Strategic School Of Architecture

[Tom MacWood]

But it might be interesting to have Tom Macwood detail some of the previous instances of "fair" "equitable" "strategic" "penal" architectual discussions like Bob did in his essay.  This could add to the building blocks of knowledge.  If he has already done this and I just have missed it, please point me in the right direction...I would love to read it.  If he hasn't, Tom M. please do.  It would be a great read.

By the way Equitable is a misnomer IMO. Does one think of fair or equitable when they think of golf courses of the American movement, courses like Pine Valley, Lido and Oakmont? IMO the term used back then - Scientific - is more illustrative. There are no purely strategic or penal golf courses, just courses that are blends of both and lean one direction or the other, and the scientifically trapped American courses of Crane's era tended to lean toward the penal.

[Niall C]

Tom Mac

Just read your last post. The term scientific was used in the UK quite frequently too and applied to the likes of Braid as well. What elements of "scientific" were purely American ? I guess what I'm asking is what are the differences between the two ? And yes I have read through this thread but not being familiar with many of the designers mentioned, either in their writing or their designs, its hard for me to pinpoint the differences between the two schools so it would be useful to have a summary of the differences.

Thanks

Niall 

[Tom MacWood]

Niall
Here is a link to a thread discussing the term. You're right it was used in Britain, in fact I believe it originated in Britain. In the late teens and twenties the term took on a slightly different meaning, and during that period American golf architects really embraced the idea of scientifically trapping their golf courses. American golf courses generally speaking were more heavily bunkered in the 1920s than British courses, with the possible exception of Colt.

http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,923.0/

[TEPaul]

"By the way Equitable is a misnomer IMO. Does one think of fair or equitable when they think of golf courses of the American movement, courses like Pine Valley, Lido and Oakmont? IMO the term used back then - Scientific - is more illustrative. There are no purely strategic or penal golf courses, just courses that are blends of both and lean one direction or the other, and the scientifically trapped American courses of Crane's era tended to lean toward the penal."



Tom MacWood:

"Equitable Architecture" as Bob Crosby used it would be a misnomoer if someone used it to describe something akin to "scientific" architecture as it was generally used in the beginning of the 20th century.

Some such as Tillinghast referred to what some called "scientific" architecture as "modern" architecture. Most felt it was a modern and better form of architecturally addressing all levels of players by both challenging and accommodating their distinct shot values and shot requirements which some felt was more strategic. On the other hand "scientific" architecture generally penalized misses, particularly bad misses more, and was consequently ultimately more penal to some.

[Tom MacWood]

Tom MacWood:

"Equitable Architecture" as Bob Crosby used it would be a misnomoer if someone used it to describe something akin to "scientific" architecture as it was generally used in the beginning of the 20th century.

Some such as Tillinghast referred to what some called "scientific" architecture as "modern" architecture. Most felt it was a modern and better form of architecturally addressing all levels of players by both challenging and accommodating their distinct shot values and shot requirements which some felt was more strategic. On the other hand "scientific" architecture generally penalized misses, particularly bad misses more, and was consequently ultimately more penal to some.

Who are the most who felt it was modern? Can you cite any examples or evidence?

[TEPaul]

"Who are the most who felt it was modern? Can you cite any examples or evidence?"


Tom MacWood:

Who are the most?? What does that question mean?  

I mentioned that Tillinghast called it modern architecture. Go on the Tillinghast website for starters and read some of his articles on architecture from that time. His columns got a fairly large readership in those days I'm quite sure, don't you think?  

You said above in your opinion "Equitable Architecture" is a misnomer and "scientific architecture" is more illustrative. More illustrative of what? While there are probably some similarities between "scientific architecture" and what Bob Crosby described and defined at "Equitable Architecture" (C,P & P) they are definitely not synonymous or the same thing; so why would you think they are?

[Tom MacWood]

You said above in your opinion "Equitable Architecture" is a misnomer and "scientific architecture" is more illustrative. More illustrative of what? While there are probably some similarities between "scientific architecture" and what Bob Crosby described and defined at "Equitable Architecture" (C,P & P) they are definitely not synonymous or the same thing; so why would you think they are?

