Derivative or Original?

[blasbe1]

What hasn't been done before?  There's
not much new and different that even Mike Strantz hasn't
done before.  But if you incorporate good concepts well on a
good piece of property, then you'll have something special.

I thought this issue deserved it's own thread.  

I couldn't agree with Scott more . . . if ancient and modern philosophers have been reforumulating Plato for 2500 plus years why do we expect total originality from GCA.    Originality, it seems to me, is best expressed by the land itself in combination with a classic/minimalist design.  For instance, I've not seen anything quite like Pacific Dunes before or since (I've not travelled across the Pond) and so for me that was quite an original experience.  The bunkering, green complexes, tee complexes, etc., were not created anew out of thin air, but the land itself was quite unique and the design incorporates all that uniqueness.  

While I've only seen photos of Friar's Head, there again appears a very unique tract of land for the North Shore of LI (so much so the environmentalists gave the project tons of grief) and while the bunkering is distinctly C&C, I can't
imagine that the course suffers from any lack of orginality.

Then consider a recent reaction to true originality by this Board to the red clay bunkers at Cuscowilla.  Truely original, never seen before my most I'm sure, and highly criticised publicly on this Board and privately by some of this Board's participants.  

I happen to think that visually they are a great contrast and that while they are playable greenside they are clearly more penal than conventional bunkering.  This penality I welcome because of alternative routes available on most all greensites but many here have problems with them.    

So do we only pay lip service to originality and revert to our comfortable reinforced sense experience when actually confronted with original GCA?  

What are some historic examples of original designs or features and what critical treatment have they received?

[Brian_Gracely]

I made a comment one time about these ultra-exclusive courses and how many of them don't allow early photos of the course to be taken or displayed.  Somebody questioned if this was "fair" and I said that the owner has the right to protect their privacy and the originality of holes by a designer.  Tom Doak came back and said "there are very few, if any, original holes designs anymore" (I wish I could find the thread for the exact quote).  That got me thinking, since he's obviously more clueful than me.  And I think that with today's new courses, as with many older courses, it basically came down to (1) creative routing and (2) how much detail the architects, shapers, landscapers, etc. paid to trying to tie the elements (bunkers, green surrounds, fairway contours, etc.) into the natural environment.  

I can't tell you how many times I walked around Cuscowilla and thought to myself...."you know, I've seen this bunker or this type of hole somewhere else recently".  Heck, C&C even use some of their same techniques on the same course (drive at #4 & #10; hole shape & tree placement on #7 & #12).  

But it's not all that bad, especially if the architect has a large enough bag of experience to draw from and try and incorporate different elements from different places.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Jason, I don't have time to really expound on it right now, but your on the right track. Keep on going! Your getting it!

Think of that picture we did sometime back where we incorporated a shot of Royal County Down as it is, compared to it being "Reesified" and ask yourself what is the best, most thougthful golf architecture.

For me its the nature of the surrounds and the site. The golf shots that lie with-in come from this.

That's GREAT GOLF ARCHITECTURE.

[GeoffreyC]

Jason

I seem to remember that Harbor Town, TPC Sawgrass and Spyglass Hill were all criticised (at least by touring professionals) when they first opened.  Though I'm not the greatest fan of Spyglass, I think they have all stood the test of time.

[Scott_Burroughs]

Then consider a recent reaction to true originality by this Board to the red clay bunkers at Cuscowilla.  Truely original, never seen before my most I'm sure, and highly criticised publicly on this Board and privately by some of this Board's participants.  

Gotta beg to differ.

There are red clay bunkers at my home course, which is 36 years old.  Only a few remain on the course, but some of them were switched over to "regular" sand within the past year or two.  Here in another part of the south besides cental GA, central NC, red clay is the dominant soil.  I could go dig some up in my yard.....

[Mike_Cirba]

Jason;

Since Scott was replying to my contention that Bandon Trails looks pretty derivative, I thought perhaps I should weigh in.  

I'm all for the individual, unique featues of the property creating the distinctions from course to course, but I'm also starting to get the feeling that I could be airlifted onto any C&C course and I'd be able to instantaneously identify it as one of theirs.

That's not about utilizing the natural features on individual sites.  That's about becoming stereotyped and trademarked in the creation of very similar looking man-made features from site to site.  As much as I love the rugged look they seek to create, to use a pop music analogy, they seem intent on churning out C&C's Greatest Hits, volumes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc., without trying something daringly different.

Perhaps that's what the client wants, but we fault Rees Jones for producing a stereotypical look so I just wanted to point this out in terms of fairness.  

[TEPaul]

Jason:

If one is looking for wholly original "concepts" in golf architecture, at least in a strategic sense, that'd be pretty hard to do after all that's been done. And it's probably been that way for a long, long time. It was probably why Macdonald did what he did the way he did it at NGLA. It's certainly very possible to do holes that are remarkably similar in "concept" meaning their strategies and shot values are remarkably similar although noone would know that by just looking at them. So it's much easier to do holes that're seemingly wholly original in look but not in their concepts.

[Scott_Burroughs]

Mike,

I agree with you about C&C's "look" and feel  (Chechessee and Austin GC were built simultaneously, and it's obvious to me, as the features are almost carbon copies), but what about MacRaynorBanks?  Talk about repeating yourself!  Heck, I'd say the same thing about Fazio, at least the several I've seen in the last year or two.  Ross, too.  The things that matters (to me), is which ones are "better".  Which concepts, strategies, and yes, "looks" do you like better?

