
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: they are, not because that's how they should naturally be.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: Things are the way they are because of how history
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: has unfolded. And the rules that we have in golf
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: are a result of history.
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: That was a good little, you know, 30,000 feet view
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: zoom out there that I never took or thought about before.
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: So that was good. Guest lecture. Thumbs up.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: Almost a slight detour, but I thought it was interesting
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: enough to take a little bit of time on before
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: we get into the nitty gritty architectural stuff. Now, before
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: we do get into that stuff, I want to talk
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: about our friends at the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America,
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: or GCSAA. This partnership makes a lot of sense for
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: us at Friday Golf. Really, our company would not exist
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: in its current form today without the kindness and help
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: of superintendents. So many superintendents have led us on to
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: golf courses to go walk around and and experience them
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: and take photos and all that kind of stuff. They
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: are often our first point of contact and our best
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: source of knowledge about the golf courses that we cover.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: GCSAA supports more than 21,000 members worldwide, not only golf
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: course superintendents, but also equipment managers, students, and educators. Celebrating
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: its 100th anniversary this year, GCSAA continues to ensure that
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: its members are on the forefront of research, education, innovation,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: and advocacy, through a range of programs and services. To
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: learn more, go to gcsaa.org. Check it out. Great organization,
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: and we're very proud to be working with them. Okay.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: So there is a long history of property boundaries being
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: used in golf course design. A lot of early golf
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: courses were built next to train stations. That was convenient.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: That was, in fact, the reason that the golf course
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: existed in that spot because the railroad went to that spot,
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: had a stop in that spot, and they were like,
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: let's build a golf course here because this will give
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: people a reason to come to our little town in
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: the highlands of Scotland or some random place on the
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: west coast of Ireland or something like that. The railroad
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: and golf were very much linked. All in on that.
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: Love that.
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: I thought you would like that.
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: The history of the railroad and the history of golf.
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: I'm in. Link those two forever. I'm good. We're good here.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: So very often, understandably, the first couple of holes or
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: the last couple of holes on many of these courses
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: traveled right along, guess what? The railroad. This was the
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: case at St. Andrews, right? What is currently a road
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: for cars used to be the St. Andrews Railway. It
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: was the case at Prestwick. It was the case at
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: Woking Golf Club in the English Heathlands and many other
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: courses that were built in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: These courses had railroad boundaries and railroad holes. It was
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: a motif in early golf course design. But obviously, as
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: we've just discussed, these courses usually had their own local
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: rules about what it meant for a ball to cross
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: a property line. There wasn't a single standardized concept of
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: out-of-bounds until the mid-20th century. So how the property boundaries
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: factored into the design of these holes on these courses
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: or the player's strategy for how to approach such a
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: hole would vary from place to place. But suffice it
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: to say that the property boundary was a very common
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: and accepted type of hazard. It was just like a
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: a water hazard is today or a creek or something
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: like that where, you know, okay, this is fine. It's
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: fine that this property boundary is in play. Now, after
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: World War II, the use of property boundaries as a
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: hazard fell sharply out of fashion in golf architecture. And
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: I think there were a few reasons for that. The
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: first being that the OB rule became standardized around stroke
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: and distance. So golf architects maybe grew a little bit
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: gun-shy about overusing property boundaries as opposed to less devastating
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: hazards like bunkers or conventional penalty areas. And related with
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: that is a second point, and that is that stroke
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: play became the dominant form of golf in this mid-20th
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: century period. Before that, match play in most places was
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: much more common. But as golf spread outside of Scotland...
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: It became much more common for players to play stroke play,
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: you know, in the U.S. The farther you got away
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: from Scotland, essentially the more popular stroke play became. And
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: so the more the balance of the game shifted to
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: these other places in the world, the more it was
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: about stroke play. And so naturally players became more concerned
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: about their scores. And that meant that having OB as
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: a penalty had a major effect, right? If you're playing
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: match play and you hit a ball out of bounds,
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: you probably lose the hole, right? Unless the other player
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: really messes up as well. If you hit a ball
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: out of bounds and you're playing stroke play, you're writing
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: down a double bogey, a triple bogey, a quadruple bogey
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden. It has much more of an impact.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: And so I think this feeds into architects becoming a
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: little bit hesitant to use property boundaries. Now, another very
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: practical reason that golf architects... were hesitant to use property boundaries,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: is that the perimeters of golf courses became much more
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: crowded with housing and other kinds of property in the
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: post-World War II period. A lot of courses that, you know,
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: in the teens and 20s and 30s were built out
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: in the rural areas around cities suddenly became suburbs, right?
