What's with the "Natural"?

[Adam_F_Collins]

Over the past few months of my graduate program, I've been studying the history of pleasure gardens throughout the world.

One thing I find very interesting is the recurring theme of "the natural"; mankind's view of nature, what nature is, the value of nature and his relationship with it.

As you all well know, the natural is a central theme here in this forum. What strikes me is that throughout history, the natural is very often an illusion and not natural at all. It is true nature reflected through a human perspective and value system. Often the appearance of "the natural" is overwhelmingly artificial. One need only look at some of the golf courses out there, which were created by architects claiming the deepest understanding of "what the land offers".

Even the best of today's architects are still creating the artificial. The best they can do is create the best "illusion". Golf is very rarely natural. Just think of how many natural-looking bunkers there are in areas which are not sandy, and their surrounding vegetation shouts it. If one were to be aware of such things - the illusion would be less convincing - no matter how rough it may be in appearance. Yet we declare our sense of taste and education; our identities as "in the know" based our declarations of what the best illusion is.

In many ways, the clearly shaped, manipulated forms are much more honest. They admit the and sometimes even celebrate the intervention of man. But we (myself included) are not as pleased by this honesty.

So I ask myself, and the rest of you - why the natural? Why do we call it that?  Why are we so in love with this Santa Claus?

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Adam,

I like the parallel you make with 'natural' gardening.  It strikes a resonant note here in the UK where the immensely popular TV gardening programmes are obsessed with planting schemes, most notably the various show gardens at the big RHS shows.  These gardens are all fashion statements and, therefore, set trends for the next few years.  It's the same in golf.  Dye sticks in a few railroad ties (sleepers) and everybody is doing it.  The success of Bandon and Sand Hills will no doubt lead to more links-style courses, aided and abetted by the very public exposure of Whistling Straits.

And there is another parallel which is that even cottage gardens, butterfly meadows and woodland gardens are entirely artificial and, therefore, need considerable maintenance to prevent their turning into forest.  It's just the same trying to maintain the heather of a heathland course or preventing a links course becoming inland in character.  And can it be done organically?

[Marty Bonnar]

Adam
You've presumably come across the 'Picturesque Controversy' in your studies then? I feel THAT has enormous parallels with what is the current state of GCA.
It's basically the same Natural vs Artificial debate satellite which orbits this Discussion Group with a period of approximately every 14 days...

FBD.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Adam,
Why Natural and Golf?

Because for Golf to work on all levels, nature has to play a part in it both deceptively and strategically to allow for the best, most exciting shots the game has to offer.

Many here will offer that Seth Raynor seemed to do pretty good for making things so geommetrical, or angled as Tom MacWood's latest offering describes. But what usually makes a good Raynor hole (at least from what I have seen of his work, and its a limited portfolio) is that he utilized the natural elements of the land and used them to make the shots work. Even with the unnaturally shaped features.  

As time progressed, Raynor's work would have seemed to have taken a more natural look to it, as seen in pictures from Daniel Wexler's Lost Links and pictures he included of the Biarritz at the Cascades where the bunkering looked jagged and au naturale'.

You have to remember that for many years there was a lot of bad golf courses being constructed out there. These features looked totally out of place and eventually they were destroyed and rebuilt.

A prime example of this is Ananndale Country Club in Pasadena, California where the features looked more like manufactured pits, bumps and grinds, all of which were destroyed and eventually rebuilt into a really interesting golf course that utilized the terrain and the look of the existing area.  Another was Virginia CC in Long Beach, California. Located on what is now the site of Long Beach's Recreation Park Golf Course, once existed a course much like Annandale.

Strategies for these courses were esentially non-existant, the shots to the holes were akin to a equestrian course with all sorts of blind hazards and hoorendous carries over clearly man-made objeects. It didn't work for golf, and it didn't work at courses like Annandale or Virginia either. Ironically, it was Willie Watson who built both of these courses, and eventually it was Willie Watson along with Billy Bell Sr. who would reshape and rework them into the great courses they would become. Only to suffer and devolve into the treed nightmares with loss and destroyed features that they are today.

A golf course doesn't have to have rough and ragged bunkers to look or play natural. It has to embrace the natural features in the routing, the placement of greens, tees and fairways, and especially, the use of natural surface drainage.  This is where so many architects today make their errors--by recreating the site in an effort to make he drainage flow very differently then the natural flow of things. They move hundreds of thousands of cubes of dirt to do so, and when they do, the shaping is less then artistic. Containment mounds are introduced to both confine the holes and to rid themselves of potential liabilities. Concrete is introduced for cart paths and in some cases drainage channels--how unnatural and ugly is that!  It eventually takes away from the scheme of the natural beauty of what a great golf site is all about.

