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TEPaul

Re:What the world of golf architecture needs now....
« Reply #25 on: October 20, 2007, 01:41:08 PM »
Peter:

Good post there, and it reminds me just how complex the actual business of golf course architecture is and can be.

Because of that many of us on here who are not in the business are probably just glorified dabblers, although, as you know from speaking with me, I feel there are certain areas where our dabbling (basically the discussion of ideas on here) is a good thing for professional architects maybe even an enhancement for them. At the very least I think it can help them to break away from some of their tendencies toward standardizations.

But then there are all those other more technical areas of golf course architecture---eg construction techniques and methods, agronomics, maintenance and other areas that most all of us who are not in the business have basically zero experience with and therefore very little understanding of.

But what I call the "concept" side is another matter, in my mind. We play golf, we care about architecture, we study what we see and play and we have opinions and ideas and such in that particular area and other than how those ideas and opinions are and can be limited by the realities of construction and drainage and agronomics and maintenance practices and such I see no real reason why some of our ideas and opinions and concepts and such should not be in some cases every bit as good or useful or interesting as those of professional architects.

When it comes to women and architecture I think I was inspired recently by that attractive stewardess I met on a private G5 not long ago. I flew back from the Bahamas with her and the two pilots so I got to talk with her for a couple of hours.

It was a really beautiful sunset and night coming back up the East coast and into Philadelphia and I was trying to take pictures of the sunset and the wing and the sky and such. She watched me for a while and then she just took my camera and did it herself.

She was a real artist, she had a natural eye for it and it turns out she's an interior decorator and designer on the side.

And it just so happens she lives about a mile from that project I'm working on in Maryland with Paul Cowley and the Davis Love Design Co.

So I got her over to the project one time and explained basically what we do and were doing and trying to do.

She picked right up on it and started to offer some ideas and view points which I thought were fresh and interesting and somewhat novel.

She's very pretty and attractive but then she said she had to go down the road to Fair Hill (massive horse training and racing complex where Barbaro was born, lived and trained and died) and defend her hay bail throwing crown. That sort of surprised me for someone who looked like that but she said she was the daughter of a blacksmith, a rider and no shrinking violet. I even told her to not get dressed up when she came over to the site because it can be remarkably dusty and dirty. Later she told me she basically grew up in barns and it was impossible to ever get too dirty.

This is a person who has some of the components to pick up on this business and art like a sponge, in my opinion. She loves nature and the country, she's artistic with a great eye for it even if she doesn't even play golf. I was fascinated by some of the things she noticed and said.

Eric Franzen

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:What the world of golf architecture needs now....
« Reply #26 on: October 20, 2007, 02:26:58 PM »
Peter:

Good post there, and it reminds me just how complex the actual business of golf course architecture is and can be.

Because of that many of us on here who are not in the business are probably just glorified dabblers, although, as you know from speaking with me, I feel there are certain areas where our dabbling (basically the discussion of ideas on here) is a good thing for professional architects maybe even an enhancement for them. At the very least I think it can help them to break away from some of their tendencies toward standardizations.

But then there are all those other more technical areas of golf course architecture---eg construction techniques and methods, agronomics, maintenance and other areas that most all of us who are not in the business have basically zero experience with and therefore very little understanding of.

But what I call the "concept" side is another matter, in my mind. We play golf, we care about architecture, we study what we see and play and we have opinions and ideas and such in that particular area and other than how those ideas and opinions are and can be limited by the realities of construction and drainage and agronomics and maintenance practices and such I see no real reason why some of our ideas and opinions and concepts and such should not be in some cases every bit as good or useful or interesting as those of professional architects.

When it comes to women and architecture I think I was inspired recently by that attractive stewardess I met on a private G5 not long ago. I flew back from the Bahamas with her and the two pilots so I got to talk with her for a couple of hours.

It was a really beautiful sunset and night coming back up the East coast and into Philadelphia and I was trying to take pictures of the sunset and the wing and the sky and such. She watched me for a while and then she just took my camera and did it herself.

She was a real artist, she had a natural eye for it and it turns out she's an interior decorator and designer on the side.

And it just so happens she lives about a mile from that project I'm working on in Maryland with Paul Cowley and the Davis Love Design Co.

So I got her over to the project one time and explained basically what we do and were doing and trying to do.

She picked right up on it and started to offer some ideas and view points which I thought were fresh and interesting and somewhat novel.

