Flexible courses

Golf architecture faces many challenges for the next decades. With technology regulation at a standstill, it seems like golf architects will have to dig deep to figure out a way to make sure golf courses remains fun, accessible and able to host competitions once in a while. I say competitions because even today, 15 year old kids may hit their drives 280 yards !!! or more.

 

So the length gap: between everyday golfer and competitive player keeps widening.

 

I've addressed the issues of more acreage, more maintenance, more costs in previous posts.

http://binettegolfarchitecture.blogspot.ca/2011/12/matter-of-numbers.html

 

I've often been fascinated with courses on a small piece of land... and with Merion hosting the US Open this year, people will discover how you can turn a small piece of property in a 7000 + yard course. They are going to use every inches of the property to do so, but the US Open tees are not used in everyday play.

 

And that led me, for many years, with the idea of a flexible course. A flexible course would bring the concept of tees back to its origins, when a golfer had to tee his ball 2 club length from the previous hole and start the next hole from there.

 

 

Some courses, mostly designed by Renaissance Golf Design (Sebonack) and Coore & Crenshaw have tees that are just an extension of the previous green surrounds and some flatter spots here and there are the tees. 

 

A flexible course, conciously designed to presented length variations on most holes on a day to day basis will have 2 major advantages:

 

1) It can be stretched to host competitions, using tee positions that would be borderline dangerous in every play, but safe in competitions where ball spread is less an issue.

 

 

2) It can offer a different course to the members basically every day. I've always wondered how members can play the same exact course for 60 rounds a year ? Would it be fun to see a 320 yard "easy" par 4 one day turned into a brute 245 yards, par whatever, the next. Or the 510 yards par 5 into a 472 yards, par 4.75, monster to next day. Or just take the average 360 yards par 4 slider left and see it a 390 yards slider to the right next saturday.

 

 

 

The flexible course will deconstruct the "false unwritten laws of golf architecture" where a long par 3 cannot have a small green.... but the next day it's a short par 4, so it must have a small green. Players would play the hole for what it is, a golf hole... It might encourage match paly a little more.

 

The only thing a flexible course leaves out is the course record and the notion of par... I can live with that !!!

 

Stuck in a storm: the fate of tournament golf

The first round of the 2013 PGA Tour season was cancelled today because of inclement weather... which is too bad:

• too bad because somebody had figured it out. (Webb Simpson was 3-under thru 7 holes... so much for unplayable weather !!!)
• too bad because it's fun too watch. (The Tour report said Rickie Fowler hit a full driver 215 yards... so what)
• too bad because the weather is part of the game.
• too bad because if there is one course on Tour designed for wild weather, it's definitely the Plantation Course at Kapalua.

When Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw designed the course, they probably had in mind a day like today. High winds on this hilly and open site. So they built extra wide fairways (60 + yards in some spots), open entrance to the green, so it's possible to run the ball in and also a great variety of length on the holes with short and long par 4's. A 360 yards par 4 can turn into a beast into the wind while a 480 yard hole can be 3-wood, wedge. It's built for great golf, strategy, course analysis...

 

But the Tour had to stop play. Golf is a game played outdoor and wild weather more than often identify the most courageous, the toughest player.

 

Sadly, the PGA Tour is stuck in a storm, litteraly and here's why.

 

Because to keep up with the technology, speeding up greens remains the best way to protect par. Therefore (even the relatively slow one at Kapalua), the ball starts moving and / or cannot be stopped around the holes... The greens cannot be slown down overnight, sadly enough, and they can't keep the green slow, the score would go too low if there's no wind.

 

How about changing the hole locations to flatter spots ? Well that would be an idea, but the pin positions are more than often pre-defined. But the Tour players could do like most golfers do, play it by ear, analyze, think... 

 

Last, but not least, the PGA Tour is a player's tour, a kind of union. So any kind of unfairness between Player A and Player B, is negatively perceived (even though there is always a diversity in the conditions day in / day out). It's their job and in a certain way, we can't blame the players for that.   

 

I really hope they get a chance to play, so you can appreciate the design at Kapalua.

 

As far as wild conditions, we'll have to wait for the Open Championship, where they don't care about the fact that there's 8 or 9 hours between the first and the last tee time of the day... talk about even conditions !!!.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Changes at St. Andrews

Over the last few days / weeks, a polimic has occured, changes have been deliberately made to the Old Course at St. Andrews. What was pointed out has minor changes by the R&A turned into an heated debate between players and golf architects. There was even a petition on the subject, arguing for a stop into the changes conducted by golf architect Martin Hawtree.

One of the changes is minor, widening the Road Hole bunkers at 17th by afoot and a half (50cm)... nothing new there, this hazard has been tweaked nearly every 10 years and considering that the sod wall are rebuilt once every 5 or 6 years... odds are the official shape of the bunker changes ever so slightly each time.

But the debate rages on the other things to the course: changing the severe tilt on the 11th hole (Eden); relocating bunkers at no 2, recontouring some flatter part on the 2nd green and also; adding a bunker at 9; changing the contours in front of the 17th green which are probably THE most celebrated contour in golf.

