The common thread in greatness

[Philippe Binette]

the common thing of all the great courses...

a perfect blend between the ourse and the surrounding landscape, so they are interconnected.

the specificities of the site is integrated in the golf strategy so the course is unique and is a ture test of man vs nature.

[Tom_Doak]

"I believe the real reason St.Andrews is infinitely superior to anything else is owing to the fact that it was constructed when no one knew anything about the subject at all...".

Dr. Mackenzie - 1920

A pithy line. Is it true?

Peter:

I've always taken that to mean that the best thing about St. Andrews is that nobody predetermined the "right" way to play it.  It is up to the golfer to figure it out for himself, without the help of an architect who was trying to make it fair. 

To be able to come up with anything similar DELIBERATELY would be the greatest achievement in golf architecture, but it is seldom accomplished, even on a single hole.

[Mac Plumart]

Philippe Binette...

Man, I think you've got a great point there.  Perhaps this really dove tails with what Tom Paul said about the way Bill Coore went about getting to know a piece of property.  

This would also dove tail into the idea that this whole idea of creating a great course isn't to be obtained by using something like Mackenzie general principles.  You can use them as a founation to build off of, but then maybe you've got to go with the Bill Coore approach and get to know the land and then pick and choose how to use those principles to make the specific course you are working on the greatest it can be.  Then you will have something truly unique and unable to be copied effectively.  

This unique idea has been said before on this thread and these last few posts really seem to highlight why and how this unique aspect can be a common thread among great courses.

Thanks for your thoughts.

[JC Jones]

If Dr. Mac was formulaic, wouldn't it stand to reason that CBM was even more so?  How are you making the best of the land and taking what the land gives you if you approach the project with a plan to build certain template holes (as opposed to the holes that are on the ground)?

[DMoriarty]

If Dr. Mac was formulaic, wouldn't it stand to reason that CBM was even more so?  How are you making the best of the land and taking what the land gives you if you approach the project with a plan to build certain template holes (as opposed to the holes that are on the ground)?

I am not sure what you mean by formulaic in either instance.  MacKenzie doesn't seem formulaic to me.    As for CBM, I think he was a lot less formulaic than people think.  Yes, he felt that there were a few core strategic principles that made for great golf holes and that those principles could be applied on just about any land.  But this wasn't necessarily "as opposed to the holes that are on the ground."  I think he thought he could find spots for these holes on just about any site.    Look at NGLA, there are only about four or five supposed copies from templates of great holes and that is stretching the term "copy" pretty far.  None of the supposed copies is anywhere near an attempt at an exact copy, and all of the copies fit the land.  

[TEPaul]

JC:

In my opinion, Mackenzie may've been one of the least formulaic architects if by formulaic one means doing holes that were to some degree replications of others he did or others that existed before him. Obviously Macdonald would be on the other end of that spectrum, as part of his model for his architetural style was doing replications of existing holes that were famous and time-tested.

I also think there is little question that to the eye, or the studied eye, Mackenzie's style and his holes, particularly his greens, are more sympathetic to pre-existing on-site natural landforms or at least look like they are than many of Macdonald's greens are.

I would use as the best example of Mackenzie's style the 9th hole of Cypress. One can see from before and after photos he did virtually nothing to that particular landform except clear it of brush and plant grass for golf on it as it pre-existed as a landform. I would use as the best example of Macdonald's model, style and look, the redan at Piping Rock. Certainly to the studied eye it looks anything but sympathetic to the pre-existing landform it's on (the massive cut and fill of it is actually an architectural case study for that kind of thing).

However, even if it surely doesn't look much of anything like a naturally occuring landform, I would note that in my opinion it may be the best playing redan I'm aware of.

[JC Jones]

I agree that Dr. Mac was anything but formulaic, I was using the term Mac P. provided when discussing Dr. Mac's 12 listed items.  And that was my point, if Dr. Mac is formulaic (which he wasn't at all), then what does that say about CBM?

