mountain lake club

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

If you look at vintage photos of Raynor and Macdonald's work - especially those in the 'Evangelist' - it appears to me that their bunkers had a more irregular outline, not nearly as clean and linear as these bunkers. Another intersting example is their sketch of the nine hole practice course in 'Scotland's Gift', the lines of those bunkers are broken.

[TEPaul]

A couple of friends (who I want to remain unidentified) emailed me saying some of the things I may have said about the look of ML's recently restored bunkers may be a bit harsh and although they agree they didn't want to upset anybody they know that may be involved in any way.

I definitely don't want to upset anyone either and I hope I didn't with what I said. I felt, though, that I wasn't even critical of the ML bunker look--I was just trying to make a couple of points and ask a question or two;

1. Did Raynor really built bunkers quite that geometric?
2. Even if he did, or particularly if he did, I find it very interesting in the evolution of architecture as to why he did and I would hope others would find that interesting too and start to ask detailed questions about it. The primary thing I wanted to say, though, was let's admit it was very different  and find out why that was so--even if just part of those vast differences in look back then was the highly engineered look of Raynor.

I've probably played a dozen or two of MacD/Raynor's courses over the years and actually sort of grew up on two of them. I like them very much. The primary reason is they all play so consistently great. They're fun and thoughtful and challenging.

But I look at architecture in two ways--the way the course plays and the look of it.

The look of Raynor's (and some of MacD's) architectural features has fascinated me since it really is remarkably different in many ways in look from much of the architecture whose look I truly do admire the most which is generally a far more rugged and natural look, certainly in bunkering.

And I do resist those analysts who seem to say somehow  Raynor's engineered, linear and maybe geometric bunker look actually utilizes the small, medium and large "lines" of nature (depending on those lines on various sites). I can't remotely agree with that with a lot of what I've seen from him. And if he built ML's bunkers like the restoration of those bunkers I definitely can't agree.

But by not agreeing with that I don't mean to pan it either because I like all kinds of things in architecture, just some things a bit more than others for various reasons.

The look of bunkering is certainly important to me although it appears to many other analysts, and even very fine analysts, that it might not matter that much. To some it appears only the placement and function of bunkering in a strategic sense is all that matters. But I'd have to ask, again, how would you like the look of Cypress Point with a style of bunkering like what you see on this thread at Mountain Lake?

And to be completely honest about bunkering I even feel that the look of bunkering like Cypress all though just amazing is  even slightly "stylized".  But even with that it seems to be done in such a way that it really mimics nature.

I would have to say also that the most natural bunkering I've almost ever seen anywhere which to me I think has to be somewhat rugged or random looking to look natural happens to come from some current architects--definitely Doak, Hanse and Coore and Crenshaw. I've heard others like Mike deVries does it too but I've only seen photos.

I can't imagine that random rugged bunkering has ever been created quite so well and quite so quickly as I've seen at Pacific Dunes, Sand Hills, Inniscrone, Applebrook, Friar's Head etc.

I love the playability and look of those types of bunkers and I love the playability of Raynor bunkers too. It's just the look of them that fascinates me and interests me because it is so different from say MacKenzie, Colt, Alison, Tillinghast Thomas, Flynn and a number of Raynor's contemporaries who seemed so dedicated to getting away from anything that looked "geometric" or even man-made.

He seems to be the one well known architect who stuck with that highly engineered and now maybe even "geometric" look that even his original partner didn't seem to like.

Why was that---that's all I want to know? I think I do know, but I'm interested as can be in what others think and know. All I don't want to hear is that there're really isn't a vast difference or even a difference at all.

And once the difference is admitted a discussion of what it means in the early evolution of Ameican architecture would be great to have.

[Will E]

You should also know that the course has resisted pressure to overseed. It was completely browned out, the greens too. That said, the course is in amazing shape and the greens rolled as well as any. The bunker work fit in very well, and reflected the style of all of the Raynor and McDonald work I have seen. The green work is also very geometric and follows many of the same lines that the bunkers do. It fits. How would it look at Cypress Point? Probably as bad as the bunker work at CP would look here, it would totally throw off the theme of the design. Do you think the work at ML is a departure from what CBM has created? From what I've seen SR and CBM use more straight lines on courses than any of the other architects mentioned.

[TEPaul]

"It fits. How would it look at Cypress Point? Probably as bad as the bunker work at CP would look here, it would totally throw off the theme of the design. Do you think the work at ML is a departure from what CBM has created? From what I've seen SR and CBM use more straight lines on courses than any of the other architects mentioned."

Shooter:

That's a pretty good point. But the question is did Raynor really get that geometric anywhere--even Mountain Lake? Maybe he did because apparently some of his other "flat site" courses and architecture is pretty geometric, like Yeaman's Hall.

But I grew up at Piping Rock and frankly I never really thought of that course as particularly "geometric" although the engineering of certain aspects of the architecture was obvious but that's very true too on many of the early Ross courses as well as some of Travis and many of the very early ones. I've never thought Fishers Island seemed particularly engineered looking or geometric either but maybe that's because he had such interesting ground to work with there.

But Raynor was more engineered looking and now maybe even geometric and never seemed to evolve from that basic style  like the rest clearly seemed to.

I agree, I can't imagine Cypress with any of that engineered or geometic bunkering on it but you have a good point that Mountain Lake would probably look pretty odd with anything like the Cypress bunkering on it too. However, I look at the reason for that as not really the theme of the architecture, I look at that as more the overall flatter and low profile look of that site which is the flatter Florida look. Although the name Mountain Lake seems sort of incongruous. Frankly the word mountain in Florida seems incongruous.

[SPDB!]

Tom - it might just be that these bunkers are employing a bit of GCA trompe l'oeil that makes the surrounds appear puffy, and this just may have something to do with the flatness of the property. the bunker floors appear to be roughly on the same level of the turf, and the surrounds (even the near edges) seem to be built up. This is clearly evident in the front redan bunker.

I haven't quite figured out what seems so out of place w/ these bunkers, and, to me, it is certainly not their geometrical shape because such a style is patently Raynor.

Mountain is a pretty relative descriptor since the Bok tower gardens are the highest point in Florida - gives you an idea of how flat it is. But ML does have some pretty good movement (for Florida), the 18th hole capitalizes on it.