The debate is now on, should the Old Course remained untouch... Well yes and no.

To pretend that the contours, the bunkering etc is completely natural is definitely wrong... Those amazing contours are the fruit of more than 500 years of steady play and at least 150 years of maintenance. As I spent time on the course in 2006, I was thinking (along with my firend Kyle Franz) that the first time they put a mower on the Old Course must have been a hell of a fun. The sharp slope must have been scalped more than a few times to generate over the years those steep yet smooth slopes on the fairways and greens.

 

The great contours of the 2nd green

Old Tom Morris started to build sod walls to prevent the sand of the natural and animal erosion from blowing all over the place. So he probably shrunk some bunkers along the process.

Hey, they also switch the direction on which the hole are played... so the Old Course is an evolution. So why worry about those changes ?

Well, mainly because they are deliberate, they are led by the pretention of making the course harder for championship play. The course is fine except for once every 5 years ??? If there's no wind, the Old Course is defenseless, and that's partly true... and sadly the wind was down at the 2000 and 2005 Open Championship at St. Andrews. The Old Course doesn't need any fixing.... some 7500 yards modern courses with bunkers, lakes and narrow fairways (the ugly and terrible ones I love) are demolished by todays best players.

The key issue here is that once you've opened the door, it could lead people to believe that "well intented people" could keep tweaking with the Old Course.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

All I hope for is 4 days of 25 mph wind at the next Open...

Playing 18 holes or playing the course

Very few courses are playing as courses...  Dissipating the transitions from hole to hole could be a way to bring the game closer to its origins.

From its original wilderness, golf has been analysed dissected and to a certain point standardized. From wild organic swings, holes and strategies, the game has been divided to a mechanical form Henry Ford would be rather proud of.

The continuity of the Old Course is remarkable. Look how it is difficult to "define" the holes (where are the tees and greens) on the Old Course (inside the red perimeter) compared to the New course and the other sister courses at St. Andrews. The mowing is only one contribuating asset of the continuous experience of the course.

Solid players of today talk about playing the par 5’s well, hitting fairways and greens, focusing on specific targets. Golf courses are predictable to a point where the game is about 36, or so, well struck shots and making as much putts as possible. It is the road to success on modern courses.

But certain courses tend to make the players divert from this mindset. The Old Course, Muirfield, Royal Lytham & St Annes, Oakmont Country Club immediately comes to mind. Throw a little breeze on the Old Course and the humps and hollows make the bounces unpredictable. Muirfield is so exacting that, unless your name is Nick Faldo, executing all those shots is inhuman. At Lytham and Oakmont, trouble is lurking everywhere so no holes are a guaranteed par, even the easiest of them.

From the 4th tee, looking the rest of the course, the player sees what's ahead. The bunkers numerously dispersed over the course is a constant test for the players.

 

In the same frame of mind, throw in a stiff breeze on any course and the game return to its wild form. The players have to pray for the best and be ready to welcome the worst. It is a battle over 18 holes where only the final score counts, not how many pars you’ve made. In these conditions or on these courses, a player has to make the most of every occasions, it is about avoiding disaster and holing the next shot whether it’s for a birdie or a double bogey.

Do you go aggressive, knowing you are going to get bitten once in a while... or walk carefully and slowly shot after shot  for 4 1/2 hours? Then golf becomes a sport.

The clean TPC Sawgrass

The Players Championship is definitely played on a great golf course. The angles are great and the necessity to work the ball is essential on Pete Dye's TPC Sawgrass.

But the TPC Sawgrass we are seeing now is a cleaned up version of it, with maintained waste bunkers, flowers everywhere... from the real brute it once was, TPC Sawgrass is now "high-maintenance"

When it all started in 1982, TPC Sawgrass was rough around the edge, the greens were more severe than today, tall grasses here and there in the waste bunkers, and there was a lot of complaints. It was a shock for the PGA Tour Players.

Somehow, Jerry Pate won at 8-under par... so what was the fuss all about... Pete Dye brought the players on the line between talent, strategy, bravery and patience... he played in their minds more than any architect before. The design is soo good than even the soft version of it is great... but I would love to see the real beast back, just for one week...

And just something to think about: Jerry Pate won in 1982 at 8-under playing this ball !!!!

Would a player today break par playing this ?

The blog is back to life

Hi, my blog is now back after more than two months.

Before starting on the golf, I've learned two things in those two months.

First, take care of your body and your mind.
The reason I had to stop for two months is simple: a near-fatal double pneumonia that led me to spend a full month in intensive care (20 days in a medical coma and 10 days for the body and mind to digest the really heavy medication I received.) When my mind fully came back, I was not able to stand on my feet, I had lost all my physical strength, about 25 pounds of muscular tissu.

The combinaison of stress, fatigue and getting sick can be deadly, so don't feel ashame to rest, or spend a few days off to free your mind and rest your body. And don't hesitate to see your doctor. I'm lucky that I'm only 30 years old, physically active and a non smoker, and even then, the odds of me surviving were pretty low... probably less than 5%.


