Geometric Design and Battlefields

[WilliamWang]

thankfully there are pictures...  

Did anyone read the description of redan in the glossary on civilwarfortifications.com?  Who wrote that Max Behr?  I didn't get much out of that.

[TEPaul]

MB Lewis:

I have no real idea what influence MacKenzie's ideas on camouflage had on Ross but we can certainly always suppose by looking at the evolution of Ross's work too. I was talking to Ron Forse today and he mentioned that Ross basically had three stylistic eras! From seeing much of the span of Ross's career inventory there certainly are real differences from the early work to the later work. It would make sense to me that Ross too was influenced by some of MacKenzie's ideas and perhaps some of his ideas on camouflage in design!

[TEPaul]

Tom MacW:

I certainly wouldn't argue with what you said in your last post about some of the "geometrics" in nature itself! That certainly may be a fact!

However, I really do look at the evolution of architecture and it's stylistic eras as more of a functional necessity and a process of ongoing thought and education amongst the progression of architects involved in that evolution.

The time I'm talking about--late 19th century and early 20th century was one when architecture (man-made architecture) was young and growing and I really can't imagine that the thought of the geometrics in nature of the Rocky Mts or whatever would have occured to those architects in even the most remotest sense!

[TEPaul]

Lynn Shackelford:

Don't let the Behrian language in the definition of redan throw you! It really doesn't matter that much--the best means of attack is still the soft draw that lands just left of the putting surface and filters on!

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

Your last paragraph has to do with intent and that is totally different story. I'm simply identifying a aesthetic paradox (the same paradox found in nature), I'll let you figure out why they built their features to look the way they did. I suspect they thought they looked good and provided interest. Certainly Langford and Alison (and Raynor) were well aware of designs that attempted to meld everying gracefully and chose to do it a different way.

There is a huge difference between the geometric work of the late 19th C. and the work of Raynor, Langford, Alison, etc. The dark age designs followed a strict formula of crossing ramparts at regular increments, with features - bunkers and greens - of identical size and shape. Usually on flat uninteresting sites.

The Raynor, Langford, Alison courses embraced nature, maximizing the use of natural features within the design of each hole - setting up the juxtaposition with their engineered features. And although there features were angular there is an element of irregularity.

[Rich Goodale (Guest)]

Lynne S and Tom P

It wasn't Behr writing up "redan."  The definition is the same in any dictionary or encyclopedia (except those focused on golf, of course).

The characteristic "redan" feature in military fortifications is the "front end," i.e. the shape of the ramparts facing the attacking forces.  The "Redan" golf hole at North Berwick was so named because of it's front end, which resembles such a fortress and NOT becuase of the green itself.  It was named by soliders who had seen such fortifications in the Crimean War.

CB took the name of the hole and one of its characteristics (front to back, right to lift sloping green) to define what HE meant by "Redan", in golfing terms only.  It has little if anything to do with what the 19th century militarists were thinking when they invented the concept!

[TEPaul]

Tom MacW:

That's a good distinction you made in your last post that you're simply identifying an aesthetic paradox but I'm trying to get at architects' intents and to discover why they built their features to look the way they did at any particular time.

I certainly am trying to do that! That very thing is certainly one of the most interesting aspects of all about architecture to me! Trying to track the evolution of design and why and how and certainly when things evolved and changed the way they did is simply fascinating to me. Who may have influenced whom, why things looked as they did in a particular era and how things evolved in construction and look and style from say NGLA to the late 1920s etc.

It's certainly true what you say that a rudimentary true "geometric" era in America immediately preceded NGLA and that apparently was the very thing that inspired C.B. MacDonald to conceive of and build NGLA, simply because what he saw being done in America previous to NGLA completely turned him off! The prevalent geometric courses he saw being done was the reason for that famous quote of his wholly denigrating what he found in America previous to NGLA!

But if he was so turned off by it why then are there so many vestiges of man-made looking features in NGLA itself--some clearly geometric?

That I think simply has to do wth architecture's evolution to that time--to that point (1910)! And clearly there's another reason, in my mind.

