How "Big" is the golf course?

[Mike_Cirba]

Or, put another way, doesn't the course really extend beyond the property boundaries to encompass everything the eye can see in every direction?  

This is sort of a spin-off thread to Patrick's asking whether we shouldn't just be rating shot values (as if they are quantifiable) and Shivas arguing that a course bordering a 24-hour lovefest for the eyes (or, an ocean for those less perverted) shouldn't get greater respect and consideration because, like the kid born on third base who thinks he hit a triple, they just happen to be in the right place and benefit greatly from "location".

My feeling is that our enjoyment of a course is tied to not only what's inside the property lines, but is completely tied to everything our senses can see, smell, hear, etc., from any point on that property.  I don't see how you can divorce the two.

Thoughts?  

[THuckaby2]

You're preaching to this choirboy on this issue, Mike.  My take - and throwaway line - has always been that one does not play golf with his eyes closed or heart absent.  Hell yes it all matters.

But I look forward to Rich "CPC 16: no big deal, simple driver to right side" Goodale's response to this.

 

[Tom_Doak]

Mike:

I've often had the thought lately that the "bigger" or grander the course, the higher it's ranked.

Pretty much all of the modern courses which attract attention are breathtaking properties with a huge scale to everything -- views, fairways, bunkers, etc.  There may be some Merion-sized courses left in the rankings, but there are no new ones on the horizon.

[George Pazin]

There may be some Merion-sized courses left in the rankings, but there are no new ones on the horizon.

Would it even be possible to build a small intimate course like Merion in today's regulatory environment? I was under the impression that more land is required, since much is likely to be deemed off limits.

If so, that would be kind of ironic, wouldn't it?

[Mike_Cirba]

Mike:

I've often had the thought lately that the "bigger" or grander the course, the higher it's ranked.

Pretty much all of the modern courses which attract attention are breathtaking properties with a huge scale to everything -- views, fairways, bunkers, etc.  There may be some Merion-sized courses left in the rankings, but there are no new ones on the horizon.

Tom,

Yes, exactly.  Of all the new buzz courses in recent years, most offer this grandness (probably starting with Sand Hills) and discussions of Old Head, Barnbougle, Cape Kidnappers, Sutton Bay, Pac Dunes, etc. in recent days have me thinking that we're looking for bigger and more dramatic canvasses on which to paint and play.

By contrast, Friars Head might be the modern Wannamoissett when once considers the somewhat limited views on the property.  

[wsmorrison]

"My feeling is that our enjoyment of a course is tied to not only what's inside the property lines, but is completely tied to everything our senses can see, smell, hear, etc., from any point on that property.  I don't see how you can divorce the two."


Mike,

I agree with what you are saying here regarding an overall enjoyment of a course, but isn't that for the most part a separate issue from the architectural analysis?  

There is one aspect where the architectural study should take into account the land outside the course, that is the architect's use of lines and features in the distance and the surrounds in juxtaposition with the features on the course itself.  For instance the angle created by a land form in the distance can be set against or with angles on the golf course including tree lines, fairways and greens.  Here the artistry is enhanced when such issues are part of the design equation.  Golfers may not conciously figure it out, but it should sink in to most in some way and be a matter for consideration by those that spend as much time as we do thinking about it.

Now as to the overall experience, suppose that there was a sewage treatment plant right next to Cypress Point and the place smelled to high heaven.  The overall experience is compromised but the architecture is not at all.  Should this sewage plant be taken into account in a consideration of the golf course?  I would say, No.  Should it be taken into account in consideration of the experience?  How could it not?

[Mark_Fine]

Wayne,
Wouldn't any decent architect would take the sewage plant into consideration when designing the course?  If so then it IS very much part of the "course design".  The experience the architect creates with his routing, etc. is all part of the design.  
Mark

[Mark_Fine]

Wayne,
I re-read your post and first assumed the sewage plant was in view of the course (near some holes).  The answer is much more subjective if it is not.
Mark

[JESII]

In much the same way that conditioning cannot be held for or against the architect in determining the quality of the design, the surrounds should not either.

So now that we have turned in our architecture rating cards   we can actually consider the golfing experience, and in so doing we take everything into account that affects us at all. You can not take the ocean away from Cypress or the pig slaughterhouse away from The Florida Club and have a discussion about those courses, you'll be missing alot of the experience.

[Mark Brown]

This post I just wrote in "What Did It for You" sums it up.

"And what really got the fire going was spending 3 or 4 days at Sandhills just before it opened with Crenshaw, Coore, Doak and Dick Youngscap. I was in total awe of both the site, the company and the intriguing conversations.

I remember riding a Cushman up to one of the highest dunes near sunset with views that went forever. It was just an unbelievable feeling of awe, and I felt like a band of Indians on horseback and a herd of buffalo were going to come rumbling over the crest of one of the massive dunes.