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: And now there are houses right up against the golf holes.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: Society at the same time was growing far more litigious.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: Very understandable.
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: Coincidence, yeah.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: That courses wouldn't want to mess around with those property
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: boundaries or have these fun little holes where it's like,
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: you can play close to the property boundary and get
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: a strategic advantage. They're like, no, please don't play. Please
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: don't do that.
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: Go the other way.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: Go the other way, please. That's literally what a lot
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: of courses have done, where they've had to redesign holes
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: that are near property boundaries to incentivize players to play away.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: From the property line because that is practical for their finances.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: The fourth and final reason I want to talk about
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: for why property boundaries fell out of fashion in this
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: period is again related, but I think it's a slightly
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: more sophisticated argument. And that is that in the stroke
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: and distance era of out of bounds, some people might
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: argue that OB is not a particularly good hazard. Because
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: no player in their right mind is going to challenge
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: a property boundary for just the meager reward of a
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: better angle into the green, right? If players are hesitant
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: to challenge a water hazard or a bunker for the
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: reward of a better angle, there's no way they're going
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: to want to play close to a property boundary, right?
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: So what do you think of that argument?
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, that makes sense. logical sense I guess I
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: think the way you just put it is that if
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: they're too afraid of a bunker they're definitely too afraid
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: to go out of bounds and I think when you
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: lay it out like that that makes sense.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: To me yeah and you know I don't know if
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: I can counter that argument I think that if if
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: we're saying that most players are logical which I don't
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: think we can say but let's just say that sure
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: then unless there's a huge reward for playing close to
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: an OB line, players aren't going to do it. They're
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: going to do everything they can to stay away from it.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: And there would be data boys who would argue that
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: that's not good golf course design.
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: Well, anything that data boys say, we might as well
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: just pack it up and go home.
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: I think you can see where I'm going with this
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: because I'm anti data boy.
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: I'm pretty much all of, Might as well just pack
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: it up and go home. What do the spreadsheets say?
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: All right, cool. Well, glad we did that.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: I want to give a good airing to the data
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: boy argument, but I also want to maybe portray the
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: other side here as well. Now, recently, modern architects have
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: shown more of a willingness to incorporate property boundaries into
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: their designs, and they've done so in some different, very
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: interesting ways. This has been, I would say, part of
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: a general throwback neoclassical trend in golf architecture. In particular,
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: Corin Crenshaw and Gil Hance love a good boundary hole.
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: And they're willing to risk the dissatisfaction of score-sensitive players
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: or lawsuit-sensitive owners or just overall sensitive data boys to
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: bring out-of-bounds into play as a hazard. And they've been
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: very inspired by by these older holes that, that, that
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: we're going to talk about. So I think the best
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: way probably to understand how out of bounds can be
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: used effectively in golf course design is to look at
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: a few examples. Now I'm going to bring up a
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: slideshow here for those who are listening audio only, obviously
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: not going to be able to see the slideshow, but
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: we'll describe the holes and and try to make you
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: feel as though you're seeing it.
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: You can see it in your mind.
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: You can see it in your mind's eye, and hopefully
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: our words will be vivid enough to bring that about
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: for you. On the YouTube version of this episode, we
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: will be able to see it fully. So, I would
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: consider these holes sort of the classics of the genre. Okay, PJ,
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: we're both looking at a hole here. Do you know
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: what hole it is?
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: I think it's the road hole.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: That is the road hole.
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: I was going to feel.
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: Very stupid if it wasn't. So I'm glad I was correct,
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: but I was like.
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to do that to you on the
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: rest of them.
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: I think the angle, the angle of that hotel next
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: to the T I I'm pretty sure I've seen that before.
