[T_MacWood]

Whatever you say.

[TEPaul]

Tom MacWood:

If you've never read Behr's article "Golf Architecture (An Interesting Reply to the Penal School of Golf)" it will be pretty hard for you to intelligently discuss this subject. Perhaps the most seminal article on penal vs strategic golf and architecture and you've never read it???

My my!  

[TEPaul]

"Whatever you say."

That's intelligent!  

[Tommy Williamsen]

 I found this poem written about JHT at a special service.
Ssorry to high jack the thread back to JHT.  Hr may be one of the lesser known giants of the game.
John Henry Taylor

 
 
Maker of all whose mighty hand
Created sea and sky and land
And in this corner of the West
R.N.D's links, one's skill to test
At playing Golf this ancient game
When life is never quite the same!


No rain or wind or weather joke
Can damp the zeal of Golfing folk
With clubs on trolley studded shoes
They set forth as on a pleasure cruise
And as they place their ball on Tee
May they receive some help from Thee!


As far ahead as trouble stare
They see the Bunkers everywhere
Some to the right and others left
To feel of any hope bereft
Oh help them pitch up to the pin
And see that white ball drop right in!

A happy band these golfer's are
Who talk of Birdie's, making Par
Of hooks and slices, stance and swing
And chippping, putting, pivoting.
All you who play this ancient game
Just thank the Lord and praise his name!


Phyllis Plumtree

 

[Tommy Williamsen]

From the museum at RND

[Tommy Williamsen]

More from the museum

[BCrosby]

Tom MacW -

Let's get to the basics and begin with an observation.

There was a sudden, unprecedented outpouring of books on gca in the last half of the '20's. These books have a similar content and structure. They advocate strategic architecture over penal architecture. And they are all polemical to one degree or another. They don't pretend to be neutral surveys of the discipline. They are tendentious, argumentative. (Contrast them with books on gca published in the last 15 years which are almost all neutral surveys of the field.)

So I asked the question why that might be? What might explain that odd outpouring of similarly tendentious books?
And why did they appear in the last five years of the '20's? It's a big commitment to write a book. What caused the authors to endure the pain of publishing? They didn't need the money. They weren't going to meet more chicks. What was gong on?

I think the explanation is that in the mid-20's a theory of penal architecture was articulated, developed and became popular. Crane was that movement's leading light. He gathered significant allies along the way, from JH Taylor, to the editors of the US GI, to the USGA and others.

The growing popularity of those views posed a serious challenge to professional architects and their design theories.  At some point they realized that they could not afford to ignore that challenge. They saw themselves in a real fight for what they thought important in gca. They responded by writing books and essays that remain unsurpassed in the history of gca.

That's my thesis. It explains the timing of those books, their content and their tone. If you have a better explanation I'm all ears.

Crane didn't change the direction of architecture. But he did play a key role in inspiring its best literature. He and his allies forced architects to think through and articulate (in ways they had never been pushed to do previously) their theories of strategic design.

Bob

[TEPaul]

Bob:

As you know I believe your thesis is so logical. The logic of it seems to be supported by a fairly good number of semi-interconnected events occuring at that time.

The books published at that time could be inspired by a reaction to Crane's formula and apparent philosophy about what architecture should be but on the other hand one could logically say perhaps those books were only somewhat coincidental to Crane and his formula and architectural philosophy.

However, one most certainly could not say that Behr's articles were coincidental to Crane's formula and architectural philosophy. There is no way at all anyone could ever say that because Behr not only took on Crane's philosophy head-first or what he thought it to be but he took on Crane and Crane's very own words in what you appropriately described as a Socratic excersice of question and answer reasoning (of Crane's very own remarks and questions).

Some on here may say that Behr's rationale was wrong, or even that he wholly misread and misinterpreted what Crane was really saying but one most certainly cannot deny that Behr took him on and took on his formula and theory directly in one helluva written treatise and dissertation.

But noone on here can intelligently discuss this subject unless they first read Behr's articles, particular his article entitled "Golf Architecture (An Interesting Reply to the Penal School of Golf)".

[BCrosby]

Tom -

I agree. Behr was a first responder to Crane. Crane was his bogeyman. By name. They weren't operating in parallel. They were butting heads directly and explicity. The written record could not be more clear.

