How many classic era courses are really good?

[Tim_Weiman]

The excellent discussion on Tom MacWood's "GCA and Taste Making" thread got me to thinking about our perspective on classic era courses.

GeoffreyC introduced two Travis courses to the discussion (Westchester and Round Hill) that serve as examples of why I prefer classic era stuff to most modern era designs.  But, it is interesting to note that Tom Doak gives both courses a "5", nothing any of us get excited about.  By contrast, Tom gives the Atlantic, a modern course few here praise, a "6".

My point here is not to debate Tom's assessment of these three courses but to probe our thinking of classic courses.  What would happen if we took the top 100 or so courses from both the classic and modern era off the table for discussion and just focused on the the remaining courses?

Would our perception of older courses change?  Would we find that the quantity of quality work produced pre 1950 was really quite limited?  Would modern architects start to look a lot better?

[Chris Kane]

Tim,

Excellent question.

I'm not sure about the United States, but I know that here in Australia the majority of courses were built post-1950.  If you took the top 25 traditional and modern layouts out of the equation, you'd be left with very slim pickings.  

My gut reaction would be that in the modern age it is very easy to build an average course, but creating something special is another thing altogether.  Modern architecture in general doesn't utilise the subtleties that older layouts are treasured for.  It is so easy for formulaic designs to appear and prosper, becuase that is what the average golfer expects.

Of course there are exceptions, probably hundreds of them!

Before the age of technology, course architects had to use the lie of the land more efficiently, becuase they didn't have mass-earthmoving equipment available.  

[GeoffreyC]

Tim- Westchester CC is on GW top 100 Classic list and I think it deserves to be there (a good 7 on professor Doak's scale)

Good question to think about.  My quick and not well thought out answer is that the older courses with a bit of quirk tend to offer much more of the opportunity for both thrills and heartbreaks without resorting to penal golf holes.

A good and simple example could come from another of those just below elite recognized old courses, Wee Burn in Darien CT.(well preserved Dev Emmet).  The 9th hole is a fairly simple uphill moderately short 371 yard uphill (plays like 400) par 4 with a deep bunker protecting the left part of a green angleing from front right to back left.  The key to the hole is a big muffin in the middle of the green that make putting from the wrong part of the green next to impossible.  Its a simple way to really create Tom Paul's "greens within a green".  The fun part is to play a match and watch all the approach shots to the green (or laugh and tell a first time player as I was to just wait and see what you may think is a good shot is left with).  Its a very challenging and equally fun shot that is the result of a fairly simple green feature.  You just don't see enough of that on newer courses.  Thank god some committee didn't buldoze the muffin away in the name of tryign to get more accurate putting!

[John_McMillan]

Tim,

I don't think there's any exercise which is going to make gems out of 1950's architecture.  I do suspect that if you conducted the exercise you suggest, the average quality of golden age courses would be higher than that of modern courses.  There is a survivor bias which would skew the results towards the older courses - the worst architecture of that period has either been turned into shopping malls, or remodeled.  It's the same as listening to an "oldies" radio station - the music of the 70's sounds a lot better if you can forget about "Disco Duck."

[Tim_Weiman]

GeoffreyC:

Regarding TD's assessment, I did notice Tom acknowledges only seeing Westchester as it is set up for tournaments.  That configuration doesn't really make the best first impression.  Maybe that accounts for the higher rating GW gives, I don't know.

John:

Actually, I wasn't suggesting a comparison of the 1950's vs the classics.  I was really thinking of the last fifteen years or so.

But, your point is interesting.  Daniel Wexler captured the treasures that were lost, but I don't know of any documentation of "average" classic era courses lost.

I'm inclined to think that the classic era produced a limited quantity of great stuff, the best being far better than what has been produced in recent years.  Strip away all the top courses we talk about, though, and I'm inclined to think the modern courses would fair better.

But, I don't really know, partly because I've seen so few classic era courses outside of the top 100-200.  Here in Cleveland we do have two classic era courses that make nobody's top 200: Manakiki (Ross) and Sleepy Hollow (Thompson).  I wonder how many people would go for them over the typical modern CCFAD (if you filtered for the cost of green fees).

[Chris Kane]

I'm sure that many contributors to this board would prefer a little known classic era course to the standard CCFAD.

CCFADs in their typical style are sickening.  

[Tim_Weiman]

Chris,

This group, in general, has a strong preference for classic era architecture.

