IMO Discussion: A Renaissance Movement in Golf Architecture

[JNC Lyon]

JNC,

The jazz comment was interesting.

My next question is, did some of the Golden Age's message get lost along the way?  Are the Renaissance men of today still constrained by the backward progress of the moderns?

Definitely not - Influence, style and philosophy are all a free choice.

What great modern courses are under 7,000 yards?  By and large, the 7,000-yard layout is a product of the modern era, yet today's renaissance architects still feel the need to build extra-long courses.  There seem to be some principles of the modern era that have carried over into renaissance GCA.

[Mac Plumart]

Isn't Pacific Dunes, something like, 6,700 yards?  Are any of the Bandon Dunes resort courses over 7,000 yards?

[JNC Lyon]

Mac,

The first three are under 7,000, and Old Mac is right around 7,000.  It does not surprise me that the Bandon courses are this short, but I believe there are others by the renaissance archies that are well over 7,000.

[Mac Plumart]

By and large, the 7,000-yard layout is a product of the modern era, yet today's renaissance architects still feel the need to build extra-long courses.  There seem to be some principles of the modern era that have carried over into renaissance GCA.

I think you are correct. 

Perhaps Bandon's success and the sub-7000 yard courses there could change this trend.  If need be, let's go par 70 or 71.  I always find that a cool little quirk.  Get away from 7,000 being a magic number, same for 72.

[Peter Pallotta]

Gents - I once started a thread on the "Hierarchy of Values", and Ian's recent post reminded me of it.  If there is one thing I know I shouldn't ever do is to judge another man's hierarchy of values, even when -- especially when -- I think I know a man well enough to determine what those values are. Further complicating the matter (or adding nuance) is the fact that a man's hierarchy of values rarely matches his actual talents (or range/hierarchy of talents); and even then, those talents need to match the times he lives in and the opportunities that life presents him.  (Tom D said all of this better with his list of the 3 important things).  Maybe genius and accomplishment are just the perfect dovetailing/matching of Values + Talents +Opportunities (and perhaps this is why we're told not to judge another until we've walked a mile in his shoes). It seems to me that for many of the 'moderns', creating classic and timeless and truly great golf courses simply was not at the top of their Value System -- and so their Talents were directed elsewhere.  And as far as I can tell, none of them had the luxury of being amateurs, and so Making a Living had to rank pretty high on the list.  And so I come back to much earlier posts - WHY did they think they could best make a living creating the kind of courses that they did -- and to that I say it was a reflection of a marketplace that above all wanted stability and growth and a clarity of purpose and belief.  

Peter

[JNC Lyon]

Peter,

I see what you are saying to an extent, but at some point Trent Jones decided to do things the way he did--and THEN the market started demanding it.  He capitalized when he figured out he could make a great career out of it, but, at some point, he and he alone had to make the creative decision to build courses that way.  He, not the marketplace, came up with the penal style of architecture.  To me, the marketplace explains the proliferation of modern architecture, but not the advent of it.

I think it is easy to label Robert Trent Jones as the eternal self-promoter who built courses the way he did to do good business.  But plenty of his courses show enough flair and strategy to reveal that Trent Jones had plenty of creativity.  Where did that unique style come from?

[Tom_Doak]

What great modern courses are under 7,000 yards?  By and large, the 7,000-yard layout is a product of the modern era, yet today's renaissance architects still feel the need to build extra-long courses.  There seem to be some principles of the modern era that have carried over into renaissance GCA.

JNC:  Pacific Dunes is 6700 yards.  Barnbougle Dunes is 6700 yards.  St. Andrews Beach is 6600 yards.  Stone Eagle is 6800 yards.  Stonewall is 6600 yards.  Friars Head was well under 7000 yards, to the point that they didn't put the yardages on the scorecard so as not to draw attention to it.  Cuscowilla is 6600 yards, and Bandon Trails 6700.

I would love to draw more attention to this, but sadly, our clients do not want to draw attention to it because they are afraid some people will dismiss these courses out of hand as being too short, and make their decisions about where to travel based on a scorecard yardage they wouldn't play, anyway.

