IMO Discussion Series: "The Architect as Genius" by Mike Young

[Ed Oden]

"The genius of you Americans is that you never make clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves, which make us wonder at the possibility that there may be something to them that we are missing."  Gamel Abdel Nasser

Like many on this site, I discovered Ran’s course reviews and the IMO pieces long before I knew the DG existed.  One of the first IMO pieces I remember reading was Mike Young’s “The Architect as Genius” (http://www.golfclubatlas.com/in-my-opinion/mike-young-the-architect-as-genius/).  I’m not entirely sure why, but Mike’s piece really struck a chord with me.  Part of that is undoubtedly that Mike’s practical approach appeals to my personality better than some of the more theoretical pieces on GCA.  But I also think the term “genius” is vastly overused when discussing golf course architecture.  We toss it around casually to emphasize a point and sometimes to pat ourselves on the back at how observant we are.  True genius, however, is a fleeting rather than constant quality.  Einstein, Mozart, da Vinci and Homer Simpson (perhaps the greatest genius the world has ever known) were capable of undeniable inspiration.  But not everything they produced was genius (although Homer comes pretty damn close).  Expecting golden age architects to be any different is silly. 

A few quick thoughts on Mike’s piece to get the ball rolling:

•   It is interesting that this thread immediately follows the discussion on Tom Paul’s “A Renaissance Movement of Golf Architecture”.  Tom’s IMO is a celebration of the golden age architects and a call to protect their work.  Mike, on the other hand, while praising the ODGs, cautions against over-romanticizing every aspect of their work as divine inspiration.  The two pieces are not necessarily contradictory, but they do provide an interesting juxtaposition.

•   Mike states that the “sanctification of courses by these famous architects can get in the way of thoughtful restorations”.  As many of you know, Kris Spence recently completed work at Carolina Golf Club on our Donald Ross course.  Kris’s work was maybe 75% restoration and 25% renovation.  Some of the places where Kris deviated from a strict restoration are the most improved areas of the course.  I can say without hesitation that our course would not be as good as it is today if we had stuck to a pure restoration of what Ross designed. 

•   Mike actually published an update to his IMO in The Golfer Magazine in 2008.  Most of the update was identical, with what appeared to me to be some editorial revisions.  But there was one new line that I found interesting.  When discussing the renewed focus on the ODGs, Mike said “Their recent fame has helped to save many of their courses from mutilation or worse.”
   
Thanks in advance to those who chime in.

"Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein."  Joe Theismann

[Phil_the_Author]

"Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein."  Joe Theismann

Or in Mike's case Bubba Einstein...
 
 
 

[Tom_Doak]

Ed:  Impressive bookend quotes from Nasser and Joe Theismann ... how could you possibly go wrong with both of them on your side?!

You are right, and so is Mike, that "genius" is a vastly overrated part of design.  In general, most great courses are the product of hard work by a large team of people trying to do their best.  If we're lucky, there may be a moment of true genius every so often, but it's not like they happen on an everyday basis; so an architect who spends only a certain amount of time on site is not likely to have too many per course.

[Carl Rogers]

Is "inspiration" the same thing as "genius"?

Or what might be the source or motivator of "inspiration"?

[Wade Schueneman]

One thing that Mike really got me thinking about is the whole restoration movement.

To take a hot topic example, maybe it would be useful to consider the C&C "restoration" at Pinehurst #2.  I have to wonder if C&C ever looked at old photos and thought something like "Ross got that detail wrong.  We can improve upon that."  After all, Ross may have been a genius, but that does not mean that he can never be improved upon.  I know that Mr. Doak has great respect for MacKenzie, but I have to wonder if there was not at least one feature at Pasatiempo that he might have wanted to introduce (rather than reintroduce).  I think that those two projects might be excellent case studies, as they represent today's geniuses working on restoring the vision of yesterday's geniuses (on courses that Ross and Mac spent years refining and "perfecting").  Would it have been better to give C&C and Mr. Doak carte blanche rather than instructing them merely to restore (and I am not implying that restoration is an easy task)?  

