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Joel_Stewart

  • Karma: +0/-0
Coore & Crenshaw vs. MacDonald/Raynor
« on: October 21, 2002, 08:58:34 AM »
I was lucky enough to play three C&C courses this year as well as three MacDonald and/or Raynor courses.  Over the weekend I was struck by the fact that C&C don't use any of the old classical features such as punchbowls, redans, biarritz but are still revered as classical in their style.

C&C are consistent with their greens, generally very large, are run-up, use very large mounding and contours.  How would you describe C&C style, is it a modern - classical style?  Its a paradox.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

Brad Swanson

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Coore & Crenshaw vs. MacDonald/Raynor
« Reply #1 on: October 21, 2002, 10:14:47 AM »
Joel,
   I have played only one C&C course, and I can think of at least a couple of those features being incorporated (sometimes only partially) in several green complexes.

Brad Swanson
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

Slag_Bandoon

Re: Coore & Crenshaw vs. MacDonald/Raynor
« Reply #2 on: October 21, 2002, 10:57:17 AM »
 I've not played even three C&C courses, so I shouldn't generalize, but from what I've seen, C&C use what's on the ground and let their discoveries of the land be their lead.  Ben, as you know, is a voracious reader of golf history and venerates the past accomplishments of architects but realizes that the land gives the answers, not the visions of men of the past.  I don't know Coore. Is he the balancing pragmatist/draftsman  of the design team?  
  I have never played a McD and Raynor but from my readin' I gather they have definite construction and re-creation leanings that emulate what's in their mind more than the land.  
  Both teams have grand ideas at heart but with different motivational seeds.  

  (Obviously an unqualified post.  More of a notion than an opinion)

 Hamlet.  "Do you see nothing there?"
 Queen.   "Nothing at all; yet all that is I see."

  

  
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

Tom MacWood (Guest)

Re: Coore & Crenshaw vs. MacDonald/Raynor
« Reply #3 on: October 21, 2002, 11:19:02 AM »
I'm not sure there is such a thing as a 'classical style' -- if there is one, I'm not sure what it would be. Very few architects copied those models and I wouldn't criticize anyone for not utilizing them - most of the so called 'classical' architects didn't use them. That be said Sand Hills has a modified Redan and ND has a hole reminisant of a Biarritz sans trench.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

Ran Morrissett

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Coore & Crenshaw vs. MacDonald/Raynor
« Reply #4 on: October 22, 2002, 11:25:02 AM »
C&C would be horrified if someone said they had a certain style and/or that their work could be pigeonholed. The opposite is true - they try to build courses that are reflective of each particular environment. Thus, their courses remain unique, even when compared to one another.

Having said that, there are consistencies, namely:

1. Teeing areas that are square to rectangle and not too many of them.

2. Width off the tee

3. Bunkers that appear rugged, naturalistic. Remember Coore's words in the foreword to Robert Hunter's The Links: "I have never encountered a more perfect description of the artistic construction of bunkers than the following: [quoting from Robert Hunter] They should have the appearance of being made with carelessness and abandon with which a brook tears down the banks which confine it, or the wind tosses about the sand of the dunes…forming depressions or elevations broken into irregular lines. Here the bank overhangs, where there it has crumbled away." Jeff Bradley and the Boys capture this from site to site but look at the pictures of the bunkers at Chessessee Creek, Cuscowilla, Hidden Creek, Kapalua, Sand Hills and the upcoming Friar's Head course profile: aren't the bunkers varied in appearance (unlike Raynor's) even while remaining true to Hunter's quote above?

4. Greens that are open in front. As for the putting surfaces themselves, they are wildly different with no discernible repetition like a Double Plateau or "thumb print" Raynor green.

Unlike Raynor, C&C don't repeat or stamp out any particular type hole onto each and every site. Of course, if an opportunity at a site presents itself for a Redan ala 4 at Hidden Creek or a modified Redan ala 11 at Kapalua, then sure, they will pose that classic problem to the golfer.