Still, I wish there was a way to assess/document the case for "average" classic era stuff against the modern CCFAD.

How often does one hear defenders of modern work comment about the great land old timers had to work with?

It just seems like the debate would be more interesting if you took away the best work produced in each era.

[Dan King]

The classic era courses are at a disadvantage because of resistence to scoring criteria.

Two of my favorite California courses are Valley Club of Montecito and Pacific Grove.  I can't imagine any of you here going to either of these courses and not having a great time. But if you let any of the top thousand or so golfers in the world on either of these courses they are going to shoot very low.

I have no idea why this matters to anyone but those top thousand golfers, but it does. I judge courses by how much fun they are, but there are plenty of golfers that judge courses by how much challenge they will supply people they have never even met.

"I have begun to rate golf courses by the number of balls you need. For instance if a course is a one-ball course, assuming it has all the usual features, I think it's a great course. But a 12-ball course I think is rubbish. That's my basic critism of Jack Nicklaus courses. They are very much like the man himself, very serious and lacking in humor."
 --Peter Thomson

[Chris Kane]

Dan King,

Exactly!  For me, I great course is one that will yield to low scoring when deserved, but will bring a top player to his knees if he isn't on his game.

The classic courses tend to have these characteristics, ie. Royal Melbourne can be absoutely destroyed if played correctly, but if a player can't place his irons below the hole, he's finished.  The CCFAD courses in general won't allow good scoring, and will clean up everyone.

Its a shame that a perception have developed where a course needs to be incredibly difficult to be any good.  Augusta National are a victim to this approach, as evidenced by their changes in recent years.

[TEPaul]

This is an interesting question. I read through the posts quickly but I think that Chris Kane said a lot in his first post.

It would be so hard to really answer a question like this, at least from a pure (or original architectural) perspective because so many of the classic courses have changed so much over time. Some maybe for the better but most probably for the worst! (at least when it comes to their real original architecture).

But all that being said, my gut feeling would be, that the majority of the "Golden Age" courses would be inferior to the majority of the "Modern Age" courses. But that the best of the "Golden Age" courses would be superior to the best of the "Modern Age" courses, possibly in quantity but definitely in architectural quality.

There are a few remarks on the posts in this topic I think I might take a bit of issue with too. Someone said that some of the "Golden Age" courses went out of existence because they really weren't very good anyway. There might be examples of that but the reverse is probably far more true--that some of the very best of them went out of exsitence anyway.

The New York Met area is certainly the most shocking example. And Dan Wexler's book "The Missing Links" makes that abundantly clear. The reason in the NY Met area is probably just that so many of those really good old courses were built too close to the rapidly expanding population of one of the largest cities in the world. Some of the ones in close were very good because the money was there and convenience of distance was a big issue with the transportations or the time. The Lido alone and its demise probably proves this point, but there are so many others, ie, Timber Point. And the other primary reason is the next paragraph.

One only needs to take a look at the ravages of the depression era to understand many of these great courses falling by the wayside! Some of us understand that the depression era had some significance in the evolution of golf and golf architecture (particularly in America) but I don't know that one of us has a truly clear enough understanding, at this point. I mean the real impact it had on both the golf courses that preceded it (and some built in the beginning of it) as well as the many influences it (the depression era) had on what was to follow it, both in new construction and also the failure of almost everyone to understand the real distinctions and differences in the architecture of the two eras.

The hiatus of the depression era, and the duration of it alone, was of enormous impact in ways we find hard to imagine today, and so we really don't. One really only needs to look closely at the incremental aerials of any "Golden Age" course to start to understand! It's not just the differences you see on a particular course with aerials say from the 1920s to the 1990s, it's that if you look at enough of these courses and enough of their incremental aerials spaning these years you start of see that the corruptive evolution is so identical on all of them!

There was another remark, I think by Dan, about how the old courses were generally for fun and for the accomodation of all golfers, and that the newer courses were built harder and more challenging. Maybe that's not what Dan said, but if so I think that's something that should be looked at carefully.