I will continue to build shorter courses whenever a client is amenable to it.  Some are not amenable to it.  Our current client in Florida, who is a low handicap player and a long hitter, asked both Bill Coore and me to make our courses 7500 yards, although he'll settle for 7200 or so.  So, we build a few tees we otherwise wouldn't, and hope that most people have the sense not to play from back there.  Julian Robertson wanted a longer course in case it made a difference getting the New Zealand Open.  Michael Pascucci wanted Sebonack to be very long because he likes to see Tour players humbled, I think.  Rock Creek and Common Ground are both well above 7000 yards because they're at altitude; they don't play nearly as long as the card says.

I know I am fighting the tide here.  I know that most architects refuse to fight alongside me, and it's one main reason there aren't more other architects whose work I really respect ... because so many have dropped the ball on this issue.  Great golf courses are about character, not about length.  Just look at the Barnbougle thread -- the holes that generate the most interest are the really short ones.

[JNC Lyon]

Good stuff, Tom.  I guess I'll have to see some of these courses at some point! You mention that most architects continue to build courses longer.  Do you think that pressure has been held over from the modern era to build courses that exceed the 7,000 mark?  As I see it, there is no other explanation. Most of these modern layouts won't host professional tournaments any time soon, and modern equipment only truly helps the top 5% of golfers.

[David Harshbarger]

Outsider looking in...

This idea of a dark age post war misses the boat.  The post war/baby boom years grew golf's popularity, that's the foundation for the most recent boom.

From many recent posts, the Arcihitects of that era delivered engaging venues that fueled the game's growth.  Open. Accessible.  Affordable by design.  Fun. These seem are the tenets of the Renaissance, too, with the addition of strategic. 

It seems that in that era, GA was a regional business.  Architects plied their trade regionally.  Like building archiectects today, few are trying to be the next Gehry or Pei.  Most are happy to pay for kid's soccer with a workable school, office park or fire house.  In that era, that meant a reasonably priced, engaging, public access course.  That the course didn't sell RE or bring private jets in was not a concern.  What was a concern was a good round for the locals, day in, year in.

RTJ and Pete Dye are the scripted antagonist and protaganist of this mid-century story.  Is this really appropriate?  If RTJ is the master self-promoter, accepting his promotions as the standard of his era does a disservice to the other architects of the era? And if Dye wanted just to be different from RTJ, why should that counter response frame the other work of that era?  From a local perspective the work of this era fueled the game's growth.  Isn't this the model to follow?  For if golf itself is in distress due to demographic and generational changes, maybe looking to the architects who spurred the mid-century golf boom will yield lessons a more romantic view might obscure?

(like there's anything to build :-/

Respectfully, DH

Dave

[Phil_the_Author]

David,

You stated, "It seems that in that era, GA was a regional business." I would disagree with you when it comes to the truly great architects of that time. A few Tillinghast exampleas.

In the fall of 1919 he was at work at Baltusrol, November he was in Arizona. The end of the month in Los Angeles redesigning the greens at Midwick from sand to grass. He went up the coast to SF in early december and was their through the end of January 1920. He travelled to the midwest before finding himself in Dallas in March where he designed Brook Hollow, Cedar Crest and Dallas CC. From their he went to Oklahoma before heading back to the New York area with Stops in Ohio and Pa. on the way. His wife Lillian made this trip with him.

Tilly made a number of trips like this throughout his career before his 2+ year national course consultation tour. Another example is his September 1915 Florida trip which was followed by his going to San Antonio and working their on Brackenridge Park, Ft. Sam Houston and the San Antonio CC from the end of September through the first week of November. He then headed on up to Oklahoma and was interviewed in Des Moines after the first of the year before heading back east.

Ross may have "mailed in" many paper designs, but he certainly did his share of large scale traveling as did Mackenzie and Raynor and others.

[Mac Plumart]

Phil...

