I got to this blog from Chris Tritibaugh's Tweet today. I am not sure anything in here is entirely new but I do find it stated in an interesting manner and see it getting at the fundamental question:
"What is it that makes us feel good on some golf courses? What is it that stirs us emotionally on some properties? "
http://aggca.blogspot.com/p/philosophy-of-golf-course-architecture.htmlSome other interesting excerpts:
"The typical route for today’s designers and the budding new designers is to study all of the great Architects and golf courses or even perhaps write and comment about it. People spend years and lifetimes doing this. Maybe if you were designing buildings this would make sense, go look at the great buildings of the world. The buildings were all designed and built solely by man. But when it comes to golf courses, I consider it an inadequate course of study. The great golf courses of old were largely produced by nature and the great new ones emulate the great old ones, so whether or not the land was great the golf holes are created to have that look, feel and playability."
"What we are missing is that Mother Nature by and far built those great courses not man. The only thing that I don’t like at those great old golf courses is the artificial edifice of man and that occurs mostly in unnatural looking man made fixes of bunker edges. If we want great golf courses, maybe we should go back to studying nature, natural landforms, and erosions caused by wind, water, and animals. At the heart of it all isn’t that what we seek to do? Aren’t we trying to find or create golf as it was discovered in nature? "