Why I think the Future of Golf Design is Bright

[Ian Andrew]

Thursday I found myself listening to a 30 minute interview with Camille Paglia. She was in studio to discuss her latest book Glittering Images: A Journey through Art from Egypt to Star Wars. I was a little taken aback when she stated that there had been not a single significant figure of profound influence in the visual arts since the 1960’s. She explained that in architecture and performance art we have seen many important works in recent decades. Even industrial design was in a golden age particularly with products by Apple and others, but the visual arts were artistically dead.

She believes the multimedia revolution of the 1970’s has sapped artistic creativity and innovation in the arts. In the past sculptures and painters spent a great deal of time perfecting their skills long before they achieved artistic success. When you look at an artist like Monet and marvel in the length of time it took to perfect his techniques before he began to create his greatest and most admired work. While there were a few prodigies like Picasso, most great artists were Masters who spent decades refining their skills and honing their craft. Yet today’s society seems unwilling to consider the long route to greater success.

Camille felt today’s artist doesn’t know how to build or create anything with their hands. Computerization and the development of task specific software have revolutionized the ability to generate and illustrate a proposal, but it’s also created a new breed of designer and artist who are using computers to sidestep the process of actually “making” the art. The fear is that art may be stripped down to a thin veneer built around computer generated form.

I’m pretty sure it was Philip Johnston who recently lamented that students are no longer using a pencil to create architectural designs. The latest students are from a new generation of tech savvy kids who utilize the latest software written specifically to generate form. Many architects see this approach to design bypassing the essential intuitive stage of sketching, doodling and thinking with broad brush strokes. Once you turn to hard and rigid lines, you tend to turn to the logic side of the brain and use what you know best rather than take a creative risk.

One of the negative aspects of the internet is that designers look at what their contemporaries are doing and simple copy. They apply the same “visuals” to their own work and fail to realize the success of the project they are copying has more to do with how it’s played and less to do with how it looks.

I’ve always believed that it’s impossible to strive for something meaningful without philosophically understanding what you are trying to accomplish. Over time I’ve come to believe that you “can” design in emotion, rhythm, etc. into your work, but it requires understanding how each of those emotions works in built form and assessing why other examples have elicited that response. It does not guarantee you will receive the reaction you hope to gain, because emotions are personal, but you will have a better chance than those who have not considered how to create an emotional connection.
 
And that is the crux of what Camille is saying there is no depth to the art. Modern art lacks any attempt to appreciate or understand the great works of the past and to pay particular attention to why they make us contemplate them. There is no permanence in modern artist’s approach because their goals are so focuses in the now, which is essentially an immediate response to what they’ve done. Because of this newfound approach Camille suggests that much of the current visual arts are done to elicit a reaction rather than contemplation. Camille felt almost modern visual art work suffers from trying to be shocking rather than even provocative.

Perhaps that is why the scale of the projects has increased, to make up for the fact the intellectual reach has declined. Artists have gone bigger and bolder in almost an attempt to say “damned it, pay attention to me,” and not because their concept or ideas need a larger canvas to convey the message but they are literally down to their last trick. In many ways golf architecture is particularly guilty of this artistic sin.

To this day I’m still left breathless when I go to the McMichael Gallery to look at Tom Thompson’s study pallets. They are often the light on a single section of leaf. When you follow a dozen of these studies all covering different aspects of the work and then see the full canvas, you realize that your reaction to the work is not just to “the painting”, but rather to the full composition and all its small and fully realized details that draw you deeper into the work. I’ve sat down occasionally and gone from leaf to leaf.

I think golf architecture is a much better place than most arts.

There has been some profound and influential work done by the golf designers of this generation. The influence of that work is clear on the next generation. Interestingly, I think the economic troubles of today are good for the long-term quality of golf design. With less work, there has been an essential “thinning of the herd.” This has also played a role in the future designers too since they have been reduced to a very small group. Only the best and most serious students of architecture will manage to last and see the other side of this decade plus long drought we can expect.