TEP
More illustrative of the type of architecture Crane was influenced by - the American movement, exemplified by courses like PVGC, Oakmont, Lido, NGLA, Brae Burn, Brook Hollow, and Hollywood. And when I think of those courses equitable does not immediately come to mind. How about you, do you think of equitable when these courses are mentioned?

You need to go to Webster's web site. These were well educated men and they knew what the term scientific meant, and it was not modern.

[Tom MacWood]

Over the years I think the meaning of the term may have changed slightly, but I think it was always related to scientific stroke making or precise stroke making (the use of that term predates scientific course-making). A scientifically designed course requires precise stroke making - good shots are rewarded and poor shots are punished. There is also an element intelligent thought that is required. Golf architecture was being looked upon or studied for the first time, where proper design ideas and elements are promoted and archaic ideas are discarded...that is where the idea of fairness come in. For example the cop bunker placed at formulaic intervals from the tee is not an example of a scientifically bunkered golf course - it does not challenge the expert while overly punishing the average golfer. Also blind shots are something to be avoided on a scientifically designed golf course; OB is another unscientific element.

By the late teens and twenties modern American golf architecture (the American Movement) really promoted the idea of scientifically bunkered or laid out golf courses, this in contract to the British model, which was less penal leaning. The epitome of American scientific architecture were heavily bunkered courses like Pine Valley, Oakmont, Inwood, Lido and Hollywood. And as Americans began to dominate competition a theory developed that the American scientifically designed golf course produced a superior golfer. This domination eventually resulted in pressure within Britain to adopt a similar American architectural model in order to compete. Here are some examples of the terms use over the years, and clearly saying it was synonymous with modern is a gross over-simplification.

Henry Leach (1911): "Now during the last two or three years there has been given an enormous stimulus to the study of links' architecture in this country. It has been made the most exact science, and is studied as such. There are, as one might say, professors and students. All the old theories and practices have been overhauled, and in most cases condemned. New courses are being made on entirely new principles of length and bunkering. It no longer does to put a short hole in just where it seems convenient, as they did in the old days at St. Andrews and Prestwick. It must come at the right place, and be bunkered according to the right theories. And so forth. Whether the new courses that are being made, and to the points of which all these new theories and results of study are being applied, are any better or more interesting to play upon is a question which we need not discuss. It is after all largely a matter of temperament. Certain it is that some of these new  courses are really very perfect from the scientific point of view. Good shots get their reward, bad ones are punished, and the golfer is tested at every point of the game and made to learn all the different ways of doing the same thing."

H. Mallaby-Deeley (1914): “No course, however difficult, can be a good one if it is unfair and I notice that the latest tendency is to make things difficult by making them unreasonable in respect to hazards and the position of the hole to the green. This may produce high scoring, which seems to be the object of many golf architects, but it is not scientific course construction.”

Max Behr (1915): "Very different is the first short hole at Princes', the new and scientific course next to Sandwich. There the green is heavily bunkered in front and on the sides and is not more than thirty feet wide at any point although it is at least sixty feet long. Also the green is plainly visible from the tee, which is the most essential feature of the mashie pitch hole. It is plain that if the player succeeds in placing his ball anywhere on the level part of such a green he has a good chance of getting his two. He does in fact play for a two. And if he makes the stroke correctly he ought to have a perfectly sure three; but if he makes an indifferent stroke which still leaves him on the  green more than six or seven yards from the hole he ought to have a very difficult long putt, and a good chance therefore of taking a four."

Arthur Croome used the term here in 1925 to explain why the casual visitor (especially if he be an American) would not appreciate the subtleties of the quirky Dowie at Hoylake, "especially if he be on American accustomed to scientifically constructed courses of his native country."

Walter Travis (1920): "Moreover, the fairways are then not of that adamantine character met with in July, August and September, when the ball "runs a mile" and spoils the legitimate playing qualities of the holes, converting three-shotters into two-shotters and ordinarily long two-shotters into a drive and a mashie, and so on, to say nothing of almost completely setting at naught the proper values of hazards, no matter how scientifically arranged."

Glenna Collett (1925): "On the whole, I consider the American courses more difficult, although they offer very different playing conditions. Being for the most part by the sea the British links are flatter and very rugged and have more natural hazards. The fairways are narrower, and the ground is very rolling—especially at Sandwich, where it is almost bumpy, and your ball is apt to glance off in any direction. But in layout our courses seem more scientifically designed to prevent low scoring. There are longer and more difficult par four holes. All my scores while I was there were better than what I can do at home."

