Speaker 1: On any golf course, the greens are the center of gravity.
Speaker 1: About forty percent of the shots you hit in a
Speaker 1: given round on a regulation course will be putts. Around
Speaker 1: half or more than half of the shots that you
Speaker 1: hit will be either putts or chips, and any approach
Speaker 1: shot that you hit, at least any decent approach shot
Speaker 1: you hit, will interact with the green or it surrounds.
Speaker 1: So today's topic is a very important one. In this
Speaker 1: installment of our Golf Architecture one oh one series, we're
Speaker 1: talking about greens, how they're designed, how they're built, and
Speaker 1: what makes a good one. I'm Garrett Morrison and this
Speaker 1: is designing golf as usual in Golf Architecture one oh one.
Speaker 1: I am joined by my colleague PJ Clark. How you doing, PJ? Hello.
Speaker 2: I'm excited for this one.
Speaker 3: Unlike I would say the majority of our prior Golf
Speaker 3: Architecture one on one experiences, I truly have no idea
Speaker 3: what I'm walking into today, so I'm very excited for this.
Speaker 1: So what is it about the topic of greens that
Speaker 1: that kind of opens up possibilities for you or it
Speaker 1: makes you wonder where we might be gone with this?
Speaker 3: I feel like in prior episodes there was maybe a
Speaker 3: little bit of homework, So I have I had done
Speaker 3: something no homework. I've done absolutely nothing to get prepared
Speaker 3: for this. There's not like a It's very open ended,
Speaker 3: as you just alluded to. Feels like a lot of
Speaker 3: directions we could go here. Whereas you know, we were
Speaker 3: doing a history lesson or Mackenzie thirteen principles all things
Speaker 3: like that, it's very confined to this one specific segment.
Speaker 3: Whereas greens there are a lot of them. There's actually
Speaker 3: eighteen of them on basically every golf course possible, So
Speaker 3: I feel like there's unlimited possibilities that you're about to
Speaker 3: hit me with right now.
Speaker 1: It's a big topic, partly because of how important greens
Speaker 1: are in golf architecture. So yeah, a number of different
Speaker 1: things that we could talk about related to greens. You know,
Speaker 1: just to start off, do you have any takes about greens?
Speaker 1: Have you have you thought about green design, green architecture before? What?
Speaker 1: What do you like or not like in greens? Have
Speaker 1: any thoughts come to your mind about this area of
Speaker 1: golf course design before?
Speaker 3: Not particularly, I'm when I'm out there playing golf poorly,
Speaker 3: I'm really just focused on how am I getting the
Speaker 3: ball in the hole. So I think, you know, there
Speaker 3: are greens, you know, like punch bowls or funnels, you
Speaker 3: know those are fun for somebody that's bad that I
Speaker 3: get to, like, you know, ride a little ridge that
Speaker 3: could get me closer to the hole. Again, the ball
Speaker 3: of the games about getting the ball in the hole.
Speaker 3: But no, I can't say it's something that I actively
Speaker 3: think about. I understand I'm probably wrong in doing that,
Speaker 3: so excited to learn why.
Speaker 1: No, there's no wrong or right here. You know, if
Speaker 1: you enjoy punch balls, you enjoy punch bowls, that's you know,
Speaker 1: who doesn't on occasion like to see their ball actually
Speaker 1: go toward the hole when it gets on the edge
Speaker 1: of a green Once in a while, Yeah, just once
Speaker 1: in a while. So you know, I wanted to do
Speaker 1: this episode partly because we have to do this episode
Speaker 1: in any kind of one on one series, you got
Speaker 1: to talk about greens eventually, but also more specifically because
Speaker 1: I've often seen a divide in the way that greens
Speaker 1: are discussed among golfers. When non architecture geeks say that
Speaker 1: a course has good greens, they're typically talking about the
Speaker 1: condition of those greens, right, they're talking about whether they
Speaker 1: roll smoothly and quickly. That's good versus bad grains. Good
Speaker 1: greens are in good shape, bad greens are in bad shape.
Speaker 1: Is that's something that you've you've picked up on among
Speaker 1: just among the among the gem pop.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely than thousand percent.
Speaker 3: That would would basically be the way I or any
Speaker 3: of my friends would refer to to greens on whether
Speaker 3: they're beat up or not more than anything else.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, if you want to get along with people
Speaker 1: in a normal way, if you just want to be normal,
Speaker 1: then this is this is how you talk about greens.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I get that, So I certainly have that box check.
Speaker 1: Now when architecture heads say good greens, I think they
Speaker 1: mean something very different, right, And and that's gonna that's
Speaker 1: going to kind of be the governing principle of our
Speaker 1: episode here. What makes a good green beyond it just
Speaker 1: being smooth and fast? In other words, what makes a
Speaker 1: green well designed, not just well conditioned. A lot of
Speaker 1: this is obviously subjective, so so we'll discuss that as
Speaker 1: we go along. You know, not everybody has to like
Speaker 1: the same type of design and greens. But I think
Speaker 1: there's a lot more to this subject than just the
Speaker 1: condition of the greens, though we will talk about how
Speaker 1: greens can come to be well conditioned because that has
Speaker 1: to do with design and construction as well. So admittedly
Speaker 1: a pretty daunting topic to cover in one episode. You know,
Speaker 1: in my intro I talked about how many of the
Speaker 1: shots we hit during a normal round that interact with
Speaker 1: greens thirty to forty putts per round, depending on how
Speaker 1: we're putting, you know, a handful of chips and pitches
Speaker 1: and recoveries from greenside bunkers, and then of course eighteen
Speaker 1: approach shots assuming those approaches get somewhere in the vicinity
Speaker 1: of the green. All of these all of these shots
Speaker 1: are in some way or another engaging with the design
Speaker 1: and the condition of the greens. So it stands to reason,
Speaker 1: of course that a golf architect would put an inordinate
Speaker 1: amount of effort into the design and construction of greens.
Speaker 1: So very high stakes portion of the golf course for
Speaker 1: an architect, right.
Speaker 2: It's a good way of putting it a tie stakes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is arguably the most important part, as you
Speaker 3: said there, So yeah, that's a good way of putting it.
Speaker 1: If you screw up the greens. Nobody's happy with you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, now you're spending a lot of time on them,
Speaker 3: So yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1: All the details need to be right. And the result
Speaker 1: of this is that greens are the most heavily artificial
Speaker 1: components of any golf course, especially on a modern golf course.
Speaker 1: They are more intensively shaped than anything else. They have
Speaker 1: more drainage and irrigation infrastructure than anything else. So if
Speaker 1: you really want to assess the abilities of an architect
Speaker 1: and a construction crew, you need to start with the greens.
Speaker 1: You look at the greens first to see to see
Speaker 1: how an architect has performed, and besides that, they just
Speaker 1: naturally attract the attention of the golfer. CB McDonald had
Speaker 1: a great quote about this, our old friend C. B. McDonald.
Speaker 1: He said, putting greens to a golf course are what
Speaker 1: the face is to a portrait. The clothes the subject wears,
Speaker 1: the background, whether scenery or whether draperies are simply accessories.
Speaker 1: The face tells the story and determines the character and
Speaker 1: quality of the portrait, whether it is good or bad.
Speaker 1: I think that puts it pretty well. If you have
Speaker 1: good greens, you probably have a good golf course. The
Speaker 1: character of the greens is, to a significant degree the
Speaker 1: character of the golf course. When we take photos of
Speaker 1: golf courses, think about what you're pointing your camera at.
Speaker 1: You know, usually you're pointing it at a green, and
Speaker 1: that is because, yes, indeed, the greens are are the face,
Speaker 1: and you know, the golf course doesn't really make sense
Speaker 1: without them. Now, before we get to what makes a
Speaker 1: good green, because that's the main thing I want to
Speaker 1: talk about today, what makes a good green, let's talk
Speaker 1: quickly about Volume two of Frida Egg Golf's coffee table book,
Speaker 1: Got to do This right, PJ.
Speaker 2: A lot of greens in this In this book, I
Speaker 2: would assume a.
Speaker 1: Lot of photos of greens, a lot of discussion of greens,
Speaker 1: a lot of good stuff about if you're interested in
Speaker 1: green design. It's available for pre order right now. Volume
Speaker 1: two of our Coffee table book. This is our second
Speaker 1: collection of course profiles, and I think they really give
Speaker 1: a sense of what we prioritize in golf course coverage.
Speaker 1: You know, we do hit some we do hit some
Speaker 1: legendary courses like like Oakmont, North Barrack, Fisher's Island or
Speaker 1: All Saint George's Pineish number two. But we also show
Speaker 1: the other side of the coin. Courses like wild Horse
Speaker 1: in St. Andrew's Beach, two of the best that you
Speaker 1: can play anywhere for less than one hundred dollars. Both
Speaker 1: have fantastic greens. In fact, actually Saint Andrew's Beach, a
Speaker 1: green at Saint Andrew's Beach is going to come up today.
Speaker 1: We also have a little chapter on on North Haven,
Speaker 1: a tiny nine holer on the on an island off
Speaker 1: the coast of Maine, one of my favorite chapters the book.
Speaker 1: So you know, a big range of golf course coverage here,
Speaker 1: and you know this is volume two of our of
Speaker 1: our coffee table book. But it's not like you have
Speaker 1: to read volume one in order to understand Volume two.
Speaker 1: This is this is a fresh new collection with its
Speaker 1: own identity, and we're really proud of it. I think
Speaker 1: it's extremely beautiful. And I can say that because I
Speaker 1: had very little to do with the uh you know,
Speaker 1: only a few of my photographs are actually in the book,
Speaker 1: and the design of the book was completely out of
Speaker 1: my hands. And so yeah, it looks it looks awesome.
Speaker 1: Pre Orders are open now through September fourth to begin
Speaker 1: shipping on October seventh. Go grab yours at pro shop
Speaker 1: dot the fried egg dot com. All right, PJ, Let's
Speaker 1: get into the factors that make a good or well
Speaker 1: designed green. The first factor is obviously location. Now we
Speaker 1: talked a bit about this in our one oh one
Speaker 1: episode on routing right. Finding well suited compelling sites for greens.