Many will introduce The Lido as a prompt contradiction to what I speak of, but its all heresay. we get enamored withthe history and the uniqueness of the Lido, as well as the characters who designed and built it, but from the get-go, Lido suffered from countless problems as a golf course, both financially and physically. The sea even tried to reclaim her at one point.  While the shots were most definitely there, and the extent of the construction impressive as well as its engineering--it was all far from perfect. It couldn't even over-come the financial burden it took to build it.

This is even when the natural ugliness of redevelopment took place!

[Jeff_Brauer]

Adam,

I see your point - the fact is that every golf course, save a precious few from the early days, is a built environment.  So, why not embrace buiding and landscape modification, rather than blather on about how it is natural.

Tommy,

So many words, so little thought.  I think you are missing the deep thought embraced in Adams post in your typical justification and/or rant for the natural......

Its not a matter of any particular feature, angle, or style.  Its the fact that once you change the landscape for any human purpose, its not natural anymore. Period.  For that matter, no matter how pretty a forest, there is little virgin, untouched forest left anywhere - although perhaps in a remote place like Borneo or something.

So, the question is, if it is altered by the hand of man, why the fantasy that its not?  And frankly, why the insistence that we do as little as possible solely in the name of naturalness, when doing a little more might yield better results for its intended human use?

Of course, I accept the arguments that the more we leave nature the better it looks (generally, although I have seen instances where clearing the trees affords a better view, for example)  The cost arguments, the environmental arguments all have their place.  However,  the end result is whether we have a good golf course, which can be achieved in many ways, all involving the hand of man.

If the product is good, why have a philosophical argument over its naturalness, which is an illusion anyway?

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Breff Jauer,
You ignorant slut!

Trust me when I say this--my terms of using the natural and disguising the work of the unatural to look as if its natural is what my rant is all about. (given its just another rant)  

But its understandable!

Given that representations of au naturale' in Dick Tracy*, Kansas State and Dallas are found on your courses......

*O.K. so that isn't yours! But your the one that alerted me of it!

KS Cougars Go! Go!


Oh yee of little faith!

Adam, trust me when I say this--your on the right path. Chose your destiny and watch out for the Giant Ridge of Paul Bunyon's footprint when you walk around a Brauer course!  

Pet his ox, "Blue" while your at it! I'm sure he'll be represented in a picturesque client-driven waterscape or something!

[DMoriarty]

Adam,

I see your point - the fact is that every golf course, save a precious few from the early days, is a built environment.  So, why not embrace buiding and landscape modification, rather than blather on about how it is natural. . .

Its not a matter of any particular feature, angle, or style.  Its the fact that once you change the landscape for any human purpose, its not natural anymore. Period.  

You base your opinion an specious premise:  Any slight alteration of nature negates the entire naturalness.   To say that 'no course is truly natural' is stating a truism which is inconsequential when discussing the degree to which designers should incorporate nature (or its imitation) into their designs.  Perhaps I should file this one in my "Frightening Things Designers Say" file, right next to your 'build bunkers to suit the tractors' post.

Adam's question is a very good one and I dont have the answer but do have a few thoughts . . .

Part of the reason might be historical.  Around the time that the supposed "golden age" courses were being built, golfing nations were rapidly industrializing.  Perhaps "natural" architecture was a reflection on man's craving to return to nature for at least for a few hours . . . The art and culture of the time reflects similar notions. (See Tom MacWood's excellent opinion piece on golf and the arts and crafts movement.)

Also, I am not as sure as Mr. Brauer that 'man's hand' is as productive as nature, at least when it comes to creating interesting terrain over which to golf.  While Jeff may disagree, there is more to nature's role in golf than pure aesthetic.  Perhaps if designers emulated nature they might stumble into creating better golf courses.  

[Sean_A]

Adam

Perhaps the term "natural" is used for lack of a better word.  It is as if people no longer see "nature" except through the eyes of their own experience of "nature" I don't fully understand the concept of perception, perhaps there are philosophers out there who can detail Phenomonology in a post.
You mention the use of bunkers when they are obviously artificially placed for golfer interest.  There are some clubs which do not have bunkers (Royal Ashdown Forest and Kington).  Given their terrain, it may make sense artistically and practically not to use bunkering.  However, are these courses the better for it?
For me, there seems to be something inherently attractive about bunkers.  Though I can easlily admit that many bunkers offer little to the design or aesthetics of a course (my club being guilty as charged).  All that written, there is no doubt in my mind that a great course can be made of a good course by the bunkering.  Woodhall Spa is a prime example!

