Architects that are misunderstood?

[Jeff_Brauer]

 How can you say such things and admit to such things?

Oops. I thought it was pretty common knowledge!

[TEPaul]

"So, in that sense, yes.  Old DR probably never thought much about green contouring other than "make it drain and make the dirt balance."  To have such nuances in the putting surfaces be attributed to anything other than faster greens, occaisional settling and the like may not be misunderstanding of Ross, but it is certainly "overthinking" of Ross, IMHO."


JeffB:

I feel very lucky to have a Donald Ross master plan for my own course ten years after he designed the course. It goes through the entire course hole by hole and makes various recommendations of all kinds from bunkering to green tweaking and redesigning. I think you'd be surprised at the things he noticed and the reasons why. Most all of them were done.

The thing I like about Ross's approach or style is that he seemed to never try to do too much with a hole or concept. He pretty much kept things and concepts to their basic essence which may be a pretty interesting architectural "principle" to consider at any time in the history and evolution of golf architecture. Maybe it was sort of a natural instinct of his conservative Scottish Calvanism! 

[TEPaul]

"Oops. I thought it was pretty common knowledge! 


Well, it may be on this website but I don't know that it is out there in the real world that must conform to my "Big World" theory.

This is why this man Mr. Thomas Nacarrato must be stopped at all costs by the ASGCA! He is trying to "spill the lima beans", as it were, and expose the ASGCA for what he believes it really is!   

[TEPaul]

"I have on a few occasions, tried to get bunkers shaped like an extended middle finger, but wasn't crafty enough to disguise it - when the owner figured it out, it was bulldozed away before construction finished!  Hey, Desmond had his symbolism, and I have mine."


Oh my Goodness Gracious, I think I've gotten you to admit something really significant! This makes me feel the expert interviewer perhaps as good or even better than BaBa WaWa when she somehow got Henry Kissinger to admit he felt like a White Knight riding into the Middle East!

Does this mean you have a secret latent hatred for golfers?!?

If so what do you think that can be attributed to? Do you think there was some glitch during your potty training stage that had some kind of Freudian "transference" to golf, golfers or golf architecture?

If you are a really liberal and unabashed "tinkler" on golf courses, Mr. Brauer, I think the inquiring minds on GOLFCLUBATLAS.com should know this. I think they have the absolute RIGHT to know this Mr. Jeffrey Brauer, Esq, past president of the ASGCA! Of course if you have ever considered going #2 on a golf course, Mr. Jeffrey, you should definitely see Dr Katz post haste. I will even agree to pay for your first five and a half 50 minute hour visits.

[Ian Andrew]

I'm still trying to get my head around the question.

If an architect has taken the time to explain their thoughts on architecture - how would they be misunderstood? I look at the books by Thomas, MacKenzie (multiple); the articles by Tillinghast and Travis and I think they have shared much of their thoughts on architecture along with examples they have built.

I look at the interviews with Strantz, his writings, his web site and I find clarity on what he was trying to do. Even more so on his courses. Is the term “misunderstood” directed at our inability to understand what an architect is doing even when they explain themselves? Is the question about us rather than them?

I think the ones that are difficult to understand are architects such as Leeds where there is no writings - or an architect like Thompson where the writings are scant. Other dilemmas come from architects who wrote one thing – like Park – and seemed to have changed their architectural philosophy later on.

Hell – I did that – but the difference is I documented the process. This also leads to the comment that with so much media access, interviews, chat rooms, web sites and writings available on almost every architect – will any be misunderstood? May be just Brauer because he’s nuts – but don’t tell anybody that I told you that.

[JMorgan]

Fowler

I also think Emmet is misunderstood, or not "stood" at all.  But that's my bias.

[TEPaul]

JMorgan:

Good point with Fowler. It may be mostly that he has generally always been more "underdiscussed" than misunderstood. Something has always told me that Fowler just may've been one of the truly special few "minds" and "visionaries" in the history of this business.

I was just totally fascinated by that article that Joe Bausch found this year by what seemed to be a truly well connected newspaper reporter who explained that Crump and The Boys sat around Crump's cabin and poured over Fowler plans and ideas.

What if it was Fowler that Crump really wanted to get down to Pine Valley in the formative years and for some reason like timing or scheduling just couldn't manage to do it? 

[Peter Pallotta]

Whew - lots of really good posts on this one. Makes a guy think. Poetry often gets misunderstood (even by other poets), mathematics rarely does (especially not by other mathematicians).  It's about a personal vision -- the higher and nobler it is, the less us muckabouts can understand it.

Who amongst architects had a true vision of what the sport and its fields of play could be? I'm guessing that whoever it was was probably most misunderstood, then and now. (Hopefully for him, he had enough craftmanship and basic common sense to give the muckabouts something to sink their teeth into, and thus still make a living at his craft.)

Frank Capra said that he only started directing really good pictures when he realized that "Drama wasn't when the actors cried, it was when the AUDIENCE cried".  How you manifest a personal vision while still honouring your duty to the audience/golfer is a really, really tough trick.

Oh - I say Max Behr, just because that's what I always say.

Peter

[Jeff_Brauer]

TePaul,

Ya know, I should recall more about my potty training, seeing as it was just six months ago........

Bada bing, bada boom.....

No latent hostility to golfers. Just an oddball sense of humor.

BTW, as Ian says, anyone who wants to know what the hell I ever thought about gca can easily find it....two series on Cybergolf.com, columns in Golf Industry and about 4K posts here on golf club atlas.  Got to figure, if I can't explain it in all that writing, I just don't know!

