What Best Supports the Spectacular?

[Peter Pallotta]

What are your views/feelings about this?

Does what appears to be an excellent routing that utilizes the natural lay of the land combined with a naturalistic aesthetic best prepare the golfer to accept and embrace a specific spectacular, stunning and/or unusual feature?

Or does what appears to be a very well-crafted but wholly manufactured routing with a clearly and pleasingly man-made aesthetic better prepare the golfer to accept and embrace a specific spectacular, stunning and/or unusual feature?

Thanks
Peter

[Anthony Gray]

  Natural is always better. Thank you for saying spectacular insted of quirky.

  Anthony

[Charlie Goerges]

Is the "specific spectacular, stunning and/or unusual feature" itself man-made or natural?

[Joe Hancock]

Peter,

I'm a dumb grass and dirt guy. I'm not sure I'm understanding the question, but knowing that it is you asking, it has to be pertinent. So, let me rephrase it as I understand it:

"Does funky stuff work better in a minimalist type property better than it does in a move the world type manufactured property?"

I'll answer once I understand the question more better....

Joe

[Jim_Kennedy]

Peter,
A GCA who scores a property that has a lot of natural stuff to work with is a lucky fellow, but that doesn't mean something stunning and believeable can't be manufactured out of whole cloth.

I think golfers will accept 'stunning, spectacular, and /or unusual no matter the source, as long as it works for golf.

Come to think of it, anyone who doesn't accept stunningly spectacular work should take up knitting.

[Kirk Gill]

What if the wholly manufactured routing is performed with a naturalistic aesthetic, ala Bayonne or the like?

However, if I'm getting your question correctly, it seems to me that nature is better able to overwhelm the senses than almost any work of man. Still, I don't know if the a specific kind of routing is better able to prepare the golfer to accept the spectacular, as I think humans appear to be wired to accept, and even extol the spectacular, regardless of what kind of preparation they might receive. Am I making sense? The only thing that MIGHT undermine the spectacular could be.......too much of it, dulling the senses of those fortunate enough to experience such sensory overload! Still, for those who have played the likes of Cypress Point Club, particularly many times...........are you overloaded yet?

Hopefully, and probably, not.

[Adam Clayman]

Lots to consider in Peter's query.

My perception is that those courses that have every inch of dirt moved, in a clearly manufactured way (think Dark ages) doesn't usually have spectacular or unusual features. That's likely attributable to the commercial aspect of the project and the need to appease the lowest common denominator.  That's not to say that there aren't exceptions, but if we are being asked what the golfer thinks or feels, that will probably boil down to the level of sophistication, experience and the bias that golfer may have. Case in point, Sandy Tatum's comments on the pond at Bandon Trails 11th and how it affected him. While he didn't go into it, the sense was he didn't care for it. There was nothing that I noticed that was overtly artificial about the pond, but perhaps he visited before the ponds edges had fully integrated, as they are today.

Also, Take Doaks Rawls course, completely manufactured but not as glaringly apparent as a DA design, with features most west Texans may not have ever seen before.

For myself, if the course is naturalistic and all of a sudden there's something clearly manufactured to my eye, it will be met with a term like jarring. But on a manny without the blending into nature, I might accept the feature more just knowing everything has been built without trying to hide that aspect. Hell, I might even laugh. Maybe that's what I find so humorous about some pf Pete Dye's little jokes. Tiny pot bunkers hidden behind mounds behind greens may have been my first architectural chuckle at BWR. Or his bunkers in the trees on the par 3 16th at Teeth O' Dog. Funny shit!

Enough for now, see if anything sticks.

[Peter Pallotta]

Thanks, gents.  Let me see if I can be more clear:

Say you encounter a stunning and unusual feature like a truly enormous chasm of sand, or a wildly undulating green surround, or a radically below-grade/sunken green with only a narrow channel for drainage -- a feature that is unusual because NEITHER nature nor man has often created such a feature on a golf course.

Do you think you'd more easily embrace this feature if up to that point in the round you'd been playing a good and apparently natural and naturalistic design, or if you'd been playing a good and apparently manufactured and man-made design?

