[David Stamm]

I think they wrote their books for another reason. I would suggest we take the reason they themselves gave for writing their books. They thought they were in a serious debate and they had somthing to say about it.

Who was it, then, that was activley promoting penal design concepts such that the major architects of the Golden Age felt it important enough to structure their books around arguments to defeat the idea? Those authors clearly thought it was a powerful idea that needed to be rebuted. Where did all this concern about penal architecture come from? Who was it they were debating against?

Because if  the defeat of penal theories was one of the main themes of those books, but you can't tell me who it was that was promoting penal design theories, were MacK, MacD, Thomas etc. all delusional? Were they just making stuff up?

That is the historical question. What was it that caused them to be so concerned by penal design theories? Who was it that was so successfully promotng the idea?

(Yes there were books written before '26. Though not many. MacK's book (which spends a lot of time telling the reader why he ought to hire a gca rather than doing it himself) and Colt's collection of essays were the longest treatments of gca. Compared to the literature that came out in the last five years of the Golden Age, that's pretty thin soup.

But it's not just thin soup. Those writings have a very different tone from the books written later in the decade.)

Bob

Bob, I have just acquired most of the books that you mention, and it struck as I was reading what you wrote how adamant they were about presenting the virtues of the strategic designs and the tone talking about the penal seemed to almost have a sense of urgency. They apparently saw something that was a real danger in their minds. Could it have soley been in response to Crane? Who knows, but it seems fairly certain that his way of thinking in their minds was part of the danger.  

[Tommy_Naccarato]

David,
Be careful, be very careful. Your taking to this subject of golf course architecture and it's history is no different then doing massive amounts of LSD. Trust me, I know from experience!

There is a lot to mull over when it comes to Crane. I once came across something about him moving to Montecito. Tom Paul, as far as I know Max never lived up there, other then designing Montecito CC which was pretty much devastated when they built up Highway 101, if it was partially destoryed during the great storms during the winter of 1937. To call that course a shadow of it's former self would be an understatement.

[T_MacWood]

Bob
Horace Hutchinson, John Low, Bernard Darwin, Harry Colt, Herbert Fowler, HS Colt, Max Behr, AJ Robertson, etc were writing about strategic architecture vs penal architecture in the 1900s and 1910s.

Hunter and Thomas wrote their books prior to the Crane controversey. Simpson was a partner in the firm Fowler, Abercromby, Simpson and Croome; he and Wethered wrote their book right after Simpson went out on his own. Macdonald's book is an autobiography that touches on golf architecture....not unlike Horace Hutchinson's autobiography. You will find  many of Macdonald's thoughts on strategic golf architecture in an interview by Grantland Rice in 1924 (some of it almost verbadim to what you find in his book).

Bob & TE
You should heed Darwin and MacKenzie's advice and not take Crane (and his stupid rating system) so seriously.

[T_MacWood]

Tommy
According to Geoff Shackelford's essay on Behr, he lived in Montecito until his death in 1944.

[BCrosby]

David Stamm wrote:

"Bob, I have just acquired most of the books that you mention, and it struck as I was reading what you wrote how adamant they were about presenting the virtues of the strategic designs and the tone talking about the penal seemed to almost have a sense of urgency. They apparently saw something that was a real danger in their minds. Could it have soley been in response to Crane? Who knows, but it seems fairly certain that his way of thinking in their minds was part of the danger."

Exactly, David.

Tom MacW -

Most of us are familiar with the fact that people wrote about gca before 1925. Many promoted strategic designs. I would be pleased to see any references in those earlier writings to "penal" designs. I've looked for them and can't find any.

My point is not that books weren't written before '25; nor is my point that gca was not discussed prior to '25.

My point is that the discussion took on an urgencey about '25 or so that it didn't have earlier. It sounds to me like they thought they had a fight on their hands.

I appreciate David Stamm, TEP and others pointing out what I think is quite obvious to me and most anyone else. The books written from '26 on (and pieces by Behr which are earlier) have a very polemical tone. That tone has always struck me as odd.

Now, the question of the day is where did that sense of urgency come from? If, as you say, it couldn't possibly be due to Crane because he didn't believe in penal architecture; if the Crane debates amounted to nothing more than a brief squabble about TOC, then who the heck was promoting penal designs such that so many people in the last five years of the '20's felt compelled to try to defeat it?

I have thrown out the name of Joshua Crane. I am open to any names and/or institutions that would better fit the bill. So far I haven't heard any.