It is very interesting to consider some of Tillinghast's thoughts on that as he writes an article taking J. H. Taylor to task for criticizing the new American direction in challenging design (very much "Golden Age", BTW). Also some of the thoughts of Crump and certainly the writings of William Flynn! And we should consider more in that vein the actual "design intent" of many of the best of the "Golden Age" courses and their architecture that were really not intended to accomodate every golfer. They were designed specifically to challenge the best--Shinnecock, Winged Foot, Bethpage, Pine Valley, Pinehurst, Oakmont, Augusta, Baltusrol, Huntingdon Valley, Merion, Lido, Yale, Shawnee-on-the-Delaware and even GCGC and NGLA in its time--and the list goes on and on!

Maybe I'm a little off on this because clearly the great ones that were designed to really challenge are far more noticeable for all the obvious reasons. The LuLus, Misquamicuts, Pipings, Creeks, Fishers, Yeamans, Pasatiempos, Myopias even the Seminoles probably a bit less so!

[redanman (Guest)]

Yet another thread that the answer depends on your definition of "good".

[Mark_Fine]

I think is was Geoff Shackelford that once told me less than 10% of the work of the classic era architects remains.  So comparison studies on all but the best kept courses is very hard to do.

The resistance to scoring factor always gets brought up when comparing courses.   I find it hard to understand why a number of you guys can't grasp that it all relative to the individual golfer and their skill level.  GD happens to ask raters to judge a course from the eyes of a golfer with a fairly high level of proficiency, so be it.  You know this when you look at their list.  That doesn't mean courses they don't list are bad.  These courses just meet a different criteria.  Furthermore, just because a course is tough, doesn't automatically make it any good.  

For some golfers, a 180 yard par three that wraps around a lake or a hazard of some kind with the green tucked just over the edge is a dog leg and a very tough hole.  They have to play it like a cape hole and lay up to a bail out area (assuming there is one) and chip on.  For others, it's a high soft 8I right at the stick.  

What is the difficulty factor here?  It's all relative!

Mark  

[GeoffreyC]

Tim

The only difference between Westchester CC every day play and the Buick Classic is they reverse the 9's (the normal 9th hole has more room for gallery around the green), grow the rough and speed the greens a bit.  Fairway widths are not changed at all.

I would disagree with Chris Kane about the quality of classic courses when you go below the top 25.  We talk often about several hidden gems on this site and I'm sure there are 200 courses that fit this bill.  I think a great deal of them are in the Northeast.  We've discovered courses like Fenway and Lehigh and discussed them at length.  Others like Whippoorwill, Round Hill, Hollywood, Piping Rock, LuLu, Gulph Mills, Phil. Cricket, Century, Stanford, Cal Club etc. are out there and absolute gems if you just get a chance to see them.  Look in the Courses by country list of places Ran and John wrote up and you will find some more of them.

I think it might be interesting to make a list of a couple of hundred classic courses and see if we think they have architectural merit worthy of restoration and preservation!

[Matt_Ward]

Tim:

Let's be clear that quite a few GCA people have a bias -- not just a preference to "classic" design. What does this mean? Usually, you get short shrift answers on modern design.

I like both the classic and modern and have said so quite a few times. I look at the young staple of quality designers such as Tom Doak, Gil Hanse, Mike DeVries, Jim Engh, Mike Strantz, Steve Smyers, Dana Fry, Ron Kern, Tim Liddy, to name just a few, and each of these gentlemen delivers a fine product on a consistent basis. Not everyone is earth shattering great but generally a solid effort. And, each of them, has their own unique style and manner in which they believe golf holes / courses should be designed.

Many of the old time courses no longer in existence went away because they were really just average or even poor and were developed into housing, strip malls, etc. The cream did in fact rise and for all of us playing today we are benefiting from their continued existence.

However, I also believe that modern design has produced a good portfolio of courses beyond the elite ones often mentioned (i.e. Sand Hills, Pete Dye GC, The Golf Club, Pacific Dunes, etc, etc) and they were created for a range of purposes.

The only lament I have with moden design is the overwhelming movement towards higher and higher fees to play these type of courses. Some communities in the USA (i.e. Vegas, Scottsdale, SE Florida) have become just too pricey for many players. In essence, yes the courses are open to the public but are really de facto private.

In my travels in rating courses I have seen quite a number of exciting modern designs that are both affordable and have solid strategic interest. Sadly, many of them are not in my neck of the woods in metro NY/ NJ, but I salute many of today's designers in delivering the goods for today's players.

