OK, I'll give you guys an example or two and tell you a story that's probably about the kinds of things MikeY is talking about here on this thread.
What do you have to do to call yourself an architect?
I guess all you have to do is just call yourself that---eg you don't have to pass some test, you don't have to get licensed, certified or anything like that. All you have to do is call yourself an architect and if someone actually believes you and assumes you have some crediblity, I guess technically you're in the business of golf course architecture. If there's more to it than that, then I'm not aware of it.
All you guys know Wayne Morrison and me. All we are is two guys trying to write a book on architect William Flynn. We also happened to come upon his entire architectural drawing collection hidden in a barn in Buck's Co. Pennsylvania. So basically we've been studying all there is to know about Flynn for the last 5-6 years.
Flynn clubs became aware of all this and they started contacting us about one thing or another to do with Flynn, their courses and restorations and such. And so we visited a lot of Flynn clubs with that architectural collection, and we talked to those clubs about a lot of things to do with their courses. Is it any wonder as most of those clubs were not even aware that collection existed? In almost every case they considered it to be truly valuable to them.
And then one day, the Homestead (Flynn's Cascades Course in Virginia) got in touch with us and asked us to come down there and talk to them about doing a restoration plan and a restoration.
Do you think that made us nervous? You're damn right it did. Why? Because we AREN'T ARCHITECTS and we weren't pretending to be---and we aren't now pretending to be.
But we went down there and sat down and discussed a restoration with them for a few days. Right up front we told them we are not golf course architects and we don't want anyone to think we are. The most we would consider calling ourselves are architectural historians, and pretty much just on architect William Flynn (of this, by the way, we are pretty confident).
Luckily, Homestead told us if they did anything to the golf course they wanted it to be as purist as it could effectively be. Obviously this sat very well with us. They told us they wanted that just because they did but also so they'd never be criticized for screwing around with and taking a whole lot of architectural liberties with the course.
So we told them we'd consider doing this but ONLY IF they hired a golf course architect and we gave them some recommendations.
They actually tried to hire one of our recommendations but for various reasons that one didn't work out (basically he was over scheduled and in the wrong place for the timing).
But we did them one helluva historical restoration plan tracking just about everything and anything to do with the original construction and the entire design evolution of the course. All kinds of photos, aerials, all of Flynn's highly detailed hole by hole drawings, examples of Flynn's "construction instructions", shapes, sizes, mathematical dimensions, you name it. We even came up with an aerial/Flynn plan overlay via Craig Disher that was scale and dimensionally bullet proof and may even be the one and only time this has ever been done on a restoration.
(As usual Wayne did about 95% of about a 150 page historical restoration plan with all this stuff in it. It is some amazing document).
Then they told us they weren't going to hire an architect for the project but that was OK because we all had one anyway. I asked who that was and they told us it was William Flynn.
I said but he died 55 years ago. They said that's OK because with all this material it's almost like he's here.
Well, double shit, but we went back down there and met for a few more days with them and their contractor (who they'd worked with before and really trusted) and went over every bunker, every detail of the course. We asked the contractor if he felt he could simply work off the photos, Flynn's plans and just duplicate them on the ground.
And that's what happened and apparently the bunker restoration phase and some other architectural restoration ramifications are a real success.
Just to tie up this story back to the subject of MikeY's thread, Wayne and I stayed at MikeY's house during the Masters and we mentioned this story and how we definitely didn't want it to look like we are golf course architects or that we are trying to act like architects. And the primary reason we don't is because there's a ton of stuff about golf course architecture we don't understand well at all such as construction processes, drainage, grasses, whatever.
What Wayne and I do understand is things like the aesthetics of Flynn, his architectural and strategic concepts and techniques and most of his philosophies on golf architecture and golf etc.
MikeY said he was OK with all of that and I can't say I blame him. But if we tried to say we knew as much as he does about ALL the areas and ramifications of golf architecture, particually construction techiniques we could see how he'd have a real problem with that and he'd be right.
We are not golf course architects and we are the first to tell that to anyone, particularly any club we visit or talk to who might assume we are.
We call ourselves architectural historians, particularly on Flynn, and that's as far as we want it to go or to be percieved.
Is this story and this post a little warmer on the type of thing you're after on this thread's subject MikeY?