Though the typical golf course of 1910 would not look much like that of 1960 or 2010, there is one thing that connected them all. That’s the basic philosophy of strategy design, set out in the early part of the twentieth century by golf thinkers such as John Laing Low of Woking GC and the R&A and developed by most of the key architects of the time, men like Harry Colt, Charles Blair Macdonald and Alistair MacKenzie.
Strategic design, which was created to counter the penal school in vogue up till then, holds that, in Colt’s famous words, hazards are not placed to punish bad shots, but rather shots that are not quite good enough. Low, and those who came after him, argued that good holes provided a relatively risk free route for weak golfers to reach the putting surface, by tacking around hazards, and offered the stronger, more ambitious player, opportunities to save strokes by taking a shorter route – and challenging the hazards set up by the designer.
This ran directly contrary to the penal philosophy, which set out to punish mistakes proportionally to their severity. Topped shots were viewed as the worst misdemeanours, so on penal courses, architects provided cross bunkers where natural cross-hazards didn’t exist, to force players to get the ball airborne, or else.
Strategic design has remained, ostensibly at least, the dominant theory of golf architecture ever since. To say a course is ‘strategic’ is to praise it, and to say it lacks strategy is negative criticism. Though many architects, in practice, have built courses where strategy is pushed to the back burner, few if any have actually come out and argued against the basic philosophy.
Yet, in our modern age, strategic design is under pressure. A classic strategic hole might have a bunker cut in the left side of the fairway, and another in the right front of the green, protecting pin locations on that side. The strategy is simple and elegant: challenge the left-side fairway bunker in order to have the easiest angle of approach to the flag, especially when it is on the right, protected by the trap.
So far, so straightforward. But the modern style of golf conspires against this strategy. Good players, with modern equipment, hit the ball a mile, so it is quite likely that the carefully positioned fairway bunker of only a few decades ago is now many yards back from where today’s strong player will land his drive, unless either the tee has been moved back, or the bunker moved forwards. And hitting a shorter approach shot makes the threat of the protecting hazard that much less, as does the extreme spin which today’s elite impart on the ball. When players have an exact yardage, great distance control and can stop the ball on a sixpence, then to shoot at the flag becomes much less risky.
There is a flipside to this. Sometimes, reading the works of the early strategic thinkers (mostly extremely good golfers), it seems they fail to understand the nature of a poor player’s game. Referring to bogey golfers as ‘the short player’, Low et al suggested that such people could, by playing wide of the hazards, have a relatively easy way to get to the green, even though it would almost certainly take an extra shot.
The trouble is that short and straight only covers a small proportion of hack golfers. Plenty of 20-odd handicappers are perfectly capable of giving the ball a fearful whack with their drivers – they just have far less control over where the thing will actually come back to earth.
These are the players for whom strategic golf is most problematic. They typically stand on the tee of a hole, and aim for the middle of the fairway come what may, in the hope of at least finishing on short grass. Heck, these are the sort of players who, when presented with a split fairway hole, or a central bunker, will aim at the hazard, figuring that then, at least, they might find one or other fairway.
“Weak players interact with the strategy of the golf hole by playing to avoid hazards,” says Andy Haggar of Faldo Design. “They don’t want to risk being in bunkers, water, trees etc.. In that way they hit to where they think the ball will safely land. They’re probably a bit more gung-ho from the tee where fairway bunkers are concerned as they probably feel they have as much chance of missing them as of hitting them because they don’t have that degree of control over their driver. They will be more conscious of hazards around a green as that is a more specific target and often requires a shorter shot (than the tee shot) using a more accurate club. That, in theory means a better chance of hitting the ball where the desire is for it to go. Anything where the weaker golfer is likely to lose a golf ball, such as water, will generally be avoided at all costs.”
American designer Forrest Richardson, author of Routing the Golf Course points out that the same shot has different challenges and implication for different golfers, according to their skills and mindsets. “I see five types of golf design, embodied to an extent in every hole or shot,” he says. “These are penal, heroic, detour, lay-up and open. One shot might easily be a layup for me, but heroic for you, if you can carry the ball further.”
“Strategy is influenced by two dimensions; first the player’s capabilities and second his willingness to think through the options,” agrees Dutch architect Frank Pont. “The first dimension is what capabilities the player has; weak players come in many types, from accurate very short hitters to long very inaccurate hitters to everything in between. The second dimension is how much they are willing to think through and analyse their game and the required strategy per hole. The worst combination is someone with no skills and who does not want to think, in their case they will probably find that the strategic golf course plays a lot harder than it needs to because they often will fall for many of the traps set by the designer. However someone who does think, but cannot execute that well, will mostly get around a strategic course with wide fairways OK, but just be frustrated by his game because they realise they are not in the right spots because of their lack of golf skills. But even for such weaker players strategic designed holes at least gives them an option/chance to try to do various things, which is still a lot better than only having one option.”
