Manufactured vs. Minimalist

[Ken Moum]

Sean ....maybe ....like I said I'm not exactly sure why I feel that way.
I am probably being too open here.

Naw...

Look at it this way, if there weren't any golf courses ever built on questionablr sites, much of America would never have been exposed to the game.

Where I grew up in NW Minnesota, the land is so flat that a rail car once got loose and travelled 60 miles on wind power alone.

But we had golf.

Toda we have the power to manufacture better courses on land like that, in fact I played a Dick Nugent-designed one the last couple of days.

What I wish we had was a term that encompassed these courses.

The Nugent is Prairie Green in Sioux Falls, and I recently played Falcon Lakes in Basehor, KS, another similiar one by Jay Morrish.

Craig Schreiner's Prairie Highlands is another I've played.

ArborLinks in Nebraska City is another. I think it's a Palmer design.

They are "prairie links" but they all have far more water hazards than real links courses. And they are almost entirely man-made, unlike Sand Hills and Wild Horse.

But in line with your point, these courses bring a better kind of course to the golfer in these places, which wouldn't have been available without the intervention of the bulldozer.

Ken

[paul cowley]

Sean.....Tom pretty much nails it.

Tom....please feel free to ghost write for me anytime. You have the wonderful ability to put things in words that even I can understand.

[Philip Spogard]

What courses then comes close to having 18 great manufactured holes that seems natural?

In my opinion Kingsbarns stand out in that category. I think the secret is that they have successfully created a landscape and not just a golf course.

[Tom_Doak]

Philip:

Kingsbarns is certainly a fine and rare example of the completely manufactured course which looks natural.  For myself, there are certain design concepts on it which are so insistent that they give away the hand of man.  But the contouring is good enough and complete enough from one end of the property to the other that it fools nearly everyone ... with the help of a long stretch of natural coastline it can use for a natural tie-in at one side of the course.

There aren't many others in this category.  Shadow Creek looks mostly natural [if you can forget you're surrounded by desert and accept the trees at face value].  But the mother of them all, really, is Pine Valley -- the big contours are natural but all of the "natural wasteland" is shaped.

[TEPaul]

TomD:

Like perhaps every single golf course of Pine Valley's era, if you totally stripped away the trees and vegetation (something too many of the uninformed on here continue to insist on) from the man-made architecture of the course (particularly behind the greens and tees and such) what you would see is some starkly obvious man-made engineered shapes---eg not even remotely natural looking.

I'm no tree hugger by a long shot but some of these people who just propose that whole sites be stripped of trees have no idea what the look would be if that were done.

And like all the courses of that early era their greens and tees and even bunkers and such are like "stage sets"---they were intended to be observed and appreciated from the "audience" vantage point and not from the actors or stage-hand vantage point.  

[ed_getka]

[quote author=Tom_Doak

Kingsbarns is certainly a fine and rare example of the completely manufactured course which looks natural.  For myself, there are certain design concepts on it which are so insistent that they give away the hand of man.  But the contouring is good enough and complete enough from one end of the property to the other that it fools nearly everyone ... with the help of a long stretch of natural coastline it can use for a natural tie-in at one side of the course.

Tom D,
   I haven't been to Kingsbarns. What are the design concepts that are so insistent that you are referring to?

[Tom_Doak]

Ed:

Mark Parsinen insisted that any green contour that might affect your decision-making for your approach shot ought to be easily seen from the fairway.  That translated into a lot of big contours which start outside the green and work their way in ... and no little random bumps inside the greens like most links courses have, or like Kingsbarns has in its fairways.

I think that if you played the course once, you'd probably not notice this, but if you played a few times you would start to pick up on this as a human concept and not a natural occurrence.

[TEPaul]

"Tom P
I am beginning to wonder if it isn't you out to lunch.  Who said that all trees should be ripped out of all courses of the PV era?  Mind you, it isn't bad to see man made shapes (from close or afar - which is what I guess you are talking about where trees are concerned) so long as they look good and fit the overall scheme.  Otherwise, we wouldn't have many courses would we?"

Well Bully for you.

Haven't you noticed those on here who act like trees don't belong on golf courses which was once the old linksman idea?

Have you ever seen PV Sean? If you have I very much doubt you'd suggest that some of the architecture out there have its engineered angles exposed by removing trees and vegetation.

[Peter Pallotta]

"I think that if you played the course once, you'd probably not notice this, but if you played a few times you would start to pick up on this as a human concept and not a natural occurrence."
 