That is that MacDonald was the first American to return to Europe and scour the courses there for the best and most interesting holes and architectural features! Certainly doing that he was going to find architecture that was even earlier and would logically have many examples of golf features that were truly man-made in look!

I see nothing abnormal, bad or wrong about that at all and I think that's proven by the irony of Pete Dye doing almost exactly the same thing about 70 years later. It's no secret that Pete became fascinated not just by what was natural on the old European courses but probably much more so by the rudimentary architectural features (man-made) done by the very early European architects! It's of real note that Pete even became known for his use of things like railroad ties, clearly a close connection to the old rudimentary man-made "sleepers" used on some of the earliest European bunkering and clearly extremely man-made looking and anything but natural looking!

So, yes, I surely am interested in their architectural intents, just as much as I am by where they were in the evolution of architecture and what they knew at that time and what they didn't!

And so the transition, rather quickly from the look and style of NGLA to some of the apparent influences and thinking of say Alister MacKenzie and his ideas on camouflage (which I certainly feel was to truly "tie in" man-made features with natural ones) are also very interesting to me (and certainly in it's intent)!

You also mention or ask why then did the likes of Banks, Raynor, Langford etc continue on with the basic look of say NGLA in their subsequent work?

That too is a very good question and one I think has a fairly clear answer!

Things were changing and evolving quickly in architecture but no one would deny that the look and style of NGLA was very significant in the evolution of American architecture--the course was extremely famous and of note, in other words--and those architects simply carried on with it! I guess in today's parlance it would be; "Why mess with a good thing, a known commodity and product if it had become so popular?"

Some think a course like NGLA with its look and style is a relic, an architectural curiosity in a sense! Not me--I think it's still very valid for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which is it represents a significant milestone in the evolution of American architecture despite the fact that the art may have quickly moved beyond it in numerous ways in look and style.

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

TE
Was Macdonald's rejection of the crude early golf work in America a result of what had taken place a decade earlier in the UK? Couldn't it be argued that the reason Macdonald, Raynor, Alison (in contrast to his mentor Colt) and Thompson created angular features was because they appreciated the bold angular features found in nature (or at the least simply liked their bold look). I don't think there has been architect with better eye for the natural and the aestheticly pleasing than Stanley Thompson (MacKenzie himself acknowledged as much), however his features exhibit a distinctive sharp angular quality.

How do you differentiate between the work of MacKenzie 1907-1925 (Alwoodley, Moortown, Seaton Carew and Melbourne) and his work in America 1926-1933 and if there is a difference, what do you attribute it to?

I believe Raynor was a singificant influence on Dye. I would disagree that old weathered sleepers don't look natural, but I also believe those old weathered stone walls at North Berwick and St.Andrews look natural. They are original and traditional to the game. The Golf Club - probably Dye's first great design - was one of the first (maybe the first) to utilize railroad ties, old telephone polls and even old railroad cars. It was a rural location that featured miles and miles of telphone lines/poles and railroad tracks. The interesting aspect of the design is how natural and low profile that it is - in comparison to some of his other work. It just sits there on the gently rolling terrain (mostly open), greens that lay on the ground, native grass, streams and bunkers that feature brownish/tan sand - the course appears as if it could have been laid out by Colt or Fowler. Other than Sand Hills, my vote for the best naturally integrated modern golf course would be The Golf Club.

[TEPaul]

Tom:

I read your post. I just don't have time now to get into this in more detail--wish I could.

I completely stand by my last post though! I do believe in the evolution I've cited! I'm not sure exactly what the differences of opinion are between us! Not real sure what your point is! For some reason I do think though that you're trying to make more out of naturalism in early architecture than is there. To me the evoltution of it all is the fact of it all and the truth of it all!

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tom MacWood,

Wasn't Prestwick and the penal nature of Scottish golf the source of Pete Dye's use of railway ties and penal features in his early courses ?

[Mike_Cirba]

Patrick;

Yes, Prestwick was clearly an influence, but I would argue that Dye's more recent designs are probably generally more penal than his early work.  I'm thinking of courses like Mystic Rock, Bulle Rock, Whistling Straits (Irish), Barefoot Resort, the much debated courses in Southern California whose names are escaping me at this late hour, TPC of Virginia, Ocean Trails, and probably others I can't think of.  

