The Raynor Paradox

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

Bob's post on Yeamans Hall triggered something that has perplexed me. As someone who is great admirer of the work of MacKenzie, Thompson, Thomas, Ross and the other golden age (and modern architects) who emphasized the use and creation naturalistic features, my admiration for the engineered Raynor style has been difficult to reconcile.

Certainly one of the main reasons his courses are so appealing is due to their stratregic interest. Golf holes that consistently require thought and are interesting to play. Raynor had no pretenses, he was not interested creating style over substance - afterall he was an engineer. It appears his goal was simply to create the best strategic golf holes possible, many were old tried and tested classic concepts, others were original concepts, the result was an overall solid test.

Beyond the golfing merits, his courses have a distinctive style. As a trained engineer not completely familar with the game when he started, I assume he relied heavily on Macdonalds detailed notes on the classic holes of Britain. Presented measurements and the basic strategic concepts and he engineered copies they way an engineer would design and build any structure. For some odd reason the resulting style is very pleasing. Some have theorized his courses are popular because the holes creates/recreates are like an old friend, its very comforting to revisit them again and again. And although I agree those classic holes are enjoyable to rediscover, I think there is something more to it.

I believe the reason that Raynor's designs are so comforting and visually appealing is not necessarily due to their engineered look or artificial appearance, but due to Raynors ability to indentify and utilize nature. Fishers Island, Yeamans Hall, Fairfield, Creek, St.Louis, Camargo, Shoreacres, Yale and the other most admired Raynor designs seem to have a common thread - a naturally bless and in some case idyllic setting. He seemed to have a tremendous ability to identify a sites most interesting natural attributes and to route his course to take full advantage of those attributes. The result is combination of strong strategic golf holes, uniquely enigineered features of tees, greens and bunkers, and a beautifully natural and undisturbed backdrop. The juxtaposition of the man-made and the natural creates a contrast that brings attention to both - creating an intensity or hyper-awareness of both.

I don't have the experience of Raynor courses that many others do, but I wonder if his not so strong/interesting courses suffer from less than impressive sites - not setting up the intense contrast.

[TJSturges]

Tom,

Another point I've often thought was amazing is the fact that his resume of courses reads like a who's who of the grand old clubs of his era.  He didn't get all of the work back then, but he sure got more than his fair share.  How do we explain that?  Was he also a master salesman?  How did he appeal to so many of the "old money" clubs in these respective towns?

Consider this list:

CC of Fairfield
Chicago Golf
Fox Chapel
Camargo
Monterey Peninsula CC
CC of Charleston
Mountain Lake
Piping Rock
The Creek
Shoreacres
Fishers

TS

[Brad Miller]

Tom, your thoughts strike a chord with me, seems like a wonderful description of Raynor and his work.

[JakaB]

As a registered Professional Engineer myself I find the repeated notations to Raynor being an Engineer somewhat offensive.  Engineers are some of the most creative designers of beauty time has ever known.  From the Pyramids to the St. Louis Arch our sense of form against natural backdrops is not surpassed by any profession.  I personnally would believe we would have more strategy and less eye candy if more golf course architects were schooled in Engineering than Architecture.  

[SPDB]

This is a very interesting discussion. I have often considered such a question - what makes Raynor designs so eminently appealing.

I have always enjoyed the formalism of Raynor's work. But as Tom points out, without the attention to the site and the natural features at play, Raynor's work would be a fairly dull repetition of themes, with little attention to natural asthetics. I find great pleasure in trying to get inside the head of Raynor in figuring out why, for example, he looked at a rough marsh and determined that the 11th hole at The Creek should feature his prized Biarritz green, while at Camargo #8, he featured the same hole, over a vastly different spread of flat land. The only answer I can come up with is that he possessed superior routing skills, so that while these holes were being repeated on different courses, there were, in each instance, natural features of the land which would enhance the inclusion of each of these "signature" holes.

