[Mark Bourgeois]

In honor of US Open Week, a thread about golf and civilization. (Or at least real estate development. )

This thread gets a lamp in the hope it shines a light on the intrinsic value of golf and golf architecture to a civilization -- or on its contribution to a civilization's debasement.

The photo in this post is a recent accession to my collection. I'm sharing in the hope it will generate thoughtful discussion. Please try to take the side to the argument opposite to your dogma. I hope that thought experiment will prove as rewarding for you as it has for me.

What I like about this work is the more time I've spent with it the less sure it has made me of my own dogma. In the early post-accession weeks I was sure the message supported my view that golf has run amok: a comforting "thought." (I can't in good conscience call that real thinking.) And maybe golf has, but people live in all those houses in the picture. I bet some of them are very happy to have a place so close to play. Or maybe just a jolt of green to hold back all that brown.

I've stared long and hard; I've come to the conclusion the prior land use was a landfill. If you look closely you can just make out slopes around the perimeter, indicating the course is higher than the surrounding neighborhood. (And what's the symbolism of that?)

So: putting a golf course on a dump; that has to be an improvement, right? Or did the development of a golf course "enable" people to live near a former dump? See what I mean? You can go both ways. I find the composition hypnotic that way, and I'm posting it in the hope you too fall into a reverie on golf architecture and its place in modern society.

The work is untitled but I've come to call it "Golf Will Find a Way," and I'd like to know what its message is to you personally. What the heck, if you've got a better title...The medium is photography.

Here we go:




What does it mean?

[Peter Pallotta]

Mark - it is easy to argue against one's own dogma when confronted with that, easy because the former is subjective opinion while the latter is objective fact. As the athletes like to say today "It is what it is".  But I prefer Walt Whitman from 150 years or so ago:

"Have you heard that it was good to gain the day? I also say it is good to fall -- for battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won."

Peter

[Mark Bourgeois]

Peter, your post reminds me of one of the many thoughts I've had about this work, namely that far too often the bad crowds out the good, that in subjective matters like design it seems the base and the abject win the day.

That's a comment on the entire composition not the golf course specifically. But I think you are saying the course keeps the truly bad at bay, at least a little, and that's a "win". Yes?

If that's true, then that's a point in golf's favor. Golf will find a way...to save us from ourselves.

[Mark Bourgeois]

And it IS confrontational, isn't it? We could have a good discussion just about why that is so. Why is it confrontational? Should we just go ahead and insert Melvyn's response or does it go beyond that?

[Peter Pallotta]

I'm not sure, Mark - I hope so. Yes, I think anything that might lessen our self-preoccupation has the potential to save us from ourselves; but it is a knife-edge that we walk, a doubled-edged sword. Personally, I think love/compassion (and our attempts to grow in love/compassion) has the best chance of saving us from ourselves and from our petty self absorptions; I think faith might come second in this regard, and music-art third, and then sports/games/play. But -- since I'm a glass half empty sort -- I also feel that any of those pursuits/endeavours can end up serving the complete opposite function, and drive us ever further into an (all too prevalent) prideful and inward-looking habit that can cut us off from any genuine human interactions and concerns. (It's all about the intention behind the action, about the spirit with/through which we engage in these pursuits/endeavours.) To quote a better and wiser man than me: "Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look [out] for yourself [alone], and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay."

Downer Dan

[Tom MacWood]

I'm less worried about golf...where are the trees?

[Guy Nicholson]

I'm not sure I can give you the intellectual dissertation you're hoping for here -- if Peter's reluctant, I'm not sure why I'd even try. Especially since I suspect he has played this course, as have I.

It is indeed a former landfill site, and if it were to fit into my dogma, it would be as an environmentally greenish use of otherwise spent land, surrounded by these soulless subdivisions, with a not particularly worthy layout. There are a couple of mildly interesting holes, but also some goofy bad ones and a bunch not worth remarking on. I choose it mostly when I can't get on this community's better municipal course, which itself is a poor relative to the beautiful old classic private it adjoins.

On the other hand, it can be a fascinating place to play golf. Never mind the green aspect, although it's pretty unique to see methane vents all over the place. It's the highest elevation for some distance, so you get a unique view that encompasses these geometric street patterns, schools, businesses, even the flight path of a major airport. On a sunny day, the top of the pile is a pretty sweet place to be, certainly unlike any other course I've been on.

It was that kind of day when I played my first round of 2012, in a freak March heat wave. It was the only place I was sure would be dry, because of the elevation and drainage. It's always quick to dry after rain, although top of the pile is NOT where you want to be in a lightning storm.

It doesn't cost a bundle, it runs a decent teaching facility, and to be honest, when you live in the city, can't afford the private and call too late to get on the better muni, you shouldn't be disappointed to find an opening anywhere. One recent time I was playing here with a good friend who lives downtown near me and he pointed out his old high school in the distance. He loved his upbringing in this community and turned out great, so how soulless or debasing could it really have been? And by extension, what's to complain about with a decent, inexpensive municipal course in a unique environment? In both cases, it's what you make of it.