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: So I was, I was, I was going to feel
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: like a real idiot if I got that wrong.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, you would have deserved it obviously. Um, That's
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: what we do in education. We embarrass, humiliate our students.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: It wouldn't be the first time. Definitely will not be
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: the last time.
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: So it's fun.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: Helps them learn. Helps everybody learn. All right. 17 at
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: the old course, the road hole. This is a long
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: par four turning right to follow the path of what
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: is now Old Station Road and what used to be
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: the St. Andrews Railway. The tee shot is played over.
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: the corner of the road, as well as a portion
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: of the Old Course Hotel. The out-of-bounds line is actually
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: on the far side of the road from the golf course,
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: following the line of an old stone wall. So the
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: road is in play. You can hit shots off of
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: the road, and we see players do that all the time,
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: especially up next to the green. The OB primarily comes
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: into play on the tee shot. You have... The option
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: to bail out to the left, well away from the
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: OB line. But what's the problem over there? If you
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: bail out to the left here, PJ, what is your problem?
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: Well, A, you're adding a lot of distance to your
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: approach into the green. Then you're bringing the bunker into play.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: Because it is the outside of the dogleg.
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a smaller sliver of the green facing the
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: left there. There's a whole bunch of issues that you
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: run into.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: The bunker that comes more into play... is the road
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: bunker eating into the green. And the more you go
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: out to the left, the shallower the green becomes. And
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: then there's the road lurking behind the green. That shot
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: from the left there is so, so difficult. And so
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: that is the incentive for playing close to the road.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: If you get close to the OB line off the tee,
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: your approach will be played more down the length of
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: the green. Now, there is rough, along the the left
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: side of the hole now and that that kind of
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: raises the stakes a little bit i suppose but the
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: concept of the hole does not require rough over there
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: you could just have everything be fairway and the angles
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: of the hole would still make sense so you know
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: that that difficulty of the bad angle into the green
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: from the left side is kind of what what makes
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: the hole and so this is A classic use of
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: out of bounds, where it's just lurking there on the
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: right side. You have plenty of room to play away
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: from it. But if you play the hole from the
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: left side a few times, you start to learn this
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: is not what you want to do.
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: Now, that makes sense. That green somehow and the road
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: bunker there gets smaller from the left side every time
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: I look at it somehow.
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: And we'll look at it. Specifically here, we're now looking
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: at a photo of the green itself. And again, this
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: is what makes the hole because the green is so narrow,
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: so severe because the road bunker is so threatening because
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: the road beyond is so threatening that players are heavily
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: incentivized to try to find a way into the green
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: because coming in from the left side is so difficult. Now, again,
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: OB is a severe penalty. I guess most players are
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: going to want to play over to the left, but
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: you play the hole a few times yourself from the
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: left and you're not going to want to do that anymore. Okay,
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: so that is the essence of the road hole and
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: how it uses that OB line, the old railway. And
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: there's some There's some fascinating history with the road hole.
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: At some point, I'm going to do a full episode
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: on just the road hole. It played a key role
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: in actually defining the OB rule itself because of some
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: conflicts between the links at St. Andrews and some of
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: the people who lived around there. Initially, there was no
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: OB rule, so you could play the ball from anywhere.
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: But a few too many people ended up in the
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: garden of the train station master and such. And so
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: there's a whole fun story there. In any case, it
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: is the definitive OB hole. It's what comes to mind
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: for most people when they think of a property boundary
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: golf hole. Now, the next one I want to talk
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: about is the first hole at Royal Liverpool or Hoylake,
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: as it's often called. This is the first hole for members.
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: Typically at championships, it is the third hole. I think
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: it is absolutely savage as a first hole. But if
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: you look at it, the basic geometry is very similar
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: to the road hole. It's a long par four bending
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: around a barrier that defines the edge of the practice ground.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: Aggressive drives are played over the corner. But again, you
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: can play conservatively to the left. But the more you
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: go left, the more threatening the angle into the green area.
