The next step - Which architects have never designed a clunker.

[Kalen Braley]

In looking at the Tillinghast thread, it got me thinking about the other architects.  Which architects had or have a solid career and never built a course that was a Doak 2 or less.  As a reminder, here is the criteria.

2: mediocre course with little architectural interest, but nothing really horrible. (Play it in a scramble and drink a lot of beer).

Colt?  MacK? Tillinghast?  Ross? Old Tom?  We can even go with a few living guys.  C&C?  Engh?  Doak?

And if this above list gets more than a few names that we feel meet this criteria, then how about archies whom all thier courses would be above a Doak 3?

3: about the level of the avg. course in the world.

Who and/or how many would fit here?

For a reference point, a Doak 4 is:

4: modestly interesting; with at least a couple of distinctive holes or some scenic interest. Also reserved for some very good courses which are much too short or narrow to provide sufficient chalenge for low-handicappers.

[George Pazin]

One man's clunker is another man's hidden gem.

I wonder how possible it would be to even evaluate the old guys in this respect - what exists now probably isn't what they built, and it sure isn't built for the equipment they had back then.

[Kalen Braley]

Geroge, duly noted, I'd agree with those statements.

However, I was hoping guys who have really done thier homework on various archies would have an opinion.  Don't make me start naming names of GCA'ers who need to chime in.   

[Mike_Cirba]

William Neff.

[Kalen Braley]

William Neff.

    Ahhh me thinks this thread is going nowhere.  But I know your just holding back Mike with all the current events and all.   

[Mike_Cirba]

Kalen,

I can't really answer your question because I've been locked away at "Posting Camp" all week.   

I can tell you what I ordered on last night's Cheesesteak however. 

I thought it was "AWESOME".   

[JMorgan]

How about Sir Guy Campbell and his posse? 

[John Moore II]

I would not put Ross in this group. I would say that Sanford GC in Sanford, NC is very not good. Though, I wonder what it looked like 75 years ago when it was built, and even how much of it is original Ross these days. But they do advertise it as Ross and I will say it has some Ross features, but nothing special at all.

I can't comment on any of the others.

[Mike_Young]

none....absolutely zero have never designed a clunker

[Kalen Braley]

none....absolutely zero have never designed a clunker

Thats a bold statement young man....

Which of MacKenize's course are less than a 4?  One may exist, but I couldn't think of one.

[Mike_Young]

none....absolutely zero have never designed a clunker

Thats a bold statement young man....

Which of MacKenize's course are less than a 4?  One may exist, but I couldn't think of one.

I have no clue but I guarantee you at one time he had one...may have never been heard of and may be NLE but it was there...somewhere...

[Ally Mcintosh]

Of all the Colt courses I've seen, there were two very average layouts in Dublin... But they were both built on 70 acres so something has to give.

Budget will have played a huge part as well.

Even if these guys did design poor courses, there are too many variables to immediately just write a course off as 'Bad Architecture'

[Mike Mosely]

Mike Strantz?

Tom Doak?

Gil hanse?

[Ian Andrew]

It's all in your own perspective of their work.

I can only say there is three architects where I know their body of work well enough to have an opinion. Despite all of them being very well respected - each has designed a very average course that would leave any archiphile deeply disappointed.

I think any good architect that takes chances and has a decent body of work risks this. If you take enough chances and push you art - your bound to have moments where things don't go as well as you planned. Throw in budget problems, last minute changes in plans, lost land, interference and I bet there are very few architects who don't have work they wished they could redo.

And again that is said with perspective - some architects are very hard on themselves and others love the smell of there own farts.

[Allan Long]

George C. Thomas, Jr.

I would not put Ross in this group. I would say that Sanford GC in Sanford, NC is very not good. Though, I wonder what it looked like 75 years ago when it was built, and even how much of it is original Ross these days. But they do advertise it as Ross and I will say it has some Ross features, but nothing special at all.

I can't comment on any of the others.

JKM,

I'm not so sure that Sanford is a Ross course. When I was living in NC, the course didn't bill itself as a Ross course as they weren't even sure, but now I see their website is touting the design as a Ross.

It's not attributed to Ross--by among others--Discovering Donald Ross, Golf Has Never Failed Me, Cornish & Whitten or the DRS website; and I was never able to find anything at the Tufts Archives.

Just curious if have you seen any other source that credited Ross for Sanford as it may have been overlooked by many as a Ross?

[Andy Troeger]

It's all in your own perspective of their work.

I would tend to agree with this. If you really like an architect's work you can probably find something appealing to at least get it into that 3-4 range if you really wanted to. On the other hand if you don't like someone's work you can probably also get it down to that 2 range.

Doak's Charlotte Golf Links is a course that probably is "average"--putting it as a 3. Belleview Biltmore outside Tampa (Ross) before the recent work was weaker in my opinion than Charlotte Links, so I guess that makes it a 2 in my opinion. I would guess just about every architect has something in that range.

[Kalen Braley]

So do we have any consensus yet?

Sounds like its still building.. 

[Tom_Doak]

The real question here is whether an architect can get through his entire career without taking a job with severe restrictions, to keep himself afloat for better times and better projects.  I don't think it is so much about Ian's perspective on taking chances -- it's about whether you ever take a job you know you ought to pass on.

[Andy Troeger]

And does it really matter if an architect does have a course or two that aren't stellar? I'm more interested in their best efforts than the other ones...its more about what they can do with the good/great sites than whether something better than average can be created from a bad site or with difficult clients or something of the like.

[Kalen Braley]

You guys make good points.

I guess its hard to be picky when one has mouths to feed.

Did MacK build anything that was less than a 3 though?

[Andy Troeger]

What about Tom Fazio? I've heard some of his designs criticized for lacking strategy and the like, but I've never heard of him building a total clunker. Are there any out there? I think I've played 10 of his courses, and they're all at least in the 5 range with a couple much higher.

[Kalen Braley]

You know Andy,

I was wondering the same thing when I first started this thread...could very well be true.

[archie_struthers]

 


GEORGE  Arthur  CRUMP

[Sean Leary]

Andy,

Can you rank the Fazios you have played?

[Kalen Braley]

GEORGE  Arthur  CRUMP

I figured someone would chime in with a one-hit wonder...not to take anything away from Mr. Crump and PV, his one hit was surely nothing short of genius.

How about a 10 course minimum??