A mind is a terrible thing to waste...

[Forrest Richardson]

Pebble is a great case study.

I submit that the "natural beauty" is the setting. The golf course is hardly natural at all. Raised green sites in many places...flattened landscape (Hole 18, e.g.)...stone sea walls...lopped-off hilltops...and cleared forests.

maybe it "seems" natural because it has been there for such a long time???

[Garland Bayley]

Thanks for the bunker pictures Sean. I had been thinking all along while reading this thread, that our technology allows us to over bunker a golf course, e.g. there is one hole at Black Mesa that seems to be a sea of useless sand. Or given years and years to do the same, i.e. Oakmont.

How about the jailhouse stairs? Are they another example of overbunkering and thereby dictating strategy?

[Forrest Richardson]

Garland — You mean this hole?

The hillside was there. We just etched the bunkers into it. Does it look natural? Should it?

[Adam Clayman]

Zero attempt at transitioning th golf course into it's surrounds is art similar to Dogs playing Poker.

[Forrest Richardson]

What's wrong with dogs playing poker?

That appears as an oasis hole — one set into a landscape 100% unsuitable for golf, but made so by man. So? Is that all bad? Do the people who live there enjoy it? Does it fulfill their golfing spirit?

[Ken Moum]

kmoum — I've never met anyone named "kmoum", a first!

Call me Ken, my friends do

What makes a golf course that is artificial in construction so good when in reality it is a fake? Why is it OK — even great — to see a golf landscape that looks as if "it grew out of the land" when that is a lie/falsehood?

I didn't suggest that the fakery is great, but when you've spent half your lifetime playing dead flat golf courses in towns that are surrounded for miles and miles by dead flat land, getting to see linksland for the first time at age 59 is a revelation. It's no accident that the game was invented there.

But there's only so much of it available, and most gofers won't be living within proximity any time soon.

My point was that since there are lots of golf courses that will be built on sites like that, why not try to give the golfers who play them something that looks like it was always there?


Personally, I detest fake leather (plastic that looks like leather), Formica laminate that tries to approximate real bamboo, or veneer stone that looks — from a distance — as real stone. I also don't like fake plants in building lobbies, even though many are so realistic you can hardly tell the difference.

Why is this OK on golf courses?

Unlike plastic plants, golf courses, even "fake" one, are built of dirt.

To steal an idea from another thread... Does the fact that Michelangelo's David is a stone "fake" and not a real person make it any less beautiful.

I've walked parts of the Castle course, and while it might be man-made, it's not "fake."

Would Phantom Horse be a better course if the land had never been altered?

Ken

[Forrest Richardson]

Ken — Good questions and observations.

You hit on an interesting element of golf — the game imitates natural land. That has become the norm, so to speak. I have done this, and many, many others, too.

But, the game also embraces natural land. So there is the odd circumstance...on one hand we have a leaning toward embracing the natural, while on the other we have a leaning to change land to make it seem natural.

How odd.

As for Phantom Horse, I would have done things much differently today — 27 years later.

[Ken Moum]

Ken — Good questions and observations.

You hit on an interesting element of golf — the game imitates natural land. That has become the norm, so to speak. I have done this, and many, many others, too.

But, the game also embraces natural land. So there is the odd circumstance...on one hand we have a leaning toward embracing the natural, while on the other we have a leaning to change land to make it seem natural.

How odd.

I'd expect you'd be happier (I certainly would) if you changed "seem natural" to "more interesting."  

When you work with land that simply doesn't suit a game that was grew out of "interesting" land, it's no crime to attempt to emulate those landforms that spawned the game. It's simply a better game when played on shapes like those where it was born.

The trick, of course, is to get the angles of repose, hollows, ridges, etc., to appear "natural" Therein lies the art of what you guys do while building a course.

Routing is at least as much an art, but it seems more like painting compared to the sculpture of building landforms. I can tell you this, if I suddenly inherited enough money to commission an architect, I'd want him there a lot of the time the bulldozers were running.

As for Phantom Horse, I would have done things much differently today — 27 years later.

It's interesting you'd say that. I played it only once, and didn't love it, but I think it's probably a better course than my first impressions indicated.