It seems that Pete has generally added extreme length to his original mix of generally short courses that were exacting.  Many of them stretch to over 7,300 yards, and his feature have grown deeper, steeper, taller, and more extreme over the years.  He risks becoming a parody of his former design style.

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

TE
A couple of points, I think you may have the chronology confused. Who did what and when. The majority of Raynors most famous designs occured in the 20's and two of MacKenzie's greatest design occured before 1910. There is a tendency to discount that the genisus of the evolution was in London. And in looking back there are a number of examples of nature inspired golf course archictecture - from Raynor to Macdonald to Alison to Ross to Thompson to Colt to Simpson to Thomas to MacKenzie to .... All unique, and all equally interesting, but all inspired in some way by nature. (Perhaps they don't all meld in to the land when viewed from behind, but when viewed from the front they are quite pleasing)  Its not unlike like comparing Wright to Maybeck to Lutyens to Sullivan to Price to Voysey to Gill - wildly different, but all shared a similar philosphies.

Pat
I think you are correct that Prestwick inspired the use of ties, or perhaps Brancaster or Rye or Westward Ho! I wouldn't describe his early work as penal. There is only one bunker at The Golf Club where ties are involved - maybe two. They deliniate the rough on another hole - a kind of a cape feature. And shore up the creek on a hole or two. But the course is suprisingly low profile and natural, and much more strategic than penal.

[Eric Pevoto]

Count me as another who, on frequent drives through Valley Forge, imagines golf holes running through those valleys.

It seems like there are two aspects to this idea:

One is the placement of the hazard and such in geometric forms (the photo in Geoff Shackelford's Golden Age comes to mind).  I like the battlefield analogy a lot.  Also, I believe on GCA, I think I've seen comparisons to the formalized gardens as opposed to the more "naturalistic"? ideas of landscape architects such as Repton.  

The second is the shape of the features and the relation to their surrounds.  I have to wonder if many of those angular features were (and are) simply the function of building as economically as possible.  It takes more time and man-power to tie-in the edges.  

Also, I wonder, with more elevation changes in a site, the more likely these angles are to occur.  French Creek can be rather severe in places and Gil and the guys have some really interesting angular stuff happening.  On the other hand, I'm guessing a place like Yeaman's Hall is very angular on a relatively flat site.

I do think that aesthetically the straight-lined angular features create drama.  As Tom MacWood said, they are "striking" and I think this has a great psychological impact.  Maybe not as scary as those fort and rampart builders wanted them to appear, but stirring nonetheless.

Also, I can't think of one benefit to hiding features as one looks back from green to tee.  Somebody help me.

[TEPaul]

Tom MacW:

Again, I really do believe in understanding the evolution of architecture in regards to how the man-made features looked at any particular time in that evolution and that certainly does involve the chronology of the architecture.

If I'm confused in that chronology I certainly do want to know about it and where and how I'm off in that chronology.

But again, I'm in no way saying there's anything wrong with the earlier man-made looking and angular features of some of the European architects, Raynor or even early MacKenzie.

You keep mentioning to me that it's quite pleasing looking as if I'm trying to say it isn't somehow. I'm not saying that at all and I never have. I'm simply saying that it doesn't "tie in" with natural grades and grade lines half so well as does some of the later architectural work done, particularly by MacKenzie in the mid to late 1920s and best of all evidenced by Cypress.

And I'm not saying that Mackenzie's early work (or anyone else's) is not good or great--but perhaps it's different in the fact that the architectural (man-made) features do look more angular or far more man-made and tie in less well and less completely than do the features of say Cypress Point which very well may be the high point of all architecture in that regard.

As evidence of this fact even Coore & Crenshaw did a course last year where the bunker features were made to purposely "tie in" less well than features they could have otherwise done.

Why? Because they were trying to pay tribute to an earlier English "heathland" look where the bunker features just did not tie in well. That's why on the basically flat site of Hidden Creek Coore called the look of Hidden Creek's bunkers "ridgy" as they are in the old heathland courses.