I gues my point is that if I owned a golf course built by a famous golden age architect and I hired a brilliant architect to do work on the course I would probably instruct that architect to make the course as good as possible rather than instucting the architect to try to recreate what some other architect did.

[Colin Macqueen]

Gentlemen,
I would have thought that "genius" was something that everybody recognised for all time. Maybe that is just pedantic semantics on my part but..........could someone supply a couple of examples of genius on a golf hole/course and see if all and sundry on this forum would agree with the example. It would prop up my thesis if there was unanimous agreemnat and might be a first on this board!!!!

Cheers Colin

[Peter Pallotta]

Thanks, Ed.  

I read today about Edison inventing the light bulb on his 1000th try.  When asked how it felt when he failed for the 999th time, he said "I didn't fail 999 times.  I discovered 999 ways how NOT to invent the light bulb."

Genuis is, in part, the infinite capacity to focus on small detaills.  But I don't think it is only or even mainly that (not, that is, when we are talking about true genius.)

I believe genius is the expression of vision and imagination of a special kind.  

I won't argue with Mike -- perhaps the term can't (and shoudn't be applied) to ANY golf course architect, living or dead -- and Mike is certainly right to point out the blind fawning over the past greats does a disservice to both the ancients and the moderns, and besides, actually misses the TRUTH of what the art-craft acutally entails.

BUT, since I'm just a fan, I like the idea that genius might exist, even in gca -- it enriches the discourse to assume that, every once in a while at least, a special kind of vision and imagination has manifested itself, and can again.

Peter

[Mike_Young]

I just reread my essay and am still in agreement with it for the most part.  I am not saying there has never been genius in golf course design but it is such a miniscule art form that it has never had a chance for genius to be discovered or even practiced over several generations because of the economies that allow it to happen in the first place.   Since I wrote the piece I have read the book Outliers and it makes me realize how critical timing is to all great issues in our world.  If Andrew Carnegie or Bill Gates were born even 10 years earlier or later they would not be considered genius....yet someone else would be....
There will be no "geniuses" in golf course design for at least another 10 years...BUT take a minute and think about the last 40 years.....there has been a concerted effort to market the business of golf course architecture whether thru trade groups, associations or educational curriculums....was there ever a real need for the "modern architect"  model.  When all of the these golden age classics were designed, how many of the designers  actually practiced full time?  Not many ..most were either golf professionals or trust fund baby types with the resources to pursue the hobby of golf design.  The same type of guy that played top level amateur golf after college.  Aside from timing was the issue of connections....during the golden age era, the top guys designing courses had some way of being in the network that had the funds and the contacts to design the top projects.    Just like today....talent has nothing to do ( or very little) with acquiring the top jobs of the last 40 years.  The top courses evolved despite the talent or lack of talent due to location, budget, quality of site and the contacts of the owner or his marketing abilities.  Why is this?  Because 99 percent of the clients don't know a thing about golf architecture and go with the what their network tells them.  Most of the signatures of today never really studied the subject....they grew up around the business and had family connected to the sources that could get the right projects on the ground and bring in the members to give those right projects staying power....we will never know how much better some of  these places could have been. 

I do think there is genius in golf course design but it is in the "finding the course" or routing as we describe it.  And it is in finding the natural routing with tee sites flowing from green sites and then in placing a simple strategy upon such.  It is not in finding 16 or 17 holes and tying them together with earthmoving....that doesn't take genius.  Such opportunities are few and far between and almost nonexistent for many of us.   And over the last 40 years the signatures rarely routed the course....since most were land-planned before they won the job.  But for one to think the ODG's planned every little bump and bunker nook is crazy....

