A New (because old) Approach to Criticism

[Terry Lavin]

Just don't criticize Melvyn.

[Peter Pallotta]

He's Scottish....


Mark B, Sean, John et al - it just occurred to me.  I started with Chesterton's reference to the subconscious, and in my first post I riffed on that.  But when I keep talking about going deeper, I think what I mean -- as silly as this will sound to some -- is that the true critic tries/should try to find "meaning" underneath the surface, a meaning that even the architect can't/won't articulate, and may not even be consciously aware of. Now, I grant that "meaning" is a loaded and/or ambiguous and/or meaningless word -- but when I have looked at pictures over the years of courses I really didn't like, I think one of the reason may be that I couldn't find any "meaning" in them.

Peter

[Terry Lavin]

At the thread's peril...

[Steve Lang]

  Peter, so its the ol' ageless function follows form or form follows function debate.. that the critic tries to reconcile.. whether the gca is merely the translator guide between these mediums?  biased on one, though capable or commercial on the other?

[cary lichtenstein]

It is impossible to design a golf golf for all levels of play. I only see architecture thru my game and it am free to admit that. I love quirk because the strongest part of my game was with the sand wedge, I could literally hit every shot, regardless of the difficulty. But trees overhandging the right side of the fairway killed me.

[David Kelly]

Well, following Chesterton explicitly and Goddard implicitly, Harold Bloom made a career of the notion that the subject of every poem is other poems (and the 'anxiety' attendant thereto).  This has to be even more true of golf courses where the structure is much more codified (18 holes, yardage in a tight range, small variations in number of 3s,4s,5s, tees, geens, etc.)--as though ALL poems were just sonnets and elegies.  One might say that every golf course is really just a riff on toc?

Good post and Bloom goes farther in his theory and writes that this Anxiety of Influence weighs on poets and says that to the extent that a poet breaks out of this inflluence he will develop an original voice and secure his position in the canon. 

So I think the work of the great golf course architects can be viewed both through the influence they have picked up from previous architects and in the way that their work has diverged from these influences and forged a new path.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Patrick - thanks. But as Sully likes to say, let's 'un-pack' that a little. 

You can imagine, I assume, an experienced and well-travelled and well-informed golfer who is able to separate out his personal preferences from critical analysis.

At its very best then, what do you think this critical analysis would consist of?

Where to begin ?

First, I'd seperate maintainance from the architecture, leaving the maintainance meld meter as a seperate evaluation.

Retrospectively, the routing would be a significant part of the evaluative process, but, that only comes after most of the individual holes have been played.  Routing would include the use of the available land.

Individual hole design.

Individual feature design and how they integrate/relate to other features.

There are many individual items that are "collectivized" to form an analysis.

Besides a description of a range of specific features and an analysis of how those features impact on/interact with golfers, what insight into the nature and quality of the architect's work on a given site would this analysis, for you, ideally provide?

The quality and enjoyability of the challenge would be a primary assessment.

Let's not forget that golf is a game where the golfer attempts to get from point "A" to point "B" in as few strokes as possible, and it's the architect's mission to make that journey challenging, interesting and fun.  One has to assess to what extent the architect has been able to fulfill that mission, on a hole by hole and collective basis.

NGLA isn't the hardest golf course in the world, but, it's one of the most interesting, challenging and fun journeys one can make.

The culmination of the visceral and intellectual test, the ultimate tests for me, is, do I want to go straight from the 18th green to the 1st tee ?
Do I want to play this course on a daily basis.

If I do, why ?
And, if I don't, why ?

Objectivity, rather than preference has to weight that analysis.
 

[Sean_A]

Pat

You lost me with "quality", "enjoyability", "primary" and "objective".  Those four words don't work together in objective criticism.

Pietro

I can't comment on the subconscious or just below the surface stuff.  That sort of thing, to pardon the language, is a load of hogwash.  The idea of critical analysis of someone's thoughts that aren't wholly known by that someone (or even wholly known) seems so far stretched that it isn't worth getting caught up in.  I am a subscriber to group dynamics, but I have no experience which shows me that I know much about a person without knowing that person.  I especially would not get caught up in believing I know a person because I "know" his art. 

No, I don't think of myself as anything like a critic even though I offer a few critical comments through the range of positive to negative.  I do try to make it obvious how I feel about a course while keeping an even keel because I know, just as with people, that I don't really know a course after only a few plays.  Instead, I know how I feel about a course.  Not terribly objective I know, but I am not entirely sold on the concept of objectivity when it comes to art, or even if its possible to be so.  The good thing is, I trust my feelings - tee hee.

Ciao

[Jason Topp]

I do not readthe original quote as dealing with the unconscious mind in a psychological sense.  I read it as a fancy way of pointing out impactss of the original work that the author or architect is not aware of.