Think of it this way, they are the ones who will be spending a decade or more out on site working on their craft. Think of them as a group of potential Monet’s or Tom Thompson’s working on an individual leaf each day perfecting that one and moving on to the next part of the composition. All that repetition and experience makes them butter prepared for the opportunity that will eventually come.
Unlike the visual arts there is no fear of the computer or multimedia ruining Golf Design because we are running hard in the opposite direction. I see the busy and successful architects using less “pencil” (forget computers) and spending any additional time in the field running equipment or even shovel. We have gone back to roots on so many levels.

[John McCarthy]

This post will require some thought before an intelligent  reply.  That said I agree. 

[Randy Thompson]

All true but how many hands on archtiects with the decades of experience will survive. Were still in a market-status oriented society that is creating a demand of projects signed by household professional golfer names and most are being delegated to individuals that do not have decades of experiece.

[Mike_Young]

Ian,
I definitely agree with your very last sentence.  And Randy brings up a good point.  Often the only guy left in the office of some of the "signatures" will be the young guy who actually may not have that much experience and you may even have one or two new signatures out there with no experience. 
But my biggest concern with your theory is the fact that golf courses are living , changing forms of art which require tremendous dollars for them to exist.  These dollars are generated via assessing members or charging green fees.  Meanwhile the golf industry has created a monster with new technology such as irrigation, mowers, bunkers etc and these features have come to be expected.  Therefore it is very very difficult for the average new golf project to cashflow.  UNLESS it is on the right piece of land with the nearby population to make it work.  JMO

[Tom_Doak]

Ian:

Thank you for a wonderful post [and for doing the legwork, as I would never have had the inclination to listen to a half hour interview with Camile Paglia].

I’m pretty sure it was Philip Johnston who recently lamented that students are no longer using a pencil to create architectural designs. The latest students are from a new generation of tech savvy kids who utilize the latest software written specifically to generate form. Many architects see this approach to design bypassing the essential intuitive stage of sketching, doodling and thinking with broad brush strokes. Once you turn to hard and rigid lines, you tend to turn to the logic side of the brain and use what you know best rather than take a creative risk.

One of the negative aspects of the internet is that designers look at what their contemporaries are doing and simple copy. They apply the same “visuals” to their own work and fail to realize the success of the project they are copying has more to do with how it’s played and less to do with how it looks.

This passage explains perfectly my visceral reaction to all the architects who used to come on here to promote computer-aided design as the future of the business.  It is too easy in that medium to copy instead of doing something different; whereas, out in the dirt, it is too HARD to copy something exactly and you are inevitably forced to think about what works on that piece of ground.

My current intern from China is a case in point.  It has not taken her long to understand the fundamentals of routing a course, and she's the first student I've had who really learned a lot from looking at the topos and routings we have on file and trying to figure out how they work.  But, she also has scant experience at golf and I was afraid she might move direct to copying ideas; that's why she is now nearing the end of spending a month in Bandon, getting to know what golf is like on the ground.  I only hope that experience is the more lasting of the two!

[Randy Thompson]

I have found that when designing in the field a large percentage takes shape and meets my expectations, lets say 80 to 90 % and the rest evolves. Maybe it doesn´t come out right the first time and it´s tweeked and sometimes it more than a tweek. These tweeks cost money and drive some developers crazy and I have learned the hard way that you need to educate the powers to be that this is part of the process and they need to budget accordingly. Hopefully, I and the team will improve and the percentage of evolution or changes will decrease and the budget can be antcipated and adhered to in a more professional manner. My question to Tom and others architects that design more in the field and less on paper, do your designs evolve and does it take sometimes two and three times certain situations to get it right and does your clientele understand that this is a necessary evil to achieving a superior product? Many projects are designed on paper and contracted out to a third party and it is easier to anticpate cost and have little variance in the over all budget but IMO you will end up with an inferior product compared to designing in the field.

[Tom_Doak]

My question to Tom and others architects that design more in the field and less on paper, do your designs evolve and does it take sometimes two and three times certain situations to get it right and does your clientele understand that this is a necessary evil to achieving a superior product?

Randy:

Certainly our designs evolve in the field ... the 10-20% you mentioned sounds about right.  In my case, I give my associates / shapers precise instructions on some holes but only vague instructions on others, to let them sort out some of the things I haven't, and when I get back to the site we edit the details. 

