Do classic architects get too much credit?

[Mike Hendren]

To some extent modern architecture has been hurt by the assembly line mentality. I know that Doak, C&C, and lot of the archies on this site have not fallen into that trap...

I dunno, Nigel.  I can't help but wonder what C&C's portfolio would look like today if Talking Stick South had been critically acclaimed and Talking Stick North panned.

Bogey

[Sven Nilsen]

Greg:

An interesting question regarding NLE statistics.  If you take a look at the Ross Society list, the number of courses still around is pretty amazing, and might have a higher survival percentage than Doak's portfolio.

If you look back at what happened to courses built during the Golden Age that did not make it, many of them went under in the 30's for financial reasons and many were obliterated for housing concerns post WWII.  Those that did survive now have a bit of security in that, as Mr. Mucci suggests, they have passed the test of time and have reached the status of being "established."  I can't imagine any of the old school courses in the suburbs of Chicago getting turned over for a new housing development, it just wouldn't happen unless the neighborhoods themselves underwent some significant changes.

Sven

[Ivan Morris]

Finality - was a big, selling point that Mackenzie emphasized over and over. Still, I wonder what Alister would think of his courses now, after so many years of evolving nature and manmade tinkering? For that matter, what would OTM think of TOC by the time The Open of 2015 rolls around? We'll never know! The ability of 21st century professional golfers and the equipment they use, would probably surprise Mac and OTM even more. In answer to the original question, do classic architects get too much credit? I don't think so - some of them were unparalleled geniuses.   

[Greg Taylor]

Sven point taken but sometimes I wonder whether there's a collective mentality of, "things were so much better in the gold old days".

I guess another bias would be the "old masters" have enjoyed 100+ years plus of the maturing process on their courses too.

And I repeat, they had the pick the best sites.

That all said I love the work of Colt et al...!

[Jeb Bearer]

Sven point taken but sometimes I wonder whether there's a collective mentality of, "things were so much better in the gold old days".

That raises another question: when otm et al started really "designing" courses for the first time, was there an outcry from the Scots re man doing to much to the land, similar to criticisms if many modern architects?

I'm inclined to disagree with myself here, but it's food for thought.

[Sven Nilsen]

Sven point taken but sometimes I wonder whether there's a collective mentality of, "things were so much better in the gold old days".

I guess another bias would be the "old masters" have enjoyed 100+ years plus of the maturing process on their courses too.

And I repeat, they had the pick the best sites.

That all said I love the work of Colt et al...!

Not sure if I agree with the best sites thought.

You had to be able to get to the course, and at first that meant being near a train line.  When the auto came along, you could still only go where the roads would take you, and those roads didn't go many places back in the 20's.  Golf courses were predominately built near population centers, and population centers weren't necessarily built on or near land that was ideal for golf.

I think there's something to the "time" argument raised earlier in the thread.  Pine Valley wouldn't be built the way it was today, nor would Oakmont.  The labor of love course is a thing of the past, and I think that's one aspect of golf course design that was "so much better in the good old days." 

What's interesting to me in this conversation is that we lump all of these old courses into one category - namely that they are old.  But a Raynor is a different course from a Mackenzie which is a different style from what the early guys like Bendelow and Findlay were doing.  Perhaps the conversation should be an analysis of the styles used back then, and why the one's that survived (or are represented in the work being done of late) still have relevance today.

Sven

[Bradley Anderson]

I think they moved a lot more dirt than we may realize. Last time I played Beverly it looked to me like Ross made some huge cuts in several places. And there is quite a bit of earth moving at Oakmont.

Challenge!

I played Beverly again this fall, and really enjoyed the round.  But it was built in the earlier years of Ross' career, so I doubt there would have been much earthmoving at the time ... only afterward.

I was told the tee shot on #11 was originally blind out of a hollow, and that the knob in front of the tee was shaved down and used to build up the tee sometime subsequent to Ross.  Otherwise, I didn't see much evidence of big cuts, just some fills for greens and tees.  Where did you imagine them to be?

It looked to me like the ridge was softened pretty aggressively - downhill on 2, and uphill on 7. But I would never take up a challenge against you Tom.

[J_ Crisham]

Greg:

 I can't imagine any of the old school courses in the suburbs of Chicago getting turned over for a new housing development, it just wouldn't happen unless the neighborhoods themselves underwent some significant changes.

Sven

Sven,    I wish I shared your optimism regarding the strength of some of Chicago's clubs- I fear that in my lifetime we will see a closing of several of our clubs some of which are 100 year old clubs. Amongst them I would mention Calumet, Ridge, Idlewild, potentially Prestwick, or how about Crystal Tree with a 17MM dollar clubhouse nut? What about Naperville CC, Midlothian, and one of my favorites Flossmoor. Will these all be around in 40 yrs? I fear not- I talk frequently with members at all of the clubs I've named and believe me when I say things are not very rosy. Too many clubs and too few golfers that are willing or able to make the financial committments to keep all of these clubs running. I can only think of possibly 4 clubs in Chicago that you couldn't join immediately(less than 6months) if you could write the check.

[Bill Brightly]

Some were saying in the early 1900s that the world was moving too fast - trains and telegraphs and radios etc; and some were saying that in the 40s and 50s, with interstate freeways and television and jet planes; and of course some were saying that a couple of years ago, with cell phones and the internet and twitter. You know what? I think they were ALL right -- the world was moving too fast then, and it was moving even faster later on, and now, today, it's moving faster and faster and faster. Now, you tell me how it's possible in a world that is moving, say, 3 xs faster than it was 100 years ago to take the same amount of TIME doing anything - writing letters, thinking thoughts, building courses.  We might TRY to take the time, but anyone who actually manages -- in absolute terms -- to take as much time doing anything today as they did 100 years ago would probably seem to us like a lazy, dull-witted, and remarkably un-ambitious fellow.