That line struck me as odd as well.  However, I wonder if it just a simple mix-up in the meaning of the abbreviation GA.  I think a lot of you guys are using it to mean Golden Age, but I wonder if in this instance it was meant to mean Golf Architecture.

[David Harshbarger]

Phil, what I meant by GA was golf architecture, and the era I was referring to was the post war boom.  I was touched by the Jim Spears obit, and my research into the limited number of courses I've had access to and enjoyed.  Many of these have turned out to be from the dark age of freeway design, by less known architects whose body of work is regional.

As far as the stars of the business go, Tilly, MacDonald, Dr. M, RTJ, Dye, the Fazios, and many of members of this board are clearly established as national or international talents whose work epitomizes the best of the craft and is worthy of study. 

However, as we talk about the Renaissance in GCA today, given how some of these post war courses by the lesser lights are still relevant to many players, and not the 5-10% of the big spending players, but the 80-90% of the working Joe's in a Tuesday night league with their buddies, does that era also offer lessons that should go into Renaissance?

[Phil_the_Author]

Hi David,

No apology needed; it was my misunderstanding.

[JNC Lyon]

Phil, what I meant by GA was golf architecture, and the era I was referring to was the post war boom.  I was touched by the Jim Spears obit, and my research into the limited number of courses I've had access to and enjoyed.  Many of these have turned out to be from the dark age of freeway design, by less known architects whose body of work is regional.

As far as the stars of the business go, Tilly, MacDonald, Dr. M, RTJ, Dye, the Fazios, and many of members of this board are clearly established as national or international talents whose work epitomizes the best of the craft and is worthy of study. 

However, as we talk about the Renaissance in GCA today, given how some of these post war courses by the lesser lights are still relevant to many players, and not the 5-10% of the big spending players, but the 80-90% of the working Joe's in a Tuesday night league with their buddies, does that era also offer lessons that should go into Renaissance?

Popularity for popularity's sake is not necessarily good for the game.  The modern idea of the architect as self-promoter has created a set of "signature" architects who make money off their name.  This is what Robert Trent Jones started doing after his initial creative years.  This trend has led to a boom of courses that are of little substance or merit to the golfing world.  In my mind, it is better to hire an architect who will take on a few projects and focus heavily on each project than a well-known architect of the modern era who just churns out Blueprint Number Seven.

This is why talk of expanding the game at all costs troubles me: it is quality, not quantity, that matters.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Outsider looking in...

This idea of a dark age post war misses the boat.  The post war/baby boom years grew golf's popularity, that's the foundation for the most recent boom.

From many recent posts, the Arcihitects of that era delivered engaging venues that fueled the game's growth.  Open. Accessible.  Affordable by design.  Fun. These seem are the tenets of the Renaissance, too, with the addition of strategic.  

David,

Thanks for pointing out the obvious!  If the courses of the 50's were as bad as advertised here, would there have been a golf boom?  If courses of the 90's were so bad, why were they the ones that were busiest, while older courses were the ones that were closing?

By and large, newer courses are more attractive to golfers.  Naturally, the best of the best in any generation maintain their status.  That said, RTJ in the 50's was trying to bring Oakland Hills type golf to the masses, more in a resort setting, for those who couldn't join the club.  In the next golf booms, many gca's were trying to localize that even further, bringing a reasonable fascimle of club level golf to the local muni and privately owned publics.

In general, the goal was always the same - to improve gca and minimize the difference between publics and privates that existed in the beginning of golf in America.  It seems to have worked, although you would never know it by the talk here, even though I am guessing we all fell in love with golf on some lesser than top 100 golf course.

Until your post, I would have never thought to think of RTJ as the Tom Bendelow of his generation!  Grahted golfer standards continued to rise, as early golfers were satisfied with much less.


Basically, doesn't gca just respond to the market?  And the market ALWAYS wants something new and different.  All I know is that at some point, what we think is good today will look like beehive hairdos at some point.  The difference between great architecture and bad archiitecture is the number of years until our perceptions of it change.

