Who Was the Deepest Thinker?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Of the Golden Age?  And Modern?

I know TEPaul would nominate Max Behr, based on his writings, but others would qualify.  Who gave theroetical issues the most thought, and which of their writings makes you say that?

What about based on work in the field?

[T_MacWood]

That is a difficult question. In my view deep thinking is only as good as the deep thinkers ability to clearly communicate his deep thoughts--that might be where Behr comes up short. Bernard Darwin is the best combination of deep analysis and communication skills IMO. Right behind I'd say Thomas, MacKenzie, Hunter and Horace Hutchinson. And the vastly underated architectural scholar Charles Ambrose.

Modern, I'm not sure. Doak and Hanse are very intelligent, but neither has written much of late. If published material is the measurement Geoff Shackelford would probably win.

[TEPaul]

“I know TEPaul would nominate Max Behr, based on his writings, but others would qualify.”

JeffB;

Of course I would. In my opinion, there’s no question of it. Behr was about ten steps ahead and around the corner from anyone else who wrote about golf and golf architecture, particularly on theoretical issues, as you both say and ask.

 “Who gave theoretical issues the most thought, and which of their writings makes you say that?”

I don’t see how anyone could realistically suggest that anyone gave actual and theoretical issues more thought in writing than Max Behr. I’m certainly not going to rewrite them here or even review them but for anyone whose actually read Behr’s inter-related articles….

1/ Art in Golf Architecture.
2/ The Nature and Use of Penalty
3/ Naturalness in Golf Architecture
4/ The Dilemma in Golf Architecture
5/ The Ball Problem
6/ The Correct Use of Penalty
7/ The Architect’s Canvas and Colors
8/ Natural Golf and Legislation
9/ Blindness
10/ The Use of Sand

…..could scarcely say otherwise.

Others who I think were deep thinkers and the reasons why I think they are;

A. Alister Mackenzie
   For his observations and thoughts on military camouflage and how he developed that theory and applied it to golf architecture. In a very real sense that was perhaps the best real application of “naturalness” or the perception of it in the entire evolution of golf architecture.

B. C.B Macdonald
   For his original theories on copying, particularly conceptually, and particularly imperceptibly the best principles and concepts of proven holes, parts of them and strategies of them into a single course of 18 great golf holes. That was hallmark and set the pace or the bar for others, not necessarily to copy previous architecture but to produce overall quality in a golf course! Macdonald’s efforts and his writing in attempting to bring to American golf what he referred to as the “spirit of the St Andrews game”, particularly within the Rules, should also qualify as some of the deepest thinking ever!

C. George Thomas
   Perhaps the most naturally imaginative man ever to practice architecture or write about it. His ideas on the eventual benefits of half strokes for putts, although on the face of it sounds odd, is unquestionably very deep thinking and would‘ve naturally resulted in greater economy in golf and architecture resulting from much greater latitude on the part of the golf architect to design. Thomas’s experimentations with “courses within a course” is also impressive. I feel that someday that latter application done really well just may produce a golf course that will reach the pinnacle in design.

Modern Day….

I would say Geoff Shackelford is the deepest thinker and writer today. Geoff’s interests are no doubt in what he feels once was so good and the reasons why and he gets to the essences of that better and more completely than anyone writing now. For original essays and writing today, Geoff Shackelford’s are the best, the deepest and the most incisive.    
   

[RJ_Daley]

People mention Geoff as a deep thinker.  I would rather characterize him as a versitile thinker and writer.  We have seen a great deal of work from Geoff that runs a range from whimsical to provocative to artistic.  He has sometimes written with focus on the playing of the game while at other times his major focus has been on golf course design.  He hasn't been shy to take on the corporate/equipment manufacturers nor the promulgators of extravagance who sacrifice the traditional values and conditions that the game was founded upon.  His willingness to speak plainly certainly hasn't endeared him to many powerful factions that call the big shots.  Yet, his voice is heard and advocates for the traditionalist that wants to see the game remain interesting and available to a wide audience.

Where some of the elder writers exceed Geoff, IMO, is simply in writing style.  To that extent, I believe that the golden era writers mentioned have a leg up on Geoff for the simple reason that writing and being educated to write well was more fundamental and formal in those times and resulted in a more literary prose.  I think their writing style made them seem like their thoughts were deeper, or more lofty.  But, in reality they were perhaps just saying things more formally and with the eloquence of their more formally trained era.