Even if Raynor does rely heavily on an engineered style the outcomes of holes that are "engineered" into the land is brilliant. A good example of this is the 7th at Camargo. Raynor somehow managed to lay out an Alps hole on what is basically a flat sheet of land! But far from being an example of where Raynor fit one of his signature holes into where probably shouldn't have, the hole is one of the most interesting on the course. It took me a couple of rounds to come around to this opinion, but such is the allure of Raynors designs.

Although

[Ed_Baker]

Ted Sturges where have you been man? Welcome back!

Raynor certainly did get the "pick of the litter" as far as sites,didn't he?

One possible explanation might be that he was employed by the town of Southampton as town surveyor early in his career and his engineering degree was in landscape. He probably was a "trusted townie" and readily accepted by the "old money" folks, a notoriously distrustful bunch and very wary of "outsiders." I'm sure that he was in a posistion to do many favors for the rich and famous with regard to property lines,easments and so forth.

After his work with C.B. at the National he was on his way.It certainly didn't hurt to have an alliance with "Mac" no shrinking violet himself.

[Pete L]

Did Raynor design any public access courses? Being an engineer myself, I would love the opportunity to study his work first hand.

[RJ_Daley]

Sometimes I think that we forget the time context of when these men were building these courses.  It isn't as if newly formed golf clubs around the US from 1900-25 had a long history of courses their members could readily visit in the States to decide what kind of golf course style they wanted.  When they decided they would like to have a golf course to enhance their membership social clubs, they had to find someone who knew something about how you go about building one.  If you had to build something on the ground that would involve things like draining a swamp, or making a relatively flat terrain yield some interesting "golfing forms" that required earth moving, who would you call?   Well, an engineer who claimed to know something about this new golf game sweeping the country, of course!  Raynor fit that bill well.  When CB needed help translating his design ideas through earthmoving and drainage ideas, who did he call; an engineer, of course!  As more folks got interested in the new game that was only 20 or< years old in this country, they took their cues from the first few courses that were built and successful.  NGLA, Yale, Chicago, etc., and a certain conventional wisdom started to form.  The golfing course that was built and designed to offer an interesting game needed to be a matter of construction in most cases, meaning engineered and manufactured for strategy.  This explains for me why a fellow like Langford with Morreau came along and did the courses I have seen by him in so much of the same style as Raynor; which was a manufactured design to offer interesting golfing enjoyment.  

I think the engineering background is why we see the emphaisis in Raynor and Langford courses on earthmoving to achieve the interesting landforms, like an engineer would think of.   Greensites that are emense piled up and shaped volumes of dirt are out of an engineer's mind.  Bunkers where they are more about placement than natural terrain blended beauty consisting usually of a pile of dirt forming a hump or mound next to a flat sand pit.  

We don't see this in other early GCAs so much because they were more about the artistry of using the natural terrain to blend in and harmonize their designs with what was naturally there.  MacKenzie was about the art and craftiness of bunker design using the lips and flashing to give depth and deception and grace to the feature.  His greensites were more naturally sited, without mega earthmoving to create the kind of table top buttes that Raynor and Langford did often and almost identically.  

It just turns out that the engineer school of GCA had a series of tried and true hole designs that could be pounded onto flat or rolling land repeatedly, even if you had engineering problems to work out.

Some of my opinion, I could be wrong.

[Richard_Goodale]

Dick

You also could be right.

Rich

[Matt_Ward]

shivas:

Your remarks on Shoreacreas are well stated and I concur.

I played Shoreacres for the first time this past summer and I was expecting so much given its rating by GD and the comments from many I respect on GCA. The day I played Shoreacreas I also played Skokie in the afternoon and wondered how Skokie is so undervalued. For Shoreacreas to be rated in the top 50 is something I found amazing since I would not have it among the 100 best courses I've played.

I was really disappointed with the exception of a few holes you mentioned (i.e. 11th, 4th, 5th, 7th, 8th, there are a few others, etc, etc.) because there are plenty of holes that are simply duds in my opinion. You have to really question the beginning and ending holes because how do you leave out Lake Michigan in the process as you mentioned?

