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TEPaul

Re: Pre-Modern (Pre-Scientific) design
« Reply #75 on: December 27, 2008, 04:09:55 PM »
"Thanks, Tom
I look forward to the pictures of the steeplechasers at Merion and Pine Valley."


Richard:

"Steeplechase" architecture at Merion and Pine Valley???

I think you have your "ERAs" a bit messed up, Pal, but that doesn't surprise me either.

Wayne does have a bunch of very representative photos of the original Merion at Haverford and some other courses here of that era (late 19th century) and they are undeniably "steeplechase" in look and style. They're pretty shocking looking actually. According to a most interesting book from the 19th century whose info has come our way the original Merion Haverford course was laid out by Willie Campbell (even if perhaps another immigrant Willie Campbell than the early Boston Willie Campbell who Tom MacWood thinks laid out the original nine holes of Myopia even if the guy probably hadn't even immigrated to America when it was laid out by three members in the early spring of 1894 ;) ). 

Basically, it seems to be no wonder at all that some of these famous "amateur/sportsmen" ended up doing what they did over all that time on their special projects what with the incredibly rudimentary and bizarre architecture they had been looking at previously off the palettes of late 19th century immigrant journeymen and probably mostly just club members who filled in the blanks (bunkering and such) after those journeymen left with the things they knew best----eg elongated rectangular berm/pit-like obstacle structures common to equestrianism and steeplechasing----eg hence the common term back then "Steeplechase" architecture.  ;)
« Last Edit: December 27, 2008, 04:17:33 PM by TEPaul »

Melvyn Morrow

Re: Pre-Modern (Pre-Scientific) design
« Reply #76 on: December 27, 2008, 04:39:52 PM »

Tom

Don’t forget you said you were not there. You comments are based upon the 20th & 21st Century opinions.

Melvyn

TEPaul

Re: Pre-Modern (Pre-Scientific) design
« Reply #77 on: December 27, 2008, 04:45:28 PM »
Melvyn:

I think it is pretty safe to assume that all the men whose quotations are in post #19 saw a pretty fair number of those late 19th century courses they were referring to and they saw them in the late 19th century. The same cannot be said about you and me.

You are apparently content to just write off everything they said about those courses as not reality and nothing more than self promotion and what you refer to as "Old Rubbish." I am just not willing to do that, particularly considering the stature in the history of architecture of some of them.
« Last Edit: December 27, 2008, 04:50:48 PM by TEPaul »

Steve Lang

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Pre-Modern (Pre-Scientific) design
« Reply #78 on: December 27, 2008, 06:29:45 PM »
 8)



TEP now don't go saying things like XYZ has this or that..  either show or don't tell.

Ya'll are talking by each other now

I think Melvyn has very patiently restated his original point time and time again.  It should be clear that comments should be considered in context, time, and space when made.

It appears to me you're "Merionizing" this discussion.   Please take a time-out and reconsider the history and what may have been, in lieu of what may be proved or inferred by induction.

HIstorical facts are interesting, historical conjecture is intriguing, but it is only that, one might as well play chess and develop story lines.. and call it literature.. or perhaps literatuer..

  -----------------------------------

Is this all from that GD Nov issue and Whitten's narrative at

http://www.golfdigest.com/courses/2008/11/futuredesign

ARE KYLE PHILLIPS' COMMENTS ANY DIFFERENT FROM CURRENT SUBJECT'S

""
Kyle Phillips, who served as a senior design associate to Robert Trent Jones Jr. until 1997, when he went on his own to create the sublime Kingsbarns Golf Links just down the shoreline from St. Andrews, laments how American course architecture has become homogenized and pre-packaged.

The courses we really love today are the style of architecture that began in Great Britain and was then used on old American courses a hundred years ago by Scottish and English architects," he says. "But in the 1960s and '70s, we got into a sterile golf environment in America. All the character, all the irregular wrinkles of classic architecture, were gone. Courses became flat to make them easy to maintain; they were uninteresting, unremarkable and all alike. We had McDonaldized golf design in America—I'm talking about Ronald McDonald, not C.B. Macdonald. Gosh, I wish it had been C.B."

