The steep slopes around the green are man-made quirk (because it steep and varied) and the accidental surface of the fairway is quirky (because it’s accidental).
But if the apron and green surface are flat - then it’s dinky.
John, you can't but deny that most modern architects would disturb a lot more land round the area of the green to soften all the features. This as ooposed to just benching a green in to the sideslope and having smaller edges.... Sean, Jeff - I'd love to know what you think is to be learned from this greensite... Hutchinson clearly gave it a lot more character than it could have had and part of that reasoning was clearly to make it a more difficult approach... He added some artistic flair in the mounding but I don't believe for one second that he set out to build them artificial looking.... I have seen quite a number of green sites on steep slopes with artificial mounds like this (though few as good looking), all on low budget courses, mostly built without architect supervision I am guessing.... Maybe architects should use this device more nowadays and that is what you are saying... But 99.9% of them would work to a bigger area to achieve the end result.... I do like this kind of feature so maybe it's worth a comeback (I played The Curragh on Friday with some similar looking mounds)... Do you think it was a deliberate trend at the time?
Ally,
I agree with you that probably 99% of modern architects would work in a bigger area, and that the end result would be better tieins and subtler features.
I would like to hold out hope there's a 1% out there who might not.
We can only speculate whether the work at Kington was cost driven, ignorance of landscape architecture driven, or ingenuity driven.
I love the bold look and enjoy such non "tied in" boldness when I run into it on mostly older courses.
I had a prominent architect tell me that NGLA would never be built today because they have such better earthmoving equipment now.
While i agree it probably wouldn't be built today (at least by the 99% you reference) I'd like to think there's a 1% out there working today who would build NGLA, or the occasional striking, original features, prominent at Kington born out of the nessessity of a sand bunker alternative (which are completely unnatural as well, yet accepted as "normal" add nauseum, by the masses)
I guess what I'm saying is of course there is room for different theories and styles or architecture, but I often disagree when bold work is said to be a product of inferior technology, cost, or knowledge.