That pretty well did it."

[wsmorrison]

Mark Fine,

In my example, the sewage plant would have been built after the golf course and more than likely long after the architect had died.  Did they have sewage plants in the 1920s?

[Mark_Fine]

So Jes II, what you are saying about conditioning is that if the bunkers are all degraded and have lost their size and shape and shifted away from the shrunken greens and the fairways are now 25 yards wide with trees hanging over their edges,...,and so on, that these conditioning issues don't matter in your evaluation of the quality of the design?  Hum......I guess I don't follow!

[JESII]

Mark

Sort of.

My comments were more directed at daily conditioning, such as fairway and green quality. Those issues you bring up are more likely long-term maintenance 'flaws'.

Now, to explain my "sort of" answer, I do feel it is the architects responsibility to consider natural tree growth in his planning and if the scene you describe happens as a result of poor planning on his part then he should be accountable. But, if a green committee down the road a number of years plants these trees, then the original architect is "off the hook". Mark, I mean what I say in regards to responsibility, but it is a bit tounge in cheek in regards to the recent course rankings threads. I don't rely on them all that much for figuring out where I should want to play.

[TEPaul]

"I've often had the thought lately that the "bigger" or grander the course, the higher it's ranked."

That's probably true if one fixates on ranking. Those who rank courses are obviously very much affected by first impressions and what's off a course is far more impressionable the first time you see it. How many times do any course raters play any course? Very few, I'm sure!

Have you ever noticed if there's something off a great course that's not particularly attractive you really notice it at first and then you sort of get used to it after awhile and it really doesn't even enter your mind's-eye or your mind again after awhile?

Course raters obviously never get to that point!

[Mark_Fine]

Tom,
So what you are saying about "not seeing it after awhile" is that you get numb to it.  In other words, after you've played it enough times that deficiency gets blocked out and you no longer discount it.  I think you are correct
Mark

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

I always have a certain special feeling when I am a big feeling course. Machrihanish and Royal County Down are two such courses to me. This does not take away form more intimate feeling courses.

[Doug Siebert]

There may be some Merion-sized courses left in the rankings, but there are no new ones on the horizon.

Would it even be possible to build a small intimate course like Merion in today's regulatory environment? I was under the impression that more land is required, since much is likely to be deemed off limits.

If so, that would be kind of ironic, wouldn't it?

I don't think it is really so much because of the regulatory environment.  Yes, I'm sure developers would love to be able to stick up their middle finger at the EPA and endangered species act and just drain swamps and stuff.  But look at how a lot of courses are built on the WORST land around, the kind that's got a lot of wetlands or drainage areas and thus doesn't have enough contiguous areas of suitable land for housing -- i.e., not wide enough for a street with lots on both sides where you won't have to worry about water in your basement or inability to dig a pool without hitting water at 3' deep.

Now think about that for a moment.  Why is it that such land is being used for golf courses?  Well, the developer knows it isn't suitable for housing, but by sticking a golf course there he can increase the value of the surrounding good lots, and get something in return for his crappy land.  If there was no EPA or other regulations governing what he could do, would he build a golf course on less land, or would he just make the whole place a giant subdivision with housing everywhere?  I think in a hell of a lot of cases, he'd do that, and there wouldn't be a golf course there at all because that's risky and doesn't offer the quick return that developing more lots in a subdivision does.  Especially in today's red hot housing market.

So while relaxing the restrictions might reduce the number of crappy courses on low quality land, I think it would do so by reducing them without adding many good courses and you'd just have denser housing.  Even a crappy architecturally worthless "1" on the Doak scale course with lots of "wasted" land for protected wetlands is valuable in providing some break to the monotony of development after development.  Of course, on the other hand, it contributes to sprawl since those additional houses will be built somewhere, so they'll just be built a bit further out into formerly undeveloped land.

[Phil_the_Author]

Can it not also be said that many courses are appreciated for what ISN'T seen from outside the golf course?

Take Bethpage and the Black course. Isn't one of the most amazing realizations for the person who plays it for the first time to recognize that it is there? The last thing that many people think is that they are on Long Island, less than 30 minutes from the New York Ciyt line (Queens). They've entered another world, separate from the hectic life all around where they are.

This is first realized on the long ride into the park from the SOB or Bethpage Parkways. That long winding road traveling almost all uphill from the traffic circle takes one away from the world and gives them entrance into a park separate and very distinct. It is always a pleasure making that drive as you feel welcomed back to Bethpage.

Would the Black be thought as highly if it bordered the SOB Expressway (Seaford Oyster Bay for all those whose mind thinks otherwise ). Consider the view of it from the 4th-6th holes of the Blue course. Isn't it a prettier course in Summer when the trees hide the highway?

