How does a golf designer stay conceptually relevant?

[Jud_T]

I also think the one element of design that so often drives "conceived concept" today is the bunker.  Both types of architects are trying to copy a bunker that is being built in the sandhills in areas where it just can't work.  IMHO sand has been a crutch for this business for a long time just because of the color palette.  Imagine the concepts that would evolve if bunkers were the color of the grass.

Mike:

No doubt the above is true.  Bunkerless courses have often been floated here as the Next Great Idea, but it seems that nobody has the balls to build one.  It would make a lot more sense if you did one in Georgia than if I did one on sand in Florida

Personally, I don't think that a bunkerless course would be likely to be judged as great.  I also don't think it would be significantly less expensive to maintain than a course with +/- 30 bunkers around the greens, because if you eliminated greenside bunkers I think you would have to build mounds or other tricky-to-maintain features to make recovery shots around the greens more difficult from some angles.  That seems to me to be an essential element of a great course.

Mr. Jones and Dr. MacKenzie built a course with less bunkers [and MORE SEVERE greens, btw], but they did not go so far as to exclude them altogether.


Tom,

Go see Spring Valley.  I think it's bunkerless since they went broke in the great depression, but the landforms and greens are sufficiently interesting to offset this.  It's also maintained F&F on a very low budget.

[Peter Pallotta]

Don - a few thoughts, off of Jud's mention of the improvising jazz musician:

1) At my best, I can improvise a simple and pleasing solo (golf course) over a great set of changes/chords (the site), i.e. one that lends itself easily to the creation of good jazz/music (the golfing experience).  But my technique (talent, practice, knowledge, experience) is not developed enough to do much more than that: on other great chord progressions I tend to repeat myself, playing only slightly different variations of the same simple solo; and on difficult/challenging sets of changes, I often get stuck completely and can't play at all. In other words, under some circumstances I can indeed make music, but no matter how much of a beginner's mind and outsider's perspective I bring to the task I can't make music of the variety and depth and interest and beauty of the jazz masters, those who have dedicated their lives to learning and perfecting their crafts.  

2) Interestingly, though, those jazz masters are identifiable almost immediately: the sounds and music they make when improvising have both the quality of surprise/interest (the unexpected) as well as the ever-present style/brand (the expected).  Anyone who likes listening to alto sax players can tell within 10 seconds whether they are listening to Charlie Parker or Art Pepper or Paul Desmond; any fan of the tenor  can tell almost instantly whether they're listening to Lester Young or Coleman Hawkins; and anyone can spot tell you that this solo is by Louis Armstrong and that one by Clifford Brown and the other one by Miles Davis. That's because the masters have a style - they repeat themselves all the time. But this doesn't diminish them, it makes them.

Peter  

[BCrosby]

Peter -

The question of style has come up often in the past. Your point about the persistence of the style of great musicians is exactly right. You can spot Oscar Peterson within the first few bars in much the same way you can spot a Donald Rss course from the parking lot. Their style is not something they elect to adopt (or not) in a given work. It is, literally, who they are as a musician or an an architect. It is not like a pair of glasses they can put on and take off. Or to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, there is nothing more profound about someone than his style.

The persistence of style answers another question. It's why I don't have to play all the courses by Ross or Rees Jones or whomever to have a credible opinion about them as architects. While an architect's approach to this or that project will vary, it's virtually impossible for him to step outside his own style in any material way.

Bob       

[Sean_A]

Pietro & Bob

I tend yo agree with you that all archies (and humans) lean toward a style.  It may be that in the case of archies that the best have a style which is harder to identify.  I have also always believed that archies who really do lay courses over the land are hard to identify in terms of style.  I know I have said it before, but I can never figure out a Fowler just by playing Fowler courses. 

Ciao

[RJ_Daley]

Sorry Bob, I can't agree that comment; "While an architect's approach to this or that project will vary, it's virtually impossible for him to step outside his own style in any material way."

A golf architect isn't creating an art form like music - jazz, that generally is passively enjoyed by music fans.  Unless they are musicians themselves (which many people play some instrument to some degree) the music and which ever genre they create in (jazz, rock, classical variations) does not equate to golfers who actively go onto a physical environment to compete, interact in a generally athletic and strategic manner and then form an opinion of relevancy of style or enjoyment of that archie's product.  Whether the music consumer is a good musician, or has education in music theory, yet passively listens to a piece to recognize style, even within a genre, is not the same as any golfer from pro to hack that actively plays on said architects presentation, style, or offering.  The only way that analogy works for me is if a person is a very talented musician themselves and does attempt to play a piece in the style and competency of it's original composer.  That is a very small sampling of people, unlike the many people who can play golf with some understanding and for some relevant purpose to enjoy the product of the archie.