They were supposed to look similar to the bunker faces of the early heathland courses that were nothing much more than dirt dug out and thrown up on the ground in front of the bunkers to make the bunker faces! Certainly a man-made look!

All I'm trying to figure out here is when and where the evidence of really "tying in" the man-made features in golf architecture first happened and who it was who most influenced that thinking.

At the moment it looks to me like it was MacKenzie with his novel ideas on military camouflage that may have inspired that "tying in" best!

I'm not even sure at the moment when the Boer War was but clearly that was the time and place that Mackenzie developed his ideas on "tying in" military trenching with natural grade lines and such to hide the fact that those trenches were there at all. If he started doing and applying that philosophy to golf architecture in 1900, 1910 or 1928 at Cypress it makes no difference to me, I just want to know when it first happened to set the first evidence of that fact in the chronology of the evolution of architecture.

Or if someone else like Colt, Alison, Fowler or anyone else started doing it as well and as completely as MacKenzie did it at Cypress Point earlier than that I just want to know when, where and who it was who did it first.

And I'm certainly not saying that most if not all of those early architects weren't interested in the style and look of making their golf features look more like nature itself by "tying in" better--I'm just trying to figure out when and where they were best able to do that.

I think Eric Pevoto said it well above that they may have been interested in doing that, just that earlier in the chronology and evolution of architecture they simply were not able to do it very well--certainly not to the extent of Cypress. That may have been for economic reasons or lack of necessary equipment or some other inability to do it.

And I'd like to hear from GeoffShac on this too because I think he feels as I do that MacKenzie's ideas on military camouflage may have been the first real evidence of trying to completely "tie in" golf features with surrounding grade lines and such. It's interesting if that's so because basically that was MacKenzie's entire point in his lectures to the military on the construction of trenches. And I see from a recent book and a reprint of his lecture that MacKenzie gave that military lecture in 1925!

And the fact that Raynor, Banks, Langford and others continued to construct architecture with far more angular and engineered looking lines much later into the chronology of all this has nothing to do with this. Just because one man, or a few may have been "tying in" far better than previously doesn't mean the everyone jumped on that style and again it doesn't mean to me that one is inherently better or more pleasing than another--just very different!

One of the primary reasons this chronology of "tying in" interests me is the fact that some of those Golden Age architects and writers stated fairly clearly that they hoped for the day when ALL architectural features (maybe even including tees, fairways and greens) could be made to be almost indistinguishable from nature itself!!

They believed that somehow with the use of more modern equipment and construction practices that could happen in some way. How that could be is amazing to conceive of (and it's still hard for me to imagine how that could be) but the fact is, as we all know, that never happened as architecture went forward into the modern age and after the long depression in the business. But that's what those Golden Age architects hoped and dreamed about apparently, but it never happened that way--maybe just about the opposite if you look at the way architecture evolved later.

That's another reason I believe Cypress may be the best example of this (tying in) ever--before or since, in other words.

Eric:

Looking at golf architecture from behing holes and bunkering and such has no real golf purpose that I can think of. It's simply and only an interesting way of analyzing exactly how golf features can be made to "tie in" really well with natural grade lines and such.

[Rich Goodale (Guest)]

TEP, et. al.

While I can easily understand why military fortifications should be camouflaged, and that "tying in" these fortifications into the natural terrain is helpful in this regard, I do not at all understand how this relates to GCA.

For example, having played CPC 2 times this summer, I found that the hazards were very much un-camouflaged.  Some bunkers, to be sure, played a few tricks with one's perception of distance, but to paraphrase the old Tommy Armour line, that line only works once!  Mostly they were out there in front of you, very plain and clear, and the key challenge was in ball striking, not in cogitation.

The last thing that CPC reminds me of is a battlefield, and the fact that Dr. McK was a camouflage expert seems pretty irrelevant to what he did at CPC.   It is, at least to me, rather a tour de force of hte genre of GCA, as practised in the 20's and 30's, with lots of little "follies" (in the architectural sense) which make it such a pleasant place to spend a morning playing golf.