(Behr did write a number of pieces on gca before Crane arrived on the scene. Behr's interest in gca pre-dated Crane. But once Crane arrived, it was a shoot out at OK Corral. Behr understood Crane as a threat to the ideas in gca he thought most important and he responded very forcefully.)

Behr was the first to fully appreciate the implications for gca of what Crane was up to. Not only that, his responses dug deeper into both Crane's assumptions and the assumptions that underlay his own strategic views. No one else, not MacK or anyone else, really did the philosophical digging that Behr did. For example, his whole game v. sport distinction was, at root, something he devised to rebut Crane's notion that golf courses ought to be more like the neutral venues in other sports.

I think that is why - his odd prose style notwithstanding - people keep coming back to Behr. He was kooky in some ways, but there was no one else who drilled down so deeply into the issues. He was a gutsy guy. You keep finding nuggets in his stuff that you missed the first time around.

Bob

[wsmorrison]

An interesting aside is that the Crane family business (plumbing fixtures and parts) was a big time ad buyer in Golf Illustrated and possibly other journals mentioned.  Likely their supplies were being used in clubs around the country.

[TEPaul]

Bob:

The most interesting thing about Behr's response to Crane in his articles, particularly his article "Golf Architecture (an Interesting Reply to the Penal School of Golf)", is that he definitely did not just respond philosophically---he actually gave some concrete examples of holes and designs that he considered strategic and he gave concrete "design drawing" examples of what he considered  strategic and what he considered penal.

Apparently he provided drawings with that article. I have not seen those drawings but he descibed them so well it's clear to see what he meant----including the differences.

Face it, Behr's creation of the "line of instinct", "lines of charm" concept was in fact strategic architecture in effect. It was the real deal of everything he was philosophically talking about regarding strategic archtiecture vs penal architecture.

[BCrosby]

TEP -

Their debates could be very concrete.

In a '27 article in Pacific Coast Highway and Motoring (or whatever the hell name of that periodical is) Behr provides a drawing of The Redan and debates Crane about the strategic interest in the hole. Behr drew various shot approaches to the hole talked about the choices involved. It was a very concrete discussion. A minimum of philosopy. In an earlier piece Crane apparently belittled the notion that there was strategy involved in par 3's. (I don't have the Crane piece to which Behr was responding.)

Bob

[BCrosby]

Wayne -

Yes, I'd guess that Crane didn't have much of a problem getting the magazine to publish his articles.

Bob

[TEPaul]

That '27 magazine was called "The Pacific Coast Highway, Motoring, Golf, Polo, Surfing, Suntanning and Beach Mutual Oil Rubbing".

Calfornia has always been futuristic, visionary, cutting edge and just plain out there both figuratively and literally.

I think a source of mine found the one Behr's article is in but apparently it has so much rubbing oil on it it's pretty hard to read.

[BCrosby]

Did they run regular features on "Mutual Oil Rubbing"?

If so, I really do have to get my hands on back issues. No wonder Tommy N spends so much time at the Ralph Miller.

Bob

[T_MacWood]

Tom MacW -

Let's get to the basics and begin with an observation.

There was a sudden, unprecedented outpouring of books on gca in the last half of the '20's. These books have a similar content and structure. They advocate strategic architecture over penal architecture. And they are all polemical to one degree or another. They don't pretend to be neutral surveys of the discipline. They are tendentious, argumentative. (Contrast them with books on gca published in the last 15 years which are almost all neutral surveys of the field.)

So I asked the question why that might be? What might explain that odd outpouring of similarly tendentious books?
And why did they appear in the last five years of the '20's? It's a big commitment to write a book. What caused the authors to endure the pain of publishing? They didn't need the money. They weren't going to meet more chicks. What was gong on?

I think the explanation is that in the mid-20's a theory of penal architecture was articulated, developed and became popular. Crane was that movement's leading light. He gathered significant allies along the way, from JH Taylor, to the editors of the US GI, to the USGA and others.

The growing popularity of those views posed a serious challenge to professional architects and their design theories.  At some point they realized that they could not afford to ignore that challenge. They saw themselves in a real fight for what they thought important in gca. They responded by writing books and essays that remain unsurpassed in the history of gca.

