Is golf architecture on the verge of a revolution?

[TEPaul]

"Still don't get it do we?"
Mark Fine

Guess I don’t get it Mark. What I keep getting from some of your posts on golfers and the utility of magazine ratings is sort of self satisfied arrogance. For couple of years now you keep throwing this 99% figure at us that sometimes you say you think is actually low. The 99%, fellow Golfclubatlasers, is the percentage of golfers who play golf who are clueless according to Mark Fine.

My take on a golf courses like Rustic Canyon and Pacific Dunes and Bandon Dunes that have been recognized by Golf Digest, is that’s nice they finally are but they and their popularity and appeal will be the result of what they are and not the recognition of Golf Digest! This is certainly true in the long term as others have suggested on this thread.

For Golf Digest and certainly their raters, all however many hundreds of them there are,  or even that clever 10 who voted for Rustic to win, to think their “influence” is responsible for Rustic’s success is just plain funny to me. Some of those people who rate probably think they actually discovered those courses and are responsible for a new direction in architecture because of that---funnier still!

I’d definitely prefer that Ron Whitten himself just did the whole thing for Golf Digest and wrote about what he’s discovered, just as they did more of in the old days before these 1-100 lists which say virtually nothing about why courses are picked or what the assets and uniqueness of their architecture really is.

To me the ratings have very little educational value and are nothing more than a technique to sell golf magazines. Of course, it’s great for all the raters to go play those courses, I’m sure. I certainly enjoy Matt Ward’s in depth course analysis but hasn’t Golf Digest taken him off as a rater? If so, another stupid thing to do! What was he getting a bit blunt of honest about architectural analysis or the process used by the magazine.

If I had a course, I’d be happy to ask Ron Whitten to come and look at it and write about it if he thought that appropriate, but if he told me that a bunch of GD raters would have to come and tell him how good it was before he could do that, I’d definitely tell him to forget it!

But in the meantime, I guess all those trend setting GD raters will be keeping their ears to the ground to figure out where that 99% clueless crowd is playing golf so they can rate it and tell them what they’re too clueless to know!  



  

[Patrick_Mucci]

Ronan Branigan,

Ahh, we all have our war camps to contend with.

Those that have been posting for some time have figured out how to appease all interested parties.  Unfortunately, there is no magic formula, and each poster must enter into negotiations unique to their particular situation.

Part of my 475 page agreement, is that I will not get on the site as soon as I get home.  Although, there are special occassional exemptions, I've tried to keep my end of the deal.

TEPaul,

My pessimism is in the context of democracy, and dealing with each and every faction within a club trying to put forth their agenda relative to the architecture.

Politically, it's difficult to get agreement to undue prior changes because the members that triggered them are still members and probably have a say in club policy.

I have a little personal experience with this at several clubs and based on my experience, I don't see the process being simplified.

Tom MacWood,

Most buildings are not altered to suit the whims of those factions who traverse, inhabit or visit them. Typically, most buildings are not owned by 300 + user/owners.

If you don't see the distinction, getting out of the house and playing more golf won't help.  

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

Pat
I'll let you figure out if clubs are run by 300 or by a smaller influencial group - internal power struggles is your area of expertise, I prefer the architecure or artistic side. At least you now concede that other art forms are interactive -- that was very poor comparison.

[Mark_Fine]

Tom P,
Once again you are missing my point.  There is a big difference between someone who is clueless and someone who just really doesn't care.  You haven't figured out the difference    and what I mean by 99%.  This is not arrogance, this is just common sense!

You yourself said that for most of your golfing career, you never bothered or cared to look at the architecture of the courses you were playing.  You said were just focused on your score and your golf game.  It wasn't until recently that you became so infactuated with golf architecture that now you hardly even play anymore.  How quickly we forget don't
we     Think about that for a while and maybe you will finally get my point!!