But the idea is that there is some barrier or impossibility for a good architect to step outside of some aspect that is identifiable to their previous offerings commonly thought of as their 'style' in a material way.  If a competent architect has good understanding of construction techniques and how to handle the specific site challenges of drainage and other weather and geography factors, then I believe they can still create a completely uncharacteristic style deviation from previously presented golf style-design and playing strategy, and still have that course play in context and be 'relevant' to the enjoyment of the game by active participants who actively play the game.

And, as to impossibility of great musicians to break out of an instantly identifiable style, I'm not musically educated enough to say for sure.  But, I'll ask the question based only on what I heard or read:  Didn't many legendary musicians change their style and philosophy and evolve during their career, to a point the composition isn't readily identifiable from major pieces they produced much earlier in life?  Wasn't this so with Miles Davis?  Or in painting and other arts like painters - sculptors; weren't there many who evolved, adapted, and changed style and even technique?

So, isn't it down to talent and creativity of the human brain to adapt, and many have successfully done so in their field?

I think Philippe's idea of 'process' is very crucial in all of this discussion.  That can be process of evolution, adaptation which leads to changing up style, and all of that can be wrapped up into the product's relevancy, if the archie is knowledgeable and competent in his/her work and understands the overall concept of the game in context.

[Jud_T]

Having a recognizable individual voice and being confined by a "style" are not one and the same.

[Don_Mahaffey]

Well Don, first off, congratulations on having a wife that enjoys walks on the golf course, maybe at dusk, or even at night.    I can't get mine to our course except for a friday evening fish fry at the club house restaurant (traditional here in our area), but not go on the course just to go for a walk on the pleasant terrain.  

So can you give an example of what your wife might see, or has mentioned something specific she has seen during one of your walks, that you may not have seen in that way before?  And, did seeing a feature or angle, relate to how you might design a golf hole to be played?  I think you have to tie the two contextual items together in a relavant way to make any progressive golf sense of this.  If she sees the way a certain slope is interestingly related to the view of a playing corridor that might effect one's desire to play along that angle or gain a different approach to the target, that you never recognized before, then that seems great.  But, a pretty good player that you are, on a course you are well familiar with, or your own course you work every day, seems like a stretch that a non-golfer could point some aspect out to you about that piece of ground that you never saw or contemplated, from either a new perspective to play that hole, or how to remodel or first build on it, if there is no golf skill behind any decision how to treat that hole from design or maintenance.  Your's seems an interesting concept, I just need you  to maybe sketch out what you are saying with a tangible example so I can maybe understand it better.

RJ, my wife is a bit of a naturalist. She raises chickens, tends to a garden, home schools our younger kids, prefers a swath of wild flowers over a landscape bed, and thinks it a bit odd that I talk about grass all the time. When we walk a course (we're lucky to have one close by that has very little traffic, and another near by as well) she doesn't look at things in a golf context. So I don't pick up ideas about how to make the game better from a player's perspective. It's more about the look, another non-golfer set of eyes giving feedback. When we were much younger and living in CA, my folks lived on one of the courses in the desert used for the Hope tourney. We used to walk that one a lot (sometimes at night ) and she would laugh at the little ponds with the dyed water and fountains. She was from Michigan, she knew what a body of water was supposed to look like. So no matter how much I explained about the dye keeping the algae down and the fountain helping as well, she thought it was pretty silly looking, and she felt the same way about other things on the courses. We think alike more often now, but she was there before I was.

For me, its not so much that I'm looking for ideas from her, or my golfing friends who don't study architecture, its more a realization that there is more then one way to look at it. It seems to me that as we start to learn about our game and courses, we start to develop a group think mentality. There is more of that here then out in the real world, but when we start to try and devise ways of measuring our courses, then I think we are also reaffirming that group think.  

When I asked the question about staying conceptually relevant, i wondered if we'd get any answers from outside of golf; that a golf designer might find some inspiration away from the game. Although I've enjoyed reading all the responses, we never really touched on the subject. We tried to explain it a bit, talked about styles and such, but never really got very deep. And that's probably because it's not viewed as that sort of deal by most.
Vinny probably says it best.