I would rate Camargo and Fisher's Island as two of the finest Raynor courses I've played (both would be in my top 100) with a few others a notch below such as The Creek, Yeamans Hall and Fox Chapel to name just three more.

[TEPaul]

This is a most interesting subject Tom, or as you say, a paradox! It seems to be a paradox that has been near the surface on this website for a long time.

I'm going to suggest to you that it may not be as much of a paradox as most think. It may not even be a paradox at all.

I think the reason it might not be is basically two things:

1/ The way we tend to look at those PARTICULAR architects from our unique perspective and the perceptions we have built up about them, likely with various misperceptions.

2/ The way they actually looked at their own projects and even their art (if we want to call it that--or they did?) sometimes with some very unique perceptions of their own that we might not be fully aware of or appreciate properly (in an historical context).

The best way to understand this, I think, is to go back and follow much more carefully the chronological thread of the evolution of architecture and also most definitely where--in other words, a distinction between Europe and America probably needs to be made at almost all times!

I think the first thing we need to do is to examine some of our own perceptions about various architects which are probably mostly misperceptions on our part.

We have clearly, on this site, cloaked some of these men in a veil of "naturalism", sometimes we call it even "minimalism". We sometimes say their first order of business was to search out sites for natural features to meld into their designs.

I think it's clear that MacDonald's first order of business was to build a course at NGLA that was 18 really good holes for golf period! His mission was to build a very solid course with few or no weaknesses or weak holes--that was his stated mission as he had proclaimed before doing this that there were no really good courses in the US and the vast majority were shameful. The actual construction "look" was likely much less of a concern to him, if at all, than the quality of the holes for golf, in my opinion!

MacDonald being Scotch/Canadian and growing up in Chicago had returned to St. Andrews in 1872 to go there to college where he became very interested in golf and under the tutelage of Old Tom. That was very early, not much more than 20+ years after the first rudimentary efforts at golf architecture ever. I think it's important for us to truly understand the chronological significance of that.

Obviously he returned some years later to study the holes he considered great ones to replicate at his planned NGLA. But what did he find in Europe then? Probably a number of desirable holes that were far more truly natural evolutions than a product of man-made architecture!

And the man-made architectural features he may have found on these holes were probably little more than rudimentary construction efforts to make golf slightly more functional. We've all seen the "sleepered" bunkers and such and they are anything but an attempt to blend into nature or the lines and randomness of nature. But they may have been functionally good for golf and also for the strategies of golf that definitely had emanated out of nature itself in a random way on the original Scotish links layouts, such as TOC.

So what I'm saying is what MacDonald was concentrating on at NGLA with Raynor, the engineer he'd picked to help him (who had never been involved in golf architecture before) was building a course of very superior "strategic" value throughout all the golf holes! And clearly the holes they designed and built, many of them replicas and replicas of pieces of holes and concepts of holes from Europe were extremely dramatic and interesting for golf--far more so than anything seen before in America.

And also what I'm suggesting is the golf and the apparent strategies involved were far more important to them than the fact that the holes might look manufactured or engineered or not! The design and the strategies of the architecture was from the truly natural layouts of Europe although the constructed features may have been not much more natural looking than some of the functional construction found on natural links courses which was the beginnings of rudimentary man-made architecture.

And not even being a golfer, Raynor went on and basically mimicked the style and also many of the actual holes of that original design--NGLA! And that's all he did, he never even remotely departed from that original prototype!

How did Raynor get so many good contracts and sites? Obviously with MacDonald's help and connections, particularly since NGLA was recognized as the finest course in America when it opened, just as MacDonald had intended it to be.

I would also dare say that NGLA was not just the first really good course built in America, it was also probably twenty times the construction effort than anything that had come before it! That's important to consider too.

It's also important to consider what MacDonald's inspiration was rebelling against! The courses that preceded NGLA were one of two things--either extremely rudimentary and boring, certainly by our present perceptions or of the shockingly bad geometric and symmetrical designs in early America which were not remotely natural or strategic!!