[Kris Shreiner]

JNC "LP"

Stimulating thread! While golf's post WW ll boom certainly took golf design in a different direction for many, that really shouldn't be looked at as a travesty. As the ability of man to "shape" the land changed, with the advent of technical machinery capable of rapidly completing larger tasks, it seems only logical that they would want to try out their possibilities. While a more manufactured presentation often resulted, if the design was solid, is that a bad thing? 

A more natural course presentation has always appealed to me, but I've never slighted a course on that criteria alone, especially if the other elements in evidence are well done. Kelly touches on the return to, or borrowing of styles from designers past, as perhaps lacking some originality or creativity. There may be some truth in that, though their timeless utility, and the efficiency of the routings and sequencing of holes by the real stars of yesteryear are most certainly worth emulating today.

That to me, is a lot of what Tom Paul speaks to...the craft and careful thought that went into taking a less is more approach, yet still consistently delivering interest and fun in a solid test. Certain ground will naturally offer more potential and today that setting can even be created artifically.

The goal for us should be that "responsible" golf design should be the order of the day. If we want a healthy game, it has to start with the living canvas over which we play! That hasn't always been the case and while we are doing a better job in that area, there is a long way to go.

A quick glance at some real questionable projects being done overseas in Asia and elsewhere is quick valdiation of that. The idea that...well it's dead here in the states, let's go crap it up somewhere else, doesn't fly.

The real stars in my book are the golf designers that will walk, or not even entertain doing certain projects, because they KNOW it's not the right thing to do at a certain site!

 

[Jeff_Brauer]

Kris,

The "right thing" would be a lot different to different designers.  Take for example the Kohler course proposed south of Bandon by Pete Dye. It will look a lot different than what Tom Doak's version would be.  Even if Doak was hired, what would his vision for a competing/complementary course there be?  We know Old Mac was his response to doing a second course at the same place.  Would he alter his PD style to do something different in a similar setting?

Should we be excited about a "typical Pete Dye course" in a great setting?  Should Pete change his style to accomodate the site?

Short version, not sure if there is a right answer for any specific site. Its all influenced by a lot of other stuff.

Which is why I agree with you that the 50's wasn't a travesty at all.  Take:

New technology,
Need for affordability
A desire to put the recent past behind us (WWII) even architecturally by developing new styles in all kinds of design (look at old TV shows and movies from the 50's for that sort of Art Deco furniture!)
A modernistic mind set overall

Given all those factors, can anyone envision that the collective best minds of the era weren't putting out the best possible product that met the needs of the then consumer?

[JNC Lyon]

Jeff, et al:

I'm not sure if I buy the argument that we can give the 50s courses a pass because of their historical context.  Surely we have some standards that we can use to judge golf architecture across time periods?  Many architects today have managed to build courses with strategy and options while dealing with "new technology" and the "need for affordability."  Why couldn't the architects in the 1950s do it?

As for the architecture depending on what type of site the architect receives, that claims seems more reasonable to me.  Pete Dye is an interesting case because it seems like he never gets the ideal sites.  Harbour Town, The Ocean Course, Whistling Straits, and Teeth of the Dog were all seaside sites, but they were dead flat and, in TOTD's case, swampland.  It would be interesting to see what Dye did if he actually receive a great site on the Oregon coast.

[David Harshbarger]

Thanks for pointing out the obvious!

....

Until your post, I would have never thought to think of RTJ as the Tom Bendelow of his generation!  Grahted golfer standards continued to rise, as early golfers were satisfied with much less.

Jeff, You've discovered my secret power, Master of the Obvious!

Unfortunately, the Tom Bendelow reference is lost on me, so I'll take it as a compliment.  

Tom Paul's original premise is a Renaissance movement in GCA, using the Golden Age as the model.  Much of this recent thread, IMHO, has seen praise along with greater historical context for the work of the 50's and 60's boom, an era that at times is stereotyped as bland or insipid, at other times blamed for the deconstruction of the GA works.

To Tom's points, here in 2011, everyone with any love of GCA would agree that the courses bequeathed to us from the GA should be treasured, preserved, and maintained to capture the spirit of their intent.  Their aren't going to be any more of them built, and they are important historically, and enjoyable today, too.