Bob

[TEPaul]

"Bob & TE
You should heed Darwin and MacKenzie's advice and not take Crane (and his stupid rating system) so seriously."

Tom MacWood:

No wonder it's nearly impossible for anyone to discuss something with you. For about the fiftth time---I am not exactly taking Crane and his mathematical formula all that seriously. What I am doing, and Bob Crosby is doing is suggesting why particularly Max Behr took what he said so seriously. I hope you're not trying to deny Behr did take what Crane said or was suggesting seriously and it wasn't JUST about his mathematical formula. You seem to be under the impression it was ONLY about his mathematical formula and his low ranking of TOC. I guess that's understandable since you haven't read what Behr wrote in its entirety.  

But again, if you haven't read Behr's article I've mentioned to you a number of times you probably wouldn't understand that, even if Behr did mention Crane in one other of his articles but nothing like his article "Golf Architecture (An Interesting Reply to the Penal School of Architecture)".

Perhaps someone could arrange to send it to you so you can get a bit more up to speed here.  

[BCrosby]

Tom MacW -

MacK didn't take Crane seriously? Really? Do you really want to argue that point?

As noted above, I don't know how MacK could have taken Crane more seriously. I don't have the time to recite again the ways in which that is true. Please review my posts above.

Or are you simply conflating views of Crane's rating system (which was indeed loopy) with Crane's carefully articulated justifications for his approach to golf design, which were far from loopy. In fact they were so far from loopy that they - in essence - became the current USGA setup philosophy.

Which, at the end of the day, is why the old Crane debate is still relevant.

Bob

[TEPaul]

"Now, the question of the day is where did that sense of urgency come from? If, as you say, it couldn't possibly be due to Crane because he didn't believe in penal architecture; if the Crane debates amounted to nothing more than a brief squabble about TOC, then who the heck was promoting penal designs such that so many people in the last five years of the '20's felt compelled to try to defeat it?"

Bob:

Yes that is the question of the day, or at least it's become the question of this thread that started out on J.H. Taylor.

(This is why I wanted to start a thread on this debate between Crane and the others.)

Some time ago Sean Arble said we should define the terms we're using here better or more completely, such as what any of us mean by "penal" architecture. At first I thought we didn't need to do that but maybe now we do.

There is no question at all that a number of those architects saw some danger around 1925 and on. And there's no question the most vocal regarding that danger was Max Behr. Would you not agree with that?

So, if it was Behr who was most vocal and it was Crane and some ideas he had Behr seemed to be debating most, let's just go through what both actually and specifically said and we just may find the specifics of their concerns and their arguments and even perhaps the reasons for the strength of their arguments.

[T_MacWood]

Bob
Here are some early examples of advocating strategic design over penal:

In this connection it may well be to bear in mind that golf is primarily a pastime and not a penance, and that the player should have a chance of extracting from a game the maximum amount of pleasure with the minumum amount of discomfort as punishment for evil ways. He will not obtain this pleasure unless you provide plenty of difficulties; but surely there is no need for vindictiveness. And just think how pleasant it is to hop over a bunker at times, and occasionally hit a wild shot and have a chance of recovery! There is opportunity for much needed mercy even to erratic golfers.
~HS Colt 1912

On many courses the hazards laid out to catch only the really bad shots; this kind of difficulty has little interest for the good player. A good player, if he is on his game, should hardly make a really bad shot during the round...what test good golf is the hazard which may or may not be risked; the bunker which takes charge of the long but not truly hit ball. If the 'Principal's Nose' was transplanted to within 100 yards of the tee it would, no doubt catch bad shots which do not now reach it, but it would no longer influence the character of the hole so far as first-class golf is concerned. It is just because it is far out and capable of trapping the firaly long shot that is a nose to be feared...
~John Low 1903

There is hardly such a thing as an unfair bunker. Even the hazard right in the middle of the course at the end of a long tee shot, like the ninth hole at St. Andrews, is really quite a fair risk. That it is only a good shot which goes into it is often the complaint we hear. True, true, gentle grumbler, but not good enough. If a player is going to drive far as that pot, he must see to it that he drives to one side or the other, there is plenty of room on either flank....It is a mistake to suppose that because you hit a shot stright down the middle of the course and find it bunkered you are to fill up the offending hazard. Next time you will play on the true line, not the bee-line, and all is well.
~John Low 1903

