What can we do to stop how the rating lists hurt the advancement of architcture.

[John Kavanaugh]

I for one hearby pledge not to post on any rating thread...who is with me.

[Steve_ Shaffer]

So far...it appears that everyone is waiting for the Golfweek ratings.

[Mike_Sweeney]

John,

I am against you. On the one hand, you suddenly hear about courses that I have never heard about. Then you dig in and see what is there. Here is a course by a Cornell guy never mentioned on this site. I wanted to like it. Then you see this:



Okay it is from the under $75 new public list, but it is listed as # 1.

Did your brother open any golf course last year? The stuff that I have seen from him has been much better than this.

[John Kavanaugh]

I just got done having a huge fight with my wife about if Cornell had a golf course architecture program or not.  She didn't think a great school like that would mess with such a frivolous occupation.  (I was actually discussing Geoff, Pepperdine and Hanse with her after only one bottle of wine) I guess she was right based on that photo...but I am glad to see they found out what was done with the missing Edvard Munch painting while it was missing....nothing like priceless art being used as a mowing template.  I might just hate the Mackenzie bunker more than anything else which proves so many of my previous theories right to begin with.  The list thing has to be stopped.  Everyone chasing the same brass ring from the same horse attached to the same pole with only different carnies selling tickets..

[Jim Thompson]

1.  The use of marketing agents as conduits to raters must be eliminated and the only ways to do that are to either clean house in each of the rater boards (embrace those that have a self mandated turn over) or mandate that all communications between agents must go through some type of editorial board.

2.  Recognize at some level a group that rewards golf architecture over experience, water frontage, clubhouse, cart path materials, soup, and shower heads.  In the absence of finding an existing entity one should be formed.  I've often wondered what would happen if someone took a concept like "The Confidential Guide" and made it a no holds barred golf quarterly.  The challenge of course would be advertising to support it.

3.  Establish a manner to reward / award those courses or publications that do benefit the field of the game based on value, playability, scalability and access.

Mike,

Get rid off that damn striping and it's almost palatable.  Hooray for the two stripe in the FW but why the rough?  Imagine what they could save with a 4700.

Cheers!

JT

[tonyt]

For all their weaknesses and wrongs, ranking lists are the one and only reason most of the golfing masses even know the names of the best courses. FAR fewer people would have bothered to look at or be interested by any top courses if they hadn't been exposed to them by seeing them named in a rankings list.

[Mike_Sweeney]

I just got done having a huge fight with my wife about if Cornell had a golf course architecture program or not.  She didn't think a great school like that would mess with such a frivolous occupation.  

John,

To my knowledge it does not. If Tom Doak is still responding to my post he can correct me but the School of Ag does not have a formal GCA program. It is a Landscape Architecture program. However as per the website, "Ezra Cornell and A.D. White joined forces to "found a university where any person can find instruction in any study," Cornell has been at the forefront in higher education in embracing students of both genders and of all backgrounds and ethnicities."

Thus you get in, make a pitch to your advisor and create your own program and spend a year in St Andrews as per Tom Doak.

[Jordan Wall]

John,

Did you know Victoria National is GD's 21st best course in America?

Is that cool or what?

[John Kavanaugh]

For all their weaknesses and wrongs, ranking lists are the one and only reason most of the golfing masses even know the names of the best courses. FAR fewer people would have bothered to look at or be interested by any top courses if they hadn't been exposed to them by seeing them named in a rankings list.

Tony,

That is not true...You use the term masses and I can assure you that as a member of a course that is highly ranked on many lists that no one cares.  In all the years I have been on this site I have had exactly one person who is not a ranker come see this ranked course.  The only people who care about the lists are the people who put them together and the architects who chase them.  It has led to a convergence of style that is boring and as we see today over ranked.

[Ryan Farrow]

I just got done having a huge fight with my wife about if Cornell had a golf course architecture program or not.  She didn't think a great school like that would mess with such a frivolous occupation.  

John,

To my knowledge it does not. If Tom Doak is still responding to my post he can correct me but the School of Ag does not have a formal GCA program. It is a Landscape Architecture program. However as per the website, "Ezra Cornell and A.D. White joined forces to "found a university where any person can find instruction in any study," Cornell has been at the forefront in higher education in embracing students of both genders and of all backgrounds and ethnicities."

Thus you get in, make a pitch to your advisor and create your own program and spend a year in St Andrews as per Tom Doak.