So I think we have to appreciate the chronology of all this much more than we do. MacD and Raynor were early, or early enough where the idea of constructing designs, holes, and features that were truly attempts to meld and blend with nature were not particularly important to them, if they even considered it. Good golf holes that were strategic and played in unique, dramatic and interesting ways were though.

I would say that it wasn't for at least ten more years that the idea of really blending with nature started to concern and intrique some of the American architects. This may have been inspired somewhat by the early Europeans like Park & Colt who had already built ORIGINAL creations in the heathlands--of course taking the principle of strategy from TOC, although the concepts and feature construction may have been more their own than what MacDonald did.

I also think that MacKenzie may have been the one to foster it along with his ideas of camoflauge and truly trying to make features almost indistinguishable from nature.

He spawned a whole group of architects that really did become fascinated by naturalism and how to actually construct to blend as much as possible with nature and who wrote a great deal about it and very well too. Architects like Thomas, Flynn, Hunter, Behr and Tillinghast, Ross and the others that really hit their strides in the late teens and particularly the 1920s which was the real meat of what we know as the "Golden Age".

And of course Raynor continued on doing the exact same thing he had stated out with at NGLA with MacD that was so successful; same early engineered style, same concepts, even many of the same holes right on through until the mid 1920s when he died.

So I don't think there really is a Raynor paradox or at least there shouldn't be! They were just trying to build great golf holes and if they happened to be highly manufactured looking and engineered, so what, as long as they were playing well and people liked them?!

[Matt_Ward]

Mea Culpa --

I was in error in my last post. Shoreacreas actually finished 87th in the latest GD top 100 ranking not the top 50.

[Matt_Ward]

JakaB:

Your assessment has some merit, but I really thought the uninspired land for a number of holes at Shoeacreas is what really threw me for a loop (i.e. the first three holes the 9th and 18th holes, to mention a few, not using the closelness to Lake Michigan). When 1/3 of a course is just so-so I have to wonder if there's enough "beef" for it to be considered in such lofty company. And, before anyone asks, I don't consider "beef" to mean long holes only.

I've played many courses where total length was not significant and where the prudent play is not always going forward with the driver. That's OK in my mind. My assessment does not mean that I didn't favor the course because MY GAME was of paramount concern. But, since we are human, it is quite possible that opinions of courses are made because of this. I'm human as much as the next person.

But when we honor courses as being among the best of its kind I have to wonder are we honoring current courses because of how we play the game today? To use the words of other players if Shoreacreas is indeed a "museum" course then should it rightly fall among the best courses that exist for today's game? I don't view Shoreacreas with other short courses that are in the GD top 100 such as Somerset Hills, Valley Club of Montecito, Pasatiempo, etc.

In comparing Raynor's work -- I love Camargo and Fisher's Island because, yes, both courses are not long, but they are routed on some magnificient piece of properties and do make the golfer play the fullest and most comprehensive sort of shots imagineable. You feel inspired to play each and every hole. I did not get that sense from Shoreacreas.

Until I got to the holes where the stream comes into play (4th) I started to ask myself something you don't ponder when playing a course of distinction ... "Is this it."

I guess what really infleunced me was having the opportunity to play Skokie in the afternoon and to see how that marvelous course is not rated as highly given its vast qualities. That really puzzled me then and now.

I commend your ability to play courses with the old implementsm, however, I try to look at golf as it exists in 2002 and that means using what we have today. Keep in mind, if you changed to the clubs you played at Shoreacreas think of how much moe challenging such layouts as Skokie would play.

Hope this helps ...

[TEPaul]

But Matt:

I thought this topic was about the apparent "Raynor Paradox". That's a real fur piece from the same old topic of rating and a mag's top 100!

[Lynn Shackelford]

Tom:

Don't fret, few of us pay much attention to Golf Digest rankings.  

[Matt_Ward]

TEPaul:

You are so right -- mea culpa again in steering in other elements that don't apply to this particular thread.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tom MacWood,

Perhaps he always possessed the latent architectual talent which was nuturred and brought to prominence by the melding of his mentor's insights and his professional backround.

It would seem to be a terrific combination, especially in that era.