But, I am not sure that the editing process "costs" anything extra ... it's maybe a month of dozer time and shaper time over the course of the project.  In many cases it is just a matter of trying a less involved solution first and then digging deeper for the final result, so sometimes our final solution costs LESS shaping time than what we would have drawn on paper, and sometimes more.  In the end, we always budget enough months of shaping time to get what we want ... and if it was ever running close, we'd have the option to finish in the time allotted.  We do finish ahead of schedule and under budget sometimes, as at Dismal River.

Anyway, it's in the budget up front, and a lot of times our clients don't even realize when we are editing, since it's usually done when I've just returned for a visit, and they expect that I'm going to change some things when I return.  In fact, that's often the most exciting part of the process for the clients.

It's not like the shaping adjustments are causing extra drainage work.  Sometimes the holes do grow in terms of irrigation and grassing area, but I suspect that happens with other designers' projects, too.

[Dan Herrmann]

Thanks for your posts here - this is great stuff!

[Peter Pallotta]

Good to see you posting, Ian - and such a thoughtful post too.

The first thing that occurred to me (I'm not sure if it relates or not):  only the person who really believes there's a treasure to be found will pull up the floor boards and dig with his hands deep into the earth in order to find it, no matter how long it takes or how hard the work. I wonder if, as a culture, as a people, we have in our heart of hearts stopped believing that there's a treasure there, waiting to be found. Because, if/when we stop believing that, the only thing left is to play with our bits of technology as a kind of pretend-game -- like kids playing cops and robbers with toy guns, knowing that no one will really get hurt/killed or go to jail. And in that context, the newer and more complicated the technology, the better we'll like it.

Peter

[Mike_Young]

Randy,
As TD says above....I think I can save money building in field as lng as it doesn't involve changing the routing.  As you know so many line items will be the same ( cost per sq ft of greens, drainage, irrigation etc) and the main change would be shaping and dirt move.  So as long as one has the freedom to adjust one hole for another then I think it is much more efficient to design the features in the field.  NOT THE ROUTING...JMO

[John Kirk]

Very interesting.  Thanks.

[Colin Macqueen]

Ian,
A very perceptive post but, much as your thoughts of a bright future for golf design appeal to me, I think (but hope not) that it is an idyll.
As you suggest there has already been a "thinning of the herd" and I wonder if this in itself will become a downward self-perpetuating spiral. If as some of the architects here have already suggested that they themselves willl be digging in the dirt and "pull(ing) up the floorboards" then presumably that is one less novice gaining that treasured experience. I imagine that the extant golf course architects have been acting as mentors for the last decade or two and I wonder now if those mentored will have a future given the dearth of projects available. If the pool of talent becomes diminished will it not be very difficult to, once again, generate a critical mass of ardent and dedicated architects. I just think that having a vibrant peer group with which you can interact, learn from and evolve in is crucial in this sort of "artistic" field.

Anyway the other responses have been interesting and enlightening and I am sorry if I sound like a party-pooper!

Cheers Colin

[Ally Mcintosh]

Colin,

I'm not sure I agree. You don't need a huge amount of talent (in numbers) to sustain a healthy future for golf design. It has never been a profession with a huge amount of employment and it had become bloated through the 80's to 00's... In many ways those "novices" are already there working and many of them already have the talent to be driving forward... The old guard are in many cases on the verge of retirement... The new "Old guard" in the States become the Doaks, the C&C's, the Hanse's and some of the senior associates / partners from ASGCA practices such as RTJ and Hurdzan.... There has been enough young blood trained under those (especially through on-site experience with the first two) that they should be able to move on successfully with great vision for 30 or 40 years to come...

In Europe, there was an education programme run by the EIGCA... Many people (especially in the States) were sceptical about education but a lot of the people who went through that programme were talented and driven anyway and it gave the advantage of rounding out education whilst giving an outlet to move forward from there... So there are now a bunch of talented designers in Europe in their 30's and 40's who can also take the profession onwards...

The real question comes with Asia and who is going to do and shape the work there... If it is done by those above then I think the profession does have a bright future... If it is carried out by new architects in the right place at the right time, then who knows...