Let me make sure to state"I AM NOT A BUTT BOY"...  but the only architect that has gained national or international prominence without having grown up in the business was TD....but in my opinion he made a calculated risk early....he might not admit it....but publishing the Confidential Guide was either going to make him or break him....also in my opinion he had a passion for actually learning how the business got to where it was....others of us have entered the business in ways where we could also see how the business got to where it is today w/o being under another architect.....rarely if ever did one make a name for himself in golf design before being known to the golf insiders....it was always a given that one came into golf design from the golf world....this in itself eliminates many of the unfounded geniuses out there.

Modern golf design is a hype job....with many of the pompous believing their own hype.....why?   because the client is ignorant of golf architecture....
When one removes all of the hype and promotion that has been applied to the field of golf design over the last 40 years he can then take an honest look at what really makes up the "design" part of the golf business.  Think about it...we have been sold on the hype of needing all of these plans for permitting.... and then we need them for all of these accurate bids.....and then we need them so that the contractor can give an accurate as-built...truth is the engineer can provide almost all of this....we really don't even need the term "architect" in the golf industry.......all that is needed by the so called architect is the  ability to place 54 stakes on a piece of ground in the proper places and then be there to direct talented shapers to "work" his vision from that raw piece of land.....the talent is in his vision...not in some 50 pages of plans. 

More so than any professional golfer or anyone else I have met in life....I can say that the most pompous people I have ever met have been golf architects....and why?  I don't know....  Also some of the best people in life I have met have been golf architects....and why?  I do know...they had (,or have ) a passion for the actual design of golf courses and the game .  And as much as I hate to say it( I am not a butt boy again)  the cloest genius move I have seen in this business in both golden age times and modern times was done by Tom Doak.  It was not any one of his actual courses as much as it was his game plan to get into the business at the level he desired.  Become a magazine golf writer....take a sabbatical of the old courses...keep a little black book of all the guys you met while touring said courses...and then write the Confidential guide....all in all...a brilliant move....combined with talent it became a damn good plan....

But at the end of the day....we are all playing in the dirt....it ain't rocket science....it's sales.

[Tom_Doak]

Jesus, I wanted to post something on this thread, but after that bit of p.r., how can I?  I think this is Mike's genius move, to try and embarrass me so I will get off GCA and he can become the new darling of the business.  [Nice try, Mike, but I'll just ignore your compliments and get on with my master plan.]

My intent was to come on this thread to draw attention to the topic I just posted about The New Yorker article about RTJ.  It is a great read, but it also makes it clear that The Architect as Genius thing started at least 60 years ago -- and that Mr. Jones got there way before I did.  Must be something in the water in Ithaca!

I also wanted to comment on Wade Schueneman's earlier post.  Wade, in general I think you are right ... to the extent that Bill Coore or I could be given a free hand to make changes to classic courses, we absolutely should.  And yet, in the specific examples you cited -- Pinehurst #2 where Donald Ross lived off and on for forty years, and Pasatiempo where Alister MacKenzie spent the last years of his life -- I cannot IMAGINE either of us being so presumptuous as to suggest "improvements" to either of those courses.  I would be less likely to suggest changes at Pasatiempo than I would even at Royal Melbourne -- since MacKenzie in fact spent little time there, and since, after all, his version of Royal Melbourne is itself an improvement of a previous course, whereas Pasatiempo is entirely MacKenzie's creation.

[Garland Bayley]

The genius is in the land, and the architect that extracts the most from it is a practitionaire extraordinaire.

[Adam Lawrence]

Gentlemen,
I would have thought that "genius" was something that everybody recognised for all time. Maybe that is just pedantic semantics on my part but..........could someone supply a couple of examples of genius on a golf hole/course and see if all and sundry on this forum would agree with the example. It would prop up my thesis if there was unanimous agreemnat and might be a first on this board!!!!

Cheers Colin

I just don't think this is true at all. There are loads of examples of true genius being totally ignored for long, long periods of time. Bach was completely forgotten for 150 years, and I would find it hard to argue that he wasn't a genius.

[Mike_Young]

Jesus, I wanted to post something on this thread, but after that bit of p.r., how can I?  I think this is Mike's genius move, to try and embarrass me so I will get off GCA and he can become the new darling of the business.  [Nice try, Mike, but I'll just ignore your compliments and get on with my master plan.]

