How to Appreciate Golf Courses (feat. Geoff Shackelford)

00:00:00
Speaker 1: One of the questions I get most often is how can you properly appreciate a golf course while you're playing it. A lot of people find this very difficult, partly because they're trying to shoot good scores, which is hard enough. So it helps to have if you go to techniques for understanding a golf course in the moment. And that's what we're talking about in this episode. My guest is the legendary Jeff Shackelford, the author of the Quadrilateral Newsletter as well as many excellent books about golf architecture. My name is Garrett Morrison, and this is designing golf, all right, So today's big question, how can you properly appreciate a golf course while you're playing it? I got this question most recently in Frida Egg Golf Club. That's Friday Golf's membership. Go to the Friday dot com slash membership to see what it's all about. A member named Adrian Mazarolo asked it this way, how do you balance assessing the course with focusing on your round? I feel like I struggle doing one or the other. This is a challenge, you know, just kind of figuring out how to divvy up your attention while you're playing golf. What do you focus on if you're interested in golf architecture, What habits or patterns of thought can help you appreciate a golf course fully. That's what I want to talk about today. And I've got two things that I do, two big things that I try to do. At least I'm not perfect on this stuff, but when I play a new golf course, I do two big things to help myself understand the architecture. Now, before I get to the first thing, there's one big habit that I think underlies everything else, and that is walking. If you're able, I think it's I think it's just difficult to take in a golf course completely. When you're writing in a cart, you just see so much more. When you're walking. You usually have more alone time to be observational and reflective, and you literally feel the land and the course under your feet. That to me is very important. So if you can walk, I think doing so has a lot of benefits for your appreciation of golf course architecture. All right, So the first big thing that I do to appreciate golf courses while I'm playing is this, I think about each hole from the green back to the tee. What this means is that I'll I kind of take a moment after putting out on a hole just to stand on the green, look at the design of the green, look at the contouring, the shape, the orientation, and just consider the relation of all of that to the rest.

00:03:02
Speaker 2: Of the hole.

00:03:04
Speaker 1: This is something that my boss, Friday Golf founder Andy Johnson, talks about a lot, and he especially likes to consider the different potential pin positions that a green has. Usually golfers just think about the one pin position that happens to be in use that day, but sometimes a hole can change completely if the pin is in a different spot. And actually one sign of a well designed hole is that different pin positions produce different playing experiences. That creates this day to day variety that I think is an important indicator of strong golf course architecture. So an example of a hole that rewards the practice of green to tea thinking is the fourth hole at Royal Saint George's. This is a links course in England and a regular Open Championship host. I played it last October and it's still on my mind. So that's part of why I'm talking about it now. So say you've putted out on the fourth green at this golf course. What you're looking at is an elevated putting surface kind of draped across a shelf right, a big shelf. There's a lower section of the green at the bottom of the shelf, and the green kind of swoops up on top of the shelf where the main part of the green is. It's very high up there, and everything falls away, or almost everything. It definitely falls away in the front, It falls away on the right, and it falls away in the back. The one bit of forgiveness is on the left, where there's this big sideboard that kind of feeds onto the green. So you'll realize when when you look at this that if you use this funneling contour on your approach, the hole becomes a lot more forgiving. But to use the sideboard on the left properly, you have to be on the right side of the fairway right, so that way you'll be hitting into the sideboard rather than over and across it. In other words, if you're on the left side of the fairway, this contour actually hurts you because your ball is going to be traveling in a direction where this slope will propel it away instead of killing it and kind of corraling it back onto the green. Okay, so we know now looking at the green that the right side of the fairway is preferred. Now we can think back to the t Is there something about the tea shot that makes accessing the right side of the fairway difficult? And it turns out that yes, there is. There's this massive dune standing in front of and completely blocking the right side of the fairway. It's blind. The right side of the fairway is blind from the tee. So to get into the ideal position in the fairway to use the contours of the green to your advantage, you have to hit your tea shot directly over the dune. And that's just an uncomfortable, counterintuitive thing to do. It's not actually that huge of a carry with modern equipment. It used to be, but not really any longer. But it is very intimidating and just mentally difficult to commit to a line that you can't visualize. So that's how you can understand the design of a whole Taking a moment to analyze the green and think your way back to the tea. All right, So what about different pin positions.

00:07:07
Speaker 2: I mentioned that.