I agree with Ian. I think the way things are necessitates more art and creative thinking. Those there now are learning their art slowly and surely in the field, just ready to step up as future masters...

[Tom Kelly]

much of the current visual arts are done to elicit a reaction rather than contemplation.

This is so true, but I think this applies to much more of the modern world than just visual art unfortunately.

As to the future of golf design I want to agree wholeheartedly with you Ian and you maybe correct in many ways but I have some similar concerns to those that Colin has brought up especially in the UK.

I hope I am wrong with what I about to say or at least hope the situaion will change in the near future.

I would love to become a golf course architect myself one day and I am currently trying to achieve that having gained a tiny bit of experience here and there and then recently started work in the construction side of the industry. At the moment though I worry about whether I will get the opportunity to gain these decades of experience that you refer to out in the field to put to good effect either as an architect or in the construction side of the industry.

My concern is that with the golfing economy the way it is and the number of new builds in the UK virtually zero there are so few opportunities to gain this experience on site. We are seeing some course alterations/renovations but the number of renovations will never make up for the lack of new builds in terms of hours spent on site for someone like myself wanting to gain that experience. As a company we are carrying out far more non-golf related work than we would like. I have to assume the smaller companies are finding it even harder to get by.

If I am lucky enough get the chance to move into design, I would be surprised if I was in a situation where the finances of the projects I worked on made it possible for me to spend lots of time out on site. Site visits cost more money which developers haven't got and with the majority of architecture firms unable to support their own construction crew which may allow for more freedom and trust in the transfer of design from drawing board to the ground, the use of third parties construction companies like the one I work for means architects need to devote more time to ensuring that their drawings are as close to what they envisage as possible, which in turn results in less time available to spend out on site. Design changes via third party construction companies are far more costly than ones done with in-house crews are they not? With most architects trying to get as many projects through their doors as possible in order to survive this problem is surely only compounded. Unless you as an architect are fortunate enough to be in a situation where you can command fees and projects that can finance more time on site, the only situation where I can see more time can be devoted to site is when the architect simply has no other work available, which is not a good situation. It all seems to boil down to economics unfortunately from what I can work out.

I am completely set on making it in the golf design and construction world and am not trying to make excuses and complain about the lack of opportunities. I expect most will cry out that the answer for my personal situation to gain more site experience is to move to China, which I wouldn't be averse to but it is easier said than done. A lack on Mandarin or experience to make it worth a company paying to take me out there with a translator etc. are major issues. I just worry that even if I do get the chance to design golf courses I won't be given/have the tools to maximize my talent and work to the best of my abilities. I fear anybody trying to pursue the industry within the UK will be in the same boat as me......maybe to china?!

I am now hoping someone with more experience than myself can come along and tell me I am completely wrong, the world is changing and developers are seeing the positives to time spent on site and everything is going to be just fine....please!!

p.s. sorry for the essay!

[Tom_Doak]

If I am lucky enough get the chance to move into design, I would be surprised if I was in a situation where the finances of the projects I worked on made it possible for me to spend lots of time out on site. Site visits cost more money which developers haven't got and with the majority of architecture firms unable to support their own construction crew which may allow for more freedom and trust in the transfer of design from drawing board to the ground, the use of third parties construction companies like the one I work for means architects need to devote more time to ensuring that their drawings are as close to what they envisage as possible, which in turn results in less time available to spend out on site. Design changes via third party construction companies are far more costly than ones done with in-house crews are they not? With most architects trying to get as many projects through their doors as possible in order to survive this problem is surely only compounded. Unless you as an architect are fortunate enough to be in a situation where you can command fees and projects that can finance more time on site, the only situation where I can see more time can be devoted to site is when the architect simply has no other work available, which is not a good situation. It all seems to boil down to economics unfortunately from what I can work out.

OK Tom, I have a little more experience than you.

I understand your plight, but your premise above is just wrong.  I have never, ever found a client who objected to me spending a lot of time on site.  The only question is how much you can get paid for being there; and that is why Mike Young and I have been telling all you young people that the key is to gain the skills to make yourself useful as part of the construction team, and not just as an architect / bystander making costly "site visits".

