Golf Club Atlas
GolfClubAtlas.com => Golf Course Architecture => Topic started by: Mike Hendren on October 31, 2017, 09:30:20 AM
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Driving to work today I was trying to think of a single word to describe Wolf Point. I came up with "liberating." By comparison, I feel that golf architecture it too often confining or restrictive. I feel fenced in, if you will.
Your thoughts?
Nobody puts Bogey in a corner.
Mike
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I wrote an article a few years back that talked about the same issues [I think] in terms of "freedom" and "lack of boundaries" [as in mowing lines].
The ideal would be for the golfer to feel as free as the architect when he first walks the site, knowing that he could take the routing almost anywhere he wants to go.
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On the good ones it about the whole and not the hole...
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On the good ones it about the whole and not the hole...
So I'm reading Alan Watts' "The Way of Zen" *last night,* and here comes this thread. Very interesting connection here.
Watts defines Zen as a "way of liberation, concerned not with what is good or bad or advantageous but what is."
Zen masters Doak and Young seem to have the peripheral mind at work in their thinking. The perfect design, to borrow from yet another Zen master (Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter), got no signs or dividing lines and very few rules to guide. Now, we all know that perfection is unattainable, but I certainly believe that having an ideal of undefined strategy and unforced shots sets the architect off on the way.
To my mind, Old MacDonald is a FANTASTIC example of this approach. As is Ballyneal. The "new" Pinehurst No. 2 also fits the bill. The crowned greens, regardless of their historic "intent" create 360-degree targets. The whole vs. the hole.
Crazy connections the universe sometimes provides!
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To my mind, Old MacDonald is a FANTASTIC example of this approach. As is Ballyneal. The "new" Pinehurst No. 2 also fits the bill. The crowned greens, regardless of their historic "intent" create 360-degree targets. The whole vs. the hole.
Old Mac pales in comparison to The Sheep Ranch or The Loop in this regard.
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Neither of which I have played yet, and both of which are on my list!
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Bogey,
Glad you enjoyed Wolf Point. It's one of my favorites. Another favorite is a new one I played last week in Wisconsin - Mammoth Dunes. Well the preview nine anyway. It is most definitely "liberating" as you put it. I had my best 9 hole score in 2 years. Reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where they stripe the roadway with wide lanes. "So luxurious" as Elaine says.
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This encompasses most of what I feel about golf courses.
It's why I like Brora so much.
And it's what I was trying to get at with my comment about test of skill vs. test of character. I thought people would understand what I meant, but most didn't.
I think now it should have been: Good American golfers mostly see golf as a test of skill, hence the narrow fairways, forced carries, target golf, the demand for perfect conditions and proportional punishment, etc. Others, including most of the Scots I've met are more likely to see golf as a test of the ability to overcome misfortune.
In the latter example, wide fairways, invisible but punitive bunkers, no real expectation of perfect conditions, acceptance of crazy bounces, etc.,etc, all point to a game where the goal isn't just to see if you can hit a given shot, but one where your ability to carry on after one of those things happens.
Because I have a limited amount of skill, but I can play out of a bad lie, and my game gets better the closer I get to the hole, I prefer the latter over the former.
Freedom vs. restriction
Liberating vs. confining
I think those are going to be a part of my course rating system....
K
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Michael H,
We share the same thoughts.
From my interview on GCA in 2010,
I tried to cut and paste my interview with ran from 2010, it was the portion on St Andrews and what I learned from studying the Old Course, "No boundaries" If someone wants to help me with that specific portion that would be great otherwise look back almost 8 years ago and how I reflected on grassing lines and how it applied to Pacific Dunes and every course since then
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This is one of the points I was trying to make with my "easy off the tee, hard at the green" thread a few months back.
http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,64566.25.html
The sense of freedom off the tee is what we want - allow strategic decisions, don't have them forced upon us. And the 360 degree approach into the green is along the same lines, albeit not often a practical or possible one. Tree overgrowth is a principal confounder of this experience. What better illustration of this ideal than Philly Cricket via Keith Foster and its committed membership?
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As with everything, I think there is a place for both and moderation. A liberating or zen aesthetic would likely be a course I say I want to play everyday for the rest of my life, but having a course where it is a bit more confining isn't bad to mix in. Asking me "to hit driver, you need to hit it over the bunker on the inside of the dogleg otherwise you need to aim left and hit a 3 wood" is a nice change of pace.