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: becomes because you're playing toward the out of bounds now
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: in this case there is no road bunker by the
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: green but the ob line next to the green is
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: much closer yeah and much more right on it it's
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: right up against it so you know this i think
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: this hole just shows the elegance of using one property
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: boundary there are no bunkers on this hole right look
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: at it it's There isn't anything except for that property
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: boundary and the way the hole kind of wraps around it. Now,
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: this particular OB line is often referred to as internal
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: OB at Royal Liverpool. And it might technically be. I
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: don't really know because the practice ground does belong to
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: the club. But historically, it is a property boundary because
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: that practice ground used to be a horse racing track.
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: And that's why this hole, I believe, is named course.
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: It is named not after the golf course, but named
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: after the race course that used to exist within this boundary.
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: So there is a historical justification for this, you know,
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: this kind of wall or berm being used as an
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: OB line. So do you see the similarities to the
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: road hole here, PJ?
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that I will say the, the green
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: here at least is a little bit more, uh, I
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: think receptive maybe from, from the left side than, than
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: the rolling hole green is, but that there is much
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: less room, as you said, on the out of bounds
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: line than, um, than you got there. So, yeah, I,
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: I think it, it, it makes sense for sure. It's
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: a little bit more jarring to have it, um, you know,
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: just be a driving range in, in 2026, then maybe
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: a race course or, or you're hitting over a hotel
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: where I can tell that it's not just grass that
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: I could be hitting off of.
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: But, um, sure.
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: I mean, it makes it all, it all tracks.
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: And you're not necessarily looking at it from, from this
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: angle when you're out there, obviously.
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: So it would be pretty cool if it were still
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: a horse race track.
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah. I'll say that. That would, that would be,
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: that would be pretty fun. But yeah, I think the
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: takeaway from this whole is just how simple the concept.
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's nothing in it. There's literally nothing in it.
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: It's just you can't go right on your approach, which
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: is like kind of, I don't know. I appreciate the
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: simplicity for sure.
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: And when you see players take this whole on during championships,
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: it is so nerve wracking. You know, there are no
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: bunkers out there. There's nothing but just that lurking OB line.
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: It has such an impact on. on the playing of
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: the hole. And I think that's the thing that's really
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: cool about it. So the next hole I'd like to
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: talk about is going back to the old course. This
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: is the 16th hole at St. Andrews. So the hole
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: right before the road hole. And it also runs along
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: the former railroad, now Old Station Road. This time with
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: the OB line on the near side of the road,
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: and therefore tighter to the fairway and to the green.
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: This is a straightaway par four with the boundary along
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: the right side. The green is tilted slightly from left
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: to right, so toward the road, and guarded on the
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: left by a couple of bunkers, one of which eats
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: into the green a little bit, the other of which
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: is kind of short left. Now, because of this orientation
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: of the green and the location of the hazards, it
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: is easier to approach the green from the right side
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: of the fairway, closer to the OB line. So you
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: get a reward for being close to the OB line. Now,
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: complicating this is the famous principal's nose bunker complex. You
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: see those three bunkers clustered in the fairway. That's the
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: principal's nose. And this forces players to choose between hugging
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: the right side of the fairway and bailing out well
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: to the left, right? There's no splitting the difference unless
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: you can carry those bunkers plus an additional bunker that
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: is beyond those. You really either have to go left
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: or right. And the function of the principal's nose is
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: to make you make that choice. You can't just take
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: kind of the middle path between them as many players
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: probably would. Now, I will say this hole made much
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: more sense when there was fairway to the left of
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: the principal's nose. Yeah. That part of the fairway was
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: lost in recent decades. Recently, a portion of that fairway
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: to the left of the principal's nose has been restored
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: by McKenzie and Eber, who are consulting at the old course.
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: But McKenzie and Ebert also added a couple more bunkers
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: down the left side to prevent players from just blasting
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: it all the way down the left. But some of
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: that fairway to the left of the principal's nose, the
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: bailout fairway, I guess you could say, is back. And
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: I think that having everything be fairway gives the hole
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: quite a bit more strategic integrity. Because if you just
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: have rough left of the principal's nose... your only option
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: is to play right of the principal's nose. It's no
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: longer a choice. It is no longer a meaningful strategic decision.
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: And I think you can see that in Alistair McKenzie's
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: illustration of the 16th hole at St. Andrews. We're looking
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: at that right now. And you see that left-hand route
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: that he represents. Left of the principal's nose. That is
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: a valid option. And back when McKenzie... created this sketch
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: that was fairway and so that that is the strategic
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: essence of the whole any reactions to this whole.