If you can do this, then you can afford to be on site on a more or less full-time basis refining the design, without it being an added expense.  But, if you just want to play "architect" full-time, then you are right it's going to be hard.

P.S.  You are also right that there will be more opportunities overseas than in the UK (or the US).  I'm headed to China myself for two weeks after Thanksgiving, because that's where something is happening for us right now.

[SL_Solow]

First I want to thank Ian for a thoughtful and thought provoking post.  This is the type of post that makes one appreciate the site in contrast to some of the off topic material that clogs the bandwidth.  Turning to the subject, I think we should bifurcate  two themes that run through the responses.  The first is the state and the future of the "artform" that is GCA.  Here the premise seems to be that we have moved away from some of the trends exemplified by the cookie cutter eye candy builders that were prevalent during the housing development boom and returned to a more hands on traditional style.  I agree that there is a greater emphasis and acceptance of this style which I favor.  While it is possible that in a different economic climate we could see the return of the "volume shops", it appears for the forseeable future,the trend is good.  As noted by others, Asia is likely to be the place where the greatest action occurs and we will have to see which direction thqt area goes.

But the second and contrary trend is that, at least in the US, we have overbuilt.  In the forseeable future, we are likely to see a reduction rather thnan expansion in the number of courses.  Renovation work can only allow a certain amount of creativity and can employ a limited number of practitioners.  So while the design philosophy, skill level, and expertise may be on the rise, we may face a significant shortage of opportunities to exhibit this progress.  Artists can always find a canvas and many are willing to starve to express their muse.  But a golf course architect needs a significant amount of acreage as a canvas.  This limits my optimism.

[Peter Pallotta]

Good thread, lots of food for thought.  Here's a thought/ideal that I've been trying convince myself of recently, a variation of the "if you build it they will come" mantra. I'd say: if you believe in it, and value it, and see it as having intrinsic worth and purpose, others will believe and value it as well.  An aside: I love coffee, and have been drinking it since I was a kid, whole vats of it, at any time of day or night, at home and in every cafe/coffee shop in Toronto -- and yet if you'd told me 20 years ago that people would be paying $6 for a cup of half-caf, soy chai skinny no foam iced mocha double espresso, I'd have thought you were crazy. And if the belief/intention for something so slilly as a half-caf coffee can catch on so stunningly with the public, how much more will an Ian-type belief in quality architecture catch on, with clients first and right after, the public.

Peter

[Jason Topp]

For some reason this thread makes me think of my house, which we moved into this August and are just getting to know.  It has a lot of quirks such as a bunch of storage rooms with slanted ceilings and odd heat patterns.  I have learned I need to put a space heater in an area of my garage to keep pipes from freezing in the dead of winter.  It has a strangely shaped driveway that guests regularly miss on their way out.  I suspect that the house would get an "F" in architecture school because of these quirks, particularly for a house built in 2005.

Despite these quirks I love the place.  Someone put a lot of thought into the experience of living there.  Its strange design exists because the owner wanted water views from every room.  It has a unique feel that one senses when walking in the front entrance.  It has a mother in law apartment that was built for a family member of the original owners of the house.  It does not look like any other house around.  The feeling contrasts sharply from the cookie cutter suburban homes that dot most neigborhoods in our school district. 

In my experience the best golf designs are a bit like my house - with quirks and faults but an overall result that is in many ways more special because of them. 

. . .Beard pulling quota completed for the year.

[Tony_Muldoon]

Good thread, lots of food for thought.  Here's a thought/ideal that I've been trying convince myself of recently, a variation of the "if you build it they will come" mantra. I'd say: if you believe in it, and value it, and see it as having intrinsic worth and purpose, others will believe and value it as well.  An aside: I love coffee, and have been drinking it since I was a kid, whole vats of it, at any time of day or night, at home and in every cafe/coffee shop in Toronto -- and yet if you'd told me 20 years ago that people would be paying $6 for a cup of half-caf, soy chai skinny no foam iced mocha double espresso, I'd have thought you were crazy. And if the belief/intention for something so slilly as a half-caf coffee can catch on so stunningly with the public, how much more will an Ian-type belief in quality architecture catch on, with clients first and right after, the public.

Peter

I'm not sure Peter, it takes something more than that.  