Here is a quote from 1925 regarding Oakmont: "From every tee. and for every second shot the player looks out upon a disfigured surface, upon up-thrown earth works, exposed deposits of grey sand, and other yawning chasms which invite disaster to the timid, but in between these artificial hazards, carved in irregular formations are acres of absolutely perfectly groomed fairways upon which no poor or indifferent lie is ever found. Herein lies one of the greatest charms on this scientifically built, and very exacting course."

AW Tillinghast (1927): “What a contrast our up-to-date American courses afford! Our golf architects etch pits right into the fringe of the green. They are set close in on either side to catch a slight error. The greens are scientifically contoured to hold a bold approach. Such tightly bunkered greens make for meticulous accuracy in approaching. Slipshod, hit or miss methods won’t serve. A fraction of a foot off line may mean the difference between a ball on the green and a lie in the bunker. Under the circumstance, American players have just got to develop perfect direction. Our intelligently bunkered courses are a stern, uncompromising school, but they graduate golfers able to weather the stiffest examination.”

[BCrosby]

I've been out and about. Interesting thread. A couple of thoughts:

I think everyday golfers thought Crane won the battle in the '20's (that's a reason why he was asked to write so much for the major golf magazines in the late '20's; he and his ideas were popular). GA professional architects thought differently about him. We here are biased and tend line up with the architects. Which I think misses the historical moment. It's also pretty clear Crane won the larger war.

But what's interesting about that is what it says about the ideas behind strategic gca. We regulars here tend to forget how non-intuitive those ideas are/were. One of the popular appeals of Crane's approach to gca was that he rode on the back on the most basic instincts of the everyday golfer's ideas about what a good course should be about. Those instincts are ones formed by playing other sports. Venues should minimize fluke and luck. They should be places that test physical skills of execution. A venue that allows fluke to determine outcomes gets in the way of that; it even puts golf's status as a true sport in jeopardy.

In short, one of the things that the Crane stuff highlights is just how radical the ideas behind strategic golf architecture are. At least in the context of sports. Most golfers just don't get it. But they got Crane and his CP&P ideas. That, I think, is no less true today.

Second, I think Peter gets at why the Crane debates were important. They exemplify a deep fault-line that has run through golf architecture since its inception. Both in Britain and here. Crane brought about a moment when that fault-line was revealed with remarkable, unprecedented clarity. Crane forced issues that made that revelation happen. He forced MacK and Behr and Croome and others to think through a number of assumptions. It was in that sense a philosophical debate, in the best sense of the phrase. There were a group men trying to get clear about some very basic issues that were usually taken for granted in gca.

Finally, about the equitable - strategic distinction. I think it a vast improvement on the penal - strategic distinction, which I think is largely useless and misleading. My distinction, however, is not without its problems. Let me try to explain. At the heart of my notion of equitable architecture is that a golf course should provide predictable and equitable correspondences between the quality of a shot and its outcome. (Course that don't do that the everyday golfer tends to call "unfair".) The worse the shot, the worse the outcome. And vice versa and etc.

Sga has a different set of main concerns. It's most basic aim is to design courses that present interesting golfing wagers to the golfer. He may take them or not. But because he is picking his own poison, outcomes might well not correspond with the quality of the shot. For example, an almost great shot can be punished much more severely that a much worse shot. And that's o.k. for the strategic architect.          

Where my distinction doesn't work ideally is that strategy can be an important feature in equitable designs. (Crane, until his proposed revisions to TOC in '34, saw strategy as one form if "control", something that could be achieved, however, in any number of different ways.) So it's not like there are no strategic features on equitable courses. Likewise, strategic courses may have many "equitable" aspects. So there is a continuum. Perhaps that's unavoidable and not necessarily a bad thing.

I'm not sure that an American course v. British course distinction works well, however. For example, I think that NGLA and the Lido have more in common with great British links courses than they do with, say, Oakmont or Merion or TCC.

Bob  
 

[TEPaul]

"TEP
More illustrative of the type of architecture Crane was influenced by - the American movement, exemplified by courses like PVGC, Oakmont, Lido, NGLA, Brae Burn, Brook Hollow, and Hollywood. And when I think of those courses equitable does not immediately come to mind. How about you, do you think of equitable when these courses are mentioned?"