Put another way - If an architect really wants to find a place -- and a warm embrace from golfers -- for a truly stunning, spectacular and/or unusual feature (whether natural or man-made), would you suggest that he show his hand through-out the round, or not?

Peter
 

[Joe Hancock]

Peter,

If I may, I'm going to answer with a sequence of pictures:











What do you think? The first few holes are very parkland, then a Pine Valley-esque looking piece of ground shows up in your path. Is this an example of what your asking?

Joe

[Peter Pallotta]

Joe - thank you, that's an excellent example of the one approach. Does it work? To be honest, it didn't quite work for me the first time I saw it; but it did work for me the second time, when I played it. Adam's references to Pete Dye's work are good examples of the second approach, though his features are usually less stunning than they are humorous, IMO. I wonder if Dye's top-notch manufactured look would make it more likely that I'd embrace the radically sunken green I mentioned?
Thanks again, Joe. I hope it helped clarify things for people. I really am just interested in getting personal views/feelings about this.

Peter 

[Eric_Terhorst]

Peter,

Your question and use of the word "spectacular" immediately brought to my mind the 9th hole at Royal County Down.  Playing that for first time, the feeling is certainly perplexing, as you're being asked to knock it over a dune "into oblivion" as Ran says in his review (http://www.golfclubatlas.com/countydown5.html).  Then as you walk over the dune after hitting your tee shot, you are overwhelmed by the spectacle, with the broad fairway spread out sixty feet below, and the village, the mountains, and the sea in the background.

But you've already hit blind tee shots at #2, #5, #6, #7, and walked over big dunes to play fetch the ball.  (By the time you get to the 9th, you're having so much fun that you wonder why blindness has been avoided by so many of Old Tom's successors.)

To me this is a great example of "an excellent routing that utilizes the natural lay of the land combined with a naturalistic aesthetic [to] prepare the golfer to accept and embrace a specific spectacular, stunning and/or unusual feature."

As recounted by Ran, it was in Harry Colt's reworking that the bit of genius at  #9 was contrived, and as part of his work he removed some blindness but left several blind tees and purposely started #9 below the crest of the dune.   I've had the good fortune to play it twice, and the thrill doesn't dissipate.

There may be other good ways to "support the spectacular" but this example argues in favor of the "natural" option being the best. 

[Michael Dugger]

immediately after reading the title of this thread I thought......

....a bra from Victoria's Secret

[Tom_Doak]

Peter:

I believe you have to lead up to the "spectacular" a bit.  It can't just come out of nowhere on the twelfth hole; there ought to be some precursors which get you warm to the idea.

If the "spectacular feature" is a matter of contour, then you ought to be seeing some other features of smaller scale earlier in the round.  It isn't essential that any of them be natural -- but if you want to make the big feature look natural, then the smaller stuff should obviously feel natural too.

[Norbert P]

What are your views/feelings about this?

Does what appears to be an excellent routing that utilizes the natural lay of the land combined with a naturalistic aesthetic best prepare the golfer to accept and embrace a specific spectacular, stunning and/or unusual feature?

Or does what appears to be a very well-crafted but wholly manufactured routing with a clearly and pleasingly man-made aesthetic better prepare the golfer to accept and embrace a specific spectacular, stunning and/or unusual feature?

Thanks
Peter

 Great quandary and maybe a personal measuring stick for one in the field golfing. It may come down to how much of a naturalist the golfer really is, his education for the local geology, his appreciation of what would be there if mankind hadn't come into the equation, and the blind faith that humanity IS doing the right thing. I think to answer the questions, they have to be dissected quite cleanly - the questions, not the golfers.  
  My feelings are that the spectaculars in the natural realms are epiphanies  that lure us outdoors to discover more and more mysteries, and elevate our appreciations in nature.
   The spectacular in the manufactured is valued in a different scale, like grams instead of ounces, we intellectualize man-made features and valuate through judgments and biases.
 That's what art is though. And golf architecture can be high art.  Monet's impressions glorify nature and hopefully enthuse us into nature, but they're just paints on canvas. That's power. He doesn't even have to touch anything natural but his jute sandals, cotton dungarees,  flax shirt and a wooden brush, and we say "ooh" and "ahh, look how beautiful nature is".  So, to add some value to the golfers perspective, if they're out there in the wild, walking, stoically or ecstatically, looking into the land, deciphering,  seeing beyond the obvious, then let the golfer's mind soar. Find strength where you find it. If it's a natural blow-out dune or a windmill, if it strikes a chord, there it is.                      Onward Rocinante'!



