GCA and tastemeking

[GeoffreyC]

Jeff

I guess I'd also like to say that I don't understand why players/the general public will go to say Westchester CC and love the 4th hole and yet then go on and say they accept architecture like that on old courses, just because "thats the way it was done in those days".

If its a great hole that uses a hillside and rock outcroppings to front a beautiful natural greensite then why can't a concept like it be accepted on a modern Jeff Brauer course?

I think I know the answer to this but it still bugs me.

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

Jeff
Toledo and Weston are Willie Park-Jr. designs. Unfortunately he was hired to plan both courses, but not build them. The quality of his courses in North America varies greatly based on if he actually constructed his design or if the club hired a compitent builder or not.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Tom,

Right you are!  What was I thinking?  My biggest gaffe since crediting Bethpage to MacKenzie, but I had the cover of a post midnight post as an excuse.  Don't know how I mixed those up.  At least I was right in my assessment that the greens really looked functional, rather than the product of any deep thought.

At any rate, I recall C and W writing that Travis did Garden City and spent a career trying to match that success. (Or was it someone else, my memory is getting fuzzy......anyway, I don't get NE much, but when I do, I have a few courses and contacts to see and make use of!  I would like to learn more of Travis, and I have only heard great things about Westchester, and this comes from my tour pro friends who normally wouldn't endorse a blind shot, or lack of definition anywhere else.

Geoffrey,

Given the above, I don't know the answer to the modern/old days perception differences either.  There is some writing in the St. Andrews yardage book that I find interesting.  Basically, it says that the course reflected life at the time.  When potato famines, wars swept your countryside every five years or so, and you had seven kids hoping two would survive, life was very uncertain, and the blind shots and bad bounces reflected life.  This is tough to say in the middle of a recession, but the economics cycles in this country, health and lifetime standards, etc. in this country have become far more certain, and new courses reflect that.  Perhaps a silly example, but if we can now predict the weather with reasonable certainty (rather than watch the sheep) why shouldn't we expect to predict the results of a good or bad golf shot?

In general, most people want there recreation to be easier than their work, and as our job descriptions change to easier physical labor, so too has our recreation, perhaps (those of you who love mountain climbing are excepted, of course) explaining carts, no brainer golf shots, etc.  And, as I have expounded on in the past, we have become addicted to the visual, because of TV.  So, logical conclusion is modern architecture, no?

[Rich_Goodale]

Jeff

Very insightful post.  Why is it, in fact, that we worship at the altar of quirk and unfairness and chance?  Is it a transcendental noble endeavor, as some of the exegesists of the Golden Age dilettantes seem to argue, or just some atavistic response to the cruel uncertainties of life which was much more evident to real people in those days when most of our favorite courses were conceived?

Interesting.  At least to me..........

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

Jeff
Actually Park was a great influence on Travis both as a player and architect -- he felt Park's Huntercombe was the greatest inland course he had seen.

And the guy your thinking about from C&W trying to duplicate his success at Garden City is Dev Emmet -- who used to wear a goofy hat. And Travis also liked hats.  

[Jeff_Brauer]

Tom,

Another big D'OH! from me.  I would use the Homer Simpson icon, but someone beat me to it.

Thanks for correcting me again. (No, really, I mean it)  From now on I will either do some reading before posting on lesser known figures, or limit my historical perspectives to the last two days or so.  

Anyone care to know what I did yesterday?  I think I can get that right, and without fear of contradiction!

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

Jeff
I think you might be on to something regarding the ancient origins of the game and its uncertain nature. But the rise of golf architecture occured in an era of prosperity (throughout the world), from say 1900 to the Depression.

Isn't the game in Britain still played pretty much the same way today as it was in the early days? There is something in man's adventuresome nature which enjoys unpredicatablity and the excitement of not knowing what might occur next. It reflects man's battle for survival and the unpredictability of Nature.

Rich
"Is it a transcendental noble endeavor, as some of the exegesists of the Golden Age dilettantes seem to argue, or just some atavistic response to the cruel uncertainties of life" -- is there a difference?  I don't know what an exegesist is or what atavistic means, but I'm sure it ain't good. What exactly are the Golden Age dilettantes arguing?