My intent was to come on this thread to draw attention to the topic I just posted about The New Yorker article about RTJ.  It is a great read, but it also makes it clear that The Architect as Genius thing started at least 60 years ago -- and that Mr. Jones got there way before I did.  Must be something in the water in Ithaca!

I also wanted to comment on Wade Schueneman's earlier post.  Wade, in general I think you are right ... to the extent that Bill Coore or I could be given a free hand to make changes to classic courses, we absolutely should.  And yet, in the specific examples you cited -- Pinehurst #2 where Donald Ross lived off and on for forty years, and Pasatiempo where Alister MacKenzie spent the last years of his life -- I cannot IMAGINE either of us being so presumptuous as to suggest "improvements" to either of those courses.  I would be less likely to suggest changes at Pasatiempo than I would even at Royal Melbourne -- since MacKenzie in fact spent little time there, and since, after all, his version of Royal Melbourne is itself an improvement of a previous course, whereas Pasatiempo is entirely MacKenzie's creation.

TD, I was complimenting not embarrassing you.....and yes on the RTJ thing....I probably need Bob Crosby to comment here because he helped me clean up the original article and my notes above may not be as clear as I assume....

[Adam Clayman]

Genius could be as simple as knowing not to presume improvements could be made to a recognized classic. Which begs the question what would Jack, Rees, Robert, or any other high profile archie do, or has done, when asked to improve on a piece of art?

ANGC comes to mind as being the poster boy for this discussion. And in the words of Uncle Boab, what a pity!

[BCrosby]

I did help edit Mike's article back in the day. It was/is thought provoking. Mike might not agree, but I think he is arguing for a kind of passive genius. Too many architects over-think things. It takes real courage to under-design rather than over-design. Letting the land speak for itself is not any easy choice. It does not have the WOW factor that developers want and that sells lots.  

But designs that pull that off are a win/win. They tend to be better golf courses and easier to maintain.

Adam - The thing about genius - let's take Bach - is that it might take a while for the general public to catch on, but other musicians appreciated Bach's greatness immediately.  The generation that followed Bach - Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven - all understood and used Bach's revolutionary breakthroughs in harmony and 'well tempered' scales. Bach made the classical music (the sonata form) of H,M and B possible. And they were fully aware of the debt they owed to Bach.

Something similar has gone on with golf architecture. If some architects were under-appreciated by the general public, the quality of their work was not missed by their cohort architects. Beyond Young (whose work is still under appreciated, imho), Doak and C&C (now much more widely appreciated),  a couple of names from the GA might be Langford, Behr or Abercrombie. I'd suppose there were others then and later. Dick Wilson comes to mind.

Bob      

[Wade Schueneman]

Jesus, I wanted to post something on this thread, but after that bit of p.r., how can I?  I think this is Mike's genius move, to try and embarrass me so I will get off GCA and he can become the new darling of the business.  [Nice try, Mike, but I'll just ignore your compliments and get on with my master plan.]

My intent was to come on this thread to draw attention to the topic I just posted about The New Yorker article about RTJ.  It is a great read, but it also makes it clear that The Architect as Genius thing started at least 60 years ago -- and that Mr. Jones got there way before I did.  Must be something in the water in Ithaca!

I also wanted to comment on Wade Schueneman's earlier post.  Wade, in general I think you are right ... to the extent that Bill Coore or I could be given a free hand to make changes to classic courses, we absolutely should.  And yet, in the specific examples you cited -- Pinehurst #2 where Donald Ross lived off and on for forty years, and Pasatiempo where Alister MacKenzie spent the last years of his life -- I cannot IMAGINE either of us being so presumptuous as to suggest "improvements" to either of those courses.  I would be less likely to suggest changes at Pasatiempo than I would even at Royal Melbourne -- since MacKenzie in fact spent little time there, and since, after all, his version of Royal Melbourne is itself an improvement of a previous course, whereas Pasatiempo is entirely MacKenzie's creation.