00:07:09
Speaker 1: There is a possible alternative spot on the fourth hole at Royal Saint George's below the shelf, in this little bowl, and this just makes it so much easier to hit your approach shot close to the pin, and it really deemphasizes position in the fairway because it doesn't matter as much if you're on the left or the right side of the fairway if everything kind of feeds to the pin. Now, I will say that the club hardly ever puts the pin there, at least that's what I heard when I was there. And this you could say is maybe a flaw of the hole. There really aren't that many alternative pin positions on the fourth hole at Royal Saint George's that are just as interesting as the primary pin up on the shelf. And this is another kind of insight that you can get by thinking from the green to the tee. A lot of holes are not strategically sophisticated, and you can expose that fact by looking closely at the design of the green as it relates to the rest of the hole. Sometimes a green is just equally receptive from all angles in which case the hole might not have much strategic content. And this isn't necessarily a bad thing, because there are plenty of other ways that a hole can be fun or memorable. But it is a useful data point as you're trying to understand and appreciate a golf course. Okay, so that's number one, looking at the green and tracing a line of thought back to the tee. The second big method of appreciating golf courses that I want to talk about is seeking out different angles on a particular hole. This is something I've discussed before with my colleague Cameron Hurdis. Cameron talks about how he tries not just to walk down the center of the fairway all the time, right, He tries to take unusual routes to get different views and perspectives. This is partly because he's a photographer and he's looking for those angles, but it's also useful for the rest of us. When we have a hole that is just where the green is more receptive from one side of the fairway than the other, right, like the Royal Saint George's hole that we just discussed, it's good to see both perspectives, the bad angle and the good angle. It's only through seeing both perspectives that you can understand the different ways that a hole might be played and the consequences for finding one position or another. One way that I like to do this is occasionally walking with a playing partner to their ball and watching them hit their shot, ideally of course after I've hit my own shot, because you know, you don't want to slow down pace of play. But sometimes it can be really informative to see how another player approaches the whole, especially if they're a different kind of player than you, if they're more skilled or less skilled, if they have more power or less power. Watching them on occasion and just seeing what happens to their ball, trying to understand their shot from their perspective, can help you grasp different dimensions of the course, dimensions that you might not be aware of because you're playing your own particular game. But a good golf course is much more than just one experience, right. It provides a lot of different experiences, hopefully just as good experiences for other players. So, for example, if you're playing the second hole at Pacific Dunes, Tom Doak design, this is Abandon Dunes. It's a shortish to mid length par four with a very wide fairway and a bunker right in the middle of the fairway, so you have a choice. You can play left of the center line bunker or right of the center line bunker. The left side is lower, and there's an additional bunker to the left near the landing zone for drives. The right side is higher, kind of on a plateau with no additional bunkers up there. Now, if I'm standing on this tee and I see these distinct options, I'm immediately thinking to myself, I want to see what it looks like from both of those positions. So either I'll take a route up the fairway that allows me to see both positions, or better yet, if one of my playing partners is on the other side from where I am, I'll walk over and watch their shot. And what you'll find if you do this is that the high right side on the second hole Pacific Dunes offers a much better view of the full green. But because there's a bunker guarding the right side of the green, the front right side of the green, it can actually be pretty hard to get to certain pin positions from this high right side. So there are both benefits and drawbacks to that right hand position. Right, you can see everything, but that bunker at the front right portion of the green is a little bit tricky. Then if you walk down to the left side of the fairway, you'll find that, yes, your sight line to the green is more obscured because you're lower, but from a certain spot the view is actually pretty good. If you're close to that left hand bunker, you'll be looking up a kind of half pipe in the land and you can see the green pretty well from there. There are even some contours that will feed your ball to certain pins if you're playing from that position. So that's actually a good spot if you can get to it near the left hand bunker and left of the center line bunker. And again, you can only appreciate these subtleties of the two different ways to play the hole if you make the effort to visit both sides of the fairway. Now related to this practice of finding different angles on a hole is that when you hit a bad shot, try to see it as an opportunity, because bad shots can show you a lot of interesting things about a golf course. You can step back and ask yourself, how did I get here right, and what kind of predicament have I I put myself in, And this way you can learn a lot about a golf course. You can learn about the traps that a golf architect has set for the player. So, for instance, last year, I played Oakmont Country Club for the first time. This is during a US Open media day, and you know, it was a tough day. You know, I wasn't playing that well as expected. And we came to the twelfth hole, which is a very long, downhill par five that sits on a big left to right slope. I had a great drive and a great second shot. I strung two good shots together, which I hadn't done all day to that point, and that left me with about an eight iron approach, a seven iron or an eight iron, and I pulled that approach left of the green, left of the bunkers, left of the green, and I got up to my ball and realized that I was screwed. The green, like the rest of the hole, sat on a pretty severe front to back, left to right slope, which meant that everything was moving away from me where I had missed. There was just no way that I was going to stop my ball, almost no way that I could keep my ball on the green, given how fast the greens at Oakmont are and how severe that slope is running away from me. So I thought to myself, how did I get here right? Why am I in the worst spot that I could possibly be? And I realized that when I was hitting my approach shot, I was instinctively avoiding a right miss because there's a little drop off to the right of the green into a ditch. There's an actual hazard over there. So that's what the design of the hole was doing to me. It was suggesting to me that the bad miss was on the right, but actually a left miss is way worse on that hole. If I had missed on the right, even if I had maybe been in the ditch, which was a ways off the green, I could have stopped my ball at least on the green where I was. That was almost impossible.

00:16:22
Speaker 2: Now.

00:16:22
Speaker 1: The only way that I could get that insight into the twelfth hole at Oakmont was by hitting a bad shot and taking it as an opportunity to learn something, all right. So those are two big things you can do during your next round. You can think from the green back to the tee, and you can seek out multiple angles on each hole. And if you do those two things, I think you'll start appreciating the courses you play on a much deeper level. And that's what this is all about. Golf architecture is not about knowing a lot of stuff that you can you know oh off to other people. It's not about feeling superior that you have all this knowledge. It's just about enjoying your rounds of golf more than you used to, or enjoying them in a different way than you used to. And that's why I like the subject so much, appreciating golf courses. So next time you're out on the course, try those two things and see what happens. Now there's a lot more meat on this bone, a lot more things you can do to appreciate golf courses more deeply. So let's bring on Jeff Shackelford to dig a little deeper into the idea of golf course appreciation. Jeff is one of the great living golf architecture writers. He is the author of many books, including the recent Golf Architecture for Normal People, which we'll discuss in this interview, and he also maintains an excellent substack newsletter called The Quadrilateral so make sure to check that out. It's a regular part of my reading diet. Honestly, if you're listening to this podcast, you probably already know Jeff, So let's just get to my interview with him, all right, Jeff Shackelford, Welcome to the pod.

00:18:16
Speaker 2: Thanks Eric, good to talk to you about this interesting layered topic today.

00:18:21
Speaker 1: The topic is how to appreciate a golf course while you're playing it. And I think you're one of the best people in the world to talk to about this because you've thought about it, you've written about it for many years now, and in your recent book, Golf Architecture for Normal People, you lay out what I think is a pretty elegant system for appreciating golf courses. And that system goes by the acronym r EED, where each of those letters stands for a different question that you can ask about a golf course that you've just played. So I'll just quickly run through that and then and then we'll get into the meat of it.

00:18:55
Speaker 2: OK.

00:18:56
Speaker 1: Are is for remember and the question is can you remember something about each hole? E is for every day? Could you play the course every day and never tire of it? And D and this is very creative. Is for dog friendliness? Is this a course where you would gladly take a dog for a walk? So, first of all, what what made you come up with the red system? What was the reason you decided that there needed to be kind of a new way to approach evaluating or appreciating golf courses.