Ciao

Sean

[T_MacWood]

Adam
Well said. There are three things relating to golf architecture that I've thought about that fit in with what you just wrote.

1. Purely natural features are always more intersting than anything the golf architect attempts to create.

2. Architects the rely heavily on genuine natural features seem to be better able to create natural appearing man-made features when called upon.

3. Clearly artificial or engineered features contrasted with outstanding natural features creates a very interesting aesthetic.

The common denominator with all three is the importance of Nature. The less you fool with an interesting natural site (and the more you utilize the interesting natural features) the more interesting the finished product will be. The desire create hyper natural golf courses is a problem IMO, and might be attributed to the study of LArch. Did RTJ get this trend strarted?

[ForkaB]

There are two principle elements of "nature" in this context--the ground and what naturally grows in and on it.  Just about all land forms (the ground) are potentially interesting from a golfing point of view.  The success of building great golf courses on indifferent land are myriad.  On just about all pieces of ground, however, it is necessary to plant things which would not naturally occur (at the very least in such "unnatural" symmetry) as is found on a completed golf course.  Pure linksland may be an exception.  Virtually allgolf courses are "unnatural" in most respects.

Mark's point re: UK gardening TV shows is instructive.  On most of them, what the landscaper begins with is an untended piece of ground (i.e. something which has been abandoned by humans and naturally taken over by "Nature").  Without exception, they look like crap!  Nature, you see, has this annoying tendency to dislike symmetry, to like the survival of the fittest, and this generally means weeds and muck and disarray!  The landscape gardener "fixes" this "problem" by adding chemicals to the soil, planting all sorts of pretty but unnatural cultivars, adding paths made from manufactured and imported stone, etc.  What results is often attractive, but is it natural?  NO!

Of course, all of this is moot if you believe (as do I) that man is a part of nature and not some alien force with no right to assert his will within nature, as he best can.........

[Adam_F_Collins]

1. Purely natural features are always more intersting than anything the golf architect attempts to create.

2. Architects the rely heavily on genuine natural features seem to be better able to create natural appearing man-made features when called upon.

The common denominator with all three is the importance of Nature. The less you fool with an interesting natural site (and the more you utilize the interesting natural features) the more interesting the finished product will be.

Tom,

But isn't it possible, (if not statistically more probable) that the "natural" site might not be so great? Particularly since there is increasing demand to build on more difficult sites.

Why do we assume that "nature" will always be better than man? Is it just that we haven't seen an architect imitate it well enough?

And as Rich rightly points out, man is not an unnatural force. And as Jeff suggests, there is little land out there that hasn't already been altered by the hand of man. So isn't it largely an aesthetic quality that we're looking for?

Sometimes I wonder if a lot of it is more about the appearance of "age" rather than nature.

[TEPaul]

Adam Collins, you glorious man, this is a wonderful thread!

Would you like me to call Max Behr and have him come on here and discuss this subject with us? This is his total bag and the fundamentall theme of his extraordinary series of "essays" on golf architecture, "naturalism" and it's relationship to Man, as well as the constant striving of man to standardize things (artifical) to do with golf and golf architecture (and probably most eveything else he comes into contact with).

It seems to me when the idea and theories and techniques of "Art Principles" probably cloaked mostly in the name of "landscape architecture" came in contact with golf its playing fields were off on some journey that departed to various degrees from what Mother Nature herself might perceive as "natural"!  

[Adam_F_Collins]

Yes, Tom bring on Mr. Behr!

Can you point me to some of the articles you speak of? I'd like to investigate them.

[TEPaul]

Tom MacWood said:

"3. Clearly artificial or engineered features contrasted with outstanding natural features creates a very interesting aesthetic.

The common denominator with all three is the importance of Nature. The less you fool with an interesting natural site (and the more you utilize the interesting natural features) the more interesting the finished product will be. The desire create hyper natural golf courses is a problem IMO, and might be attributed to the study of LArch. Did RTJ get this trend strarted?"

Tom MacW:

I believe after a lot of time on here I understand how you feel about those subjects quoted above. "Naturally" I disagree with you to some extent on some of them.

I guess I'd say I believe that clearly artifical or engineered features contrasted with outstanding natural features generally only creates an "aesthetic clash" or "visual dissonance"! I say this despite the fact I've become more used to the engineered look of an architect such as Raynor but also I've definitely come to appreciate better just how well that architecture, at its best, can play. But how it actually looks as an attractive aesthetic is another matter to me.