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: Uh my reaction is the big wipey fade ball that
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: i tend to hit as my my miss is really
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: not gonna not not in play here.
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: Um you don't want that ball on pretty much any
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: of the homeward holes at saint andrews.
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: No um I would agree that I feel like you
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: have to give the left option because I think it
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: would just be... I mean, even as in this sketch here,
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: it's showing it doesn't look like the doctor is anticipating
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: hitting the green from the left here. It looks like
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: he's anticipating coming up short.
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because this hole played relatively long back in the day.
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: Now it no longer does. But yes, the doctor is
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: saying that if you play out to the left, probably
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: your best choice is going to be to lay up
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: short of the green so that you're not even bringing
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: the boundary into play.
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: Which makes sense. So I do feel like having that fairway,
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: the bailout fairway, is kind of necessary. I mean, you
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: called it integral. I would agree with that. I think...
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: For maybe not a championship level player, but just for
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: like a normal person, I feel like you have to
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: you have to at least have the illusion of choice
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: where maybe if that's all rough there on the left,
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: then you're right. just you're just screwing with people at
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: that point and saying you gotta take this on right.
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah it's when you take it on it should
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: mean something when there's rough over to the left it
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: doesn't really mean anything when you take it on you're
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: just playing to the fairway and so yeah it's a
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: it's a tough situation and You know, they have, to
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: the old course's credit, they have attempted to bring back
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: some semblance of the strategy, but also clearly they're scared
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: of the idea of players basically trying to drive the
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: green down or get close to the green down the
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: left side. And so they've put some additional bunkers out there. Okay,
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: the next hole I'd like to talk about is the
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: fourth hole at Woking Golf Club in England. And I'll
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: bring it up right now. And you can probably see
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: immediately that the clear inspiration is the 16th hole at St. Andrews.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: Very similar. So this is a straightaway par 4 with
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: OB on the right, centerline bunkers in the fairway emulating
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: the principal's nose, and a bunker guarding the front left
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: corner of the green. The interesting story here is that
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: originally the hole did not have any of the bunkers
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: that you see now. The fairway was initially unbunkered and
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: there was just a simple cross bunker in front of
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: the green. So it really didn't make a difference whether
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: you challenged the property boundary or not. It was just
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: a straightaway hole without the angles that you see now
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: created by those bunkers. But in the early 20th century,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: a couple of guys named Stuart Payton and John Lowe
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: decided to eliminate the cross bunker. and install the current
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: greenside and fairway bunkers. They were consciously emulating the strategic
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: angles of the old course. And this was a major
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: turning point in golf architecture because at the time it
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: was rare for inland courses to take this kind of
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: strategic inspiration from old links courses. It was not necessarily
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: assumed that the old links courses had things to teach
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: architects who were attempting to build inland courses. Well, Stuart
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: Payton and John Lowe come along, Woking Golf Club comes along,
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: and they say, well, actually, those old links courses are
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: pretty fun to play. Maybe one reason they're fun to
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: play is that they have these options for players, that
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: they play with the property boundaries in an interesting way.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: And so this whole at Woking is a major event
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: in the evolution of golf course design. But as you
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: can see, it's essentially a rendition of the 16th hole
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: at St. Andrews. The green at Woking is really interesting
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: and intensifies the strategic angles in a way because it
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: actually runs away from the player. In addition to tilting
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: slightly off of that front left bunker and tilting toward
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: the boundary, it runs away from the player. And so
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: that means that it's really good to be able to
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: land your ball short of the greens. But if you
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: play out to the left side, the green side bunker
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: prevents you from landing the ball short of the green.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: You can only land your ball short of the green
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: if you play down the right side. And so that's,
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: I would say, a smart addition to the strategy of
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: the hole. But can you see the similarities here, basically?
