How does a golf designer stay conceptually relevant?

[Don_Mahaffey]

It seems to me like most golf designers develop a brand. A client might hire C & C because he likes the look of their designs. He likes their brand, and maybe more importantly, his audience likes the brand. Isn't that also the case with Fazio, Doak, Engh...etc? It is probably an oversimplification, but don't clients select designers based on their brand, or their style? I don't intend the above to sound critical as all of the above (and many other architects) have created critically acclaimed golf courses.

One question I have, and you'll have to assume what I write above has some merit to answer, does establishing a brand inhibit creativity? While it may be good for business if your brand is widely accepted, doesn't it also bring constraints to the design process? Is there a well known and busy architect who doesn't have a recognizable "style"?

I'm also curious how golf design professionals cultivate their design potential, especially in today's market? If you want work, don't you have to design for your audience, and that audience has been trained by the golf world to expect certain styles of golf design. If you are a succesful architect with a time-honored style, how do you expand your design potential? How do you design something new, something different, something more interesting, but new to your audience? Is that possible?

[Mike Nuzzo]

Finding a client that has identified their goal as revenues or experiences not a particular design that they think generates such.
There are not many of those!


I've heard several stories of clients insisting on certain bunkers?!?

[Jason Thurman]

Does Nicklaus have an established style? Sure, most of his courses are "tough," but beyond that I'm not sure that his style has some of the visual hallmarks that other architects have. If I were dropped blindfolded on the ninth hole of a Fazio, Dye, Doak, or C&C course, I think I could probably guess the architect fairly quickly based on the shaping and strategy at work. I'm not sure I can say the same with a Nicklaus, although perhaps that's more the result of having not seen a ton of his work.

For what it's worth, a lot of times true creativity doesn't come from stepping outside your "style" but instead from innovating within it. While there's nothing particularly surprising stylistically about the new Lebron shoe from Nike, it's a lot more innovative than the company's forays into dress shoes or those cowboy boots they made for Garth. Something like the iPhone wasn't a huge stylistic departure for Apple, but it was definitely creative. A lot of times you reach higher levels of creativity when you don't have to recreate your stylistic framework and can instead focus on true and meaningful innovation within that framework.

[Matthew Petersen]

Does Nicklaus have an established style? Sure, most of his courses are "tough," but beyond that I'm not sure that his style has some of the visual hallmarks that other architects have. If I were dropped blindfolded on the ninth hole of a Fazio, Dye, Doak, or C&C course, I think I could probably guess the architect fairly quickly based on the shaping and strategy at work. I'm not sure I can say the same with a Nicklaus, although perhaps that's more the result of having not seen a ton of his work.

For what it's worth, a lot of times true creativity doesn't come from stepping outside your "style" but instead from innovating within it. While there's nothing particularly surprising stylistically about the new Lebron shoe from Nike, it's a lot more innovative than the company's forays into dress shoes or those cowboy boots they made for Garth. Something like the iPhone wasn't a huge stylistic departure for Apple, but it was definitely creative. A lot of times you reach higher levels of creativity when you don't have to recreate your stylistic framework and can instead focus on true and meaningful innovation within that framework.

I personally suspect I would have a hard time distinguishing between a generic Nicklaus and Fazio. To me, their style is very close--modern, somewhat bland in terms of interest, and "pretty."

[Matthew Petersen]

As to the question at hand, I think it depends on the site and expectations of the client.

I suppose Doak has a "style" in that I can look at pictures of his courses at Bandon and, say, Streamsong and see enough alike there. But then what of CommonGround?

And as for client expectations, I suppose there are clients who are interested in that C&C look and feel and so seek them out. But it seems just as likely to me that a client might consider 3-4 different GCAs and simply choose the one whose ideas they like best. In such situations, maybe they'l get something that fits that architect's "identity," but maybe that guy will have looked at the site and thought that a different look is best for the site.

[RJ_Daley]

The more prolific in production, and more courses built in a variety of locale, terrain, even globally, the more diverse and less locked into concept.

In my mind, developing some sort of 'brand' or identifiable style via construction technique or playing strategy that is repeated over and over, is not a good thing.  I don't see where Coore and Crenshaw, Doak, Hanse, et al., have done that.  They are both talented and lucky to have been offered sites around the globe in diverse terrain and situations to show they can adapt while still offering maximum golf design to provide maximum golf enjoyment. 