Speaker 1: That means you can, you know, construct the green in
Speaker 1: a simpler and more efficient way, and you get more
Speaker 1: natural results. You don't have to completely manufacture a green
Speaker 1: if you find a good site for it. You want
Speaker 1: a variety of green sites throughout the course. You know,
Speaker 1: you can put greens on ridges, you can put them
Speaker 1: in valleys, you can put them on knolls or in saddles.
Speaker 1: You can put them on slopes of various kinds, you know,
Speaker 1: back to front, front to back side slopes. You know,
Speaker 1: one thing that I always do when I'm walking through
Speaker 1: a golf course is I look at what the green
Speaker 1: site is. And sometimes it's hard to tell, because again
Speaker 1: greens are heavily artificial, and it can be tough to
Speaker 1: tell what the natural environment initially was. But if you
Speaker 1: look around the green, look at the terrain, look at
Speaker 1: what the general kind of movement of the land is doing.
Speaker 1: Then you can get a sense for what the original
Speaker 1: location of the green was and get a sense for
Speaker 1: how much variety the course has achieved in green sites,
Speaker 1: Courses where every single green is on a ridge or
Speaker 1: every single green is in a valley are likely to
Speaker 1: start to feel a little bit repetitive. So you know,
Speaker 1: my favorite greens, I think are the ones that really
Speaker 1: use their natural landscapes and don't rely too much on
Speaker 1: manufactured features for their identity. They may have manufactured features,
Speaker 1: but the essential character of the green kind of comes
Speaker 1: from its location. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I think that.
Speaker 3: I'm now going through I haven't played a ton of
Speaker 3: DELF recently, but I got to play yesterday. So now
Speaker 3: I'm going through yesterday and trying to think back to
Speaker 3: of green sites and seeing if I came up with
Speaker 3: anything or missed anything.
Speaker 2: This is a great picture here.
Speaker 1: Well, I just brought up a slide show. Now for
Speaker 1: those who are listening audio only, don't worry. I'm going
Speaker 1: to describe what's on the slides in a basic way,
Speaker 1: and it's not going to be totally essential to the
Speaker 1: experience of this podcast, but we will show some photos
Speaker 1: of various greens on you in this slide show and
Speaker 1: they'll be available on YouTube and all that. So the
Speaker 1: green that I'm showing PJ right now is the third
Speaker 1: green at Saint Andrew's Beach, a lovely tom Doak golf
Speaker 1: course in Australia on the Mornington Peninsula. And the reason
Speaker 1: I chose the third green is that it just has
Speaker 1: a wonderful natural location and the green just sits in it.
Speaker 1: It basically sits in a high saddle. There's a ridge
Speaker 1: and there's kind of a natural notch in that ridge
Speaker 1: where the green is sitting. And you know, this green
Speaker 1: derives its character from the landscape. A great site was found,
Speaker 1: a natural site was found for this green, and that's
Speaker 1: where it gets its personality from. So these are the
Speaker 1: kinds of greens that I personally really enjoy, you know,
Speaker 1: because you're not relying too much on artificiality to create interest.
Speaker 1: So that is the third green at Saint Andrew's Beach.
Speaker 1: Any impressions from this photo as you're looking at it
Speaker 1: right now, PJ.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean it looks like it's supposed to be there,
Speaker 3: which I think is kind of what you're getting at right,
Speaker 3: like it looks obviously trees or bushes, shrubbery was cleared out,
Speaker 3: but it looks like it is just fits in the
Speaker 3: surrounding environment, like it was just a patch in the
Speaker 3: middle of these trees that they stuck a flag in.
Speaker 3: Like it doesn't look like anything was, you know, move
Speaker 3: too much or out of place, which is appealing to
Speaker 3: the eye certainly, like it.
Speaker 1: Was meant to be a green, and it might be
Speaker 1: something that you don't even notice as you're playing golf.
Speaker 1: You're just like, oh, there's a green. But that can
Speaker 1: be a good thing that a you know, a green
Speaker 1: does not take you out of the flow of the round,
Speaker 1: doesn't take you out of the experience. You just feel
Speaker 1: like you're experiencing the landscape and that the holes are
Speaker 1: sitting on the land in a way that feels inevitable
Speaker 1: or natural, and it doesn't even jump out to you.
Speaker 1: That can be a good thing because you can focus
Speaker 1: on other things you don't you aren't focusing on what
Speaker 1: the architect did. But the architect did a lot here.
Speaker 1: Tom Doak chose a really good site for the green
Speaker 1: and made the choice not to do much to it.
Speaker 1: So that's three at St. Andrew's Beach. That's an example
Speaker 1: of how we'll go through some of these slides here.
Speaker 1: We won't again it's an audio medium primarily here, but
Speaker 1: you'll see some of this stuff on YouTube if you
Speaker 1: want to. All Right, the second big factor PJ that
Speaker 1: I think makes a good green after choosing the location
Speaker 1: is drainage. This isn't the sexiest topic in the world,
Speaker 1: but it is probably the aspect of green design that
Speaker 1: architects think about the most and players think about the least. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and yeah, and yet it's it's so important, right it is.
Speaker 1: When you talk to architects about building greens, they just
Speaker 1: talk to you about drainage. I mean, the fund design
Speaker 1: stuff is it comes up later. One component of drainage
Speaker 1: is obviously site selection. What we just talked about location.
Speaker 1: You know, you choose locations that naturally drain well, which
Speaker 1: is why on older courses you often see greens on ridges,
Speaker 1: greens on high points, or if they're lower, you see
Speaker 1: greens kind of next to creeks or natural ditches or
Speaker 1: other drainage elements that were just in the landscape, so
Speaker 1: that the water goes off the green and onto this
Speaker 1: lower ground. So finding sites where there's lower ground around
Speaker 1: it can really help and saw that with the the
Speaker 1: third hole at San Andrew's Beach. Even though it's kind
Speaker 1: of sitting low in its a media environment, there are
Speaker 1: places where it naturally water will naturally drain away from it.
Speaker 1: Another component of drainage is conjuring. Greens need to be
Speaker 1: molded so that the water funnels off and either spreads
Speaker 1: out or goes into drains. So you can't have places
Speaker 1: on the green where the water pools right, and there
Speaker 1: are various ways of doing this. You know, this is
Speaker 1: sometimes where architects can get into a little bit of
Speaker 1: trouble because if you're contouring the greens so that it
Speaker 1: drains off, sometimes you do that in ways that don't
Speaker 1: look very natural or that look contrived in some way.
Speaker 1: And you know, often on greens that I would consider
Speaker 1: kind of poorly shaped or poorly executed. You see what
Speaker 1: are called catch basins, right, and catch basins are these
Speaker 1: kind of swales around a green with drains at the
Speaker 1: bottom of them. Sometimes you see them in fair ways
Speaker 1: as well, where you know the water will obviously just
Speaker 1: you know, run into the swale and go down the drain.
Speaker 1: But when you look at them, it's like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: that's just that's basically just a gutter sitting there around
Speaker 1: the green. And you know, catch basins can be necessary sometimes,
Speaker 1: especially on sites that don't naturally have soils that drain quickly,
Speaker 1: but they have to be executed in ways that don't
Speaker 1: call attention to themselves. And I'll show you an example
Speaker 1: here from Bandon Dunes of a green surrounded by catch
Speaker 1: basins that I think kind of jump out to the
Speaker 1: eye and do call attention to themselves in a way
Speaker 1: that I don't find particularly attractive. So this is the
Speaker 1: third hole Abandoned Dunes. It's a photo from behind the green,
Speaker 1: and what we see are kind of these symmetrical swales
Speaker 1: all around the green, each of which has a drain
Speaker 1: at the bottom of it. And I just think this
Speaker 1: green could have been carried out in a more kind
Speaker 1: of naturalistic way that these drainage elements could have could
Speaker 1: have been executed better. Now I love this golf course.
Speaker 1: I think Bandon Dunes is a great golf course, but
Speaker 1: this is one green where where I think, you know,
Speaker 1: probably the construction crew could have could have done a
Speaker 1: little bit better. Does that does that?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 1: Can you see what I'm talking about in in this
Speaker 1: uh in this image PJ.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I I mean it, at least in a way
Speaker 3: I understand your your critique from this aerial view. At
Speaker 3: least it's like, I don't think it's unappealing to look
Speaker 3: at I I I don't mind like the symmetry. It
Speaker 3: looks a little kind of even on all sides there
Speaker 3: that in the catch basins, but the existence of the
Speaker 3: catch basins, I understand what you're you're you're getting at
Speaker 3: for sure.
Speaker 1: Okay, that was a quick rundown of green construction and drainage.
Speaker 1: You know. Just keep in mind that this is what
Speaker 1: this is what architects are talking about when they talk
Speaker 1: about building greens.
Speaker 3: This is something I've never thought of before in my
Speaker 3: entire life. So I'm I'm I'm here, this is this
Speaker 3: is already a win. I think for this episode of
Speaker 3: Golf Architecture, what I want.
Speaker 1: Perfect Let's get to the third factor that I think
Speaker 1: makes for a good green, and that is the green's
Speaker 1: relationship with the rest of the whole. We've talked about
Speaker 1: this before on Golf Architecture one oh one. This is
Speaker 1: kind of the central aspect of strategic golf architecture, What
Speaker 1: is the relationship between the green and what's going on
Speaker 1: in the fair way and the tea shot. A good green,
Speaker 1: I think determines the strategic character of the whole. That's
Speaker 1: the green to tea thinking that we have developed in
Speaker 1: some past episodes of golf Architecture one O one thinking
Speaker 1: from the green backwards. The green is really the first
Speaker 1: thing that you need to contemplate before you understand a
Speaker 1: golf hole, and I think it's good greens that give
Speaker 1: you something rich to think about. So the first aspect
Speaker 1: of the relationship between the green and the rest of
Speaker 1: the hole is size and receptiveness. Generally, the longer the
Speaker 1: average approach shot, the bigger and more receptive the green.
