How long does it take for Myth to become truth?

[Mike_Young]

As most know, I am a skeptic when it comes to the dead guys.  They did some good work but transportation and communication at the time made it where they weren'T nearly as available as a modern architect.  I honestly believe that the average person admires the "patina" not the original work and thus I credit a large portion of many of our classics to 1. clubs that had money and could grow the course over 75 years and 2.superintendents.  I bring this up because yesterday I was listening to a green chairman try and convince a group that a 25 year old bunker was DR and how critical it was etc etc....I understand we are in a "restoration fad" and many committees are on a roll but How long do you really think it takes for myth to become truth in this business.

[Brad Klein]

Mike, with properly funded p.r. it's a matter of hours for  a myth to take hold, but it carries a very brief shelf life. The dead guys, not having the benefit of publicity machines, took decades for their reputations to get established, sometimes not until long after their deaths (Raynor, Tillinghast). But their myths have also lasted longer, oten deservedly.

[Mike_Young]

Mike, with properly funded p.r. it's a matter of hours for  a myth to take hold, but it carries a very brief shelf life. The dead guys, not having the benefit of publicity machines, took decades for their reputations to get established, sometimes not until long after their deaths (Raynor, Tillinghast). But their myths have also lasted longer, oten deservedly.

Yes, often deservedly but much of the hype is still myth...IMO...and by that I mean for instance...DR could have had 20 different types of bunkers and never known it....the transition in a green could have been built with 2 ft where the drawing said 1ft and he would have never seen it...but as time progressed kinks were worked out and these courses evolved...true the core values of the design may have been present but the little intracacies that some of these people get so hung up on were never even known by the dead guy.....
Hey Brad off subject but starting a course in Israel...email or call me sometime...

[Brad Klein]

Mike, you doing a course in Israel is like me driving NASCAR at Talladega.

[TEPaul]

I feel the reputations or even the myths of various of even the best architects of the old days (Golden Age) merely fluctuated over time from popularity to semi-oblivion and then back to a state of even greater popularity.

To me this kind of thing is just the result of natural cycles, particularly dealing with things like art, type, style, taste etc. These kinds of things simply cycle through the times in how they're preceived and treated, appreciated or not.

To me there's no denying that architects like Ross or Tillinghast or Mackenzie et al are far more glorifed today they ever have been at any time but that they were more popular and more glorified 50,60,70,80 years ago, and by far, than they were 20,30 and 40 years ago. This is just the way cycles and renaissance is---it's just the way it's gone for centuries in art forms. Golf architecture beginning close to 100 years ago really did become an art form although a very unique highly interactive art form.

I think what's happened recently to the popularity of some of the "old guy" architects and their architecture of the "Golden Age" is something that may be termed the "Ralph Lauren "Polo" phenomenon". Who regenerated a type and style and a form of "former taste" better and more enduringly than Ralph Lauren did? "Golden Age" golf architecture has simply ridden that basic cultural cycle or renaissance, in my opinion.

The culture and ethos of the United States is probably more prone to cycles in taste and style than any culture before it. It's so dynamic---it charges ahead so fast and so far and then stops and turns back to a former time and then charges ahead again to somewhere else. It's pretty undeniable that those cycles in taste and various styles and their recurring popularity are even getting tighter and shorter.

As to specific details of features for which some architects become known, nothing could be more misleading than something like what is perceived to be the "classic Donald Ross green design"---eg the sort of turtle-backed Pinehurst #2 type "Ross" green.

Pinehurst #2s greens certainly are that way now and the fact is if Ross could see them today compared to the way he designed and built them he may not recognize them very well.  

And that's the truth.  

[Mike_Young]

What is your poll position?   Nascar needs you.  Maybe I could send in 100 Skoal labels and have a jacket with your picture and number....

[T_MacWood]

Mike
Which dead guys have benefited from the 'myth' factor?