[Mac Plumart]

Perhaps they both were formulaic in that they had a notion of the elements they thought made up a good golf course, but I think the use of that term makes the mind think of scientific formulas and that is most likely not the case.  As I said previously, it appears designing a great golf course is more art than science.

But here is something I've always wondered about CBM and especially Raynor.  CBM developed these template holes, I think 22 in total, (but maybe it is 20 or 21...I could open up George B's book to get the information, but I am too lazy right now) regardless he used these concepts in his golf courses and Raynor took that ball and ran with it.  So that is  pretty darn formulaic.  Nevertheless, it appears that most of their golf courses are very good, if not great.  I believe it is the artistic application of these holes (formulas) that makes them so great.  But the concepts behind the holes themselves, are they the perfect blend of variety relative to the game of golf?  And if applied with common sense and artistic intelligence will you virtually be guaranteed, at least, a good golf course?

I guess somewhere in the back of my mind I think CBM stumbled across the "secret sauce" for a golf course.  I've only played his NGLA and Raynor/Bank's Lookout Mountain, but I think you can see the application of these concepts on vastly different properties and they both yield highly enjoyable golf. 

Thoughts? 

[archie_struthers]

 


As to Pine Valley , one of the great things about it , which T Doak alluded to , it that lots of players play a lot of the holes well.  They just don't play all of the holes welll on the same day   !!!!!

[DMoriarty]

Mac,

I think you have hit upon something key to CBM's approach that is often overlooked.   A course like NGLA possesses incredible variety within the course itself, and that was by design.   No two holes are alike.  All present unique challenges.  Likewise for the greens; each has a character all its own.   This can rarely be said of courses where the architect is supposedly just find holes that are there.    How often do we find courses with two or three par 3s that feel about like the same hole?  Complain about this and you will invariably hear, that is what the land gave us.  Maybe, or maybe they just didn't look hard enough.  

As for the idea that CBM was simply applying templates, I've not so sure that is entirely accurate.  Definitely certain holes showed up again and again, but other holes showed up as well, depending on what the land had to offer, and these holes aren't necessarily on George's list of templates.    Even among the supposed templates, the variety is so great that one would be pressed to identify them if CBM had not.  For example, look at the examples he have of the Redan in his and Whigham's article on the same in 1914 (my emphasis:)

There are several Redans to be found nowadays on American courses. There is a simplified Redan at Piping Rock, a reversed Redan at Merion Cricket Club (the green being approached from the left hand end of the tableland) and another reversed Redan at Sleepy Hollow where the tee instead of being about level with the green is much higher. A beautiful short hole with the Redan principle will be found on the new Philadelphia course at Pine Valley. Here also the tee is higher than the hole, so that the player overlooks the tableland. The principle can be used with an infinite number of variations on any course.

Hardly seems the case that he believed in copying templates despite the land.

No matter how many hole types CBM actually built, that George Bahto or anyone could come up with 20 or 22 supposed templates is pretty remarkable in itself.    Are there many architects who worked with 20 or 22  distinguishable themes in their golf courses.   Or are other architects more likely to build similar variations on much fewer themes, "as the land dictates."  

As for Raynor, I don't lump him in with Macdonald, because it doesn't seem fair to either.

[Mac Plumart]

David...

I think we are on the same page regarding CBM and the template holes.  On a rudimentary level, one can say they are simply standard, run of the mill copies.  And he just cut and pasted here and there and, voila, here is your course.  

But as I tried to touch on, and as you did clearly explain, that is not what he did.  He took the idea of the Redan and its playing principles and concepts and added it into the round at the appropriate time, in the appropriate place, to test a certain aspect of a golfers game.  I think he did that with all his "templates" to completely test a golfers game.  That is what I mean by the "secret sauce".  Combine these templates in the ideal way and you get a course that will test each and every aspect of a golfers game.

I am not saying CBM was non-artistic, formula-centric, scientific architect.  I am saying that I think he was a true artist.  He took tried and true golfing concepts (the template holes) and applied them in an ideal manner in different ways on different courses to arrive at a great course.  I think he truly understood the part science, part art aspect of golf course architecture.