Tom MacWood:

A ton of people in America and the world were influenced by those courses; Crane was just one of them or at least those were some of the ones he mentioned in his mathematical formula rating analyses. So what's your point? Or are you thinking that Joshua Crane had to be some radical departure from anything that came before his ideas to be interesting and important and to have prompted the likes of Behr and Mackenzie et al to debate with him as vociferously as they did?  


"You need to go to Webster's web site. These were well educated men and they knew what the term scientific meant, and it was not modern."


With the men were referring to here I think I may know a bit more about those men back, where they went to school, what they thought and how educated they were than you do, so I doubt referring to some Webster's web site would be any help in that. But if you think Webster's website helps you understand them and the similarities between the terms "modern" and "scientific" back then by all means go for Webster's web site to help with your education!   

[TEPaul]

Bob:

Your post #133 is a very good one----eg a good syllabus of your essay.

In that essay I think you did a great job of explaining why the use of the term "penal" or "penal architecture" back then was not a good one, and even introducing the new terms "equitable architecture" and "Control," Predictability," and "Proportionality" (C.P &P) to be a clearer explanation of what "penal" or "penal architecture" really was that some referred to back then (particularly Behr and Mackenzie in the latter half of the 1920s).

However, I think a more difficult task is to assign a clearer explanation to the distinctions and differences of what various people really were referring to and meant when they used terms such as "scientific architecture" or "modern architecture" or frankly even "strategic architecture."

I don't think there's much doubt but that to some back then those latter terms (scientifc, modern or even strategic) tended to be used somewhat interchangeably and synomymously. Obviously, in many respoects the likes of Behr, Mackenzie, Bob Jones et al did not agree at all.

[Tom MacWood]

I've been out and about. Interesting thread. A couple of thoughts:

I think everyday golfers thought Crane won the battle in the '20's (that's a reason why he was asked to write so much for the major golf magazines in the late '20's; he and his ideas were popular). GA professional architects thought differently about him. We here are biased and tend line up with the architects. Which I think misses the historical moment. It's also pretty clear Crane won the larger war.

Crane was popular in the late 20s? How many articles did he publish after his Ideal Course article in November 1927? Other than Croome, Behr and Mackenzie what other golf architects even acknowledged Crane? American golf philosophy had already won the larger war prior to Crane. Crane didn't win anything.

But what's interesting about that is what it says about the ideas behind strategic gca. We regulars here tend to forget how non-intuitive those ideas are/were. One of the popular appeals of Crane's approach to gca was that he rode on the back on the most basic instincts of the everyday golfer's ideas about what a good course should be about. Those instincts are ones formed by playing other sports. Venues should minimize fluke and luck. They should be places that test physical skills of execution. A venue that allows fluke to determine outcomes gets in the way of that; it even puts golf's status as a true sport in jeopardy.

Crane's approach was America's approach. Here are CV Piper's ten principles of excellent golf design (American Golf Illustrated February 1926): 1) 18 holes, 6000 to 6500 yds 2) A minimum of 100 acres, preferably no less than 120 acres 3) Gently rolling topography is most desirable 4) Sandy loam soil is ideal 5) Construction should harmonize with the general topography 6) Holes running north and south are preferable; parallel holes should be avoided 7) Visibility is desirable, blind or half blind holes should be avoided, concealed bunkers are condemned 8] Any type of construction that increases the element of luck is open to serious criticism 9) Rough should be a character that compels the use of a mashie or niblick, but not penalized more heavily 10) OB is not desirable, especially if close to the fairway

In short, one of the things that the Crane stuff highlights is just how radical the ideas behind strategic golf architecture are. At least in the context of sports. Most golfers just don't get it. But they got Crane and his CP&P ideas. That, I think, is no less true today.

There is no such thing as a purely strategic golf course or pure strategic golf architecture. All golf courses, and forms of golf architecture, are blends of strategic choice and a requirement for control or precision, usually leaning one direction or the other (American golf architecture tended to lean toward control). Which is why the Crane debate - where one side tried to negatively characterize or pigeon hole the other side - didn't solve anything.