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I definitely get the inspiration. Good golf hole. This
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: is visually appealing to me, even more so maybe than
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: the old course one was for some reason.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: It's very simple. I think the way that it signposts
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: its strategy is very clear. The old course has this
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: feeling of you're playing out in this tumbling field and
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: there's a feeling of randomness about it. At Woking, you
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: can see how Stuart Payton and John Lowe distilled the
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: ideas of the old course and simplified them so that
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: they built a hole that played in ways that are
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: just as interesting. And so we're looking now at the green.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: You can kind of see from this angle of the green,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: this is looking at the green from the left side,
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: you can see how difficult it is to play that
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: approach from the left side and how much of an
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: advantage you would gain from playing down the right side.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: And that is one of the keys of a boundary hole.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: You really need to give players an incentive to challenge
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: the boundary. It needs to be very obvious that there
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: is a benefit to taking that risk. And so the
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: designs of these greens need to show the player that
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: in a very clear way. And that's something that the
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: fourth hole of Woking does very, very well.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, I don't know, when you switch from
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: the old course photo to this photo, Something clicked for
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: me just in my head. I was, as I said,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: it was visually appealing. It all made sense immediately. Fit
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: my eye. Liked it. Pro-woking.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: Good job, woking.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: Going woke.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: Go woke. Don't go broke. In any case, yeah. Excellent
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: golf hole. And I think that what just clicked for
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: you clicked for a lot of people when they saw
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: this hole at Woking, and that's why it has been
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: so enduring as an example of strategic inland golf. Okay,
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: so that pretty much wraps up the ancient period of
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: golf course design that I want to talk about. This
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: hole at Woking was created in the early 20th century.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: There are other holes that we could certainly talk about,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: important boundary holes, but I want to move now to
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: the modern period. and to a course called Talking Stick
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: in Scottsdale, Arizona. This is the second hole at the
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: Talking Stick Otham course. I think that's how you pronounce it.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: I have learned literally, PJ, 15 or 16 different times
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: how to pronounce the name of this course. I'm so sorry.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: I merely applaud you for taking a shot at it
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: because I just would not have, so.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: I think it's awesome. But in any case, this is
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: what used to be called the North Corset Talking Stick.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: It was built by Coren Crenshaw in the late 90s.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: It's an example, this whole, of the kind of neoclassical
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: revival of OB as a hazard. Extremely simple par five.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: So simple that it's almost like avant-garde or something. There's
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: a barbed wire fence defining the OB as that runs
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: along the left side of the fairway. The fairway itself
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: is super wide. So wide. Then the green is tiny, narrow,
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: tucked against the fence, and guarded by two bunkers on
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: the right. So you can bail out to the right
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: all day on this hole. You can say, I don't
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: have anything to do with that barbed wire fence. You
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: can play the hole down the right side. There's so
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: much room out there. But once you get up to
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: the green, it's very bad to be on that right side.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: It's just so unpleasant to hit a fiddly little pitch
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: over those bunkers to a green where it's extreme. If
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: you miss on the left side of the screen, if
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: you miss on the left side of the putting surface,
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: just kind of trickle over that left edge a little bit,
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: you are going OB. Your ball's going to run down
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: under the fence. And so it's so tough from the
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: right side. This hole specifically is hated by the data boys.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: There have been newsletter articles written about how bad this
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: hole is. I love this hole. And one reason I
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: love the hole is that it came out of the
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: limitations of the site itself. There wasn't much to work
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: with at Talking Stick. There was basically a flat desert.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: But there were these old, ugly... fences that defined the
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: property boundaries. Great. So Bill Corr just said, what the hell?
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: I'm going to use the old ugly fences. That's going
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: to be part of my golf course. Most golf architects
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: would have dug them up, replaced them with something else.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: Bill Corr made something out of them. It's not just
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: this whole talking stick that uses the property boundary well,
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: it's several other holes as well. So what are your
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: impressions of this one here, P.J.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's cool. I think it gives
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: the course some, some like well-defined character, as you said,
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: that it's got this weird old barbed wire fence and
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: everybody knows the, it's like a famous hole that is
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: provocative and, and it gets people talking. And I know
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: that's not always like the, the best thing in the world,
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: but I don't think it's a, it's a bad thing either.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: I don't, I think it's cool. I think it's something different.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: As somebody that tends to miss high to the right
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: off the tee, I appreciate that this boundary is on
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: the left side.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: That's one thing about this hole. A lot of the
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: famous boundary holes do have the boundary on the right.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: Here it's on the left. And so, you know, in
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: a way, this hole is kind of a duff paradise.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: Whereas for better players, many of whom do miss to
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: the left, this is a much scarier proposition.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: And we're going to look real quick at the green
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: as well. You know, just look at that.