It was a juxtaposition, I think, originally used only to satisfy the necessities of golf (tees, greens, fairways and sometimes that odd vestige of architecture, the sand bunker where it didn't naturally belong) that took place before architecture and architects advanced to a point when and where they became more proficient and artistic in hiding these engineered looking and artificial looking things! The enginneered and clearly artificial look juxtaposed to raw natural lines was indicative of a time of rudimentariness in an aesthetic sense, in my opinion.

It's hard to know what you mean by 'hyper-natural'. If you mean an exaggeration, I agree with you. I think that "art principles" probably in the form of landscape architecture of the stylized kind most of us know is an exaggeration of a more complete look of Nature herself.

I guess what I'd like to see more of, or a push towards, would be "Ultra Natural" golf architecture where attempts to blend man-made architecture into Nature's own would appear even more seamless than it ever has before.

Certainly that might be hard to do for obvious reasons but I think that's precisely what some of the greatest "naturalist" architects of the so called "Golden Age" were hoping for and dreaming of when technologies may have allowed them to do it better.

[T_MacWood]

Adam
"And as Rich rightly points out, man is not an unnatural force."

I suppose technically that is true...if we start there is there a need for this discusion...have you driven through Newark NJ lately?

"And as Jeff suggests, there is little land out there that hasn't already been altered by the hand of man. So isn't it largely an aesthetic quality that we're looking for?"

That is true...farmland comes to mind, which often pretty interesting. I don't know that much about farming, but my impression is farmers work with the land as opposed to against it. Land that is modified in a haphazard or random way (without a concern for aesthetics or the appearance of "naturalness") is also more interesting than the flowing curves of artificial "naturalness"....promoted by LArch.

If you have a site that lacks natural interest...IMO you have two choices, look for another site or enhance the site to make it more interesting. Obviously the better the site the better the chance the course will be a good one. If you have no choice but to use a featureless site, the architect who prefers to take a back seat to Nature (under normal circumstances) will be better able to manufacture interesting features IMO.

"Sometimes I wonder if a lot of it is more about the appearance of "age" rather than nature."

Only in the sense that we automatically understand hyper-natural features are new.

[TEPaul]

Adam Collins said:

“Yes, Tom bring on Mr. Behr!”

Adam;

As you wish!

Max! Max, are you there? Max, we’d like to speak to you on GOLFCLUBATLAS.com in 2004 about golf architecture and naturalism! Are you there Max?

May it be fairly said, in the premises, that my name has been called? If so, it must be evident, to a greater or lesser degree, that I, Max Behr, am here to discuss with you the art and the constructs of the playing fields of the game, nay, the Sport of golf, and the presence of truth in which we recognize stability and permanence and beauty which rests upon the fundamental---that the lineaments of the earth are a surface revelation of a perfection that lies beneath. Hence, it is fundamental principle that we must search for; that basic principle of all; which, in the degree it is apprehended, points the way to beauty and order, to the law of Nature. It is the consummation of this in design that alone can give to outward expression an inward meaning. It follows that where beauty is lacking there must likewise be a lack of intelligence.

Did one of you queer looking dunderheads attempt to ask a question while I was napping or perhaps even speaking?

[TEPaul]

"Of course, all of this is moot if you believe (as do I) that man is a part of nature and not some alien force with no right to assert his will within nature, as he best can........."

Ah, Rich, that is no doubt very true that man is part of Nature but we must go further in the context of this question of naturalism and golf and ask what a golfer's (as a creature of Nature) innate feeling may be regarding what confronts him in the playing field of the sport. What will he face with less criticism---some obstacle put before him he must overcome but which might trip him up and in some way defeat him that he perceives to be man-made or that he perceives to be part of Nature? We can surely assume that Man is an extraordinary part of Nature, and one that tends to try to control both nature and other men perhaps more and certainly more comprehensively than anything else in Nature.

So the question is what would he face with less criticism?

[Michael Whitaker]

I've seen this Naturally occuring image before...

[Jeff_Brauer]

I've seen this Naturally occuring image before...

Michael,

That paw is the wrong color for this course. And Tommy, first, its the KState Wildcats, not Cougars. Second, while I don't necessarily agree, many locals think its the best hole on the course, simply for its whimsical representation of the KSU logo.......

For my money, there is nothing wrong with a little whimsey.  For the recocd, I think Larry or Roger Packard did the Dick Tracey bunker near Chicago.  I claim credit for the Giants Footprint bunker, and actually wanted to build a series of them suggesting the Giants movement through the landscape, but was shut down by the Owner.  At the Quarry, I shut down his idea of reprising the foot - the joke is only funny once.

