Who's taking the biggest risks in new construction today...

[Jeff_Brauer]

Bob,

I agree with Kilt Boy on this one.....

Were Golden Age guys risk takers?  All they had to do was beat the terrible geometric designs of the early years to be genius'.When I read all of the big boy books of the Golden Age, I find that they all came to more or less the same conclusion about design theory, independently or borrowing from each other - angled fw, optional carry bunker, etc.  Their greens, after allowing for green speeds and grain, don't seem to have been intended to be anything other than moderate to good putting tests - the same thing we strive for today with flatter greens.

The big risk takers, IMHO, were RTJ with huge lakes and using other technology, then Pete Dye with his retro look.  There was Desmond Muirhead, of course, and I suppose the minimalists were taking a risk, too.  

Is there a lot of risk taking right now?  I don't think you would call the broadest range of styles ever necessarily a risk, but it sure beats the Golden Age for variety, so there are differences, which entail some design risk.  I think that IS the long view!

[BCrosby]

Jeff -

As my mother used to say, be careful who you call your friends.  

I can think of no modern course that matches the risky stuff done by:

- Thomas a Riviera (bunker in green)
- MacK at Crystal (holes 4 through 7)
- MacK at ANGC (the whole damn course circa 1933)
- MacK at Cypress (15, 16, 17)
- MacD/Raynor (horseshoes in greens, blind approaches with cross bunkers, Biarritz's, Redans, Capes, heck, virtually any of the template holes)
- Behr at Rancho Sante Fe (no bunkers)
- Crump (if PV is anything it is a wild, risky design)
- Wilson/Flynn at Merion (9th, 10th, 16th, 17th)
- Fownes at Oakmont (church pews, furrowed bunkers)
- Neville/Egan at Pebble (where to begin)
- Willie Watson at Belvedere (build some of those green complexes today and you are out the door)

I could go on. Those weren't just courses that tried to be a little more natural looking than Victorian geometric courses. They were designs spinning off into low earth orbit. That's over the top stuff.

The only modern I can think of that comes close to that sort of edginess is Desmond Muirhead. Or maybe Pete Dye. One has passed away and the other is at the end of his career.

You are right that the design philosophies of the Golden Agers all seemed to hew to the strategic school party line. They spoke the same language. But what they actually put in the ground remains unmatched in terms of the risks they took.

There are moderns that take risks. Strantz did. DeVries did at Kingsley. There are no doubt others that I don't now recall. But even their stuff doesn't approach the edginess of some of the best courses from the Golden Age.  

Bob

[Jeff_Brauer]

We may be talking semantic differences here - but I can't see any of Pebbles or CPC ocean holes being viewed as taking a risk!  Thats just making use of a site.  And I don't know if isolated features on any course constitute risk as much as changing a paradigm in general, as you mention with Dye, Strantz, etc.

It seems that for all their similarities, each had his pet features - Tillies Hells Half Acre, Thomas green center hazards (also proposed at LA North) and Macs freak greens. Is a pet feature taking a risk?  I will say the MacK freak greens probably come close to qualifying!  Again, I don't think most of those greens were as off the charts as we assume, given green speeds.

CBM trying to do the first world class course in the US? Bold, and some risk.  Maybe the earlier Scottish gca's who took golf away from the coast were the all time biggest risk takers.

Is doing the second course in the Sand Hills region a bigger or smaller risk than doing the first? (Sorry to sound this way, but I did play golf with Barney last week.....)

[RJ_Daley]

Jeff, I don't think the second bite of the apple concept is as big of risk as the first bite regarding the sand hills model.

[Lou_Duran]

I would agree with Engh, at least in the context of Sanctuary and the severity of the site.

Though I haven't played very much of Doak's or C & C's work, I think the great severity of their green complexes in contrast to the shorter length and less demanding shots from the tee makes their construction risky.  For the 18 handicapper, will being able to find balls on wider fairways and having shorter second shots overcome the demands of difficult bunkers and mini roller-coaster internal contouring?  Typically, one separates the men from the boys around the greens.  I am afraid that both groups' styles tend to enlarge the gap.  

[BCrosby]

Jeff -

The history of golf architecture is like the history of batting averages in one sense. Both are subject to the rule of reversion to the mean.

In the 20's you had a very wide spread of batting averages. There were Cobb, Wagner, Ruth, Gehrig, Sissler, etc. with averages at or over .400 and a lot of people with averages south of the Mendoza line.

As baseball evolved, batting averages at both extremes evolved closer to the mean. You get fewer really high and fewer really low averages.

Seems to me that an overview of Golden Age courses shows that something like the same thing has happened with gca over the years. In the 20's you had a wide range of architectural features. People experimented with some truly nutty stuff (some of which, btw, was incredibly successful). They took huge risks. At the other extreme, courses were built that were truly boring, so insipid that even the worst architect alive today could do a better job.

Over the last several decades, both types of courses have evolved towards a mean. The really wild courses have been domesticated and the dullest courses are much less dull than the dullest courses used to be.

Bob

 

[Jay Flemma]

Doak, Strantz, Dye, Spann, Silva, Engh...and other...not necessarily in any particular order

Baxter at Black Mesa took a helluva chance!

[Jeff_Brauer]

Bob,

Look at the list just below your last post - doesn't that show some risk taking?

Generally I agree with you though, and while todays wide divergence of style is perhaps not risky, it is not moving towards the mean.  As for any age, I think there is some experimentation with technology (ie earthmoving and conical mounds for example) we see what works, and then we start moving to the mean until we get new technology or until we get bored - whichever comes first!

[paul cowley]

....alright kids, recess is over .

TP nominated the 'fort' course as a risk taker....has someone here played it of late?...or ever?

Or are we just comparing 'conceptually risk taking designs' of today versus the courses that happened to survive from the 'conceptual risk taking designs' of Golden Ages long ago.

.....I am beginning to understand why one might want to start a Bl ;)g .........