So my final Jeopardy answer is that a designer maintains conceptual relevance by deploying a variety of established older concepts (premises) in each property he is commissioned to work.  He can't locate them all at every property, just like St Andrews can't establish the concept of "water carries" in its "design"  The isolation, the finding and the conglomeration of these concepts in a course is what makes that course relevant.  The client dictates whether or not the architect has the latitude to do that independently or is that freedom sanctioned by purpose...a championship, sales of memberships or homes.

cheers

vk

Makes sense. The designer has a number of arrows in his quiver, more than 18, and uses what he needs from his wealth of knowledge to design the best course possible. Success is a combo of preparation (learning all the concepts) and talent (knowing which concepts work best for a particular project).

Except I think there are concepts that have been discussed but never used, and I'll leave you with one. Why do we always have to play a course in the same order? Why do we always have to take the same path?

We always hear all this talk about how great this piece of ground is, "perfect for golf". If that's the case, then why can't we ever design a course that can be played in both directions? Think of destination resorts with courses that people travel days to get to, stay for extended periods, yet they have to build a second course for variety. Why not build and maintain two for the price of one? if the ground is perfect for golf, if there are golf holes everywhere, why can't we have two in one? We can't design a green that can be approached from two directions? I can. Sure there will need to be a little more turf, but probably 90% less then if you had two courses.
We can maintain a course that can be easily switched from one way to another. We can place hazards that come into play no matter the direction you play. The main reason it probably will not happen anytime soon is because the idea would be instantly shot down by those in the know. Too difficult of a design puzzle. Goofy they'd call it.  But i do think it's possible, and I think if done well, and operated correctly, it could work.

[RJ_Daley]

Don, I completely agree with all of your last post.  We have something right here in Green Bay that comes close.  I've written about it a number of times.  No, it isn't exactly like TOC that can be played in reverse, like on April Fools Day, but it does have double greens and multiple tees, and one can go around the 9 hole track a number of times using different tees and alternate the pins on the double greens to offer a fair amount of variety.  To my knowledge, there isn't another track like this in the U.S.  It was designed by Rick Jacobson of Libertyville Ill.  I think they have some similar approaches of double greens in Japan, but they are more in the concept of winter and summer greens.  Take a look at the Thornberry Creek dual 9 hole loop of the 27 hole facility. 

Play with the zoom and tour this course:

http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=rdsw8w7nmzxm&lvl=19.48&dir=347.77&sty=b&form=LMLTCC

[Tom_Doak]

Don:

There have been a few reversible courses built in recent years, and a few more proposed but not built ... there's a good drawing of just what you describe in the most recent issue of the SAGCA Golf Architecture Journal, from a young Australian architect.

I think this is a great concept, but it hasn't caught on at all, probably because:

1.  It's too outside the box for most people,

2.  The only guys who have tried to do it are unknown designers trying to make a splash, who can't really draw enough attention to what they've done, and

3.  The concept makes it too hard to remember the individual holes -- sabotaging the key "memorability" criterion that so many people use as a short-cut to determine if the course was really good.


I actually tried to convince Jerry Rawls to let us build a reversible course for Texas Tech ... I thought that was the perfect setting because it was flat and we had to create everything, and Mr. Rawls is an engineer by training.  But, I also had to admit to him that the course would probably be less visually appealing to people because you would have to plant it differently, and that was a turn-off for him.  In hindsight, I should have just done it and not told anyone until the day after Opening Day.   And someday, maybe I will get the right site again to try this concept.  But I wouldn't expect it to win any awards ... and lots of clients want to win awards.

[V. Kmetz]

Tom,

I agree and say #3 is the clincher, if the course is built to attract anything and is not someone's private playground.

But as to outside the box concepts:

1. 12 and 14 Hole Courses?
2. 18 Hole Courses Broken Into Distinct Sixes, As Opposed to Nines?
3. Ridiculously short holes (45 - 75 yard holes) and ridiculously long ones (900-1000 yards)?
4. Placing no card "par" for any of the individual 18 holes, just the holes yardage and an overall par of 72 = level fours?

Which, if any, of these stands a meaningful chance to gain traction with designers and the golf they influence?
Do you harbor any of your own that you would like to deploy sometime in your career?

cheers

vk

[Don_Mahaffey]

3.  The concept makes it too hard to remember the individual holes -- sabotaging the key "memorability" criterion that so many people use as a short-cut to determine if the course was really good.