Speaker 1: Large greens allow for more margin for air and kind
Speaker 1: of suit. The dispersion patterns of longer clubs, broad open
Speaker 1: fronts with contours that help the ball onto the green
Speaker 1: can also be used when you're dealing with a long
Speaker 1: approach shot, so a long par three, a long par four,
Speaker 1: Generally what you want to see is a larger and
Speaker 1: more receptive green. And so an example of the distinction
Speaker 1: between a green that can receive a short approach shot
Speaker 1: versus a long approach shot would be on the one hand,
Speaker 1: the seventh hole at Pebble Beach par three, famous par
Speaker 1: three about it, you know, one hundred or so yard shot,
Speaker 1: and the green is tiny. Now it has shrunk over time.
Speaker 1: It's probably smaller than it should be, but certainly it
Speaker 1: was designed to be partly because the shot that you're
Speaker 1: hitting into it is very short, and that that size
Speaker 1: suits the scale of the shot. At the other end
Speaker 1: of the spectrum, maybe you have a green like the
Speaker 1: third at Chicago Golf Club, which is a Birt's template,
Speaker 1: a long par three where players are supposed to be
Speaker 1: hitting long irons or even woods. And what you see
Speaker 1: here is a nice big run up into the green,
Speaker 1: a broad open front. The bunkers are along the sides
Speaker 1: of the hole, and what you have is a nice
Speaker 1: big fairway where you can land your ball and let
Speaker 1: it run up onto the green. And then the green
Speaker 1: itself is very large, broad receptive, accommodating, but still interesting
Speaker 1: because you have that little swale in front of it,
Speaker 1: and so you can kind of run your ball through
Speaker 1: that swale. And you know, of course it's not an
Speaker 1: easy shot still because the size of the green is
Speaker 1: suited to the size of the possible misses that you
Speaker 1: would have with those longer clubs. So green size is
Speaker 1: a key component of that relationship between the green and
Speaker 1: the rest of the hole. But I do think that
Speaker 1: sometimes this rule is worth violating because it can create
Speaker 1: really interesting and exciting situations if the green is out
Speaker 1: of scale with the length of shot being hit. So
Speaker 1: think about the road hole. What makes that hole exciting, Well,
Speaker 1: it's the fact that the green is too small for
Speaker 1: the length of second shot that you're heading into it.
Speaker 1: And probably part of the reason it's that size is
Speaker 1: that the hole started as a part five and people
Speaker 1: were expected to be hitting short third shots into it
Speaker 1: as opposed to long second shots. But now that we're
Speaker 1: more commonly hitting long second shots into the well, that's
Speaker 1: that's really quite a moment because the green is so
Speaker 1: fiercely guarded and it provides such a fine margin for
Speaker 1: error that you just have to pay attention when somebody
Speaker 1: is hitting hitting a shot into the seventeenth green at
Speaker 1: Saint Andrew's. So architects can play with the scale of
Speaker 1: the green in ways that can be interesting, right, And
Speaker 1: that's one of the kind of mysteries of golf architecture.
Speaker 1: That's that's where some of the art comes in. When
Speaker 1: does an architect violate the usual norms of golf course design?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well it feels like certainly something you not to
Speaker 3: say that you can't, but you you shouldn't overdo, right.
Speaker 3: I think there's there's probably a level to having too
Speaker 3: many small greens for longer approach chats and ending up
Speaker 3: and too many bunkers or whatever else that that green.
Speaker 2: Is not receptive too.
Speaker 3: But I definitely think some you know, it's always good
Speaker 3: to get a visual or even strategic kind of change up.
Speaker 3: Like if I saw this screen at Chicago Golf Club, Like, yeah,
Speaker 3: there's a lot there's a lot of room for error
Speaker 3: because you're presumably hitting a longer club in I think
Speaker 3: there's a way to me, I feel like, I don't
Speaker 3: know when I look at that, there's way more It
Speaker 3: seems more fun. You could get way more creative than
Speaker 3: I you know, the seventh Old Puebble Beach where there's
Speaker 3: not you have one option, right, like you have to
Speaker 3: fly it all the way down there and whatever happens happens.
Speaker 3: Where you could run run something up here and run
Speaker 3: it through the middle and get it to the back
Speaker 3: tier there. I if you gave me the option, I
Speaker 3: feel like, I don't know, seeing the ball on the
Speaker 3: ground more, I would take that over the alternative.
Speaker 1: Which is why long approach shots can be so great, right,
Speaker 1: And it's what we're missing in pro golf right now,
Speaker 1: is that that spectacle of the ball on the ground.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's part of why us opens off
Speaker 1: and have a long par three makes the players really mad.
Speaker 1: But guess what, when you have long par threes, the
Speaker 1: ball is much more likely to be on the ground
Speaker 1: in entertaining ways. So yeah, I mean going back to
Speaker 1: the seventh green at Pebble Beach, if you had this
Speaker 1: green on a two hundred and fifty yard hole, I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that that would be a good or exciting
Speaker 1: hole at all, right, you know that would be you
Speaker 1: could critique that hole for having a green that's kind
Speaker 1: of out of scale, out of character with the nature
Speaker 1: of the approach shot. But the example of the road
Speaker 1: hole tells you that there's some wiggle room there, there's
Speaker 1: some room to play there. You can you don't have
Speaker 1: to just follow the rules when it comes to the
Speaker 1: size of the green in relation to the length of
Speaker 1: the approach shot. Okay, so size of green is one
Speaker 1: important factor in the relationship between the green and the
Speaker 1: rest of the hole. The other big factor that I
Speaker 1: want to touch on briefly, and only briefly because we've
Speaker 1: already discussed it so much in past episodes of Golf
Speaker 1: Architecture one on one has to do with the orientation
Speaker 1: of the green and the hazards around it. You can
Speaker 1: have an angled green that provides the friendliest landing zone
Speaker 1: to you know, the advantageous side of the fairway that
Speaker 1: kind of opens up to one side of the fairway
Speaker 1: that is maybe difficult to get to and you want
Speaker 1: to give the player a reward for forgetting to that
Speaker 1: side of the fairway. You can have uneven hazard arrangements,
Speaker 1: so a bunker in front of one side of the green,
Speaker 1: but not in front of the other side of the green.
Speaker 1: Bunker's just just on one side, just guarding one side,
Speaker 1: so that you can kind of play around and have
Speaker 1: an opening into the green. Now, those two factors can
Speaker 1: be certainly combined. Right, have an angled green, you can
Speaker 1: have uneven hazard arrangements on the same green. The same
Speaker 1: is true of the third factor here, and that is
Speaker 1: tiltep the most underrated component of a strategic golf hole.
Speaker 1: I think a tilted green that provides a backstop for
Speaker 1: the advantageous side of the fairway, and if you're kind
Speaker 1: of on the wrong side of the fairway, then the
Speaker 1: green runs away from you a little bit. And one
Speaker 1: of my favorite examples of the use of tilt in
Speaker 1: strategic golf architecture is the tenth hole at Augusta National.
Speaker 1: This green is so tilted from right to left, and
Speaker 1: then there's also a bunker just on the right side,
Speaker 1: So that's an example of an uneven hazard arrangement around
Speaker 1: the green. Clearly, the preferred side of the fairway is
Speaker 1: the left here, because you're hitting into the tilt of
Speaker 1: the green. If you're on the right side of the fairway,
Speaker 1: which is where the photo happens to be taken from
Speaker 1: that we're looking at right now, then you're really kind
Speaker 1: of playing across that slope in the difficult way. Your
Speaker 1: ball is going to land and kind of shoot forward,
Speaker 1: whereas if you get over to the left, then your
Speaker 1: ball is going to have more of a tendency to
Speaker 1: stop on the green. But it's tough to get to
Speaker 1: the left side of the fairway because you have to
Speaker 1: hook it around the trees, et cetera. This is how
Speaker 1: green design can enhance strategic golf architecture. So I would
Speaker 1: say if the green's orientation and hazards correspond in some
Speaker 1: kind of logical and interesting way to the design of
Speaker 1: the rest of the hole, that is a big part
Speaker 1: of saying this is a good green. You know, that
Speaker 1: is a key component, all right, So that does it
Speaker 1: for the greens relationship with the rest of the hole.
Speaker 1: We have a few more ideas to get to about
Speaker 1: what makes a good green, but first I want to
Speaker 1: talk about our friends at the Golf Course Superintendent's Association
Speaker 1: of America or GCSAA. This partnership makes a lot of
Speaker 1: sense for us at Friday Golf. Really, our company would
Speaker 1: not exist in its current form today without the help
Speaker 1: and kindness of superintendents. Many of these photos that I'm
Speaker 1: showing to PJ right now in this episode our photos
Speaker 1: that we took because we kind of snuck onto the
Speaker 1: golf course through the maintenance facility. Many mornings we have
Speaker 1: arrived early and emparked our cars in the maintenance facility
Speaker 1: and then gone out onto the golf course to explore
Speaker 1: it and take photos. GCSAA supports more than twenty one
Speaker 1: thousand members worldwide, not only golf course superintendents, but also
Speaker 1: equipment managers, students, and educators. Celebrating its one hundredth anniversary
Speaker 1: this year, GCSAA continues to ensure that its members are
Speaker 1: on the forefront of research, education, innovation, and advocacy through
Speaker 1: a range of programs and services. To learn more, go
Speaker 1: to GCSAA dot org. Check it out. Great organization and
Speaker 1: we're very proud to be working with them. Okay, Next
Speaker 1: up on the docket, PJ for what makes a great green?
Speaker 1: I think we have to consider the examination of a
Speaker 1: player's skill here, and this brings in the subject of
Speaker 1: severity and the subject of consequences for poorly played or
Speaker 1: inaccurate approaches. The right amount of severity and consequence can
Speaker 1: make greens very exciting and properly testing of a player's skill. Right.
