do templates get boring?

[Jim_Kennedy]

Frankly, I don't think it is the templates alone that are interesting.  I think it is the routing of the courses that have templates and how the course flows that highlights the fun, concepts, and challenges imbedded in the templates.

And, for the record, I am no template guru.  I've only played a few of these types of courses...NGLA, Lookout Mountain, Yeamans, Shoreacres. 

I'd agree with what you said and add that the idea of a 'template' has been part of the American golf experience for 110+ years. We all know Macdonald to be the most famous proponent, but every architect has used them sometime or another, if for no other reason than inspiration.

Maybe Oliver doesn't know this.
     

[Tom_Doak]

The only thing more boring than the templates is the predictable defense of them on this forum! 

I suppose it's no surprise.  For a bunch of guys who wish they were architects, it's much easier to imagine that some hole could have been a reverse Redan, than to actually come up with an original design.  Of course, that's also true of many of the professionals in the business.

[JESII]

Tom,

You're an interesting/ironic guy to be taking shots at the architectural opinions of the folks on this board...

[Tom_Doak]

Tom,

You're an interesting/ironic guy to be taking shots at the architectural opinions of the folks on this board...

Jim:

When did that ever stop me from saying what I thought?  I did not have to sign a non-disclosure agreement for this board!

[JC Jones]

Tom is pretty consistent here and one of the few things we agree on.

See this thread from a year ago:

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,46841.0.html

[Bill Brightly]

I have always found  TD's aversion to templates to be quite interesting, since the preparation for his career was so much like CB Macdonald... Both traveled far and wide, studied numerous courses (good and bad) and came to very precise opinions on what makes good or bad golf holes before they started building their first course. Both built courses that fit naturally with their surrounds. Both built courses that are challenging for top players, yet quite enjoyable for golfers of far less ability. And while Tom would never want his holes to be classified into templates, he nonetheless has repeated the features he most admires, such as great width, challenging greens, alternative lines of play for less skilled players, etc.

So I would re-phrase the question "Do templates get boring" and ask "Do great architectual design features get boring?" My answer is an emphatic NO! And I would MUCH rather player an obvious, manufactured template than a bad "original" hole!

[Tom_Doak]

I have always found  TD's aversion to templates to be quite interesting, since the preparation for his career was so much like CB Macdonald... Both traveled far and wide, studied numerous courses (good and bad) and came to very precise opinions on what makes good or bad golf holes before they started building their first course. Both built courses that fit naturally with their surrounds. Both built courses that are challenging for top players, yet quite enjoyable for golfers of far less ability. And while Tom would never want his holes to be classified into templates, he nonetheless has repeated the features he most admires, such as great width, challenging greens, alternative lines of play for less skilled players, etc.

So I would re-phrase the question "Do templates get boring" and ask "Do great architectual design features get boring?" My answer is an emphatic NO! And I would MUCH rather player an obvious, manufactured template than a bad "original" hole!

Bill:

Thanks.  You said that better than I did.  I was partly being flippant, and partly trying to be so concise that I could easily be misunderstood.

I think the main difference between myself and C.B. Macdonald is a simple one:  in my early education, I saw probably 20 times as many good golf courses as he did, because there was so much more to see.  Therefore I saw a lot more than 15 or 20 holes which I could choose as possible templates.  Certainly, on occasion, I go back to some of those ideas.  But the bigger point was that other architects had expanded the art of golf course design by coming up with great ideas of their own, so why should I settle for any less?  Why should anybody?  I guess I just question the last part of your statement:  why would any architect build a bad original hole?

This is a recurring argument on GCA, but it's one that needs to be repeated so none of us get too lazy.  I've designed a couple of holes lately that are more or less similar to the 6th at Pacific Dunes, because it happened to fit the situation I was dealing with.  What that shows is that I need to get back to seeing more courses outside of my own work, so that my inspirations aren't all repetitive. 

I think that, in the end, that's what produces a reliance on templates -- the architect in question can't think outside his own box.  How many other architects' courses do you think Seth Raynor was visiting in the early 20's?  And how many was Jack Nicklaus or Tom Fazio seeing 5 years ago?

[PThomas]

so would you consider the 6th at PD a template hole now Tom?

are there other template holes?  for ex, I know 12 at Muirfield Village is a close copy to Augusta's 12th...are there others like them?

Also, do certain architects use a certain type of hole again and again in their designs?