Mike, I am not aware of any school that offers a specific curriculum for students pursuing golf course design, at least in the United States. I was actually talking to one of my professors today and he said ASU was thinking about adding a golf design certification a few years ago along with the Landscape architecture program. I couldn’t imagine more than 2 or 3 students a year from any school that would be pursuing this profession. The numbers don’t add up for the school and we all know colleges are about making money.

[tonyt]

For all their weaknesses and wrongs, ranking lists are the one and only reason most of the golfing masses even know the names of the best courses. FAR fewer people would have bothered to look at or be interested by any top courses if they hadn't been exposed to them by seeing them named in a rankings list.

Tony,

That is not true...You use the term masses and I can assure you that as a member of a course that is highly ranked on many lists that no one cares.  In all the years I have been on this site I have had exactly one person who is not a ranker come see this ranked course.  The only people who care about the lists are the people who put them together and the architects who chase them.  It has led to a convergence of style that is boring and as we see today over ranked.

I disagree.

As an Australian, all but a couple of the world's top 50 odd courses are not here. Yet many Australians know the names of courses like Pine Valley, Cypress Point, Shinnecock Hills etc. It isn't necessarily about physically being able to be there. if the lists didn't exist, Augusta, TOC and occasionally Pebble would be among the very few others that would be remotely known about. Perhaps what to the average golfer the name Crystal Downs is would be all that people would have heard (or not) about Pine Valley and the like. The gene pool of some basic awakening is at least trebled or greater by their (the lists) existence.

[John Kavanaugh]

Tony,

Could you please name one course in this country that every monkey in the congo couldn't hit with a random piece of thrown feces.  

[tonyt]

Love the post, but not sure what you mean.

I DO know that I love golf course architecture, and like many others, was exposed to its existence and the fact that all golf courses are not equal by seeing lists when I was young. And pouring over them like gospel. It isn't gospel, but it is an integral part of the introduction to the passion. Otherwise, quantifying and learning about what we see and how we think of it may never have received any guidance.

[ForkaB]

John

Excellent call re: Munch.   It makes me wonder how much of a boost in the Art World rankings "The Scream" has had since being stolen?  As much as the Lido after its disappearance?Also, other than Cypress "Sistine Chapel" Point Club and the one pictured above, what other courses have benefited by the architect basing his design on some famous work of art?  National Golf Links reminded me of Breughel's "Icarus", or was it Auden's poem about Breughel's "Icarus" in which he said something like:

"About golf they were never wrong, the old masters"

..........?

[Brad Klein]

John, you claim that the ratings have "led to a convergence of style that is boring and as we see today over ranked."

Actually, it has helped lead to the opposite. I don't see any convergence between Tom Fazio and Tom Doak; Jack Nicklaus and Coore/Crenshaw; Pete Dye and Jim Engh; Rees Jones and Gil Hanse. And Engh-Doak couldn't be more different either. It seems to me that the convergence occured in the 1960s-1980s, and now a lot more people are more discerning than ever and the market is more differentiated, with more niches and styles. I wouldn't claim that's solely because of the ratings, but I don't see the negative impact on design that you assume (and never explain).

I think the pursuit of ratings have helped drive up the cost of golf somewhat by heightening attention and raising the stakes of a property at opening day, but I also think that's indistinguishable from a more generalized media emphasis these days that affects business and development across the board. And in golf, much of the rising costs is at least as attributable to land costs, development and permitting requirements, irrigation costs and the price of materials. Not that spending money is a guarantee; it might produce a Sebonack, but it also produces a Trump National in California. And not spending money produces a Wild Horse, or it might simply provide for a basic muni that no one ever hears about and satisfies a local niche.

Actually, it's probably the competition among national ratings lists that is extremely healthy for architecture. There's been a whole lot more diversity in the design world since Golfweek came on board, with a very different style of rating and evaluation than Digest or Golf Magazine. So contrary to what John K suggests, I think the ratings competitions have been very healthy.

[Tom_Doak]

To clarify, Cornell does not have a program in golf course architecture directly, but for several reasons there have been a lot of students interested in golf course design who went there.  They have given the Dreer Award which I won to four or five other students of golf architecture, including Gil Hanse a few years after me, and Chris Monti who works for Bobby Weed.

Michigan State and Kansas State both claim to have an official "concentration" in golf architecture but I don't think it shows up on the diploma.  I have spoken at both schools over the years.