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As with everything, I think there is a place for both and moderation. A liberating or zen aesthetic would likely be a course I say I want to play everyday for the rest of my life, but having a course where it is a bit more confining isn't bad to mix in. Asking me "to hit driver, you need to hit it over the bunker on the inside of the dogleg otherwise you need to aim left and hit a 3 wood" is a nice change of pace.
Matthew - What if that shot was at Wolf Point too? You can have that shot with either a big or small fairway - as long as that shot is your best odds of winning the hole, that shot will have meaning.
Thank you Mike!!! Great to see you!!! Stay free my friend! You're words have been liberating!!!
I wrote something too....
From my essay in "Links to St. Andrews"
Freedom at Wolf Point is ever-present. Players can choose any number of ways to complete their objectives. They are limited only by their imaginations. As are we all.
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Bogey,
Glad you enjoyed Wolf Point. It's one of my favorites. Another favorite is a new one I played last week in Wisconsin - Mammoth Dunes. Well the preview nine anyway. It is most definitely "liberating" as you put it. I had my best 9 hole score in 2 years. Reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where they stripe the roadway with wide lanes. "So luxurious" as Elaine says.
That's how I felt at Streamsong Black. For various reasons, I played Black, then Blue, then Red, and incredibly Red felt confining, having played it last.
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Mike N broaches the key point: that shots need to have “meaning”. Otherwise liberty soon becomes license, and license in turn leads to rather a pointless game — save for the ego gratification this faux liberty fleetingly provides. As always, the Old Course serves as a good answer/guide: look to its rumpled fairways and to its greens as clues to providing liberty without licence. Interestingly, over the decades some very fine (and insightful) golfers have said that they only began fully appreciating the course after repeated plays; a stark contrast, it seems, to the near-instant love and very high praise/rankings that many of today’s newest courses tend to garner.
Peter
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Liberty, freedom, flexibility etc.
Didn’t Alister MacKenzie’s winning entry in the Ideal Hole competition have Player V approaching the green from the right rear quarter of the green (ie nearly over the back)?
Atb
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Mike N broaches the key point: that shots need to have “meaning”. Otherwise liberty soon becomes license, and license in turn leads to rather a pointless game — save for the ego gratification this faux liberty fleetingly provides.
I'm not so sure I agree. At some point the object of putting the ball in a 4 1/4" hole is going to come into play.
If you make wide fairways without any trouble, perhaps it makes the tee shots boring, but I certainly wasn't asking for that. Anyway, even if the fairway is THAT forgiving, the next shot, or two, has to reach a putting surface.
If the putting surfaces are so big there's no challenge to get a ball on them the putting itself will become incredibly difficult.
But there just aren't any courses like that. Even some of the mopey, home-made courses I've been playing on since I was a sprout have "stuff" that makes the game somewhat more interesting.
I grew up in the Red River Valley of the north. There is nowhere I've seen that comes close to being as flat as that. The valley is as wide as 60 miles, with an average slope of 1/2 ft.per mile. So I a have seen some featureless golf courses.
The Old Course is a good example, because really good playersare so befuddled by it at first. Personally I think that's due in part to the seeming randomness of its hazards and its expectations of golfers.
How often do you see a course where two "identical" shots down the middle of a fairway can end up in such different outcomes?
It drives the best players batty but someone like me who has limited control over their tee shots sees the excitement of the crapshoot.
OTOH, I hate prescriptive golf. The idea of trying to find my way around a course like Harbour Town makes me nauseous.
K
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First, it is great to see Peter back on the board.
Second, this is a fantastic thread. The word "Liberating" is wonderful way to describe golf courses that resonate.
Third, I view "Liberating" as making your mind and senses go in places that they would not otherwise go and not necessarily primarily about width, angles, or contour in and of themselves. One of the reasons that I love Lahinch so much is that I felt Liberated even though several of its holes are Confined. I would never have used Liberated until Bogey did so thanks.
Ira
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Having played Myopia recently after 5 years of tree removal, liberation rocks!
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Mike N broaches the key point: that shots need to have “meaning”. Otherwise liberty soon becomes license, and license in turn leads to rather a pointless game — save for the ego gratification this faux liberty fleetingly provides. As always, the Old Course serves as a good answer/guide: look to its rumpled fairways and to its greens as clues to providing liberty without licence. Interestingly, over the decades some very fine (and insightful) golfers have said that they only began fully appreciating the course after repeated plays; a stark contrast, it seems, to the near-instant love and very high praise/rankings that many of today’s newest courses tend to garner.