*************************************

"Some time ago a group of hyper-intelligent pan dimensional beings decided to finally answer the great question of Life, The Universe and Everything.

To this end they built an incredibly powerful computer, Deep Thought. After the great computer programme had run (a very quick seven and a half million years) the answer was announced.

The Ultimate answer to Life, the Universe and Everything is...

(You're not going to like it...)

Is...
42

  Which suggests that what you really need to know is 'What was the Question?'. "

Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Universe     by the late, great Douglas Adams
  

[Lyne Morrison]

Peter,

My feeling is that a successful outcome can be achieved for both examples if well planned and implemented -- where the 'spectacular' fits within the context of the overall course character and environment and is introduced at an appropriate time in the routing as an accent or heightened moment.

As to which approach best prepares the golfer - naturalistic or manufactured - I imagine that would be a subjective judgement based on personal preference.

Cheers

[JESII]

Peter:

I believe you have to lead up to the "spectacular" a bit.  It can't just come out of nowhere on the twelfth hole; there ought to be some precursors which get you warm to the idea.

If the "spectacular feature" is a matter of contour, then you ought to be seeing some other features of smaller scale earlier in the round.  It isn't essential that any of them be natural -- but if you want to make the big feature look natural, then the smaller stuff should obviously feel natural too.

This is a really good and interesting insight...

Strangely, in reading Peter's thoughts on this thread two holes came to the front of my mind.

First, I thought of the par 5 on the front nine at Lahinch (#4?) and walking to the tee and seeing that gigantic dune out there. I was completely unprepared for it and intimidated by it...I assume it is totally natural...

From that vision I thought of #8 at Royal New Kent. I couldn't tell you at all if the dune in front of that green is natural or if he dumped it from a helicopter (a big friggin' helicopter) but because of the preceeding holes it didn't phase me a bit. Strantz may very well have found that dune there and knew how he was going to tackle it and just let the earlier "spectacular feature" holes prepare me for it.

[Adam Clayman]

Peter, Everyone seems to fixated on the spectacular. In my initial thoughts I realized spectacular is hard to come by, but the unusual, that's much easier to find, and therefore discuss.

 Go figure ?

One need look no further than Spyglass Hill to prove Tom's leading up to the spectacular as the preferred. The first five there, should've been saved for the later, of that there is almost universal consensus.
 
 As a matter of fact, that same justification should be used to argue a return to the original  configuration at Pinion Hills, but, who would listen? Certainly not the city of Farmington or the Pebble Beach Co. (Golf Operations)

[Anthony Gray]

  Adam,

  I totally agree with your Spyglass view and for the same reason I think the routing at PB is flawless. I have asked this question before. At Bandon Trails If 1 and 18 were reversed so that 18 finished in the dunes with an ocean view would it make the course better?

  Anthony

[TEPaul]

Peter:

Thanks for post #7; I think you explained and enhanced your initial question really well in that post (I too wasn't exactly understanding your initial post and the question in it in this thread and so I didn't respond).

Over-all this is a most interesting question (particularly after being elucidated and enhanced by your  post #7).

Personally, I think this is something that "sites" (really interesting natural sites) do better (perhaps much better) than totally man-made features, even in a general sense such as moving earth all over the entire site. And I would go far beyond that to explain why it is generally with "sites" rather than the man-made applications on sites.

I think a lot of this might fall into the category known as "variety" whether that includes the occasional offering of the "spectacular" or otherwise. I think a golfer can probably be actually worn out by being constantly offered the "spectacular" in the course of a round of golf whether it appears to him to be mostly natural or mostly man-made or even something in between.