Tom,
Is there not a single improvement that you think that you could make to Pasatiempo?    I do not think that any architect has gotten a course perfect yet.  At least I have yet to see that course.  Of course, perfection is probably not really achievable.  Maybe it would be better to ask if you can think of anything that you could do to Pasatiempo that would make you enjoy the course more personally.  I am not asking you to name the feature.  I am just asking if you can think of one (even the smallest green contour).  Please understand that I mean no disrespect to Mackenzie, Ross, or anyone else.

[Tom_Doak]

Wade:

Well, actually, we did make a change on the 11th green at Pasatiempo, lowering the back of it to reduce the back-to-front slope so you wouldn't automatically putt off the green from behind the hole.  But that's something I think MacKenzie himself would have done, if he had seen the green at 10 on the Stimpmeter.  We tried first to convince the club to reduce the green speeds, but you might as well tell them to only allow people to play with persimmon woods, they are not going to listen.

I have not really thought of what other things I might do at Pasatiempo with a free hand, because it is the club's mission to restore the course to the extent possible, and because I believe it is one of Dr. MacKeznie's most personal designs.  In return for that, I hope that future designers will show the same respect for Ballyneal and Pacific Dunes, though there are never any guarantees in life.

[David Harshbarger]

Mike,

Great article that speaks to the challenge of preserving living art in an evolving world.  The gist of your argument, IMHO, is that the genius architects had a vision for their great courses, and when given a chance worked for many years to refine the physical version of the course to be closer to the vision.  They understood and accepted as would any reasonable person that vision and reality are not the same, and invested time and energy to close that gap.

The challenge now is that we want to preserve these courses, but are we preserving the vision, or the reality?

Tom, to your point on Ballyneal and Pacific Dunes, the more clarity on your vision, the more likely others will carry on that vision in the face of the evolutionary forces of their time.

Dave

[JNC Lyon]

I understand that the Golden Age architects were not always geniuses.  In particular, architects like Ross often built flawed layouts with indifferent golf holes.  Yet each of these architects have built an overwhelming number of courses that are worth savoring and, if they have been lost through time, possibly restoring.  Thus, restoration seems to be a viable option in many cases.  Restorations by folks like Ron Prichard and Gil Hanse will be very faithful to the original plans of architects like Ross and come up with a product that is a major improvement on the previous configuration of the golf course. 

The issue arises when an architect decides he can improve on what the original architect built.  Things can get very hazy very quickly.  Let's compare renovations by Gil Hanse at Country Club of Rochester and the Fazio clan at Oak Hill. In both cases, the architects believed they were "improving" the golf course.  Why would an architect make changes to a golf course if he did not feel those changes were improvements?  Yet, in one case, the renovation worked well, and, in the other case, the renovation worked very poorly.  Hanse performed a very faithful restoration of most holes at Country Club of Rochester.  He shifted some fairway bunkering to allow for the modern player, but he also restored several short-carry bunkers that, despite being out of play for the best players, remain factors for the everyday player.  Hanse's final product was cohesive and a major improvement on the old golf course.  On the other hand, as I and others have stated many times on this site, the Fazio changes at Oak Hill amounted to a hack job.  Nevertheless, both architects felt they were improving on the work of other architects.

My question is, if we do not perform full restorations of golf courses, do we lose our standards for the work being done?  If an architect is asked to renovate rather than restore, doesn't it open up to all sorts of mutilation of classic architecture?

[Ed Oden]

Do you think the ODGs had any expectation that their work wouldn't be touched in the future?  They sure didn't seem shy about revising each other's work.  It seems like they were regularly agreed to redo something one of their colleagues had just done a few years before.

Do you think the ODGs thought of themselves or their work as genius?

If they each lived another 50 years, would they have stopped tinkering with their masterpieces?

In particular, architects like Ross often built flawed layouts with indifferent golf holes.