Weren't there threads in the past saying that Tillie was the only classic architect you couldn't "tell" immediately who it was?  The same applies in modern times, as well, IMO.

[TEPaul]

Mike Cirba:

The thing that really identifies Coore and Crenshaw is their bunkering. All of it is ruggedly natural looking, although the shapes and styles of their bunkering when comparing say Sand Hills to Hidden Creek is very different, there's no question of that, and that was on purpose. The identifying quality of all of their bunkering is ruggedly natural looking, though.

I'd love to see a really good architect attempt to do a course that is without sand sometime, but Coore and Crenshaw I very much doubt would be one of them who'd do that.

I admire great looking sand bunkering as much as the next guy but the fact is sand bunkering is not completely necessary to golf or golf architecture on every site in the world although almost everyone at this point thinks it is simply because it's become so commonly used since almost the beginning as to be assumed to be a necessary standard of golf and architecture.

In my opinion, the architect who could pull off great golf and great architecture by going without sand bunkering would really win the prize for successful originality in my book! Obviously, I feel this should only be attempted on an otherwise great site that doesn't have any natural sand within hundreds of miles of it.

[Mike_Cirba]

Scott;

I think Ross's look changed quite a bit over the course of his career.  A perusal of "Golf Has Never Failed Me" shows the different bunkering styles he utilized over the years, for instance.   He evolved.

Similarly, I think Tom Fazio has quite a wide variety of design looks, from WW Pine Barrens to the Rolling Oaks course on the same site.  I just think he often focuses on "the look", whatever it might be, to the detriment of strategy.  I still believe one can detect changes in his style over the years, and Rees Jones is another who's design look has evolved.

I think any artist (and I believe golf course architects are artists in that they try to create man-made structures that are reasonably permanent and meant to enhance beauty and function of a site) either needs to grow and change or risk becoming stale.  To continue with the pop music theme I seem stuck on today, if the Beatles had just continued churning out "Love Me Do", and "I Want To Hold Your Hand", wonderful little pop ditties admittedly, through the remainder of their career they would not be held in the esteem they are today.  No, instead they stretched boundaries, took chances, and set trends.  

[TEPaul]

I'll tell you an architect who's look changed as dramatically as anyone could possibly imagine, and to the far end of originality too---Desmond Muirhead---and look where it got him!  

[Scott_Burroughs]

if the Beatles had just continued churning out "Love Me Do", and "I Want To Hold Your Hand", wonderful little pop ditties admittedly, through the remainder of their career they would not be held in the esteem they are today.  No, instead they stretched boundaries, took chances, and set trends.  

...started taking hallucinogens....not that their music suffered....

The two Fazios I saw this year were both built very recently on moderately severe sites, and were very similar in look.

My reference to Ross similarities likely were built in the same time period, but he built so many, it's not hard to see similarities.

Many architects have "phases" at different times.  Sand Hills doesn't look anything like the other two C&C's I've played, and those 3 don't look like the pics of FH I've seen.  But, like you said, gotta play (all of) BT to really see....

[Mike_Cirba]

Tom;

Generally, an artist or architect really can't take daring chances until they achieve some track record of superlative successes and have the political capital to expend on trying something new.  In the case of Muirhead, he really didn't have the cache of C&C, nor was his noble experiment really designed to further the art, in my opinion.  Instead, it really became more of a self-involved, fairly vain expression of his own conflicts with the state of the art.  In some ways, he became the self-appointed court jester, simulataneously thumbing his nose at the profession while continuing to work within it.  

I think even Muirhead wouldn't have said that he was trying to chart new avenues for others to tread.  He was trying to make a point.

[Mike_Cirba]

if the Beatles had just continued churning out "Love Me Do", and "I Want To Hold Your Hand", wonderful little pop ditties admittedly, through the remainder of their career they would not be held in the esteem they are today.  No, instead they stretched boundaries, took chances, and set trends.  

...started taking hallucinogens....not that their music suffered....

Scott;

Do you find it ironic that you earlier mentioned the fact that Tillinghast was one of the only architects without an easily identifiable trademark "look"?  

What exactly did he have in that flask?  

[Scott_Burroughs]

Lucy in the
Sky with
Diamonds

I have no idea....

...although supposedly it was all from one of Julian's (Lennon) school paintings....

[Mike_Cirba]

Lucy in the
Sky with
Diamonds

I have no idea....

...although supposedly it was all from one of Julian's (Lennon) school paintings....

Yes, and I suppose those "Whiffenpoofs" and "Snozzwaddlers" that filled Tillie's sketchpads had much the same creative origin.    

[Matt Kardash]

The great movie director Stanley Kubrick once said, "everything has been done before, our job is just to do it a little better."

[Paul_Turner]

Part of this must be down to whether the architect used the same contractor all the time.  I'm sure Ross went through a lot.

The look of Bandon Trails is quite like Hidden Creek, Easthampton, Friars.  And also Pacific Dunes.

But honestly, what style would fit the rugged nature of the site better? I can't really think of any.    

Perhaps some huge bunkers rather than those smaller rugged pots? (Pine Valley wastes?) Or perhaps none at all?  The site certainly looks to have enough roll in it for no bunkers to work.

[blasbe1]

For Originality:  

I like the concept of a bunkerless course, I'd like it more if it were a hazardless course with no out of bounds.  Taken to it's logical extreme, a treeless hazardless course with no out of bounds . . . hmm . . . on the right property that could be amazing.