Like I said, I have only played one CBM and one Raynor/Banks so far.  So this is more about what I think rather than what I know.  But I truly believe I just might have this one right.

Heck, the fact that Old MacDonald came out close to 100 years after NGLA says CBM did something right.

[DMoriarty]

I realize we are on the same page, I just wanted to emphasize that there is something really fantastic about the variety presented at NGLA, and it is not found on many courses, even very good ones.   Maybe there is something to finding four par threes all of different lengths and requirements, and a variety of par fours, and finding or building a large variety of green sites.   Maybe otherwise it is too easy for the architect to use the land as an excuse for building a course with less variety and more redundancy.  

As for Old Mac, I think the best thing about it may be the variety of fun shots and challenges it presents.  I think any designer (including perhaps Tom Doak) might have considered the land there the least interesting and possibly the most problematic (except perhaps Trails, which is interesting but had some difficulties to overcome.)  Yet the OM stands up well against any of them in part because of the terrific variety.  But this took a design team that understood Macdonald enough to know to look for the strategic principles in the land, as opposed to forcing them onto the land.    If one played the course without knowing its history, one might love it without even realizing these were so-called template holes.   Yet with few exceptions, the concepts are all there.     This to me seems like what CBM was about, and if so then they captured the essence perfectly.

[Tom_Doak]

David:

As far as Macdonald's work is concerned, I would agree with most of what you wrote.  I've never thought too much about the fact that his rote four par-3's always accomplished a variety of length and shots, but you are right.  And certainly, he managed to fit those holes to the land on most of his courses, although apart from National and perhaps a couple of other courses, I would question whether Macdonald was really as involved and as finicky about the details as Mac Plumart hopes.

My only fear in building Old Macdonald is that it would encourage other architects to follow the same formula without agonizing over the details so much, and just build a dumbed-down version of the same thing.  I suppose if they were going to be that lazy, better they do it to Macdonald's formula than their own ideas; the Redan does have more going for it than that 185-yard par-3 over water that one modern architect built in 20 different locales.  But we'd never get anything NEW.  The only reason Old Macdonald works is that it IS new to most people.

But I still believe that there are more than 18 (or even 22) worthy ideas for golf holes in the world, so I don't want to keep repeating myself.

[Peter Pallotta]

One of the interesting things about these references to CBM is that there are in fact other ways to create great courses.  What I mean is: you'd almost think there shouldn't be other ways, i.e. that the best way to build a great course is to take the fundamental and time-tested concepts and then find a way to fit them onto the land as it presents itself.  Except, as the list of Top 10 courses suggests, there are in fact other ways to build great golf courses. Which doesn't deny the validity of CBM's approach -- after all, the proof is in the pudding -- nor does it deny that these fundemantal concepts (as manifested most notably in the great GB&I courses) are in fact useful and true.  But which does suggest that "the common thread in greatness" is not found in those concepts in and of themselves.

Peter   

[DMoriarty]

Peter

I disagree.  Other designers may have a different process but (as far as I have seen) the end result is that great courses generally incorporate the same basic fundamental strategic principles into an interesting natural landscape.   Sort of like a geometry of great golf holes.   For example, as far as I have seen, CBM-like strategic concepts are all over George Thomas's best work, and Max Behr's, and Perry Maxwell's, and Alistair Mackenzie's, and probably many more. They are (or were) all over Merion as well.  Not that these guys were necessarily copying; it is more just that certain core strategic concepts really can be used in an infinite variety of ways, depending upon the site, and great designers are applying the same concepts in unique ways to create a variety of great golf holes.   

If you don't believe me dig through the archives and find Gib's riff on the "template holes" at Cypress.  It is uncanny.   

So while I agree with Tom Doak that there are many more than 18 or 22 worthy ideas for a golf hole, I'll bet that whatever he comes up with will be highly original, yet still share a certain geometry with other great golf holes, whether it be a diagonal carry, a hog's back fairway or green,  a natural bottleneck, or even some or all of these combined (in fact I am thinking of a particular Doak hole that is extremely original yet applies all of these concepts in one way or another.) 