Rich

PS--any replies which tell me to re-read McK or Geoff S. or the complete works of TEP or whatever will be politely ignored.  If anybody has anyting to say on this issue of "tying in" , please try to say it yourself.............

[TEPaul]

Rich:

When it comes to MacKenzie's theories on camouflaging and how he may have applied it to golf architecture (not military trenching in this case) you really have missed the point--and this time I do mean you really have missed it!

Maybe you do want to ignore something written on this thread--suit yourself but if you want clarification here go back and read the second half of my post of 10/2/10:16am.

His ideas on camouflaging were not meant to camouflage the architectural features of golf, like bunkers and such, anything but--just the opposite in fact!!

The ENTIRE point here and the analogy to military camouflage is to NOT USE STRAIGHT LINES when building architectural features!!

The reason is there are not a lot of absolutely STRAIGHT LINES in nature--or let's say in most natural topography! I'm sure you and others might argue otherwise and maybe you're right about that but I'm only trying to tell you what Alister MacKenzie was talking about in his theory on camouflaging!

Tom MacWood may come back and say there are straight lines found in the Rocky Mtes or some other area somewhere in the world of nature but I'm quite sure that MacKenzie may not have been thinking about that when he developed his ideas on camouflaging and eventually applied them to golf architecture!

So for you to understand what this is all about just know that MacKenzie believed in his use of camouflaging theories in architecture that this is ONLY ABOUT not using straight lines in his architectural features and FURTHER that not doing so (using straight lines) "TIES IN" those NONSTRAIGHT lines with the NONSTRAIGHT lines found on the site--found in the natural lines and grades of the site!

In that way, and in that way only he felt the architectural features (man-made) could be made to become more indistinguishable from what was natural and nature itself on that site!

This isn't that hard to understand, Rich! And he sure as hell wasn't trying to camouflage architectural features from the golfer!! Anything but! He was just trying to make them look more like nature by tying them in with nature through the use of nature's lines--nothing more--and how visible they were has virtually nothing to do with this!

[Rich Goodale (Guest)]

Tom

I actually had read your bit about the straight lines/non-straight lines and I thought it was a very good and well articulated point.  I am still flummoxed, however, by the complete reversal in purpose between military defilements, where one wants to hide as much as possible people/weapons emplacements, etc. in order to attack invading soliders, and golf course hazards, which, if they are to fit form and function best (IMO) should be largely visible.

Some of the best bunkers I know don't at all "tie in" to the land form, and many of the ones that do (i.e. many at CPC, Pasatiempo, Tallamore, etc.) may "tie in" but aren't great bunkers by any means when it comes to their contribution to the "playability" function of the golf course.

Eric Peveto makes a very interesting point about driving through Valley Forge and seeing "golf holes."  I beleive him and I hope he believes me when I say that I see golf holes when I am driving down the Central Vally of California along I-5 and see the sand hills of ancient oceans off to the right (heading south).

There was no great battle there, at any time, as there was never was at TOC or Pine Valley or (name the place), but there are golf holes.  To me Mike C's very interesting and creative thesis is right, in the sense that both battelfields and golf courses show the deliberate effect of man on the landscape for a purpose. But......because these purposes were so different, this analogy doesn't have a lot of legs, at least to me.  But, then again, I never saw golf as being a "battle" I have always tried to see it as a game.........

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

TE
I think I understand what you trying to say now. You were just making the observation that Raynor, Langford and Alison did not meld their angular features as well as MacKenzie did in the mid- to late-20’s. At first I thought maybe you were trying to say that there was a chronological evolution from Raynor to Alison to Langford to MacKenzie and that they were incapable or less evolved. You acknowledge that they simply went a different direction.

I also misunderstood how you were characterizing MacKenzie’s work in the late 20’s. I thought you were trying to say that his work was the ideal that everyone was searching for and that the other styles were some how less evolved or flawed.  I think I now understand you saying that MacKenzie’s results were no doubt spectacular, but that doesn’t take away from the other unique styles of that era that produced great results.