The feeling of panic I had on several holes left me thinking it might be fun to play if I knew what club to hit off the tee.

Maybe I'll go back and play it the next time I visit my mother in Mesa, but this time I'll take my laser....  

[TEPaul]

Forrest Richardson said:

"Ken — Good questions and observations.

You hit on an interesting element of golf — the game imitates natural land. That has become the norm, so to speak. I have done this, and many, many others, too.

But, the game also embraces natural land. So there is the odd circumstance...on one hand we have a leaning toward embracing the natural, while on the other we have a leaning to change land to make it seem natural.

How odd."

Forrest:

I certainly have my own opinions on why that would seem odd but I'd love to hear your opinions on why you think it's odd. By that of course I mean the rather unique dictate of the golf course architect as an artist who actually works to hide his artistic hand by making what he designs and builds look as much like the work of Nature as possible in the hopes that no one even recognized he designed and built it and not Nature herself.

[Ken Moum]

By that of course I mean the rather unique dictate of the golf course architect as an artist who actually works to hide his artistic hand by making what he designs and builds look as much like the work of Nature as possible in the hopes that no one even recognized he designed and built it and not Nature herself.

One of the best reasons is that golfers are a lot less likely to take umbrage at a crazy bounce or wildly shaped green complex if they think it was the work of nature.

IIRC, MacKenzie mentioned this in one of his books as being the reason St. Andrews could be revered while courses with similar man-made surfaces were thought to be unfair.

Another reason, of course, is that any modeling nature wants their work to appear natural. Like the statue of David, the more closely the man-made terrain resembles natural perfection, the more visually appealing it will be.

Take manufactured perfection too far and you get the golf course equivalent of plastic plants... the man-made waterfall in the desert... or Florida.

K

[Peter Carroll]

The threads on TPC No. 17 and styles got me to pound out the 1980s popular campaign by the United Negro College Fund: A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Waste

Besides born-again minimalist, classic and throw-backs, what has truly broken new ground in our era/age?

Forrest

I believe few golf holes will be seen as ground breaking unless the traditional concepts of what a golf hole is are challenged.

As you have brought up "A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste" perhaps we could postulate something seemingly non-sensical Edward de Bono style like "A Par 4 has no fairway".

We might then come up with perhaps a 300 yard par 4 with a hell's half acre in front of the green.  Can we challenge that a good drive should have a fairway lie?  

Internal strips of rough or a minefield of fairway bunkers within a fairway could leave players with more difficult "lesser of two evils" decisions.  Could golfers accept that these micro features create only a probability of success given a perfectly struck drive?  The choice might be play to one side for a good lie but horrible angle to the green or run the gauntlet and potentially get an easy approach, a bit like trying to bounce a ball across a cattle grid, a lot is left to chance.

I think that most holes that crossed this barrier would be judged unfair and derided; but they would be ground breaking.

Peter

[Kirk Gill]

Sean, thanks for the pics and your take. In the first photo (Kidd in Hawaii, yes?) I find it interesting how the bunker edging minimizes (for me) the visual impact of the bunker, and makes it sit better on the land and NOT stick out like a sore thumb. Again, my opinion. The bunkers in the second photo (which, I believe, is of Colorado Golf Club) do seem like a lot, but they don't necessarily stick out more to me than the green-ness of the grass or the mowing pattern..........I don't find myself put off by any of it. It looks like golf, to me. Perhaps that's a failing on my part. Perhaps I'm one of the sheep mentioned by Kalen Bradley.

Really, very few golf courses look all that "natural" to me, but the ones that seem to appeal the most visually "embrace nature," as Mr. Paul stated. And in a variety of ways. Wasn't it Mackenzie who said that he used cloud shapes as inspirations for bunker shaping? But can it be said that a desire to embrace nature in design belongs exclusively to one era or another? Or do we have to evaluate on an architect-to-architect basis, or course-to-course? I don't think "return to nature" is either recent or groundbreaking.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, and perhaps stated poorly, is that one new, ground-breaking theme in GCA has been building real-estate driven courses, to the point that the course itself may be routed by the developers, created as needed in areas that either can't have houses or will maximize golf-course frontage. Did the dead guys ever have to deal with that kind of pressure? Not just the location of the clubhouse, but the location of the course itself being dictated by "non-golfing" concerns? Are there modern architects who deal with this kind of situation better than others? It seems to me that something groundbreaking doesn't have to be something good for golf, or for gca. Or am I just missing the point completely?

