A Ferrari-Neon analogy that TEPaul used in a previous post is a good one: ” What's a better car for engineering, design, style, performance etc, a Ferrari or a Neon? There's no question about it. Is there a need and a use for both? Definitely!”
When we “critique” a golf course, especially here at GCA, we often think that all golf courses need to be Ferraris. Or ‘67 Mustangs, to give it the more “classic” penchant we seem to prefer. We tend to evaluate every new course with some sort of pseudo-educated intellectual “does-it-elevate-the-art?” snobby “from-above” perspective. Much in the same manner, I suppose, as the car-lover that drools over the silver-plated “electronic-quadruple-intake-valve-thingamajig” of the Ferrari.
All this is good. We need to elevate the art and push the science.
However, not every golf course is supposed to do that. A Neon is not a Ferrari.
If I design a “residential GPS white-sand containment-mound carts-only” golf course, I know I’m not “elevating the art”. I’m not trying to. I’m just trying to design a green space where Joe Q. Golfer can go out with his buddies on Saturday and chase the ball around. And Joe actually likes waterfalls, thank you very much. So we give it to them. And Joe doesn’t want to be “educated” (as the elitist like to say) about the merit of the Biarritz and the ground game. And that’s his right. He’s had a long week and just wants to have fun.
Of course, that’s the easy way out. As much as I am willing to defend Joe’s game and provide for it, I also feel, in my heart of heart, that we as architects have some sort of obligation towards the game of golf in general.
In other words, we need to remind Joe that, once again, a Neon is not a Ferrari. Joe might think he’s playing a Ferrari. That’s it’s a Fazio with waterfalls and green grass and flowers and cute cart girls and all that stuff. That’s why the game’s in trouble But we need to whisper in his ear, draw him away from that freshly-waxed red Neon, and nudge him towards a real Ferrari.
Then again, I say all this and I wonder how in the world can architects transform Joe’s view, even in the long term. Joe’s views are so ingrained by the society he lives in that it’s not a golf course that is going to change them. We see Neons posing as Ferraris everywhere we look, from Restaurants to Music to Movies.
It’s a world of style over substance, of body-image, big bangs, sex and youth, photo ops and sound clips.
So we can’t grab Joe by the throat a drag him, kicking and screaming, away from the Neon. We need to slowly, subtly transform the Neon into a Ferrari without Joe noticing the changes. Rome wasn’t built in a day, as they say.
So perhaps, rather than bashing an architect who sells out on one of his principles, we should applaud that architect for standing up to one of his principles. Let’s not bash an architect who designed a course that has containment mounds. Let’s salute him for not putting wall-to-wall cart paths. And let’s also salute him for building a golf course that Joe will enjoy, containment mounds and all.
Let’s see the glass as half-full.
We can’t win this war tomorrow, but we can win some battles.