I also taught a class at Cornell on two separate occasions in the 1990's when they had mutliple students interested in golf course design -- five students one year and three the next.  Five or six of them are still in the business, including Chris Monti, Jason Straka who is an associate with Hurdzan Fry, and Joel Weiman who I'd kind of lost track of.  I think Joel does a lot of his work with Chip Macdonald the contractor -- he designs stuff when they get hired for a design/build.  Congratulations to him for his newfound acclaim.

But as to the title of this thread, John, you can stop the influence of ratings by not paying too much attention to them.

[Mike_Cirba]

John,

For a guy who purports not to care a whit about the ratings, you sure doth protest wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy  toooooo much.  

If I went back and read your posts over the past two years, I bet I'd see that at least 60% of them were meant as a dig to raters or the rating process, no matter how cleverly you might have thought you masked them.

That leads me to believe either one of two things, John;

1) This is personal for you, possibly due to the family ties.
2) You're obsessed, which is never good, and should possibly be in some type of 12-step program.

In either case, good luck changing things.   Like anyone else who tries to censor information in the good ole USA, you have a clear choice, John.  

Stop reading them, change the channel, and live your own life.

[John Kavanaugh]

John, you claim that the ratings have "led to a convergence of style that is boring and as we see today over ranked."

Actually, it has helped lead to the opposite. I don't see any convergence between Tom Fazio and Tom Doak; Jack Nicklaus and Coore/Crenshaw; Pete Dye and Jim Engh; Rees Jones and Gil Hanse. And Engh-Doak couldn't be more different either. It seems to me that the convergence occured in the 1960s-1980s, and now a lot more people are more discerning than ever and the market is more differentiated, with more niches and styles. I wouldn't claim that's solely because of the ratings, but I don't see the negative impact on design that you assume (and never explain).

I think the pursuit of ratings have helped drive up the cost of golf somewhat by heightening attention and raising the stakes of a property at opening day, but I also think that's indistinguishable from a more generalized media emphasis these days that affects business and development across the board. And in golf, much of the rising costs is at least as attributable to land costs, development and permitting requirements, irrigation costs and the price of materials. Not that spending money is a guarantee; it might produce a Sebonack, but it also produces a Trump National in California. And not spending money produces a Wild Horse, or it might simply provide for a basic muni that no one ever hears about and satisfies a local niche.

Actually, it's probably the competition among national ratings lists that is extremely healthy for architecture. There's been a whole lot more diversity in the design world since Golfweek came on board, with a very different style of rating and evaluation than Digest or Golf Magazine. So contrary to what John K suggests, I think the ratings competitions have been very healthy.

Brad,

That is a beautiful argument of the facts.  I think you may be right.  Another term for convergence of style could be the word "fad".  What do you believe is the driving force of fads in today's society.  I don't believe it is word of mouth because that is too early in the process.  I don't think in the case of golf course architecture it is driven by what we see on tv because that is too late in the process.  That only leaves the magazine ratings as the fad engine...a label I am sure you would not want to wear.

Tom Doak,

I will not yield to my wife on the Cornell argument.  I also may not let her read your post as I am sure the topic is out of her mind.

Cirba,

I don't understand your personal attacks against either my family or where I am a member.  I think the Golfweek system has been very generous to both.  Funny paradox, ain't it.  Give the site a few days and then determine for yourself if the rating threads generate the interest that they would have just two years ago.  I predict one tenth the interest.  I love pudding...and no, this is not a rating thread.

[Mike_Cirba]

Cirba,

I don't understand your personal attacks against either my family or where I am a member.  

John,

I attacked neither.  

I'll step off of this thread at this point, because it's not about ratings.  

[John Kavanaugh]

John,

For a guy who purports not to care a whit about the ratings, you sure doth protest wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy  toooooo much.  

If I went back and read your posts over the past two years, I bet I'd see that at least 60% of them were meant as a dig to raters or the rating process, no matter how cleverly you might have thought you masked them.

That leads me to believe either one of two things, John;

1) This is personal for you, possibly due to the family ties.
2) You're obsessed, which is never good, and should possibly be in some type of 12-step program.

In either case, good luck changing things.   Like anyone else who tries to censor information in the good ole USA, you have a clear choice, John.  

Stop reading them, change the channel, and live your own life.

Mike,

I put in bold your statement.  I think it is important to note that my brother has always been treated more than fair by Brad Klein, Ron Whitten and I will assume Joe Passov.  I know of several occasions where both Brad Klein and Ron Whitten have done everything possible to promote his work in only the most positive light.  Your implication that I have some agenda because he has been mistreated is out of line and way off base.

