Golf - From Another Era

[Peter Pallotta]

Following are the thoughts of a champion golfer and golf course architect from another era: Max Behr, from October 1915.  Reading it tonight, I was struck by how the 'spirit of the game' was being articulated back then by someone who'd experienced it so fully.
Peter

The game of golf, if it is anything at all, is a sanctuary, a well where one may refresh oneself by the very fact that the game enshrouds one with a cloak of democracy. Not only are all men equal upon the links, not only are social and worldly distinctions laid aside, but, the game itself has the peculiar faculty of removing that veneer of convention, pride and vanity, which some men are wont to lay around them. "If you want to know your man, play golf with him."

And it is because the game reduces man to his simple natural state, lays his very soul open to the world, that there is inculcated among golfers a spirit of pity, forgiveness and wise toleration, but, above all, brotherly kindness. What other game has this humanizing property. None that we know of. They are all of them direct assertions of will and skill in direct opposition to the tasks set by an opponent. There is never time, for instance, in a rally at tennis for true reflection; all is intuition, for one's best laid plan of attack is open to defeat by the countering of one's opponent. But, in golf, no stroke of the opponent can imperil a man's skill. He is his own master. And because he stands so very alone, so absolutely dependent upon himself that we are given an insight into what manner of man he is. That is why golf has been compared to life. A man rises and falls in the world at those critical points of his career where he alone can make a decision. He then plunges into the whirl of the world until again he finds himself upon a desert island of doubt and must decide.

But a golf match is always a desert isle for him. Every shot is only a peg to an uncertain future. Luck, good and bad, he knows awaits him. What sudden inexorable task his opponent may set by a brilliant stroke lies hidden in the mists ahead. All he can do is to stride bravely forward and manfully accept the situations that confront him one hole after another. It is possible in this way to look upon golf as a game of character and the skill necessary to play it as the means to its revealment. And the revelation leads to humbleness, the only state of mind in which  true values may be arrived at. Weakness is no longer scorned and laughed at. It is seen to be inherent in all. It is only the man who makes excuses who puts himself out of court. The strong man admits his failings on the spot and is happy to know just how and where he may school himself for the future.

And so the game of golf enforces a spirit of charity, for we must give if we expect charity in return for failings we cannot hide. The duffer and the scratch player stand here on equal ground. And, although one may far exceed the other in skill he may yet lag behind in character, the only foundation upon which skill in golf can achieve a high position and sustain
itself there.

[RSLivingston_III]

When I read from the great golf writers of that era, I realize English is just a bad second language for me.

[Adam Clayman]

Thank You Peter.

I've never read that but somehow I knew every word. (save for inculcate)

No better examples and justifications for the passions surrounding the mediums we play on could possibly exist.

Since this Maters brewhaha the word democracy kept entering my head. I just couldn't articulate it as well as this.

[TEPaul]

My hope is that Max Behr and his writing on the subjects of golf, the golfer and golf course architecture will have a real renewal.

It's ironic to me that some sort of ridicule him and his writing, particularly when, it seems, the man and his writing was about one hundred steps ahead and around the corner from anyone else who ever wrote about these subjects. The fact is Behr delved so much more deeply into the essence of golf, the golfer and sometimes golf architecture than anyone else ever has!

[Rich Goodale]

Tom

That particular piece by Behr is very good, and shows great insight into how golf still is, when played at the elite amateur level.

It is particularly satisfying to see that he understands that golf is a game and not a sport.

[TEPaul]

Peter:

In your initial post on this thread you mentioned 'the spirit of the game'.

It's interesting for us these days to look carefully at some of the ramifications of what men back then like Behr or Macdonald meant by that word "spirit" as it applied to golf. Some of those ramifications most of us are probably no longer aware of.

For instance, and particularly very early on, a man like Macdonald (and probably Behr initially) did not believe that any kind of standardization or regulation was necessary regarding golf balls and golf equipment for the simple reason that a golfer who truly understood the "spirit" of the game would just never think to use equipment that would overwhelm a course or the inherent challenge of the game. They didn't believe in that kind of thing simply because it was not the "sporting" thing to do and most of all they considered themselves to be true "sportsmen".

You will notice that occassionally Behr mentions something  he calls "the balance" between a sportsman and his prey or field of challenge. And that in effect that "balance" should necessarily be one of self regulation---eg "the sporting spirit" of the contest. The analogy would be a true sportsman would never think to use a 20 gauge shotgun to hunt small birds or 10 lbs test for light fish, as the balance, the sporting challenge would be lost.

Their plea in some of their writing was that hopefully those who were responsible for the future preservation or regulation of the game would understand that as well as they did.

[TEPaul]

Richard the Magnificent:

Very cute photo there.