Speaker 1: The test is of approach, play, short game shots and putting.
Speaker 1: Augusta National is the ultimate example. Those greens are so
Speaker 1: testing partly because of their severity. Shinnecock Hills also has
Speaker 1: some great ones, very severe greens not in the same
Speaker 1: way as Augustus, though, whereas Augusta Nationals greens have severe
Speaker 1: undulation and tilt, a couple of Shinnacock's have some tilt
Speaker 1: as well. A lot of the danger at Shinnecock Hills
Speaker 1: as greens is around the greens, Right, it's the consequences
Speaker 1: from misplayed approaches. So severity and consequence are are key
Speaker 1: parts of what makes a green testing. But you can
Speaker 1: also have too much of those things, right, Yeah, it
Speaker 1: can also become absurd or one dimensional. Do you do?
Speaker 2: You do?
Speaker 1: You do you have an idea of where that line
Speaker 1: is for you?
Speaker 3: I don't know if I if I do, just off
Speaker 3: the top of my head, but I definitely agree with
Speaker 3: the the theory of it being too one dimensional. Like
Speaker 3: if every hole is so rounded by bunkers, if every
Speaker 3: green is surrounded by bunkers and there's no you know,
Speaker 3: runoff area, or if it's just very thick rough around
Speaker 3: every hole and it's the same thing repetitive, I think
Speaker 3: it would be.
Speaker 2: I think it would be just more repetition than anything else.
Speaker 3: If you get up to every green and you're missing
Speaker 3: in the same spots and you're left with the same
Speaker 3: type of shot I feel like that could get very boring.
Speaker 1: We will talk about that later. I think that that
Speaker 1: fits into another category that I want to get into.
Speaker 1: That the nature of the recovery shots that you hit,
Speaker 1: and that is I think that's a super important aspect
Speaker 1: of a great green. It's the variety of recovery shots
Speaker 1: that result from it. But yeah, you know, as it
Speaker 1: relates to severity and consequence, I think that there's such
Speaker 1: a difference between seeing a tournament played at a place
Speaker 1: like Augusta National or Shinnecock Hills and seeing a tournament
Speaker 1: played at a place like Royal Birkdale, or probably the
Speaker 1: better example is Quail Hollow, where there isn't the same
Speaker 1: sense of severity and consequence When an approach shot is
Speaker 1: sailing into a green at Quail Hollow, generally you weren't
Speaker 1: on the edge of your seat wondering what's going to happen,
Speaker 1: whereas you are at augustin Nashvill, you are at Shinnacock
Speaker 1: and you're on the edge of your seat because you're like,
Speaker 1: you know, there could be many outcomes here. And also
Speaker 1: this player is in the midst of demonstrating great skill.
Speaker 1: If they pull off this shot, then they've really done something,
Speaker 1: you know, and if they don't, then something's going to
Speaker 1: happen to them. And that is I think, very satisfying
Speaker 1: to us. But there is a line. There is a line,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't have to do with fairness, I don't think.
Speaker 1: I think it just has to do with the fact
Speaker 1: that overly severe greens, overly punishing greens, do become one
Speaker 1: dimensional ultimately, and I think an example of that is
Speaker 1: that Shinnacock Hills, the seventh hole, the ra Dan hole
Speaker 1: at Chinnacock. Now, I just said Shinnecock's greens are fantastic.
Speaker 1: It's one of the greatest golf courses in the world.
Speaker 1: But I do think the seventh hole at Shinnacock maybe
Speaker 1: just goes a touch too far with the severity. There
Speaker 1: are very few pen positions, and so really it just
Speaker 1: there's one type of shot that you hit on this hole.
Speaker 1: The margins are so fine that, especially when the wind
Speaker 1: is up, I'm not sure it's really a test of
Speaker 1: a player's ability. I think it has more to do
Speaker 1: with just the luck of hitting one patch of grass.
Speaker 1: It's like one yard left of the other patch of grass. Now,
Speaker 1: the main problem here, I think is likely green speeds,
Speaker 1: which we'll talk about later. Okay, the green has become
Speaker 1: so fast that the tilt of it has become too much.
Speaker 1: There are only a couple of places that you can
Speaker 1: really put the pin and have the ball stay stay
Speaker 1: in place, and so I think that's that's more the
Speaker 1: source of the problem than the design of the green.
Speaker 1: But it's definitely still it's entertaining to play. It's a
Speaker 1: tense moment in the round. There is a joy factor
Speaker 1: of watching great players tackle this hole and either get
Speaker 1: rejected or be relieved when when they aren't rejected. But
Speaker 1: for me, it's just it's just a little bit too much.
Speaker 1: It's just over the line. I don't know what your
Speaker 1: reaction to it was. During during the US Open, PJ
Speaker 1: the seventh green at shnakok Ay, I.
Speaker 2: Mean it it did.
Speaker 3: It kind of felt like the same everybody just ended
Speaker 3: up in the same not the same spot, but it
Speaker 3: didn't feel like anybody was just hitting the green. I
Speaker 3: sat there for a while, I think on Friday, and
Speaker 3: it was just like every group that came through it
Speaker 3: was kind of the same thing. It was everybody would miss,
Speaker 3: maybe one guy would stick it, but it was not like.
Speaker 2: I do think there's an aspect to.
Speaker 3: Almost like fifteen at Berkdale last week, Like, I think
Speaker 3: there's something to be said for like a par feeling
Speaker 3: like a birdie and like a major championship round, like
Speaker 3: you're picking up a shot. Three at Shitnacock was like
Speaker 3: that during the weekend too, I think on Saturday, like
Speaker 3: everybody was bogeying three. I do think, like, I think
Speaker 3: there's a real benefit to that in that you can
Speaker 3: gain a shot on the field by just making par.
Speaker 3: But I do think when it's you know, you're getting
Speaker 3: into a spot where everybody is playing the same shot
Speaker 3: or getting rejected to the same area because of a green, Like, yeah,
Speaker 3: that could be a little boring and repetitive for sure.
Speaker 1: I have my issues with the framework of test that
Speaker 1: we often use when we talk talk about championship golf courses,
Speaker 1: But I don't think we should throw that entirely out
Speaker 1: because you know, certainly part of the role of a
Speaker 1: golf course is to examine a player's skill and to
Speaker 1: identify a worthy champion. And there is a point at
Speaker 1: which a test becomes too unachievable. If a test is
Speaker 1: is not passable at a reasonable rate. Then it no
Speaker 1: longer feels like a proper test. And that's the line
Speaker 1: that the seventh hole at Shinnacock is at least right
Speaker 1: at and maybe over now at the other end of
Speaker 1: the spectrum from seven at Shinnacock, you have bowl greens,
Speaker 1: punch bowl greens, greens that funnel to the middle, you know,
Speaker 1: while fun in moderation. While I think they definitely have
Speaker 1: a place on any golf course, they can wear thin
Speaker 1: quickly because they do flatten the difference between rate good
Speaker 1: and average shots, and they and they narrow the range
Speaker 1: of potential outcomes. It it becomes again one dimensionality becomes
Speaker 1: an issue. So this, this subject of the test of
Speaker 1: the player's skill is it's not something that I that
Speaker 1: I think about that often unless I'm like talking with
Speaker 1: Joseph lamani Our, a colleague who who covers professional golf,
Speaker 1: and you know, if I'm if I'm looking at the
Speaker 1: competitive scene, then I'll then I'll think about test more.
Speaker 1: But the more I I I contemplate this this category,
Speaker 1: the more I think, yeah, it is. It is an
Speaker 1: interesting It is an important aspect of of green design
Speaker 1: that the amount of severity, the amount of consequence dialing
Speaker 1: that in to the right level is pretty key, all right.
Speaker 1: Next factor that makes a good green, and we just
Speaker 1: sort of touched on it with seven at Shinnakok. The
Speaker 1: variety of pin positions. A good green I think offers
Speaker 1: a well differentiated range of pin positions pins and different
Speaker 1: sectors of the green. So right, left, back, front, pins
Speaker 1: of varying difficulty. Right, you have some on knobs, some
Speaker 1: on shelves, some in bowls, some near punishing hazards, right,
Speaker 1: some kind of on the edge near it, near a
Speaker 1: bunker where it's the opportunity for recovery is really difficult,
Speaker 1: you know, and then others that offer more margin for air. Yep.
Speaker 1: When you look at a green, when you're playing a green,
Speaker 1: you only see one pin position. But I think a
Speaker 1: good thing to do is to look at the rest
Speaker 1: of the green and consider where the pin can go.
Speaker 1: That's a practice that I think allows people to appreciate
Speaker 1: golf architecture at another level. Not just look at the
Speaker 1: pin that you're playing that day, but look around the
Speaker 1: green and see where the pin could be put. Because
Speaker 1: occasionally a change in pin position changes the character of
Speaker 1: the hole. And here I want to look at the
Speaker 1: ninth Green at Harbortown. Now, if I can describe this
Speaker 1: for audio listeners, it's a crazy looking green, but it
Speaker 1: basically looks like Mickey Mouse. You have two big ears
Speaker 1: and the green kind of forms a boomerang, a reverse boomerang. Right,
Speaker 1: Is that? Have I described that correctly?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think so. It's like a reverse the Mickey Mouse.
Speaker 2: The Mickey Mouse is.
Speaker 1: The Mickey Mouse. Yeah, just just imagine, just imagine a
Speaker 1: silhouette of Mickey Mouse. So you have these two big
Speaker 1: lobes on the right and the left, and if the
Speaker 1: pin is on the on the one on the right,
Speaker 1: well you kind of want to be on the left
Speaker 1: side of the hole. If the pin is on the
Speaker 1: lobe on the left, well you kind of want to
Speaker 1: be on the right side of the hole. And so
Speaker 1: here the pin position does determine a lot about the
Speaker 1: character of the whole. And I think something that can
Speaker 1: make you say that's a great green is if the
Speaker 1: pin positions are like that. The pin positions really do
Speaker 1: provide a different experience from day to day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think.