Tom D

I guess what I've been wondering about is if what you describe happening on the course itself 'matters' to the golfer as much as the relationship he/she "sees" between the golf course itself and all that surrounds it. I was leaning towards  thinking that the latter may be more important. For me, that is - partly because a good architect can easily fool me and hide his hand on the course itself...but can't fool me so easily if I sense that the course itself has little relationship with anything else around it.    

Does this make any sense to you? How important is that relationship to a working architect?

Thanks
Peter

[TEPaul]

TomD:

From spending an afternoon with Mark Parsinen in NYC one time in which we did nothing but talk architectural concept he seemed to suggest he is virtually fixated on achieveing interesting and attractive backdrops on holes, particularly green sites.

After that he launched into the most interesting treatise about how he was also virtually fixated by trying to develop something that may be termed "truly balanced" optional strategies between short and long players.

To do that really successfully on a golf course hole after hole I would think would be something that could be termed---in the words of Thelma in the movie "Thelma and Louise"--- "some pretty tricky shit."  

[TEPaul]

"Tom D
I guess what I've been wondering about is if what you describe happening on the course itself 'matters' to the golfer as much as the relationship he/she "sees" between the golf course itself and all the surrounds it. I was leaning towards  thinking that the latter may be more important. For me, that is - partly because a good architect can easily fool me and hide his hand on the course itself...but can't fool me so easily if I sense that the course itself has little relationship with anying else around it.    
Does this make any sense to you? How important is that relationship to a working architect?"

Peter:

I don't want to answer that question for Tom Doak but we had a pretty in-depth discussion about this kind of thing on here some years ago----eg how an architect incorporates into the feeling a golf course (or not) that which is off the site (and seemingly beyond his control). Tom Doak said then this is an aspect he notices more now than he used to.

I know what Bill Coore once explained to me in that vein when I asked him what the F...he was looking at when we walked around Ardrossan Farm for almost an entire day without him saying much more than ten words.  

He said he was just looking at how small contours right in front of us 'twisted and turned' with other contours farther out and then how those twisted and turned with others farther out than that and on and on even to the contours of the treelines perhaps a mile off the property. He was talking about what he called "top lines" and how they ALL twisted and turned with or against one another in an ever increasing spectrum, essentially as far as the eye could see in any direction.

I took that kind of thing to mean that he was looking to create some really "site natural" stuff in something of a macro-sense, if you know what I mean. In other words with things off the property and way beyond his control to ever affect.

But I think we all need to realize that perhaps on most of the golf courses of this world architects or anyone else for that matter would never really want to try to incorporate things that are even right off the property for the simple reason that they are pretty obnoxious looking and a really stark juxtaposition with a golf course. The natural instinct then would be to try to hide it and I guess we all know how best to do that in architecture.  

But then you take a course like Sand Hills and you almost have to incorporate into the design everything off the site as far as the eye can see which is miles and miles and miles of unaltered natural emptiness and this includes particularly the scale of the golf course to match all that beyond.

For Coore and Crenshaw to incorporate some of those "top lines" off the site at Sand Hills into the feeling and scale of the course they probably had to haul out a couple of high powered binoculars.  

I think what Paul Cowley was saying is how often does an architect get that kind of opportunity of off site beauty and drama of the ilk of Sand Hills or Old Head or Pebble Beach or Cypress Point?

[Tom_Doak]

Peter:

We do spend a lot of our time on trying to harmonize the golf course with its surroundings.  We do it in a lot of ways:

1.  building hazards into the edge of native vegetation;
2.  seeding a bit of golf grass out into the native and mowing out that way so that the colors and grasses blend out instead of making a stark line;
3.  raising the back edge of a green to hide something man-made behind it so that you don't see anything through the green but a native background (water, trees, native grass, sky, or whatever);
4.  building the same sorts of contours that imitate the site and its surrounds, as Tom Paul described.

One of the most interesting studies we've had was how to make this work on a really flat site -- at Riverfront in Virginia.  We could raise up the greens and hide the edges of our work with bunkers; but we couldn't raise up the back of a fairway bunker and tie it into anything, so it just looked like a pimply mess from far away.  We found we had to build VERY big bunkers with VERY  subtle top lines raised not more than a foot or two above the ground.  

We were surprised to find that we had to do the same thing at Cape Kidnappers -- which is a tilted plane toward the ocean so things stick up in the same way unless you hang them off the edge of one of the ridges, as we did with most of our bunkering there.