This is why I think courses like Crystal Downs or even The Creek Club are so interesting. Their natural variety or even the vastly different "feel" (or feelings) on parts of the course are so distinct from one another. Some may even say that one section is "weak" compared to another section for some reason but put together into a whole they offer an interesting "symbiosis" that really does make the whole so much more interesting to most all golfers than just the components parts looked at individually!

On the other hand, we may hear some critic say something like one part is "out of character" with some other part or even with what they think the whole should be.

My advice is to not listen to people like that----turn away from them without a comment and find your own thoughts on this subject you ask about. I think those people are the ones who are trying to make golf and architecture into something it shouldn't be----perhaps even into extreme standardization (constant similarity) like a tennis court. Nothing against tennis here because it very much serves a wholly different purpose for interest than golf does!

What we need to do more of on here is understand better the fundametally different purposes some of our games and sports and recreations are supposed to serve, particularly at their "ideals"!

[Peter Pallotta]

thanks gents, and Lyne

those were all very good posts. I don't want to muck up the thread with my reactions and further questions etc, but those comments included some terrific insights and examples (and all new to me)

Peter

[Sean_A]

I sort of agree with Tom D.  I don't know if there needs to be a specific buildup, but the course should in some way suggest that something weird, odd, unusual etc could occur.  I just had this experience at Temple with the sunken green 10th.  For sure I thought I could meet an unusual feature because it was lay of the land golf in fairly hilly terrain, but I was in no way prepared for this hole.  It blew me away because of its uniqueness.  If you take North Berwick as another example, you get the impression from the very first tee that anything goes.  One modern example is Lederach.  The opening green is a bit bizarre and the fairway bunkering scheme is unusual as well.  This really does set the tone.  The same is true of Tobacco Road. 

Just by reviewing the examples I gave it isn't clear to me if nature or man-made architecture best clears the path for the unusual, dramatic or stunning feature.  However, I did get the sense at Temple and NB that anything could be on the cards whereas at TR and Lederach I always felt that certain parameters (whatever they were) would be adhered to.  In the case of TR I was dead wrong, not because Strantz really stretched architecture, but because Strantz was willing to get funky on so many holes.  In the case of Lederach I think KBM did restrain himself, but still offer very thought provoking scenarios except in a few places, but these were mainly shaping instances rather than trying to create something unusual. 

Ciao   

[Ted Kramer]

Good question/post Peter.
And lots of good repsonses.
Here is the best I can do to add my thoughts . . .


#17 Sawgrass works very well in my opinion as a "spectacular feature" on a "manufactored site".  Put that hole out at Shinnecock -Barf!! But the 11th hole at Shinnecock is in some ways similar, yet it works so well . . .

The huge cross bunker on #4 BP Black is as good a "spectacular feature" on a "natural" course that I can think of - pure artistry.

-Ted
 

[Peter Pallotta]

Just been going over the posts here yet again. (By the way, Sean, the 10th at Temple was the picture that helped trigger the thread.) What a fine collection of holes/courses/architects have been mentioned, including:

Tobacco Road  and Royal New Kent - Strantz
Lederach - Kelly Blake Moran
Crystal Downs - MacKenzie
The Creek Club - Macdonald/Raynor
(very interesting insight TE, about how true 'variety' can be a virtue)
Spyglass Hill - RTJ
Lahinch, Royal County Down - Old Tom/Colt
Rawls Course - Tom Doak
Bethpage - Tillinghast
Sawgrass - Dye

Anyway - I know a list like this doesn't 'mean' anything...but just wanted to note it. Thanks again. Jim - your choice of example (Lahinch and RNK) and what you drew out of it was particularly good

Peter

[Matthew Hunt]

Then as you walk over the dune after hitting your tee shot, you are overwhelmed by the spectacle, with the broad fairway spread out sixty feet below, and the village, the mountains, and the sea in the background.

I'll have you know that Newcastle is a town and the centre of all civilization, well for a radius of 20 miles or so