Phillips' wish might be coming true. Architects have rediscovered C.B. Macdonald, the man who coined the phrase "golf architect," the man who created Chicago Golf Club (the first 18-hole course in America), the man who redirected the game from steeplechase to strategic, whose National Golf Links, designed on Long Island in 1911 with tremendous width and alternate routes of play, is considered the classic template of design. "

I assume Pete Dye and many others who created courses in the 60's adn 70' might take humbrage at these comments..

« Last Edit: December 27, 2008, 06:46:15 PM by Steve Lang »
Inverness (Toledo, OH) cathedral clock inscription: "God measures men by what they are. Not what they in wealth possess.  That vibrant message chimes afar.
The voice of Inverness"

Melvyn Morrow

Re: Pre-Modern (Pre-Scientific) design
« Reply #79 on: December 27, 2008, 06:58:23 PM »

Tom

I was not there, but I have seen and played on 19th Century courses most of my life, quite a few hardly changed from the early days. I don’t recognise these comments as a reflection of these courses.

What I will accept is that some courses were indeed put into play quickly and some of the architectural features based upon what followed 20 or so years later in the 20th Century appear to be basic by comparison. But that does not in any way justify the criticism – which was made and judged by those in the 20th Century. Therefore I feel justified in saying these comments are certainly rubbish as voiced many years later after many thing had changed.

I have given you many analogies to explain my position but you seem unable to grasp exactly what and why I am actually saying.

The new idea re designing golf courses came into being in the 1840-1860’s. It was revolutionary as all the old existing courses slowly developed over decades. Some of what started may well have seemed basic to those in 1920 compared to what they were doing then, but in 1840-60 it was the state of the art. Design actually developed a great deal in the last half of the 19th Century.

My frustration is that later designers who should have known better decided in their wisdom to make comments based upon their time period on some of those guys who actually developed the game. These late guys who you mentioned, may well know some of the courses but they were not present at the original briefing, did not take into account the actual land available, or the budget allocations, yet they felt free to criticise. Without that prior information how can anyone determine anything let alone offer up an accurate report?

After WW1 the land and budgets allocated for building courses went though the roof. Land and money was available in large amounts, not for a game that was just starting to be established but a game that WAS being exported and had proved to be very, very popular. A slight contrast to the 1840-1880’s period, but it could appear that Simpson & Co seemed to forget that – makes you – well me wonder why.

I am with Steve and calling 'time-out'

Melvyn

TEPaul

Re: Pre-Modern (Pre-Scientific) design
« Reply #80 on: December 28, 2008, 10:42:50 AM »
Steve Lang:

You said:

“It appears to me you're "Merionizing" this discussion.   Please take a time-out and reconsider the history and what may have been, in lieu of what may be proved or inferred by induction.”

What do you mean by that? What I’m trying to do is get to Dan Hermann’s original question as he started this thread and after three pages that doesn’t seem to be very easy to do. Here it is.

“With that in mind, what WAS "pre-modern" or "pre-scientific" design?  Was it steeplechase golf or something different?”

And here is the type of response Melvyn offered:

“Pre Modern, Scientific or call it what you want, the real point, I believe has been missed, as with everything there is a learning curve. We must look to our past with open eyes, to seek the actual truth not in the hope that it may fit this or that agenda.”

And,

“I believe the biggest damage to the real history of golf course architecture came from the like of those mentioned in TEPaul’s post. Their interest was clearly in themselves and promotion of self. They sprout comments that if actually investigated is quite frankly a total load of old rubbish, they failed to actually check out the full story.”


