"To my mind it's in the attempt to put meat on those bones that we discover the most regarding what past events were all about, and perhaps get a glimpse into the minds and the lives of the people who created that history, or played those golf courses!
Attempting to gain insight into the perspectives of the life and times of the historical people and events and creations we're researching (or reading about, or considering, or whatever word you want to use) is surely confounding, and perhaps ultimately impossible. Hey, try to have the perspective of a child starving right now in a Rio slum, or an old man living out his days in Algiers, or a soccer mom getting her nails done in Parker, Colorado. Impossible, really.
I'm senselessly rambling here, when all I'm trying to say is this - truth exists only in the moment that it happens. Any thought about what is yet to be is conjecture, and any thought about what came before is opinion. But that doesn't mean that attempting to predict or alter the future isn't worthwhile, or that attempting to unravel the past is a hopeless exercise. All you can do is consider the opinions of others, take in the facts as they exist, and render an opinion of your own. That's where the fun is, that's where the interest is. And if you manage to get a few other people to agree with you, well, that's gravy."
KirkG:
I don't think you're rambling at all. That post is really good, in my opinion.
There seems to be some underlying inclination on the part of some perhaps even most on here to gain consensus or general agreement for one's opinion. Is that important to do? Is it even remotely necessary? Probably not, and certainly considering how subjective opinions are on golf course architecture and perhaps even should be ideally.
This idea mentioned years ago by the likes of Macdonald and Mackenzie (perhaps independently) that there is some kind of ideal in golf course architecture in creating things that inspire some kind of healthy "controversy" in and with golf course architecture has just fascinated me for years now. At first it just seems so counterintuitive as it just flies in the face of a seemingly natural quest or goal to make everyone like something or accommodate everyone's opinion on things.
Given the nature of golf itself that may be simply impossible to do and a goal that is completely unachievable. Frankly, that alone should probably be considered as the real reason the two of them said such at thing (Controversy is healthy and perhaps "The Ideal").
Macdonald actually wrote that if there is general agreement that this or that element of architecture is good it therefore must be mundane or boring in some way is completely fascinating to me.
There are many things to strive to understand with the history of golf course architecture to me and frankly it even includes the good, the bad, and the ugly at any particular point in time in the history and evolution of architecture. In my mind it all goes into the stew of how and why things got to be the way they were along the journey.
One should simply discuss what they individually really feel about all this, including its history and if others disagree with it, so what? One should even continue to defend why they feel as they do if they really believe it.
More and more I think I appreciate what Bill Coore once said---eg that golf course architecture actually NEEDS difference and perhaps vast difference. I think I even asked him if he personally likes everything---eg golf architecture throughout the spectrum of difference and I believe he said; "Of course not, but others might (and therefore it is probably necessary; at least to continue to establish just how dynamic golf is and how dyanamic the art form and fields of its play should be (?))."
Nevertheless, it does continue to seem counterintuitive but perhaps that is the real beauty and the true ideal in the entire subject of golf architecture. If this is true in some way, it would seem what we need to do on this website is to actually foster differences of opinion, perhaps vast differences of opinion (disagreement) rather than consensus of opinion or general agreement!
It sure does seem like a tough concept to wrap one's mind around but nevertheless, some pretty wise minds in this business in the past thought of it and put it out there, so I, for one, am going to continue to consider it very, very carefully and what it might really mean in the final analysis.