[Patrick_Mucci]

For the last two weeks or so I have heard quite a few personal interpretations of the Star Spangled Banner.  
In one incident, at a basketball game, the singer forgot the words, laughed and asked the crowd for help.  I find these personal interpretations, possibly started by Jose Feliciano, distasteful.  But, that's just my opinion.

I've also been listening to a good deal of opera lately and it struck me that throughout all these centuries, no notes have been changed, no current date personalized renditions PARALLELING the Star Spangled Banner have been offered, or accepted.

And then I thought of golf courses, predominantly classic golf courses, and I thought, is it just a modern trait, an American trait, or do other countries make the same alterations to their classic courses as we do to ours ?

And, what is it about golf course architecture that makes it open season for alteration or disfigurement, that doesn't apply to music, or art.

Why are they inviolate, and classic golf courses outdoor experimentation labs ?

[Mike_Cirba]

Patrick,

As you know, I drive by a very famous classic course virtually every day, and I think about your question often.

I think that the generally positive American creeds of "more" and "better" tend to stem from a general dissatisfaction with the status quo, and thus, a somewhat short-sighted, immediate view that EVERYTHING can be improved, changed, modernized, and is thus temporary.

At it's best, this kind of thinking lets men walk on the moon.  The downside is that 30 years later, there are those who are convinced it never happened.

[Matt_Ward]

Pat:

Unfortunately, part of the American psyche is the desire to put one's "mark" on something. Classic golf courses that you mention are clearly front and center with this type of thinking.

Strangely, as Mike just pointed out, very few Americans have a real good sense of history and as a result fail to appreciate the essence of what made something unique in the first place.

I only wish that were not the case but it's a condition that is in full force in so many areas in our American culture.

[Scott_Burroughs]

One classic, non-American course, The Old Course, has been modified in recent years.  Adding yardage with new back tees and I believe adding a few more pot bunkers, too.

[RJ_Daley]

Scott, they have modernised TOC and even altered her bunkers some.  But, they haven't made it "warble yet".  By that I mean that Pat Mucci at Matt Ward really nails this analogy, I think.  When Whitney Houston or Jimmy Hendrix sing or play (ed) the National Anthem, they didn't just use their talent to pay tribute to the classic eternal words and symbol that it represents by doing it in the time honored classic style and notes.  Whitney had to warble it like an air raid siren and personally mark it like a coyote marks territory.  Roseanne even had to scratch her version out.  Hendrix had to reverberate it to chaos and distraction.  It would be the equivalent to adding Rees's pieces mounding to TOC or a Robinson dammed up pond and waterfall in the burn at Carnoustie or upholstered her bunker lips like Fazio did to the white faces.

[Scott_Burroughs]

I agree about the Star Spangled Banner analogy.  I usually don't like personal alterations to it.  As much as I love Hendrix, I've never cared for his Woodstock version.  The worse I've ever personally heard (worse than Roseanne) was at the 1998 Music City Bowl.  The local guy added a sampler back beat to it and added an indecipherable jazz guitar that got him booed by the crowd.  Even got mentioned in the paper the next day.  But I've always loved Whitney's 1991 Super Bowl rendition.  Lot's of Desert Storm patriotism and emotion made it all the more special.

Any other Open rotation courses been altered for "modernization" (lengthening)?

[Jim_Kennedy]

Pat,
I prefer TSSB in it's original rendition but I also think that those who choose to sing it in their personal fashion are really honoring the country they live in and its indivdualism.
I know zilch about opera. I do know a lot of musicians. One of them, a cellist of some reknown, once said opera, and classical music, were dogmatic, whatever that means. Perhaps this keeps them from change, but I really don't know.

Maybe they didn't look at golf courses as "classics" years ago when changes started to take place. When did golf courses become like works of art?  Did any of the creators of these gems(courses) consider them inviolate? It seems they were all prepared for future changes to their work and expected such. Maybe if CB or others said "I got this perfect, now keep your hands off!" we may have seen less changes. I mean, they flipped the nines at Augusta almost immediately after opening. TOC was widened in 1850. When did they change the cape hole at NGLA? And that for what, a road?