I'm sure you can look at just about any GC archie who has 20+ courses under their belt, if they are sited in diverse locations, and find those in the group that don't look or play like any of the others.  Sure, there may be strong tendencies, based on the archie's understanding and philosophy of the game, and the techniques of construction they oversee or develop in-house if they are a design-build. 

But, I think they stay relevant only if they adapt to what land and climate they are working in.

[David Harshbarger]

Don,

Once you get past regional availability, the available architects need to differentiate themselves somehow.  What that is is going to be their brand. If you boiled each architect's brand down to the elevator pitch you'd have a good idea what type of product each architect's firm is going to give you.

Nicklaus-Challenging course (that favors a high fade?) with a premium name to bolster associated Real Estate ventures.
Fazio-Challenging  manufactured course that caters to high-end cartball masses with gobs of eye candy and insane distance.
C&C-Lay of the land course and a brand that resonantes with very well off golf cognoscenti.
Andrew-Thoughtful and sympathetic restorations and renovations of golden age gems.
Doak-Fun, accessible courses that cater to Golfers of all abilities and a brand that resonates with very well off golf cognoscenti.
Rees Jones-Competent and professional courses that challenge touring pros and a brand that bolsters RE ventures.
Brauer-Competent and functional courses that provide enjoyment to the 99% and are designed to operate in a sustainable manner.
Engh-Bold and stylized courses that provide enjoyment to the 99%.
George-Bold and strategic courses with ample challenge, with a particular ability for difficult terrain.

Now that I've pissed off half the architects on the site by reducing their rich talents and life's work to a single not-overly-well-considered sentence, at the end of the day if an architect is to stand for something, that something has to be reducible to a book, a chapter, a page, a paragraph, a sentence, maybe even a word. And that's a good thing. 

[JC Urbina]

Don,

It is also important that the brand name does not become confusing.  It has to stay clear and to the point.

Often the brand has to be constantly reinforced.  Others will say they don't have a style-brand and that is how they stay relevant.

[Peter Pallotta]

Don - embedded in your post is a question I've been thinking about. For a long time, I've believed that the personal/subjective experience of a golf course and its design is most important, i.e. that what an architect has put there can really only be understood (and valued) in terms of how an individual golfer interacts - physically, emotionally -- with those features. But lately I've bounced over to the other point of view, i.e. that the way an architect -- from the golden age, or from right now -- consciously intended a golf course to play and how well he has made those intentions manifest are what's most important.  In short, I'm moving from the subjective to the objective. And to come back to your post, you seem (and I say 'seem') to agree with that, i.e. that there is an objective style/approach/brand that leading architects have, and that it is this that defines their courses. It's true -- but it made me think that I may have abandoned the subjective too quickly; because, since there are thousands and thousands of individual golfers (with their unique subjective experiences) playing those courses, it may be rash to suggest that the clarity and effectiveness of a brand is really what explains its popularity.

And as I finish writing that, I've not sure I made my point very clearly or well.

Peter

 

[Tom_Doak]

Don:

In the past year or two I've had several potential clients comment about our "brand".  I always ask them what the heck they think it is, and few are able to provide any real response ... but they think it's important to have one / be one.

Really, though, I don't think one's brand has much to do with architectural style.  I think it has everything to do with the success of past projects, and a new client wanting to imitate that success -- whether it's building a course that sells real estate, or attracts a Tour event, or just leaves golfers talking (and smiling).

When it comes to talking about what you might build, though, most architects find it easier to tell the client "I will build a course just like Course XYZ that hosted that recent tournament."  Only a few of us say "I really don't know what it will be like yet, I have to get out on site and get a better feel for it."  The latter is a much tougher sell ... and it has a lot to do with why Bill Coore and I haven't designed nearly as many courses as some other guys have.

[Adam Clayman]

Don, see CNBC's recent documentary on Costco. Their brand flourishes because, while they've perfected their business, they were constantly aware for their need to adapt. Avoiding the failures of past participants, in their space like Sears and Monkey Wards, which became complacent with increased margins. To me, that implies less rigidity for the brand. Of course this is golf, which rarely, if ever, fits neatly into any model. Let alone a metric.

[Sean_A]

Does staying conceptually relevant have anything to do with brand?  I would have though brand (reputation?) is more about what was delivered in the past rather than where an archie heads in the future.  Can an archie even know that much about his work in the future other than having a bank of ideas of what he would like to try given the right circumstances? 

To me, how an archie stays relevant is very individual matter because every archie is at a different level of skill and ambition and has different opportunities.

Ciao   

[Don_Mahaffey]

I think the brand talk has taken us a bit off track, as this was more an artistic question then a business one.