Speaker 3: Again, I don't know that it's something that I've ever
Speaker 3: consciously thought about until right now, but yeah, especially if
Speaker 3: it's a course, you're playing a lot. Like you just said,
Speaker 3: the shot on this whole would completely change if it's
Speaker 3: you know, tuck to the right and there's that fall
Speaker 3: off there, like you know where you have to be,
Speaker 3: and it's asking a different question, which is I don't know.
Speaker 3: I think it's cool to have that optionality. I think
Speaker 3: it's probably cool when you're setting up the golf course
Speaker 3: to have an.
Speaker 2: Option to.
Speaker 3: Make people do something completely different. I think it's cool
Speaker 3: if you're playing it for the second or third time whatever,
Speaker 3: that you have a different shot than you had before.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I I you know, just.
Speaker 3: Me knowing nothing objectively speaking, Yeah, it seems like a
Speaker 3: lot of pimpositions is great because why wouldn't it be something.
Speaker 1: Different creates a course within a course, or multiple courses
Speaker 1: within the same course, and that you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of golf courses, especially in the in the early part
Speaker 1: of the twentieth century, were built with the assumption that
Speaker 1: people would be playing them over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: I think we've started to move away from that assumption
Speaker 1: in some modern golf architecture, especially at destination resorts, where
Speaker 1: the assumption is more that people might just be playing
Speaker 1: this course once, Yeah, But there is a level of
Speaker 1: complexity that I think comes from golf architects believing that
Speaker 1: people will play their courses many times. Because if they
Speaker 1: believe that, then they will probably design greens more like
Speaker 1: this one at Harbortown, the ninth Green, where different pin
Speaker 1: positions really do provide a different experience because they're thinking,
Speaker 1: you know, people aren't just going to see one pin
Speaker 1: position at this green, They're going to see multiple ones.
Speaker 1: At tournament courses. It's a good thing to do because
Speaker 1: on different days it's it's a different test, and you
Speaker 1: keep players on their toes. You don't allow them to
Speaker 1: settle into a groove, and that's something you really get
Speaker 1: from the ninth at Harbortown because it is the host
Speaker 1: of the RBC Heritage.
Speaker 3: You also need to make sure that that you don't
Speaker 3: only have pin positions on the right side, because that
Speaker 3: it would not benefit drawers of the golf ball and
Speaker 3: people might tweet about that. So you've got to be
Speaker 3: able to, you know, make sure you stay out of
Speaker 3: the crosshairs from any potential burner accounts on Twitter that
Speaker 3: would tweet about course set up and where the flags
Speaker 3: might be on a given tournament.
Speaker 1: Round the main thing, the main that's the I think.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's the main thing behind decisions and
Speaker 1: course set up, that kind of thing.
Speaker 3: This ever happened before, but if it were to happen,
Speaker 3: you know, you might.
Speaker 2: Want to avoid that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that would be crazy if that happened. All Right,
Speaker 1: it's worth taking a little break here, I think to
Speaker 1: talk about green speeds, yeah, because it relates very much
Speaker 1: to this notion of variety and pin positions. So greens
Speaker 1: like those that at Augusta National or Oakmont were designed
Speaker 1: for stimp meter readings in the single digits. Yeah, Oakmont
Speaker 1: has always had relatively fast greens. Augusta National has always
Speaker 1: had relatively fast greens, but relatively is doing a lot
Speaker 1: of work there because back in the you know, even
Speaker 1: just thirty years ago, even forty years ago, greens were
Speaker 1: just way way slower than they are now. The expectations,
Speaker 1: the standards around green speeds were so different just a
Speaker 1: few decades ago. Now, Augusta and Oakmont regularly push thirteen
Speaker 1: to fifteen on the stint meter, and this reduces the
Speaker 1: amount of pinnable area, meaning that pins are put in
Speaker 1: fewer and less interesting positions. When you start to get
Speaker 1: greens that fast, you can't put pins on slopes anymore.
Speaker 1: You have to find the flat areas of the green,
Speaker 1: and again that reduces the amount of pinnable area. It
Speaker 1: reduces the dynamism of the experience from day to day
Speaker 1: because you're taking away from the variety of pin positions. Now,
Speaker 1: that's a less complex test of skill, first of all,
Speaker 1: because puts are going to break less when you put
Speaker 1: pins in flatter areas. If you have pins on slopes,
Speaker 1: then you're more likely to have short puts that you
Speaker 1: have to aim outside the hole to make them. And
Speaker 1: so you know, green speeds flattened the test in that way.
Speaker 1: But the main problem is this is this this issue
Speaker 1: of variety of pin positions. The faster you're greens, the
Speaker 1: fewer the areas that you're going to be able to
Speaker 1: put your pins. And the really unfortunate consequence of high
Speaker 1: green speeds is that a lot of clubs end up
Speaker 1: feeling that they need to soften the slopes of their greens,
Speaker 1: They need to redesign their greens, take away the severity
Speaker 1: and character of their greens, make them flatter, because speeds
Speaker 1: have made the greens dysfunctional have made it so that
Speaker 1: they need to put the pins in the same places
Speaker 1: from day to day. And one thing that happens when
Speaker 1: you put pins in the same places from day to
Speaker 1: day is that the greens get really worn down in
Speaker 1: those particular areas that the wear and tear is not
Speaker 1: spread out as much. And so green speeds are one
Speaker 1: of the biggest problems for golf architecture right now. But
Speaker 1: it's something that people rarely talk about, and it's something
Speaker 1: that it just feels like there's no going back. It
Speaker 1: feels like these clubs are just gonna gonna keep pushing
Speaker 1: the envelope when it when it comes to green speeds.
Speaker 2: Who will be brave enough to go back to single
Speaker 2: digit green speeds?
Speaker 3: Who? Who?
Speaker 4: And when we call on you, yeah, yeah, I mean
Speaker 4: to an extent, Shinnakawk Hills what during this last US
Speaker 4: Open was remarkable because they were only in the ten
Speaker 4: to eleven range.
Speaker 1: It was like, wow, but that's still really fast, you know,
Speaker 1: And it's it is what you're pointing out there, PJ
Speaker 1: is the issue. Who is going to do that? Who's
Speaker 1: gonna stick their neck out and say I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: slower greens? Yeah, you know, there's there's almost kind of
Speaker 1: like a macho aspect to this, where where clubs can't
Speaker 1: be seen as the as the as the WUS that
Speaker 1: has the slower greens, But of course it would be.
Speaker 1: It would be so much better for for the playability
Speaker 1: of the golf course and and for the integrity of
Speaker 1: the design of the greens. So I've just gone on
Speaker 1: a bit of a rant there. I want to do
Speaker 1: a sense check with you. Does that make sense how
Speaker 1: green speeds would relate with design in that way?
Speaker 3: Yeah, because I feel like you can't. I don't know,
Speaker 3: if you have a great amount of slope in these greens,
Speaker 3: or you have a pin on a spot where it's
Speaker 3: not reasonable to you basically have to make it, or
Speaker 3: else you're in ginormous amounts of trouble on a high
Speaker 3: speed green, then like, yeah, of course that's not I
Speaker 3: don't want to call it unplayable, but it's certainly not enjoyable.
Speaker 3: Like I mean, do I care from a professional golf
Speaker 3: standpoint if the pros playing are enjoying the golf course, No,
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 2: But from a.
Speaker 3: Recreational play standpoint, like, yeah, I think you got to
Speaker 3: just you know, give a dog a bone almost here,
Speaker 3: and give people like a fighting chance.
Speaker 2: If you want to do this at a a professional tournament, please,
Speaker 2: by all means turn it up. I'll root for I'll
Speaker 2: root for carnage and.
Speaker 3: People complaining no matter what, because it's it's better for
Speaker 3: everybody that way. But I think who will have the
Speaker 3: courage to go back to intricacies on the greens and
Speaker 3: single digit green speeds. I'm happy to throw that gautlet
Speaker 3: out on your behalf right here.
Speaker 1: Anybody who's not hosting a major tournament, yeah, I think
Speaker 1: doesn't have an excuse. I think you can love that.
Speaker 1: You can do it. You know, you get You're free,
Speaker 1: You're free of the shackles of big time professional golf.
Speaker 1: Your greens can be slower, you can retain some character
Speaker 1: in those greens. You can put the pins in interesting places.
Speaker 1: You just need to grow the grass a little bit higher.
Speaker 1: It doesn't doesn't always need to be doesn't always need
Speaker 1: to be slick. All right, Let's go on to the
Speaker 1: next factor that I think makes for a great green,
Speaker 1: and that is the variety of recovery shots, something that
Speaker 1: you referred to earlier underrated aspect of green design when
Speaker 1: you miss a green, what happens and is it engaging?
Speaker 1: Is it varied? You know, this really highlights the design
Speaker 1: of what's around the putting surface, right, which is just
Speaker 1: as important as what's on the putting surface. When you
Speaker 1: think about recovery shots and what happens when you miss
Speaker 1: the green, then you start to think about something that
Speaker 1: people often don't think about, and that is the design
Speaker 1: of the surrounds. You can have a combination of short grass,
Speaker 1: rough native grass, bunkers, and other hazards, and that combination
Speaker 1: can generate a great deal of variety in the short
Speaker 1: game shots around the green. So can contouring right interesting
Speaker 1: contours around the green. Unexpected contours, unpredictable contours can also
Speaker 1: increase the the energy and dynamism of the short game
Speaker 1: shots that you hit around the green. It's it's a
Speaker 1: way for architects to define better and worse misses around
Speaker 1: the greens. Maybe some places it's really hard to recover.
Speaker 1: From other places you're faced with with more of a simple,
Speaker 1: straightforward chip back onto the putting surface. So there are
Speaker 1: a lot of possibilities that you can pursue around greens
Speaker 1: to create a variety of recovery shots. Now this is something.
Speaker 1: It's something I always look at when I walk onto
Speaker 1: a green that I haven't seen before, I look around
Speaker 1: at the surrounds and I consider, well, what if I
Speaker 1: miss there, What would that be like to get back
Speaker 1: onto the putting surface? What if I missed over there?