In making bunker interesting bunkers, green committees are frequently handicapped by member complaining that a bunker is being constructed where a good shot goes. It is an obvious retort that no perfect shot ever gets into bunker, as a bunker is clearly the wrong spot on which to place one's shot. A bunker placed where the majority of players go is frequently of the most interest, as then a special effort is needed to place one's shot. I do not suggest you should smother your courses with bunkers, but I do suggest that each bunker should be placed so as to have some influence on the line of play to the hole, and not simply with malignant desire to punish a weak player.
~Dr. Alister MacKenzie 1912

The laying out fo golf courses is such a perpetual process that we need offer no apologies for further hint or two on that inexhaustable suject. There is one point which even the most advanced of the links architects seem often to have missed. It is respect of the right placing of bunkers through the gree for the punishment of the indifferent shot. Very often we see a bunker placed on the right-hand side of the course and another on the left-hand side, with a fairway channel left between them down the centre, and see those bunkers set at a distance not far from a full tee shot from the tee. The effect of that is that an absolutely perfect shot does, indeed have its reward--it trickles between the buners, a verys lightly less accurate one is trapped either to right of left, but one that is a little worse is not penalised at all, because it stops short of the bunkers. This is an arrangement wich is neither equity nor interest. If one of these bunkers, it does not matter which, was pulled back some fifty yards nearer the tee, so as to give a chance of carrying it, it is obvious at once how mich the shot would gain interest. It would make a nam begin to think at once--think whether he should go for the carry, or try tfor the very narrow straight between the two bunkers, or play short of the firther bunker. His decision may be largely influenced by the force and direction of the wind, and it is to be noted that the wind consideration does not come into the account when you have the ingenious arrongement of the two bunkers equidistant, on each side.
~Horace Hutchinson 1908

[BCrosby]

So, if it was Behr who was most vocal and it was Crane and some ideas he had Behr seemed to be debating most, let's just go through what both actually and specifically said and we just may find the specifics of their concerns and their arguments and even perhaps the reasons for the strength of their arguments.

To some extent that is what I am doing in the piece I am writing and (with Ran's blessing) will post at GCA as an In My Opinion piece.

I find the arguments back and forth to be fascinating. Better yet, they go to the heart of a lot of very big issues in gca. Many of them are still debated. (For some of those arguments it's like Groundhog's Day. The get re-argued and re-argued down through the decades, every time as if they were new. But virtually all of them were first used by Behr and Crane. Even the vocabulary hasn't changed very much.)

Bob

[T_MacWood]

Some of the old stalwarts at St.Andrews, not knowing what a good fellow he was, resented Joshua Crane's criticism and were inclined to take him too seriously.
~Alister MacKenzie from The Spirit of St.Andrews (1930)

The cause of so painful a doubt is my friend, if I may so term him, Mr. Joshua Crane, who has lately written an interesting article in The Field. Mr. Crane sometimes makes us angry, if we take him too seriously, as when on the strength of a complicated system of making courses he alleges that Gleneagles is much superior to St.Andrews; but after all he refuted himself in the most amiable and practical manner by taking a home at St.Andrews this summer. He is always stimulating and we shall do well if instead of getting cross we regard him as being like Mr.Arnold Bennet's Denry [evidently Denry was an outrageous and humorous fictional character in Bennett's books], associated with the great cause of making us all happy.
~Bernard Darwin The Times (1928)

Bob & TE
You'd be best to adopt MacKenzie and Darwin's attitude when it comes to Crane and his rediculous rating system.

[BCrosby]

Tom MacW -

Thanks for the quotations. I am familiar with them. There are others in a similar vein. BTW, that's a lot of quick work.

But they don't address my main point, which was as stated above:

"My point is that the discussion took on an urgencey about '25 or so that it didn't have earlier. It sounds to me like they thought they had a fight on their hands."

And the reason for that sense of urgency circa '25 is that the "penal" school - for the first time in the history of gca - had a forceful, articulate advocate who had as a bully pulpit the most prominent magazines in the golf world. And he was picking up some pretty serious allies.

Crane changed the nature of the "penal" opposition to the strategic school. They had a serious, well-spoken opponent for the first time. And that worried many architects.

Rightfully so, I think. You see, it wasn't pre-ordained that the strategic school would win out. Behr, MacK and most of their peers understood that. There was no a priori reason to think their views would prevail. It could have turned out very differently.  

Bob    

[BCrosby]

If you don't think Mack took Crane seriously I would suggest you re-read his rejoinder to Crane in GI. If that isn't enough, consider that Mack thought it worth focusing the first chapter of his SofSA to arguing against Crane and his view of golf design.