 

[TEPaul]

"I guess somewhere in the back of my mind I think CBM stumbled across the "secret sauce" for a golf course."


Mac:

I don't.

If someone made the case that C.B. Macdonald, because of what he said and wrote or even despite what he said and wrote, created the first good golf course or the first really good golf architecture in America, I think they would be wrong. Macdonald most certainly went about his concept for a really good course (and architecture) in a slightly different manner by actually publicly stating he intended to utilize various holes abroad as some of his models that had been voted (abroad) the most respected and copying them or their architectural principles and using their actual names. For the rest (at NGLA) he apparently claimed he utilized individual features from abroad or time-tested architectural principles from abroad.

But he was not the first to create a first class course and first class architecture in America. Myopia and GCGC came before his NGLA and so did Oakmont which at least in its routing is largely the same as it was 3-5 years before NGLA was created. The other two are slightly older.

The fact is the architects of those just mentioned that came before NGLA were simply nowhere near as vocal and public about what they were doing as Macdonald was.

This is certainly not to take anything away from Macdonald and what he accomplished essentially with his NGLA project, and certainly including the publicity he generated for the benefit of American architecture by it; this is only to say that he was not the first here to create a really good golf course and really good architecture in America. He wasn't even the first from America to dedicatedly study the courses and holes and architectural principles abroad either.

[Mac Plumart]

Tom P...

I fear where this thread is going, so I think I will bow out.

I think CBM's "secret sauce" allowed Raynor to make quite a good living off of building golf courses.  And I am aware of what courses CBM was heavily involved in and ones he was not.  So, Tom D's comment about my "hopes" for CBM "apart from National and perhaps a couple of other courses" doesn't make a ton of sense to me.

But I don't think his "secret sauce" is the end all be all regarding golf course architecture in the least.  I think applying these principles will yield, at the least, a good course due to the variety inherent in it.  But from what I have seen (mostly in pictures and on tv) this doesn't mean the golf course architecture will blend in seemlessly to the natural environment of the land.

So, I don't think the common thread of greatness in a course begins and end with CBM's template holes.  It is part of the history of the "collective greatness of golf" and still entertains golfers to this day.  That can not be denied.  But there is much more than came before and after his breakthrough.

Great thread JC!!

[TEPaul]

"Tom P...
I fear where this thread is going, so I think I will bow out."


Mac:

I'm not sure I know what you're fearful of unless all you'd like to see discussed on this thread is C.B. Macdonald's particular contribution to the evolution of golf architecture in America.



"So, I don't think the common thread of greatness in a course begins and end with CBM's template holes.  It is part of the history of the "collective greatness of golf" and still entertains golfers to this day.  That can not be denied.  But there is much more than came before and after his breakthrough."



I'm happy to hear you say what you did in that first sentence, and I am happier still to hear you say what you did in the last sentence because it certainly is factual and accurate regarding the history and evolution of American golf architecture.

[Philippe Binette]

About greatness and being formulaic...

1) To apply a predetermined concept on a piece of property is probably not easy as we might think... finding a site for a redan, an Alps hole etc.. is easy, finding room on a site for all those concepts holes is a lot tougher... and finding a way to ring all those concept holes for an 18 hole golf course that work is surely a lot of work.

2) I think most architects become formulaic after a while... some find the good aspects of design to be formulaic... other the wrong ones... 
Let's say architects like Tom Doak and Coore and Crenshaw... they understand that green contours, wide fairways, good tie-ins, asymetric bunkering, use of the existing landscape will produce solid courses,
I'm pretty sure they're not going to built a narrow course with flat greens and bunkers at 275 yards on each side of the fairway tommorow morning

Some think it's shot definition, lakes, big bunkers and containtment mounding that creates good courses and stay formulaic with that...

Greatness for a architect might come from being formuliac on the ideas, not the content of a course..

[Tom_Doak]

Time for me to bow out, too, when everyone starts agreeing that there is a "formula" or "secret sauce" to building a great course.