Second, nobody cares how much you know until then know how much you care.
This is a tribute to the medical staff and doctors that saved me. They worked really hard on my case, spent sleepless nights trying to find the bacteria that was causing my illness. They haven't found it yet, but kept believing that they could win this battle that became personnal: medical staff vs the bacteria.
They probably are still searching to identify the bacteria through all the database that they accumulated. It might end up in the American Journal of Medecine someday and help save some lives without having to inject so much medication that too, could be fatal.

It's great to live in a world where people care to help strangers survive. There are no bonuses for the medical staff that helped me... they did it because it's their passion and it was visible on their face when I visited them last week.

The next time I step on a golf course would definitely be special... and I owe it to them, the medical staff of Pierre-Boucher and Charles-Lemoyne Hospitals.

Génial en prolongation / Playoff Genius

Je dois vous dire, je souhaitais fortement que la prolongation se dirige au 10ème trou du parcours de Riviera hier soir. Ce trou est probablement l'un des meilleurs court par 4 au monde et la prolongation a parfaitement révélé le design de George C. Thomas.

L'élément no 1 a observé est l'étroitesse et l'angle du green (exprimé par les lignes rouges). En raison de cette angle, si un joueur décide de jouer prudemment avec un fer au départ, il doit envoyer sa balle dans un espace précis (cercle bleu). Pour ce faire, il doit jouer au-dessus de la pointe du grand bunker, et ne pas traverser l'allée... Un coup compliqué pour une stratégie conservatrice.

I must say, I was hoping really hard that yesterday's playoff kept going to get to the 10th hole on the Riviera golf course. This hole is one of the best short par 4's in golf and the playoff perfectly showed the design idea of George C.Thomas.

The no 1 element to look at is the narrow and angled green (red lines). Because of the angle, if a player conservatively uses an iron of the tee, he must send the ball to a very precise space (blue circle). To do so, he must play over the point of the big bunker, and not run across the fairway. A hard shot for a safe play.

Alors, les joueurs en prolongation hier se devait d'être aggressif au départ...

So players in the playoff yesterday had to go for it...

L'autre aspect génial d ce trou est le fait que si vous allez pour le green, vous devez aller pour le green... vous ne pouvez faire les choses à moitié en raison du bunker de gauche 30 verges à court du green. (avec un X)

The other genius thing about the hole is the fact that if you decide to go for it, you have to go at the green... you can't semi-go at it because of the bunker left of the green (marked with a X)

Alors, les trois joueurs ont décidé d'atteindre le green... Mickelson et Bradley ont utilisé un bois-3 et ont fait une erreur importante en manquant le green à court et à droite. Devant cette situation, Bill Haas se devait de frapper un bois-1 quitte à dépasser le green... ce qu'il a fait.

So, the three players tried to go at the green... Mickelson and Bradley used a 3-wood and made a mistake by missing short right. Seeing this, Bill Haas had to use a driver and was better off to drive past the green.

Bill Haas a été sage par la suite, bien qu'il était le premier à jouer, il savait que ses adversaires auraient de la difficulté à atteindre le green à partir de leur position. Le coup à Bill Haas était lui aussi difficile s'il voulait aller pour le drapeau, mais contrairement à Mickelson et Bradley, il pouvait atteindre le green avec un coup conservateur... ce qu'il a fait. Il se disait probablement, en jouant prudemment, je garantis mon 4 et me donne une chance pour un 3, au pire, la prolongation se poursuit.

Bill Haas was smart after that, even if he was the first to play. He knew that his opponents would have a hard time finding the green from their position. Bill Haas also had a tough shot if he tried to go at the flag but, contrary to Bradley and Mickelson, he could reach the green with a safe shot, which he did. He was probably thinking, by playing safe, I guaranty a 4 and give myself a chance at a 3, at worst, the playoff keeps going.

Lorsque Mickelson a envoyé son deuxième coup dans le bunker au-delà du green, Haas semblait en bonne position. Mais Keegan Bradley a joué un coup formidable en plaçant sa balle à 15 pieds du trou... En câlant son putt de 40 pieds et après le putt manqué de Bradley, Bill Haas passait pour un grand stratège... mais qu'aurait-on dit s'il avait manqué son putt et Bradley aurait fait le sien ? On aurait probablement dit que Bill Haas s'est sorti du tournoi en jouant de façon trop prudente.

When Mickelson's second shot went in the bunker over the green, Haas looked in good positio. But Keegan Bradley played a formidable shot to put his ball 15 feet from the hole. By holing his 40-foot putt and after Bradley's missed putt, Bill Haas looked like a smart man, but what would we have said if he had missed his putt and Bradley had made his ? We probably would have said that Bill Haas pulled himself out of the championship by playing too safely.

De l'architecture de golf de haute qualité mène à du golf intéressant, hier en était la preuve.

Great golf architecture leads to great golf, yesterday was the proof.