“The flaw in the premise is that it assumes golfers are static in their skill level and that they won’t improve over time,” says American architect Art Schaupeter. “While some, and maybe even most, golfers might not improve vastly, they will improve certain aspects of their game over time. The premise also completely undervalues the golfer’s mental connection to the golf course and doesn’t provide for the growth of their knowledge and understanding of the course through multiple rounds. All golfers are evolving mentally, even if they aren’t evolving as much with their skills. The more they play in general, and the more they play a specific course, they are continually learning and developing a deeper understanding, or at least awareness, for the available options and strategies of each hole. Golfers will always aspire to improve their game, and the golf course should accommodate and encourage that aspiration. Providing a variety of options and strategies does that in an inviting way that keeps the golfing experience a positive one, even when the numbers on the scorecard aren’t the desired ones.”
“There’s an argument to say that strategy has the most relevance to the golfer whose skill level is somewhere between the elite level and the higher handicapper,” says Andy Haggar. “This would be the competent player who, for instance, knows they have a chance of carrying a bunker or playing out of one if they do go in it, can hit all clubs pretty well and therefore can make decisions on where to hit the ball, how far etc. Whether they achieve the shot they want is another matter and not a given. It’s the extreme ends of the golfing ability scale that possibly have a more tenuous link to strategy. I think strategy becomes more and more relevant as the weaker golfer improves his/her game and lowers his/her handicap.” Haggar is clearly right in this contention; just as the weak player struggles to interface with the strategy of the golf hole, the real elite are able to ignore it in most circumstances, either by blasting tee shots straight past the hazards, or hitting and sticking approaches to an extent that greenside hazards are barely relevant.
The most obvious way to reimpose strategy for the elite is through extremely firm conditions. When greens are bone hard, to the extent that even the best cannot easily stop their balls on them, then angles again become important – though when the course is this firm, it also means that drives will roll out further, so the approach shots required are likely to be short. Professionals in particular intensely dislike this style of golf – witness the whingeing seen on the rare occasions that championships are played in truly firm conditions, such as last year’s Open at Muirfield, or this year’s US Open at Chambers Bay.
But is there another way of imposing a requirement for strategic thought on the best? Andy Haggar says his boss at Faldo Design has one idea. “Nick believes the key to applying strategy to the elite player and professional lies to a large degree in spin control,” he says. For the pros it’s about making birdies and therefore getting to within 15ft of the pin. To do that they need good spin control on the ball most of the time. Statistics show that on certain holes with certain pin positions birdies can be strongly linked to shots in from a certain distance, that is, certain pin positions need a shot in from a certain distance to get a predicable reaction. This distance is typically 100-135 yards out. This also shows that there is such a thing as getting too close to a green, typically at 40-80 yards from the flag, because at that distance it can be harder for many golfers to control the ball with spin to the accuracy they desire.
“In design we look at bringing the lie on the fairway, or off the fairway for that matter, into play with pin positions and contours on the green. In other words we look at matching the design of the landing area (and immediate surrounds to it) to the design of the green/green complex and so consequently where you land the ball from the tee is linked to where the pin is on the green. This is about placing emphasis on hitting the right part of a fairway from the tee shot, and can be quite specific for the degree of accuracy to be high enough to challenge the elite player. Missing the appropriate landing area with a tee shot, for the pin position being played to, could result in the ball finishing if not in a hazard then on an unfavourable slope and/or off the fairway in rough. Getting to within 15ft of the flag in this instance is going to be much harder, largely due to the reduction in spin control the golfer is able to get on the ball. If a green is missed, making the shot back difficult is also good strategic design for the elite player.”
Frank Pont has his own recipe for making courses strategic even for the best. “Firm greens sloping away from the player, difficult pin positions on asymmetrically defended greens and penal fairway hazards at the relevant driving distances are the only defences against the elite players,” he says. “But as Geoff Ogilvy states so nicely: ‘Why would you want to design a course for us? Nobody would want to play it.’ In effect we have the elite players on one side and the rest of us on the other side, and it is very hard to have both play on the same course without making compromises that will hurt the end product for one of those groups.”
“I have always been of the mindset that strategy and options are critical to the design of every single hole I design,” says Art Schaupeter. “To me incorporating strategy and options into each hole has as much to do with the mental part of the sport as it does with the physical part. I am trying to put the golfer in a different psychological state, one where they believe that they have control of their game and control of their approach to each hole. I want to put the golf in their hands by giving them various options and various strategic decisions on each hole (if possible). I think this creates a better opportunity for golf to be a much more positive experience for all golfers, regardless of skill level.
Understanding where you want the golfer to be psychologically establishes the focus for the golf design itself. I use strategic options and variety to try and accomplish putting the golfer in a positive emotional place where the round of golf is engaging, enjoyable and adventurous. I tell all of my clients that width is more important than length. With width I can accomplish all of the things that I want to do with the design that creates the experience I think golfers will find enjoyable and engaging. To this point, I believe the golf course should appear easier and play harder as opposed to appear harder and play easier, with certain caveats and limitations as to how it plays harder. I think this type of golf course will have more depth and more lasting enjoyment and interest for players.”
This article first appeared in Golf Course Architecture magazine - Issue 42.