Now, take it a step further and examine Charlie (steamshovel) Bank's work, in light of his backround and his mentor.  Again, perhaps the latent talent was there and it just needed nuturing and tutoring from his eminent mentor.

I think Raynor and Banks possessed a special talent, and perhaps they gravitated to this field because of that innate
talent.

I don't think that you or I or many others on this site could become the accomplished architects that Raynor and Banks became just by working for MacDonald or Raynor.  I think it takes more than tutoring, and more than training.  I think it takes a special talent that only some are fortunate enough to possess.

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

What adds to the Raynor paradox is the fact he apparently wrote very little, as Ran pointed out on another thread - that lack of writing contributes to his mystery. Luckly Macdonald wrote quite a bit on the subject and Raynor's disciple Banks also wrote a few articles. I think by studying Macdonald's philosophies - which had to be by far the most dominant influence on Raynor - and by studying what Banks wrote after Raynor's death one can get idea of Raynor's guiding principles.

In planning his ideal course Macdonald obviously had identified the models that would comprise his course. But once he decided what exactly he wanted it is intersting to see how went about finding the ideal property and the emphasis he placed in finding a naturally blessed property to place his classic holes - 'studying the contours of the ground'. Throughoout his writing on architecure he constantly emphasizes the need to utilize interesting contours and his other great point emphasis was on creating interesting greens. I think that emphasis on 'building' greens and at the same time utilizing nature are exactly what you find in the Raynor style.

When you read Banks you see similar thoughts to Macdonald but slightly refined. 'Remeber that a successful golf architect must have many qualifications. Of course, he must know the techniques of the game. He must know golf shots. He must (and how important this is) have any eye for the aesthetic. He must be a keen student of topography with an inborn sense for good golf holes and outstanding effects. He must be know how best to utilize the land at his disposal. He must be able to judge when the land is suitable and when it is not, and must be honest and straightfoward in the expression of his opinions. He must have a good imagination -- one which will enable him to build eighteen or thirty-six holes of great variety.'

I don't hink Raynor consciously went about creating his aesthetic paradox. He was simply reflecting what the principles he learned from Macdonald which he no doubt refined over time. But to say he simply built man-made golf courses or enigneered golf courses I think would not be accurate. If anything all three of these men were focused on utilizing nature.

While I agree that Macdonald and the NGLA spawned an American movement in golf architecture, I don't think that you can seperate the American evolution form the European movement. They shared many of the same influences and occured nearly simultaneously. Although in some ways the American movement did have a greater model in the NGLA, it allowed the American architects to believe they could 'design' or create an ideal or nearly ideal golf courses.

[TEPaul]

Tom:

I don't think I agree with you--not yet anyway until first determining exactly what evolved in golf architecture in the period from about 1890 to about 1910 in both Europe and also America. I'm not sure but I suspect the evolution or direction in that particular period created distinct differences in style and quality between the two areas, at least initially. I think it's important to see what that was and how it played out.

And another reason I don't think I agree with you is because I think you're attributing a certain focus to certain architects that they may not have had, at least not as early as you assume! I believe that alone can probably answer what you call the "Raynor Paradox", which wasn't a paradox at all, in my opinion.

I think we can make an assumption that from the beginnings of man-made architecture, probably somewhere around 1850 until about 1890 that the entire endeavour of architecture was extremely utilitarian and based on extremely simplistic function and probably almost entirely lacking in anything we might consider art or architectural principles. I support this by Tom Simpson's remark that these were the "architectural dark ages".

And using that assumption we should probably look at what kinds of work was being produced in Europe from 1850 to 1890 and then from 1890 on. And we should then look at America during it's initial architectural period of about 1890 until about 1910. We should then look to see what the seminal works of either area were and when and then what exactly influenced it and from where that influence (or even reaction) came!

If we can do that I think we can have a clearer understanding of what was influencing these early architects, particularly if we want to analyze correctly what you call the "Raynor paradox", which as I understand it is your struggle to understand how architects like MacDonald, Raynor, Banks, Langford etc could build such good early golf courses with such a highly manufactured construction style and still make it look natural somehow.