Peter
Peter-When you played the Old Course did the experience deliver more meaning on a shot by shot basis or as collection? Rather were you hooked immediately or moreso upon reflection when the round was over? Thank you.
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Further to mine about Lahinch: Numbers 3, 4, and 5 are Confined but #4 and #5 in particular make your mind say "WTF?" in ways that very few holes do. That would not work by itself if the rest of the Course and its setting did not compliment them fully. Liberating to me means going places that are non-rational as we otherwise would define Rational.
Ira
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The Old Course is a good example, because really good playersare so befuddled by it at first. Personally I think that's due in part to the seeming randomness of its hazards and its expectations of golfers.
How often do you see a course where two "identical" shots down the middle of a fairway can end up in such different outcomes?
There are some weird comparisons being drawn here.
There is no course where the drive means more in terms of possible second shots than The Old Course. Royal Melbourne is on the short list of runners-up.
But then many of the other examples being used here are among the widest courses ever built, where the position of the drive may or may not matter very much at all.
If you're going to build a course that gives the player freedom off the tee, you ought to have enough going on at the other end to make it matter where he drives, and to reward him for choosing the best line for himself.
Freedom from consequences does not often promote model citizenship; it will more often devolve into laziness or even anarchy.
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TOC is not the liberating course folks give it credit for...that is old school thinking. Two of the most famous holes, 16 & 17, famous because they were liberating, are no longer so. In fact, I would say both these holes are now very constrictive and therefore the exact opposite of what folks are citing. In the case of 17...it is still a great hole..not so much for 16. As Matthew suggests, this shouldn't be a debate about liberating V constricting, which btw is pretty much a rehash of penal V strategic. No, both ends of the spectrum are important and essential. The debate should be how do we how do we make either end of the spectrum more meaningful to all classes of golfers. The question might well have no answer, but first we need to define "meaningful".
On any well designed course the concept of meaningful is self evident. Meaningful could run the gambit from one must execute to one must decide. While forcing a player to execute has its place in architecture, it is the decision-making aspect of shotmaing which is far more interesting because it is here the game is taken out of the archie's hands and into the golfer's. Not only does decision-making require the golfer to be honest about his abilities, but it also requires the golfer to read the situation in terms of the game and the match.
But I reckon folks such as Tom are speaking about courses which aren't very good because they are too liberating. I am not personally acquainted with such courses, but I am acquainted with a ton of courses which are too constrictive. Often times constrictive courses have nothing to do with architecture so for the most part the constrictive side of the debate is misrepresented. That said, I can fully understand the constrictive approach where championship golf is a genuine prime element of concern, but this should be rarity. I also must say that a much more thorough thought process should be undertaken before classic courses are slowly turned into constrictive championship venues. I don't think folks evaluate what is being sacrificed and who will benefit.
Ciao
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Experiencing what you don't like sometimes helps you appreciate what you do like or do like more.
Unpleasant as it may seem in some ways it's good to occasionally experience a confined course as then when a liberating is played it's more appreciable.
Not suggesting being locked up in a golfing-Gulag is good but when you've been confined indoors for a while with some ghastly illness or whatever then there is a terrific feeling of liberation when you finally get out and about again.
atb
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I put this in the Wolf Point thread but probably should have posted here:
"The second time around, I found myself aiming for very precise targets off the tee despite the width - 1. Left front corner of green; 2 - between bunkers on right; 3 - decided to hit it right; 4 - knew I wanted to be right, 5 - hit it right to try and shorten as much as possible; 6 - aimed for tree on right edge of green because I knew left was death . . . etc. [/size] [/color][/size]Wide courses are no longer rare. Wide courses that reward proper placement of your tee shot are."
I did not find Wolf Point liberating. I found the penalty for a wayward tee shot to be different than it is at your standard course.[/color]
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This is a great topic, thanks for getting it going.
After reading a few posts, It would seem a point of clarification might be the Illusion of Liberation as opposed to being actual. From what i can tell, you can spray the ball at TOC and "get away with it", but that doesn't mean you avoid a nasty approach shot where even getting par is miraculous...
