Are our classic courses in trouble??

[Mark_Fine]

Interesting article by Brad Klein in this week's (Dec. 13/27) Superintendent News titled, "Courses find bargains in renovations".   Worth reading!

[Willie_Dow]

We seem to be getting back to the concept that great design evolves.  Great architecture seems to improve by its acceptance over time.  If it doesn't the structure is removed or remodeled.  Perhaps the same will be said for golf courses that fail the test of time.

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

How did all of the wonderful classic golf courses get disfigured in the first place ?

Simple, the MEMBERSHIP thought that an alteration would
"work well" for them, at the time.

Look back and see how wrong they were, time and time again.
Year after year.

Look back and see how reluctant they were to restore that which had been disfigured.

You have to adopt a standard, you just can't say that anything that is voted upon, which is perceived "to work well" is a successful alteration.

It may not be the best golf course, but the truer one can get to the original course, the more you capture and preserve the original design integrity, and the more likely you are that it won't be altered in the name of something that "works well" for the moment.

[TEPaul]

Pat:

I understand just what you're saying and I really do agree. But neither of us is being as realistic as we should be!

How can you create a "standard"? These clubs are owned by memberships and they will do what they want to do, as they always have. The only logical thing to do is to continue to try to educate them to do what's best--to understand and respect their architecture more. This can only be done within a club, internally, and it can't be transfered from club to club, as far as I can see--at least as a "standard".

But they are the ones to play it and their architect and the architecture too has some responsibility to work well for them to be successful for them. Otherwise they're likely to change it in the future as they have in the past. Architecture that works well for them has the capacity to stand the "test of time" and when it does, it survives, becomes accepted, hopefully respected, sometimes famous and considered good or great architecture sometimes!

This is the only way, there can't be another. If some "standard" can be created and also enforced please tell me, tell us all, what that would be!

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

I've thought about that. This right of possession.....ownership.

And, I think I see part of the problem.

First, we would have to agree that members come and go.
That the membership is mostly composed of transients during the life of the club and golf course.  Renters, if you will.

Secondly, most club's charters mention little or nothing with respect to the golf course being inviolate, and I think that's were the problem arises, there is nothing in the by-laws to prevent alterations to the golf course.
  
Nothing that recognizes, via the written word, the one asset that is the centerpiece and/or cornerstone of the club and its membership, the golf course.

We all understand that certain changes take place without malice aforethought, fairway lines, green lines, bunker edges, those changes are almost accidental.  But, other changes are the result of pro-active forces determined to alter architectural features inherent in the original design.  These changes attack and alter the design integrity, and it is these changes that most need preventing, and restoring.

If you buy in to the above, the next question is, how do you prevent future disfigurements, and how do you correct previous disfigurements ?

I think there are three answers.

1.   Put classic clubs in touch with the Architectural Society
      that is directly related to them, as I recommended in
      another thread.  Try to form a joint-venture of sorts
      between the two parties.

2.   Praise, to the hilt, clubs that embark upon and complete
     successful, sympathetic or true restorations.
     Hold them up as a prime example of a club gone right.

3.   Publically criticize, unmercifully, alterations to classic
     courses.  Criticize the memberships, the leaderships and
     the club.  Call them acts of vandalism, call the leadership
     irresponsible, be feature specific.  You may find that
     corrections are made, and more importantly that people
     think twice before altering a golf course.

     Look at the results of public outcry with respect to
     the road hole bunker at TOC.

Only when memberships and their leaders are held accountable to a broader standard than "works well"
will you be able to deter or eliminate the disfiguring of classic golf courses, and embark, more systemically on the restoration path.

JUST MAKE SURE THAT YOU GET ALL OF THE FACTS RIGHT BEFORE INTITIATING ANY PLAN OF ACTION.

But, that's just my opinion.

[Willie_Dow]

Patrick:

You mentioned By-Laws, and I think you have found something very pressing to the subject here.  Classic club By-Laws should be reviewed for content as to how they apply to what is happening today to their course, architecturally.  

[TEPaul]

Patrick:

I'm really disappointed in you. I had high hopes when I read that first line...."right of possession, OWNERSHIP!!!"

What a letdown! I thought maybe you were gonna buy them all out and make things right all over America for the classics.

But on second thought after thinking about the rest of your post I think you're onto something!

With your tactics you can intimidate, completely destroy all membership morale everywhere and get all those measily "renters" on the run. There won't be a single bothersome member anywhere in sight at any of these clubs when your finished with them.

You grab all the supers by the scruff of the neck and tell them to find any old architect and contractor and in less than six months you want anything and everything that looks like post 1929 Wall Street Crash gone!

Then you can let those "renters" back on their courses, hand them your Master Plans with the warning that you'll be watching and if you see anything on those courses that even looks like post WW2 you'll have their sorry rentin' asses on the run again!

You're a brilliant man, Pat Mucci---you must be in that rare 2% window at the moment!

[ForkaB]

This bylaw concept is interesting, and has been discussed here before--I think in the context of the restoration work at Beverly.  If I'm not mistaken, Paul Richards posted a prototype bylaw for the preservation of the design intent of his course.  Can anybody regurgitate this from the bowels of GCA?

It would seem to me that finding the right balance between retaining the essence of the design and not overly restricting normal maintenance practicesis is one key.  It would hardly be workable to take a laser reading of every "essential" bunker every year to identify and "rectify" splash build-up, for example.  On the other hand, a clear and photographically documented demarcation of green pads could be used to ensure that "mower-creep" doesn't set in.

The hardest part, I would think, is getting the membership to agree to something which "restricts" future actions.  Memberships can, of course, overturn any by-laws that are made, and provision should be made for this, in the interest of fairness.

The long-term solution, as Tom and Pat impliy, is the development, through education and attrition, of the architectural sensitivity of the memberships.  It actually is an interesting question as to whether some sort of strict covenant in the by-laws against change would be attractive or repulsive to potential members.  Surely most of us on this site would be attracted to a club with a classic course that was likely to be preserved over our lifetime, but would the "Joe 6-Martinis" of the world, who dominate many membership lists, be so inclined?  Just wondering.......

[Paul Richards]

Rich:

I have posted a thread on the by-law topic at Beverly.

Having a restoration included in the by-laws may be one of the most important parts of the restoration plan to prevent all the problems that have been caused over the years by various green chairmen and superintendents.

[SL_Solow]

Paul; excellent idea but each club must also examine the manner in which By- Laws can be amended.  Some can be changed by a vote of the Board and thus a By-Law addition can give a false sense of security.