In my opinion, the fact is a number or significant architects and architectural critics who were there to observe that early (late 19th century) architecture had a number of things to say about it and what they had to say seems to have been pretty consistent----eg they termed it “Steeplechase” and “Victorian.”

And we know that the terms “Scientific” and “Modern” were terms used by various significant architects beginning around the teens, such architects and writers as A.W. Tillinghast.

So apparently these men back then meant something by it and they apparently meant something by the way they described what came before it----eg as Dan Hermann asked, “….what WAS “pre-modern” or “pre-scientific” design?

It seems to me there was more to this than simply self-promotion and “old rubbish” as Melvyn Morrow has termed the subject of this thread.

So, what was it? That is the question. We can probably develop some opinion of what it was by considering what those men I quoted said about it and what they felt about it and perhaps even why, in there opinions, architecture needed to change, particularly INLAND architecture and rather dramatically as I think most of us can see.

I can’t post photographs of that late 19th century architecture but others can, and if they do we can consider it and compare it to what came later. I don’t think that’s too much to ask and I don’t think that is “Merionizing” this thread. All we really need to do is get to Dan Hermann's question and stop diverting it and dismissing it with some other point such as those early architects and their architecture was not as it was described to be but simply attempts at self promotion by later architects.

One way of looking at this question is to try to determine what some of the first good INLAND architecture really was, where and when. I’ve always felt that was thought to be in the English healthlands such as Sunningdale. A number of others architectural analysts over the years appear to confirm that.

If this thread and subject is going to go anywhere interesting we probably need to stop talking about whether or not some architects were only denigrating earlier architects in some attempt at self promotion. We need to put that aside for now and just look at that earlier architecture inland in the latter part of the 19th century that was commonly referred to as “Steeplechase” and “Victorian.”

In other words it would be nice to try to answer Dan Hermann’s original question for a change.  ;)


« Last Edit: December 28, 2008, 10:45:50 AM by TEPaul »

Melvyn Morrow

Re: Pre-Modern (Pre-Scientific) design
« Reply #81 on: December 28, 2008, 11:23:07 AM »

Tom

Criticise anyone you want but do it based upon their time frame not 20 or 30 years later. I don’t remember reading Simpson or any of the others you mentioned complaining about these courses they we playing upon when at University or in major competitions.  No, they appear to wait see the changes and then when some started to be part of those change decide the time was right to start criticising. Had their comments reflected the constraints or limitations of the 19th Century designers then I would not have a problem, but No they decide to base their comments on developments based upon their time, their day, using designs features that they themselves were making then. How ridicules and unfair is that, hence my own comments.

I could do the same re mobile phones from the 1980’s, first the large heavy batteries with carrier case that were carried in a cradle connected to the phone by cable, then the WW2  Walkie Talkie large fully portable with in built batteries leading in to the mid 1990’s with the smaller generation pre digital slim phones. It’s called development, progress, the old learning curve, yet I don’t hear modern phone designers talking crap about their predecessors. Why is that do you suppose? Could it be they understood how things evolve and did not need to run down or belittle the earlier phone designers, could it be that there was no advantage to it?

What Simpson said was not justified in the light of the 19th Century, they knew that so why make those comments, bearing in mind they had not been party to any of the original design or budget brief.

If it is so important to you to have the last word please be my guest as I have explained my position time & time again so I am taking a rest from this topic.

Happy New Year to You

Melvyn 


TEPaul

Re: Pre-Modern (Pre-Scientific) design
« Reply #82 on: December 28, 2008, 05:02:19 PM »
Melvyn:

I'm certainly not interested in having the last word on this thread. I think it's a most interesting subject and question Dan Hermann proposed but it seems useless to continue it at this point. I have no problem with your characterization of the remarks of some pretty notable observers of the history of golf architecture at that time, and I believe I completely understand where you're coming from, I just happen to think it is quite myopic and limited and I don't agree with it as the best or only way to look at that era's architecture, so I'll just leave it at that.

Happy New Year to you too,

Tom

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