Which of their best designs were due to your points #1 and #2 ?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Mike,

With the internet, they seem to be taking hold even faster than the old days.  The minute a new C and C or Doak course is announced, it is declared a classic, before its even designed, or before it even is tested in play!    Of course, in other circles, the same could be said of TF, JN and others.

Despite the howls, you are correct.  They didn't visit their courses much - we celebrate a  course where Brad can document that Ross visited once, for God sakes!  And, greens committees probably always tinkered a bit, superintendents fixed problems as they arose, etc.  No need for you to take Tom MacWood's bait, as it happens.

I just am not ready to die yet, just to have the image of my architecture elevated.........

[TEPaul]

"Mike, you doing a course in Israel is like me driving NASCAR at Talladega."

Hey, Brad---bullshit. You come see me and allow me to imbue you with the myth and reputation and the racing techniques of the great icon of NASCAR racing, Glenn "Fireball" Roberts, and in ONE WEEK you too can be giving Jeff Gordon & Co a run for their money.

There is only one over-riding caveat to enduring success in high-speed Talladega-like NASCAR racing and that is to just not sneeze when you're out there in close quarters at 200mph because if you do sneeze you're probably going to die.  

[TEPaul]

MikeY:

Regarding your points #1 and particularly #2----eg listening to some green chairman try to convince 25 people to just let some DR bunker be, you know what, you should just live with that and let it be.

Here's why, in my opinion.

Many of the courses of an architect like Ross have reached that point now where a lot of their value is in Ross and what he did and what those golf courses were.

The real value of courses and an architect like that at this point in the evolution of golf architecture is to begin to make what they were distinct from some of the rest, particularly what followed them maybe fifty years later or what's being done now.

We've already been through an era of perhaps fifty years where the world and particularly the USA has tried to make all architecture way too similar and too homogenized.

The time has come now to begin to concentrate on restoring and maintaining the distinctions and differences of architecture of different times and different styles.

Golf course architecture in its entire existence of 150 years or more appropriately 100 years has reached that point now.

That's golf architecture's richness and it's long term strength, in my opinion---eg in its differences, not in similarity or homogeneity.  The history and evolution of golf course architecture has gotten to that point now and it's time we recognize it and begin to deal with it better.

[Mike_Young]

Mike
Which dead guys have benefited from the 'myth' factor?

Which of their best designs were due to your points #1 and #2 ?

Jeff says not to take your bait so I will just answer once...
which benefited....all of them especially Raynor
And points #1 and #2...all of them  ex Pinehurst 2

[T_MacWood]

A short list of Raynor's best designs would be Yale, Chicago, Camargo and Fishers Island. I'm not aware of any of these courses growing or their architecture improving over the 75 years (after Raynor)...in fact in the case of Yale and Camargo the changes are generally thought to have been negative. Raynor would not be an old dead guy I would cite as benefiting from subsequent changes...his top courses are either very well preserved or recently restored (eliminating some of those changes you say are responsible for his reputation).

Myths often grow from blanket generalizations...like 'the minute a new C and C or Doak course is announced, it is declared a classic' or 'they did some good work but transportation and communication at the time made it where they weren't nearly as available as a modern architect.'

[Jeff_Brauer]

Tom,

Myths also grow from facts - the courses steeped in mythology are often connected to historic events like big tournaments.  And with greater interest in gca, as well as a seemingly ever increasing fascination with brands, a course's image (equated with myth for this discussion) is enhanced by a connection with a Golden Age gca.

Also, I think Mike is crediting the superintendents with improving maintenance conditions to the forefront of courses in whatever era - those tourney courses are usually among the best maintained then and now, which increases their image, and the minor changes that we may not be aware of, as in your Raynor examples.

Greens on almost any course have certainly been resurfaced, and probably slightly recontoured, if for nothing else because of green speed, but maybe to take out "unfair humps" or whatever that members complained about.  Similarly, bunkers have been rebuilt, and in the process, pulling them out or back just a few feet might change the playability of the course.  For that matter, landscape tree planting and growth affects design and ambiance for most people, even if a single feature is never touched.