At some point Behr did come around to making a distinction between a game and a sport and how golf should be viewed in that context. He made that distinction perhaps to make a very important and most fundamental point about the necessity of the preservation of nature's part in golf and in golf course architecture. The basic reason for that could very well be almost as simple as the fact that golf happens to be one of those recreations where the ball is not vied for by the human opponents.

Coincidentally, there is another thread on this page that mentions that very thing.

[Peter Pallotta]

Ralph, Adam - yes, and yes!

TE - the more Behr I read, the more I think you're absolutely right; but also, the more a question you've asked here before comes to mind, i.e. did Behr's views accurately reflect what golfers are really like, and what they want from their golf courses and their golfing experience? (I hope I got that basically right; I don't want to put words into your mouth).  

Right now, all I can say is this: I've been thinking of him as a kind-of historian and theorist, when maybe I should be thinking of him as a kind-of prophet....meaning that it's not as important to understand what once was as to think of what might still come to be

Peter

TE - just saw your most recent post - thanks.

[Adam Clayman]

The "Me" generation did alot to do away with peoples ability to feel the sentiments expressed by Mr. Behr.

I would hope things are different across the pond considering Rihc's comment about the elite level of am competitions. Here in the USA, I sense the antithesis is pervasive.

[redanman]

there is inculcated among golfers a spirit of pity, forgiveness and wise toleration, but, above all, brotherly kindness.

Is this true any longer?  Is this the difference between the game of old and new, or was there ever brotherly kindness towards one's opponent?

Are we today actually inculcating (culturing) an attitude of desire to repeat increasing demolition of our opponents?  Certainly at the highest level of the game and especially practiced by professionals (and never better than Nicklaus and Woods, perhaps Hogan) is this true.

I think solo golf inculcates ones soul with goodness more effectively.

[KBanks]

Tom,

Is it true that CBM, even though he coined the term "golf architect", and designed some of the all time great courses, never accepted a fee for a design job? A life membership perhaps, but never money?

That would seem to suggest an altogether different attitude toward the game.

Ken

[Peter Pallotta]

W - that's a good question and a big one, and one that was in the back of my mind when reading the Behr article. I don't have an answer (or even a good guess)...but it's interesting that you mentioned Nicklaus and Woods, because when Behr writes about how character and skill have to be combined in order for golf "to attain a high position and sustain itself there"  I thought of exactly those two fellows: I don't think their characters get mentioned enough in terms of what makes  them the greatest champions of all. All I can think to say is something I've guessed at before:

it seems to me that never before has the ethos of the professional game had such an influence on the amatuer game as it does right now.

What's also interesting to think about is that Behr, a champion golfer in his time, had the attitude he describes while playing...or at least I'd like to imagine that he did.  

Peter

[TEPaul]

"TE - the more Behr I read, the more I think you're absolutely right; but also, the more a question you've asked here before comes to mind, i.e. did Behr's views accurately reflect what golfers are really like, and what they want from their golf courses and their golfing experience? (I hope I got that basically right; I don't want to put words into your mouth).  

Right now, all I can say is this: I've been thinking of him as a kind-of historian and theorist, when maybe I should be thinking of him as a kind-of prophet....meaning that it's not as important to understand what once was as to think of what might still come to be."

Peter:

Yes, you sure did get that right.

What I have come to feel about Behr and what he wrote is that he did in fact get most of what he said about golf and architecture right. On the other hand, it would appear that the ensuing eighty years since he wrote what he did has proven that he probably over-estimated just how much the golfer, in a general sense, cares about the importance of the things he said and wrote, mostly involving what he referred to as the importance of "naturalism" in golf and architecture.

However, even if it may be true that Behr totally over-estimated the golfer in this vein, I'm not upset or depressed about that because I feel the golfer, in a general sense, basically just accepted what he was given and this question of whether he would enjoy the things Behr felt about naturalism, for instance, is frankly a question of leadership amongst the architectural community and not necessarily of golfer preference.

In other words, if the golfer is given the type of architecture Behr proposed would he enjoy that too?  I think the recent renaissance and its popularity of the styles of the C&C, Doak, Hanse, De Vries et al has certainly proven that to be the case.

And that is why I think Behr and the things he wrote about which may've been overlooked or misunderstood back then is now ready for a renewal---a reanalysis of sorts. Frankly, it's been happening for the last decade or so anyway.

The foregoing is mostly about what golfers in a general sense may like about golf course architecture. What you said above about 'the spirit of the game' in the context of Behr's passage above and the way the likes of Macdonald and Behr looked at it back then, I feel is something that has been almost totally lost in the mists of time. Today I don't think most, even on here, understand what they even meant by it.

[TEPaul]

KBanks:

Macdonald never took money for his architectural efforts. He did not believe that an amateur sportsman such as himself should do such a thing. In those early days for an amateur golfer like Macdonald to accept money for golf architecture meant he would lose his amateur playing status. All that changed around 1920 when the USGA amateur status code made an exception for professional golf architects.