Peter

The problem with a typical PPollata post is that there is so much to think about that I don't know where to start my response. But when Peter went back to the 40's and 50's to describe societal change, my mind immediately flashed to the 1960's, when MODERN became the key phrase in golf course construction. My theory is that it was a point in time when anything was possible, even putting a man on the moon. Televisions, washers, dryers, vacuums, modern cars,etc. etc. The list of inovations was endless. New was in, "classic course" was not even a thought in the golfing world. Although I was a child at the time, I now I envision that those with the power to build or renovate golf courses must have looked at the courses built by RTJ or Augusta and thought: "what can we do to make our course look like that?"

And it has taken 40-50 years to truly appreciate what was on the ground before the Modernization Era...

[Tom_Doak]

It looked to me like the ridge was softened pretty aggressively - downhill on 2, and uphill on 7. But I would never take up a challenge against you Tom.

Bradley:

I am only making the challenge because I played with Paul Richards who told me everything he could about what had been changed.

You are right about the tee shot on #2 ... I had forgotten that one ... but the softening was done recently by Ron Prichard to extend the hole.  Ross' version made it hard to see down the hill at all.

If the tee shot back up the hill at #7 was changed, Paul didn't mention it.

[Sven Nilsen]

Greg:

 I can't imagine any of the old school courses in the suburbs of Chicago getting turned over for a new housing development, it just wouldn't happen unless the neighborhoods themselves underwent some significant changes.

Sven

Sven,    I wish I shared your optimism regarding the strength of some of Chicago's clubs- I fear that in my lifetime we will see a closing of several of our clubs some of which are 100 year old clubs. Amongst them I would mention Calumet, Ridge, Idlewild, potentially Prestwick, or how about Crystal Tree with a 17MM dollar clubhouse nut? What about Naperville CC, Midlothian, and one of my favorites Flossmoor. Will these all be around in 40 yrs? I fear not- I talk frequently with members at all of the clubs I've named and believe me when I say things are not very rosy. Too many clubs and too few golfers that are willing or able to make the financial committments to keep all of these clubs running. I can only think of possibly 4 clubs in Chicago that you couldn't join immediately(less than 6months) if you could write the check.

Jack,

In many of those cases, the neighborhoods changed. 

My point was more about courses being closed down to use the land for another purpose, namely building more houses.

I completely agree that the struggles many of these clubs are going through are a shame, except when the difficulties were self-inflicted.  But that's a topic for a different thread.

Sven

[J_ Crisham]

It looked to me like the ridge was softened pretty aggressively - downhill on 2, and uphill on 7. But I would never take up a challenge against you Tom.

Bradley:

I am only making the challenge because I played with Paul Richards who told me everything he could about what had been changed.

You are right about the tee shot on #2 ... I had forgotten that one ... but the softening was done recently by Ron Prichard to extend the hole.  Ross' version made it hard to see down the hill at all.

If the tee shot back up the hill at #7 was changed, Paul didn't mention it.

Bradley,
               In reference to your claims that the 26 foot high ridgeline which bisects #7 in an east to west direction was somehow changed by Ross: I also can find no evidence to support your statement. Nor was it softened by Prichard. As #7 is aptly named, Periscope, the ridgeline is simply the remnants of The Blue Island Ridge- an ice age remnant of Lake Michigan. This spine runs south all the way to 127th street west of Western Ave. This is all documented in our 100 yr anniversary book that both Tim Cronin and my fellow member and club historian  Paul  Richards unearthed from our club archives at Beverly.

[Sean_A]

Answering the question, if anything, I would say the archies of today are given too much credit because they have countless template holes to copy from the masters AND they have copied them by the thousands.  This is partly why I am so against the over-use of bunkers as defining elements of holes.  I don't think archies can help but to place them in the same places as was done in the past.  Its becomes hard wired stuff for archies. 

Ciao 

[Jeb Bearer]

Sean,

That's a good point. We've heard it said that there's nothing truly new in GCA, but at a time there must have new brand new ideas, and mucho those must have been invented by the classic architects.

[Tom_Doak]

Sean,

That's a good point. We've heard it said that there's nothing truly new in GCA, but at a time there must have new brand new ideas, and mucho those must have been invented by the classic architects.

It is easier to invent a new idea when there aren't people who insist on comparing everything to a Redan or some other template.

Dr. MacKenzie swore that his Gibraltar hole at Moortown was an original idea and that he hadn't seen the Redan, to which it might be compared.  And that is most likely true.  But if any of us today built a hole even passably similar, it wouldn't be considered original, whether we had another hole in mind or not.

There ARE things in golf course architecture that are truly new, just not as many as there should be. 

[Sean_A]

Tom

I wouldn't consider Mac's Gibraltar original either, but that concept is nearly impossible not to use - its that sort of essential design (like a car has 4 tires) that can't be ignored.  I do wonder though, was Ross big on Redans?  I don't know, but it seems like he managed for the most part to avoid the building them.

I think there was a thread about new originality a few years back. I don't recall much coming up.  I think Dye had a few ideas tossed around, especially Sawgrass 17, but even that was squashed when it was found Tillie had designed a similar green yonks ago.  One of the coolest original things I ever saw was Dr Mac's original  bunker scheme at Augusta.  I couldn't stop looking at the map and wondering what he was thinking when those bunkers were built.  I think that scheme may be one of the great losses of architecture.  Check that, I think the loss of Dr Mac at that juncture in his life when he was making a turn in his design work may be biggest loss for gca. 

Ciao