A Blank Canvas

[Brian_Ewen]

From a golfonline interview with Padraig Harrington :

""Does that experience make you want to design your own course?
I'm going to do a course in Dubai. I must have looked at over 30 projects around Europe, Asia and the U.S., but Dubai is ideal because it's a blank canvas.""


I have heard this expression from all the golfers that have designed courses in the Middle East .

Are they told to say this ? .

Is a "blank canvas" really something to celebrate ? .
Brian

[Andy Levett]

Good question, IMO.
I don't have any answers, though I'm surprised there haven't been more by those that think they do.
But to get things going:
1: I suspect a blank canvas is next best to a great site. Given there aren't many great sites, building anything you want in Dubai has to be better than working with so-so sites in any case limited by environmental/planning/financial  constraints.
2: Talking Stick review on this site - dead flat - is worth a read.
3: Who knows whether Pod, or any  current player, will make it with posterity as a designer. The key basic appears to be visuospatial ability - the ability to think in 3D - and the possession of that quality has little to do with skill at golf, or design, or debate.
Crenshaw in the 70s always struck me as the worst type of American phony, just telling the BBC interviewer what he wanted to hear about links golf. From lurking around here it appears Ben  did actually know a thing or two all along.
Seve, on the other hand, always seemed to 'get' golf but his design career hasn't taken off. All I'm saying is we shoudn't second-guess the archie based on the player.

[TEPaul]

In my opinion, a "blank canvas" site would take an absolutely maximum amount of architectural talent to do something really good on. Not just that but I feel it would also take a rather large amount of money and resources.

Certainly a course like Shadow Creek is one of the most fascinating "blank canvas" golf architectural creations of all time.

The real problem with a "blank canvas" site is it generally means practically no topography or interesting natural features of any kind probably both on it and what's around it, and if a gollf course is done well in that kind of environment it's always going to look like a weird juxtaposition to the land around it, in my opinion, and I don't like that weird juxtaposition at all. even though some certainly seem to like it and the look of that kind of thing.

The problem is if someone could ever figure out how to tie in the look of a good golf course in a "blank canvas" environement where would the interest in playabilty and the look of the course be? Logically I'd think it would have to be so low profile and that's pretty hard to pull off in architecture and golf. After-all the basic dimension of height is so fundamental to golf architecture and golf. I guess one may be able to create something by making features and penal features below ground in a flat blank canvas environment rather than above ground but that's not really been done comprehensively that I've ever known.

[Andy Levett]

TEP
Just reading about them here, Shadow Creek and Talking Stick seem examples of that sort of 'blank canvas' course. I can't think of any in the UK, though no doubt there are many (Belfry is a possibility but even then there was the manor house and some mature trees).
But it's interesting to me that Harrington should welcome a blank canvas.
It suggests he can't think in more than two dimensions at a time.
I suggest every real archie, some players, and some members of this website CAN think in more than two dimensions at a time. Many players and many members of this website cannot.
 

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