00:19:30
Speaker 2: I think a lot of the brankings and systems and ways people have devised, I think are have really failed golf architecture because because they often emphasize so many things that are not important sustainable or what you'd want to play in a in a in a course, and they've really eaten away at the fun factor. And we really have, you know, finally are starting to get back to the word fun. And I you know, I've shared the story many times about uh so forgive me if you've heard this, but you know when Rustic Canyon open, people would say, and this was in two thousand and two, it's really it's a it's a fun course, like a condescending.

00:20:19
Speaker 1: If that's a bad thing, yeah, that's that's that's a demerit.

00:20:23
Speaker 2: And that was really that showed how far we had gotten away from what mattered. And and then that was just driven by the obsession with course rankings, with course rating and slope and numbers and difficulty, and golf's general tendency to try to overcompensate for what is sort of this defeat pastime by you know, manning it up by making you work and be miserable. Well, but nobody, nobody wants to play those courses on a regular basis. And so this was driven largely by by those two factors, the kind of the way rankings had drifted and the way architecture has drifted and it still does at times quite a bit from the fun element and people seizing on things that have absolutely nothing to do with their enjoyment of the game.

00:21:17
Speaker 1: So, you know, how do you think your system addressed some of those issues? Specifically, what were the new elements that you tried to introduce through this system that would kind of tackle the fun factor, tackle the things that people actually like and enjoying golf courses.

00:21:34
Speaker 2: The three main categories are designed to highlight the things that I always would ask myself about a course and the things that I think have the most resonance that are the most sustainable in terms of everyday fun golf. And I've been asking myself the first two questions for a very long time. The dog one came along a little bit later, as I you know, when we when I just gained a greater appreciation for for certain elements like scale and and just kind of the the underfoot test and the feeling of walking certain places versus others, and you know, hearing over the years, you know, you've we've all heard it, we alls, we've we've all said it. You know it when you when, of course feels like it's tour pro say this, it just feels like it's always been there, which I've always found to be an interesting comment, and it made me think, well, so what what's driving them to to say that? And a lot of people say that, and it gets back to elements of uh, just kind of the way it's built and the walkability and the feeling the scale, the drainage as you know, which was kind of a weird way to weave that in, but it really is, Yeah, I know from you know Andy, the first time I met and Johnson at Austin Golf Club, he had to listen to me go around and bitch and moan about all the catch basins and Pete die you know, why is this here right in the middle of the landing area. We get you need to deal with drainage, But but from the walk in the park standpoint, or from the golf standpoint, when your ball is on this little side hill thing with a bunch of divots around it, like, it's just why why can't that be over there? Why couldn't you have moved the water differently? And and those little things do impact your overall enjoyment of a course, And so I was trying to And plus for those of us who just don't have a great memory, the concept of a system was to just whittle it down to three questions and have something that made it easy to remember them by and and and I. You know, now the book's coming up on two years, and I still feel pretty good about it. I still have asked myself those questions about courses. And you know in my newsletter, I do it. Yeah, you do it for the major major championship venues. Yeah.

00:24:06
Speaker 1: I always think it's really interesting to subject the major championship venues to this test of what would it be like to play this course every day? Because often we don't think about that with major championship venues. In fact, the criteria that we usually have for assessing a championship course, or assessing what makes a good championship course is contrary to what would make it fun to play every day? Right, And so actually thinking about what would it be like to play Oakmont every day is actually really insightful. And you've probably found that too, right, I think so.

00:24:39
Speaker 2: Yeah. And of course some of these places, like Oakmont, they enjoy the misery. There's that's kind of the theme of the place, and that's just been the you know, the relentlessness of the design, that's their ethos whatever. Fine, but yeah, I don't know if that's always the case with some of these places. And and and I think the rushes help you. I think they help highlight changes to some of these venues that you wonder about, like why did they do that? And is this something you did for one week out of thirty years or is this something that is a good change for the championship but also for the everyday and enjoyment factor of for the people who play there. Yeah.

00:25:26
Speaker 1: And the interesting thing about these three questions is that is the way they sort of expand into different areas of architecture. Within each question, you can then consider certain characteristics of a golf course that you know, people who are familiar with golf architecture discussion already might be familiar with. But you know, when you think about can you remember something about each hole, what you're thinking about really is kind of coarse routing and how much variety the routing finds in the land, the variety of holes, the variety of features that you find on a whole, features that you know can be really bold and memorable, but at the same time not not feel contrived. You know, when you think of a course that you want to play every day, well, you kind of want to play a course every day where you have a good experience, where you feel comfortable. You want the course to be playable yet challenging. You want the course maybe to have some strategic elements because it's just not awfully interesting to play a purely penal course every single day. And then for the dog friendliness criterion, you know, you you talked a little bit about about the various elements of dog friendliness, but you know, the scale of the course is a kind of too big and brawny a piece of land to take your dog for a walk. We don't want to take our dogs for a walk on a mountain, right, we want we want kind of gently roll. We also don't want a desert, right that would be.

00:26:47
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, or lava rocks and yeah.

00:26:51
Speaker 1: Gently rolling terrain with some variety is just what you want when you're walking a dog. You want that walkability factor, but also some interest in the land, and you want drainage. As you mentioned, it's decent and maybe not too unnatural looking. For whatever reason, we want to take our dogs for a walk and environments that feel natural. It's not as it's not as attractive to take your dog for a walk in your like suburban neighborhood as it is to take your dog for a walk on a nature trail, right, And that's kind.

00:27:21
Speaker 2: Of like the dog well of course too. Yeah, they want the smells and the meandering little paths and things going on and birds and squirrels, and we have similar sensibilities in But of course golfers are thinking of it from a different perspective than the dog, but they do sort of intersect.

00:27:43
Speaker 1: I think, how does experience factor into all of this for you? I know, obviously from talking to you over the years and also reading the book that that this criterion of experience, which you kind of slot under the everyday category. This this idea of experience has been complicated for you in the past. How how do you now think through the experience of playing a golf course which can involve things that don't strictly have to do with golf architecture.