[JESII]

Tom,

You must have missed the point...you're mocking the architecural opinions of people that pretty much unanimously rave about your work...strange.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

No in fact I get excited at the thought of playing a new one. Of course I loved every round I have ever played on a CBM/Raynor course. They tend to be fun, strategic as well as challenging. In fact the hardest part of my move to being a west coast golfer is not playing Mountain Lake 20 or so times each season. One feels that each hour of daylight is meant to be enjoyed on the course there.

[Tom_Doak]

Tom,

You must have missed the point...you're mocking the architecural opinions of people that pretty much unanimously rave about your work...strange.

I didn't miss the point.  Really.

Why would I care if people here rave about my work, if they don't believe in the need for creativity?  [This also begs the question, why would they really LIKE my work if all they want is templates?  Very little of my best work is actually a result of using them.  It's hard to reconcile Jim Franklin's positive opinion of templates with his professed love of Rock Creek, where none of the best holes are modeled on anywhere else ... but then again, it's harder to reconcile Pat Mucci's love of the 12th hole at Garden City, if he also professes to want to see the same four par-3 holes on virtually every course.]

I am just crazy enough to want people to UNDERSTAND what they're talking about, instead of just falling for the familiar.  The main reason I mistrust templates is that they make you sound like you know something, whether you do or not.  I'm naturally skeptical, because over the years I've listened to lots of fellow architects quote MacKenzie or Ross as inspiration, when often their courses exhibit no appreciation of those architects' work.

[Mac Plumart]

Tom...

I assume you had these feelings about templates prior to building Old MacDonald.  What was the #1 thing you tried to inject into the template based course that you felt was missing from the prior ones?  (FYI, I think I can make a guess...but I'd love to hear your thoughts first).

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tom,

You must have missed the point...you're mocking the architecural opinions of people that pretty much unanimously rave about your work...strange.

I didn't miss the point.  Really.

Why would I care if people here rave about my work, if they don't believe in the need for creativity?  [This also begs the question, why would they really LIKE my work if all they want is templates? 

Tom, how would you describe the 17th hole at Pacific Dunes ?

A redan ?

Very little of my best work is actually a result of using them. 

No one doubts that.

It's hard to reconcile Jim Franklin's positive opinion of templates with his professed love of Rock Creek, where none of the best holes are modeled on anywhere else ...

but then again, it's harder to reconcile Pat Mucci's love of the 12th hole at Garden City, if he also professes to want to see the same four par-3 holes on virtually every course.]

I never professed to want to see the same four par 3 holes on virtually every course.
Would you cite where I made that statement

As to the 12th hole at Garden City, it is so wonderfully unique that it begged restoration.
But, you fought restoring it because it wasn't your idea.
Just like you fought shifting the 7th fairway back to its 1936 location and restoring the long trench bunker paralleling it.

You may recall, and I can produce the correspondence, that you offered a half assed rendering of # 12.
Then, when I convinced the entire green committee and the chairman that the hole should be restored, you agreed.
Then, subsequently, you undermined the project by coming out against the restoration and re-recommending a variation of the half assed rendering you previously presented.

Don't bring up our respective roles in the restoration or failure to restore the 12th at Garden City.

I am just crazy enough to want people to UNDERSTAND what they're talking about, instead of just falling for the familiar. 
The main reason I mistrust templates is that they make you sound like you know something, whether you do or not. 
I'm naturally skeptical, because over the years I've listened to lots of fellow architects quote MacKenzie or Ross as inspiration, when often their courses exhibit no appreciation of those architects' work.

Tom, no one is attacking your creativity because you choose not to employ or over-employ templates.

The fact remains, that 100 years after their creation, they remain fun to play.

Give the Devil his due.

[Bill Brightly]

I think that, in the end, that's what produces a reliance on templates -- the architect in question can't think outside his own box.  How many other architects' courses do you think Seth Raynor was visiting in the early 20's?  And how many was Jack Nicklaus or Tom Fazio seeing 5 years ago?
[/quote]

From what I have learned, I would guess that Raynor saw very few other great courses beyond the ones he built with CBM. I think Raynor is unique in so many ways because he did not play the game, learned at the side of one great architect, and that architect stressed template features. And when people requested Raynor, they were, IMO, requesting a course built upon the principles that Macdonald had formulated. I disagree that Raynor could not "think outside his own box." I think he could have, if that is what he was hired to do. Look at what Raynor was able to do with Yale, by all accounts a great engineering feat, and tell me he could not have done something different IF that was what he was asked to do. People hired him for that type of box, not to build a new box...