More than a decade ago a guy I know turned over a nice profit when he sold his business.  He told me what he was going ot do next.  SOUP! He had me believing it was the fast food of the future, healthy and fast with little wastage.  He was full of enthusiasm and I liked him a lot.


Luckily I had no spare money whatsoever to get in on this hot 'new' thing and a couple of years later he had no money either as he came out of it.

He's done well with other things since.  And thats sort of waht I feel about this whole thread.  Some of you guys will find a way of doing well but looking for a prescription is not the way to go about things.

[Don_Mahaffey]

Ian,
Interesting post.
I disagree, strongly, that one cannot be creative if CAD is involved. No one has really said that exact thing, but it is an undercurrent here. My one experience with a project from  start to finish, to even years after completion is at Wolf Point. I believe we were creative, but we used Mike's CAD drawings as a starting point for everything we did. I could explain the process in great detail, (and will if anyone cares to hear it) but basically Mike used his engineering background, combined with his design skills to artfully create a drainage/storm water plan to drain a flat site on heavy soils. One might conclude that Mike simply laid out a basic grid of basins based on mathematical calculations, and then we shaped from one to another to create the rumpled and wrinkled look that is Wolf Point. But there is much more to it than that, as how and where he placed the basins was artistically done to give us the best canvas to create the visuals and playability we were after. Where it ties into what Tom, Mike, and Randy are saying is Mike never tried to draw the contours, he lets us scribble, doodle, and draw with the equipment we had as we made sure the water got to where it had to go. While I guess it would have been possible to wing it with no plan for the macro drainage, I think using CAD gave Mike a chance to design a macro drain field that was the basis for the golf course he wanted. It is both highly functional, you can play a few hours after a two inch rain, and a very cool and different place to play golf. The cool contours don't work on a site like this if there isn't a solid plan as the foundation. Using CAD tools creatively, Mike designed the course from  below ground up. An uninspired CAD monkey doesn't do that and get the results Mike got.

Whenever a professional, or educator, starts talking about the shortcomings of our students, as in they are bypassing an important phase of learning or are a product of this generation or that, I am bothered. Our youth, our students, are a product of the society we give them to live in and they often meet the standards we set. If today's architecture students are a tech savvy bunch, but lacking intuitive skills, it's probably because we've weeded out the scribblers and doodlers for the easier to deal with tech savvy group. I'm no architecture professor, but I'm guessing it is easier to teach, and grade, a CAD project then one done purely in the free hand form. Our students are a product of what we teach them, and it takes a special type to break out of the established ways and create something new and different.  

SL Solow,
I'm actually a bit more bullish on the future of those who want to make a living in golf, but they need to be more than just an "architect". For those who want to be an architect and just design, good luck as you are swimming with the sharks. But for those who are willing to do it differently, to find new market share instead of fighting over the same jobs in a zero sum game, I see opportunity. But I also see a need to get away from the specialization that the "industry" tries to use to pigeon hole everyone.

Peter,
I don't know if you remember a thread I started a while back called "a golf fantasy", but it was about a fantasy where golf designers developed courses and then tried to sell them on the open market similar to how a painter or other artist might try to make a living. I tried to guess how our courses would look if that happened. It is still a fantasy, but if one wishes to build original courses, he might just have to do something similar.

[Tom_Doak]

For some reason this thread makes me think of my house, which we moved into this August and are just getting to know.  It has a lot of quirks such as a bunch of storage rooms with slanted ceilings and odd heat patterns.  I have learned I need to put a space heater in an area of my garage to keep pipes from freezing in the dead of winter.  It has a strangely shaped driveway that guests regularly miss on their way out.  I suspect that the house would get an "F" in architecture school because of these quirks, particularly for a house built in 2005.

Despite these quirks I love the place.  Someone put a lot of thought into the experience of living there.  Its strange design exists because the owner wanted water views from every room.  It has a unique feel that one senses when walking in the front entrance.  It has a mother in law apartment that was built for a family member of the original owners of the house.  It does not look like any other house around.  The feeling contrasts sharply from the cookie cutter suburban homes that dot most neigborhoods in our school district. 