I think a lot of the change on these classics happened gradually, over time, and much of it was maintenance related rather than personal branding, although that is part of it. I've also heard it(change) attributed to lack of knowledge of what is there. I also hear more and more talk about courses trying to recover what's been lost over time. Maybe the corner has been turned and your suppositions are slowly becoming moot?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Jim Kennedy,

Some renditions are so far removed from FSK version that they are unrecognizable, like many classic golf courses today.

I don't mind mild variations, nor do I mind lengthening tees, but when the integrity of the work is violated, I take offense.

I understand the wild variations in the SSB as an extension of the ego of the performer, but I don't understand the collective intellect of a membership disfiguring a golf hole, with a pre-conceived written plan, that takes time, work and money to implement and complete.

Is it that the members own the club, but the performer doesn't own the music, or does the opera cater to a more critical, discerning audience ?

Paging David Suskind !

[Brian Phillips (Guest)]

Patrick,

Did you know that the SSB is orignally a take off/adapted from an english or irish drinking song!

I agree with you about the different renditions.  I have heard so many different versions of the SSB it makes me laugh the lack of respect the seems to be about you National Anthem.  

Our God save the Queen is a bit more protected than the SSB unlike our Links courses that are now getting a facelift by architects.

Donald Steel's company is doing redesigns on Royal Liverpool and Royal Aberdeen at the moment, I just hope they don't change the feel of the course.

Sometimes Architects can get a bit carried away with putting their mark on a course which does not need it.  A bit like the SSB, when sung in the correct manner it is a moving song (even for an englishman), the same goes with re-designs, when the course is treated with the respect it deserves then the re-designs should suit the existing courses not change atmosphere of playing the course.

Cheers Brian

[Shane Gurnett]

Guys, if a humble Aussie may put his two cents worth in, the best rendition of the SSB I've heard was the one performed by Bleeding Gums Murphy off the "Dancin Homer" episode of the Simpsons. BGM's slow, sorrowful jazz version took about an hour to sing before the Isotopes ball game. A classic.

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

Not all change is bad. Changing a golf course is not inherently bad and not changing a golf course is not inherently good. Each case is different.

[TEPaul]

It seems to me the idea of change is not unique to America or Americans but we've always been real good at it! Probably the best and most comprehensive in the world at it or maybe in the history of the world. Change is good to us! We feel it's part of our unique dynamic and our uniquely American "ethos". We Americans probably don't think about it that much but basically we're real proud of our "can do" mentality and ability--and that's based a ton on change!

It's also part of the myth of being an American--please don't laugh about this but the "myths" that reside in our collective national psyche are essential to the way we think about ourselves and also the way we think about others.

Don't get me started again on this fundamental American notion of "Manifest Destiny" but it too resides in most of us and in a dose you cannot sometimes imagine. It's a fundamental motivational myth within our "ethos" although a most subliminal one! Try again not to laugh but the specific American myth that resides within most of us and is most telling and most indicative is the cute little story of Washington cutting down the cherry tree and the outcome of that act--ie; destruction of beauty, honest admission and forgiveness!

That little myth (that was imbued in most of us when we were too young to really think about it critically) is as central to explaining the Amercian motivation and the motivation of "Manifest Destiny" which is essentially a beautiful rationalization for a massive and collective American psychological conflict! That conflict is we feel all powerful--we must feel that way and we are that way!! "Manifest Destiny" makes us all feel that way but in that thought and that process we feel sentimentality sometimes, maybe even shame and guilt for what we overcome, what we conquer and sometimes destroy.

