“Again more blanket generalities...what are the orthodoxies of the dead masters? What are the myths that are being vehemently defended?” Tom McWood
The discussion about Mackenzie’s use of the jagged edge bunkers at Cypress Point as a version of his theories of camouflage, that these patterns actually mimic natural patterns and therefore blend into the landscape. I don’t see that at all, yet it has been partly responsible for a whole industry of expert shapers to recreate these patterns on modern courses. The MacKenzie bunkering is not natural, there is not credible argument to make about it being as natural as the the landscape, I mean come on, unless you are some sort of modernists artist or critic, which in that case you can pretty much interpret anything anyway you want. In some ways the whole notion of natural design that is always associated with the masters in fact is not very natural. Even the British Isles which in itself is kind of a master architect because of the tremendous landscape has been hijacked as a measure by which all bunkering in the United States judged. When that style of bunkering is performed here it is often hailed as natural, evoking the spirit of the British Isles yet it may be a tract of farmland in eastern Pennsylvania. There is nothing in the PA countryside that looks anything like the shaping and bunkering that is being built today and hailed as natural. I think in general the notion that some of the old masters were masters at hiding the hand of man in their work is somewhat of a myth. I don't think nature is given enough credit for soften the effects of manmade construction. I have seen some pretty awful scars on the land that over time become charming after nature has had its way with it.
The great masters can also be seen as a kind of orthodoxy in the sense that they are held up as the epitome of architecture by which everything is measured, and they have become a means by which to give instant credibility to a course. There is one course whose website you can get to through this site because someone here is tied to this course. You go to the web site and its home page invokes the names of C.B. MacDonald, Seth Raynor, Harry Colt, William Flynn, A.W. Tillinghast, James Braid, and Stiles & Van Kleek, and that the modern architect was inspired by features inspired by the likes of Shinnecock Hills, Charleston Country Club, and Fox Chapel, the modern architect even goes on to say “The 27 holes are inspired by the renaissance of golf architects 100 years ago”, yet you go to the architect’s website and the only mention of anything remotely close to what he is saying on the courses website is that he finds natural holes, not one mention of the master architects and being inspired by them. So Tom I think just the whole perception today that living architects some how have tapped into the great talents and secrets of the master architects has created one massive myth that is perpetuated everyday, and it has placed a select few dead architects at a god-like level to which many architects shamelessly want us to believe they reach to for some sort of divine inspiration, that somehow they have unlocked the secrets of the these gods among men.
There is the notion that the master architects were much more strategic in their thinking therefore some could reach the conclusion that the bunkering was always well thought out, strategic and many on here will go on about the strategic value of a certain bunker when frankly to me the bunker was eye candy, I mean Mackenzie created eye candy beyond any eye candy Fazio could ever dream to create. And the masters may very well acknowledge that is what they were doing yet those today that want to inject some majestic quality to everything these guys did will never acknowledge the some what frivolous use of eye candy bunkering by some of the old masters.
MacKenzie is attributed with saying a course should look hard and play easy. I posted a long piece about why to me that is a silly statement without much backup, actually Tom it is was a generality with no supporting evidence, imagine that, a dead master speaking in generalities, see it is not so bad. In any event I think a course or a shot that looks easy yet plays more difficult is far more interesting. However, Mackenzie’s statement is restated often by modern architects I think without much thought given to what it means, but it comes from up high so it must be right.
Tom, those are a few of the things I can think of that hopefully expand upon what I meant in my statement. I have not kept notes over time when I have run across these myths and “accepted truths”, but it might be an interesting thing to write about, although I believe Mike Young did an opinion piece on this. With regards for the orthodoxy in many respects it is not a bad thing, there is nothing wrong with having a body of writing or works that becomes a kind of canon and the people that created it kind of a group of cardinals to which you can go back to for truths, but in my position I don’t want to be spoon fed by someone, I do not want to just take what is taught to me and repeat it, that to me is the equivalent of being dead, I think you can go to the sources and forgive me but in some subconscious or spiritual way absorb these teachings but ultimately you must create in your own vision. I think all of us to some extent or another have the very same inclinations and thoughts that these guys did and sometimes we act on them without even knowing that we are just merely reinforcing some great principle that is unchanging throughout the years, but there are times when you believe that some accepted truth that everyone else claims as doctrine is in fact hollow and you move away from it. I think that definitely exists and that the more these ideas about design are challenged and debated the better. The whole cottage industry that has been built around the dead masters has spawned some pretty light weight books and just out-in-out fraud on the part of architects and developers who give very little care to these guys other than finding another way to shore up their credibility. And the guys in the media suck it up, that buy it hook line and sinker. It is very disturbing to witness. I talk with some who are intimately involved in some restoration work and when you mention about how so and so architect talks about digging down to find the floor of the original bunkers and so on and they laugh at it, they tell me convincingly that that was never done on one single bunker, that the restoration architect provided no plans or concept sketches based upon some earlier look, and that they rarely saw the architect, which in this case I guess would be in line with the way some of the master architects conducted their work as well.