To me, it may be possible to build a very good course that way, but not a great one.  A great course has to have something of its own.  And that's what we'll be trying to do again soon, in Florida.  In fact, I think I will try extra hard now not to build even one hole that looks anything like a Macdonald template -- although I am sure that someone will find something they can compare, if they try hard enough.   

[TEPaul]

TomD:

Good post!

[Philippe Binette]

I don't think there is a secret sauce.. or a formula

there are ideas, concept, technics to built stuff that remains from project to project for a given architect...

after that, it's all creativity and work, alot of work, and also a touch of chaos along the way.

[JC Jones]

TomD:

Good post!

I wonder if we will get a second encore on this thread

[DMoriarty]

  And I am aware of what courses CBM was heavily involved in and ones he was not.  So, Tom D's comment about my "hopes" for CBM "apart from National and perhaps a couple of other courses" doesn't make a ton of sense to me.

Mac,  If you know at which courses CBM was heavily involved, I wish you'd clue me in.  Because after NGLA it all gets very fuzzy to me, at least as far as CBM's onsite, detail oriented involvement goes.   
_______________________________________________________

While Macdonald's approach might give courses the variety that most courses lack, I wouldn't say that there was a "formula" or "secret sauce" to great architecture.  Despite legend to the contrary, Macdonald himself did not stick to templates at his masterpiece, NGLA, and the four or five templates at NGLA all depart from the originals.  The course doesn't even have all four of his "rote" par threes!  Whatever his original intent, he ended up piecing together the best course he could combining and applying all sorts of concepts from all sorts of holes, and even added a few original ideas of his own.   So at least NGLA is inconsistent with the "formulaic" label we so often place on CBM.

I think we need to look at the supposed templates in the context of the time, when great strategic architecture was still foreign to most in America.  The templates were exemplars of great architecture, used to teach America by showcasing the underlying concepts.  The holes or templates themselves aren't all that important, but the underlying concepts are some of the most basic building blocks of quality golf courses.   Obviously, CBM didn't cover them all, but he did cover a heck of a lot of ground.    

As for the post above about what CBM did or didn't do first in America, I've no interest.  Obviously, CBM didn't have a patent on diagonal carries, multiple routes to the green, offset greens, the strategic use of slope in fairways, the placement of hazards to to catch the "almost good" shot, etc.   But it is undeniable that he did a heck of a lot to popularize strategic golf course design, modeled (if only loosely) after the great links holes and courses.
__________________________________________________

Tom D.

Far be it from me to tell you how to do your job, but I hope that you don't worry about whatever comparisons idiots like me might draw and just go about your business of building great golf courses.  

[TEPaul]

"As for the post above about what CBM did or didn't do first in America, I've no interest."


That's understandable.

However, I am very interested in identifying what was perceived to be the first good courses and architecture in America, not the least reason being I'm most interested to know how the first to do those courses and develop that architecture arrived at their ideas that they put into practice on those courses before NGLA. To some extent, either before, during or just afterwards, it appears they made journeys abroad to study the best over there as Macdonald would do himself in 1902, 1904 and 1906.

 

"Obviously, CBM didn't have a patent on diagonal carries, multiple routes to the green, offset greens, the strategic use of slope in fairways, the placement of hazards to to catch the "almost good" shot, etc.   But it is undeniable that he did a heck of a lot to popularize strategic golf course design, modeled (if only loosely) after the great links holes and courses."


No, Macdonald certainly did not have a patent on any of those ideas for good architecture; and I think it's also historically interesting for those who carefully study architecture, particularly the history and evolution of American Architecture, to know that he was not the first to originate those ideas over here as is sometimes supposed and believed.

There is no question, at least in my mind, however, that Macdonald did do more than any other in that early era (particularly the first decade of the 20th century and the first few years of the teens) to popularize those ideas and concepts from the best courses and holes abroad, simply because he was far more public about that interest than the other few who came before him, particularly Herbert C. Leeds (apparently a particularly private person).