David Moriarty:
Whenever I discuss things on this website and you don't like what I say for whatever reason you tend to respond that I'm not sticking to the subject or the original subject.
The subject of this thread seems to be routing whether it can be genius or happenstance. But yet you say;
“TEPaul,
---First, I am not sure just what point you are trying to make. That some work was done at CPC after the course was routed? Conceded. But this thread is about "genius," presumably the ingenuity which makes great courses truly great. I posit that with one possible exception mentioned above, the genius of CPC comes from using what was already there. “
This thread may be about genius, but genius in what? It looks to me like it’s about whether there can be genius in ROUTING or whether it’s happenstance.
So I hardly think it’s off the subject of this thread if I talk about routing and what I think routing is and isn’t. Would you not say that’s an attempt at an intelligent discussion on this thread? Or would you prefer to just discuss what it may be that indicates genius in something else-----or just what the word genius means in a dictionary definition or some such thing?
At this point, if the subject is possible genius in routing and how much that matters to the final product and success of a golf course than why don’t we start again by trying to agree on what the term “routing” means? I happen to believe that trying “to route” (verb, I suppose
) a golf course is perhaps the single greatest education one can have in golf course architecture. To me it’s the single largest fundamental or essential of a golf course although it is not even close to being “everything” to a completed golf course---or I guess I should say every golf course I’ve ever seen.
You’ve given somewhat of your own definition of what you think a routing is. In an answer to JES’s question—“What is the definition of a complete routing?” you said;
“When we talk about routings, it is usually after the fact including all the bells and whistles. What I am talking about is determining the route of the course. Looking at a property and finding the golf holes. Golf holes meaning the greens, tees, fairways, features, etc.
Here is one fairly extreme way to look at it, I guess: Routing (a verb) is finding the golf course. All else is just making up for perceived deficiencies in the routing. “
Personally, I just don’t agree with that definition of what a routing is-----not unless an architect simply plants grass on completely unaltered topography for tees, fairways and greens and otherwise makes or conceives of nothing else. You say what you’re talking about is when someone finds the route (presumably you mean a noun here) of the course. That I agree with, but what else does ‘finding the route of a course’ mean to you?
To me it means finding the exact lengths and perhaps widths of what will become the holes and the sequence of the holes of a golf course. This certainly means their directions. In my opinion, a “routing” can be considered complete even if its in the form of what we sometimes refer to as a “stick” routing. A stick routing (very commonly used by almost all architects, particularly the old guys) is basically identifying the beginning of a golf hole by the placement of an X on a topo map (or on the raw ground itself), a placement of an X at what’s often referred to as the LZ (on par 4s and par 5s), the placement of an x on the topo map (or on the ground) of where the green site will be and the connecting of those Xs by a line (stick). When an architect has done that 18 times he has found or done the “routing” of the golf course, in my opinion, and in my definition of a routing. Has he had to touch, change, alter or enhance anything on the raw site to have found a complete “routing”? No, I don’t believe he has to have done any of that to have found or completed his routing.
But if you have some other definition of what else a “routing” or a complete routing is than I suppose we have no common ground with the definition of a routing to discuss the subject of routing or whether routing can indicate genius or happenstance.
When an architect begins to conceive of altering or enhancing that raw ground in any way by moving and altering earth with the man-made placement and formation of features (bunkers, mounds, shaping of the earth in any way for any kind of man-made contouring, the sizing, creating shapes, slopes, contours of greens etc, I simply call that “designing up” a completed routing. And I’ve often referred to that “design up” phase as the “next phase” of designing a golf course following a completed routing.
The point here is that two architects can take two totally similar completed routings and by altering and enhancing the ground in different ways can actually create and construct what can look like very different golf holes and golf courses, and yet they are on a completely similar routing. I’m sure you can easily imagine how this could be done.
So this is why I say the routing of a golf course, although very important is by no means ‘everything’ as you have said earlier on this thread you think it is.
Furthermore, I believe this subject of routing----what it is and isn’t and what follows it to create a complete golf course is one of the best and most education and fundamental discussions this site could ever have.