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After reading a few posts, It would seem a point of clarification might be the Illusion of Liberation as opposed to being actual. From what i can tell, you can spray the ball at TOC and "get away with it", but that doesn't mean you avoid a nasty approach shot where even getting par is miraculous...
Yes, that's what I was trying to get at. Being able to swing away is liberating, but you should still have a difficult next shot if you drive it aimlessly into the wide open spaces. St. Andrews is far better for that than any other course I know. Bob Jones' description of it was point-on: if you miss your intended line from the tee by ten yards, you might then have to change your approach to the next shot entirely from what you had been planning.
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There is interesting interplay between open and shut. Masters competitors have told me they can hook a ball around the corner on 13 all day long....in practice. When it counts, they start aiming a little further right and the feeling like it would be stupid to hit the creek when you have 60 yards to miss.
In short, there has to be some consequence to any position in the fw, and TOC is a great example of that.
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Seems to be agreement that TOC is the best example of having a liberated "feeling" on the tee, but in fact there are consequences, you can't just blast away.
What do you all think the best example of that in the US is? I have not played too many in that category (sadly). NGLA? Garden City?
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What do you all think the best example of that in the US is? I have not played too many in that category (sadly). NGLA? Garden City?
I would nominate Rustic Canyon!
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Probably a thousand residential courses, two fairways wide, between houses. Hit the houses or play way wide to the other fairway is as similar to TOC as you can get.
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With the Old Course (and Bobby Jones' description of it) in my mind, I would've expected to think next about Augusta -- given the appreciation that Dr Mac and Mr Jones both had for St Andrews. But partly because of what I've read here over the years, my thoughts went instead to NGLA; Tommy Nac used to talk about it in almost the hushed tones of spirituality. I wonder now if that isn't because of the feeling of freedom-liberty (of the kind we're discussing) it engenders. Certainly it *looks* more formalized than TOC or Wolf Point etc, and yet maybe that is its grand illusion.
Peter
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Peter,
I can see the comparisons here to spirituality...but I see "being liberated" much closer to being given choices... aka options.
I think the best golf courses give you choices in the form of play conservative and perhaps incur a more difficult approach, or take on some risk and have a much more doable approach shot for bird.
However, thru the eyes of a high capper, these choices are different. My game can be summed as...the closer I get to the hole, the better I get. Off the tee, hands down the worst part of my game, putting with the flat-stick...the best. So for me, when I stand on the tee its more about pick my poison.
- Try to hit my driver far enough and straight enough, so I can have a reasonable chance at par, but incur more risk due to a wild/wayward drive....
- Or hit my 3w, avoid the big trouble, and give myself a much better chance to avoid any worse than single-bogey, and perhaps squeak out a few pars along the way.
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Seems to be agreement that TOC is the best example of having a liberated "feeling" on the tee, but in fact there are consequences, you can't just blast away.
What do you all think the best example of that in the US is? I have not played too many in that category (sadly). NGLA? Garden City?
I would nominate all the courses at Streamsong because those are ones many of us can play. There as SO many holes where the player is given an unusually wide fairway to work with. But simply hitting the fairway does not mean you'll have a good chance at par; there are definitely right and wrong places to play most of the holes.
Since SS Black is new and I just played, I'll try to describe Hole #2, a short par four that is with the prevailing wind. The green sits perched up a sleep hill and angles left-to-right away from the fairway. I aimed down the middle of the fairway and hit a hard power fade, not straight as I intended. I was pleased when my ball cleared the fairway bunker and stayed in the fairway. But I was essentially DEAD if I went at the (front-left) pin because there only was about ten paces to stop the ball. I hit what I thought was a perfect shot at the pin...but it rolled out, down the downsloped back of the green and then twenty yards further. It took all of my skill to save bogey. Had I kept my tee sot left, I would have has so much more green to work with.
Unfortunately, I think the average golfer is simply going to whine about this green...
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There are wider, more 'liberating' courses in the UK than TOC, Minchinhampton Old for one.
As said above, best be in the most appropriate position for your approach shot though.
Others can name others.
atb
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There are wider, more 'liberating' courses in the UK than TOC, Minchinhampton Old for one.
As said above, best be in the most appropriate position for your approach shot though.
Others can name others.
atb
If you are talking 'liberating' in the sense of lack of boundaries, and the blend between golf and nature, then somewhere like the Forest Course at Bramshaw or the New Forest Golf Club would be pretty good examples...they tend to fall down on the consequential aspects, though given a dry, hard summer any pushed-up greens want to be approached on axis.