She's very pretty and attractive but then she said she had to go down the road to Fair Hill (massive horse training and racing complex where Barbaro was born, lived and trained and died) and defend her hay bail throwing crown. That sort of surprised me for someone who looked like that but she said she was the daughter of a blacksmith, a rider and no shrinking violet. I even told her to not get dressed up when she came over to the site because it can be remarkably dusty and dirty. Later she told me she basically grew up in barns and it was impossible to ever get too dirty.

This is a person who has some of the components to pick up on this business and art like a sponge, in my opinion. She loves nature and the country, she's artistic with a great eye for it even if she doesn't even play golf. I was fascinated by some of the things she noticed and said.

So, what you are actually saying is that the world of golf architecture could use some or even more input from artistic/creative people outside the GCA and golf sphere when it comes to "the concept side"?

Or do you think that a female perspective are especially important?

I am not questioning you... just curious.
« Last Edit: October 20, 2007, 02:31:42 PM by Eric Franzen »

Eric Franzen

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:What the world of golf architecture needs now....
« Reply #27 on: October 20, 2007, 02:41:29 PM »
Or maybe you just want to see a photo of Marion Hollins on her horse Dagmar?

Click on the link then. I don't want to post it here due to copyright restrictions. Enjoy!

http://www.julianpgraham.com/images/Pasatiempo/Marion%20Hollins%20on%20Dagmar%201937_WM.jpg

Mike Nuzzo

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:What the world of golf architecture needs now....
« Reply #28 on: October 20, 2007, 03:39:10 PM »
Tom Doak,
What percentage of your internship applicants are female?
There is no barrier to sending you an application.

I've never had a female request information about the profession.
Thinking of Bob, Rihc, Bill, George, Neil, Dr. Childs, & Tiger.

TEPaul

Re:What the world of golf architecture needs now....
« Reply #29 on: October 20, 2007, 07:14:47 PM »
"So, what you are actually saying is that the world of golf architecture could use some or even more input from artistic/creative people outside the GCA and golf sphere when it comes to "the concept side"?"

Eric:

I am indeed saying that.

"Or do you think that a female perspective are especially important?"

I think a female perspective is as important as any other perspective.

Mike_Cirba

Re:What the world of golf architecture needs now....
« Reply #30 on: October 20, 2007, 07:18:38 PM »
"no just not for one, but (harmony now) for EVERYONE!!


Thanks Tom Paul...you start this stupid thread and I get to have this inane 70's Burt Bacharach song rolling around in my head like a bad flashback all day long.

Thanks.   :-[ ::) ;)

Tom_Doak

  • Karma: +2/-1
Re:What the world of golf architecture needs now....
« Reply #31 on: October 20, 2007, 10:31:22 PM »
Mike N:

I'd say we have an average of two female applicants per year for our internship, out of 40-60 applications per year.

There have only been two of them who were really impressive ... the one I hired, and one from Korea last year, who I would have hired under less complicated circumstances.

Peter Pallotta

Re:What the world of golf architecture needs now....
« Reply #32 on: October 20, 2007, 10:50:24 PM »
TE
your trip on a private G5 from the Bahamas with a lovely and talented stewardess brought an old Woody Allen joke to mind: "If reincarnation is true, I want to come back as Warren Beatty's fingertips".  

Good story, Tom, and the "conceptual" aspect is one that I had in mind in my last post. I think the mix of imagination, intuition, logic, feeling etc. I mentioned plays itself out on the conceptual level as well as the practical one; and I think that an architect's work is a reflection of his/her particular make-up, i.e. which traits in that mix predominate, which are less developed, which are valued/ignored etc. That would be as true for a female architect as it is for a male architect (or an amateur architect), I think -- but we really haven't had a chance to find that out yet, or to see that mix of traits reflected in the work of many female architects. I do think it would be good and interesting to see.

Peter  
« Last Edit: October 20, 2007, 11:10:02 PM by Peter Pallotta »

TEPaul

Re:What the world of golf architecture needs now....
« Reply #33 on: October 21, 2007, 07:24:32 AM »
MikeC:

Nice pick up. I didn't even think of that---and I didn't even put OF GOLF ARCHITECTURE in parentheses.

Don't you hate it when that happens and you can't get some old lyric out of your head all day?

My sister does a form of that except she just makes some weird sound out of something I've said and she keeps muttering it constantly. It's lucky I haven't brained her more often than I have in our lives.
« Last Edit: October 21, 2007, 07:25:30 AM by TEPaul »

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