Speaker 1: Would it be different? Would be interesting? Right? That's it's
Speaker 1: a it's a key set of questions that that you
Speaker 1: could ask about greens to appreciate their design more. And
Speaker 1: you know, the frustrating thing can be sometimes that you
Speaker 1: look around and you're like, well, no matter where I
Speaker 1: miss around this green, it's kind of the same shot.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's surrounded by bunkers and it's just a bunker shot.
Speaker 1: Maybe in the worst case, is simply surrounded by rough
Speaker 1: without much interesting contouring, and you're like, well, that sort
Speaker 1: of flattens the variety and the entertainment factor of missing
Speaker 1: the green here. On the other hand, when greens have
Speaker 1: a good amount of short grass around them, I think
Speaker 1: that's when you're really cooking with gas, right. Short grass
Speaker 1: can bring in that unpredictability and that variety of short
Speaker 1: game shots that I'm really looking for when I consider
Speaker 1: this aspect of green design, and one of my favorite
Speaker 1: examples is the eighth Green at Augusta National remarkable green,
Speaker 1: a very strange green in many ways, just surrounded very
Speaker 1: long and narrow and surrounded by these huge mountains, and
Speaker 1: it's all short grass. And if you miss far to
Speaker 1: the left, you're gonna be in the pine straw and trees.
Speaker 1: But for the most part, when you miss this green,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be in amongst over on the other side,
Speaker 1: of on top of wherever, around these big short grass mounts.
Speaker 1: And there are so many different shots that you could
Speaker 1: potentially face if you miss this green, and so many
Speaker 1: different ways that you could approach those shots. This is
Speaker 1: what I think contour and short grass around the greens
Speaker 1: can bring that just rough and just bunkers never could
Speaker 1: so Eighth Green at Augusta, Nashal I have a great
Speaker 1: example of that.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it brings creativity for sure, and I think it
Speaker 3: adds a level of skill.
Speaker 2: Like if you're just.
Speaker 3: In the rough on every hole and you're getting swallowed
Speaker 3: by long grass, that becomes a kind of a Rulette's
Speaker 3: spin on.
Speaker 2: Do you have a lie? Do you have a lie?
Speaker 3: Like that kind of takes a I think a lot
Speaker 3: of the fun out of it. You could just be
Speaker 3: totally hosed, So you could be sitting up and you
Speaker 3: could have have an accurate chip shot, and that certainly
Speaker 3: gets repetitive after every hole. I think eight and Augusta,
Speaker 3: n Ashville is a great example.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I I know a guy who hit a shot over
Speaker 3: the screen, wrote it up one of the other mounds
Speaker 3: and came back down the other side and then made
Speaker 3: a putt to lead the Masters on Sunday like that.
Speaker 1: That Who was this hero and it was this remarkable,
Speaker 1: remarkable and very appealing man.
Speaker 3: Yeah it could be Cameron Young, who's to say, But
Speaker 3: I think that's like a perfect example of a level
Speaker 3: of creativity. Like when he set up for the shot,
Speaker 3: the broadcast wasn't sure if he was intending to do it,
Speaker 3: like it confused.
Speaker 1: Yeah, They're like, oh, that's shot, so where's he going.
Speaker 2: Nobody knew what was happening.
Speaker 3: Everybody just thought he sculled the chip and then it
Speaker 3: came right back down off the mound, and obviously it
Speaker 3: was intense. And I think that is just a level
Speaker 3: of creativity. Even if you don't have like the skill
Speaker 3: necessarily to pull it off, it makes you think more
Speaker 3: than you know, I gotta get up and down of
Speaker 3: a bunker, or oh do I have a lie in
Speaker 3: the rough?
Speaker 1: Like it?
Speaker 3: Just again, it all comes back to for me, like
Speaker 3: I like as somebody who doesn't hit the ball very
Speaker 3: high or anything like, having the ball on the ground
Speaker 3: is cool to me because I think I don't know,
Speaker 3: more things can happen. It adds a lot more variability
Speaker 3: in good ways and bad.
Speaker 1: Makes it more fun and honestly easier for regular players
Speaker 1: like you and me, but introduces a different level of
Speaker 1: challenge for guys like Cameron Young. Now I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that short grass around the greens is going to produce
Speaker 1: higher scores. What's going to produce higher scores is if
Speaker 1: you grow up the rough right around the greens and
Speaker 1: make it a super thick and yeah, if your goal
Speaker 1: is to have a plus eight winning score, then that's
Speaker 1: what you're gonna do. But as we saw in the
Speaker 1: past at Shinnacok Hills when they had rough right up
Speaker 1: around the greens, it yes made those chips difficult when
Speaker 1: you're chipping back onto a fast and fern putting surface
Speaker 1: from a buried lie in the thick rough, but it
Speaker 1: also stopped the ball from going to interesting places. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you'd miss over the back of the eleventh green at
Speaker 1: Shinnacock and your ball would stop on that slope. It
Speaker 1: wouldn't run away from the hole on that slope. And
Speaker 1: so that's the trade off. That's what we have to
Speaker 1: keep in mind when we say rough around the greens
Speaker 1: or rough anywhere is the key is that it it
Speaker 1: grabs that ball and the next shot may be very difficult.
Speaker 1: It may be easier to hit a chip off of
Speaker 1: short grass than it is to hit a chip out
Speaker 1: of deep, deep rough. But the t eat off is clear.
Speaker 1: You get you get more interesting shots, You get more
Speaker 1: varied shots after missing a green when you have a
Speaker 1: good amount of short grass, or at least if you
Speaker 1: have some combination of rough and short grass and bunkers
Speaker 1: and and other other hazards around the green. So variety
Speaker 1: is the key.
Speaker 3: It can't be the same thing every time like that
Speaker 3: that and and if it is the same thing every time,
Speaker 3: I would prefer it be short grass just because of
Speaker 3: the variability aspect of of what you what players can
Speaker 3: do from from there, more than anything else.
Speaker 1: I'm with you on that next factor that makes a
Speaker 1: great green originality we'll talk just a little bit about originality, creativity,
Speaker 1: inventiveness of design. Kind of a tricky thing to talk
Speaker 1: about because it's really it's really a you know it
Speaker 1: when you see it thing, right, And it also depends
Speaker 1: on your experience, right if you if you're somebody who
Speaker 1: hasn't seen a lot of different greens at a lot
Speaker 1: of different courses, you may not have an immediate sense
Speaker 1: of what's original and what's not, because it's presumably all
Speaker 1: pretty new to you. But to me, the greens that
Speaker 1: make you stop and say, I haven't quite seen anything
Speaker 1: like that before are the most engaging ones, or at
Speaker 1: least the ones that make you feel like you're dealing
Speaker 1: with some kind of fresh execution of a standard concept.
Speaker 1: And that can be the case in template greens on C. B.
Speaker 1: MacDonald and SETH Rayner courses. I wouldn't call those greens
Speaker 1: original because by definition they're not original. But when you
Speaker 1: play the Burt's at Chicago Golf Club, which we just
Speaker 1: looked at, or you play the particular rendition of the
Speaker 1: Dan at National Golf Links, then you really do feel
Speaker 1: like something fresh is happening there because of the location
Speaker 1: of the green, because of the particular execution of the details,
Speaker 1: and so there is this sense of freshness and originality
Speaker 1: to any great green. Now, the easiest and probably best
Speaker 1: route to originality is taking inspiration from the specificities of
Speaker 1: the natural train. Nature is an endless source of originality,
Speaker 1: and if you just follow its cues, then then you're
Speaker 1: going to have results that feel new, you know, because
Speaker 1: there's no other patch of ground like that in the world.
Speaker 1: And if you just rely on that, then then you
Speaker 1: are generally in pretty good shape. Great example of this
Speaker 1: is the is the fourth green at Royal Saint George's.
Speaker 1: I have it labeled on the screen right now, is
Speaker 1: the fifth green, And that's killing me. But only only
Speaker 1: the YouTube audience is going to see that, So I'm
Speaker 1: sorry that was a typo. This is the fourth green
Speaker 1: at Royal Saint George's.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is crazy, and look at that.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to even really try to describe it,
Speaker 1: but it's basically just this big green that's draped over
Speaker 1: a natural shelf. It's tilting strongly from left to right,
Speaker 1: and it's just sitting there right, It's just sitting there
Speaker 1: on the ground and it's a great piece of ground
Speaker 1: and that's all the green is doing. Now, I could
Speaker 1: go into how it corresponds to the strategy as a whole,
Speaker 1: and it does its job brilliantly in that way. But
Speaker 1: when you look at this green, you think, I haven't
Speaker 1: seen anything like that before. And the reason you haven't
Speaker 1: seen anything like that before is that this piece of
Speaker 1: land is its own unique thing, and the green just
Speaker 1: uses it. It is just set on it, and it's
Speaker 1: quite beautiful, and it is the fourth green and not
Speaker 1: the fifth green. Now, manufactured originality is definitely possible, but
Speaker 1: it takes a lot of skill because a lot of
Speaker 1: people try to manufacture originality and fall short. Because we're humans,
Speaker 1: We're limited. We don't have the same creative capabilities of nature, right,
Speaker 1: and we have to admit that in humility to we
Speaker 1: have to admit our limitations sometimes.
Speaker 2: But yes, can't go Jurassic Park golf course. Unfortunately.
Speaker 1: Yeah you can, but you need to have extraordinary skill.
Speaker 1: And you can really tell when when somebody has that
Speaker 1: talent of being able to manufacture originality. Now, no architect
Speaker 1: I think can do it on every green, on every
Speaker 1: golf course that he or she builds. You know, you
Speaker 1: have to sometimes be more natural in your approach. But
Speaker 1: I think that the course Old Barnwell, a recent design
Speaker 1: by Brian Schneider and Blake Conant, has some very manufactured greens,
Speaker 1: like the eighth green, which we're looking at right now,
Speaker 1: that do feel original and don't seem particularly contrived or
Speaker 1: or you know, overly based on other sources, or or
Speaker 1: just like they you know, they don't belong there, that
Speaker 1: they're executed really well. But some of them are very artificial.
