Beauty

[Norbert P]

. . .   Maybe the best way through in the end is to fall mute and silent in the face of pure experience. In fact, I think it might well be - but I'm not ready to go there just yet   

Lest ye go hungry.

Is beauty the final arbiter? If it is given the the highest value of pushing us to one side of the fence or the other, I'd have to say no. But, that said, if I see a natural, unique and interestingly playable green, I'd have to say that it has beautiful naturalness, beautiful uniqueness and beautiful playability, then yes.     

 I have no idea.
     

[Peter Pallotta]

Me neither, Slag.

But Gary Daughters is not a dumb person, so I don't think it likely that he'd ask a dumb question, so when a question he asks *seems* dumb to me -- after all, what could be the *ultimate* arbiter of anything, even in a personal/subjective sense, save for maybe death -- I'm inclined to think there's much more to the question/answer than I might at first think, and that it's worth exploring.  

In one very real sense, George is of course right that it's too "personal"  to be the arbiter...although it strikes me as somehow unsatisfying to believe that nothing so personal could be deemed that important. And also, if not beauty then what? Those much more *concrete* concepts like playability or strategic interest?  Or nothing at all, and so we judge willy-nilly. That's fine, I guess - but it leaves a discussion board pretty barren, and it still leaves something....something....

But maybe TE has got it right. He's just not saying

Peter

[Matthew Hunt]

"Beauty is when a alluring reality meets positive perception”

[George Pazin]

It's not a dumb question at all. Really, the only dumb questions on this site are when I ask Matt things I know he won't answer the way I'd like.

I'd guess Gary is trying to see that for each of us, individually, isn't beauty the ultimate defining difference between a course we love playing, and a course that we really love.

The thing I have the most problem with is that beauty is pretty far down on the list of characteristics of the things that I cherish most. Even my son, who is widely acclaimed to be beautiful , it's what he says and does that ultimately make me gush.

Of all the things that define what I love, beauty is perhaps the most shallow criteria.

Just mho.

[Doug Ralston]

It's not a dumb question at all. Really, the only dumb questions on this site are when I ask Matt things I know he won't answer the way I'd like.

I'd guess Gary is trying to see that for each of us, individually, isn't beauty the ultimate defining difference between a course we love playing, and a course that we really love.

The thing I have the most problem with is that beauty is pretty far down on the list of characteristics of the things that I cherish most. Even my son, who is widely acclaimed to be beautiful , it's what he says and does that ultimately make me gush.

Of all the things that define what I love, beauty is perhaps the most shallow criteria.

Just mho.

Do not underestimate beauty ..... or misdefine it. Beauty is not in what one sees, it is in their reaction to it.

The best example of what I mean is, or course, a woman. She was not much more than a girl when I was not much more than a boy [isn't that clever prose?]. She was plain to mediocre of face, anyone who saw her would agree. Until she smiled! I swear, by some magical means, her joyous smile and her lit up eyes tranformed her amazingly into a stunning woman. You had to see her live and smiling to ever appreciate what I mean. I will never forget the effect. I believe she could have enticed any man on Earth with that unexpected contenance.

Beauty is an effect, not an object. It comes when it does. For golf courses, beauty can have to with with the course, the background, or the game itself. It depends on how you feel drawn into it.

Some folks here, I would wager, will even think Sand Hills is beautiful.

Doug

[George Pazin]

A very fair and good point, Doug - and clever prose to boot.

Still, under such a broad definition, Gary's original point would almost be true by definition.

Maybe not clever prose, but I think effective prose.

[Gary Daughters]

I'm having a hard time getting my head around all these interesting responses.  Thanks all.

Like Tom Paul, whose ultimate response I eagerly await, I've had some false starts on this, including several at the the keyboard.  Every time I try to take it forward I seem to go backwards and end up with that gray thing Slag adroitly pointed out.

So I'll just toss this out.  Beauty, as I see it, will always evoke an emotional response.  And unlike something that is just pretty, it will also appeal to the head.  You peer into a baby's face (natural beauty), you feel a strong response with both your head and your heart.  You look at one of Cezanne's landscapes (man made beauty), you have a similar head/heart response.  The important difference being that the artist had to have a hook into your being that nature gets automatic.

Golf course architecture, to state something everyone here knows,  is a hybrid of the two.  And then there's that interesting little dimension called the game.

I absolutely respond emotionally to golf courses.  What I still don't get is how architects with their brains and their souls and their backhoes make that happen.  But none of them have chimed in,  so maybe this is all bs.