Those don't sound like responses to someone he didn't take seriously. Someone you don't take seriously you normally can choose to ignore.

Bob

[T_MacWood]

Bob
The breif discusion of Crane in 'The Spirit of St.Andrews' has the tone of a humerous anecdote in my opinion. MacKenzie and Behr setting their confused friend straight on holiday...all done in a good natured manner.

You don't get the impression that Crane was some kind of irrestable evil force for penal architecture who was the cause for great concern and urgency throughout the world of golf architecture.

[TEPaul]

What did Crane seem most interested in with his mathematical formula for rating golf courses and holes?

Well, he created a laundry list of weighted values for analyzing the holes themselves---by that he apparently meant the strengths and weaknesses of their actual architecture, and then another category for what he called "upkeep"?

Why would a guy like Behr be bothered by that?

Good question.

In their writing following the publishing of Crane's new mathematical formula for rating golf courses in May of 1924 in Golf Illustrated, Behr, Mackenzie, Hunter, Macdonald et al began writing about how various holes, particularly in GB had "soul" or some kind of "spirit", or variety and diversity which was just not something that could be reduced to mathematical analysis to determine its quality.

And what did those guys say they thought "quality" or soul or spirit of a hole or course really was?

They all pretty much said it was some aura about those holes and courses, particularly TOC, that made them somehow unable to be defined, and certainly not mathematically or scientifically definable, and that made those who knew them and played them, love them. What is that about really? Can it be anything more than what we say on here as architecture "passing the test of time", and sometimes even for virtually unexplainable reasons?

So, along comes Crane and starts to insinuate that even if they've always said they loved some of these old holes and courses they really don't---that they simply don't want to admit that perhaps some of their complaints actually mean those holes and courses just aren't very good, that they need to be fixed and changed, and that his mathematical formula for analyzing quality and weakness of holes and courses can determine exactly why and how.

And to that the likes of Behr, Mackenzie, Hunter and Macdonald et al obviously took some serious exception and umbrage---perhaps assuming that Crane was in fact beginning to mess with some of those perceived mysteries about golf architecture that makes people come to love or appreciate it and not want to change it. (Do you notice how proud those guys were that TOC had essentially never undergone any real architectural change)?

But although all the foregoing makes a lot of sense to me about why these guys started to get set off with Crane, I think the thing that made particularly Behr just explode was this notion of Crane's that the thing to do with GOLF and ARCHITECTURE was to do everything possible to remove LUCK from it.

I think that alone is what really got Behr going. Is that penal architecture? Well, we should talk more about that. Maybe it is and maybe it isn't.

But what is LUCK in golf and architecture and what did it really mean to both camps?

I don't think there's any question what it meant to Crane because he didn't hesitate to say so in pretty specific terms when he began to say in his first article on this mathematical rating system that his purpose was to eliminate LUCK in golf as best as he could and as completely as he could. He basically said it was that unnecessary random happenstance that a good player who hit basically good shots should not be subjected to in golf and by architecture if it was to his detriment, particularly compared to some happenstances that poor players who hit worse shots may benefit from in some comparatively disproportionate way regarding architecture---they should, in fact, be more proportionately and appropriately penalized and punished for their lack of skill. This is essentially what Crane AND Taylor referred to as “graduated penalty”.

But what about Behr, Mackenzie, Hunter, Macdonald et al---what did they think about this idea of Crane’s of trying to eliminate LUCK in golf and architecture or what it meant? What did LUCK in golf and architecture mean to them? What did this notion of Crane's and Taylor's and apparently others of trying to mathematically and scientifically "graduate penalty" mean to them? Did they percieve that as dangerous to golf and architecture somehow?

It may’ve meant to them a dire and dangerous threat to the very preservation of the perception of random naturalness in golf and golf architecture, even if man-made. It may’ve meant to them a real threat to the preservation of that mystery in golf wrought by that very undefined and virtually ineffable randomness in Nature that made people love various holes and courses even if they couldn’t exactly explain why. LUCK!? Was it a vastly different treatment and approach to LUCK in golf and architecture that really heated up this subject and debate?

Behr defined that mystery, among other things, as that which contributed to variety, diversity, the freedom the golfer should feel, the maintenance of the fact that every round could be a new challenge and a new journey, a new discovery somehow. Does it sound like LUCK might take a fairly serious part in those descriptions? I'd say so.

Crane, on the other hand, obviously felt that kind of thing should be somehow eliminated so any golfer could better isolate and highlight his physical skill against his human opponent.