Who was the deepest thinker?  Well... let me think a while and get back to you on that.

[Paul_Turner]

Darwin and it's all so crystal clear.  Plus some of his writing are pre 1910...well before the rest.

Ambrose is definitely up there.  He wrote a couple dozen articles in GI (UK) with his bright and beautiful sketches that really get his message across.

[A_Clay_Man]

Maybe Tommy can opine better, but wasn't Desmond Muirhead a deep thinker? Or did he just go off the deep end?

[TEPaul]

PaulT:

In my opinion, Bernard Darwin was probably the most "readable" writer about golf and architecture ever. His original observations, expressions, sometimes describing so well and so voluminously those things that so many experience subliminally with golf and architecture  seems pretty much unsurpassed to me---and he was so prolific for so long. However, as good as he was in that vein, most likely the best, I sure wouldn't put him in the same zip code as Behr for "deep thinking" on golf and architecture.

Charles Ambrose also wrote very well on golf architecture and the analysis of it, probably one of his stongest suits. He was also very readable, but, again, nowhere near Behr for deep thinking on golf and architecture, in my opinion. Ambrose was an excellent golf architecture analyst. I wish we had more like him today.

[TEPaul]

"Maybe Tommy can opine better, but wasn't Desmond Muirhead a deep thinker? Or did he just go off the deep end?"

Adam:

Desmond Muirhead certainly was a deep thinker on golf architecture. Some of his articles some decades ago in "Links", I think it was, were some of the best I've ever seen. He probably did go off the deep end and into areas that didn't even get a chance to pass that old "test of time", in retrospect probably because they were just way too radical and very likely just for that reason alone. Stone Harbor was clearly the most glaring example of that. That's precisely why I wish they'd just left that course the way it was when he built it. At the very least, it showed the outside edge of the spectrum, and was frankly fascinating, at least to me, for that very reason!

[Tom_Doak]

Jeff:

For Golden Age guys, I'd go with Thomas and MacKenzie, for all the reasons stated above.  In the end, both of them were trying to do something very different from what other architects of the day were doing.  Tom Simpson was also a deep thinker.

Among modern architects, I honestly can't say I know of many who are deep thinkers.  Pete Dye puts as much time and effort into his work as anyone, and tries to figure out how to make it hard for the good player ... if that's what you mean by deep.

[ian]

I found Bob Cupp to be very "scientific" in his thought process about how to design golf holes with great strategies. He would definately be someone I concider a deep thinker, and very well versed on strategic design. But I also wonder if this "scientific" approach removes too much chance and feel; which are equally as important to great golf design.

I guess my question is does deep thought = great design?

With Tom's example of Thomas, there is no question it did. I woud say with Desmond Muirhead it did not.

[Jeff_Mingay]

The "deepest thinker" I know in the business today might also be one of the most unappreciated talents - Dave Axland. Dave is a very thoughtful designer, a very capable foreman, and a skilled construction man as well.

Not coincidentally, Dave's been involved with some very exciting projects in recent years. Kapalua, Sand Hills, Wild Horse, Friar's Head, and Bandon Trails.

Oh yeah... and Blackhawk too  

[TEPaul]

Where do I send the check Dave?

[Lou_Duran]

Are the "deepest thinkers" necessarily the best writers?  From my limited familiarity with Behr, he seem to be more the Don Quijote of gca.  MacKenzie, though not a devout follower of what he preached, seemed to have thought out things well and in a practical sense.  He gets my vote.

As for the modern era, how about the originator of this thread?  Despite some questionable green design at a couple of places and constrained budgets, his work is largely entertaining and commercially successful.  He has also written widely and even appeared on television.  A multi-media bloke, this one.  And he is still a young guy with his best work ahead of him.  

[TEPaul]

Ian:

Regarding your post #9, it seems to me someone who simply thinks "scientifically", albeit deeply, about golf course architecture and one who just "thinks deeply" about it may not always be one and the same thing---most of the time it probably isn't.