Speaker 1: The key, however, is a variety. And you know, sometimes
Speaker 1: the most daring thing that you can do, the most
Speaker 1: original thing you can do, is just set the green
Speaker 1: on the land. And another example of that would be
Speaker 1: at the same golf course, the eighteenth hole at Old Barnwell.
Speaker 1: What are you seeing here, PJ.
Speaker 3: It's it's just sitting in the middle of a patch
Speaker 3: of grass, right, It's just yeah, there's nothing there, It's
Speaker 3: just a flag.
Speaker 2: And then the putting surface.
Speaker 1: It is completely unified with the land around it. There's
Speaker 1: there's basically nothing that you can see that was constructed here. Now.
Speaker 1: I do know that, you know, if you things a
Speaker 1: few contours, a few details are pushed here and there,
Speaker 1: but the putting surface the eighteenth hole at Old Barnwell
Speaker 1: just really sits on the land. Now, what you can't
Speaker 1: really see in this photo is that it is very
Speaker 1: significantly tilted right because it sits on terrain that naturally
Speaker 1: tilts it. There is there is a strong pole toward
Speaker 1: the left side of the green as you're as you're
Speaker 1: playing into it. But uh, this is the the kind
Speaker 1: of variety that that you need in approaches across a
Speaker 1: golf course. You had the eighth green, which is heavily
Speaker 1: manufactured but does feel original, does feel like a fresh idea,
Speaker 1: and then you have the eighteenth green, which is literally
Speaker 1: just sitting on the ground. Okay, so originality key component.
Speaker 1: Often that originality is going to come from nature, but
Speaker 1: sometimes if you have real proficiency, then as an architect
Speaker 1: you can create some originality. The next factor that I
Speaker 1: want to talk about PJ and I. I want to
Speaker 1: follow up originality with this for a reason, and that
Speaker 1: is elegance. Sometimes architects do try too hard to be
Speaker 1: original and the result of that is a chaotic mess
Speaker 1: of contours and just craziness. Right, Wildness is not the
Speaker 1: same thing as originality, And it seems to me that
Speaker 1: occasionally architects are really trying to manufacture that sense of freshness,
Speaker 1: but they forget that elegance is also an important component.
Speaker 1: You know. Probably my favorite greens are the ones that
Speaker 1: achieve everything we've talked about to this point while being
Speaker 1: relatively simple, or at least not seeming to have any
Speaker 1: unnecessary elements. Right, Elegance in design is achieving what you
Speaker 1: need to achieve with exactly the right number of moves
Speaker 1: and no more. If the architect makes too many moves,
Speaker 1: then the green design can become muddled and incoherent, and
Speaker 1: you're looking at the contours and you're you're saying, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: why is that there? What does that correspond to in
Speaker 1: the rest of the hole? What's the purpose of that?
Speaker 1: Is that really creating extra interest in the short game,
Speaker 1: recovery shots or a pin position that is that is
Speaker 1: genuinely interesting or or is that just not needed? So
Speaker 1: I love greens that do a lot while seeming to
Speaker 1: do relatively little. Good example of that is the fifteenth
Speaker 1: green at the North Course at Los Angeles Country Club.
Speaker 1: This is a short par three. In this image PJ,
Speaker 1: we're looking at the green from the back. It is
Speaker 1: a crescent shaped green, very narrow in some parts of it.
Speaker 1: The back section of it is wider than the front
Speaker 1: section of it, and between those two sections back in front,
Speaker 1: there's a big bump, yep, just like a buried elephant
Speaker 1: right there in the middle of the green. And that's
Speaker 1: it right Otherwise there's some bunkers around it. But this
Speaker 1: green is really just about that shape that I described,
Speaker 1: the crescent shape and that bump in the middle, and
Speaker 1: think about all the variety that you can get from that.
Speaker 1: You can put the pin in the front this very
Speaker 1: very narrow, tiny sliver of putting surface. It is the
Speaker 1: shortest shot, but it's very exacting because you really have
Speaker 1: to you have to hit a narrow area. Then you
Speaker 1: have the back section where yeah, more margin for error
Speaker 1: back there, but it's a longer shot and it's somewhat
Speaker 1: concealed from the tee. And then you have that bump
Speaker 1: in the middle. Just imagine what you can do with
Speaker 1: that bump. You can put the pin right behind it
Speaker 1: if you want to, you can put it right in
Speaker 1: front of it. That bump is It can can create
Speaker 1: so much much fun stuff in this hole. But again elegance,
Speaker 1: It achieves a lot with relatively few moves.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's really not a lot going on here, but
Speaker 2: it is. You could do a whole bunch of that.
Speaker 1: It's very cool, Yeah, and that's that's that is I
Speaker 1: think the factor that gets lost in modern design. Sometimes.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that a lot of architects are going for originality.
Speaker 1: They're going there. They want to make something fresh and new,
Speaker 1: and that's a good impulse, but that has to be
Speaker 1: tempered by elegance, because I think that you know, any
Speaker 1: any kind of art that that I love, has this
Speaker 1: aspect of elegance about it. I don't know about upj,
Speaker 1: but you know, I like literature where the author doesn't
Speaker 1: seem to be doing much and yet a lot is achieved,
Speaker 1: or movies where you know it it doesn't seem overly intricate,
Speaker 1: but but actually there's there's a lot there when when
Speaker 1: you look at it. This is It's a common theme
Speaker 1: for me in the stuff that I really respond to.
Speaker 1: I know not everybody feels the same way. There are
Speaker 1: those who embrace maximalism and like that exuberance of a
Speaker 1: piece of art where there's a lot going on, But
Speaker 1: personally I take the most joy in things that are
Speaker 1: are simple yet subtly complex. How do you feel.
Speaker 3: I can tell by this conversation you're really fired up
Speaker 3: about the Avengers doomsday trailer from this week. Oh God,
Speaker 3: you're really You're ready to go December eighteenth. You're gonna
Speaker 3: be there at midnight. You're ready.
Speaker 1: I just watched this trailer yesterday. I was like, oh God,
Speaker 1: that looks bad.
Speaker 2: What would you say? The Avengers, Douesday of Greens are.
Speaker 1: Maybe that? God, it's said that Ryder cup Course, Marcos Simone,
Speaker 1: this is a lot going on. Just threw everything at it.
Speaker 1: But there's not, you know, not much of a point
Speaker 1: aside from making money.
Speaker 2: I like that. That's good. I like that.
Speaker 1: Oh man, it doesn't look like a doesn't look like
Speaker 1: a good movie. There have been some Marvel movies. I like,
Speaker 1: what what happened.
Speaker 2: Here looks like it's gonna be real bad, very very concerning.
Speaker 1: But I mean it just doesn't look you look at
Speaker 1: the trailer. There's some shots where it's like, oh, they're
Speaker 1: just standing in like a back lot in Burbank, and
Speaker 1: it's just they're surrounded by c g I and it
Speaker 1: feels that way.
Speaker 3: So here we'll tie this back to golf courses down.
Speaker 3: What are your thoughts on the Odyssey and all of
Speaker 3: the practical effects. There's a lot going on, but it's
Speaker 3: it's a real piece of art. How would you relate
Speaker 3: that to to to a green and door golf course?
Speaker 1: Well, this is a really interesting question, PJ. Have you
Speaker 1: seen The Odyssey yet?
Speaker 2: I haven't. It's it's my this weekend. I'm still hoping
Speaker 2: that I could get.
Speaker 1: I'm max screen. Yeah, the seventy millimeter screens are in
Speaker 1: limited supply. There's one kind of near me that I'm
Speaker 1: actually thinking about going and seeing it again, but that
Speaker 1: might be too much. Well, yeah, I think there is
Speaker 1: an interesting link here. It might not be immediately what
Speaker 1: we're talking about with elegance, though I think there is
Speaker 1: an elegance to Christopher Nolan's movies. The dialogue is relatively minimal,
Speaker 1: but there's a lot in it. Though I wouldn't say
Speaker 1: that that the verbal aspect of Christopher Nolan's movies is
Speaker 1: like the best thing about them. The writing is not
Speaker 1: often the thing that you go to see Christopher Nolan
Speaker 1: movie for, but just this sensation of sitting in a
Speaker 1: theater and watching something that you know actually happened, not
Speaker 1: happened historically obviously, contrary to a lot of the online discourse,
Speaker 1: this is a fantastical narrative which we can do whatever
Speaker 1: we want with. But you know that he filmed so
Speaker 1: much of what we're seeing on the screen. Yes, there
Speaker 1: are some special effects, but we know that Nolan. We
Speaker 1: trust Christopher Nolan to keep that to a minimum. And
Speaker 1: so when they're on a ship in the storm tossed see,
Speaker 1: we know that what we're seeing on screen was actually
Speaker 1: experienced by these actors and the people who made the movie.
Speaker 1: We know when they're huddled inside that Trojan horse in
Speaker 1: close quarters, peeing and pooping on each.
Speaker 2: Other, they shoved an Imax camera in there.
Speaker 1: So they put an Imax camera in there, and they
Speaker 1: actually put the actors in there in the cold water
Speaker 1: and experienced that. And there is a visceral excitement to
Speaker 1: actually seeing something real. And by the way, that is
Speaker 1: what is sort of alienating about some of the recent
Speaker 1: Marvel movies, where you watch it and you just know
Speaker 1: that none of this has any weight of reality to it.
Speaker 1: And yes, to me, that does relate to golf course
Speaker 1: designed to green design in the sense that you look
Speaker 1: at a green like the fourth Green at Royal Saint
Speaker 1: George's and you just know there's there's reality to that green,
Speaker 1: that there's there. You are experiencing something topographically real, and
Speaker 1: that excitement is hard to replace with with anything manufactured.
Speaker 1: Architects of great skill can can get close, but but
Speaker 1: there's nothing quite like it.