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There are wider, more 'liberating' courses in the UK than TOC, Minchinhampton Old for one.
As said above, best be in the most appropriate position for your approach shot though.
Others can name others.
atb
Yes...I think Cleeve Cloud is the best example I know for a liberating course. With rough more or less a non factor, the impact of elevation change takes on a far greater importance without creating too many opportunities for lost balls.
Ciao
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Of non-grazed courses the Gullane courses would be really good examples. Certainly there are some spots with heavy rough but excluding certain times during the year such as early spring, in general the rough is mostly beaten down by the weather and foot traffic. You might not get as good a lie as the fairway (although the semi-rough can actually be better sometimes) but it is mostly playable. Go off line though and the approach becomes much harder not just because of guarding bunkers but also because of contours/slopes/elevation changes of the green complexes. In that respect similar to TOC and some other links courses.
I think also, similar to the likes of Cleeve and Appleby etc, there is a very open aspect to the whole Gullane property which helps engender a feeling of expanse that encourages you to open the shoulders. Not sure though that entirely meets the idea of liberation referred to by Bogey in his OP.
Niall
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I have heard so many good things about Wolf Point. I really need to play it. First of all, I wouldn't describe TOC as "liberating" but that is another discussion. It is very demanding off the tee especially with any amount of wind. As far as liberating goes; I love width as width can create options and options create interest and to me interest is what makes for great golf courses. At the same time width for the sake of width is just wasted real estate and adds to higher maintenance costs. At the end of the day, variety of design is what makes golf special. The extreme diversity of the playing fields is what has always fasinated me. I am for example playing Nanea GC this coming week and that course is for the most part "liberating" as there is lots of room to play golf. It is Sand Hills in a lava flow but there is plenty of width and angles. On the other hand, I recently played Wannamoisett which is a brilliant Ross design set on less than 100 acres. I love that golf course (it can't be more different than Nanea which meanders over 1700 acres) and I never felt claustrophobic. If you have played Merion, the feeling is similar. Variety is what leads to great :)
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Width is certainly not the sole determinant of liberation. Liberating, to me, involves a blurring of lines to such an extent that the golfer is free of architect intrusion. Now, this is an ideal that is hard - maybe impossible - to actually attain. Multiple lines of play and approach are probably the factors that I would consider most liberating.
I played Wine Valley prior to its opening with architect Dan Hixson and several of the principals in the project. When we played the par-5 7th, the liberating effect of the golf course came into full view. We ranged from professional (Hixson) to competitive amateur to low-handicap to mid-handicap in skill sets. Each person selected a different line and a different strategy for the hole. Ironically, the mid-handicap made the only birdie in the group after choosing the most conservative and safest route. In other words, our achievements and undoing on the holes were not determined by some level of shot execution *required* by the hole but instead on execution of the lines we individually chose to play.
We were all free to pursue our own version of success and risk, with the hole not really providing favor to any one approach. Liberating!
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Tom,
Hope you are doing well! Good post. I agree with you (to some extent) but it is hard to create “options” and "alternative lines of play” without width. Yes you can have a hole for example where a better player or longer hitter can take on a long carry vs playing a more conservative route around a hazard or obstacle but I am not sure I would call that “liberating”. To the shorter hitter or weaker golfer, there really is only one option/line of play so it is not that liberating. Think about any tight golf hole that lacks width. How many such holes really offer alternative lines of play for most levels of golfers? Risk/Reward of course factors in as well and I guess some would consider that aspect of a hole liberating.
Best,
Mark
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A lot of the love for "liberating" design seems to come from bad golfers.
They love being able to hit fairways easily, and they aren't worried about their angle of approach to a green because they aren't going to hit the green anyway and are happy with a bogey.
Don't get me wrong, I can only stomach a limited diet of Medinah #3-esque Championship golf courses, but the trend of building these WIDE OPEN courses with no repercussions for missing a fairway or green under the guise of "fun" is going a bit too far, in my opinion. It's kind of like the new course at Sand Valley. Yes...it's fun to play well and make birdies, but after a while you realize you are just banging away at the ball and the birdies begin to ring hollow.
