51 there is an important lesson in that for modern architecture. Perhaps the goal should not be to design a hole with one ideal strategy, but rather to create enough variables that the appropriate strategy continually changes. “Greens are particularly important in this regard,” continues Cutten. “Larger greens with varied contours and genuinely different hole locations can completely alter the strategy of a golf hole. Moving the hole 20 or 30 yards across a sufficiently interesting green should not merely change the length of the final putt; it can change the preferred angle of approach, which can change the desirable position in the fairway, which in turn can change the decision made back on the tee. In the best architecture, the location of a four-and-a-quarter-inch hole can effectively reorganise the strategy of several hundred yards of golf. “The analytics also remind us that golfers do not hit individual shots with mathematical precision; they produce patterns of shots. That is perhaps one of the most interesting lessons for architects. We should be designing not simply around an intended line of play, but around dispersion. A bunker 20 yards from the ‘ideal line’ may have little strategic relevance to an elite player if their normal pattern allows them to ignore it. Conversely, a hazard, contour or boundary positioned where it interacts with the edge of that dispersion pattern can materially change the player’s decision before they ever swing the club. “That may lead us towards wider golf rather than narrower golf, but with greater consequence and opportunity at particular edges. Width allows the golfer to choose a target, while contours, firmness, green orientation, recovery conditions and, where appropriate, hazards determine whether one portion of that width is genuinely more valuable than another. The key is that the differences need to be real rather than theoretical. “Perhaps most importantly, golf architecture is not created exclusively for elite players trying to produce the lowest possible expected score. The same hole is experienced by golfers with dramatically different speeds, trajectories, dispersions and ambitions. What is statistically obvious for a Tour player may be an entirely different calculation for a 12-handicap golfer. Good strategic architecture has always attempted to accommodate that diversity. The best holes reveal different questions to different players. The great strategic holes have always understood human nature. They tempt us. Sometimes the correct response is to resist that temptation. Sometimes the circumstances justify accepting it. And sometimes we take it on simply because we came to play golf rather than solve an equation. “I would be wary of allowing analytics to narrow our understanding of strategy to a calculation of hazard versus angle. The greatest courses have always been more complicated than that. Their strategy emerges from the relationship between the routing, the ground, the greens, the weather and the golfer. Those relationships are constantly changing.” Rees Jones is eager to stress that the analytic work is meant for golfers at Photo: St Andrews Links STRATEGY “ Larger greens with varied contours and genuinely different hole locations can completely alter the strategy of a golf hole” Jack Nicklaus once said that the seemingly optimal line on the sixteenth at St Andrews – between the out of bounds and the Principal’s Nose bunkers – ‘was strictly for amateurs’
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