There are quite a few posters on GCA who see much of everything from yesterday as being so much better than today. Gentlemen -- not everything from yesterday was truly "classic" -- yes, plenty that's still around today is often nothing more than pro forma golf of the boring variety. I take a more pragmatic position because I've played a good bit of what is done today and many of today's designers are incorporating much of what was initially used years ago and applying it to their designs today. I just think modern design often gets dumped upon because we base comparisons on elite classic courses such as PV, Oakmont, Merion, etc. You can't compare Babe Ruth from yesterday and say good players from today are always inferior or simply garbage. I see too many free passes given to so-called classic courses at the expense of many modern designs that are good -- albeit not great, but clearly very well designed and testing for nearly all types of players.

Just an opinion ...

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

Matt
Thanks for setting us straight. Do you think the architects you have mentioned have not gotten the support they deserve on this site and perhaps this thread is contributing to that problem? I know you have been quite supportive of Wolf Creek, Kingsley and the Bridge. What would you cite as an example of the bias you speek of? And do you consider those who disagree with your assessments as biased?

I'm still waiting for examples that support your last couple of posts. And perhaps some examples of poor or average courses that were replaced by malls? Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are examples to support all of your views - the wetlands, the re-directing of creeks, the 'natural' courses without strategic vision and now the average and poor courses that were lost, I would just like to know what they are so that I (and others) might refine my (our) views. Have you read Daniel Wexler's book?

[Rich_Goodale]

Mark

If a 180 carry is now a "soft 8-iron" I think it is time to retire my McGregor blades and go Hi-Tech.  Any product recommendations for a 55-year old 111mph clubhead speed swinger who is tired of having 70-year old playing partners say "You're away!"??

[ChipOat]

Re: Matt Ward's observations about then and now.  As the elderly comedienne "Moms" Mabley once observed to a Tonght Show audience, "everybody's always talkin' 'bout dem good old days.  I was there - where was THEY???"

Having played about as much Pete Dye as Travis, Emmett, Tillinghast and even Ross, I'd put the aggregate volume of Dye's work ahead of almost all the courses the other guys built.

[Jeff_Lewis]

The key point several posters have made is that there is survivorship bias in the data on classic courses. If they didn't get re-worked or plowed under in 75 years, they are probably pretty good. I wouldn't be surprised if several of our modern architects who generate considerable discussion on this board find their input is considered worthy of a footnote at best in 50-75 years.

As for Westchester, it is a great example of a classic course, which survives, but is "dated". Anytime we jerry-rig tough par 4s out of easy par 5s, I think we are reaching a bit. Most of the "great" holes at Westchester are gimmicky, blind or strange. A modern architect with that piece of ground would move a fair amount of dirt, and might have ended up with a better course than the Mr. Travis. Clearly, Travis was given a much better piece of ground at Garden City and built a much better golf course.

[Mark_Fine]

Rich,
You get my point I'm sure.  Heck for someone like Matt Ward, he'd probably hits a 9I 180 yards.
Mark

[GeoffreyC]

Jeff Lewis

I must respectfully disagree regarding Westchester CC.  Garden City is a flat rather featureless property.  Garden City is a poster board example of how to build a great course on a less then ideal property.

The 3rd hole (12th tournament) is a funky/easy par 5 (if you just keep it in play) that they turn into a silly/difficult par 4 for the Buick Classic.  It's 485 yards.  Call par whatever you want. The rest of them play exactly as the members play tehm and I think all are solid.  Great short 4's (16) and long 4's (2!!!, 6, 17) have no quirk at all.  The midlength 13th hole has a blind drive over a huge upslope in the land that is one of the best drives on the course and the greensite in a dell requires placing the drive to the right and then great precision.  I think its one of the best holes on the course. There are so many examples of great natural greensites at Westchester that could only come from such an undulating property full of rock ledges and elevation changes.  The 2nd, 4th, 8th, 11th, 13th!!!!,14th and 16th holes are all good examples of this.  The par 4's are outstanding at Westchester.  Round Hill in Greenwich is very similar.

I would absolutely agree with you that a modern architect woud blast and bulldoze the Westchester property to build a new course.  Ken Dye removed part of the big hill on #12 so you can now see the bunkers flanking the green (formerly blind) during his recent renovation of the West course. It was a small but noticible change that I don't object to.  He also totally redid the quaint South course which I think lost a funky/sporty fun to play course and turned it into a "modern challenge" for a proper alternative to teh West course for the members.  I don't think its better.  We could debate whether the West would be better if a modern course were built there.  To be fair, I'm sure a really good course would be built there and given the right guy and the right marching orders a great course could be built there.  Dynamite and buldozers alone will not do it, however.  