I can't continue to argue about the GD stuff because I don't have the time and you have your mind set on that and it's not worth the effort to get you to change.  Missed opportunity I'm afraid.  I think you are the one who is coming across as arrogant in that all panelists just wait for someone knowledgable to tell them where to play.

One thing you also don't appreciate is the confidentiality that GD panelists, and I presume other panelists as well, need to abide by.  I can't provide a copy of my detailed review to the courses I review so I sure better not post it on the internet!  

I say what I can say but I can't be as candid as I might like.  Many panelists don't participate for this reason alone.  Some said to much and are no longer on the panel   and we unfortunately know one of them.

Better think back to where you were 5 or so years ago before you make some more of your comments  

By the way, I enjoy a good debate (at least some of the time).
Mark

[Ronan_Branigan]

Steve

Apologies if my comment offended you. In Ireland we call such a dastardly comment 'tongue in cheek'. Lighten up, after all it is Sunday!!!!!!!!!

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tom MacWood,

The VAST MAJORITY of club members don't view their golf courses as an art form, they view them as a field of play.
A field of play over which they can exert influence sufficient to alter its form.

If you think that those in power at clubs have a greater understanding or vision with respect to the golf course as an art form, you are out of touch with reality.

Most golfers are more concerned with the height of the rough than who the architect was, and what he originally intended architecturally.

I don't consider buildings and homes as art, I view them as functional, engineered structures, much like automobiles.
None of which are living, growing organisms.

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

Another point.

While I agree that the individuals you mentioned are capable of excellent restoration work, I think that you will find that the clubs themselves won't let those fellows go the final mile to REALLY get it right.

Even the Plainfields, Ridgewoods and other clubs, put the brakes on, fearing that a TRUE RESTORATION IS TOO RADICAL

Can you imagine that, a TRUE RESTORATION, back to what the original architect intended, is TOO RADICAL.

Even at NGLA, didn't someone recently post that they didn't want to restore the 13th green out to the right side bunker for maintainance costs or some other dubious excuse ?

TE, as time removes current memberships further from their architectural roots, the integrity of the original design becomes more expendable, less valued in the eyes of the current memberships at all but a few clubs.

That's just the way I see it.
Others may see it differently.

[TEPaul]

Mark:

Maybe I am missing your point. It really doesn't matter though. You do seem to understand how I feel about magazine ratings like Golf Digest and you're right my opinion's  probably not going to change until the educational value of GD's architectural output changes. I really can't see that happening though unless and until someone who has a good sense of the distinctions in architecture like Ron Whitten writes about that far more comprehensively in Golf Digest. In the meantime the 1-100 lists don't hold much meaning in the context of education as far as I'm concerned.

I guess I really don't understand your point about the 99%--the huge group you've said is clueless.

As for me before I got interested in architecture, well, I wouldn't look back on that and say I was clueless exactly about architecture. Maybe I didn't concern myself with the names of the architects and exactly how and why they did things and some of the principles they applied. However, you can't play golf at a pretty good level, score well and such and be completely clueless about architecture--if you were I doubt one would do very well. I'm fairly confident you can understand that.

As for an opportunity lost--I really don't know what you mean. But that's OK.

[TEPaul]

Patrick:

Do you seriously feel that interest and understanding of these classic courses is less today than it was twenty years ago? I find that amazing you'd think that. Why do you think all these restorations are taking place these days instead of twently years ago?

I'm more interested in the first mile in restoration than the last mile. There may be a lot of people on this website too who feel a restoration is a total failure unless every single thing is returned to the way it once was. That's far too much of a broadbrush approach in my book. That doesn't take into account that even the best of the architects made mistakes, that things just didn't work well for a memberhip over time.

There's no reason to overlook those facts and just plow ahead in the name of something like architectural purity alone. There're a number of things that have occured since those courses were built that effects classic architectural restoration in various ways--there's the whole question of "evolution" in any course, through play particularly, that needs to be taken into account, speed of greens as it relates to evolution etc, extreme advances in agronomy etc.