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 2: Oh, there really is not any room.
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: There's no room. Yeah. There's no room between the left
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: side of the screen and the boundary. And then there
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: are those bunkers on the right side. And yeah, you
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: can go to the right all day, every day here.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: But it's just tough. It's going to be tough once
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: you get up to the green.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's cool. Like, I don't know.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: I think the math thing, and I love, like, analytics.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: I've been pretty clear about that, I think, through our
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 2: process here in this class, whatever we're calling it. But I...
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: I don't know. At some point, just throw him out
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: the door. It's like, is this cool or is it not?
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: It's a pretty binary scale. I think this is a
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: cool hole. Like, what's the problem with it?
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: I'm with you there. I may have biased you, but
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: I do love this hole. So let's move from there
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: then to the sixth hole at Medina.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Let's get it going.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: The hole that's going to be part of the discourse
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: along with the first hole of the matches. This is
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: going to be the second hole of the matches. This
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: will play as, you know, a scary par four for
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: these guys. It's not dissimilar, I would say, from the
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: talking stick hole, really. But it's a par four instead
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: of a par five. And the bunkers are not as
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: tight against the putting surface, right? The bunkers are short
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: of the green. And so they still factor into an
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: approach from the right side. So you have to carry them.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: but they're not tight against the green in the same way.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: There are acres of room to the right, but it's
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: very easy to go OB across the green when you're
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: hitting your approach from the right side of the fairway
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: because the OB, the fence, is even tighter to the
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: putting surface than the fence is at talking stick. Now,
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: the interesting innovation here, if you want to call it that,
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: is that OCM has addressed the property damage issue of
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: the modern era by moving the fence inward from the
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: actual property boundary. You can see that there's a buffer zone.
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot. It's not insignificant. I was surprised
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: at how much room there actually is.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a good bit. And so, you know, there's
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: the road there. That is the natural boundary of the
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: property area. But OCM has decided to move that inward
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: and so make it that there aren't the same safety
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: and lawsuit issues that there might be if the road
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: itself were the boundary for the whole. So, you know,
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: that alone does introduce a level of artificiality to the
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: whole that some people might not like. You know, they
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: may say it feels a little bit arbitrary, a little
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: bit like internal OB that this fence is in from
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: the natural boundary of the property. But to that I say, whatever.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 2: I think, and you know, this is stupid. This is
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 2: just me and how my brain is seeing it. I
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 2: think the fence is a totally proper thing. demarcation, no
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 2: matter how arbitrary it is, you put a fence there,
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 2: it's like, oh, I can't hit it there. But if
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 2: you just tell me that that's internal OB and there's
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: no barrier, then I would be mad.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: That's a good point. A fence makes it feel official
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: or pre-existing.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 2: In some way. It's not just you telling me where
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 2: I'm allowed to hit it. At least you put an
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 2: obstacle there. I.
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I, I mean this, this whole, I,
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 2: by the time this episode comes out, you, you will
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 2: have seen the Medina video hopefully on, on YouTube, but Andy,
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: Andy plays this whole and, uh, he came up short
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 2: here to the left, like right on that little berm, uh,
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 2: in the video. And I was walking up, I was
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 2: like totally taken aback at, at truly how close this
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: fence is to the green. It's like, it's, it's, It's
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 2: seriously unbelievable.
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: It's almost on the short grass.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is.
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: Almost on the putting surface.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 3: There's nothing going on there.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 2: And I think, honestly, for like a match play hole,
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 2: and I, as a person who appreciates seeing these guys
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 2: struggle a little bit, I'm all in. I think it's
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 2: going to be great. I think it's going to be sick, honestly.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and missing right of the screen, which I think,
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: a lot of players are going to do because they're
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: going to be scared of missing left of the green.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: Any misses left are going to be a stroke and
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: distance penalty. You're going to be dropping another ball in
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: the fairway and hitting your shot up again. I think
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: that means we're going to see a lot of pitches
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: and chips from the short grass to the right of
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: the screen. And that's a really interesting area over there.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: Those will be, those will be fun shots to watch.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: And so yeah, Yeah, I'm all for this hole. I
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: think it's going to create some very fun dynamics during
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: the competition. Okay, so those are six great holes, in
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: my opinion, at least, that use OB as a hazard.