[Peter Pallotta]

That's a nearly perfect post, Guy. The only thing I'd add is that the wind can blow pretty hard sometimes when you're way up on top of the heap, which is nice because it makes the place feel more natural and the shot-making more varied and testing, but also not so nice because it highlights the fact that no one seemed to have factored in said wind when designing some of the not-so-good holes. But I've played there too, and I'm glad it's there. The urban sprawl would've happened in any event; people have to live somewhere, and that somewhere is someplace that they can afford.

Peter   

[Colin Macqueen]

Gentlemen,

Why do I keep coming back to this thread when I I felt I couldn't, after seeing it early this morning, add anything substantial. It certainly is confronting.  I think that no matter what the local environment or suburban sprawl it must be a plus to have any sort of golf course to hand. No?
I cannot see any downside to having any sort of a golf track in one's environs provided it is affordable to local populace. Is it Peter, Guy? If it wasn't affordable it would just be a slap in the face and that, to my way of thinking, would not be a good thing.
If one has an avenue of escape from the tedium of life by having this green close by  that can surely only enhance the general quality of life n'est ce pas?

If I think all of that why am I not more enthusiastic?

I cannot be as philosophical as you Peter but Guy, as Peter said, yours is a very good post and Mark if my mind keeps wandering back to this image and being troubled you have a lot to answer for!

A very interesting slant on golf course architecture  in regards to where do you site a course.

Colin

[Melvyn Morrow]

Mark

The Minotaur Labyrinth -  Minotaur being defined as bull headed cart riders. Seems to fit the profile – don’t you think.
As for your photo ‘The Labyrinth’ seems to resemble it rather well but with a modern designer’s eye, you know the type of modern GCA who as usual just lost his way and destroyed the very site he so wanted to develop.

My dogma is still recovering from Easter by ascending to a higher plain, while others soar in their Manmade planes to take such photos as yours of the worm casts of human existence.

Well you did ask  Mark 

Melvyn

[Kris Shreiner]

Well put Melvyn, "the worm casts of human existence." I concur. That aerial photo is gross, even with the mecca that is supposed to be the golf course.

Man needs to do a much better job...and that photo is Exhibit A. Is that garbage the best we can do?

Cheers,
Kris

[Rich Goodale]

Good posit, Mark

I can think of no instance where a golf course has been a detrimental addition to the landscape.  Furthermore, I can think of no housing development that has been a detriment to humanity.  Put the two of them together, and it is always nirvana.

Rich

[Jeff_Brauer]

Rich,

You have opposition from some about golf courses never being detrimental to landscapes, although not me!

Some would say the ocean fronts used should NEVER be spoiled with golf.  However, if no human uses allow viewing of the ocean, what is its aesthetic value?  Who can determine if viewing the ocean should only be done by those sitting on blankets having a picnic, or driving by in cars, etc?  Personally, I feel that just about the right amount of ocean front has been devoted to golf.  Hard to measure, but if golfers are 12% of our population, and they play golf maybe 5% of days available to them, then maybe 12% x 5% of .6% of the ocean front ought to be devoted to golf courses? 

Just a justification for what was really a random process.  Also, by that measure, there should really be close to no more private courses on the ocean.

BTW, saw an article the other day on how govt land gets used for private purposes, in the opinion of the writer far too often.

Just rambling.

Back the original post title re golf - Dick Nugent used to say "Golf has been going strong since 1500, and I think it will find a way to continue".

[Niall C]

Good posit, Mark

I can think of no instance where a golf course has been a detrimental addition to the landscape.  Furthermore, I can think of no housing development that has been a detriment to humanity.  Put the two of them together, and it is always nirvana.

Rich

Exhibit A - Trumps course at Balmedie

Exhibit B - any number of 60's "scheme" that surrounds our major cities

Yours sincerely

Swampy

[Colin Macqueen]

Niall,

Is Trumps Balmedie curse (now there's a Freudian typing slip!) so bad that no course would be better?  Maybe that can be justified but only because there are so many other courses in the vicinity.

Yes the 1960s housing schemes and "multi-storey" developments in and around Dundee were a blight on the landscape. However I changed my critical tune when many of the residents (girlfriends parents!) related their tales of the slum dwellings that they lived in during the 30s, 40s and 50s. Shared stinking toilets, rats, rising damp and freezing cold. These new residences were "nirvana" indeed for them. And as time passed these monstrosities have been (are being) removed but methinks now that they served a very important and useful function.

Rambling because of memories I guess!

Orra best,

Colin

[Mark Bourgeois]

How does this picture change your thinking about "Golf Will Find a Way"?

[Mark Bourgeois]

Or this?

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