[Peter Pallotta]

I thought this might merit its own thread.
Off the "best with the least" thread, about courses created with the least amount of intrusion/earth moving:

You can make a virtue out of necessity, or you can make a virtue out of choice.
The former explains many of the classic early courses/links; the latter is more rare, and more difficult - especially to do well.
Can you tell the difference between the two?
Do you see qualitative differences between the courses that emerged more from necessity (eg Fowler, Old Tom) and those that emerged more from choice (C&C, Tom D)?
From photos, I can't tell a difference.
For those of who have actually played a lot of courses, classic and modern, can *you* tell the difference - the difference between courses where there was little to do (machine wise) except let the land speak for itself, and those courses where the architect has *chosen* to let the land speak for itself?
 
Peter

[Tom_Doak]

There are more bunkers on most of the modern courses.  Occasionally I build fewer when the soils are not sandy and/or the client is concerned about the maintenance budget ... St. Emilion is a recent example, and so is Stoatin Brae that my associates built.


There is a glut of bunker builders in the world right now.

[Thomas Dai]

Self explanatory?
atb

[Joe Hancock]

Peter,


Are you speaking secifically about those courses that actually did little vs. courses that did much but attempted to give the impression of doing little? Some are better at it than others, and some are better at convincing us through well chosen words.


But, while my preferences and tendencies gravitate towards frugality and minimalism, I certainly appreciate the McDonalds and Raynors and Banks and Langfords of the world. They designed some terrific courses that are very well suited to their purpose and place.


It seems to me that we think that golf is best when perfectly fitted into the natural landscape without fusing with any dirt, yet the game of golf, and indeed golfers, have some specific ideas about what constitutes great golf courses and great golf holes. Most land will yield better golf if the architect and the team move dirt, and some will say that as little as possible is the (only) right way/ amount.

[Jay Mickle]

Seems that modern courses of the minimalist type seem to take up more land then those of the golden age.

[Peter Pallotta]

Joe - I was thinking of courses like Fowler's Walton Heath, created in an era before large scale earthmoving machinery; and, because it's hard for me to think of many modern heathland equivalents, my comparison was with minimalists endeavours like Dismal and Sand Hills.
I agree with you (and I meant to imply it in my post) that this modern choice/restraint involves a challenging balancing act, ie to let the land dictate while at the same time provide the kind of excellent golf - the shots and choices and variety and interesting greens - the today's golfers demand.
Maybe that balance - as Jay suggests - is best found/most likely on very large sites, where there's the possibility of 'finding' many more holes than you need and thus the chance to pick the best 18 and have no 'weak holes'.
I'm surprised and not surprised both that folks often note the presence of 3 or 4 or 5 'weak holes' on some of these classic old GB&I courses that were built with little earthmoving. When an architect back then - much more out of necessity than choice - had say 300 acres in which to find his 18 holes, he would have had a harder time at having them all be wonderful than does a C&C today, given that they sometimes have ten times that amount of land to work with.
Peter

[David_Madison]

To pick up on Jay's point, the modern ones seem to be much wider and have more teeing options, both in terms of length and in angles into the fairways and greens.

What's much harder to tell are really well done extensive renovations/restorations of old classics. Mid-Pines, Pinehurst #2, and Roaring Gap are great examples - - pretty much totally torn up with new greens and surrounds, new fairway borders, and so much else making the current courses practically unrecognizable from what they were before the work was done. Yet they look pretty much like they could have been built as they now look a hundred years ago.

[Sean_A]

Pietro

To my eye some big differences between modern and classic links are

The walk is less important for moderns, thus linking 18 holes in a sensible manner is less important and as a consequence, more rambunctious land is used today with a focus on views.  When classic courses used wild land the holes were far shorter and still made sense, for the most part. 

More work around modern greensites and tees.

When classic courses took chances it resulted in wild holes, some of which have been cherished ever since and some would still be if not for the Oxbridge decree that blind is bad. Moderns don't have to take chances because they can bulldoze a hole and when they do, most of the time the archie is trying to have the best of both worlds with a longer course than necessary for the land...see Ballybunion Cashen.  If it was possible to build a course on that land back in the day I am convinced a guy like Braid would have made a better job of it.


The clubhouse for moderns is often less important in terms of how it interacts with the course; this is a consequence of a willingness to use more land.

I will say that the best moderns are as good or better than anything from the classic era on an intellectual playing level.  However, the best classic courses find ways to be charming.  Most of the time the exception to this is due to modern work.

Ciao

[Tom_Doak]

Seems that modern courses of the minimalist type seem to take up more land then those of the golden age.

There is some truth to that, but there are reasons other than what has been suggested.


For one thing, the classic courses were generally developed by the members of the club itself, and they didn't think about buying surrounding land for other purposes; whereas most modern projects buy big acreages to leave room for multiple courses, housing, or resort development.


Another reason is that we are selective in what we see.  Peter mentioned Walton Heath, but in fact, it was designed over a huge open common; there are hundreds of acres of undeveloped heath around it.  But we ignore those because we only see where the golf course is today.  Sean is right, though, that not enough modern designs pay attention to minimizing green to tee walks, so today's courses are more spread out than those of an earlier age.


Whereas, High Pointe was a 320-acre parcel, and I routed it to allow for some housing development in certain areas, so the golf course really only took up 180 acres; but because those homes were never built it was perceived to be on a giant property.  Likewise, Bill Coore and I did our best to get the routing for Streamsong as compact as it could be without tripping over each other's courses, but you don't notice that with so much undeveloped ground on the outside of the two courses.

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