Second, I think Peter gets at why the Crane debates were important. They exemplify a deep fault-line that has run through golf architecture since its inception. Both in Britain and here. Crane brought about a moment when that fault-line was revealed with remarkable, unprecedented clarity. Crane forced issues that made that revelation happen. He forced MacK and Behr and Croome and others to think through a number of assumptions. It was in that sense a philosophical debate, in the best sense of the phrase. There were a group men trying to get clear about some very basic issues that were usually taken for granted in gca.

Crane had no intention of promoting a golf architectural philosophy or sparking a debate. His goal was to create a rating system that would identify the best venues for championships. Half of his rating system (upkeep and maintenance) had nothing to do with golf architecture, and in the half that dealt with golf architecture, Crane was simply following the status quo American ideas. The American-British was the great debate at the time, and that debate predated Crane and continued on well after him.

Finally, about the equitable - strategic distinction. I think it a vast improvement on the penal - strategic distinction, which I think is largely useless and misleading. My distinction, however, is not without its problems. Let me try to explain. At the heart of my notion of equitable architecture is that a golf course should provide predictable and equitable correspondences between the quality of a shot and its outcome. (Course that don't do that the everyday golfer tends to call "unfair".) The worse the shot, the worse the outcome. And vice versa and etc.

I don't think it is an improvement, American championship courses tended to lean more toward the penal end of the spectrum and equitable does not accurately reflect that tendency. The term that was often used to describe American golf architecture is scientific or scientifically - I think that is a much better term because it cover both the control and equitable aspect. The question is what would be a better term than strategic to describe British philosophy on golf architecture (exemplified by Croome, Simpson and Behr).

Sga has a different set of main concerns. It's most basic aim is to design courses that present interesting golfing wagers to the golfer. He may take them or not. But because he is picking his own poison, outcomes might well not correspond with the quality of the shot. For example, an almost great shot can be punished much more severely that a much worse shot. And that's o.k. for the strategic architect.
          
This is one of the main problems I have with Bob's essay. On one hand he accurately points out there really was no purely penal architect or architecture, but then claims the existence of a school of pure strategic golf architects and architecture. It is very misleading and historically inaccurate. A number of golf architects that we today consider to be strategic golf architects, were considered penal leaning by men of Simpson and Croome's ilk. A good example is Simpson's example of penal architecture - Ross's 2nd hole at Inverness. Again the greater debate was the British-American debate.

Where my distinction doesn't work ideally is that strategy can be an important feature in equitable designs. (Crane, until his proposed revisions to TOC in '34, saw strategy as one form if "control", something that could be achieved, however, in any number of different ways.) So it's not like there are no strategic features on equitable courses. Likewise, strategic courses may have many "equitable" aspects. So there is a continuum. Perhaps that's unavoidable and not necessarily a bad thing.

Exactly, which is why the British-American distinction is the more appropriate, they both promoted strategic concepts.

I'm not sure that an American course v. British course distinction works well, however. For example, I think that NGLA and the Lido have more in common with great British links courses than they do with, say, Oakmont or Merion or TCC.

The scientifically designed courses of NGLA, Lido and PVGC have more in common with the original super-links Prince's than they do with St. Andrews or Hoylake. As Darwin observed, "It must naturally be interesting to golfers here to know what golfers from elsewhere, who play under rather different conditions, think if our courses. Prince's, I fancy, was the British course which the Americans liked on the whole best. I remember Mr. Sweester, who was very enthusiastic about it, saying that it was more like the courses he was used to at home. This at first sounds curious, since Prince's is so essentially a seaside course, and America has practically only one seaside course, the wonderful Lido. What I think he meant was that at Prince's good play is regularly repaid and bad play so regularly punished. The American golfer likes a course on which, however severe it may be, he knows what he is in for. He is used to being trapped in the rough if ever he drives crooked; he is used to very closely guarded greens, and he not merely accepts this inevitability of punishment, he thinks it right and prefers it to chance of undeserved escape."

Does that sound familiar?
 

[Tom MacWood]

By the way that quote by Darwin is from 1923...several years prior to the Crane-Croom/Crane-Behr debate.

[TEPaul]

Tom MacWood:

You really are amazing. Your post #136 is just a total rehash completely reiterating every single point and aspect of Bob Crosby's essay you've missed all along since you began participating on any of these threads that discuss that essay----Joshua Crane.