00:28:11
Speaker 2: Of course, oh definitely. And a lot of people have different views of what's a great experience. You know, you and I probably would like to go out for a late nine with a with a dog by ourselves and not be bothered and just you know, drop another bathery now. And then there's some people who love the whole you know, we're a foursome and we're caddies and and we're at this high end place and they've got a great comfort station, and you know, so everybody has different views on that. But what I what I realized in one thing that's that's nice about getting a little bit older is you start to just realize there are certain things you cannot combat when discussing whatever it is a restaurant, a film, some kind of experience, a sporting event, even you can't separate the experience for people from the actual thing that you're you're trying to evaluate and then you know, I've had a couple things happen where I came to realize, well, wait, the experience sets you up and puts you in a in a mood that can that that impacts how you look at the course, and it can. I've heard so many times people judging a course and holding it against the course because either they went to a place and it was snooty and they were they felt uncomfortable and they never could focus on the architecture, or they went to a place, let's face it, you know, it wasn't well maintained or wasn't taken care of, or the people there were just kind of yeah, did you just tell? You could tell they weren't trying, and they held that against the course. And so yeah, I have this incredible movie theater up the street that's run by this great organization. And because I live in Los Angeles, we get we get all these amazing people come and do Q and a's after the films, you know, in trying to get attention for award seasons, but also when they just show a film because it's movie bus and you pay a little annual membership, you don't have previews. They announced the projectionist before the show. They've checked to make sure that the film is going to be situated properly and look good. The sounds amazing, The seats aren't anything special. It's an old theater from the thirties. But all those things allow you to then lock in on the film. And it's the same with a restaurant. You know, there's a great show right now on Apple about chefs wanting to get a Michelin Star, and the food is everything for those chefs. But as you see, there are other elements about the service and the presentation that make the food pop in a certain way that are essential to what they do, that have nothing to do with the artistry of just handling the food. And so I think the parallels with with a golf experience are pretty much identical really in terms of of the the power of the experience to allow you to really soak in a great course. Yeah.

00:31:27
Speaker 1: Well, the criterion of experience is so interesting to me because I do understand the reasons for trying to take it out of one's evaluation of a golf course. You know, probably the most convincing reason for that is that different days bring different experiences. You know, you might you might have a bad experience one day because you know, maybe there's a strow the or the starter is on your on your butt, or you know, whatever, whatever happens. You know, things happen and you show up on the next day and it's completely different. I think we've all seen that. But but I mean, there are some things that you can pick up on and if you don't, if you say I'm a person who's going to completely remove the notion of experience from evaluating this golf course, then I think that experience is going to come in anyway. That if you have a good experience, that that's going to make you feel charitable toward the golf course architecture. It's going to put you in a mood, as you said earlier, to receive the details of the golf architecture and you're going to look for reasons to like the golf course. And you know, it's the opposite case when you have a bad experience, you'll be kind of closed off to certain virtues of the course. So even if you try to take experience out of the equation, and it's going to come back anyway, So you might as well be conscious of it, right, which is what I think is smart about including it here in the everyday category.

00:32:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I also you know that our rankings are based often on people going to a course once and evaluating it once. So to your point, instead of fighting it, why not highlight it and and and and and just included in the equation in a way that you I think, Well, I just know a lot of people who don't separate it very well, and maybe just knowing going in or being able to sound off it. God, we we just couldn't enjoy ourselves because our host was so worried about the group behind us and the marshall, you know, lurking in the woods. And but at least when you become aware of that, maybe you'll you'll set that aside when you start to, yeah, ask the other questions about what did the architect really do here? And is this a place that in my one playing I can really I can, I can appreciate or not appreciate depending on the design. And you know, and that's another reason I I I think a lot of people should have who do evaluation and take it seriously should also just walk a course without their clubs. I know this is it's not gonna happen. It's definitely a good thing. But it's another way that because so much emotion gets involved, not just in the experiential part, but just in your own game when you're playing a place, and it's very hard to separate those things. You know, if you're just not feeling right that day, or your swing feels like garbage, or if you're playing incredibly well and you have the round of your life. I mean, how many times have we hurt? Somebody declare that course was the greatest thing ever, and then they get, yeah, I also shot my lowest score, you know that I've ever shot on a place it's not where my home goeres or whatever it is. So those are those are elements too that that their emotions you just are never going to. And and again when you watch, when you see a film with a with a great crowd of fellow movie buffs who are locked in, not looking on their phone and making noise with popcorn, there's a communal element there that probably allows you to or maybe even makes you like the film more than you should sometimes, But it's just better to be conscious of those things that might distract you and and make it personal in ways that that aren't fair to the the.

00:35:14
Speaker 1: Architecture of the course, or what's the best concert you've ever been to? It's it doesn't usually have to do with the technical virtues of the music. It has to do with the with the setting and the crowd and the whole thing, and that that whole thing it is, it is very much inextricably part of it. So we're talking about things that that make you want to play a course every day. And I've thought about this notion of every day a lot recently, and I wonder what you make of the idea that you know it, Is there such a thing as a great course that you really wouldn't want to play every day, or even a great course that that you would just want.

00:35:57
Speaker 2: To play once?

00:35:58
Speaker 1: And it's an and it's a maybe for a variety of reasons and excellent experience just that once, but it's just not the type of course that you want to play every day. Is there such a thing as a course that can be great but be described in that way?

00:36:11
Speaker 2: Well, not to pick on oakmat you mentioned it, but it's I think that there are examples like that that are that have a certain approach and and the the a certain vision and it's what they do. You know, I think you could almost put in some ways Pine Valley and that that category, although it's just not nearly as hard as it once was. They clean up the sand now, and yeah, the games is the equipment's different because I played there uh a decent while ago when it was brutal and anytime you were in the sand, you were in a footprint. Now they break all that and you can hit a recovery. And so yeah, I think, I think, I think there are examples of places that that Yeah, you say, well, this is a great work of art and I could play here again, but yeah, no, is this the place I would want to set up shop and just would make me want to keep coming up out every day. No, No, would make me want to quite eventually because it just beat me up too much.

