Why am I grumpy tonight?
On GCA there is a lot of tunnelvision, many tend to criticise anything modern, except the few that work in a certain style. Most of this is done with the person's nose firmly turned up, because he feels he knows more about golf than the so called "Joe six pack".
One of life's greatest lessons in learning is to understand what you don't know and that you don't know everything.
Ian, I too take exception to this statement, in fact, I think your
"On GCA there is a lot of tunnelvision, many tend to criticise anything modern, except the few that work in a certain style." comment is for some unknown and arcane reasoning, more of a cop-out and excuse to back the shitty work of a fellow architect whom you may or may not even really know.
Ian, its O.K. to say its not your cup of tea. I'm sure Pat Ruddy won't give a Irish hoot, but my point is, and I hope that Jeff Mingay would agree with me, this isn't about creating a faux links but more or less using some artistic common sense to shape this beautiful looking and rolling ground to jive with its natural surrounds and beautiful backdrops, that was clay-capped because it used to be a land fill. It all looks, well, frankly more then a little contrived, and most definitely too manufactured for the look they were trying to acheive. Also, don't be so enamored with the natural looking dune grasses that are covering those hideous-looking mounds. Instead, tell us what the ground is saying.
You bring up Seth Raynor.
I think he managed at least most of the time to get the holes, even with the contrived shaping of the greens and their surrounding complexes. He fit them to fit the land pretty decently. There were also a few times he actually may have not got it right. (The Yale Redan for example. Its a good hole, but it doesn't anyway represent a good Redan, like one would expect, or say The Creek's Biarritz which is surely not as interesting as the one at Yale or even the short-lived one at the Lido. (which, even with not as tremendous of a green as Yale's, may have been even better to the idea of what a Biarritz actually was--a hole which in the wind, a ball had to be played over a great hazard from not only the front, but the right and into the wind, thus pushing the ball back over to the green.)
Another thing, I can tell you that most everytime I have seen a shape of Raynor's hand, I get this sort of feeling that leaves a lasting impression in my mind--its unique and its different and its totally memorable. Can you actually say that you see that here in these images?
I also think towards to the end of his life, a lot of his work was in fact taking on more natrual and rugged shape and form. Look at that picture of The Biarritz at the Greenbriar from Daniel Wexler's Lost Links.
You bring-up Lido.
Lido was both conservative and a liberal in its form. It used a lot of what it needed, and it didn't use very what it didn't need. At least from the photos.
In an artistic sense, a salt-water-filled marsh was the canvas to build a golf course. Your not going to play under-water--your going to have to move dirt to create features that looked natural to the area. I'm going to be so bold and tell you that of all of the courses that MacDonald built, from what I have seen in the images I have studied over the years, Lido was the most natural looking out of all of them.
Sand was dredged and pumped-in, and it was done in one of the most interesting manners--for 1915. (think about it Ian, that is 11 years shy of being a century ago when they started building her. An amazing feat for that time.) Another factor I think your forgetting is that for a course that was entirely created, it surely didn't look like it. Can you say that about Le zee I'lse de Montreal? (sp) Do you think it really looks all that Le Naturale'?
Again, to further prove my point........
Name me one true links golf course in Great Britain that has that much un-natural, man-made-looking mounding. Have you seen that kind of mounding in any of the classic course you have been remodeling that was put there by the original architect? Realizing that many true links courses in GB do have some man-made looking features to them, this was more then likely because it was done at a time when men barely knew how to use a horse-drawn scraper, and certainly weren't going to be moving this many cubes using a shovel. Many of these features are because of some unknown reasoning that pot bunkers always took the shape of perfectly round. I dare you to show me a picture of the Old Course circa 1915, where the bunkers were so perfect. I doubt you could find one.
The point of all of this is, for a unique and beautiful setting as le isle ze Montreal' (sp) is situated--looking like it could have been a magnificent canvas. Unfortunately from the pictures, it looks like its covered in repeticious-looking containment mounds that are blocking out many of the key elements of deception whose back drops more then likely had a lot to offer.
Just how perfectly round are those bunkers in the pictures? Have you ever seen Nature emulate that sort of perfect circumference without a single akward crease or crevise? What about the rough grass around them? Where is the look of the raw-rugged force of wind and nature that has shaped this wonderful links?
Or, is this simply just another poor and shoody attempt at building a golf course in Canada with the pristine conditioning with Augusta National in mind, and by a group of business men/developers that were enamored by Mr. Ruddy's accent?
Honestly, I would have thought being around all of those tremendous Irish links would have given Pat Ruddy something to speak about in his work. Instead, what I see along with 4 site visits--a golf course that looks like it was designed from a topo map in Dublin after a visit to Sean McGinnty's Pub.
(Can we just blame it on some bad whiskey please and go about our business?)
Simply put, I would rather travel to Great Britain to play the real thing then this shoddy-looking facsimile. It just doesn't inspire any happy, happy/joy, joy thoughts with-in. After all, isn't that what great golf is all about? In fact, I don't even want to go back and look at the pictures because I might get a bad case of the winds. (gastro-reflex from my behind)
But, if your willing to buy into all of these pictures and the tougher then tough attitude it extrolls, even in the rain; I have some wonderful Ted Robinson courses built on land fills to show you.
Don't forget to steal the barf bag from the airline that brings you down here!