Anyone should understand that 25% is better than 0& and 50% is better than 25% and so on! The last mile is nice but you have to start somewhere and travel those miles in between first and that's what I think we're doing, certainly far more than 15-20 years ago.

Sorry you don't see it that way.

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

Pat
Better late than never. Six posts later you finally answered my simple question, do you consider architecure an art. Now I can to put all your opinions in the proper perspective. I think most architects would disagree with you. What is you definition of art?

[Paul_Turner]

Interesting opinions.

Like Tom Paul, I believe you don't have to study golf course architecture to appreciate it.  A course that posesses quality will tend to be loved and last the test of time.

Mackenzie wrote about this, claiming that golfers often gave up the game because their local track was insipid and lifeless.  And my man Colt pretty well summed it up when he wrote that a true test of a course was whether "it would live".

[Forrest Richardson]

Revolution: 62
No Revolution: 62

I say we call this thread a draw and continue discussion about restoration separately. Then move on to one of the great sub-topics we ventured into. Except the sheep. By the way, I could find no reference to comparting sheep to women, which leads me to think...

[Patrick_Mucci]

Patrick:

Do you seriously feel that interest and understanding of these classic courses is less today than it was twenty years ago?

TEPaul,

That's not what I said.

I said that I don't see any revolution, which connotes a systemic movement.  Perhaps a rebellion would be a more apt description.

And I do agree that some change is far better than none, no matter what the math.

Tom MacWood,

Golf course architecture is a business.

Isn't that one of the reasons why many on here were critical of Fazio, Jones and Dye and praised Coore & Crenshaw ?

Medicine is an art based on science, but it's sure practiced a lot differently today than 50 years ago.  Just try getting a doctor to make a house call.

As to opinions, actions speak louder than words.

If you think that the majority or the ruling clubmembers look upon their golf course as a work of art, or art form, you're sadly mistaken.

[Slag_Bandoon]

Still don't get it do we!  

  Mark, I don't mean to discount the effort of golf course raters and their input, it's just that, for me, I'd rather read why something is special.  Even if sometimes these articles turn into sales pitches and their motives are transparent.  I enjoy Whitten reports more than the ranking of a subjective topic.  What's better, the Mona Lisa or The Birth of Venus?... and where does it rank with Fragonard's 'Young Girl Reading'?  It just has no value to me.  I'd rather have whys and wherefors explained to me so that I may learn.  The rankings don't educate me.  
  I do see the value of Best New in that it gets the attention for marketing and I can't deny its financial impact and that it may affect a direction.  
  Several months ago you told us that we should get off these darned computers and play more golf.  I took your advice (I'm an easy sell) and did just that and have no regrets but if finding gems and cataloging them with Doak #'s or this is better than that, or checking a "Difficulty in Scoring" box, even in my own unshared 'Little Black Book of Golf', it still has little value to me.  
    I planned and went to Arizona and checked an AZ golf website and it had a Best 10 in state and neither Talking Stick or Apache Stronghold were on it.  Where did I go?  Those two places because of what I had read about them making the most of their sites, etc.


  quote...  "If I can do it, it aint art."  Red Green of The New Red Green Show  

[TEPaul]

Slag:

That's a very fine post of yours to Mark Fine. You explain things a lot better than I've been able to.

I have nothing against magazines like Golf Digest, per se, or what Mark Fine and the other raters are doing. I just feel, as apparently you do, that what they do and the magazine does (straight numerical rankings) has practically no education or even informational value to anyone.

Obviously the magazines do it the way they do because it's cheaper and easier to do it that way and using hundreds of raters probably appears to be consensus gathering when in fact it's extremely weak that way, in my opinion.

I'd prefer to see any magazine that wants to offer comparisons of courses and architecture to pay a few people like Whitten to get out there and play what they're interested in, analyze it and then write intelligently and informatively about it.