Mike Nuzzo sent me a quote today; it was from a friend of his who paints portraits for a living. Mike's friend will only paint a portrait if the subject is live and in person in front of him. No working off of photographs. He does more then just paint a face, he said “As human beings we don't view the world like a camera does, indiscriminately treating all details the same. A work of art done from life is the result of decisions made moment by moment by an artist. The result of which is an artistic interpretation of the subject based on the time shared between the two.
Originality and quality are rarely achieved under such pressure (of a photograph). This same pressure has given contemporary portraiture an artificial, contrived and homogenized look….”

I don’t know how Mike’s artist friend tries to stay conceptually relevant, but based on his quote; I’m guessing he’s a people watcher. If he is painting portraits that not only capture the image of a person, but glimpses of mannerism and personality as well, he’s a heck of a lot more then just good with paint and brushes. And Mike says he is commercially successful as well, that his portraits are very, very good.

I believe I can walk on a golf course and tell you if it was designed by a plan drawing firm, or a design build firm that did it’s drawing in the field. I’ll guess there are others here who feel the same way. I have no idea how a golf architect who works with plans stays conceptually relevant. It can’t be by sitting in the office and drawing hypothetical golf holes (I hope), so I’m guessing they try and get out and see as much golf as they can.
The guys who design in the field, maybe they try and see a lot of courses as well. But maybe they also try and study nature, drainage and erosion patterns…I really don’t have any idea what either group from above does, or even if they feel it important to try and stay conceptually relevant.

But I do I know what I would do, and that is spend as much time as possible with golfers who don’t have a clue about golf architecture. I’d try to spend time walking golf courses with people who don’t even play. You know how we are always ragging on the low handicap guy who tries to run the club? I think we all have a little of that in us and it might be refreshing to spend some time with people who don’t have a clue and who are not going to take the time to learn. Might get some fresh ideas there.

[Jeff_Brauer]

I always felt my writing on golf helped me stay conceptually relevant, in that I figured if I couldn't clearly express what it was I was trying to do in a few concise sentences, maybe I didn't really know what I was conceptually trying to do at all.

I do believe a lot of architects just sort of do things that way because they (or others that taught them) did it that way.  And, in truth, up to 90% of what they teach you makes sense.  But, its the 10% that makes a difference.

The first questions I asked and answered for myself was about age 15, and that was, "Why do so many greens have bunkers left and right, if strategy is supposed to be the key?"  Its been going ever since in one form or fashion with me.

[RJ_Daley]

Don, I was right there with you on most of your last post until you opined this:

But I do I know what I would do, and that is spend as much time as possible with golfers who don’t have a clue about golf architecture. I’d try to spend time walking golf courses with people who don’t even play. You know how we are always ragging on the low handicap guy who tries to run the club? I think we all have a little of that in us and it might be refreshing to spend some time with people who don’t have a clue and who are not going to take the time to learn. Might get some fresh ideas there.

I'm not able to go along with you there.  Mike's portrait painting friend makes perfect sense to me, given the essence of painting a portrait is to try and capture their soul, or actual aura in a context that is meaningful.  That may be to capture a man who works outdoors in blistering sun and spend time in that very environment observing him and painting him with a certain sunlit and perspiration beaded face, and capture how sunlight plays on facial features.  Or, to portray a person who is dark and brooding, rarely goes outdoors, and maybe is a contemplative writer or person that works at home creating during long evenings by a fire, and so that portrait artist wants to be in that darker room and see the sallow skin tones of a single light as it plays on that subjects face, while the make various conversational expressions. 

I won't say cameras can't capture those shadows and light, in a snapshot.  There are great portrait photographers that have some very famous pictures out there in the photographic art world.  But, I fully understand the need to be in a fluid and on-going environment with a subject of a portrait for a 'skilled painter' to bring out the essence. 

I think the GCA, and one that can well communicate ideas of shaping features with the construction crew - or one who gets up there on the machinery and shapes themselves, after spending much time studying the subject of the terrain upon which they will create their ideas of a golfing experience has to have the knowledge of golf as the game to be played upon that canvas- not interpret it from a neophyte's unskilled or clueless perspective.  Context in relation to goal or product is important, and time by a skilled craftsman archie who understands the way the game is played well, or has a great skilled playing consultant, is needed along with the process of time on the land, to create the product in context.  If an archie is using the golf architect's version of a snapshot (contour plans and drawings made in a sterile environment of a drafting table, without enough time seeing the land as it changes character in weather and light conditions) then that seems the same as painting a portrait by copying the features from a snapshot.  No context...