In addition I am a member of a club that is ranked as the 21st best course in the country by Digest and a top 50 modern by Golfweek...How could that possibly be a motivating factor for my so called agenda.  Your argument has no foundation in the facts.

[Craig Van Egmond]

John,

           Enough with the Raterphobia, just accept the fact you really want to be on one of the rating panels and move on.  

[Mike_Cirba]

John,

Only you know the motivation for spending multiple hours a day ranting about raters.  Lord knows you spend enough time spreading half-truths, smears, innuendo, and outright misperceptions about the process and the people.

I'm sorry if my speculation was offensive but your obsessive behavior does beg the question.  

[Brad Klein]

John,

it's not a "convergence," it's a "divergence." And I think it has nothing to do with "fad" but with more substantive issues of style and basic commitments to golf architecture.

Island greens, railroad ties, double-greens, and tiered greens are fads. Links golf, using the land, or massive constructivism and "build anything anywhere" are fundamental commitments.

The arts/painterly style that Strantz uses; Engh's determination to build sharply etched dunes and trap door bunkers; Doak's sense of the ground game; Coore/Crenshaw's devotion to subtle undulation; are all basic commitments; as much as Dye's use of seduction and linear/steep vertical etching, Fazio's approach to soft, receptive flesh, or Rees Jones' longtime devotion (now being reconsidered entirely) to circular mounds and flat, horizon-line depressions.

My point is that the competitive ratings help architects develop an aesthetic and rewarad/punish them accordingly.

[RJ_Daley]

I'm going to have to go with most of what Brad Klein says.  The ratings haven't hurt the advancement of architecture, and have only called attention to the divergent styles of various archies, not a group think approach to design.  

Where GCA does benefit is not group think, but collaboration between major archies and constructors from time to time.  i.e., the working of guys like Doak with Nicklaus where JN openly admits a new awareness of greens construction and design approaches by virtue of his collaboration with Tom.  This is seen in many other cross pollenizations of teams from C&C personnel going with Doak, Liddy using fitters frin other camps, and Dye spinning out assoiciates, etc.  So, no convergence, just collaborative thinking and working to make better technique and share ideas that work.

Ratings, I love 'em and hate 'em.  Case in point is my immediate gawffaw at BallyNeal coming in 6.  But, wait a minute, I didn't see any others!  (probably never will).   So, while it seems like ratings can't be nearly correct and are based on something (no matter what they claim) other than a pure look at GCA, they still call attention to golf course archtecture in a way that illuminates the profession.  How many people are truly going to be able to play and compare the top lists that come out every year, year after year.  That is a lot of courses that one would need to see to get a true picture of the accuracy of the lists.

I'm glad for the web-links provided to the websites of the latest new courses and category lists in Golf Digest.  That way, we can go see a picture like Mike Sweeney posted above, and be outraged that 'this' is considered "best new affordable".  It is the paradoxical value that tells us the list is somehow screwed up, yet is a beacon to those of us interested in seeing what courses of relative merrit are out there to be explored, so that we can affirm our suspicions that the raters are full of crap, or  conversely that we once again should be cautioned from judging by photos or lists.

At the end of the day, I'll still give far more credence to the narrative report of trusted and valued golf architecture architecture fans and critics that I may know, than the value of any list, no matter which magazine.

[John Kavanaugh]

John,

it's not a "convergence," it's a "divergence." And I think it has nothing to do with "fad" but with more substantive issues of style and basic commitments to golf architecture.

Island greens, railroad ties, double-greens, and tiered greens are fads. Links golf, using the land, or massive constructivism and "build anything anywhere" are fundamental commitments.

The arts/painterly style that Strantz uses; Engh's determination to build sharply etched dunes and trap door bunkers; Doak's sense of the ground game; Coore/Crenshaw's devotion to subtle undulation; are all basic commitments; as much as Dye's use of seduction and linear/steep vertical etching, Fazio's approach to soft, receptive flesh, or Rees Jones' longtime devotion (now being reconsidered entirely) to circular mounds and flat, horizon-line depressions.

My point is that the competitive ratings help architects develop an aesthetic and rewarad/punish them accordingly.

Why not just leave it to the capitalistic market to reward/punish them accordingly.  Do you think design would suffer if that was the only driving force.