"Did Tom Paul design Rustic Canyon? (Part 1 COMING SOON)?"
Michael C, uber researcher/golf course architecture analyst and essayist supreme:
Go for it big boy----discuss the hell out of it on here-----it doesn't matter a twit what I think or remember!
But if you want to ask me if Shackelford was a novice then and who was about in the same boat at that point with creating a golf course as Hugh Wilson was with Merion East in 1911, I will tell you----well, aaah, hmmm, let me mus-mus on that for a while, aaah, uh, yeah I guess he was about the same kind of novice Wilson was then but he was, in my opinion, Shackelford, that is, about the most talented novice on GCA I've ever run across!
But wait a minute according to that other fella on here if you're a novice that means you're categorically incapable of routing and designing a golf course, aren't you? Well maybe so but in that case I wonder what that amazing hole by hole notebook he did himself and had with him was all about? Oh well, maybe I was just imagining that; it probably never even existed.
As far as me thinking I contributed something important out there in those two days----not at all. All that was dicussed was the entire concept of the 12th hole, a bunker placement at the green-end of #11 and what-all that could mean strategically, and some about the conceptual arrangement of the approach, green-end and green at I think #14 (or maybe it was #16
) and what-all that could do strategically in play and otherwise like available space and perhaps drainage and the ramifications of "tying in" construction to what was naturally in that area.
That alone which was one total hole, about 1/10 of another and about 1/4 of another was over about one and a half solid days. I was really amazed when someone out there who sure does know that golf course gave me as much credit as he did for that short amount of time and what we two to three did there at that time. I just didn't see it that way and that is why I keep telling these arguers on here who have never been on sites like that and doing that kind of stuff that they need to do that and quite a lot of it if they are ever going to remotely understand the routing process and what I call the "designing up" phase of some routing.
Basically, it is just not something that can possibly be accomplished in a single day as is what seems to be suggested by one fella on here with Macdonald/Whigam at Merion East back on April 6, 1911. Essentially, it's impossible in that limited amount of time if you want to get something that even remotely approaches what anyone would call good or even passable.
That's just the way it is with GCA guys, but is this fella who thinks it might have been possible or likely with Macdonald/Whigam at Merion East (assuming they were even asked to try that) ever going to understand that or admit it?
I wouldn't bet on it at this point!