In all seriousness, I undertook a lot of writing, including writing here under the fake name of "Jeff Brauer" to better understand myself.  With all due respect, whenever I have talked to practitioners I do have a hard time getting it out of them just what they are thinking.  A lot of gca happens because that's the way our mentors taught us, or after a while, "that's the way we've always done it" and sometimes, that's the way "X does it (did it).  What is there for the critic to understand if the gca doesn't truly understand it himself?

What kills me is when some of our finest practitioners spit out whatever marketing drivel they feel they must, and after hearing it so many times, actually start believing themselves.  To paraphrase Churchill, regarding self written golf architecture analysis "Never have so many words been wasted desribing so little thought."

And yes, perhaps I am a little guilty, too! Although, at the risk of breaking my own arm patting my own back, I have always tried to write about it (my own work) in simple, good humored terms, rather than in a semi religious tone......

[TEPaul]

"Frank Capra said that he only started directing really good pictures when he realized that "Drama wasn't when the actors cried, it was when the AUDIENCE cried".  How you manifest a personal vision while still honouring your duty to the audience/golfer is a really, really tough trick."


Peter:

Hmmm, interesting paragraph. And you know I always like the way you bring other art forms and disciplines into these discussions as analogies.

But what if a golf architect really didn't want to or feel like creating or designing for a mass audience or to get some particular desired response out of a mass audience?

I read somewhere in some art history book at some point that some paint artists painted for the interest or acclaimation of their fellow brethren in the arts and not necessarily for a general audience for some commercial purpose.

I realize some of the best artists from the old days painted for their particular patrons and sponsors who both supported and promoted them but what about the artist who doesn't take that route and does it all for more or even particularly personal reasons? My own brother in law who lives right here on the farm has been a paint artist for years and sometimes he does paintings for specific subjects and commissions but it seems like he goes to work everyday to do things that he wants to do. If he sells them, he sells them, and if he doesn't for a time they may end up hanging on a rotating basis right here in my office on the farm.

That might have been "amateur/sportsman" Geo Crump's motivation and it also might be Kelly Blake Moran's motivation if what he has said about this specific subject and his own motivation is true which I'm quite sure it is.

[TEPaul]

"To paraphrase Churchill, regarding self written golf architecture analysis "Never have so many words been wasted desribing so little thought."


Mr. Jeffrey:

I've heard that quote or paraphrase on Churchill and I like it. But mostly I like his quotes that have that sort of macro twinkle to them, like this one when he was asked how he thought history would treat him:

"I think it will treat me very well, particularly since I plan to write it myself."

By the way Mr. Brauer, again, you really do look so snappy in your tartan blazer!

[Joel_Stewart]

Sam Whiting is not really misunderstood but forgotten.   He designed some very good golf courses and was a superintendent to boot for 40+ years.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Mr. Paul,

Interesting observation about who gca's might be desiging for......certainly, the "textbook" is to design for the client at hand. However, there are always other thoughts swirling around a gca's head:

Modern "acclimation from brethern" might be the Best New Awards and other rankings

There is always a degree of one upmanship between gca's, or at least the need to stand out. 

There is always the desire to move to a new phase of your career (perhaps JN's use of random contours) which you use for no other reason than its a neat idea you haven't done before. 

There is the possibility of impressing one kind of client or another - say by doing a good job on a restoration or tournament course, knowing other clubs or the USGA might be looking.

Sometimes you just "know" that a client is undershooting his market - i.e. asking for a muni course on a Pine Valley type site.


Thinking about it, I wonder if one of the above reasons might explain most of the "unexplainable" courses in any gca's portfolio.

[Sean_A]

Fowler

I also think Emmet is misunderstood, or not "stood" at all.  But that's my bias.

J

How do you believe Fowler is misunderstood?

Ciao

[TEPaul]

"Mr. Paul,
Interesting observation about who gca's might be desiging for......certainly, the "textbook" is to design for the client at hand. However, there are always other thoughts swirling around a gca's head:"


JeffB:

I'd have to say (again) that this is just one of the reasons I've been so interested in those so-called "amateur sportsmen" designers who plied their special projects that became so famous in that app. twenty year window era (around 1900-to just around WW1) and never started another of those types of projects after that.

The fact is they were not designing those courses for a client---they were essentially doing it for themselves! 

What would you or any other professional architect do differently if you were basically just doing a golf course for yourself?

Well, I guess I now know one thing you would do-----eg put one of those really good middle finger bunkers in there somewhere!   

[Kirk Gill]

Isn't it true that great architecture has been created both by architects who were essentially designing to please themselves, and those who designed specifically to please a client?

If you design for yourself there's likely going to be a lot of people who like what you create, unless you're some kind of complete misanthrope. And if your personal vision happens to strike a widespread nerve in the golfing public, then you'll likely get kudos, and get jobs from those who want golf courses built and have the confidence to let you build them the way you want.

But the imposition of a client's will might sometimes be a good thing, or at the very least not be by necessity a detriment to a given project. Of course, it may be that the most misunderstood architects are the ones who ended up deferring to the client's wishes more than others, and thus what ended up on the ground is very different than what they might have designed themselves, given the opportunity.

[JMorgan]

Fowler

I also think Emmet is misunderstood, or not "stood" at all.  But that's my bias.

J


How do you believe Fowler is misunderstood?

Ciao

He is underappreciated as an agonist of simplicity.