Armchair Architect
The "S" Word, Part II - Elements of Strategy
By Derek Duncan,
Senior Writer
This is part two in an ongoing series about the concept of strategy in golf design.
In the previous column we wrestled with the concept of strategy as it pertains to analyzing a golf course. Due to a nearly indefinable complexity, I came to the decision that strategy is not something a golf course can possess, rather it is an approach to golf course design and play. In other words, certain golf courses reward strategic play more than others, but they are not necessarily intrinsically strategic. Strategy is an application.
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It may sound like verbal nit-picking, and maybe it is, but the more we clarify our thoughts on the matter the more precise we can be when assessing the relative merits of a golf course and its design; some architects choose to force golfers to play strategically, others don't.
All golf courses encourage strategic play on some level since the player must always think or plan, even minimally, how to play the holes. The difference is in the way and the style that strategic encouragement is created, rewarded, and even punished.
If architects cannot imbue an entire golf course with the quality of strategy, they can still use (or not use) strategic elements to create situations that reward a strategic approach. Let's take a look at some of the variations.
Decision-Making
Great golf courses generally don't employ just one type of strategic defense - there are many tricks and tantalizations at an architect's disposal, and the best courses mix and match them. In fact, the difference between a risk-reward scenario for a golf shot and a decision-making scenario are closely related.
The course that arguably poses the most meaningful decision-making
quandaries is Augusta National. No two holes better demonstrate
its decision-making paradigms than the 13th and the 15th.
Both par 5s are easily reachable for professional golfers from almost anywhere in the fairway, but positioning off the tee remains critical. The ideal drive on the 13th hole is a high draw that hugs a tributary of Rae's Creek on the left, catches the downslope, and finishes on a somewhat level lie. Almost anything else will result in an un-level stance. The green is still reachable in two even with a poor drive pushed or hit through the fairway, but the following shot becomes proportionately dangerous. The same goes for 15, where drives down the left or right rough-line result (now) in tree interference as well as a downhill lie.
Round after round golfers agonize over the decision to try for the green in two or to lay up and take an easy par. By adjusting the holes to an optimum distance and locating complicating green complexes near particular hazards, this type of design forces the player to correctly read the shot and possibly check down aggressive intentions.
It's not so much a matter of achieving or not achieving - as is the case with the risk/reward shot - but rather a matter of degrees. The holes reward strategic play by working in confluence with the golfer's mentality, thus the strategic battle is fought as much internally as physically.
Risk/Reward
A risk/reward hole is an important sub-category of the decision-making hole. Beyond the basic considerations of "going for it" or laying up, the risk/reward hole plays out as an equation with variable formulas, simply put, the greater the risk for one shot, the greater the reward for the next.
Most of the time its initial component is some sort of an all or nothing shot option coupled
with a safer alternative. One of the classic examples of a risk/reward hole was the par-5 fourth
hole at Lido Club, a now extinct C.B. MacDonald course on Long Island. The fourth hole offered two
distinct options on the drive: a conservative play to a large fairway on the left which effectively
made it a three-shot hole, or an aggressive play to a smaller, elevated island fairway straight
ahead (surrounded by water) that, if made, resulted in a shorter and more direct second shot into
the green.
A contemporary example of this type of hole is the par-5 fourth at the Pine Barrens Course at Here architect Tom Fazio sets up a similar dilemma - drive to a relatively wide section of fairway to the left and play it as a three shot hole, or blast a drive over a deep and dire waste area straight ahead, setting up a more achievable second shot into the elevated green. On both holes the strategic decision is made when the tee is stuck in the ground; there's less reading and reacting than in the decision-making hole - from the outset you're either going to try to get home in two or not.
Recovery or Penalty?
Decision-making and risk/reward are strategic concepts that apply to individual holes, while recovery and penalty are philosophies that architects can apply thematically throughout an entire golf course.
The riveting character of courses such as Pinehurst No. 2 and Augusta National derives from the ability of the player to recover from poor, unlucky, or uninformed shots. The avenues of play are spacious and areas around the greens and off fairway are mown down so that players that miss them typically have a chance to recover the shot, thought it's not always easy.
As a result players may approach each course in a variety of ways, or in other words, with a
variety of strategies. Recovery in design encourages innovative rather than prescriptive play.
The opposite is the penal course, layouts that confine the variety of play to singular methods, usually straight, aerial golf shots. Anything less is penalized by high rough, tree interference, severe hazards - think of the traditional U.S. Open setup in which recovery is limited to chipping back out onto the fairway from the rough.
As we examined in the last column, even these types of holes might still be addressed strategically by advanced players, but their nature is to confine the avenues of approach and minimize the strategic applications.
All the Best
The best courses in the world combine aspects of decision-making, risk/reward, and recovery (and sometimes penalty).
While veteran players understand that there is a perfect way to decode St. Andrews, to effectively run the gauntlet (the same might be said for Augusta National), failure to do so results in a range of challenging recovery options as well as peculiar instances of penalty. St. Andrews also offers elements of decision-making, such as whether to attempt to drive one of the shorter par-4's or fire at the green on 17.
Muirfield
in Scotland and Pine Valley are perhaps the world's two finest
examples of the decision-making penal course. On virtually every
approach shot the player must decide which pins to play for and
which sections of green are off-limits, and even when to lay up.
The knowledgeable player that keeps emotions in control and strategizes
shot to shot will be rewarded versus the next player, but all
miscues are harshly penalized off the greens - doubly so at Pine
Valley.
The National Golf Links of America offers perhaps the country's purest exercise in strategic invitation. Not only is every hole remarkably different from the next (it's a Hall of Fame of classic British holes), there are infinite approaches to each. For virtually every shot the golfer must gauge which of several appropriate lines to play, decide whether to carry or flirt with fairway hazards, plot tee shots that find level stances or provide a view of the green, or even determine whether to play carom shots off mounds versus flying a high ball into a green.
Strategy is something that the architect and the land enables, or "switches on" so to speak. While rudimentary strategic planning occurs by merely swinging a golf club - you choose to aim at the green and not the bunker - real strategic options are a product of an architect, not a golf course.
Any opinions expressed above are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of the management. The information in this story was accurate at the time of publication. All contact information, directions and prices should be confirmed directly with the golf course or resort before making reservations and/or travel plans.