[Don_Mahaffey]

RJ,
I understand, but remember, I wrote, "I know what I would do". I wasn't trying to tell anyone else where to find inspiration.
My wife does not play golf. She has no interest in watching me play golf, and even though she has children who play competitive golf, she can't stand to hang around and watch a golf tournament. But she likes to go for walks with me on golf courses. And whenever she does, I'm always struck by what she sees, and what she finds of interest. I'm fascinated by that because most of us who live golf tend to focus on all the same stuff. She doesn't do that. Its just another way of looking at things.

[RJ_Daley]

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.

[Jud_T]

Don,

It's an excellent question.  I see it over and over in all of the artistic disciplines.  A guy has an early success or important artistic moment and spends the rest of his career regurgitating it.  Real art is created in the moment, like good live jazz improvisation.  Most clients who are spending large sums don't want to take chances, they want to plug a round peg into a round hole. It's the few who can build a reputation of successfully walking the tightrope of creativity such that people are willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that they can deliver on the spot and respond to the problem at hand with fresh ideas rather than a simple reinterpreting of what they've done before.  The true artist places the creative moment above commerce.  This obviously isn't an easy road to hoe.  Perhaps trusting your guys on property to roll with the punches and shape freehand?  Responding to the land first and coming up with solutions in direct response instead of coming in with preconceived notions of what makes for good, fair, pretty, repeatable golf holes? Allowing sufficient time on property for the team to get it right instead of cutting corners and maximizing the bottom line? Being willing to take sufficient risks even if it means abject failure? Just off the top of my hungover brain...

[Tom_Doak]

Don, I was right there with you on most of your last post until you opined this:

But I do I know what I would do, and that is spend as much time as possible with golfers who don’t have a clue about golf architecture. I’d try to spend time walking golf courses with people who don’t even play. You know how we are always ragging on the low handicap guy who tries to run the club? I think we all have a little of that in us and it might be refreshing to spend some time with people who don’t have a clue and who are not going to take the time to learn. Might get some fresh ideas there.

I'm not able to go along with you there.  Mike's portrait painting friend makes perfect sense to me, given the essence of painting a portrait is to try and capture their soul, or actual aura in a context that is meaningful.  That may be to capture a man who works outdoors in blistering sun and spend time in that very environment observing him and painting him with a certain sunlit and perspiration beaded face, and capture how sunlight plays on facial features.  Or, to portray a person who is dark and brooding, rarely goes outdoors, and maybe is a contemplative writer or person that works at home creating during long evenings by a fire, and so that portrait artist wants to be in that darker room and see the sallow skin tones of a single light as it plays on that subjects face, while the make various conversational expressions. 

I won't say cameras can't capture those shadows and light, in a snapshot.  There are great portrait photographers that have some very famous pictures out there in the photographic art world.  But, I fully understand the need to be in a fluid and on-going environment with a subject of a portrait for a 'skilled painter' to bring out the essence. 

I think the GCA, and one that can well communicate ideas of shaping features with the construction crew - or one who gets up there on the machinery and shapes themselves, after spending much time studying the subject of the terrain upon which they will create their ideas of a golfing experience has to have the knowledge of golf as the game to be played upon that canvas- not interpret it from a neophyte's unskilled or clueless perspective.  Context in relation to goal or product is important, and time by a skilled craftsman archie who understands the way the game is played well, or has a great skilled playing consultant, is needed along with the process of time on the land, to create the product in context.  If an archie is using the golf architect's version of a snapshot (contour plans and drawings made in a sterile environment of a drafting table, without enough time seeing the land as it changes character in weather and light conditions) then that seems the same as painting a portrait by copying the features from a snapshot.  No context...

RJ:  Very well said.  I had trouble with Don's conclusion as well.  It's possible that by talking to someone who doesn't think about golf architecture you will come up with a new idea that's really good ... but you'll have to sort it out from lots and lots of ideas that aren't very good.

I agree with your views of spending as much time out on site as possible, because the land itself is not biased toward certain theories of design and you're safe as long as you follow it.  I also agree with Jud that the more the architect lets the guys on site do their own thing, responding to the land, the more original and authentic the result will be.