00:37:23
Speaker 1: Hey, I'm jumping in here real quick to talk about today's sponsor, which is good Walk Coffee. Good Walk coffee is what fuels fried egg golf. The reason I'm recording this right now is that I have had good Walk coffee this morning. It is a key part of my daily routine. My preferred good Walk blend is the fried Egg Golf Blend, which is a medium light roast, absolutely delicious. Actually, my wife and I have come to rely on it, and whenever we have to use a different bean, if we're traveling or if we've run out, it's just no fun at all. It doesn't taste as good. This stuff is really really good stuff. So you too can have Goodwalk Coffee in your life. You can get special blends delivered to you either every week, every two weeks, or monthly. I personally love not having to think about reordering my favorite blends and just knowing that the house is going to be stocked with beans for my next cup. So head to Goodwalk Cooffee dot com forward slash fried egg to subscribe, and make sure to use the code fried egg all one word at checkout to save twenty percent on your entire order. If you order a subscription, you'll save thirty percent on your first order and then ten percent on all future shipments. So again, that's Goodwalkcoffee dot com, forward slash fried egg and code egg. Good Walk Coffee is just really delicious coffee, So try it out. All right, let's get back to the episode and then on the other side of that, spectrum. Maybe you have a course like Mammoth Dunes, which I'm not necessarily going to say that's a great golf course the way that Oakmont is a great golf course. But Mammoth Dunes, if you play that course every day, it might become kind of easy, right, It might become a little bit repetitive because you realize that there are some funnels that are helping you out and you just you know, you're shooting your best round ever pretty much pretty much every time. Maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration with Mammoth Dunes, but you know, you want a course to have a course that you play every day, you kind of want it to be a little bit challenging, to put up some resistance so that you have a reason to come back and play it again. But of course, Mammoth Dunes is in the situation where most of the players who play it are just going to play at that once and they're going to have that kind of roller coaster ride, and they're not going to have the experience of going back multiple times and realizing that, Okay, maybe maybe there's a little bit less to this course than I initially thought. So maybe there are courses even even on the other side of that that are they're almost too easy to play every day.

00:40:22
Speaker 2: Well, and and then you get into the situation of course, are complexes or clubs or whatever it is with multiple courses, Well, you know there you have liedo, You've got you know, sometimes a design, yeah, we have it. We know there are a lot of places with thirty six holes where one course is a little bit easier and more fun and the other one is is really difficult, and and that's a great thing to have. And they may have been designed knowing that that was the case. So I think again it's it's it's not unreasonable to take that into account when looking at a course, that it was part of a a complex here, and each one fits certain kinds of tastes and and and so that is where you know, but I still think the everyday question would hopefully get at, you know, whether that the architect made it interesting enough. But let you win sometimes, let you hit a good shot and be rewarded and put enough nuance in to be something that would be fresh enough on a day to day basis. I don't think there's enough of that, And that's one of the reasons that I really believe strongly in that question that we still don't have enough design. That's that's thinking that way, that that when the holes over here, this whole place totally different than it did, you know it does when the hole's over there, and takes those kinds of things into account. I think we have a long way to go. It's kind of sad that the old course is still the one that that is the uh, that that has that kind of stuff going on on a on a crazy level, and that that nobody's in a quest to try to to to create something with that kind of complexity but still be playable.

00:42:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Old Course is the ultimate example of that course that you discover new layers of on on repe plays. And yeah, I mean there is something just unmistakably pleasurable about a course that that has those kinds of layers there. There's nothing like it when you when you suddenly find a nuance that that you hadn't noticed before on a previous play. And so that as a as a category of greatness just makes makes a lot of sense. So I'd like to talk about another category now, another question. Maybe we can dig into remember a little bit here, okay, and remember pertains to the variety of the course or the way that certain features are holes sticking stick in your memory and and kind of you know, assert themselves as as unique or or remarkable in some way. And yeah, this is this is a you know, one of the easiest ways to think about a golf course after you play it. Can you remember each hole? And if you can't, then hey, maybe maybe there wasn't maybe there wasn't quite enough there. Within this category, you talk about the routing of a golf course, and and in your book you talk about all the ways in which it's really hard to from a golfer's perspective to assess a routing. Do you think there is anything that when you're playing a course you can you can identify about the quality of the routing or is that to you just kind of a you know, too difficult of a task.

00:43:45
Speaker 2: Oh, I think it's a doable task. Yeah. I just I caution people because there's there are a lot of times where people are hard on a routing and sometimes they don't know some of the things that that some of the limitations the architect faced. But I do think it's something you can still do after the round when you've you've sort of set your emotions aside and you've you've you've had a had a had a beer or whatever. Yeah, and you can reflect on it and you're not there trying to to play the place and that and that's why I like it as a question, you know. Uh, And it's one I've used for a long time because there were It's amazing how many times you'll play a place, you'll be out there for for four and a half five hours, and holes are a blur as you're you're on the way home, and that's without having too much to drink. It's just there's just nothing interesting about the place or the more recently we've seen more places that are just throwing everything into the mix and it's a blur for a different reason. I you know, it's a little bit of I think some Mike Strands courses can fall into this category. And there's some some architects from the Pete Dice school that that got into you know and have a big budget and they were told to create something Instagram friendly and dramatic and there's just so much going on that there there's a blur effect there as well. And so it's finding that that place in between that that that the holes all have enough variety in terms of the way they bend and turn and move around the property, and enough features to be exciting without uh, without just all kind of blending together.

00:45:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's this balance of simplicity and complexity, and what you're saying about some modern courses having this kind of information overload effect is really right on the money. I mean, that's that's a problem I have all the time where it, you know, the course just is a little bit too eager to do something distinctive, and in the process of doing that, there's too much distinctiveness and then all you know, as you say, blurs blurs together. That's an issue that that kind of push to the other side of that balance. There needs to be a little bit of simplicity and elegance in order for something to be memorable, right.