I think what I'm saying is that their construction style does not look particularly natural--not really natural at all in some important aspects. In some others it might to a degree but only for a particular reason--another reason altogether. But much of it didn't look natural then and it doesn't now, and I don't think we should continue to delude ourselves that we are somehow missing the genius or mystery of how they did made a highly engineered style look natural.

Frankly, I don't think they were focused on that, not then anyway. They were focused on building very good golf holes and courses that played well despite the fact that they looked very manufactured and engineered.

And I think we have to compare that, in America anyway, to the work that came before them that they were disgusted by--that being the highly utilitarian and geometric and symmetrical courses that were springing up on the American landscape. That shockingly bad era was both entirely devoid of interesting golf holes in any strategic sense whatsoever and also an abomination of construction methods and style in anything resembling natural form!

Macdonald broke hard away from that direction by building golf holes with particularly greens and also certainly heretofore not seen strategic principles thoroughout his course (NGLA), that were akin to some of the natural evolutionary holes of Europe and were far more magnificent for golf than anything America had seen before.

But were they trying to build great golf holes and also hide the engineered look of them? Not at all! Not yet anyway and frankly Raynor, Banks and some of the other MacDonald/Raynor disciples never did!

But they did build some great courses although the real desire to "hide the hand of man" in architectural features in the overall style of their constructed products came later and from other architects!

So I don't think there really was or is a "Raynor Paradox", simply because Raynor was not trying to do some of the things we think he was trying to do!

[Will E]

IMHO some of the greatest holes by Raynor were not "copies" of earlier CBM holes, but ideas that he came up with on his own. Perhaps we tend to think of the SR/CBM courses as copies of one another when actually they are unique works sharing a common theme, one I have never tired of.

[Ran Morrissett]

Tom M.,

I agree 100% with your statement that "to say he simply built man-made golf courses or enigneered golf courses I think would not be accurate. If anything all three of these men were focused on utilizing nature."

Of the Raynor courses I've seen, he tended to move little dirt between the tee and the green. At Fishers or Yale with their amazing topo, he built few fairway bunkers and let nature's contours provide the interest/strategy. At the subdued CCofC, he had to add in the fairway bunkering for interest but apart from those bunkers, little was moved between tee and green - there was never any shaping for shaping's sake.

The vast majority of today's developers would NOT be happy with such a simple (in appearance) design as CCofC, and thus 99% of modern architects would be forced to undertake a wall to wall shaping job on such a piece of property to lend it "character"  :-/

But not Raynor and his clientele. Yes, he often built his greens high (and thus the greenside bunkers became deep), but they were so well placed as to fit in with their surrounds, courtesy in large part to his excellent routings.

In fact, the real mystery is where did he find the dirt to build up such greens? If you look around these built-up green complexes, you can't detect man's hand at all. The vexing "where did the dirt come from" question is a sure sign that his courses very much enjoy a naturalness in their own right.

Others will always prefer the "MacKenzie look" but so what? Different styles that are still strategically engaging helps make golf the great game that it is.

[RJ_Daley]

Ran, I'll take a guess on where the material came from at CCofC;  the bottom of the river!  I think the dredging thing was a common way back then to get fill material.  Again, something an engineer would think of...

[TEPaul]

Ran:

I very much disagree with what you said about Raynor (and MacDonald) and I think I can prove it--and probably the best place would be to carefully analyze NGLA itself.

I'm not saying at all that both of them were not great routers and extremely good at finding great green sites too that had enormous natural appeal, because they were great at that. But if they threw a ton of a manufactured and engineered look into even those natural green sites for various reasons, then to them, so be it! They didn't do it for no reason, mind you, they did it to really enhance strategic ramifications and just general playability interest.

The absolute best example I can think of to prove this is NGLA's #8 on the green and green-end. In a natural context (original grades)  that area is a long running natural ridge coming down the left side of the hole and running through the green site and on off behind it. The ridge and the entire topography has a left to right cant and a natural slope that way.