That's my thesis. It explains the timing of those books, their content and their tone. If you have a better explanation I'm all ears.

Crane didn't change the direction of architecture. But he did play a key role in inspiring its best literature. He and his allies forced architects to think through and articulate (in ways they had never been pushed to do previously) their theories of strategic design.

Bob

Bob
Certainly there was a profusion of books in the last half of the 20s, but to attribute it to the Crane controversy. I don't know.

Hunter's book - published in 1926 - was written before Crane's article and its likely most of Thomas's book was written before it as well. Understandably neither man mentioned Crane.

Wethered & Simpson's book was written because Simpson was venturing out on his own. Macdonald's book was more or less an autobiography that touches on golf architecture (and no mention of Crane).

And its not as if there were not books on the subject prior to 1926, Colt & Alison wrote a book in 1920 as did MacKenzie. both promoted strategic golf architecture. Guy Campbell also wrote a book in 1922 that had chapter on golf architecture. Not to mention Hutchinson's collection in 1906, Sutton's book in 1912 and Aleck Bauer's book in 1913, right before the war ended all books.

And to portait Crane as some kind of penal architecture boogy man is way off the mark IMO. He did not promote penal architecture, early on Behr and MacKenzie both tried cast him as a penalogist, but he wasn't. And its clear they reconginized that later on, at least MacKenzie did. Crane was just the inventor of an extremely flawed rating system...which gave St. Andrews the short end.

Taylor did not promote penal architecture either, just the opposite. His exchange with Tilly centered around his opinion that American golf was too penal. I suspect the reason he defended Crane and his formula is because he was no fan of St. Andrews, like Vardon and number of other pros. Again the entire controversey was due to St. Andrews.

[Tom_Doak]

Bob:

I must agree with most of what Tom MacWood is saying.

I wrote a book on golf architecture myself in 1992.  Partly it was motivated by wanting to call for a change in the trend of modern golf course design ... but partly it was also to establish my name (my "brand" as some guys would say while I cringe) as a practicing architect.  I've got to believe that was part of the mission for Simpson and Colt & Alison and for MacKenzie's first book as well.

I do agree that Behr's motivation may have been prodded by Crane.

[TEPaul]

"Hunter's book - published in 1926 - was written before Crane's article".

"And to portait Crane as some kind of penal architecture boogy man is way off the mark IMO. He did not promote penal architecture, early on Behr and MacKenzie both tried cast him as a penalogist, but he wasn't. And its clear they reconginized that later on, at least MacKenzie did. Crane was just the inventor of an extremely flawed rating system...which gave St. Andrews the short end."

"Taylor did not promote penal architecture either, just the opposite. His exchange with Tilly centered around his opinion that American golf was too penal. I suspect the reason he defended Crane and his formula is because he was no fan of St. Andrews, like Vardon and number of other pros. Again the entire controversey was due to St. Andrews."

Tom MacWood:

Crane's mathematical formula for ranking golf courses and holes was published in July 1924.

What Crane seemed completely fixated on was elminating luck from the game in any manner possible. His next fixation seemed to be that architecture should provide a relatively precise graduated penalty for how badly a shot was missed. Taylor apparently shared this philosophy with Crane.

As far as MacKenzie and particularly Behr casting Crane as advocating penal architecture, I'm not sure what your impression is of what penal architecture is but it may not be the same as what particularly Behr's opinion of penal architecture was.  

To really understand Behr's opinion of penal architecture or how his concept and philosophy of "penalty" was used in golf and architecture to create penal golf rather than strategic golf, you pretty much need to read Behr's article "Golf Architecture (An Interesting Reply to the Penal School of Golf)".

Taylor, by the way, whether he knew about it or not, apparently thought something like Behr's "line of instinct" concept which is one of the fundamenatal elements of Behr's strategic architecture was one of the biggest mistakes an architect could make----eg to place a hazard feature directly in that spot a golfer would instinctually want to hit the ball.

 

[T_MacWood]

Tom MacWood:

Crane's mathematical formula for ranking golf courses and holes was published in July 1924.

Thats true, but no one objected to it at that point. The controversey and objections did not come for nearly a year and half when Crane actually began rating courses - in Field - and St. Andrews was given the shaft.  