[Forrest Richardson]

I would prefer that we discuss positive aspects of this era — not that the negative can be ignored. The discussion here is about what defines — or could define — the current era and age.

I think we worked at searching for things already accomplished — the mega landforms came rising to the top along with Cowley's ruins, etc.

Many related ideas...this may well be the age of building very artificially the desired effect in golf. Be it a natural look, a hard look or in between.

I have yet to answer a few questions/comments. Please allow some time.

[Forrest Richardson]

I have come away from this discussion with a hodge-podge of comment and frankness — all interesting.

What I have not come away with is whether there is a consensus about the level of creativity being expressed by modern golf designers.

Simply put: Are we thinking anough? Are we taking design to new levels that embrace new ideas? Or, are we a generation that has become comfortable reverting to old tricks, old looks and tried-and-true design concepts?

[Joe Hancock]

Forrest,

Regardless of what we all think, is there a contingency of golf developers lining up, plunking down big money to allow an architect to pursue all manner of ideas and concepts that have no burden of proof? You keep repackaging you're query, and no one is jumping in with both feet. Is that because no one is smart enough to have new, bold and fresh ideas? Or, is it because for the significant investment that golf requires (including architect fees), there are some time tested, working principles that make sense to those footing the bill?

Joe

[Forrest Richardson]

#1 — This site, hopefully, is not frequented by like-minds or those unwilling to take risks. I think there spirit here is different from the "outside".

#2 — There are always developers willing to take risks. They may be the minority, but they are always there. That is why architecture and design and industrial design are so exciting.

I'm not intentionally re-packing the question. My fear is that — perhaps — we are casual in our responsibilities. That the "retro-is-better" movement has stalled our creativity in part. That developing new ideas has taken a backseat at many of our projects.

The pursuit of newness is not easy. Have we become so enthralled with history that the balance is tipping too much to that side in golf course design?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Forrest,

There is a LOT of creativity shown be gca's today. Give your self and us some credit.  As much as the early guys might have had difficulty imagining courses away from the seaside links, how could they have imagined desert courses that look like desert, a Las Vegas course that looks like North Carolina, a Wisconsin course that looks like Ireland, etc.  For that matter, could they have imagined reasonably priced munis and publics that look every bit as good as most clubs of the Golden Age or courses built in quarries and other scarred land no one would touch?

The list of where we have continued to push golf courses is unbelievably long and each require tremendous creativity, and new, forward thinking.

Even in strategy and playability, I think we have made strides - not ignoring the Golden Age design principles but adapting them as equipment has changed the game.

Generally, I think your presumtion - that architecture will be better if we all move forward rather than repeat - is correct.  That has been the trend in most human endeavors, and I see no reason why it shouldn't be so in gca.  

However, driving about town, I notice most new towns are sort of styled as old towns.  I wonder if architecture is between styles and relying on nostalgia, and if gca is in the same boat.

And, I would love to hear someone like Lloyd Cole expound just a bit on music cycles, how that builds and moves forward.  I suspect it may be the same thing, including some of us getting stuck in loving only the music - or architecture - of a certain era or style.

[Mike_Young]

Forrest,
A couple of us were discussing discussing something like this one day and it was mentioned that the biggest difference was that many new designers design from the outside in while most of the old guys were forced to design from the inside out.....in other words..today if a guy has a tee stake, a turnpoint stake and a green stake he has the luxury of taking a hole he draws and making the land fit that hole where it used to be that one had to make the hole fit the land.....IMHO that is biggest single difference in modern design.....and has created some ugly stuff....ALSO I think that is a good way to define a persons design style whether dead guy or living....Myself..I try to design from the inside out ....however that limits ones available sites and so sometimes if I want a job I have to compromise.....

[Forrest Richardson]

OK — There "is" loads of creativity being released into the air. I occasionally see it, but mostly I read and see the throw-back styles. And, here, well...here the throw-back style is just about all that is seen and heard. Just about.