As for "natural" it is a matter of degree, and I mostly agree with Tom MacWood - some sites are best left alone, and some just can't do it.  I sensed from some posts that "natural" equates to a certain style of bunker. In the photo above, some would hate the cat paw, but think the bunker back left if more "natural" because of the jagged edge and fescues edging the back. Of course, all were built, not natural, and no bunker could be natural on a clay/rock site like Colbert Hills.  I feel its quite natural in how much Konza Prairie we left outside the play areas.

I also think the trend to built golf courses started way before RTJ - I think it started very early in golf design.  It may have accelerated under RTJ, or in the 90's, but then the rate of change in almost every other aspect of society has, too.

[TEPaul]

Adam:

This thread's subject truly is such a good one. The subject is philosophical of course, probably better labeled metaphysical but perhaps we can even get to some of the real reasons of which and on which that metaphysic is based (on the question of the importance of "nature" in golf and golf architecture). It can probably get to the actual and how we look at that and feel about it (Nature's observable revelations) in a golf sense and an aesthetic sense and just maybe in an even more fundamental sense than those---in the sense of survival which of course sort of is the ultimate sense.

I'd like to start over in discussing the things you said and asked in your initial post. There've been some excellent responses to your initial post but unfortunately, in a way, they are the same old shop-worn descriptions we've all used on here so often.

What's really underneath them--those old descriptions we've all used so long on here? In my opinion, the best way to get to that is to look very carefully at the things that some of our best golf writers had to say on this very subject of the importance of Nature in golf and golf architecture. I've certainly not read everything but from what I have read it seems pretty obvious that the most revealing on this very subject have been Haultain and Behr.

I hope the time has come when the contributors on here will stop just trying to compare which of them was the better writer and that those same contributors will refrain from poking fun at Behr which they constantly do probably more because of his rather bizarre writing style than for what he was actually saying or trying to say.

I'd like to start again and try to analyze this question by letting them (Haultain and Behr) lead us down the road to where some real answers may be. I think Haultain asked the questions brilliantly (in the "Mystery of Golf") and certainly eloquently but Behr seemed to take those questions some steps farther and to try to supply some answers (in his series of essays mostly based on this very subject). We can look at those answers of his to this fascinating question and at that point, of course, it will be for us to discuss and maybe determine if we think his answers are true.

After all, some 80 to 100 years have passed now since they wrote the things they did, which are, in my opinion, the best ever written on this subject you're asking about.

[A_Clay_Man]

Or, Tom, We can just go look at any standard presentation (any American Golf property will do) to see just how forced(unnatural) the maintenance practices really are. No?

[Adam_F_Collins]

I'd like to start again and try to analyze this question by letting them (Haultain and Behr) lead us down the road to where some real answers may be. I think Haultain asked the questions brilliantly (in the "Mystery of Golf") and certainly eloquently but Behr seemed to take those questions some steps farther and to try to supply some answers (in his series of essays mostly based on this very subject). We can look at those answers of his to this fascinating question and at that point, of course, it will be for us to discuss and maybe determine if we think his answers are true.

After all, some 80 to 100 years have passed now since they wrote the things they did, which are, in my opinion, the best ever written on this subject you're asking about.

Tom,

My interest is piqued, but you'll have to quote these gentlemen for my sake, as I've not read their work.

[Craig Sweet]

Hmmm...somewhere in the folds of my brain I recalled some boring lectures in my regional planning class about this concept of "natural" vs. the over bearing hand of man to remake the landscape.  And I seem to recall Jim Kunstler mentioning something in his book The Geography of Nowhere about settlement patterns and "the natural", though he didn't call it that.

http://www.kunstler.com/index.html

I think this issue is one that anyone involved with how people fit on the land, use the land, build on the land,change the land(scape), etc. has to come to grips with.  To what degree will  your work be the natural, reflect the natural (which is not the same thing as being the natural in my opinion), or replace the natural with something else?

Wind and rain and time are constantly changing "the natural". Is this the same as man and the bulldozer moving a hillside?  I think not.

[Craig Sweet]

Adam, golf course maintenance practices are "unnatural and forced" by the very nature of what they are expected to accomplish.

Grass grows whether it be native or imported. Unless you desire natural greens with 3" plus grass (or higher) and fairway grass a foot deep, then the "unnatural and forced" act of mowing is required.

So, yes, you make a good point, no matter how "natural" we think a golf course might be, it just ain't so. Thus, we have to contend with the degree to which it will be unnatural and forced into something it isn't.

[A_Clay_Man]

Craig, I suppose I had in mind more, the symetrical clean edged bunkers, that American Golf introduces to some of it's new acquisitions.
Virtually ruining any naturalness that might have been in place. All for the sake of cost cutting.