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Speaking of revision you should pick up Hurdzan's 2nd edition of "GCA" which came out this year. He revised your quote:
'In simplist terms, golf course design is the arrangement of starting and ending points within which to play golf. Over the last 150 years certain conventions have emerged."
Tom MacWood:
It fascinates me how you use a quote like this and fail to see the signficance in it. We live in 2006. Subtract the 150 years Hurzdan mentioned and what do you get?
"I hope this discusion has not left you bankrupt...no doubt you'll come up with more creative ideas to disprove the 1900 theory."
It hasn't left me bandrupt at all but I don't see any reason to continue at this point because I don't think any more ideas need to be brought up to disporve your 1900 A/C theory. I feel that's been done. Those on here can make of it whatever they want to. That was my only purpose in challenging it anyway.
"Ironically for a couple of years or more you were one of the biggest promoters of my essay, that is until you learned I was writing an essay on Crump, at which point you became dedicated to a personal Jihad with the stated goal of descrediting me. I'm convinced if anything these exchanges have illustrated one point, a genuine postion will always prevail."
That's true, for a time I was a big promoter of your essay. I read it once or twice and it seemed impressive with all the names and places in it. Then someone on this website mentioned to me that he thought it was all just 'fire and smoke' with no real connection in your points and assumptions. And so I read it a few more times. Someone else mentioned he thought it was what he called "academic positivism"---eg a forced search for material simply to support a preconceived conclusion or theory. So I read it again, and came to realize those two were exactly right.
In my opinion, in essays like that one, or like many of Max Behr's articles, there are a number of assumptions made or at least used that basically need to factually and actually connect to one another to make the conclusion valid.
For years now, I've read Behr's articles over and over looking at the assumptions he made or used to determine their accuracy and then to determine how well they connect to one another to establish the validity of his conclusions. It's a form of both a priori and a posteriori analysis. With the exception of one I think Behr was pretty much on the money but the lack of accuracy of that one assumption on his part has probably made a good deal of his conclusion or thesis invalid or something that simply did not come to pass. But only the realities of the last 6-7 decades since he wrote what he did have shown that to be true. In a way his only mistake, in my opinion, was to over-estimate the sensibilities of man, the golfer, to really want certain things or care enough about them. But even so, times are now cycling again and we may find in the future Behr was right, perhaps just 6-7 decades too early in what he wrote.
But after having really read through your essay over and over again, I believe that description on here that the essay is just 'fire and smoke' is right. Your assumptions and material production on the A/C movement are pretty interesting even if they sure are just massive name dropping of people and places, but they are just too far removed from the under-lying subject at hand---eg golf course architecture and why the Golden Age of golf architecture happened when it did, where it did, how it did and why it did. Your assumptions just don't really connect enough to GCA and the tool you utilize to attempt to connect them is massive generalization and rationalizaton. When one points that out to you your only defense has been to tell them they should open their mind more or read some more books. That kind of on-going defense of one's point, conclusion or theory is ultimately just silly and the farthest thing from informative or edifying or educational.
Personally, I’m a big fan of the A/C philosophy or attitude or ethos. I like it a lot more than I do say the general characteristics of a landscape design style such as Capability Brown (for golf architecture).
I believe that the English A/C Movement did not have much effect or influence on the Golden Age of golf architecture simply because that was a time in a very new art form that was struggling to understand and define itself for numerous reasons that had nothing to do with the A/C movement which was revival based. As Hurzdan said above in the last 150 years certain conventions have emerged. But we are discussing a time approximately a century ago. At that time golf architecture did not have a revival because it didn’t need one. What it needed to do was mature after being taken from a land which was the only one where golf existed in a totally natural state for centuries and put in places that were wholly unsuited to receive it, as Behr said.
My belief is you have tried far too hard to apply an A/C movement influence to golf course architecture back then when it was just too young and too immature and ill-defined to receive such a thing. Golf architecture’s most powerful influences back then, anyway, were a series of other events and other ideas that are all pretty well documented.
But the real irony here is I believe that you were simply about a century early in your effort to apply an A/C philosophy to golf course architecture as a powerful influence. I believe the time has arrived when the A/C philosophy, or attitude or ethos will be a powerful influence on golf course architecture. Matter of fact I think it has already been for at least a decade or more---perhaps not in all its ramifications and characteristics but in enough of the important ones.
Perhaps you haven’t noticed but I think golf course architecture is in its very first revival or renaissance in its approximately 150 year history and evolution, and it is just that A/C philosophy or attitude that is a fairly large part of it.
I’ve tried to get this entire subject to a point where and when you could engage in this area of it and in this time with it but it’s not possible to do, it seems. You’re too evasive, too defensive, apparently because you feel someone is personally attacking you. This remark about a jihad against you is just silly, as is the remark you made about your Crump essay. I thought that was pretty good---I just didn’t like the way you went about coming up with material for it and either did a couple of people in Merchantville NJ. I don’t even know you, Tom, and this isn't personal, I just don’t agree with some of the things you write.