Uneven lies make the golfer think. Slopes carry a ball away. Miss a shot by a little on ground that undulates and you will have effectively missed it by a lot. The golfer who plays, oh, Royal Dornoch or the Old Course in Scotland, and who doesn’t fully understand the effect of slope, will miss so much. To appreciate architecture is to flat-out (excuse me) get more out of the game.

That’s my view and I’m sticking to it, even if it takes only a minute to realize when a playing companion’s eyes are glazing over while I inform him about the details of a hole’s design. I try not to be a design bore but I do succumb. I want to say, “Come on, there’s so much more to golf than how far you can carry a drive. How about trying to sling a low bullet into that slope on the right so that the ball will carom back into the middle of the fairway and run along?”

You get my point. I advocate architecture appreciation. As it happens, I’ve been listening to Episode 33 of the ISeekGolfPodcast, which never fails to be enlightening and entertaining. Australians Rod Morri and Adrian Logue co-host the podcast. Mike Clayton, a former tour player who with Geoff Ogilvy has a design firm, was a guest on this episode, which focused on architecture and took the view that the more we know about it the more we will derive from our golf.

The hosts bill their podcast as being “for golfers who think the game is serious fun.” They discuss the pleasures of walking while playing the endlessly fascinating Royal Melbourne and mention the various views you get while ambling along. Logue says he can’t stand playing a course in a cart and “having the course flash by you.” He refers to the “various secret views you get of parts of the course” while walking. Clayton talks about the timeless strategy at Royal Melbourne that is evocative of the Old Course.

“Royal Melbourne asks really simple questions,” Clayton — or ‘Clayts,’ as his pals call him — observes. “But the answers are nuanced and complicated and thought-provoking.” That’s a hallmark of courses that have endured and of which one will never tire, notwithstanding that too many have been compromised for the pro game because of how far pros hit the ball.

To this point, Morri points out that many people believe that “hard equals better.” Logue notes that in doing so they miss the point that the game should be fun above all, especially for the recreational golfer. (I might add that tour pros who think about design also want the courses they play to be fun, because it engages them that much more.) Morri adds there’s nothing bad about a hard hole, but that the best hard holes are also interesting because of their design.

Well, back to the idea of architectural appreciation. The podcast gets into the idea that committees at courses need to be educated more about design. Logue says he would like to see “a little bit of a reading list” about architecture, what can be done to improve a course, and so on.

Reading about design would deepen anybody’s experience playing a course. Here’s a short list of books well worth any golfer’s time:

Grounds for Golf: The History and Fundamentals of Golf Course Design, Geoff Shackelford.

The Anatomy of a Golf Course, Tom Doak

Classic Golf Links of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland

Golf Has Never Failed Me, Donald Ross

Golf Architecture, Alister MacKenzie

The Links, Robert Hunter

Sand and Golf: How Terrain Shapes the Game, George Waters.

The World Atlas of Golf (various authors)

Golf Architecture (any of the six volumes), edited by Paul Daley

Rough Meditations, Brad Klein

Great Golf Courses of Canada, John Gordon (While not strictly about architecture this will help my fellow Canadians appreciate their courses.)

Finally, dig into GolfClubAtlas.com whenever you can. Read the course reviews and interviews posted there.

Here’s to a deeper appreciation of course architecture for all of us in 2018. Let’s get to know the courses we play, the architects, and the principles behind design that lasts, and that make golf that, at its best, is simple, and that, at its simplest, is cerebral.