[ed_getka]

Ed:

Mark Parsinen insisted that any green contour that might affect your decision-making for your approach shot ought to be easily seen from the fairway.  That translated into a lot of big contours which start outside the green and work their way in ... and no little random bumps inside the greens like most links courses have, or like Kingsbarns has in its fairways.

I think that if you played the course once, you'd probably not notice this, but if you played a few times you would start to pick up on this as a human concept and not a natural occurrence.

Tom D,
    Does Mark P think you should be able to see that green contour that will affect your shot from anywhere in the fairway, or just in the proper position? I wouldn't think Mark would be an advocate of fairness with the type of projects he has been involved in over the years. Or does he have some other reason for wanting to see the green contours?

[ed_getka]

[quote author=TEPaul

From spending an afternoon with Mark Parsinen in NYC one time in which we did nothing but talk architectural concept he seemed to suggest he is virtually fixated on achieveing interesting and attractive backdrops on holes, particularly green sites.

Is that for aesthetic reasons a la Fazio or is there some strategic element to having the interesting and attractive backdrops on the holes that he mentioned?

[Peter Pallotta]

Thanks very much, Tom (and Tom). I can visualize the goals and techniques you describe. What struck me most was your study and solution to the really flat site in Virginia. I think in the years to come more and more courses will be built on those kind of sites or not built at all, so it's important to have examples that work. Also, it points out that seeking and achieving a tie-in to the surroundings (and what that entails for the golfing experience) doesn't have to be related to the beauty of the surroundings.

Peter    

[paul cowley]

Tom D said "One of the most interesting studies we've had was how to make this work on a really flat site -- at Riverfront in Virginia.  We could raise up the greens and hide the edges of our work with bunkers; but we couldn't raise up the back of a fairway bunker and tie it into anything, so it just looked like a pimply mess from far away".....and that comment made me want to ask....If you felt a hole needed a bunker in a certain spot, but there was no adequate way to tie it in to its surrounds...would you forego it?

[paul cowley]

Peter, you state ......"I guess what I've been wondering about is if what you describe happening on the course itself 'matters' to the golfer as much as the relationship he/she "sees" between the golf course itself and all that surrounds it. I was leaning towards  thinking that the latter may be more important. For me, that is - partly because a good architect can easily fool me and hide his hand on the course itself...but can't fool me so easily if I sense that the course itself has little relationship with anything else around it."

I guess that is where my thoughts of golf and nature diverge.

I am not as interested in hiding the hand of man....I am more interested with blending the hand of man with nature to create something that honors both. I try to incorporate things that help reinforce a relationship between the course and the interesting and positive things that exist around it.

My ability to pull this off is quite another issue  

[Joe Hancock]

My ability to pull this off is quite another issue  

And, man, do you ever have issues....

[Peter Pallotta]

"I am not as interested in hiding the hand of man....I am more interested with blending the hand of man with nature to create something that honors both. I try to incorporate things that help reinforce a relationship between the course and the interesting and positive things that exist around it."

Paul -thanks, that's a very neat and clear way of describing the approach. But those two aspects don't seem to me to be mutually exclusive. I mean, if you're creating the remnants of an old stone wall on a course that mimics an old stone wall the golfer sees on the horizon (i.e. off the course), it can potentially look as natural as everything else, I think.  I don't mean to limit the 'natural' only to that which nature has produced.

Peter

[TEPaul]

Paul Cowley said:

"I am not as interested in hiding the hand of man....I am more interested with blending the hand of man with nature to create something that honors both. I try to incorporate things that help reinforce a relationship between the course and the interesting and positive things that exist around it."

Peter Pallotta replied:

"Paul -thanks, that's a very neat and clear way of describing the approach. But those two aspects don't seem to me to be mutually exclusive. I mean, if you're creating the remnants of an old stone wall on a course that mimics an old stone wall the golfer sees on the horizon (i.e. off the course), it can potentially look as natural as everything else, I think.  I don't mean to limit the 'natural' only to that which nature has produced."

Peter:

I think both Paul and I know you don't mean to limit the 'natural' only to that which nature has produced. I think you seem onboard with the idea of using some features on some golf coruses that preceded the golf course (history) even if they were made by man---eg old stone walls, ruins of farm houses, old forts etc.

However, particularly if those kinds of things are actually made with and for the golf course (what could be termed "faux") you need to be pretty careful how you use them and where you put them or even golfers might realize that man ("historically") may never have put them where they are being used for golf.  