Short version - courses change after the gca leaves, and after the gca dies, often in subtle ways that better them, even if we focus on the ones that don't on this site.

Is that too much of a generalization for you to accept?

[RJ_Daley]

Mike, your questions are really a discussion of what factors make up a truth or myth.

You suggest a debate of "patina" vs "bones" of a course.  Patina being a transient and variable characteristic nurtured by a series of committee oversight and long term work of quality superintendents.  Bones however, are what was in the design from the begining as specified by the archie.  Bones are the routing, feature earth work, strategy of the holes, and craftsmanship of features as they were made.

Yes, as you note, committees can make patina changes not specified by the original archie, and yet the new feature is incorporated into the myth.  But, for the myth to exist, it has to already be elevated to a high status in reputation for having the original bones of a great course.  Is that fair to the remodelling or restoration archie - that the myth continues to be attributed to the original archie?  I don't know...  

Is it also fair that new courses coming on-line by "hot" modern archies rise to myth instantantly?  Well no.  But, a factor in that is often that the hot new archies had begun to produce work recently that has been quickly recognized as excellent, and because of the mobility of our society, many people play new great courses in a short period of time after opening, and begin to pass along the reputation that a specific archie really built a great course.  So, a legend can be widespread rapidly.  

[T_MacWood]

I have no doubt that modern maintenance practices are superior to the equivalent seventy years ago and that superitendents often make changes or adjustments over the years that improve a golf course, but to say that Raynor's reputation as an artchitect is a myth because of better maintenance across-the-board or a minor change here and there does not make sense to me. In fact to make that claim is to start a new myth.

[Mike_Young]

Lets see...if I had about 20 different holes with an engineered look to them and went around putting them on different pieces of land.....what would be said today???  I like Camargo, Yale and haven't played FI....all I am saying is that half the times these guys didn't know what was being done in minute detail on their projects....it evolved.....
RJ,
you mentioned craftsmanship....I think that is what was missing in the majority of the dead guys stuff...it rarely happened because they weren't there and the farmer building it did not know the difference....I have seen some instances on here where people talk about the great drawings these guys did....I don't think so...many could be interpreted in several ways by different farmers...and on top of that much of the labor had never heard of golf....

[TEPaul]

"RJ,
you mentioned craftsmanship....I think that is what was missing in the majority of the dead guys stuff...it rarely happened because they weren't there and the farmer building it did not know the difference....I have seen some instances on here where people talk about the great drawings these guys did....I don't think so..."

MikeY:

it seems to me architectural drawings both back then and even today can be a very misleading things.

I doubt real architectural drawings were even used until maybe Colt and through the years some insisted they be followed very closely and others didn't.

For instance, Crump didn't follow drawings, it appears Wilson didn't either and apparently Macdonald didn't either at least on his best courses.

Flynn, on the other hand, seemed to have insisted his architectural drawings be followed exactly and we believe there were a number of reasons for that---some pretty unique.

Ross could be pretty detailed in his drawings and then for whatever reason seemed to allow changes---maybe because he didn't care and maybe because he really trusted his foremen.

I sure wouldn't say an outfit like C&C depend on drawings much at all---at least not unless someone makes them for some reason.

I think so called "craftsmanship" can be misleading too, at least in original construction. I've certainly seen what appeared to be some pretty mundane original craftsmanship get much better over time by maintenance practices and I've seen some really beautiful original craftsmanship during construction get screwed up or made to look really mundane through maintenance practices over time.

For instance, did you realize a good many of the bunkers at PVGC which are great looking were built by Crump as just inexpensive temporary bunkering until he could get back to them and improve them? Only trouble was he never had the chance to get back to them. Could anyone possibly tell that today? No way at all---not even if someone pointed out which ones they were.