Mark will probably tell us that won't work because 99% of the golfing public are clueless anyway and would never read such things. Maybe that's true--maybe it isn't! But the way those magazines are doing it now is still of no educational or informational value to anyone, not even us--and anyone would have to consider we know a thing or two about architecture if we concern ourselves with it practically every day!

Mark might even tell us to get out there and play these courses ourselves and see for ourselves, but I would ask him what are they doing these lists for then?

It's obvious why they are--the lists sell magazines--and that's about all they do--but they aren't educating anyone about architecture.

Except Whitten's articles! And again, I think that's what they should be offering a ton more of!

But Mark tells us that it's the raters that have the influence and are the ones who basically tell Ron Whitten, or show Ron Whitten what to write about!

See, I really don't like that! I think Ron and a few other discriminating golf architectural writers should decide for themselves what they think is worthy to write about!

[Ronan_Branigan]

TE Paul

Is there a market out there for a GCA magazine that is edited by GC atlasers? That would be one way of getting a balanced view across!

Here is a quote that I came across from a book I am reading at the moment called 'Life of Pi' by Yann Martel

" If we, citizens, do not support our artists, then we sacrifice our imagination on the altar of crude reality and we end up believing in nothing and having worthless dreams".

[Carlos Febres]

I'm coming into this discussion a little late, but I've read many of your opinions, and I wanted to contribute some thoughts.  Concerning the subject of the thread, "on the verge of a revolution": This has happened already, with Pete Dye at the helm.  Following the dull design era of the fifties (I'll stir it up and say the Robert Trent Jones, Sr. is overrated and gets too much credit, mainly because he was the only prolific designer during this period).  Although Pete Dye had/has just as many critics as disciples, he changed the way it is done.  Along with Tom Fazio's coming out in the late 80's, Dye's designs pushed the limits of earthmoving and the fundamentals of naturalistic design in an effort to say that a great course can be built, hence opening up possibilities in the tomato field topography of Florida and the South Carolina lowcountry.  Today's designers are attempting to go back to the basics, but the shortage of great land is making this effort increasingly difficult (hence the reason we keep referring to the same 3-4 courses as great modern tracks).  The fact is, what Pete Dye and Tom Fazio did was open up a world of options for modern designers, and that is a revolution.  

[Mark_Fine]

Tom P,
You state in your one post - " However, you can't play golf at a pretty good level, score well and such and be completely clueless about architecture--if you were I doubt one would do very well".  

Are you suggesting that if you are good at golf you must understand something about architecture?  Isn't that the false premise that many PGA Pros make and why they all jump into golf course design    

Maybe I should re-define that 99% rule to be all golfers who think about golf courses like Tom Paul did five years ago )  

But why does this matter anyway?  It matters because the reason we see the courses we do is because most architects design courses for golfers (and what they want or think they want), not for themselves.  Why do you think thousands and thousands of golfers head to places like Myrtle Beach, Phoenix, Palm Springs,.. (not exactly the golf architecture meccas of the world) every year.  They are there to do what you used to do five years ago.  Who cares if Doak or Ross or some shoe salesman designed the course.  You said you never used to care!  Give them two shots a side, smooth rolling greens, no email for three days and they'll tee it up anywhere.

You should grab a copy of GD's Places You Can Play which has comments in it from thousands of everyday golfers about golf courses and why they are great.  Maybe that will give you the reality check you need.  Remember, these are the same people (the paying customers) who are helping determine the needs of what the golf architect has to satisfy.  There is a difference between being clueless and just not caring.  

Slag,
You've just made one of my points for me.  Educate those panelists who missed putting A and TS in the top 10 so they get it right the next time!  Trust me, your average golfer is not logging onto GCA to find out where they should be playing!  

[TEPaul]

Mark:

I really don't know what to say to you on this subject of magazine rankings like GD. We obviously just see things very differently. Maybe about a lot of things to do with architecture.