Behr then went so far as to actually try to define or even redefine the way golf, architecture, the golfer et al should look at the entire subject of what penalty was supposed to be in golf. Even the title of one of his articles that apparently was inspired by Crane’s thinking is “The Nature and Use of Penalty”.

And then along about 1926 Crane took his mathematical formula on the road and actually rated and ranked some of the best GB courses at which time TOC came in real low. This clearly incensed the likes of Charles Ambrose and a number of GBers. And Behr. Mackenzie, Hunter, Macdonald got on that bandwagon and took Crane to task.

But it most definitely appears that this had a lot more to do with just some dumb mathematical rating system, at least it appears it did to Max Behr. Was LUCK part of that mathematical rating system of Crane's? I don't know but he mentioned eliminating LUCK enough in his first published article on his rating system, that's for sure.

But Tom MacWood, you never will understand much of this unless and until you become familiar with Behr’s article “Golf Architecture (An Interesting Reply to the Penal School of Golf).  

[TEPaul]

"Bob
The breif discusion of Crane in 'The Spirit of St.Andrews' has the tone of a humerous anecdote in my opinion. MacKenzie and Behr setting their confused friend straight on holiday...all done in a good natured manner."

Bob:

Have you ever noticed when Tom MacWood wants to maintain what is virtually his unsupportable point about what some architect actually meant by a written remark if that remark appears not to agree with MacWood's point and agenda, Tom simply states he knows that architect well enough to know he was JOKING in what he said in that quoted remark.

He said the very same thing when using Colt's remark that early Victorian golf architecture in England looked remarkably similar to steeplechase courses and steeplechase features.

This obviously didn't fit in very well with Tom MacWood's contention that that early rudimentary architecture, particularly cross hazards were somehow just a product of the claptrap products of the Industrial Revolution.

But Colt was obviously not joking in that remark of his which Tom MacWood actually quotes in his five part essay "Arts and Crafts Golf".

Colt wasn't joking, he was simply stating an obvious fact. Tom MacWood probably just doesn't know or understand what a steeplechase course and steeplechase obstacles actually looked like, and still do look like.    

[T_MacWood]

What did Crane seem most interested in with his mathematical formula for rating golf courses and holes?

Well, he created a laundry list of weighted values for analyzing the holes themselves---by that he apparently meant the strengths and weaknesses of their actual architecture, and then another category for what he called "upkeep"?

Why would a guy like Behr be bothered by that?

Good question.

In their writing following the publishing of Crane's new mathematical formula for rating golf courses in May of 1924 in Golf Illustrated, Behr, Mackenzie, Hunter, Macdonald et al began writing about how various holes, particularly in GB had "soul" or some kind of "spirit", or variety and diversity which was just not something that could be reduced to mathematical analysis to determine its quality.

When Crane first wrote about his formula in 1924 - detailing exactly how it worked - no one said a word, not Behr, not MacKenzie, no one. It was only when he began rating courses, a year and half later, and St.Andrews got the shaft that the shit hit the fan. The way you've presented the facts above one might get the idea you're trying to misrepresent the facts in order to help support your theory.

And what did those guys say they thought "quality" or soul or spirit of a hole or course really was?

They all pretty much said it was some aura about those holes and courses, particularly TOC, that made them somehow unable to be defined, and certainly not mathematically or scientifically definable, and that made those who knew them and played them, love them. What is that about really? Can it be anything more than what we say on here as architecture "passing the test of time", and sometimes even for virtually unexplainable reasons?

Good one...a metaphysical arguement.

So, along comes Crane and starts to insinuate that even if they've always said they loved some of these old holes and courses they really don't---that they simply don't want to admit that perhaps some of their complaints actually mean those holes and courses just aren't very good, that they need to be fixed and changed, and that his mathematical formula for analyzing quality and weakness of holes and courses can determine exactly why and how.

Is that what he said?

And to that the likes of Behr, Mackenzie, Hunter and Macdonald et al obviously took some serious exception and umbrage---perhaps assuming that Crane was in fact beginning to mess with some of those perceived mysteries about golf architecture that makes people come to love or appreciate it and not want to change it. (Do you notice how proud those guys were that TOC had essentially never undergone any real architectural change)?

To my knowledge Hunter never commented on Crane or his rating system, nor did Macdonald. I suspect neither man took him or his formula seriously. To continue to add the names of Hunter, Thomas and Macdonald into this Crane business is a gross distortion IMO.