I think it may not be impossible that someone and somehow at some point could figure out how to explain it to you and the importance of it and its points but by now I doubt anyone has the time or inclination to devote to try to do that for you. It's too bad you're so myopic for some reason.

[BCrosby]

Tom Mac -

I don't know where to begin, so I won't. You pretty much missed my points entirely.

BTW, I beg to differ with Bernard Darwin. If he thought NGLA had more to do with Prince's than with TOC, then he was simply wrong. Happens in the best of families.

Bob

[Tom MacWood]

Tom MacWood:

You really are amazing. Your post #136 is just a total rehash completely reiterating every single point and aspect of Bob Crosby's essay you've missed all along since you began participating on any of these threads that discuss that essay----Joshua Crane.

I think it may not be impossible that someone and somehow at some point could figure out how to explain it to you and the importance of it and its points but by now I doubt anyone has the time or inclination to devote to try to do that for you. It's too bad you're so myopic for some reason.

Did Bob acknowledge the American approach to golf architecture?
Did Bob acknowledge the differences between the British and American approach to golf architecture?
Did Bob acknowledge the American-British debate predated Crane (continued on afterward)?
Did Bob acknowledge Crane's thought on golf architecture were typical of the American movement?

I don't believe he did, and as result he missed the much more important story IMO.

[Tom MacWood]

Tom Mac -

I don't know where to begin, so I won't. You pretty much missed my points entirely.

BTW, I beg to differ with Bernard Darwin. If he thought NGLA had more to do with Prince's than with TOC, then he was simply wrong. Happens in the best of families.

Bob

I think the point I'm trying to make is that your points are based on a lot of misinformation.

I do understand your reaction to the Prince's comparison because in your essay your Prince's commentary was very misleading...I think you missed the boat on that one.

I would agree with you of the three the American super courses the NGLA was the least like Prince's, but they still had a lot in common, and no doubt the course served as an inspiration for CBM.

This an excerpt from Darwin on the NGLA, "I have left myself very little space to write of the National which I love. Nine years ago the fairway was rather rough and the rough was the devil itself. Today the fairways are perfect, the rough is less fierce but quite fierce enough and the course has become rather shorter than of old because the ball flies further. All these things make in this instance for greater happiness. Compared with the other two courses [Lido & PVGC] I have described the National is not very severe and yet every stroke has got be played rightly. the punishment is not so uniform and, as it seems to me, more discriminating. At the National, if you make a bad shot, you will not get off scot free but your punishment will take various shapes. It may be a niblick shot played merely to get out and a whole stroke gone: it may be a lies which will yield to a forcing iron shot; it may be not a bad lie at all but such a position that the shot up to the green is intensely difficult. There may always be joy for the sinner who repents if he does so in a practical manner. In fact there is scope for all varieties of recovering shots and that surely ads intensely to the pleasure and interest of golf."

Regarding Darwin, IMO you'd be hard pressed to find a more knowledge critic of golf architecture.

[BCrosby]

Tom -

Either your dislike for me makes it difficult for you to think clearly or you just just don't think clearly. I prefer to think it is the former. But I'm beginning to wonder.

Let me say this as plainly as I can for the umpteenth time. I make no claim that the Crane debate was the most important one in the GA. Even if I cared, I don't know what metric you would use to determine such things. My claim is that it was AN important debate. As in one of several important debates. If we can't even agree as to that, then I would suggest that your animus towards me has gotten the better of you.  

Your American/British course thing might have been an important debate too. I don't recall hearing much about it, at least not in those terms. But perhaps there are articles and books I missed. I have an open mind.

Let me also repeat again that Crane was not the first to raise the issues that he did, so stop thinking you are scoring debating points by noting that others expressed similar ideas.

As to your point that there are no pure strategic or penal or equitable courses therefore the distinctions aren't worth much...
let me ask you a question. Do you think the concept of "red" is a meaningful one? Even though you have never seen anything that is purely red? Would you want to drop the concept because there is no pure example of red? Can we agree that "red" is a useful concpet when describing the color of objects? Need I go on to draw the obvious parallels?

Finally, Darwin was a brilliant man. Brilliant men too can be wrong. That's the danger you run in making arguments from authority. Sometimes your authority gets it wrong. Darwin got NGLA wrong.  


