Tillinghast and the art of deception
“There is no doubt that a solitary tree, standing near the vicinity of a green … renders the judgment of distance very easy.”
A.W. Tillinghast A lbert Warren Tillinghast is considered to be the dean of American-born golf course architects. His legendary work includes such U.S. Open stalwarts as Winged Foot, Bethpage Black and Inverness in the northeastern states, and Scarboro GCC on the east side of Toronto, which I hope to play for the first time next week.
I’ve been reading several of the Classics of Golf this summer, a series of limited edition books considered required reading for golf historians and enthusiastic fans of golf course architecture. The chapters of Tillinghast’s book The Course Beautiful have such juicy titles as The Home Hole, the dreaded Green Chairman, Sick Holes and Blind Shots.
But my favourite is the one entitled Deception, in which he explains how our eyes work for us and against us on the course, depending on what the coy architect has situated close to greens and other targets. He describes a phenomenon that I have, in hindsight, observed many times on course, but have never really thought about why and how: a long tree that is standing near the end of a shot makes the distance a lot easier to gauge.
This is amplified if the tree, including its trunk, is in full view. On the other extreme, picture in your mind the shot to a lone flag on the crest of a hill with virtually no singular landmarks around it. Perhaps the iron approach from the right rough on 13 at Kawartha, or to any pin on PGCC’s 14th. Without a singular tree by the target it’s more difficult for our eyes to be confident about a distance. For anyone playing a true links course for the first time one of the biggest challenges is the absence of landmarks around your target.
While it is relatively easy for us to know our home course like the back of our hand, if you aspire to have a game that travels well, which is a must for any serious golf tourist, writings by some of the world’s most prolific architects can be of great assistance in combating the local knowledge of a competitor or host.
And if you occasionally shell out big bucks to play a bucket list course like Pebble Beach or Pinehurst No.2, you will find that some of these tricks can shave strokes off your score and enhance your enjoyment of a hole you are in awe of.
I have begrudgingly adopted the occasional use of a yardage device, albeit it the most simplistic and discreet kind where I can look nonchalantly at it hanging on my bag and see the distances to the front, middle, and back of the green.
I suspect Mr. Tillinghast would be sickened by the very thought of such a device. They not only slow down the game, they render some of his design deceptions and tricks meaningless. And that can’t be good for the integrity of the game and its greatest courses in the long run.