[TEPaul]

Tom MacWood:

Although Crane published his mathematical formula almost two years before some of the strongest articles against his formula and theory, I agree with you that it was his low-ranking of TOC that really set off a conflagration against Crane and his system.

However, I've said this to you a number of times---it really isn't that important what Crane was proposing, it was the perceived danger in what he was proposing that Behr et al  perceived and wrote about.

You simply can't discuss this subject unless and until you read and understand that article by Behr in response to Crane and his system and philosophy. I suppose you don't have it and have never seen it.

If you don't have that article, allow me or some of the other researchers on here who are more accomplished on this particular subject to supply it to you.  

[TEPaul]

"The controversey and objections did not come for nearly a year and half when Crane actually began rating courses - in Field - and St. Andrews was given the shaft.

Tom MacWood:

But the point is, he did give St Andrews the shaft.

And the greater point is we can have this discusson about how MacKenzie/Behr/Hunter/Macdonald saw that shafting by Crane of TOC or we can have that discussion today about how WE think he shafted TOC OR NOT, eighty years after Crane's shafting of TOC, and eighty years after Behr/Mackenzie/Hunter/ Macdonald and Ambrose et al got all kinds of pissed off over it.

Take you pick?



The point is they did get pissed and they did think they saw some real danger to the future of golf course architecture and golf in something that he was saying or proposing.

Are you saying that even though they obviously thought they saw some real danger there that they were totally misreading Crane and that they shouldn't have been alarmed and shouldn't have written what they did about him? Obviously that would particularly include Behr's article "Golf Architecture (An Interesting Reply to the Penal School of Golf)", an article I don't believe you've ever seen.

You can't help miss the fact that with Charles Ambrose, anyway, the discussion over TOC and Crane's mathematical formula did get pretty personal and both ways.

When one reads Crane's articles and Behr's articles it isn't all that clear what exactly Crane is proposing architecturally. Behr is much more clear about that.

But the thing Crane seems completely fixated on is the elimination of luck from the game as much as can be done.

Obviously that aspect alone did not sit very well with the likes of Behr, MacKenzie et al.

Can you imagine why?  

If not I suggest you read carefully that article I just mentioned by Behr. It's pretty clear in that article where he's coming from on that issue alone.

Furthermore, he didn't seem to be much of a fan of this other fixation of Crane's and Taylor's of creating archtiecture that "graduated the penalty"---eg punished the shot more the more it was mishit.

[T_MacWood]

However, I've said this to you a number of times---it really isn't that important what Crane was proposing, it was the perceived danger in what he was proposing that Behr et al  perceived and wrote about.
 

It isn’t important what Crane was proposing, but the perceived danger in what he was proposing? Come again?  

And the greater point is we can have this discusson about how MacKenzie/Behr/Hunter/Macdonald saw that shafting by Crane of TOC or we can have that discussion today about how WE think he shafted TOC OR NOT, eighty years after Crane's shafting of TOC, and eighty years after Behr/Mackenzie/Hunter/ Macdonald and Ambrose et al got all kinds of pissed off over it.

What was Hunter and Macdonald’s reaction to Crane’s rating system? Was Crane the first to find fault with the Old Course?

[TEPaul]

Tom MacWood:

Never mind. If you haven't read what Behr wrote about Crane and his mathematical formula there's no point trying to disucss any of this with you.

[BCrosby]

Tom D -

I don't follow you. No doubt you wrote books to establish your name. Quite successfully too, I might add.

But that's not why Hunter, Thomas or MacD or MacD (S of SA) or Simpson wrote their books. They were already established architects or already wealthy or not active architects or all those things.

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 something to say about it.

Tom MacW

To say that Crane was not a proponent of penal architecture is to misread (or fail to read) him. At this point I can only assume that misreading is willfull.

But just for the heck of it let's assume that Crane didn't exist.

Who was it, then, that was actively 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 yet you can't tell me who it was that was promoting penal design theories, were MacK, MacD, Thomas etc. 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

[David Stamm]

What I find ironic about Behr was later on in his life, based on The Architects of Golf,  was that he developed his own religon based on his interpretation of numbers, but "disavowed any connection w/ Numerology, to which he was opposed."

[Tags:]

Tags:

[Tags:]

Tags:

Call to undefined function theme_linktree()