In my opinion, people like us always learn a whole lot when we spend time on site with these architects. Mostly you learn about the realities most of us would never suspect of the overall obstacles they're up against for all kinds of reasons.

I've been spending time with Paul on a project in Maryland and we all were considering building what might be termed a "deconstructed wall" around that portion of the property that is bounded by public roads.

But about three hours into trying to explain to the bulldozer operator how to do it to get it to look right and watching him try, the whole idea was shelved because it probably would've taken him about ten times longer to do than what was settled on which was a low earthen wall that looks something like a low Dutch dyke---but it serves the purpose of keeping out car noise and visibility of cars both onto the course and from the course to the road.

So we probably could've done a "desconstructed" stone wall all along those roads taking ten times longer, but you know what----I started thinking---what farmer historically in Cecil County Maryland EVER would've put a stone wall around his property along public roads?

First of all Maryland doesn't have the amount of stone like New England does where old stone walls are pretty prevalent, and furthermore if the old farmer wanted to keep something on his farm in, like horses or cattle, he generally would've just built a post and rail fence along the roads.

Bedford Spring's new restoration just put a post and rail fence in along the public road that borders one side of the property and it looks just great in that "on-site"/"off-site" juxtaposition compared to what was there before which was nothing. Post and rail fences are pretty common out there and in Maryland---at least compared to stone or earthen walls. But I'll promise not to tell anybody if you will promise too.

I think post and rail fences should be more used in golf in regions that historically had them. In any event they do make a pretty good OB boundary for golf and they do look like history in most cases in some regions.  




 

[Peter Pallotta]

Thanks, Tom.
I think I've been getting a better understanding of the theory-practice relationship in all sorts of ways since I got to gca.com, but I have a feeling that the all-important execution aspect (that you're currently seeing with Paul) I'll never get to know very well. I try to be conscious of that.  

Paul is right of course to wonder how many times sites like Sand Hills or Cypress come up. And to me, the 'what the eye sees' and 'minimalism-manufactured-naturalism' kinds of questions are interesting mostly in the context of those very kind of less-that-ideal sites; that's why Tom D's Riverside example struck me. Those less than ideal sites are the very ones I hope architects build on, as in the years to come they'll more than likely be the only ones I play on (or at least play on most often).

I'd like to think/hope that the naturalism-that-isn't-necessarily-minimalism can be made to work on a 150 acre piece of crappy re-claimed land, with the site-natural ethos suitably modified/adapted to knit the whole thing together to create a peaceful and pleasant golfing experience. That this hypothetical golf course wouldn't likely be a very 'dramatic' one doesn't bother me in the least; subtle and close to the ground would be just fine.

I think I asked you this before: do you think that's a realistic hope?

Peter  

 

[paul cowley]

Peter....yes, I feel there is a realistic hope, but much of it depends on the observer or players perception, more so than the designers.

Rich Goodale touches on this over on the "sees" thread, when he talks about designers belonging to two [or three] camps when it comes to naturalism; those who care greatly [CC etc]....those who care less [Raynor etc.]....and those who we really don't know about [MacKenzie]  .

Now me personally, I guess I would belong to the "form follows function, but with a twist" camp, which is really a sub camp of the "those we don't really know about" camp.

I have said in the past that I think the merit of a hole should be judged on how it plays first....and its looks, second.

IE, I would much prefer playing the Road Hole than some Resort Marshmallow with little strategy beyond great views and waves crashing.

....but the real challenge is to integrate the two, and how  this combination is judged depends a lot on  Peter P's acceptance and personal perceptions.....is he, [or we] more likely to favor a hole that might not "look" that good, but plays really well...over a hole that looks great, but doesn't challenge you.

Now just expand this comparison to golf courses......where are you going to play?

[there is no right or wrong answer to this question].

[Tom_Doak]

Paul:

In response to your question, yes, there are times where I might forego building a bunker because I don't think there is any good way to tie it in.  But I think your question about "needing" a bunker in a certain spot misrepresents my way of thinking about things ... there are other ways I can put strategy in the hole without any particular bunker, so I'm going to analyze them to try and find one that works.

Generally, though, if we've built bunkers that look artificial, it's because we did a bad job of them -- not because they were hopelessly out of place, as is more common with other architects.

[paul cowley]

Tom....I probably knew your answer before I asked, just checking.

If a hole "needs" something that badly, and one can't find a way to work it in satisfactorily.....well then that hole probably needs to get another life [or strategic story].