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PCCraig,
Yes width for the sake of width is a waste of real estate and just adds to the cost of the game. Again variety is key. Sometimes it is fun to just grip it and rip it but if every hole is like that with no advantage except pure length then the design is not ideal in my mind.
Mark
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A lot of the love for "liberating" design seems to come from bad golfers.
They love being able to hit fairways easily, and they aren't worried about their angle of approach to a green because they aren't going to hit the green anyway and are happy with a bogey.
Don't get me wrong, I can only stomach a limited diet of Medinah #3-esque Championship golf courses, but the trend of building these WIDE OPEN courses with no repercussions for missing a fairway or green under the guise of "fun" is going a bit too far, in my opinion. It's kind of like the new course at Sand Valley. Yes...it's fun to play well and make birdies, but after a while you realize you are just banging away at the ball and the birdies begin to ring hollow.
Since when did anyone say there should be "no repercussions" ?
The idea is that a poor drive to the wrong part of the fairway will leave the low handicapper very little or no chance of getting an approach close to the hole. Yes, the bogey player is not as penalized for the position of his drive as the scratch player, since he doesn't expect to get close to the hole anyway. But the bogey player still has to get his second shot in a good spot to give himself a chance for par, and that may well be harder to do depending on where he has driven.
It's the idea that a poor shot needs immediate repercussions that bothers me, and puts you down as an advocate of the penal school [which has a seat at the table, but not at the head of the table].
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Putting the ball in the best spot from which to play the next shot and repercussions -
Isn’t there a course management quote (from Hogan or Faldo maybe) along the lines of “Work out how you’re going to try to play the hole from the pin back to the tee and then try to execute it in reverse.”
Atb
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I couldn't agree more with Tom D on this one.
Most high cappers are accustomed to only getting a handful of GIRs anyways, so a small well protected target from a bad angle on the approach shot from the fairway is nowhere near as frustrating as being completely dead after the tee shot. Its all about where you kill hope that matters here. On the tee, or being short sided near the green in a nasty bunker. ;)
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Mark - back at 'cha! Well, I selected my example (Wine Valley) on purpose! Wine Valley - and the 7th hole in particular - is long on width and lines. And I think we're making the same point. Width used to unlock strategic options is *almost* always good. Now, there's no reason you can't be liberated and confined within the same round.
I do believe in golf as a metaphor for a journey, with its twists, turns and both joyful and despairing moments. In such a journey - in my experience at least - there often comes a moment where you must fire and arrow right into the symbolic dragon's mouth - no option but to hit the shot required. And I'm a-ok with that.
Maybe we're actually confining the term "liberation" here. Liberation is an internal sense or feeling, not NECESSARILY a set of physical characteristics. If by the time I reach the 18th hole I feel that I have been a journey that speaks to the range of emotions we feel as we journey through life, I feel liberated. And once in a while, that sense of liberation comes in the tiniest and most confined part of the property!
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Tom,
I could not agree more that liberation is an internal feeling. The courses that I have enjoyed most are ones where at the end of the round I am both mentally exhausted and mentally exhilarated. Exhausted because the course presented strategic choices that required real thought; exhilarated because those options were presented in a manner full of the unexpected or unusual. Of course a great setting helps engender the feeling of liberation.
Ira
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Tom,
After all these years, we are still aligned :)
Best,
Mark
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A lot of the love for "liberating" design seems to come from bad golfers.
They love being able to hit fairways easily, and they aren't worried about their angle of approach to a green because they aren't going to hit the green anyway and are happy with a bogey.
Don't get me wrong, I can only stomach a limited diet of Medinah #3-esque Championship golf courses, but the trend of building these WIDE OPEN courses with no repercussions for missing a fairway or green under the guise of "fun" is going a bit too far, in my opinion. It's kind of like the new course at Sand Valley. Yes...it's fun to play well and make birdies, but after a while you realize you are just banging away at the ball and the birdies begin to ring hollow.
Pat
You took a bit of flack on that one but I'll back you to a certain degree. Where I agree is your statement about building wide open course with no real repercussion for missing. I suspect some took "repercussion" in that context to mean that the ball didn't land in a bunker or in water, but I took it to mean that "missing" had no real bearing on strategy for the next shot. If my interpretation is right then I wholeheartedly agree with you on that point.
Where I disagree is your first statement about "bad" golfers not being worried about angle of approach. I think all golfers are concerned about the next shot. It is the architects job to give them something to be concerned about and to make them think.
Niall