Speaker 3: I think we might need to do a golf architecture
Speaker 3: one oh one where you just compare famous golf courses
Speaker 3: to movies for me, because I think that would be
Speaker 3: really beneficial probably for my life, Like I need to
Speaker 3: know who the tom Cruise of golf architecture is. That's
Speaker 3: trying to get everybody to come back out to the
Speaker 3: out to the movies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but kind of does the same thing over and
Speaker 1: over again. Even if that thing is like there's.
Speaker 2: A banger though that thing, that thing goes.
Speaker 1: Well relating it, relating what we were just talking about there.
Speaker 1: That the sense of reality and the sense of actually
Speaker 1: doing things and capturing them on camera. I think that's
Speaker 1: a big reason why Top Gun Maverick was such a
Speaker 1: big hit. It's like, oh my god, these people are
Speaker 1: in planes. They're actually in there in these planes getting
Speaker 1: hit by the g forces. Yeah, they're not like shooting
Speaker 1: at each other. Actually we know that, but you can
Speaker 1: feel that there is a real thing happening to the
Speaker 1: actor in the plane, and that is so exciting, and I, yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel the same, so much the same about golf courses.
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of meat on this bone.
Speaker 3: I think we might have to come back to this
Speaker 3: because now I'm extra excited about it.
Speaker 1: You know what we should do sometime soon. PJ is
Speaker 1: like a golf architecture one on one mail bag where
Speaker 1: we can kind of get into get into fun topics
Speaker 1: like this, get some questions from readers. You can come
Speaker 1: up with questions. I think a mail bag would be
Speaker 1: would be a good idea. At some point there we
Speaker 1: go book it final point that I'd love to make
Speaker 1: about what makes a good green And I do want
Speaker 1: to apologize in retrospect right now this has been a
Speaker 1: very biased episode where I've just been talking about things
Speaker 1: that I like. And you know, the point of a
Speaker 1: one oh one class is too is to bring the students,
Speaker 1: have the students think their own thoughts and and create
Speaker 1: their own knowledge, and not to not to press your
Speaker 1: opinions on that too much as the professor.
Speaker 2: Don't worry about me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess I have strong opinions about this kind
Speaker 1: of stuff, but I'm I'm always willing to hear pushback.
Speaker 1: The final component would have to be the attractiveness of
Speaker 1: the shaping and the finished work of a green. So
Speaker 1: how are the artificial elements of the green shaped to
Speaker 1: correspond to and blend in with the environment around the green.
Speaker 1: So the shaping that connects the artificial features of a
Speaker 1: green to the surrounding landscape is called a tie in.
Speaker 1: Tie In is a key key term here, and it's
Speaker 1: it is what it sounds like, tying in your manufactured
Speaker 1: features if the environment, you.
Speaker 3: Know, I heard a lot about this last week, came up,
Speaker 3: came up quite a bit, the.
Speaker 1: Tie ins at Royal Birkdale. And I will say, you know,
Speaker 1: I and maybe some other architecture nerds can can maybe
Speaker 1: get too offended about about substandard tie ins at places
Speaker 1: like Royal Birkdale. And I do think that, you know,
Speaker 1: some of the tie in work, the the the kind
Speaker 1: of interface between the new greens and the natural dune
Speaker 1: environment at Royal Birkdale. I will stand by that they're
Speaker 1: not good, but they're also not terrible, you know, They're
Speaker 1: not They're not the worst I've ever seen, and so
Speaker 1: I don't want to get too overboard about that. I
Speaker 1: still think Royal Birkdale is a wonderful championship venue, but
Speaker 1: that is something that really that especially when you're talking
Speaker 1: about we began this episode talking about some of the
Speaker 1: differences in perspective between the general golfer and the died
Speaker 1: in the wool architecture. When it comes to tie ins,
Speaker 1: that is a subject that architecture nerds can take very
Speaker 1: very seriously, and potentially too seriously. But there's an important
Speaker 1: point here, and it's that the tie ins make the
Speaker 1: green feel like it belongs there. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: different ways to do great golf architecture, and it doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily all have to be naturalistic. And I want to
Speaker 1: show you a final photo here of the tenth hole
Speaker 1: at Cape Arundle, which is a course in Maine designed
Speaker 1: by Walter Travis. When you look at this green, the
Speaker 1: tenth green, there's kind of a big false front and
Speaker 1: then it goes to that it rolls into a middle
Speaker 1: section and then there's a raised shelf in the back
Speaker 1: and it's all kind of pushed up from the surrounding landscape.
Speaker 1: When you look at this. You aren't necessarily thinking, Wow,
Speaker 1: that's all really nicely connected with the natural environment, though
Speaker 1: I think the actual tie ins between the high parts
Speaker 1: of the green and what's around it are at least
Speaker 1: smooth and nicely, nicely shaped and everything. But you don't
Speaker 1: look at that green and think, oh, that was just
Speaker 1: sitting there in the landscape. It's clearly a manufactured thing.
Speaker 1: But I think it looks really beautiful, right, that it
Speaker 1: looks compelling, and not because it's natural, but just because
Speaker 1: it itself is an interesting thing to look at, and
Speaker 1: some skill has been exercised in shaping this thing and
Speaker 1: turning it into almost like a piece of art. I
Speaker 1: guess the point is that I don't necessarily think a
Speaker 1: green's shaping has to be natural in order to be successful,
Speaker 1: all right, So just to quickly summarize the factors that
Speaker 1: can make a great green. One location, two drainage, three,
Speaker 1: the relationship with the rest of the whole four, the
Speaker 1: test of the player's skill. Five, a variety of pin positions. Six,
Speaker 1: a variety of recovery shots seven, originality, eight elegance nine
Speaker 1: the attractiveness of the shaping and finish work. We've covered
Speaker 1: a lot of ground there, PJ. Any takeaways, anythings that
Speaker 1: will stick with you as as interesting about this particular lesson.
Speaker 2: As somebody who doesn't hit a lot of greens in
Speaker 2: my day to day life.
Speaker 3: I think I'm most when I walk up to a green,
Speaker 3: I'm most focused on all right, like where where did
Speaker 3: I miss?
Speaker 2: Where should I have missed? What is the miss?
Speaker 3: And it does get I think I'm I might and
Speaker 3: I'm probably harping too much on it. But from like
Speaker 3: a recreational standpoint, like where the variety of of of
Speaker 3: recovery shots I think is pretty important. Like I think
Speaker 3: you have to give people a you have to give
Speaker 3: people a chance to even play, but be it shouldn't
Speaker 3: be the same thing every single time.
Speaker 1: You have to make something happen for them. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: you have to give them, give them some kind of
Speaker 1: reason to engage with the next shot, for sure. And
Speaker 1: that can sometimes be overlooked because you know, maybe an
Speaker 1: architect who is a former professional golfer might assume that
Speaker 1: people aren't really missing greens that much, but we do,
Speaker 1: of course, you know, to us, PJ, what's around the
Speaker 1: green is extremely important.
Speaker 3: So that's what I think maybe more and I unders
Speaker 3: says that's probably objectively wrong in this instance. But I
Speaker 3: do think from a professional golf standpoint, I think the
Speaker 3: point about are some greens too small or penalizing in
Speaker 3: ways that could deeply affect a tournament, and the reward
Speaker 3: is disproportionate for hitting a certain green or finding a
Speaker 3: certain spot because there's only one pin position on a
Speaker 3: certain green. I think that is, you know, it's something
Speaker 3: that that I don't know if I was like totally
Speaker 3: thinking about on a from a bird's eye view in
Speaker 3: the middle of a tournament, but I think I have
Speaker 3: a better understanding of that now for for next time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And I think the key for me is
Speaker 1: that it's not you know, pros would definitely frame this
Speaker 1: as a fairness issue, but for me, the more important
Speaker 1: thing is whether the green is still multi dimensional. Because
Speaker 1: if a green is overly severe or overly penalizing or
Speaker 1: too small for the shop that's being hit into it,
Speaker 1: it's not that that's that that's wrong or against the law.
Speaker 1: It's more that it just isn't as interesting as it
Speaker 1: possibly could be, and and that that is a balance
Speaker 1: that an architect has to strike when designing a green.
Speaker 1: For sure, all Right, well, thank you very much, PJ.
Speaker 1: This was fun as always. Hope you got a lot
Speaker 1: out of this episode. And yeah, I like the idea
Speaker 1: of doing a mail bag next time, just trying to
Speaker 1: just fielding a bunch of random questions. It feels like
Speaker 1: this one on one series has gotten to the point
Speaker 1: where we can kind of pause on the topics that
Speaker 1: we're pursuing and and and see say where people are
Speaker 1: in this process. But I know a lot of listeners
Speaker 1: are enjoying these episodes a great deal and I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people are are are living
Speaker 1: it right along with you, PJ.
Speaker 2: Awesome, this was a blast.
Speaker 3: I'm glad we got into movie minute there, but we
Speaker 3: tried to tie it back so maybe we could do
Speaker 3: more of that in the mailback.
Speaker 2: But thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: This was a blast. Thanks PJ. This episode of Designing
Speaker 1: Golf was produced by Will Balsam. Thank you. Will keep
Speaker 1: in mind that Frida Egg Golf Volume two, our coffee
Speaker 1: table book, is available for pre order right now go
Speaker 1: to pro shop dot Thefrida Egg dot com. We're proud
Speaker 1: of what we have produced there. These these course profiles
Speaker 1: that we write, the photos associated with them, the illustrations
Speaker 1: that Cameron Hurdis and Matt Rushis do are are are
Speaker 1: pretty excellent and so check this out. And you know,
Speaker 1: if you want a good deal on your coffee table book,
Speaker 1: then join us in Fridagg Golf Club. Go to the
Speaker 1: Fridagg dot com slash membership to see what Friday Golf
Speaker 1: Club is all about. But lots of fun to be
Speaker 1: had there as well. Thank you for listening and we'll
Speaker 1: be back again soon with another episode.