I’m not sure I agree with how you characterized the Heathland look. Although there were some similarities in the Heathland, you will also find the work of Colt, Fowler, Park, Abercromby, MacKenzie and Simpson all had their own distinct look. And I wouldn't characterize their designs as simplistic as you stated - some of it was, but the majority was very sophisticated.  If I was searching for the roots of blending architectural features with their surrounds, the Heathland would be the first place I would look.

Any thoughts on MacKenzie’s last designs prior to his death? At Bayside and the Jockey Club (and some at ANGC) he seemed to be experimenting with extremely bold features that appear to be more similar to Raynor and Langford than his late 20’s style.

[Mike_Cirba]

Rich;

I believe you're making the classic mistake of trying to impose your understanding and philosophy of what a golf course should be to the question, rather than trying to understand historically where the state of the art was in the late 1800's, early 1900's.

Tom Paul has a theory that to accurately understand the evolution of architecture, one has to try to purposefully strip away modern concepts and understandings and try to put themselves into the historical perspective of the time being discussed, and I agree with him.  

For instance, you may not view golf courses as analogous to "battlefields", and that is a perfectly valid modern viewpoint, but it does not negate the fact that the early designers quite often did, apparently.

The earliest courses tended to be very penal in nature, especially when measured against the somewhat crude implements of the time that players used.  Most of the "features" tended to be "crossing hazards", most often in the straight-line, abrupt geometric forms that I mentioned in my battlefield analogy.  

In a very true sense, the early architects built these features not so much to create "strategy", or a "pleasurable game" as we think of it today, but more so to DEFEND the target against the assaults of the golfers, very much like the ramparts, trenches, abruptments, and other battlefield features were meant to protect a target against the assaults of "approaching" bullets and cannon balls, as opposed to golf balls being "fired" from clubs.

What's more, I suspect that many of the earliest engineers involved in golf course building and who were familiar with building earthen defenses got their training through military service, and when it came to golf, they essentially built what they knew.  

[TEPaul]

Tom & Rich:

It only makes good sense in trying to understand anything about history--anything from the past, and certainly the evolution and chronology of golf architecture--to attempt to strip away from the time you're studying anything that came after it!

We have the luxury of understanding what came after that time (the time were're studying) but clearly those architect's that were working in that time did not have the luxury of understanding what was to come after them! All they could do and did do (some of the Golden Agers) was dream of better and more interesting times to come after them in architecture!

Rich:

I did my best to describe to you MacKenzie's theories on camouflage and how he applied it to golf architecture. I think you're close to putting the concept and analogy together but I suggest that you read for yourself MacKenzie's own lecture on the subject and then it should become crystal clear to you how it applies to golf architecture and how that's very different (in some ways) from a military application of camouflage!!

[Rich Goodale (Guest)]

Mike

I'm not at all trying to impose my ideas onto what was in the minds of the designers of the past, I'm just trying to use what I do know to try to understand what they did and why they did it, just as are you.  Getting back to your original thoguhts on this post, I personally beleive that the reason early golf course developers did not try to emulate linksland is because they did not have any to work with, and with 19th century technology (even 21st century technology) it was virtually impossible to recreate the characteristics of a true lnks course!  So, they built hazards where ther were none, naturlly, and either tried to blend them into nature (the Dr. MacK philosophy) or showcased them as works of man (the Raynor/Banks philosophy).  This is all very simplistic, but so is a lot of what we tlak about on this site!

All I'm arguing is that the military analogy is probably valid, to a degree, but just to a degree.  Surely MacK had such an influence, because of his training and experience, but I wonder how valid is your assumption that battlefields were very much in the mind of most people in the latter part of the 19th century.  From my reading, not that much.  Perhaps being so close to Valley Forge has influenced you!

Virtually all that I know about early golf is that people did see it as a game and the course as a playing field.  This inlcudes my grandparents who taught me the game and learned to play before 1900 (see how close to history I really am!).

Nevertheless, I'd be interested to see this explored further, and by further I do not mean re-reading The Spirit of St. Andrews for the umpteenth time to try to glean some as yet lost glimmer of insight.  I often wonder, in fact if we might not have been better off if that manuscript had never been found, and even wonder sometime that it might actually be a hoax, a clever forgery placed in an attic to be found so as to mislead us as to the true Spirit of golf.........