Tom,

I agree and say #3 is the clincher, if the course is built to attract anything and is not someone's private playground.

vk

I think to make these assumptions, one has to also assume that it's not possible to build an 18 hole course that can be played in either direction, with both courses being of high quality.

Earlier this year I played at Bandon Dunes. It was my third visit, but first time playing Old mac and Trails. I can remember numerous holes from both courses.
On my first visit I played Pac Dunes and Bandon Dunes, and I went home with memories of many holes on both courses.

VK, are you saying if I go to Winged Foot and play both courses, I can't remember any of the holes?

Imagine a course so cleverly designed that all 18 greens could be approached from two different directions. And a routing that made it easy to simply switch signage, tee markers and hole locations to indicate which path you were playing that day. Now imagine standing on one of the greens after putting out, and looking from where you came today, and then turning and looking at the route you took yesterday. Out of the box thinking? Yup? Impossible for a rater to grasp? Maybe. Not memorable? I don't think that would be the problem.

[Tom_Doak]

Vinnie:

I'll place my comments on each directly on your list:

But as to outside the box concepts:

1. 12 and 14 Hole Courses? -  I have no problem with this idea, and in fact have designed a course which doesn't have any set number of holes [The Sheep Ranch].  I think the concept is way too outside the box for most clients, and is best used only when the land to complete an 18-hole course is unavailable or just completely inferior and would change the nature of the course.  The Sheep Ranch did have more land inland to extend to 18 holes, and might go that direction someday ... but for now, why would they bother?

2. 18 Hole Courses Broken Into Distinct Sixes, As Opposed to Nines? -  I have built courses which returned to the clubhouse at #7 (Pacific Dunes), #8 (both courses at Stonewall), and other holes.  I don't think I've come back at the sixth yet.  The newfound fascination with a potential 6-6-6 setup is, in my opinion, either a marketing gimmick or a sign of the devil.

3. Ridiculously short holes (45 - 75 yard holes) and ridiculously long ones (900-1000 yards)?
     Personally I can't imagine the point of building a 50-yard hole, although I think 80-90 yards would be legitimate.  I know of little historical justification for a hole of that length.  But there is lots of justification for very long holes that might not be reachable in three shots -- Bernard Darwin's description of the old Royal Blackheath course makes it quite clear that one of the holes was in the neighborhood of 700 yards, even in the gutty ball era.  I've only had one project where I've suggested a hole that long would be the best fit for the routing, and it has not been built yet -- possibly sparing me some ridicule!

4. Placing no card "par" for any of the individual 18 holes, just the holes yardage and an overall par of 72 = level fours?
     You lost me at the overall par.  Why bother with that if you're not going to have par for the individual holes?  Why not just post the course rating and be done with it?

Which, if any, of these stands a meaningful chance to gain traction with designers and the golf they influence?
     It's unlikely that any of the ideas you've listed will gain traction with mainstream designers, other than the 6-6-6, because who can deny the existence of the devil in modern golf architecture?  
     Many of these ideas have been explored somewhere, but whenever they are employed [very long holes, or the occasional course that's not 18 holes] it is treated as a marketing gimmick, and often one feels that's the real reason behind the choice.   But, generally, golf design has become more and more conformist over time, not more inventive.  There are always tons of people in the golf business who are happy to tell you you're crazy for doing anything out of the box.

Do you harbor any of your own that you would like to deploy sometime in your career?
     I've built a bunch of courses with fescue fairways, despite being told how stupid it was.  I've continued to build greens with severe contours, despite being told how stupid it is in light of greenkeeping "improvements".  I've built courses with 80+ acres of fairway.  At Old Macdonald we built a hole similar to the Alps at National, which I'd been told for years that "no one would ever build today".  And I've put so many bunkers inside fairways [partly by widening the fairways] that no one even comments on it anymore.
     I've suggested designs with cross-over holes, and we are building one of them right now in New Zealand.  I'd love to build the second course at Black Mesa with the 700-yard par-6.  I'd love to build a reversible course that succeeds.  But all of those things need the right client and the right piece of ground where they really are the best solution to the problem, before I'm going to employ them.  

In spite of what others think, I don't exist to be controversial.  I try to find the best possible solution to placing my golf holes, and that seems to include a lot more options for me than for most designers, because I don't have as many design taboos.  I don't seek to find exotic solutions for their own sake; I'm just not afraid to use them when they really make sense.