00:46:07
Speaker 2: Yeah. And the difficulty is a lot of people still design with a like chefs trying to get a Michelin star. They designed trying to get a ranking in a in a Best New Award or a spot in a on a list, and they feel like if if there's there's a lot of subtlety that it that it is not Instagram friendly and does not pop that first time to the to the person who's rating it, which is again why I love, you know, the idea, and again I know it's not gonna happen, but walking the course without your clubs and just taking in in the course separate of all the emotions that come with with playing around. So yeah, it's a it's a it's a it's a tricky thing for an architect too. And I think this is where Corn Crenshaw are just in a you know, another league right now because they are able.

00:46:59
Speaker 3: To to slip those things into their designs and throw in some quirk at times and kind of managed to have it all balance in a way that is pleasing the first.

00:47:14
Speaker 2: Time, but has those those layers that you hope for on repeat planes. Because there's nothing worse than a course that gets boring, you know, spending all that money and all that effort. And we've seen it a lot, you know, just a lot of Tom Fozzio courses, Reeze Jones courses where they're redoing them after ten years once it's because they got their boring. There's nothing there. It was all just kind of throwing things out there, and and and there's no substance there. There's just it, and people, even people who aren't geeks like us, just recognize it's lacking something and they want to know why. And it's it's that lack of those little touches. You know.

00:47:55
Speaker 1: It drives me crazy is when I hear people talk about how Core and Crenshaw or are boring or repetitive. And I mean, on the one hand, I sort of get that. If you look at a picture of a corn crunchhot course and compare it to another picture of another corn Crunch shot course, Okay, there are some broad similarities there. Yeah, they like the lion's mouth greens, and there are certain kind of motifs in their architecture. But look, just walk the course, play the course, and tell me that it's that it's boring or that there's not enough there of interest. Those courses are meant to be played. They're not, you know, designed for Instagram, and and that's part of what makes them really great. And that's what gives them layers too, right, because if you play them multiple times, then you'll discover more and more. It's not all it's not showing you everything all at once, holding a little bit in reserve and for me, that's a really great characteristic of a golf course. It's hard to achieve as an architect, It's very hard.

00:48:59
Speaker 2: And it's why, uh, you know, that's why I love Mackenzie and George Thomas the most, because I you know, I got to experience a lot of their work, but also because they were they were masters at at at that first impression beauty and excitement element, but they also were able to work in and and and because they took more time than a lot of people take now and just paid attention to to those details that and they built green complexes that had wings and different things going on that also helped allow for for that kind of layering, if you will. And uh, it's why they're just in another league. And you know, then there's certain filmmakers who have the same ability. They can make a film that is exciting the first time, but you just keep watching it. You you turn it on when you're flipping the channel, and there's there's stuff you see in scenes that you didn't notice that first time. And a lot of that just comes from from really having a great deal of care about the details and maybe even being obsessive about the details. And spending the time in the field to really visualize how a good player would play a whole, how a bad player would play it, and thinking through those details. And sometimes a lot of time that stuff gets lost when you're in a hurry. Yeah, you know what.

00:50:31
Speaker 1: This is resonating a lot for me right now, this film analogy, because you know, my favorite movies are are probably the ones where you watch it the first time and you think, well, that was a pleasant experience, but is there a lot there is there? I mean it just you know, it just kind of passed by and I had fun and all right, and then you watch it again and you discover, oh, oh, actually there's a lot there. Actually, actually this is this is really meaningful, This is really well made. Oh look at that detail and and those are Yeah. I guess that has uh, that taste can carry over to golf courses, and this is I guess a matter of taste. Like some people have a taste for the big and the bold and the avert a little bit more, I guess you and I are leaning a little bit more biased, a little bit more towards the subtle end of the spectrum. But yeah, I guess that's it's a matter of personal taste, but there's a good argument for for subtlety.

00:51:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, and sometimes and and that was one of the things that for in doing the book and just getting a little bit older, is you you realize, you know, sometimes there are holes not you know, not every hole can be a dreaded signature hole that is a is a masterpiece. Sometimes there are holes on great courses that are well sometimes they just had to get you from one area to another. But but there are also just holes that set up the big ones, and so they are more subtle because you can't sometimes you just can't have every hole hit you over the head. It's just not a fun But maybe this hole, you know, you need to hit a draw on it, and if you do, you get an easy second shot and and you think, well, that's not that big of a deal. But then the next one is the big finishing hole, let's say, and it's you know, a big bending hole and there's water on the right and it there ebbs and flows to a to I think of anything a film, a meal, and a golf course that things are. Sometimes when somebody's really caring about what they do, it's placing those things to set you up for the other parts. And then yeah, I mean the same thing with an album, a great album of songs. You don't want every song to be hard driving. There's some there's some stuff that slows it down or and the great album are are almost always a mix of different things, and but somehow they all come together and work together as a as a unit, and.

00:53:10
Speaker 1: All the slots pretty neatly into the remember category, because if you know, if you have an album of all perspective singles, and then you're just gonna get a little exhausted. But if you have that variety of the of the EBB and the flow, you're just more likely to remember the high points and also maybe remember the the more you know, chill points of the album too, because they they were different and and that's what that's what our memories kind of react to, and it and it it's pleasurable to have this kind of variety, you know, we that's what There's something in us as human beings that that seeks that out. And you know, well designed golf courses are are aware of that. So I'm curious about, uh, what your process is nowadays when you look at a new golf course. I'm not sure if the most interesting way to ask you this would be to talk about what you do when you go to a new major championship golf course or something like that and and try to assess it, try to see things or what you do when you play a new golf course. But I'm wondering if you have a kind of process that you go through too to notice details and to pick out some things to analyze about a course. Are there are there go team methods in your in your bag for that?