Hugh Wilson, George Thomas, Max Behr et al never took money for what they did in architecture either. The fact that all of them were pretty rich anyway may've had something to do with it but we don't like to talk about something like that, do we?  

[TEPaul]

Peter:

Regarding your post #11 and what Bill Vostinak said, we all need to remember that when that 'spirit of the game' existed as described by Behr above, professional golf as we know it today virtually didn't exist. Professional golf and professional golf tournaments back in that early day was virtually an after-thought to amateur golf and competition.

I ran into a really good example of how true that was back then while doing some research on the Myopia Hunt Club.

Herbert Leeds who built the Myopia course agreed to hold four US Opens at Myopia between 1898 and 1908, but he also remarked that in those years the club and course was not yet ready to host a US Amateur because it was a far bigger event---too big in fact for Myopia of that time.

Things have certainly changed.  

[KBanks]

Was Max Behr from Britain?

Ken

[TEPaul]

Max Behr was from New Jersey. When his wife died early on  Behr took Horace Greely's advice and went west---to that Sodam and Gommorah/lulu land known to us as California.

[RSLivingston_III]

Has anyone undertook making a compilation book of Behr's writing's?
Am I correct in that he never did a book and most of his writings went into the magazine?

[Adam Clayman]

Ralph, Scientists are still looking for the Rosetta Stone to decipher them.

[Peter Pallotta]

Adam -
funny.
I think the reason Behr's writing can be challenging has to do with the man himself, i.e. he was a rare example of someone who combined practical, concrete and worldly success with a philosopher's love of airy conjecture, theorizing, and the search for underlying meaning.

If I ever achieve any practical, concrete and worldly success, I just might be able to decipher him.


TE -
thanks. Yes, golf has changed, but has the golfer? As a renegade philosopher once said "Every philosophy contains within it the author's autobiography".  Which is to say, I do believe that Behr, a top 'amateur' in the time before the 'professional' game emerged, practiced what he preached; but I've wondered if his views/philosophies spoke mainly about his own life/experiences or if they spoke for a whole generation as well.

I think your post #12 is a good answer to that too

Peter

[RJ_Daley]

The first part:

The game of golf, if it is anything at all, is a sanctuary, a well where one may refresh oneself by the very fact that the game enshrouds one with a cloak of democracy. Not only are all men equal upon the links, not only are social and worldly distinctions laid aside, but, the game itself has the peculiar faculty of removing that veneer of convention, pride and vanity, which some men are wont to lay around them. "If you want to know your man, play golf with him."

IN this day and age of marketing, media bombardment and intense social competition, it is so much more difficult for a person (even a person inclined towards a sporting attitude) to get to that "sanctuary" and refresh from that well.  The democratic spirit that beckons the person who arrives at that sanctuary to reach out to fellow sportsman as equals of a like appreciation of the aesthetic of a grand field to play, a place to compete with humility and charity, or just practice the sport and sportsmanship is uplifting of the human spirit.  The modern drive to win, vanquish, and overwhelm the opponent, via all means of employed technology and ability to buy a game is anethma to Behr's way of thinking.

But, wasn't it easier in Behr's time to reach the well of refreshment for the soul?  Behr didn't have to contend with the orgy of marketing and hype such as the annual pilgrimage to the Masters in person or TV, or constant bombardment of intense marketing of equipment, the golf channel, R.E.-golf communities, resorts, golf clothing, etc. to impede more pure thoughts towards the democratic and sportsmanship-fellowship aspects of golf.

Now, we have a few enclaves of folks (like here on GCA.com) where that spirit may still linger.  But, I'll bet most here had that 'moment of zen' that may have occurred in that solitary time like Bill V. mentions that he thinks solo golf inculcates the soul with goodness.  We don't have time to think!  That is why Behr takes a moment to sink in.  At least for me it does because one has to wipe away all the junk blasted into our heads by intense media exposure.  That is why the spirit lives here in this medium of GCA.com, because we posters have to take time to... think before or while we write.  

Impulse, commercial golf is the antithesis to what was afoot in Behr's time, IMHO.

[TEPaul]

"But, wasn't it easier in Behr's time to reach the well of refreshment for the soul?  Behr didn't have to contend with the orgy of marketing and...."

RJ:

No Behr didn't have to contend in his time that way anywhere near as much as we all do today, but there is little question Behr most certainly did see it coming.

If I can find it I'll produce his remarks about how the game and those who should be responsible for protecting it did need to realize that the commercial interests involved with the game (equipment manufacturers etc) really do not have the essence of the game as part of their real concern. I don't think Behr was in any way being mean spirited in mentioning it---he apparently just viewed it as an unavoidable reality.