But although all the foregoing makes a lot of sense to me about why these guys started to get set off with Crane, I think the thing that made particularly Behr just explode was this notion of Crane's that the thing to do with GOLF and ARCHITECTURE was to do everything possible to remove LUCK from it.

I would agree with that. Crane was not an advocate of penal architecture, just the opposite more often than not. He objected to trees, OB and water hazards and he disliked blindness...which goes back to his views on luck and fairness. As far as his thoughts on golf architecture...he appreciated strategic choice:

‘Lido is a fine example of a course well conceived and joyfully born, which is perhaps the opposite in description of the average creation. Situated on the seashore, on proper soil for golf, it suggests some of the British seaside courses, especially in its absence of trees. What a relief from the pent in and constricted feeling of so many courses which are scythed through heavy woods, resulting in such similarity of appearance that even holes well laid and strategically beautiful become monotonous, and the irritating drudgery of hunting for balls in such varied forms of tree growth and underbrush, and the unjust inequality of the degrees of penalty due to slight differences of position, all tend to inflame rather than soothe the mind.’
 
‘The best two shotter on the course is extremely fine as well as the featureful forth. It has the most unusual layout of two entirely distinct ways to reach the green. Many fine holes have alternative ways of play, and this is especially true of St.Andrews, on account of the parallel fairway fairways with no rough between, but here the fairways are distinct, and the lagoons present a picturesqueness and such a treat to the player, that even in quiet air he is not easy until safe over them.’

I think that alone is what really got Behr going. Is that penal architecture? Well, we should talk more about that. Maybe it is and maybe it isn't.

But what is LUCK in golf and architecture and what did it really mean to both camps?

I don't think there's any question what it meant to Crane because he didn't hesitate to say so in pretty specific terms when he began to say in his first article on this mathematical rating system that his purpose was to eliminate LUCK in golf as best as he could and as completely as he could. He basically said it was that unnecessary random happenstance that a good player who hit basically good shots should not be subjected to in golf and by architecture if it was to his detriment, particularly compared to some happenstances that poor players who hit worse shots may benefit from in some comparatively disproportionate way regarding architecture---they should, in fact, be more proportionately and appropriately penalized and punished for their lack of skill. This is essentially what Crane AND Taylor referred to as “graduated penalty”.

But what about Behr, Mackenzie, Hunter, Macdonald et al---what did they think about this idea of Crane’s of trying to eliminate LUCK in golf and architecture or what it meant? What did LUCK in golf and architecture mean to them? What did this notion of Crane's and Taylor's and apparently others of trying to mathematically and scientifically "graduate penalty" mean to them? Did they percieve that as dangerous to golf and architecture somehow?

It may’ve meant to them a dire and dangerous threat to the very preservation of the perception of random naturalness in golf and golf architecture, even if man-made. It may’ve meant to them a real threat to the preservation of that mystery in golf wrought by that very undefined and virtually ineffable randomness in Nature that made people love various holes and courses even if they couldn’t exactly explain why. LUCK!? Was it a vastly different treatment and approach to LUCK in golf and architecture that really heated up this subject and debate?

Behr defined that mystery, among other things, as that which contributed to variety, diversity, the freedom the golfer should feel, the maintenance of the fact that every round could be a new challenge and a new journey, a new discovery somehow. Does it sound like LUCK might take a fairly serious part in those descriptions? I'd say so.

Crane, on the other hand, obviously felt that kind of thing should be somehow eliminated so any golfer could better isolate and highlight his physical skill against his human opponent.

Behr then went so far as to actually try to define or even redefine the way golf, architecture, the golfer et al should look at the entire subject of what penalty was supposed to be in golf. Even the title of one of his articles that apparently was inspired by Crane’s thinking is “The Nature and Use of Penalty”.

And then along about 1926 Crane took his mathematical formula on the road and actually rated and ranked some of the best GB courses at which time TOC came in real low. This clearly incensed the likes of Charles Ambrose and a number of GBers. And Behr. Mackenzie, Hunter, Macdonald got on that bandwagon and took Crane to task.

Again Hunter and Macdonald were not involved in this debate.

But it most definitely appears that this had a lot more to do with just some dumb mathematical rating system, at least it appears it did to Max Behr. Was LUCK part of that mathematical rating system of Crane's? I don't know but he mentioned eliminating LUCK enough in his first published article on his rating system, that's for sure.

It is a common tactic when debating to try portrait your opponent in the most unflattering light. To take out one part of their arguement, perhaps even a minor part of it, overemphasize it, exaggerate it, in an attempt to portrait them or the arguement as irrational or radical.