Why do you think even the Tour Pros rave about the Westchester course almost to a man? If Westchester is "dated" then they were correct yast year when Yale was proclamed "outdated and obsolete".

[Mark_Fine]

Geoffrey,
Do you think the tour pros rave because it is a great test of golf pr because it's a great golf course!  Stanwich is also a great test of golf but is it really a great golf course?  There is a difference!
Mark

[Matt_Ward]

Tom MacWood:

I just think there are quite a few posters who clearly show a bias to "classic" courses because many of these same people may not have played a number of outstanding modern courses that are opening each and every year.

Golf is not just about PV, Merion, Oakmont, PB, ANGC, etc, etc, etc. Golf has many wonderful designs because of the men I mentioned and I'm sure so many others I did not list. These individuals do "get it" and each of their designs can be so vastly different but yet so enjoyable to play (i.e. for me I really enjoy the differences exhibited with such designs as The Kingsley Club, The Bridge and Wolf Creek at Paradise Canyon, Arcadia Bluffs, to name just four).

Part of this I think can be attributed to the "Antique Road Show" mentality that exists with so many people. They actually believe that something that is "old" is always worth more than something "new." As you know and so many others that's not the case always.

Tom, people can certainly disagree and my opinion is worth only something to me. I think people have preferences, but until they see the vast quality of courses that are being produced you really undervalue the quality of so many modern designs and the people who design them. Not all is golden by any means, but more is better than most people give credit for.

I answered the other elements you mentioned in the other thread on "natural v unnatural" and unfortunately I have not read Daniel Wexler's book. Do you know where I can get a copy?

Many thanks ...

[Tim_Weiman]

Guys:

Interesting comments.  I'd like to know if Geoff Shackelford has any documentation to support that degree of loss among courses built in the classic era.  Dan Wexler produced a very interesting book, but actually he only covers about 50-60 courses with significant detail provided in the case of about 30.

There is a hell of a lot more to account for if Geoff is right.

I'm not exactly sure what to make of Matt Ward's comments about bias here at GCA.  Matt, are you saying that most GCAers only look at the cream of the crop, the survivors among classic era courses, and that this accounts for the praise we heap upon them?

Honestly, you are probably right in my case.  The cream of the crop were the only courses I was interested in when I set out to learn about golf architecture thirty five years ago.  Moreover, if Geoff is right, that was pretty much my only option!

If such a small percentage of classic era courses survived, maybe the ones that did are worthy of even more praise than we give them.

I'm also struck by Jeff Lewis' comments that modern architects would have got out the bulldozer and built a better course than Travis built at Westchester.  What makes traveling to study golf courses so interesting is when you come across something different, something unique.  I can't help but feel the bulldozer has proven to be the wrong instrument to use if you want a place to have its own unique character.

Maybe that's the bias Matt is talking about.

Finally, something is dreadfully wrong if 180 yard shots are soft high 8 irons.  How, then, do we build a course which asks a player to use every club, especially the long irons?

[Tim_Weiman]

Matt Ward:

Dan Wexler's book was published by Sleeping Bear.

[Craig Disher]

I play in a social league which gives each club in the area a chance to play a round at other clubs (no top 100). Most of the golfers who participate are serious about their games but have no interest in architecture, architects or "classic design". A very few of the courses we play were built in 20s and 30s, most were built since 1960.  When the signup sheets are posted, year after year the classic courses immediately are subscribed and always have a waiting list. The same ain't true of the rest.  

One example - the US Naval Academy course (Flynn). It has no clubhouse to speak of (food and drink are an important part of the outing), the conditioning isn't particulary good, but the quality of golf is exceptional. The players I've talked to can't quite figure why they like it but it's just got something the newer courses don't. One fellow thought the course was built recently and wondered why other new courses weren't designed in such a clever, understated way.

The old courses we play are fairly characteristic of what this site would consider classic design. Seeing a course that lies easily on the ground might be a pleasant surprise to those who may be accustomed to courses with a more manufactured appearance.

Of course, this is just anecdotal, but it suggests that there is a qualititative difference between the eras when you look at the sub-top-100s. I can't think of any other explanation for the preferences of 50-60 fairly intense golfers.