I happen to think Fishers Island is his best course. But it is not a great course because of the templates. Rather, it is great because of it's location, excellent "links" soil, the way the course fits with it's surrounds. And because the template features are grounded in great golfing features, Raynor combined all of this into a great course.  If the owners of Fishers Island had said, "Seth, we want to hire you to build a course, but we are tired of CBM's template features, do something different" I have no doubt that the reults would have been equally breathtaking.

[Tom_Doak]

Patrick:

I exaggerated your love of the templates as an example to show how people professing love for the Eden, the Redan, the Short and the Biarritz were leaving no room for any of the other great par-3 holes in the world, and how silly that would be.  I tried to pick a par-3 I knew you liked.  I had no intention of getting into Garden City business.

I do not concur with your purported history of our roles at Garden City Golf Club in relation to hole #12.  For one, it's absolute total bullshit that I fought restoring it "because it wasn't my idea".  Restoration is all about putting back someone else's ideas, and I've done more of that work than anyone who participates here.  As for "half-assed renderings", that's really about as good as my drawings get.    Getting things built is the part I'm good at.

I think you've got the sequence of events very wrong, and also the facts as to who's on your side and who's not in that battle.  However, it would be unprofessional of me to air those details on this forum, as it's a matter between the client [that's the club] and architect.  Perhaps you should consider whether your position as a member and green committee member makes it inappropriate for you to make such statements, as well.

[Tom_Doak]

I think that, in the end, that's what produces a reliance on templates -- the architect in question can't think outside his own box.  How many other architects' courses do you think Seth Raynor was visiting in the early 20's?  And how many was Jack Nicklaus or Tom Fazio seeing 5 years ago?

From what I have learned, I would guess that Raynor saw very few other great courses beyond the ones he built with CBM. I think Raynor is unique in so many ways because he did not play the game, learned at the side of one great architect, and that architect stressed template features. And when people requested Raynor, they were, IMO, requesting a course built upon the principles that Macdonald had formulated. I disagree that Raynor could not "think outside his own box." I think he could have, if that is what he was hired to do. Look at what Raynor was able to do with Yale, by all accounts a great engineering feat, and tell me he could not have done something different IF that was what he was asked to do. People hired him for that type of box, not to build a new box...

I happen to think Fishers Island is his best course. But it is not a great course because of the templates. Rather, it is great because of it's location, excellent "links" soil, the way the way the course fits with it's surrounds. And because the template features are grounded in great golfing features, Raynor combined all of this into a great course.  If the owners of Fishers Island had said, "Seth, we want to hire you to build a course, but we are tired of CBM's template feature, do something different" I have no doubt that the reults would have been equally breathtaking.

[/quote]

Bill:

Is the above anything beyond wishful thinking on your part?  Did ANY of Seth Raynor's clients ever ask him to do something different, and if so, what did he build for them that was different?  I'm not saying he COULDN'T have, I'm just saying he DIDN'T.

I also think you give his clients too much credit.  I think a lot of them probably had no idea what they wanted ... even more so than today's clients, because the clients of 90 years ago had not seen nearly as many courses as today's clients do.  I don't think they called and demanded templates; I think they wanted the guy who built The National and Mid Ocean, and they just asked him to build them a great course because they figured he must know how to do it.

[Scott Warren]

Tom Doak:

Why would I care if people here rave about my work, if they don't believe in the need for creativity?  [This also begs the question, why would they really LIKE my work if all they want is templates?

Who ever said "all I want is templates"?

It's possible to like both chocolate and vanilla... I'd say a good percentage of us do.

[Bill Brightly]

It is not wishful thinking, just logical thinking. If he could figure out a way to build template features at a site as difficult as Yale, I reason that he could figure out a way to NOT build templates if that was the direction given by is clients. I agree with you that he probably was never given this direction.

TD, I have always chuckled at your mild criticisms of Raynor's work. Because as important as Mackanzie, Macdonald and others were in educating you on what you liked, IMO Raynor played a major role in steering you away from an over-reliance on the works of past greats. If there was no Raynor, would you have developed that belief as firmly as you did?

[Sean_A]

I haven't played many "official" template holes, but I have seen countless versions (afterall, a template is just a version of the original anyway) of templates - we all have.  From my perspective, what really sets official templates apart is the stark shaping (often because the site wasn't suitable for a template so it was just constructed) and the expectation that all four par 3s will (should?) be present.  The only template which really stands out as unique is the Biarritz.  The green complex just isn't seen anywhere else by chance so it must necessarily be built intentionally.  The other three templates exist in nature as it were and it makes sense to use nature when possible.  Now, I could easily tire of the Biarritz.  I understand the concept of a runner, but I would think much of the time for the theme to work (and for many it is the only way to play the hole so it is limiting in its playability) the course must be f&f.  Otherwise, its penal target golf to the max with the player trying to whack a long club up what is essentially a narrow gut.  Of course, one can lay back and that brings me to the next point.  I think the concept of the Biarritz would work better as short par 4.  So no, as long as we include all the templates we encounter along the golf highway I would't get bored except for the Biarritz.  Everything has to be clicking for this type of hole not to get old fast.