To portrait Crane's goofy system as focused only on penal architecture or penal vs strategic was an exaggeration. And later on (after their rendezvous at St.Andrews) it appears Behr admitted he (Crane) was not from the penal school after all but from the strategic school. His mistake trying to rate golf courses based on mathamatical formula...bad idea. Case closed.

It was stupid formula....Amborse knew it, MacKenzie knew it, Behr knew it, and in the end it appears Crane knew it because he dropped it not long after he introduced it.

[T_MacWood]

"Bob
The breif discusion of Crane in 'The Spirit of St.Andrews' has the tone of a humerous anecdote in my opinion. MacKenzie and Behr setting their confused friend straight on holiday...all done in a good natured manner."

Bob:

Have you ever noticed when Tom MacWood wants to maintain what is virtually his unsupportable point about what some architect actually meant by a written remark if that remark appears not to agree with MacWood's point and agenda, Tom simply states he knows that architect well enough to know he was JOKING in what he said in that quoted remark.

He said the very same thing when using Colt's remark that early Victorian golf architecture in England looked remarkably similar to steeplechase courses and steeplechase features.

This obviously didn't fit in very well with Tom MacWood's contention that that early rudimentary architecture, particularly cross hazards were somehow just a product of the claptrap products of the Industrial Revolution.

But Colt was obviously not joking in that remark of his which Tom MacWood actually quotes in his five part essay "Arts and Crafts Golf".

Colt wasn't joking, he was simply stating an obvious fact. Tom MacWood probably just doesn't know or understand what a steeplechase course and steeplechase obstacles actually looked like, and still do look like.    

TE
I think you are confusing Colt with Darwin.

[Phil_the_Author]

Tom & Bob, I have been following the discussion since the beginning and I have a question that I think goes to the heart of the discussion but hasn't been addressed and I believe it needs to be.

What was it about Joshua Crane that Behr, Mackenzie & the rest felt so threatened by?

I am not refering to his ideas, but rather to the man and his sphere of influence.

For example, If I came out and wrote a couple of articles stating that every golf hole should be at least 1,800 yards wide and anything less would just be a waste of valuable land, no one would give credence to what I was suggesting. Why should they? I don't design courses or have an ability to influence the overall approach to course design.

Now if Tom Doak comes out and says that, people will listen and give consideration to it, right or wrong.

So again, why Joshua Crane, a man described in the heading of the May, 1924, Golf Illustrated article "A New Analysis for the Rating of Golf Courses" as being the "Treasurer of the Massachusetts Golf Association and Chairman of the Green Committee of the Country Club of Brookline," what was it about this man that made them feel that he provided ssome sort of tangible threat to the game, so much so that everyone chose to attack and condemn him and his ideas in writing?

What influence did he have to cause this?

[BCrosby]

Philip -

Three reasons. First, Crane was articulating a view that has always had tremendous intuitive appeal to golfers. It still does. Bad shots should be punished immediately and good shots should be rewarded immediately. Predictable outcomes and fairness are paramount. It's a kind of basic school boy morality that anyone would grasp immediately. (Strategic notions of indirect tax, lines of charm, etc. lacked the simplicity of those concepts.)

Such penal views were then (and remain today) as the dominate view among the golfing public of how golf courses ought to work. Crane, then as now, had the advantage of standing on the shoulders of a large body of everyday golfers. It was Crane's view that golf courses ought to be more like the neutral venues you find in other sports like tennis and track. That's an idea people understand without thinking much about it. I mean, golf is a sport, isn't it? What's to object to that?

Second, Crane is the first to articulate in detail a theory of golf design based on such notions. (The notions had been around. Crane pulled them together and put them in a neat package.)

Third, Crane had the megaphone of the world's most prestigious gof magazines to broadcast his views.

Those three things had never come together before circa '25. For the first time there was a loud voice broadcasting a view of gca that differed significantly from those of the strategic school. Worse, it was a very popular view and getting more popular by the minute. And it appeared to have worried the Golden Age guys. A lot.

Bob

P.S. Tom MacW - If your view is that Crane was not a "penal" architect, then I assume that you are of the view that MacKenzie and Behr were wrong (misguided? deluded?) about him and you are right. No? Further, if you are right, the advocate for penal architecture that MacD, Thomas, McD et al. argued against was, then, who?

[Phil_the_Author]

Bob,

How important were his positions with the Massachusetts Golf Association and The Country Club to his ability to get published in "world's most prestigious gof magazines?" Or was it his relationship with J. Lewis Brown that enabled his original 1924 article on rating courses that enabled the publishing? Also Beers in 1926-28 and Gregson in 1930?