To explore the wilderness, to survive in it we had to overcome it, we had to conquer it--and we did! But we could see it's pure majesty too--unadulerated before our discovery and our coming and overcoming! We could see the beauty of the frontier, the buffalo, the Indians (or some could) but we conquered it all anyway! And to give us sanity, to assuage our conflict in our actions and our guilt in doing what we did and are going to continue to do we wrapped the entire process in the extraordinary rationalistic notion of "Manifest Destiny"!! We need to feel powerful and we need to feel honest and fair and democratic and forgiving too--just like Little George and his father did and showed us all! How much we need to feel this is best evidenced by our recent collective disappointment and surprise how much others seem to hate us (and what we represent)!!

I'm sort of a wiseguy East Coast American, like Pat, but somewhere in both our psyches there's probably an enormous slice of "Heartland America" and all that means.

So I'm with Pat; it bother me too when someone alters TSSB. Hell I was driving back from Scranton yesterday listening to all the CDs of the "Emperors of Soul", the Temptations!! They're wonderful--the original cuts of "My Girl" and all the others. But in the midst of those great songs and memories up came their completely altered version of another of my favorites  from an entirely different artist--"Old Man River"--a show song. It was terrible and I hated it!

I'm really going to go on a tangent momentarily--as much in honour of "Tangential" Pat Mucci as of my American crosscurrents of latent "Manifest Destiny". I'm going to admit that I'm probably best described as an old "unreconstructed American liberal" but nothing makes me much prouder than seeing the hot glow of an F-16 blasting off the USS Carl Vinson at night on it's way to annihilate that SOB of all history and his 15th century fellow travelers!! And nothing makes me prouder still than to know that flying in that F-16 squadron are two FEMALE PILOTS!!

Recently I read a great article by Christopher Hickens about the mentality and culture of that fundamental fringe (The Taliban) and its madness that's controlled Afganistan (and large parts of Pakistian). One of his points was that that entire fundamental fringe (the Taliban) basically hates women with a vengence.

So Hickens (reporting from afganistan) happened to find out that two of the F-16s he was watching take down the Taliban were flown by US female pilots; So this is what he said he felt like he should do; Go on over to the Taliban Embassy and say to them; "Fellows, this is your worst nightmare; she's pissed, she's packing and she's headed for you!!!"

God I love that--makes me proud to be an American! And for now I'm just hoping that three weeks from now I don't feel guilty about it somehow!

[JakaB]

Patrick,

To say that Opera has not changed over the centuries is as uninformed as the average golfer who says modern courses are only longer.  Just the Asian influence alone has brought a subtlety to the music that was not found in the early Europeon renditions.  The stroke of a young Asian woman on the strings of a violin when compared to a German man is like night and day...Modern opera has a sensual nature that was lacking in the early recordings...an inverse relationship to what has happened in golf.

[TEPaul]

Barny, would you take it easy on Pat? He might just be getting into opera and here you are taking him to task for failing to understand the distinctions between an Asian women's fingers on a violin in Opera today vs a German man's fingers from yesteryear!

Give him a break, will you Pal--he's still struggling to understand what's "containment mounding" and what isn't!!

[Craig Disher]

Another factor in our willingness to change classic courses (most of which are private) is the large amounts of money available to clubs in the US.  Most of the old courses in the UK really operate on a shoestring. Adding or moving a single bunker may cost 10-20% of the year's operating budget!

[Patrick_Mucci]

Jaka B,

What Opera's have had the notes to the music changed over the centuries, and by whom ?

What music from which Opera's are materially different by virtue of the Asian or any other influence ?

Would you equate the degree of changes in the music to the degree of changes to classic golf courses ?  

[Bob_Huntley]

JakaB:

If I took a recording of an obscure piece of music, not previously recorded, with Isaac Stern and any young Asian violinist, or Casals and  and Jaquelin Du Pre playing it, I would take a pretty big bet that  not one person in a thousand could determine the artist.

I sure could identify a Desmond Muirhouse course.

[Rich_Goodale]

CDisher

Youtr statement about the finances of the classic (and not so classic) UK courses is not true, in my experience.  The better ones have substantial operating surpluses which could fund any sort of resoration project imagined.  They just do not see any need to spend the money in that way.

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