So where did they get their dirt? They got a lot from the low right side!! That's where they did a considerable amount of cutting and they filled back up the slope making the entire right side of the green much higher than it could have been if they took the fill from the high side on the left and moved it down to the lower side!!

Why did they do such a contrary thing that clearly looks manufactured and engineered in the original natural grade setting of that green site? Because it made for a very dramatic green and green-end albeit very engineered looking!

Not only that but they took enough fill from the low side on the right to stack up the tees for #9 even higher than the top of the natural ridge which was in the position of the present 9th tee boxes--but lower than now!

Why did they do that, again, contrary to what one might think of as normal like lowering that left side? Probably for a couple of practical reasons. A higher tee made #9 look and play better and heightening the tee boxes even higher above the high ridge on the left side probably took some of the danger out of incoming balls on #8 to the 9th tees!

But the point is if they really wanted to tone down the engineered look on that green they went in the opposite direction. Why? Because, I don't believe they really cared if it looked engineered, it created a good golf hole anyway and probably solved some practical problems in the process!

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

Tom
The paradox is not why Raynor produced features that appear geometric or engineered, the paradox is why I find these courses with engineered features so appealing when my tastes tend toward natural features. Is not Raynor's paradox it is the paradox in my tastes.

I believe the reason Macdonald, Raynor and Banks designs work so well has to do with their ability to utilize nature, setting up a very appealing contrast between there man-made features and some wonderful sites.

If you read Macdonald's thoughts - and Banks for that matter - you can see the importance the placed in utilizing and incorporating natural features.  Macdonald is famous for reproducing famous holes - Redan, Eden, Bairritz, etc - but actually he was focused as much reproducing famous features taken from certain holes and incorporating these features into the design based on what the ground gave him - "..thirty sketches, personally drawn, of holes embodying distinctive features, which in themselves seemed misplaced, but could be utilized with certain character of undulating ground and lay the foundation of an ideal."

Their famous one-shot holes would seem to be a more practical situation and that is probably why they appear consistently from course to course, their other holes are more site specific. At the NGLA he 'found' an Alps and a Redan 'that was absolutely natural', he built an Eden, a modified Sahara, and Road hole - the remaining holes were 'more or less composite, but some are absolutely original." And he goes on say that the original holes might be the best, and that Hutchinson felt so, and that he and HH discussed how to create natural undualtions for some of the greens. Hutchinson wrote, 'There is a Redan, and Alps, a Sahara...but the larger number, and possibly the best in character, have been planned out of the designers brain with such suggestions as his experience, gathered in Europe, and the natural trend of the ground he had to deal with, supplied to it." Macdonald goes on to say he is not confident the course 'is not perfect and beyond criticim...The only-thing that I do now is to endeavor to make the hazards as natural as possible.'

If you look at Macdonalds 'essential characteristics' in designing a golf hole you will find 'nature of the soil and perfection in undualtions and hillocks' at the top of the list. He goes on to discuss 'the monstrosites of modern golf courses with are travesty on Nature.'

My point is despite the apparent man-made or engineered features that these men produced they also were keenly aware of Nature and how to maximize the interesting features that Nature provided. And that these engineered features for some odd reason work well with Nature, possibly because they are devoid of style, almost neutral, and for that reason they seem to blend in.

The aerial of Chicago is a good example. The course is full of bunkers with embankments and raised geometric greens, but if you stand at a corner of the course gaise out over the property what do you see but acres and acres of gently undulating prarie grassland with a few scattered trees here and there, the hand of man is not apparent - it is a paradox.

[Richard_Goodale]

Tom MacW

Wih all due respect, if old CB really believed that at NGLA he had found "a Redan that was absolutely natural", he neither knew North Berwick or what a "redan" really is.  Any strategist who would place a fortress (redan) in a valley would not last long in the real world.  Either his enemy (or more likely his soliders) would draw and quarter him first.

That being said, it is a great, great golf hole......

....and, its greatness is in that MacD manufactured, from golfing terrain which was not at all conducive to a "redan", a variation of the original redan which also, even today (when playing fast and firm), requires what Liddel-Hart called "indirect strategy" to overcome.