[Rich_Goodale]

TomMacW

My sense is that some people think/thought that the random aspect of golf is something mystical or incomprehenisble, such as quantum theory.

Whereas those people in charge of the playing fields of baseball and tennis, for example, spend a lot of time and effort trying to make those fields uniform and predictable so that the serve into the corner does not hit a "poof" and bounce out of reach or that hard liner coming low to the shortstop does not hit a pebble and cuase a bloody nose, those in charge of golf courses seem/seemed to be far more accepting of these random acts of nature.

Jeff's post made me wonder if at least part of this difference might just be becuase classical golf was developed in a land where fate was cruel and aceptance of that fate was a strong part of the culture.  It also made me wonder if one of the reasons that this difference was and is being mollified over the past 50 years may be due to the fact that many parts of the world are now places where it is commplace to "repair" physical "defects" through cosmetic surgery adn trains are cancelled because the "wrong kind of snow" has fallen on the rail lines.

From these wonderings, I then speculate that the reason that champagne socialists like Hunter and Tillinghast and Thomas and nouveau-riche arrivistes like MacKenzie and Ross who either never knew of poverty or were very much trying to forget about it seemed to bew the champions of the cruel randomness of golf......

Well, I am just wondering.  Not posturing.  Yet........

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

Rich
Interesting you bring up baseball as an example, the modern trend in designing baseball parks is to create the randomness and the quirkiness found in the old parks. Not unlike the A&C architects admired the irregularity and naturaly evolved look of medieval villages and Gothic churches in their respective regions. The fact these golf architects came from nearly every concievable background, yet shared similar philosophies sould not be ignored.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Classic or modern, if you didn't include or you remove the random elements, the quirks, or if you lay it all out in front of me and feel compelled to dress it up to the nines, well.... to paraphrase Cartman, "screw you guys, I'm going bowling.    

[TEPaul]

Rich;

I'm dense I guess but I can't figure out if you're really trying to antagonize a large slice of Golfclubatlasers or if you're really trying to be at your satirical best!

I hope it's the latter because if it is you're doing as good a job of it as Mel Brooks. Hunter a Champagne socialist? If he was he must have been the only one! Did you happen to mean a champagne socialite? If you did he wasn't that either. Donald Ross a nouveau riche arriviste? That's a bit redundant  but hardly describes Ross's strong lifelong streak of Scottish Calvinist Presbyterianism despite his popularity and approximately 400 golf courses. The "Golden Age" designers as a group of dilettantes? Please excuse Thomas, Behr, Crump, Wilson and Tillinghast for having a bit of family money but otherwise it seems they were extremely dedicated to the art of golf architecture.

Designers and constructors of tennis courts and baseball fields dedicated to playing fields with absolutely no "poofs" or pebbles or randomness? That might be so but I never met anyone who knew anyone with a lot of interest in the architecture of a tennis court or baseball field. Haven't seen too many books written on that kind of archtiecture either or any websites dedicated to it.

You're beginning to wonder (although you're not prepared to postulate...yet), if the culture of the original linkslanders explains their acceptance of the random and unfair in life and golf? And that the culture of the second half twentieth centuryite might be a reason for the mollifying of American golf courses and its architecture? I think I agree with that and those sentiments seems to be discussed on here a lot but maybe in somewhat other words. Sometimes we even discuss the mollifying of the second half twentieth centuryite himself.

Jeff Brauer has a good point there. What he alluded to is extremely well spelled out in the first 200 pages of Cornish and Whitten. You should check it out--it really is very educational and edifying.

And some of us are "exegesists" for the Golden Age of golf architecture? I'm with Tom MacW, I don't know what that is. But if Tom MacW and I teed off together at NGLA I think you might have two exegetes involving themselves in some serious architectural exegesis. We might even bat a ball around and watch it bounce about randomly with contented curiosity.

You might want to join us whether you agree or disagree with our exegistics. I think it's possible that you just might show us how to transcend the entire experience. And we might show our appreciation by buying you a couple of glasses of socialistic champagne, I believe I saw some of that at NGLA.