Ciao        

[BCrosby]

 "The main reason I mistrust templates is that they make you sound like you know something, whether you do or not.  I'm naturally skeptical, because over the years I've listened to lots of fellow architects quote MacKenzie or Ross as inspiration, when often their courses exhibit no appreciation of those architects' work."  TD

That pretty much nails it. The problem with templates is not that they aren't good holes. It's that they tend to choke off the architectural thought process. Having neat, replicable hole concepts that function as stand-in's for what are complicated design ideas can do that.

Crystal Downs is a wonderful example of a course where the land presents any number of template opportunities. MacK must have seen that from his first day on the property. But he went in another direction and CD is a better course for it.

Bob

  

[Peter Pallotta]

Very interesting discussion, thanks gents.  It reminds of the metaphor a writer once used to describe why living a principled life was hard, i.e. he noted that the rules of chess weren't there to make the game easier, but to make it harder - the alternative being (in the absence of any rules) no game at all.  It stuck me as related to this discussion, i.e. the principles that lie behind the great golf holes that have become templates weren't 'intended' to make it easier for architects to copy those templates over and over again, but to make architects work harder than ever at finding and manifesting those principles in unique ways and on ever-new/different pieces of land.  

Actually, maybe that's a poor analogy, but I'll stick with it.

Peter

[Niall C]

Peter

As a matter of interest, how many template holes did you think you played in your recent trip to Scotland ?

Niall

[Terry Lavin]

Nothing wrong with templates per se; it's the creative riffing, if you will, of the architect and the shapers that can lead to a form of expression on the land that can enable and ennoble the playing of the game. Or it can lead to a form of monotony which only dullards and xerox machines could enjoy. I like good template holes, playful reincarnations and bold takes on the form that create enjoyment on the course and debate in the bar.

[michael damico]

I went golfing on a recent trip back to the NE with a bunch of my grandfather's buddies. They all have been playing golf for 40+ years and not one of them could tell you what a template hole was or looked like. Is this not the norm?

If we argue on this site for designers that design for the common people (the 90 some-odd % of golfers that are above a 10 handicap), those same people that couldn't tell you the difference between a Redan or an Eden, why is it essential that a template be placed on courses? Those 'average Joe' golfers are still interested in the game and obviously don't get bored by any means with both non-template AND template holes alike.

[David Cronheim]

Something I've found enjoyable about template holes is that even on my first visit to a golf course, I understand how to play a hole. If you stand on a tee and know it's a redan, you dial in the draw to get to a back left pin, etc. For example, I played in an outing at Forsgate recently. When I got to the hole-in-one hole (#7), I knew it was a reverse redan. I hit it where I was supposed to and almost jarred it. Was it fun? You bet, but some of the mystery was gone too. If you played a course with a lot of templates every day (e.g. Yale) I can see how that might get a bit repetitive. I do think some of the beauty of some template holes is how different they can play from day to day.

Tom, I'd be curious to have your thoughts on this, but on most courses a given holes plays roughly the same from day to day. But think of how differently, for example a Double Plateau can with the pin on one of three levels or a Biarritz plays with the pin in the bottom vs. front vs. top. Of course some of this has to do with the severity of the greens which could be recreated elsewhere and courses with interesting greens can have holes that play differently depending on pin location. Template holes, in my opinion, do an excellent job of adding day-to-day interest. Good, creative holes can do the same thing elsewhere.

I think to some extent a lot of us on this forum love template holes because there's a certain amount of familiarity with them. By getting to know the template, we can step on a lot of golf courses and "know" that course a little bit. On one hand, that's great because you have a feel for a course the first time you play it. On the other, it does remove some of the nuance of discovering the intricacies of a course over time.

Lastly, the CBM/Raynor templates are fun because the features are big. Using the features is fairly easy. It's not like playing Augusta where you have to be a professional to control your ball enough to use some of the green features. A decent player has a fighting chance of using the big features in play. In my opinion, that's also why CBM/Raynor courses don't stand up to pros as well (i.e. pros eat them up) and have been less able to adapt to modern equipment.