00:54:31
Speaker 2: Uh, not not anything that stands out. It's more of just trying to see everything in order and then asking those questions after if I'm not gonna if I'm just walking, of course and not playing it, I still love to have at least some golf balls with me to throw around and and uh do the do the Kim Brown Yeah, yeah, and see how some contours work and features work, because yeah, it's it's not as common as it used to be, but there and I have this this sticky features thing in my remembered category because you know, a lot of the best features in golf are a little bump in the middle of a green that that that that you as a golfer, if you're playing there a lot, remember from the fairway, and you know, you know, I can work it off of that little thing, and I like to see how those things work, or how a little fall off by greens work, and just kind of the shaping and the the gracefulness of the contours. I just you still can't replicate that without ideally, you know, hitting little shots. But if you're just there and you don't want to be that person who's just dropping balls everywhere, you know, you just can't. At least you can throw a few around and not leave some divots. And and that's another thing I love to think about too. I don't know if this really gets to your question, but one of the things that when I look at at a green, I often will look at and go, well could I? And again there shouldn't be every green, but quite a few. I think it's really fun to stand there and go, well, what if this was my practice chipping green somewhere? Would I ever get bored just dropping shots all around this and playing the different quadrants or playing little shots into it? And I don't know, I just for whatever reason, that is something that dates back to like really childhood almost that I think of a green that way, and I love a great practice chipping green that that does that. There aren't a lot of them, but there are some. And I think it applies to the ones on the course too, that it tells you that there's there's a lot going on there without having to really drop a shag bag and start hitting a lot of shots. You can just look at it. I think anybody who plays the game a little bit can look at a green and go, oh, I could spend all day on this green. Yeah.

00:56:54
Speaker 1: I think that's a great point. You know, often when we talk about looking at green analyzing greens, we talk about their relationship to the rest of the hole and how it functions strategically, And that obviously is a valid way of going about it and judging the effectiveness of the design of the grain or the coherence of it. But I think it's equally important to do what you're describing here, to consider whether there are interesting short game scenarios around this green. How you know, say I play this course every day, I'm going to miss on all sides of this green to all different types of pins. What would that be like? You know, kind of trying to imagine what that would be like gets you a long way to understanding how successful the design of this green is. Because if it's all pretty one dimensional, if you're hitting the same kind of shot, say splashing out of sand to you know, a raised platform just pretty much in every place around the green, you know, you could say that there's not much there, especially if that's every grain on the course. But if it's if it's a different shot every single time, well that's a kind of architectural achievement, isn't it.

00:58:07
Speaker 2: I think. So that said, I also, you know, I don't say that in a way that I think people should be you should just be obsessive about trying to create that. It's just when it works, it works. There are situations where, I mean a lot of the time, I think a green should just feel like a natural extension of the land and the fairway, and the best ones, frankly and are usually that sense where you don't feel like you're just going along and all of a sudden there's this raised thing with bunkers all around it, and it's just it was given way more attention than the rest of the hole. You ultimately do want it to feel like an extension of the whole, but when you're asking questions about a course and wanting to figure out if you feel like somebody really puts something into this place. I think it is an interesting barometer to think about that of all the little the different shots around it, or or even just kind of into it from you know whatever, fifty yards and and just the ways you can work the ball off features. And that's yeah, I just uh, I think that. I think most of the best courses have those little those little and you see it with tor pros who don't know a thing about architecture, but when they when they play a place where they feel like that the green has elements that they can work something off of and play that aggressively conservative shot that a lot of guys try to play, they respond to it. They like that that course. They just they it feels like the architect gave them a chance to to take a risk and win and we'll we'll punish them as they should be if they they misplay their shot. And I think that's what most people, whether you're an elite world class player or an every day golfer, wants to have in a in a course.

01:00:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great place to stand, is is that fifty yards an end point, and just imagine the different shots to the different pins. Are those interesting? Are those varied? You know, if you have to lay up to this area, if you end up somehow in that area, is there is there a challenge there? And yeah, that is as you say, something that pros respond to. It is the is this green kind of rewarding the most precise possible shot that I could hit?

01:00:30
Speaker 2: Yeah? Now, and if you're standing there on a four hundred and seventy five yard hole and you're fifty yards out and the shots look look really tough, well, that might be that that maybe that that green was is a little much for that length of the holes. So, I mean, that's getting into some to the weeds a little bit in terms of just your evaluation of a course. But I think they're all They're all fun questions to ponder when you're, you know, having those great little debates about a place.

01:00:59
Speaker 1: So your new letter, Jeff, focuses on the majors. It, you know, it generally covers golf at this point. The original concept at least was to cover the majors closely, and you still do that more than more than anything else, I suppose, But when you look at the major championship venues of twenty twenty six, we have obviously a gust National, but we also have Shinnecock Hills. We have ironom Ink for the PGA Championship, we have Royal Birkdale for the Open Championship. Which of those courses stands out to you as one that would really thrive in a red system evaluation?

01:01:39
Speaker 2: Well, I haven't been to Ironomics since the most recent work by Gil. I did watch it during whatever it was was it.

01:01:48
Speaker 1: There have been a couple of PGA Tour events there. Yeah, it's been kind of soggy, it's been Yeah, it was kind of a bummer that the conditions weren't weren't for it.

01:01:57
Speaker 2: And I'm not I gets they've been teasing all sorts of amazing imagery on I think the official PGA account. I'm guessing it was all shot kind of an early fall because everything looks just so good and and the and the and the false fronts and different stuff going on. You know, again, to our conversation about greens, you want to just drop balls all around and hit cool those shots. It looks like it has that. Unfortunately, when they go there in May they're really going to need a good early spring or else it's going to be you know, a different kind of soft not the not the end of summer kind of thing. But yeah, so we'll see. But that that one to me more than just knowing the property. I mean, Shinnacock is amazing. It is really hard.

01:02:43
Speaker 1: Yes, if you play that course every day, better be a pretty pretty good golfer.