If you're under the impression that touring pros have no clue about architecture, certainly as it relates to playing the game, you're sorely misinformed, in my opinion! That may be one of the biggest fallacies of all. Touring pros certainly can see architecture in the context of their own games far too much or they simply may not spend the necessary time on projects they do to do a very good job. Or else they just aren't particularly informed on the nuts and bolts of construction methods etc. But completely clueless on all aspects of architecture? I hardly think so! Like anybody else some are good at some aspects of things others aren't. Being a good and comprehensive architect because you're a tour pro probably has nothing much more to do with it than anyone else.

But they certainly have as refined a sense of it as you do or I do as it relates to playing the game--and I'm quite certain probably much more so!

I've no doubt that golfers will continue to go to the likes of the Myrtle Beach courses that you suggested but the difference between you and me very well might be that you think if they were given far more interesting and thoughtful and fun architecture, perhaps something like the architectural principles of a Rustic Canyon or Pacific Dunes that they wouldn't even know the difference or care about it.

I do not believe that for a second, although it certainly appears you do! And that's probably the fundamental difference between us on a lot of this stuff.

[Mark_Fine]

Tom P,
I enjoy the debates.  They are all in good fun and you can hold your own!

Hey the sun is coming out here.  Maybe this snow will all melt and dry up so some golf courses will open up.  I don't care which ones, I need a golf fix as I haven't played in weeks  
Mark

[Kelly_Blake_Moran]

Sorry, but I am piping in again without having followed the thread for some time.  I spoke with a friend whom said she feels there has been a positive revival in other disciplines which may lend some support of a positive revival in golf design.  She was referring to a classical revival in architecture.  There is also a revival in art that is based upon the processes of the old masters.  Somehow maybe this relates to what many on this site having been preaching, there may be greater cultural ties between all these disciplines that have help renew an interest and revival of classical principles in these respective disciplines.  It might be interesting for you to check out a gallery that is a part of the classical revival in art.  http://www.grenninggallery.com

[Ronan_Branigan]

Kelly

Interesting website and I believe that the movement of a return to basics in art has a correlation in GCA. This has been expressed many times in this post to date.

Carlos

I would love to know more about Fazio and Dye to argue the point with you. There are two regular contributors to this post, TE Paul And Mark Fine, and I am sure that they could answer your thread very well. On that note I am slightly disappointed that certain questions that have been put forward seem to have been 'ignored' and  a pursuit in dialogue has taken place instead. Maybe someone can shed some light on this for me.

Thanks.

[Mike_Cirba]

Ronan;

Which specific questions would you like to see answered?  

Like yourself, I'd like to see this thread continue because it's one of the most interesting here in a long time.  

[Kelly_Blake_Moran]

Carlos,

There is not a lack of good land.  I see great land all the time.  People like Fazio or others that rout poorly in realtion to topography, and like moving dirt started that excuse to cover their absolute disregard for nature, and to defend their desire to show everyone what was within them to create on the land, rather than looking outside of themselves to what nature had to offer.  Do not blame the lack of wonderful golf courses on the lack of good land, blame it on a lack of creativity and respect for natural features by the architect, among other defeciencies in the architect.  If it is bad it is the architects's fault to a large degree.  When an architect had to move dirt because the land forced it believe me it probably was because the routing plan was bad, or the residential home sites occupied so much land the course had to venture into bad terrain.  In either case the routing plan was bad.

The world of options you described as moving lots of dirt is a dead end street.  That may have been a revolution but not all revolutions are good.  That was the bad side of a revolution.  What you may see coming in the next several years could be a reaction to your revolution that will be more lasting, more right, more natural, more humanistic.

[Ronan_Branigan]

Hi Mike

thanks for the reply. I was talking about posts #149 and 192 in particular. If you have the time it would be great to hear your reply. I have to log out for a while but I'll check your post in an hour or so.

Thanks