Bob  

[Tom MacWood]

"Perhaps that is why they drilled down to the central issues in golf architecture more perceptively and more honestly than any public debate about golf architecture before or since."

Bob

This what you wrote about the Crane debate. That is a pretty strong statement. You've continually over blown Crane's importance...as seen in your previous post about Crane being popular and a regular contributor to golf publications in the late 1920s, and how professional architects perceived him, both of which you've failed to support.

I will acknowledge it was an interesting debate, but not an important one. It was a continuation of the ongoing American-British debate that had existed for several years. No new architectural ideas were introduced as a result of the Crane debate. Behr had developed his ideas on golf architecture prior to the debate and not as a result of it (as you suggested), and Crane was simply expressing the popular American approach, nothing new there. So why was it so important? What impact did it have on golf architecture?

I do think the concept of red is an important one, and good analogy for this particular situation. In your view penal architecture, as you rightly point out, is not a pure color but a variation, which is why you came up with your Equitable description. The problem is you didn't identify the architects of that era who were associated with Equitable. Now on the other hand you evidently believe there is a pure form strategic golf architecture, as promoted by Croome, Simpson, Behr, Mackenize, Low and a whole host of others. In your historical view on golf architecture there is a large well defined school of strategic golf architecture. But in actuality golf architecture comes in all different shades of red, and in the 1920s there were two primary schools, the penal leaning American brand being more orange than red and less penal British form being more purple the red, but they are both variations of red.  

I'd put Colt, Ross, Flynn, and Tillinghast in the American or Scientific school. I'd put Behr, Croome, Low and Simpson in the British Strategic school (though Behr moved in and out). And speaking of moving in and out, I'd put Mackenzie and Macdonald in a more flexible category.

PS: There is no need to make this personal, please lets just stick with the facts.

[TEPaul]

"Did Bob acknowledge the American approach to golf architecture?"
Yes
"Did Bob acknowledge the differences between the British and American approach to golf architecture?"
Yes
"Did Bob acknowledge the American-British debate predated Crane (continued on afterward)?"
Yes
"Did Bob acknowledge Crane's thought on golf architecture were typical of the American movement?"
Yes


"I don't believe he did, and as result he missed the much more important story IMO."

I think we realize you believe that which is quite strange. Perhaps you should read the essay again, particularly Part IV and its conclusion. In my opinion, Bob Crosby's essay is more about reprising the specific issues developed in that debate, particularly by Behr, for the present and the future, not the past. Again, apparently you've missed that and consequently don't undertstand it.
 
 
 

[Tom MacWood]

Could you quote from the essay where he acknowledged those things?

[Tom MacWood]

TEP
Part IV is one of the more historically inaccurate sections of the essay. In that part he tries to connect the USGA set up for championships to Crane via RTJ, not realizing the USGA's severe set up and redesigns dates back to the 1920s (and long before RTJ). And in that part of the essay he also tries to portrait H. Mallaby-Deeley and JH Taylor as penologists.

[TEPaul]

"Could you quote from the essay where he acknowledged those things?"


Tom MacWood:

No I can not or better said I will not. The only thing I'm willing to do for you, at this point, is to cite the particular sections the answers to your questions are in. If after that you still can't figure it out then that's not my problem but yours, in my opinion, and apparently in the opinions of most on here who have been trying to follow these strange posts of yours. I think pretty near everyone on here has grown tired of playing with your stupid 20 questions games! It's too bad for you that Bob Crosby has, that's for sure!

[TEPaul]

"TEP
Part IV is one of the more historically inaccurate sections of the essay. In that part he tries to connect the USGA set up for championships to Crane via RTJ, not realizing the USGA's severe set up and redesigns dates back to the 1920s (and long before RTJ). And in that part of the essay he also tries to portrait H. Mallaby-Deeley and JH Taylor as penologists."


Tom MacWood:

With the possible exception of a thing or two Bob Crosby said in his essay about H. Mallaby-Deeley your last statement is just wrong and/or misinformed.

[Jeff_Brauer]

I have now completed Bob's excellent essay, and I learned a lot.

Whether or not the Crane debates were one of the great gca debates, I cannot say.  This however, is pretty sure NOT to go down in history as a great gca debate, and I say that with nearly 100% confidence!