The sounds of guns shooting, low-flying airplanes, horses trotting by are all part of the external atmosphere surrounding it, yet if you could see the shooting range, horse barns and coral and airport, wouldn't it take away from the experience?

A large part of the Black's mystique is because of the world it introduces you to and takes you out of, not the other way around.

I believe there are a good number of other courses who fit this description as well.

[TEPaul]

"Tom,
So what you are saying about "not seeing it after awhile" is that you get numb to it.  In other words, after you've played it enough times that deficiency gets blocked out and you no longer discount it.  I think you are correct
Mark"

Mark:

I'm not saying you get numb to it---at least not in any perjorative sense---I just think this type of visual impression has a way of naturally minimizing itself.

Have you ever built a house? When you do you tend to over-fixate on particular little things that you think may be over-annoying but you come to realize in not too long a time that once you live in the house you may never even notice them again. You don't become numb to them---you simply never notice them again.

This type of thing off a golf course generally takes on the same unawareness over time, I believe. But this is very distinct from something on a golf course and it play that isn't right. The latter can and often is a constant annoyance forever!

And this is why when one talks about the actual architecture of a golf course it might be better to stick to consideration of the actual architecture and not what's over the fence and not on the golf course. I'm not saying noone notices the latter, only that over time one becomes much less aware of it if it isn't on the golf course.

[Mark_Fine]

Tom,
Please explain what is the “actual architecture” as you call it?  I'm confused?

Why did Flynn go to so much trouble to route his holes at Cherry Hills such that the distant mountain peaks set the back drop?  Would Flynn consider them “part of the design”?

Is the ocean not part of the architecture at Pebble Beach?  It's not on the course!  If it is not, then why are the holes that play along it considered so special?  

Is that barbed wire fence that runs in a perfectly straight line and marks the stark OB separating the green turf from the barren desert along #2 at Talking Stick North not the critical visual to that golf hole?  I wonder what Mr. Coore would say about that if homes suddenly lined that left side?  

When I now have to aim my tee shot on the par three 15th at Troon in Scottsdale off the gas grill on the deck behind the greensite where in the past I used to play it off a distant mountain peak, did the architecture change?  You tell me but frankly, that hole is not nearly as special anymore.

The best routings usually take the golfer on the best tour of the property both inside and outside the physical boundaries of the course.  Architects know that golf is about the experience that their course will give to the golfer and that is what the greatest golf courses are all about.  

So I ask again, what is the "actual architecture"?    
Mark

[wsmorrison]

"There is one aspect where the architectural study should take into account the land outside the course, that is the architect's use of lines and features in the distance and the surrounds in juxtaposition with the features on the course itself.  For instance the angle created by a land form in the distance can be set against or with angles on the golf course including tree lines, fairways and greens.  Here the artistry is enhanced when such issues are part of the design equation.  Golfers may not conciously figure it out, but it should sink in to most in some way and be a matter for consideration by those that spend as much time as we do thinking about it."

The above is from my previous post.  Flynn definitely was a practitioner of using distant angles and features with features on the golf course.  He did it with great effect at the Cascades although it is best seen in old photographs as trees today hide a lot of this work.  The 8th green is an excellent example where he used the back edge of the green to mimic the line of a mountain in the distance.

The best architects were/are adept at doing so.

I know you know that and I know you know Tom knows that.   I know you know we know, you know?

Off topic:

Is this a grammatically correct sentence?

Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mike Cirba,

Let me see if I understand what you and others are saying.

Would it be accurate to state that if each of you fellows were in bed with Jessica Simpson, or the women of your fantasies, that you'd be concerned or influenced by the wall paper in the room ?  That it would detract or enhance the experience ?

If it does, then you suffer from severe ADD.

Mike, I guess, as a lefty, it's really distasteful for you to tee off on # 1 at Merion.  It must ruin the play of the hole for you.
And, when you're putting, those cars on Ardmore must really ruin the pleasure of spending the day at Merion.

Don't you fellows know that you're going to go blind if you keep that up ?

[Mark_Fine]

I know you know that!  It just seemed you were discounting what you know when it comes to evaluating "the actual architecture!  Those aspects of the design you point out ARE part of the architecture.  

[Mark_Fine]

Pat,
If you really think the setting is not part of the design, you are fooling yourself.  Why for example did Fazio set Shadow Creek down below grade and berm up the sides?  He didn't do it because he wanted to spend even more of Wynn's money.  He did it because he didn't want the golfer to have any clue he was in the desert playing golf.  All you can see from the golf course are the distant mountains so you feel like you are in NC.  That adds to the design whether you want to believe it or not.
Sorry,
Mark

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mark,

Because he wanted to create THE illusion that you were somewhere else, in an oasis, and not in the middle of a barren, arid desert in a flash flood zone.


In addition, while playing the golf course, the mountains are mostly unobservable.