I am of course kidding, I think......

TE Paul

I told you not to tell me to re-read stuff!  You are a naughty boy!

[TEPaul]

Rich:

Obviously you don't want to read things to do with this but I guarantee you that you'd have a better understanding of this if you read MacKenzie's ideas on trench camouflage for yourself instead of asking us to explain it to you.

There seems though, to be two parallel points going on in this thread and they probably have little connection although you seem to be trying to make them connect somehow.

One, Mike Cirba's, as to how military thinking may have influenced early golf design--maybe the penal style of the very early period of the late 1800s and some of the American early geometric style that was considered essentially penal.

The second, and basically unrelated  point I'm trying to make about MacKenzie's ideas on camouflage is entirely different  from what Mike is saying--entirely different.

MacKenzie's ideas on military camouflaging was to hide trenching from enemy awareness. To do that Mackenzie only believed that the trenches had to use the natural (non straight lines) of nature to "tie in" the trenches with nature so the enemy would be far less likely to identify them!

In this way MacKenzie did not mean to "tie" in his golf features with nature to make them LESS VISIBLE--he ONLY meant to "tie in" his golf features (using non-straight lines) to make his golf features LOOK MORE NATURAL!! Just forget about the less visible part in MacKenzie's camouflage application to golf architecture--that was not the point he was making in golf architecture!

That's the only analogy between MacKenzie's ideas on trench camouflage and golf architecture, so as it applies to my point just forget about a military application (one of a battlefield) and golf architecture ENTIRELY!!

[Eric Pevoto]

I wonder if we aren't giving this camouflage idea more thought than even Mackenzie did.  

The other aspect of this is that the crude, angular trenches could be left as decoys to grab the enemy's attention and direct it away from the actual target.

Perhaps Mackenzie saw tying in the features and using more natural lines as a more evolved method, but it would seem even more sophisticated to use both angular and natural lines for psychological effect.  

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

MacKenzie was not the first theorist to criticize the straight line in golf architecture, that was Horace Hutchinson in the late 90's. From what I understand of MacKenzie's Boer-influenced theories on camouflage the ability to hide by making the entrenchments indistinguishable from nature was only part of the strategy. The other part was to create empty entrenchments that stood out, that were more less decoys to draw the enemy into a position of weakness. A psychological ploy to dictate the movements of the enemy. The Boer influence on MacKenzie's golf architecture had to do with strategic thought - but perhaps I misunderstood.

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

As far as military thinking influencing geometric and penal design in the early years. It was not uncommon for the first theorists of golf architecture to describe golf in military terms. The famous Redan, the formulaic bunkers on Victorian courses were often describes as having ramparts and as late as the 20's and 30's Wethered and Simpson described strategy in military terms. But I don't believe military thought had siginificant roll in the look of those early courses.

The Redan was one hundreds of colorful names for holes, very few having to do with military. The reason that hole was named Redan is obvious especially in the old days when the bunker fronting the green was shored up with sleepers.

As far as those crossing hazards go, MacKenzie referred to them a cop hazards, Hutchinson simply called them barriers. In fact Hutchinson put all the blame on Tom Dunn for this method of contructing inland golf courses. Done quickly and cheaply, utilizing an easily repeated formula. He also brought walls and hedges into his designs.

Wethered and Simpson and others referring to strategic thought in military terms makes sense, but not from an aesthetic view. You won't find two more artistically influenced theorists who promoted the use of naturally inspired features.

I believe the geometry was a reflection of aesthetic thought at the time. Everying from architecture to garden design was very formal. There were also practical consideration. Many of the sites chosen to build inland courses were ill suited for the game because of poor drainage. The bunkers had to be at ground level with the rampart piled behind above ground. The fairways were also rectangular, infact every thing was rectangular, not unlike the formal gardens, the lawn tennis courts, the cricket and football pitch. Many of the same men who tended to these surfaces would have tended to the inland golf courses and they utilized the same lawn cutting contraptions. Which were related to farm emplements, farms which were also recatangular in shape......