JNC, I played this weekend with two other reasonably well traveled GCAers and we tried to think of a single bad Ross course any of us had played.  We couldn't come up with one.  Now, I'm sure there are some.  Still, the fact that as a collective group we hadn't seen any would suggest they are very rare.  I would argue that is because his routings are almost always very solid, even on his mail in jobs.  Based on this statement, I gather you have had a different experience.

[JNC Lyon]

Do you think the ODGs had any expectation that their work wouldn't be touched in the future?  They sure didn't seem shy about revising each other's work.  It seems like they were regularly agreed to redo something one of their colleagues had just done a few years before.

Do you think the ODGs thought of themselves or their work as genius?

If they each lived another 50 years, would they have stopped tinkering with their masterpieces?

In particular, architects like Ross often built flawed layouts with indifferent golf holes.

JNC, I played this weekend with two other reasonably well traveled GCAers and we tried to think of a single bad Ross course any of us had played.  We couldn't come up with one.  Now, I'm sure there are some.  Still, the fact that as a collective group we hadn't seen any would suggest they are very rare.  I would argue that is because his routings are almost always very solid, even on his mail in jobs.  Based on this statement, I gather you have had a different experience.

Ed,

A flawed layout does not necessarily mean a bad layout.  I've played several Ross courses and really enjoyed them all.  However, each one of his courses has some flaws, and a few of his layouts that I enjoyed immensely still have indifferent golf holes.

I realize that most architects in the Golden Age did not think of themselves as geniuses and recognized that their work would be modified.  However, shouldn't there be some standard for modification?  Dismissing the talent of the original architect leads to major renovations that can be very destructive.

[Ed Oden]

JNC, I don't want to sidetrack this discussion, but I would love to get some detail on your perspective with respect to Ross.  If you get a chance, send me an IM.

As for your second paragraph, what kind of "standard" would you propose?  Should that standard have applied to the ODGs in their modifications to the designs of their predecessors?  If Ross often designed flawed layouts with indifferent holes, why shouldn't owners/members improve those courses?  Who makes the call?

[JNC Lyon]

JNC, I don't want to sidetrack this discussion, but I would love to get some detail on your perspective with respect to Ross.  If you get a chance, send me an IM.

As for your second paragraph, what kind of "standard" would you propose?  Should that standard have applied to the ODGs in their modifications to the designs of their predecessors?  If Ross often designed flawed layouts with indifferent holes, why shouldn't owners/members improve those courses?  Who makes the call?

I'm not sure what the standard would be.  I guess I'm simply asking if there should be some standard for what can be touched and what cannot be touched in a Golden Age layout.  I really don't have good answers to the questions you asked, but I think they need to be asked when the course is in the process of a renovation.

Continuing the CC of Rochester example, the club asked Gil Hanse to change the 18th green.  The green was originally well away from the clubhouse and created a short par four finisher.  Arthur Hills and company moved the green back to create a mid-length finisher.  The club asked Hanse to move the green back farther still rather than restore the original.  The result?  The new green is interesting, but it is out of character with the rest of the golf course.  I can't help but think that Hanse and the club would have been better off restoring the original green, even if it was not perfect.

This example, for me, begs the question: where do we draw the line between renovation and restoration?

[Wade Schueneman]

Wade:

Well, actually, we did make a change on the 11th green at Pasatiempo, lowering the back of it to reduce the back-to-front slope so you wouldn't automatically putt off the green from behind the hole.  But that's something I think MacKenzie himself would have done, if he had seen the green at 10 on the Stimpmeter.  We tried first to convince the club to reduce the green speeds, but you might as well tell them to only allow people to play with persimmon woods, they are not going to listen.

I have not really thought of what other things I might do at Pasatiempo with a free hand, because it is the club's mission to restore the course to the extent possible, and because I believe it is one of Dr. MacKeznie's most personal designs.  In return for that, I hope that future designers will show the same respect for Ballyneal and Pacific Dunes, though there are never any guarantees in life.

Tom,

I appreciate both your response and your respect for Dr. MacKenzie.  It sounds like I really need to get out to see Pasatiempo.