[Peter Pallotta]

RJ
that's a really good way of approaching the topic. It may be now harder than ever for golfers to get to the place that Behr talks about, and to experience the game that way. For me, getting to that place is important. It would be better if I could just inhabit that 'space' always, and then simply take it to the golf course, or to work, or home to my wife and child. But until I can, I would like a golf course, and golf, to help me get there. And as I said once before on here, as someone born and raised in the city, the golf course is sometimes as close to nature as I get (just a bit of an exaggeration). That's why Behr's ideas about 'naturalism' and the experience of golf as a game, are so appealing; and I think the discussions here about how, today, golf course architecture can help us get to that 'naturalism' and that experience are very important too. It's also probably why I don't really mind a somewhat 'boring' golf course if at least it gives me a feeling that the hand-of-man had little to do with it...

Peter  

[TEPaul]

"TE -
thanks. Yes, golf has changed, but has the golfer? As a renegade philosopher once said "Every philosophy contains within it the author's autobiography".  Which is to say, I do believe that Behr, a top 'amateur' in the time before the 'professional' game emerged, practiced what he preached; but I've wondered if his views/philosophies spoke mainly about his own life/experiences or if they spoke for a whole generation as well."

Peter:

Those are certainly some important questions.

I'm quite sure Behr did practice what he preached in that way but what we need to keep asking about the likes of Behr and his writing is why was he preaching so strongly in the first place? Something certainly was concerning him about the way golf and architecture was going or the way he felt it should not go.

We need to remember that in those early years from the turn of the century on for nearly three decades golf in America was still struggling to define what it should really be. Obviously that included golf architecture.

I think Behr and some of his like minded compatriots had become extremely worried that the leaders of the game in America whether they be critics, players, architects or the USGA were more than a little likely to lead golf and American golfers down the wrong road. If Behr could view what has transpired in the last 80 years in some respects he would probably feel that is exactly what has happened.

There is no question that USGA president Robertson's remark that 'nothing stays long in America without being Americanized' was the first hair-raising indication to C.B. Macdonald that America and American golfers were probably not going to be inculcated with what he felt was the essence of golf that evolved over many centuries in Scotland, particularly at St Andrews. Behr called it 'the spirit of the game' above but Macdonald called it 'the spirit of St Andrews'. It was one and the same thing and it obviously appeared to them that that spirit or essence of the game may not be understood or accepted in this land where the game was so new to Americans, not to mention the fact that they did understand the American ethos was one of unfettered inventiveness.

It's no coincidence, I think, that those who wrote about this concern were all very strong advocates of everything that TOC represented----including this "spirit".

I think Behr was trying to speak to his generations about these things. He did seem to imply that if golfers were not given naturalism or a really good representation of it in architecture they would be inclined to criticize it and consequently want to change it. His implication seemed to be they wouldn't like golf or its architecture without a strong component of naturalism.

Did what he predicted happen?

I guess it did---plenty of architecture was changed and ironically most of Behr's too. But did golfers not enjoy the game because golf or its architecture may not have evolved the way Behr thought it should?

I don't think any of us could credibly say that or make that claim. I think golfers merely accepted what they were given which means to me they may accept what they are given in the future even if it's quite different from what they have come to expect. I think that's precisely why this sort of Golden Age renaissance style cycle today is so exciting.

But do golfers today have far more preconceptions about what golf and architecture should and shouldn't be than they had in Behr's time? Of course they do, but still, in my opinion, that does not mean they will not accept something different if its given to them.

In the end it will all boil down to what really is more fun and enjoyable to them. Give them enough difference and let them decide for themselves what they like and don't like is my philosophy now. I call it the Big World theory.

I think not all but a pretty good number of golfers are ready at this point to be given in golf and architecture some of the things that were of the philosophy of Max Behr, Macdonald, Bob Jones et al. It will take some leadership on the part of clients and architects to give them those things but, after-all, we are watching it happen right now.

America is inventive, dynamic, change oriented and prone to quicker and more dramatic cycles than perhaps any other society in history. What goes around comes around and it sure looks to me like we have been seeing the best of the Golden Age style of architecture coming back around the bend again!

 

[TEPaul]

Peter:

Regarding what you said in post 23 about wanting golf or golf architecture to take you to some special place that sort of uplifts the spirit, I do think it's important to take particularly note of what W Vostinak said. I don't know what you're golfing habits are or what's possible for you but in my opinion, if one wants to find out quick what golf and architecture really does or can mean to them the best possible way to find out is to go out there and try playing alone. The reason for that is remarkably simple---eg you don't even need to think about anything else other than you and the golf course. For those who are basically bored to tears playing golf alone perhaps should just consider taking up tennis instead of golf because tennis is pretty damn hard to play alone anyway.  

I used to play a lot of tennis alone when I was young and maybe I was just remarkably talented because I can't recall a single time when the ball came back across the net at me.