Cheers,
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

Jeff_Lewis

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Coore & Crenshaw vs. MacDonald/Raynor
« Reply #5 on: October 22, 2002, 12:00:59 PM »
I agree 100% Ran. It is interesting that we all, myself included, love Raynor's work despite the fact that it is somewhat formulaic and is supposed to emulate a place that he never visited. We on this site often criticize Rees Jones or Tom Fazio for applying their formula regardless of the environment they are building in. Isn't that exactly what Raynor did?
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

Ran Morrissett

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Coore & Crenshaw vs. MacDonald/Raynor
« Reply #6 on: October 22, 2002, 12:43:37 PM »
If Raynor hammered his favorite holes onto a piece of property regardless of whether it made sense or not, then I think we wouldn't enjoy his work nearly as much.

HOWEVER, he first (and always, it seems) came up with a sterling routing and thus for example, Short holes like the ones at Shoreacres or Lookout Mountain in no way feel imposed upon the land; just the opposite in fact.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

Jeff_Lewis

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Coore & Crenshaw vs. MacDonald/Raynor
« Reply #7 on: October 22, 2002, 12:51:09 PM »
I was just playing devil's advocate there Ran....but you took the bait!
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

Joel_Stewart

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Coore & Crenshaw vs. MacDonald/Raynor
« Reply #8 on: October 22, 2002, 07:35:30 PM »
Excellent posts Jeff and Ran.  For me this is what this site is intended.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

TEPaul

Re: Coore & Crenshaw vs. MacDonald/Raynor
« Reply #9 on: October 22, 2002, 07:52:44 PM »
"I just can't imagine how they had the guts to build a golf course like that!"
(Bill Coore on NGLA/MacD/Raynor)

He meant that as a real compliment!
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

Joel_Stewart

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Coore & Crenshaw vs. MacDonald/Raynor
« Reply #10 on: October 23, 2002, 09:34:49 AM »

Quote
"I just can't imagine how they had the guts to build a golf course like that!"
(Bill Coore on NGLA/MacD/Raynor)

He meant that as a real compliment!

Funny story when I played NGLA last week.  A number of times over the last few years, members at NGLA would come off the 18th hole or call on cell phones to report a strange man hanging around a green or just walking the property.  The shop would then send someone out only to discover Bill Coore looking around.   Sometimes he would stand in one place for hours.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

TEPaul

Re: Coore & Crenshaw vs. MacDonald/Raynor
« Reply #11 on: October 23, 2002, 06:31:31 PM »
Joel:

Come on! I've seen a lot of gaffe posts on this site over the years but that's one I need to know about! Is that a joke or do you deem it to be true? Either way it wouldn't surprise me! But Bill wouldn't think of walking on a golf property without pemission or talking to someone first!

But if that was him his statement about NGLA and my remark about it being a compliment would take on more meaning indeed!
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:10 PM by -1 »

Jim_Kennedy

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Coore & Crenshaw vs. MacDonald/Raynor
« Reply #12 on: October 24, 2002, 05:05:33 PM »
Today I was standing on the right side edge of the first green at our Raynor/Banks course. I was looking back down the fairway and taking in all the humps and hollows that are so well defined in the late afternoon light and noticing again how brilliantly he laid the two-tiered green at the end of the uphill, banked approach (it's a par 4, 420 from the tip), much like a  redan but reversed. There  beauty, strategy and danger presented themselves on a hole that is some 65 or so yds. wide. This setting always amazes me and I need to be told again, what kind of engineer did this??
I then looked over the edge of the green and remembered it was a 10' drop to the floor of the grass plateau below. It added another adjective to my vocabulary when trying to explain Raynor/Banks- PRECIPITIOUS!  ;D    
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »
"I never beat a well man in my life" - Harry Vardon

A_Clay_Man

Re: Coore & Crenshaw vs. MacDonald/Raynor
« Reply #13 on: October 24, 2002, 08:51:13 PM »
I thought the redan 17 at SH was very cool. And the 15th hole par 4 had a serious punchbowl on the left side.

So, while they may have not been perfect definitions they were certainly stylized from classic concepts. The redan  hole's bunkers were the exact  quote of Hunters above.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

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