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: Other holes I could have mentioned here, the first hole
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: at Prestwick, the sixth hole at Carnoustie, the ninth hole
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: at Muirfield, 14 at Royal St. George's, 16 at Royal Liverpool,
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: That is the hole that's kind of on the other
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: side of the driving range from the first hole that
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: we looked at. The 15th and 8th holes at Marion.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: The 10th hole at St. George's Golf and Country Club,
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: which you can read about on the Friday Golf website,
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: the course profile that we wrote about that course. The
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: 8th hole at Essex County Club, which you could also
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: read about on thefriday.com. 12 at Talking Stick, North Course.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: 4 at Talking Stick. South course or the Peaposh course.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: Four at Talking Stick. Peaposh is actually a template of
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: the fourth hole at Woking slash the 16th hole at St. Andrews.
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: And so there's clear inspiration there. The first hole at
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: Rustic Canyon, the 15th hole at Broom Sedge. I could
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: go on, but those are some to check out if
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: anybody out there is interested in looking into more property
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: boundary holes. So to wrap up here, You know, most
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: of the holes that we've discussed in this episode are
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: the most talked about, most renowned holes on their respective courses.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: When people talk about the courses that we've covered here,
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: they will go right into talking about these holes. And
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: so it seems to me that property boundary holes do
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: seem to have a kind of unique power. Even though
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: some golfers don't like OB on principle, even though there
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: are some understandable objections to the way they affect strategy
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: or mute strategy or are too severe of a penalty, etc.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: These holes stick with people. So why? I mean, do
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: you have any theories about why that is, PJ? Why
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: do these holes stand out so much?
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 2: I think when you introduce an element of the outside world, maybe,
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 2: and like taking, taking a zoom out of like, you're
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 2: no longer on the golf course. You're in the town
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 2: of St. Andrews. There's a train going by. There's a hotel.
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: There's a big fence.
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 2: Kind of maybe breaks the illusion a little bit and
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 2: forces people to have like an opinion. It forces you
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 2: to make a choice. First of all, off the tee.
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 2: on where you want to hit the ball, which is good.
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 2: And in any event where people have to make a choice,
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 2: people are going to have opinions. And that's, that's what
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: gets people talking.
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. I think there's a kind of bluntness and
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: clarity to the design of these holes.
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: As they're saying, it's like off the course versus on
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: the course. And that, that heightens people's appreciation of and
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: understanding of the strategic angles of the hole. So, yeah,
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: that's definitely one reason why they seem to stick in
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: people's memories so much. Another reason just has to be
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: the severity of the penalty itself. Yeah, yeah. You know,
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: the potential or the reality of hitting a ball OB
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: is emotionally heightened. You know, it makes you feel something.
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: And when you feel something about a golf hole, you
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: tend to remember it.
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: And so, you know, that's not the most logical argument
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: for a property boundary hole, but the emotional logic of
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: it makes sense. Yeah. And I think the proof is
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: in the pudding. People love these holes, remember these holes,
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: prize these holes, look forward to playing them when they
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: go to these courses. And so right there is perhaps
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: your justification for them existing. Yeah.
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 2: I mean, you'll always remember when you hit the Old
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 2: Course Hotel with a ball.
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: That's right. And on the 18th hole, you'll always remember
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: if you hit somebody's car.
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's a lifelong memory. That's what we're here for, right? Absolutely.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: We're here to make lifelong memories. Absolutely. All right, PJ,
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: as always, thank you for coming on Golf Architecture 101.
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: Appreciate it.
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you very much. This was great.
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: This episode of Designing Golf was produced by Will Balsam.
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Will. If you are interested in golf architecture
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: at all, Fried Egg Golf Club is the place to be.
• 1:19:19
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• 1:20:00
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