[Rich_Goodale]

Tom

I don't mean to offend, adn am very sorry if I have done.  I was just trying to explore what to me wa a very interesting point raised by Jeff Brauer, and I might have gotten carried away by my rhetoric.  Sorry.

Just for clarification, the term "champagne socilalist" is a Britishism, and means pretty much the same thing as Tom Wolfe's "radical chic" which Tom MacW agreed was a good description of Hunter's philosophies.  And yet, he was a brilliant and passionate anlayst and advocate of issues relating to poverty.  I very much respect him for that.

"Exegesis" is the interpretation of scripture.  I am very much the agnostic in terms of GCA literature and GCA in general.  Even though I am not from Missouri I am very from "from Missouri."  You gotta "show me" that anything is good,whether it be a golf course or some writing about a golf course.  I don't take it as "scripture" that everything McKenzie wrote about GCA was handed to him on a burning bush by Shivas Irons or that NGLA is an embodiment of perfection that we can only interpret and not criticize.  I'm very impressed by what Thomas/Crump/Tillinghast etc. were able to achieve--I just see it (Golden Age architecture) as the efforts of a dedicated group of amateurs that has some its ups and downs rather than some sort of earth shattering moment in sporting history.

That's all.  I'll stay off this thread for a while so as to not offend any more people like yourself who do not deserve to be offended.

Cheers

Rich

[Tim_Weiman]

Rich Goodale:

Having worked in the UK I had no trouble understanding your reference to "champagne socialist".  But, I'd also say that there are times when it didn't seem like Americans and Brits spoke the same language.  That makes living and working abroad interesting, but you never know when someone will take your words one way when you meant something quite different.

[TEPaul]

Rich:

When it comes to you offending, don't worry about it! I'm hardly ever pissed off at anything or anybody on here, certainly not you--can't take it too seriously. I was joking, I thought. You're a great guy anyway despite possessing a truly bizarre mind or a bizarre bunch of fingers on the keyboard. Joking again, since I still don't know how to use that football team and five subs of smiley faces winking and grinning at me!

As far as a good number of the great old courses and who built them, there certainly were an interesting group of those so-called "amateurs", or those that you seem to want to call "dilettantes". They are a very interesting subject indeed!  You generally you have to look deep into the ways some of those projects unfolded to truly understand what it all means and what those "amateurs"  were about in architecture.

Sure, there has always been the perception that an "amateur" architect like a Crump, Thomas, Wilson, Fownes, Hunter, Egan, maybe Max Behr and some others are really just dabblers! Don't you believe it for a minute!

Sure, they were dabblers if all they did is dabble in the art or a few projects but the ones mentioned did anything but when they were involved in their projects! There has always been the perception probably precipitated by the so-called "professional" architect that those who are labeled "amateur" should leave this business to them. It was that way in the "Golden Age" and it's that way today.

The reasons for that are pretty obvious, at least to me--pretty transparent really. But when some of those well known "amateurs" mentioned got into those projects--and this certainly goes for anyone else like them, it's always a good idea to remember the important dictate "to know what you don't know". And obviously they did.

But that sometimes does not take into account what they did know and more particularly what they all obviously came to know on a pretty fast learning curve. And you just have to give them the credit due them, in my opinion, for what they did do which are some of the most respected golf courses in the world.

Some of them may not have been as adept at certain aspects of the business as various "professionals", like the technicalities of construction, engineering, maybe drainage and such related architectural issues and on those things obviously they found and found well the assistance they needed on those aspects of a project.

But I think on the design and concept side of architecture they shone as bright as any of the professionals. They had talent for those aspects of it obviously and almost to a man they also did something that is of ultimate importance no matter who you are, in my opinion--they spent a ton of time on site!! Certainly this modus operandi is necessary for the "professional" too as I think we can see both today and in the past.

The projects and courses they did and what they did on them is all well known now and their contributions and their talents are undeniable at this point, no matter how much anyone,  including the "professional" architect, might still wish to minimize it or discount their contributions to architecture.

Thanks for the clarification on the "champagne socialist" as a "British" term! I'm not up on my "Britishisms" these days and it just goes to prove Churchill's remark; "The Americans and the British, two peoples separated by a common language."