[Jeff_Brauer]

I agree with Mike that craftsmanship is generally much better today.

Tom MacW - I agree that Raynor's image isn't a result of minor tweaks to his courses.  For some reason, as you can tell from my response, I was focusing more on individual courses, but Mike clearly did ask about "dead guys" and not their courses, so you are correct.  

But, in a way, Mike was asking about their courses, because the relatively newfound interest in the old guys by necessity, is being founded on what we see today (and perhaps a few old photos)  And, having a Walker Cup at Chicago can't help but help his reputation, even if it is an event totally unrelated to architecture.

As RJ says, the bones of the course are there, and the maintenance, history, and subtle changes have only added to Raynors image.  Not sure there is really any myth about him, is there?  We know what he did, can speculate (esp. with him) on what he might have done, etc.

So, I guess I have to ask Mike - what myths?

[RJ_Daley]

Mike, isn't your farmer thing a little exagerated?  I don't think any of the "dead guys" (the legend architects of the classic courses) just went down to the local grainery and got the first six guys coming in to sell their load of oats.  

I think the great archies like MacKenzie, Tillie, Ross, Thomas, etc., paid attention to who they hired as constructors, and required that they have a sense of craftsmanship in their work ethic, and how they would follow plan drawings, or instructions when the archies were not there.

[Mike_Young]

Jeff,
ah...I don't know...

RJ,
I dont think it is exaggerated at all.  I know of several DR courses where he sent a plan and the club hired the local farmer....their deal was a plan and nothing more...plus in many cases these clubs could not pay for the architect to be coming back or having a foreman onsite....I would wager that the percentage built by local farmers is much greater than the foreman supervised project....

[Jeff_Brauer]

RJ,

Change your statement to "I would like to think....." and its not contestable........

With letters being the primary communication tool, I just can't imagine them really knowing much about their contractors,   At least I can't imagine it in the early days or when the super would be in charge of construction and then take over the course.

For all the good ones like those in Australia for Mac or some of Ross later associates, I have to think that all of those started out as untrained constructors (like all the others) and were kept on when they showed some skill.  But for every one of those, there had to be 100 drunken bums, who, while they may have been the gca's best friend in the bar, weren't his best friend out on the job........

[Kelly Blake Moran]

Mike,

I think there is a desire to make sense of life by gathering what one feels are the essential principles, codifing them, and then educating everyone about them, in otherwords there is a tendancy for an orthodoxy to form and establish order.  In golf it has not really happened however this website has come the closes thing to creating an orthodox religion based upon the dead masters, maybe the media has in the past created another based upon the celebrity architects, and the ASGCA I think is incapable of doing any of this because they must represent a broader perspective, although you will see more members supporting the celebrities in their group then say another member like Bill Coore.  So in my ffeble attempt at trying to make some sense of this I will have to place you in the category of the gnostics!  Once you begin to form these orthodoxies you do use some facts to justify your view but eventually over time these get distorted and do become myths in order to perpetuate your own view.  Most that want to follow the group and believe that there is only one inspired message from a select few, like the dead masters, accept the myths and vehemently defend them while those that challenge these myths, challenge the orthodoxy are heretics.  

[Mike_Young]

KBM,
Well said....your just a better wordsmith than myself....

[T_MacWood]

I sometimes get the impression that some contemporary architects feel they are in competition with the 'dead masters'...and becasue of that perceived competition there is a tendency (subconscious or conscious) to minimize their (the dead guys) contributions and talents.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Tom,

You couldn't be more wrong, at least in my case.  I think most gca's would agree that there is good architecture in every era.  As I said above, the common thread is doing what is best for the client we have now.  Doing that sometimes means we have to ignore some historical ideas, but we don't feel in competition with dead guys.

And the definition of good varies quite a bit with project need - for example, I love the simple Floyd Farley golf courses all over the midwest as much as some classics, believing he did as much for golf by building those rudimentary courses as Tillie did in creating about 20 championship venues.