What to me is more interesting, and speaks to what Kris is saying about "responsible" design, is what would be/are the attributes of a Renaissance GCA.  Looking to the GA, and also to some of the comments about the better work of the 50's and 60's, the work that made the golf boom possible, and that leaves us with many courses still relevant today, especially in the muni/public space, is it possible to boil down the qualities that would define a Renaissance GCA?

I'd propose:


Strategic Qualities/Playability (including all of the qualities of routing, interest, challenge, variety from hole to hole, day-to-day, and across skill levels)
Economy
Style
Walkability

What it would not include would be:

Naturalistic
Site
Houses

Everyone gets Strategic Qualities.  To me this is a large part of the Craft of Golf architecture, and the imperative to honor the unique opportunity to speak to the end users/consumers, the golfers.

Economy, to me, involves both the hidden side of GCA: removing water, sustainable practices, affordability (where the GCA decisions impact this), etc.  I'm sure the professionals on here take this part to heart.  This is the Profession of GCA.

Style should not be confused with stylish.  Raynor bunkers, Ross greens, Dye RR Ties; these are affectations of the GCA's style, and to the extent that GCA is Art, these qualities should be honored and encouraged in any GCA Renaissance.

Walking, though not as fundamental as the other dimensions, should be a priority where possible.  Sure, some sites aren't suited for it, but designing unwalkable courses on sites that could support takes away an important part of the experience for many.

I love Naturalistic settings, but I wouldn't make a prerequisite of a Renaissance style.  Instead, I see that as an expression of Style, and in some cases a means to Economy, but not the only means or direction to reach either.

Great sites tee the ball up for great courses, no doubt about it.  But a Renaissance GCA should not be limited by the quality of the site.  If golf can be played on a piece of land, a Renaissance Architecture should bring about an excellent course.

Finally Houses.  The business model behind many courses is Real Estate.  I'm sure there are a lot of good or even great courses out there that wouldn't exist if there weren't some plots backed up to the fairway.  But, I've never felt that a course was made better by a closeup view of 1000 grills, pools, and lanais.

If I've managed to capture the obvious again, I've done what I set out to do!

Dave

[Ian Andrew]

I’ve always wondered about the fact that so many of the designers from that era seemed to end up in design by accident. Some were builders, others agronomists, many were superintendents and others were engineers, but so few had set out to be architects. The leadership had ties to some of the greats, but most had little previous experience in design and were thrust into that position through circumstance.

[Tom_Doak]

Which is why I agree with you that the 50's wasn't a travesty at all.  Take:

New technology,
Need for affordability
A desire to put the recent past behind us (WWII) even architecturally by developing new styles in all kinds of design (look at old TV shows and movies from the 50's for that sort of Art Deco furniture!)
A modernistic mind set overall

Given all those factors, can anyone envision that the collective best minds of the era weren't putting out the best possible product that met the needs of the then consumer?

Jeff:

If you just extend the same logic to every generation, then it's clear that the marketplace is always delivering exactly what the consumer needs.  And nobody is EVER just "mailing it in".

I don't know that there is any use in comparing different eras and trying to determine if one was better than another.  I still think we should only judge architects one course at a time, because it's the course and not the architect that is the end product for people to enjoy.  But clearly, some eras have produced more great courses than others, and while some of that may have to do with trends and what's fashionable at any given time, I think ascribing it all to that would be wrong.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Tom,

I guess my point was that we sometimes seem to make an assumption that we know exactly what our fathers enjoyed when they played golf in the 1950's.  I would wager that the real estate course, and McGolfCourse (pioneered by Bob Dedman on the club side) both affordable AND in their back yards were vastly enjoyed by their members, and couldn't be if not housing courses and built for affordability.

I guess I am saying every generation of customers might have vastly different needs, perceptions, et al. Not to mention, we have to remember this board is a testament to mostly (despite the mission statement) talking about the best of the best.  Not to mention sticking our big bazoos into other peoples golf business!