The very word and idea of "scientific" smacks of formulae, standardization, definitions and exactness and all the things that mad-cap golf architectural genius, Max Behr, referred to broadly as "the game mind of man" in golf architecture which was basically that most everything needed to be defined and exact to more easily identify skill! His analogy, of course, was the defined exactness of a tennis court!

Although, very ironically Behr was almost as good a tennis player as he was a golfer, this is definitely NOT what he thought should ever happen to golf or golf architecture!  

The fundamental reasons why are pretty obvious.

[Scott_Burroughs]

Modern:  Jack Handy, of course.




 

[TEPaul]

"Are the "deepest thinkers" necessarily the best writers?"

Lou:

In my opinion, no, certainly not necessarily. Max Behr, who I really do think was the deepest thinker golf architecture has ever known, and by about ten miles, was most definitely not the best writer. He wasn't a poor writer, exactly, just one who had a very bizarre and labyrinthian writing style. It's the supreme irony, I think, with Behr. What he said was just so fascinating and amazing really but his style of writing was so odd very few seem to be able to understand him or more particularly to take the time to try!

[BCrosby]

It's a shame Bobby Jones didn't write more on gca, because what he did write is remarkable.  

Jones was certainly clued in to architectural issues, but he had the distinct advantage of also being the best player of the era and saw design from the perspective of a world class competitor.

J.H. Taylor is also under-appreciated.

As wonderful a writer as Darwin was, I'm not convinced that he belongs in the top of the class when it comes to archtitectural writing. But maybe I missed his good stuff.


Bob

[ForkaB]

If we're talking about golf in general, Haultain is unequalled by anybody mentioned so far (even Darwin who, while by far the best writer of all of them, was more anecdotal than "deep").

[Jeff_Brauer]

Lou,

To paraphrase that modern deep thinker, Socrates E Paul, "Where do I send the check?"  Certainly, my reason for participating here, and my 'Crap on Cybergolf" series are both attempts for me to excersize the mind on theory of design.  

I tend to agree with Tom Doak, thinking Thomas in the Golden Age and Dye in the modern.  They have a good combination of writing (or with Pete, speaking) about theory and also executing.  In a way, Fazio is a deep thinker, because while the idea of using technology to conquer less than ideal sites didn't start with him, he leapfrogged so far above what was done before that its almost a new idea.

Perhaps the deepest thinkers are the best promotors - not only because the stir up the budgets to allow great ideas to be built, but probably because promoters think big in general, which tends to go hand in hand.  It occurred to me last night that many struggling architects probably think they are deep thinkers.  But, if they thought even more deeply, they might realize that they really aren't as deep as they think they are.  Of course, a zen master would tell you that you can't be deep, if you think you are deep......

Socrates E Paul -

I have trouble agreeing with C.B. "There will never be a good new idea in GCA" MacDonald as a deep thinker, for obvious conceptual reasons.  I also side with RJ on Geoff S - While I love reading his stuff, and have learned tons, the biggest body of his work is interpreting thoughts of others for a new generation, is it not?  By the definition I was going for here, I'm not sure that valuble writing would qualify, but I could be wrong.

Ian -

Having spent a lot of time with Bob Cupp, I concur he is a deep thinker on many issues relating to golf design and otherwise.

I also agree that the little Bobby Jones wrote on golf design was great.  For the era, he was marvelously clear and succint.

[BCrosby]

Rich -

You make a good point about Darwin. He didn't seem comfortable talking in the abstract. He avoided talking about "strategy" or similar notions in isolation. But then he was writing newpaper articles.

His insights flow more out of stories. Along the lines of "When Vardon foozled his mashie, it caught the face of the artfully placed Strath bunker."

Bob  

[TEPaul]

Rich:

I think you're right that Haultain was a very deep thinker regarding not just some very fundamental things and principles underlying golf architecture but other ancilliary things that are frankly even more interesting (below).

I get a real sense that it may have been Haultain or reading Haultain that got Behr on the track in which he eventually went---ie after-all Haultain wrote well before Behr's defining essays.

However, it doesn't appear to me that Haultain came anywhere near actually delving into things as deeply as Behr did later. Haultain was very poetic about some of the aspects of golf and architecture, was even prescient about warning of the dangers of artificialities in architecture and in some ways he implied the effects of it all on the human mind and a golfer's sensibilities but Behr went much farther and created a whole series of interconnected essays to explain exactly why those things actually were and perhaps are--not just what they were but why man would feel the way he thought they did about them. To me, that's much deeper thinking.