01:02:48
Speaker 2: Yeah. And you know when people, of course, when you inevitably people want to have the argument National versus Shinnecock. And I'm one of those people. Even though National is a pretty intense piece of property as is Cock. Uh, but it still has a lot more in the way of holes that are that are just a little more gettable for most mortals and fun and and wild and crazy and enticing Shenna. Cock's a little more straightforward. But yeah, I just in terms of that, you know, the everyday sensibility. Uh. And Brokedale's a lovely property. Yeah, I'm I'm a little lary of the changes they've made which were strictly made for the tournament and moving people around, which are just just crap reasons to me to be changing holes and getting a par three that points at the clubhouse. Yeah, I'm not. I'm that. You know, it's a cool clubhouse, don't get me wrong.

01:03:43
Speaker 1: It's you know, work of modern architecture. But do you do you want to disrupt the routing of course, just so one of the court, one of the par three's has a backdrop like like you if you don't have an ocean, then you have the clubhouse. Let's point it there. I think that's that's a little hacky.

01:03:58
Speaker 2: It it's it's concerning. And there there was a horrible log jam at the fourteenth hole. I get it. But the front nine there especially is just a really cool little walk, more intimate. The back nine is a little more big, and there's dunes and stuff going on and and some and it's a it's a great kind of the way and that's why the players respond to it. Another reason they respond is there's not a lot of quirk. There's no blindness really, so it's always one of the players favorites. That's probably to me. The only deficiency of it is it doesn't have some of the some of the funky stuff that you you love on a great links. But in terms of a uh, this is a long build up to your question. But yeah, in terms of a first hole to last hole experience, the Birkdale I knew certainly would be one of those right up there, just in terms of just a fun, uh exercise in good golf that that just slowly builds and has some some some big dramatic moments towards the end. That that I think most people love that in a golf course, kind of peaking, you know, building, building and then peaking near the end. But not every course can do that because of the land. And you know, I wrote about Cyprus Point last year in the eighteenth hole, and yeah, it peaks it it peaks at probably sixteen or seventeen, so you know, not everybody's a fan of seventeen. But the settings, yeah, it's just incredible and that and that's just the land that was just in the clubhouse was always going to be where it was. Every land planner put it there before architects were involved. And but yeah, Birkedale, Yeah, shinnecock is you don't get me wrong, It's it's amazing, but it is it is a beast. It's really hard.

01:05:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, and your system kind of causes people to value places like Royal Birkdale that have land that is so well suited to a dog walk and so well suited to everyday uses.

01:05:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what's.

01:05:59
Speaker 1: Matt about lynks Land is that even if there weren't a golf course there, you'd want to walk there. And people did walk there before there were golf courses on on the links Land or on the heathlands around around London. That's what those pieces of land were used for because they're so well suited to that purpose. It's exactly where you want to take your dog. I'm not sure you'd take your dog to the Shinnakak Hills property.

01:06:21
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm feeling somebody would appear fairly quickly too.

01:06:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, I might go to the experience the end of the attention. But but yeah, very interesting. And you know, I've to go back to an earlier point you made about Ironomic. I've heard the greens there. I haven't played the course, but i've heard the greens. They are absolutely sensational, and it's I'm pre disappointed that that's just not going to show, you know, and then we're just not gonna we're just not gonna get a full sense of that.

01:06:48
Speaker 2: So we might key, but it's everybody in Phillies are. I've already heard from several people like, don't get your hopes up for yeah, great for August. Yeah, or I'm the fall, Like I said, those that imagery I'm pretty sure was just just the beginning of fall, and everything just looks so good and and yeah, I mean, I just don't love the date of the PGA in May for this reason. And they they continue to insist that they have more options. But it's bizarre to think about. But May is a really odd time of year in a lot of parts of the country. Uh, it's starting to get too hot in the south. Uh, it's it's on the West coast, it's foggy, and and it's it's it's hard to get things quite as good as you can in June. The northeast. It's too early. Michigan Chicago area, it's definitely too early. But then you know, there are years where people will tell you, well, you know, Long Island was amazing in late May and and but we had a good spring. So so we'll see. But uh, I think it's an interesting set of venues and and it there's gonna be a lot of chatter, especially around the changes at Burked just because the players love it so much and we were just there in twenty seventeen and it was an incredible open, So absolutely, yeah, so well, and it's just funny how these narratives build. So it's always kind of fun to watch that, although we don't get them quite like we used because the guys don't go there for their their practice trips. Although that that trend may come back and in vogue again. Who knows, Oh, we'll see that.

01:08:26
Speaker 1: Guys seem to like it, don't seem to like to travel.

01:08:29
Speaker 2: But yeah, right now, it's let my data person tell me how to play the course, which I just think is so bizarre and it's just so strange. I get when it's a pain in the ass to get to a place and they just don't do it. Fine, but when you're relying on somebody else who's looking at Google Earth to tell you how to play a course, which is something I cover in the book, but not in the vein of a of a tour pro who should be somewhat self reliant first of all, and also play the course and discuss it with Caddy. Maybe. But Google is a great tool, but it's not it's not going to answer all your questions about how to play a course.

01:09:09
Speaker 1: What you're talking about, you can just draw lines and figure out exactly how you need to play a course. Jeff, Well, that's a whole other episode that we could record together. But as always a pleasure talking to you, Jeff. I'm looking forward to your coverage this year through the Quadrilateral and thanks for coming on the pun.

01:09:26
Speaker 2: All right, thanks Jarrett.

01:09:34
Speaker 1: This episode of Designing Golf was produced by Will Balsam. Thank you, Will.

01:09:41
Speaker 2: So.

01:09:41
Speaker 1: Jeff Shackelford actually has another book introducing concepts of golf architecture called Grounds for Golf. This was published originally a number of years ago, and there's actually going to be a second edition of Grounds for Golf coming out this June, so keep an eye out for I think that's a great book. It's one that I've very commonly recommended to people when they've asked for an introductory book to golf architecture, I usually point them to Anatomy of a Golf Course by Tom Doak, Golf Architecture by Alistair Mackenzie, and Grounds for Golf by Jeff Shackelford. So a new edition of that book coming up, keep an eye out for that in June. All right, thank you for listening, and we'll be back again soon with another episode.