In my experience the best golf designs are a bit like my house - with quirks and faults but an overall result that is in many ways more special because of them. 

. . .Beard pulling quota completed for the year.

You forgot to mention that it will be hard to sell when you're done with it, because it's quirky. 

[Tom_Doak]

Peter,
I don't know if you remember a thread I started a while back called "a golf fantasy", but it was about a fantasy where golf designers developed courses and then tried to sell them on the open market similar to how a painter or other artist might try to make a living. I tried to guess how our courses would look if that happened. It is still a fantasy, but if one wishes to build original courses, he might just have to do something similar.

Don:

I do remember that thread.  I don't remember if I responded then, but I would guess that many architects would be very conservative in their designs to try and sell to the mainstream ... but if sales were based only on the highest bidder, then top-100 success stories would rule the market, and wild-looking one-off designs [like Mike Strantz's] would be huge successes, too.

[Don_Mahaffey]

Peter,
I don't know if you remember a thread I started a while back called "a golf fantasy", but it was about a fantasy where golf designers developed courses and then tried to sell them on the open market similar to how a painter or other artist might try to make a living. I tried to guess how our courses would look if that happened. It is still a fantasy, but if one wishes to build original courses, he might just have to do something similar.

Don:

I do remember that thread.  I don't remember if I responded then, but I would guess that many architects would be very conservative in their designs to try and sell to the mainstream ... but if sales were based only on the highest bidder, then top-100 success stories would rule the market, and wild-looking one-off designs [like Mike Strantz's] would be huge successes, too.

Tom:
So not much different then we have now? I know not all courses built in the last few years are alike, but it does seem like everyone is shooting for the same look. As you well know, some are a lot better then others, and I'm not saying that change is better/worse or has to happen, but what would be a catalyst for change, for something different?
More fantasy, but I've always felt that if architects were only designing/building to suit themselves, then we would see something different. But would we? Is what we see now what we would see no matter the client or business model?

[Tom_Doak]

Tom:
So not much different then we have now? I know not all courses built in the last few years are alike, but it does seem like everyone is shooting for the same look. As you well know, some are a lot better then others, and I'm not saying that change is better/worse or has to happen, but what would be a catalyst for change, for something different?
More fantasy, but I've always felt that if architects were only designing/building to suit themselves, then we would see something different. But would we? Is what we see now what we would see no matter the client or business model?

Generally, yes, I think that everyone tends to build whatever they fancy.  They may listen hard to their client, but they are listening for things that validate their own worldview.  It gets even easier after you've had some success, because you can rationalize that the client must want what we are known for doing, or else they would have hired someone else.

But I am not sure how you are setting this up.  I took your original set-up -- selling the design as a "work of art" -- to mean that everyone would be more idealistic and shoot for the moon, even though I think some designers are just philosophically incapable of that approach.

If you meant that each architect should build a course THAT THEY WOULD HAVE TO OPERATE and live their lives based on its success as a business, then you would see even fewer guys reach for the stars.

But there are only a very few for whom being practical and reaching for the stars go together.

[Dan Kelly]

For some reason this thread makes me think of my house, which we moved into this August and are just getting to know.  It has a lot of quirks such as a bunch of storage rooms with slanted ceilings and odd heat patterns.  I have learned I need to put a space heater in an area of my garage to keep pipes from freezing in the dead of winter.  It has a strangely shaped driveway that guests regularly miss on their way out.  I suspect that the house would get an "F" in architecture school because of these quirks, particularly for a house built in 2005.

Despite these quirks I love the place.  Someone put a lot of thought into the experience of living there.  Its strange design exists because the owner wanted water views from every room.  It has a unique feel that one senses when walking in the front entrance.  It has a mother in law apartment that was built for a family member of the original owners of the house.  It does not look like any other house around.  The feeling contrasts sharply from the cookie cutter suburban homes that dot most neigborhoods in our school district. 

In my experience the best golf designs are a bit like my house - with quirks and faults but an overall result that is in many ways more special because of them. 

. . .Beard pulling quota completed for the year.

You forgot to mention that it will be hard to sell when you're done with it, because it's quirky. 

Location, location, location.

He will have no trouble whatsoever.

They are not making any more shoreline.