My reason for asking is that the discussio seems to imply one of two things:
1- That he wasn't taken seriously by his contemporaries, or
2- That he was taken very seriously to the extent that a concerted effort was expended to make certain that his ideas and theories were not accepted.  

If he was not taken seriously, then why would anyone keep publishing his views?

If he was taken very seriously, then there had to be a number of influential people who supported and defended his ideas with so many prominent architects, etc... writing in opposition to them.

So my question really then is who supported him?

[BCrosby]

Phil -

A number of people. JH Taylor in part. The editors of the US GI supported him. Other commentators at GI (I have their names at home). But the biggest was the USGA. Crane was close to the USGA for many of his 94 years. His views were the USGA official set up policy avant la lettre.

But in many ways, he didn't need a lot of allies. He was a personality. People knew the name. It appears they were familiar with his ideas, both the kooky ones and the not so kooky ones. He was the roving expert critic of golf architecture for one of the largest golf magazines on the era. Think Ron Whitten, with, at least during the early years of his public life, a very definite ax to grind. He seemed to temper his views later on.

Bob

[TEPaul]

"TE
I think you are confusing Colt with Darwin."

Tom MacWood:

Yes, I most certainly was. But, not a bad observer of golf architecture that Bernard Darwin, eh?  

And furthermore, it's just like you to dabble in names only and totally avoid the point of the remark.  

[TEPaul]

Tom MacW:

As I'm sure you may know GeoffShac and I and perhaps  Tommy Naccarato could be the world's greatest students of the writing of Max Behr. TommyN may be more of a student of his architecture than his writing.

I think all of us think his writing was remarkably incisive----far more incisive than any other writer on golf architecture ever was. Frankly his a priori reasoning and connections of points was really something.

However, I've been telling GeoffShac for years that in my opinion Max Behr made one apparent mistake in all his writing on golf course architecture (particularly now that we've had 80 years to view it) and that was that he believed that most golfers would really care about naturalism, strategic golf, that they would resist artificial obstacles put before them by Man and not much resist or criticize obstacles they felt were put before them by Nature.

I've told Geoff and TommyN for years that in my opinion Behr completely OVERestimated the intelligence and sensibilities of the golfer, in that vein.

Apparently you are one of them in perhaps that majority of those he completely overestimated the intelligence and sensibilities of in this vein.

But who the hell really knows? I'm always willing to give you and your opinions the benefit of the doubt but first it probably would be helpful for you to actually read what Behr wrote before you offer opinions on this particular subject.  

[TEPaul]

"Tom & Bob, I have been following the discussion since the beginning and I have a question that I think goes to the heart of the discussion but hasn't been addressed and I believe it needs to be.

What was it about Joshua Crane that Behr, Mackenzie & the rest felt so threatened by?"

Phillip:

That is of course the real question here. I could try to explain it ( I thought I just did explain some of it on post #114 above ) or Bob could try to explain it but who could explain it better than Max Behr himself who was the one who wrote more than the others on this subject of Crane, his mathematical formula, his philosophy about limiting luck in golf and the dangers of those things and others to the future of golf and architecture.

The others most certainly mentioned it and clearly supported Behr's responses even if a guy like Tom MacWood tries to use quotations that seem like they didn't really support Behr's concerns or care much about what Crane's ideas might wrought in architecture in the future. Frankly, Tom MacWood wouldn't even know how to agree or disagree with whether those architects agreed with Behr about Crane because Tom MacWood hasn't read what Behr wrote about Crane's ideas and the potential dangers of having them misunderstood.

I've told TommyN and BobC that we really do need to put at least two of Behr's articles on this site and just let everyone decide for themselves what it was that Crane said or implied that at least Behr thought was dangerous to architecture and golf and its future.

Unfortunately, my copies of the two articles by Behr I'd like to see on here are really marked up from years of analysis, and I don't even know how to scan them and link them on this site.

I think Bob or TommyN or certainly GeoffShac have clean copies and could probably link them on here as those two articles are about a dozen pages each.

The two articles of Behr I think just have to go on here are:

1. The Dilemma in Golf Arhitecture (Strategy that lead vs Penalties That Punish)

2. Golf Architecture (An Interesting Reply to The School of Penal Golf)

No one can explain the concern with Crane and his ideas and the potential dangers of them better than Max Behr himself.

Can someone get those two articles linked on here? If they do I believe your questions will be answered.

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