[Bill Brightly]

My overidiing interest in golf course architecture is what has happened, and is happening, to classic ODG courses. And I think to understand that, with all due respect to the architects, you have to try and get into the heads of the board members who ran those clubs from 1960-1990. These were the guys who created the demand for renovation work. They paid the bills. They had to have a strong motivation to bring in an architect and make changes to the course. So while the hired architect may have had a briefcase full of ideas for the course, he ultimately was doing the work desired by a handful of powerful  club members. (Jon, since you are in college now, this is the time when your Dad was youngster, and perhaps your grandfather was one of the decision makers...)

I think understanding the historical perspective of this time period is critical. To answer an earlier question, the post WW 2 era most notably different than WW 1 because of the incredible advances in technology. Ian Andrew described it a making life easier. Modernization was everywhere in the lives of Americans (Sorry, I can only write from a US perspective.) Televisions, washers, driers, one or two cars in every driveway, going to the hairdresser, etc. etc. Americans wanted MODERN and with the rise in golf's popularity, there was an influx of new club members to pay for work to be done on country club golf courses.


So while playing their ODG courses, the powerful club members probably looked around at the "tired" old courses,  with tired looking bunkers with hazards probably too close to the tee, and compared that to what they saw on TV and the new courses they played in their travels. So they got together in their board meetings and said "it is time to update our course!" And the vision of what they wanted almost certainly was heavily influnced by what they saw on TV and the big, bold courses being built by RTJ. I imagine that there was very little sympathy for the craftmanship of the work completed by the Old Dead Guys, these board memebers just saw OLD. So they jumped in their brand new cadillac, bought a new washer, dryer, and color TV, picked up their wives from the hairdresser, and determined that the look and feel of their golf courses had to be modernized. Their OLD courses simply had to be changed to look like new courses being built by RTJ, and that look dominated for 20 years or more.

Throw in Earth Day of 1970 and the tree lined fairways of Augusta, and millions of pine trees appeared to further obliterate the work done by the ODG's. My point is that the most significant changes to these courses were caused by club members, not the architects. And my home course has a man-made pond on 17 because the committee wanted a pond...

[Niall C]

JNC,

The jazz comment was interesting.

My next question is, did some of the Golden Age's message get lost along the way?  Are the Renaissance men of today still constrained by the backward progress of the moderns?

Definitely not - Influence, style and philosophy are all a free choice.

Ian

While your last line is undoubtedly true, you still have to contend with the clients wishes, and if the clients views are haveily influenced by the moderns as JNC puts it, then surely your work is indeed constrained by previous standards that the client then expects ?

Niall

[Jeff_Brauer]

Bill,

Digging deeper, my opinon is that there were factors in the 50's and 60's (and 70's) that influenced those decisions to renovate, some hard to understand.

I do know first hand that in the 70's maintenance cost reduction was a paradigm shift and the highest part of the design triangle, whereas it might not have been when courses were originally designed.

I don't know earlier eras as much, but have told the story of the phone book ads in the 60's touting modern professional design and "elevated greens" as sales features.  It appeared to me then that the "old look" had worn out to many people.  And it may not be surprising that old courses were just "run down" to golfers of that era.

I surmise that clubs (and moreso munies) hadn't applied strict financial controls to the biz they were in as today.  The classic courses may in some cases (certainly not the top end courses) just looked like crap after years of deferred and reduced maintenance and investment during and after the depression, WWII.

And, as I have hinted, just as perhaps the arts and crafts movement influenced 1920's design, I think Art Deco, streamlined trains, streamlined jets vs props, FLW and his Prairie Style, Mies and his spartan style, etc. all had their influence on golf design, too.

In other words, while at this momemt we think of the 1920's as the Golden Age, because of all we have seen, when you take into account what those in the 50's and 60's saw, and the sometimes moribund econonic environments (similar to now) its just possible that they viewed the same designs in a completely different light.

And, in both cases, lets not forget that on this forum, we tend to compare every golden age design with the top ten.  In truth, not all were top 100 designs, and with reduced maintenance, they may not have looked like top 1000 designs.