[ForkaB]

Tom

Haultain didn't really have much to say about GCA per se, which is why I prefaced my remark with "If we're talking about golf in general."  To me, he was interested in the essence of "golf," in a humanistic and philosophical sense, and his thoughts on this were clearly (if esoterically) expressed.

Behr, on the other hand, seemed to be interested more in creating taxonomies about golf and its architecture, even where no obvious candidates for such existed (or exist).  As a result, he often got himself into reductio ad absurdum cul de sacs (e.g. "sports" vs. "games").  This inability to think with clarity means to me that he was less deep than out of his depth (and also explains why he was and is so hard to understand).

[TEPaul]

"Behr, on the other hand, seemed to be interested more in creating taxonomies about golf and its architecture, even where no obvious candidates for such existed (or exist).  As a result, he often got himself into reductio ad absurdum cul de sacs (e.g. "sports" vs. "games").  This inability to think with clarity means to me that he was less deep than out of his depth (and also explains why he was and is so hard to understand)."

There you go again, jumping at some big conclusions using your middle-school existentialist mindset. What you call toxomomy was some really fascinating a priori reasoning on Behr's part. There was nothing ad reductio absurdum at all about what he wrote---it's simply that you can't and probably never will be able to understand it.

Haultain did begin early on to scratch the surface of some things that had depth but all he really did with his writing was give golfers such as yourself a warm and cozy feeling sans any really explanation why. The flag is a fairly important thing in golf Rich, but there's more to it than that!  

You really should get around to admitting, one of these days, that when you can't understand something you really should try to stop simply and automotically labelling it either pompous or absurd. Afterall it may not be that terrible a thing to just admit you can't quite understand him. The fact that you refuse to make the effort to read what he wrote (or at least what's now available in its entirety (which is pretty necessary) may have something to do with that. At least for your sake, I hope it does.

[T_MacWood]

Perhaps deep wouldn't be the best description of Darwin's architectural writing, insightful would be a better term. Throughout his career he probably touched every aspect of golf design at least once. For example these titles:

Modern Golf Architecture
Undulations
Copying Holes
The Most Difficult Hole in the World
The Future of Cross Bunkers
Triangulation
Are Bunkers Too Easy
Unnatural Hazards
On Water Hazards
Burns
American and British Golf Architectue
Indistrucability (John Low)
Tees in the Distance
The Amateur Architect
Temptation (George Thomas)
An American Critic (Robert Hunter)
Short Holes
Best Holes
Our Golf through American Eyes
Golfing Ideal of America

Not to mention articles on Pive Valley, NGLA, Lido, Cypress Point, Havana and most of the great courses in the UK. As well as architects Simpson, Colt, MacKenzie, Alison, Hutchinson, Hutchison, Abercromby, Travis and Macdonald.

[Phil_the_Author]

In what sense is the question asked? Deep, in what way(s)? Most prolific writer? How many not only of his time, but since, have written more than Tillinghast, who's golf writings span over forty years? Is it the breadth of golf topics? Again, Tilly wrote & commented on courses, holes, ideas for holes, bunkers & hazards of all types, grass, trees, greens, green entrances, poetry, competitions & championships, gossip, etc... the list is nearly endless.

Unknown to but a few, Tilly started giving lessons after the debacle over his amateur status in the teens. Among those who visited his home in New Jersey for talk & swing analysis in the 30's were Bobby Lones & Ben Hogan. In fact, he made a movie of Hogan's swing that the two of them spent time analyzing frame-by-frame.

Is "deep" asked then in the sense of topics non-golf related as well? Tilly wrote about social issues and politics, as well as being greatly interested in the theatre & shows, classical music, motion pictures, etc... For about a ten year period, from about 1912-22, he & Lillian used to have students from Penn University visit his home on Saturday evenings for lively discussion & debates on the issues of the day - in fact one of them, Philip Brown, married his daughter.

Though I'm not sure that Tilly was the deepest of all the golf giants of his time, certainly no one was MORE prolific in range, volume or opinions than he.