[Tom_Doak]

Imagine a course so cleverly designed that all 18 greens could be approached from two different directions. And a routing that made it easy to simply switch signage, tee markers and hole locations to indicate which path you were playing that day. Now imagine standing on one of the greens after putting out, and looking from where you came today, and then turning and looking at the route you took yesterday. Out of the box thinking? Yup? Impossible for a rater to grasp? Maybe. Not memorable? I don't think that would be the problem.

Don:

The Old Course at St. Andrews used to be played the other way around.  I played The Reverse Course a few years ago, with Don Placek and Eric Iverson.  They're both pretty experienced in seeing golf courses, but without me along, they would have been pretty bewildered by the course.  The lack of signage for that direction, and general lack of visibility of the hazards at St. Andrews didn't help matters.  I guarantee you that when we got finished, neither of them could describe many of the holes in detail.  They had to think of it "forwards" first for it to make any sense.

Plus the raters would be totally flummoxed, not knowing which course to rate.

I am all for doing this.  I've even got a map of a pretty good reversible nine holes sitting in a drawer in my office, if someone should ever contact us about the idea, or tell me I can do anything I want with a flat piece of ground.  I even thought about pulling it out for the Olympic design competiton, but those guys were way too interested in things like gallery flow, and of course the Tour and Mr. Dawson and the IGF are the mainstream incarnate.

I've seen several young designers draw up suggested plans for an outstanding reversible course, and if they beat me to it, my hat's off to them.  But I'd be shocked if it delivered them a lot more business.  And, for most, that's the goal.  I think it's going to take someone who is past caring about commercial success to pull it off.

[Don_Mahaffey]

Tom:
I think one key would be not to use the word reversible. Having a forward and reverse course would probably mean the forward was the favored course. As soon as one route is favored, IMO, the idea fails.
I'd probably call it the North and South, or East and West, depending on which direction one started the day.

It would obviously require a great design to pull off. You talk about designing in 3D, this would require 4D

And I'd require the raters who did want to come take a look, to rate BOTH courses.

[David Harshbarger]

Re: Reversible courses - There's great value to being able to take advantage of uni-directional play as it frees the design of constraints to accomodate bi-directional play.  That seems perfectly obvious, making the challenge of a great bi-directional course an even more intriguing design challenge.  However, on many properties, if a single directional flow makes it possible to exploit quality features that could not be well incorporated into bi-directional flows, why would you do a reverse routing?

Major constraints on out-of-the-box designs:

1.) The struck modern ball has the potential to injure.  Think of how many design options open up if the struck ball was not a significant injury threat?  Routings that cross, free-form routings, etc. all become much more viable if play can proceed in the general direction of others without risk of injury.

2.) Commercially viable utilization demands.  Unless a course has such limited use that the design need not support a reasonable flow of players, courses will have to have progressions of holes, signage, etc. to ensure that play proceeds for the required numbers.

3.) Greens differentiated from fairways.  Maybe the biggest inhibitor to out-of-the-box design is the fact that greens are built and maintained differently than the rest of the course.  This forces the playing field to have defined terminal targets, even if the approach corridors can be varied. 

If you could break the above constraints, maybe you could begin to imagine fields of play similar to those Don alludes to:
A.)   Truly variable designs, where tees, fairways, and putting grounds are moved from day to day, or hour to hour across broad swaths of ground.
B.)   Free-form play, where players choose targets of interest, be they 50 yards or 1000 yards distant.
C.)   Routings of arbitrary numbers of “holes” based solely on the time and energy of the players
D.)   Routings that return to the clubhouse after any number of holes, based on heading back when it is felt necessary.

Would such a golf experience, or golf playing ground ever become the norm?  I think not, heck, I doubt it would ever be built.  However, if you cast back to the earliest days of the game, isn’t this what the earliest courses had?  Featheries,  played over and among the dunes, to ground that was maintained indifferently, to targets of the day’s choosing, on uneconomic ground for the enjoyment of the people of town?

[Jud_T]

Dumb question from the peanut gallery,

Aside from the design jigsaw puzzle conquest, can't you service the same number of golfers on a reversible course?  I realize there are inherent benefits to turf wear and getting a "second" course, but it's not like you can miraculously fit two fat guys in two coach seats, just because the upholstery is reversible...