To me, the logical follow up to Don's argument would be to do more of what I did in the UK -- to just go out and watch people play golf holes of interest and see how they really work.  I think nearly everyone in the business has made too many assumptions about what works and what doesn't in strategic design, and they've never gone out in the field to see whether the golf being played matches their vision.  That's where Don's application of average golfers would really come in handy.  It's not what they know -- because they aren't very good at analyzing what is going on, either.  It's what they DO that's important. 

Do you think Jack Nicklaus watches average golfers play his courses?  Do you think it would help if he did?

I also agree with what Jeff Brauer said, that if you can distill what you see into words, you're better able to apply it to design.  However, one also has to be careful of over-simplifying in that context.

[Mike_Young]

But I do I know what I would do, and that is spend as much time as possible with golfers who don’t have a clue about golf architecture. I’d try to spend time walking golf courses with people who don’t even play. You know how we are always ragging on the low handicap guy who tries to run the club? I think we all have a little of that in us and it might be refreshing to spend some time with people who don’t have a clue and who are not going to take the time to learn. Might get some fresh ideas there.

Don,
What you say above could lead to some interesting concepts and IMHO it would lead to some very simple concepts that have kept the guys you describe coming back to their community golf courses across the USA for a long time.  But the problem is that so many of these places the average American golfer enjoys and has fun playing were built by the local pro or the local farmer and they work.  So it sort of shoots the architect in the foot doesn't it? 
Going a little further into your question, you mention the "design/build on the ground" guy vs. the "plan guy".  I think you could take that a step further and describe it as the guy that builds a course from the stakes outward or the guy that places the course on the land.  I think that is the very very basic difference between the two types of architects that practice today and as some of the "guys that place a course" have tried to emulate the "guys that build from the stake" in order to stay "conceptually relevant" we have seen some clusterf*%ks.  It is two different mindsets and one cannot emulate the other.  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.

[David Harshbarger]

But I do I know what I would do, and that is spend as much time as possible with golfers who don’t have a clue about golf architecture. I’d try to spend time walking golf courses with people who don’t even play. You know how we are always ragging on the low handicap guy who tries to run the club? I think we all have a little of that in us and it might be refreshing to spend some time with people who don’t have a clue and who are not going to take the time to learn. Might get some fresh ideas there.

Don,
What you say above could lead to some interesting concepts and IMHO it would lead to some very simple concepts that have kept the guys you describe coming back to their community golf courses across the USA for a long time.  But the problem is that so many of these places the average American golfer enjoys and has fun playing were built by the local pro or the local farmer and they work.  So it sort of shoots the architect in the foot doesn't it? 
Going a little further into your question, you mention the "design/build on the ground" guy vs. the "plan guy".  I think you could take that a step further and describe it as the guy that builds a course from the stakes outward or the guy that places the course on the land.  I think that is the very very basic difference between the two types of architects that practice today and as some of the "guys that place a course" have tried to emulate the "guys that build from the stake" in order to stay "conceptually relevant" we have seen some clusterf*%ks.  It is two different mindsets and one cannot emulate the other.  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, maybe there are some good ideas that come out of the blue from non-Golfers, but I know that in our area there's a marked difference in popularity and quality on the farmer courses and the architected courses.  The farmer courses still function as businesses with attractive rates and fun rounds, but they all also have seriously flawed holes, generally due to poor treatment of difficult terrain.  I'd have to think competent architects would have avoided those problems and created more popular courses.  Even before discovering this site I put a discount on playing those courses because of those flaws.   In fact we have a good example of a Paul Cowley public course that is very well regarded on terrain that could easily have been misused.

Relevancy is a tough concept, as any artist is both a product of their muse and their time.  If the two fall out of sync, what's an artist to do but be untrue to themselves or be irrelevant?  One other path is to continue as a craftsman, where the bar for success is not so high as it is for the artist.

[V. Kmetz]

I know it's a parsing of terms, but can anyone build convincing consensus on what the Mackenzie, or Ross or Tillinghast, or Raynor, or Thomas or Crump, or Wilson or Maxwell or RTJ "concept" is? TD alludes to this problem in one of his earlier posts.

Consider TOC, St. Andrews, the most unattributed, organic "design" we recognize...what IS the concept(s) there? Diagonals? Don't Miss Right? Avoid Extreme Hazards? Stay in Front/Don't Go Long? Accuracy is Better than Distance? Blind shots and camouflage provoke judgment? Or eradicate it? Fortune Matters More than Skill? You Can Talk to a Slice But a Hook Won't Listen? Wind is Necessary for Exhilarating, Repeatable Golf? Oddities, named bunkers, monuments, roads, bridges make the player charmed? Hole names lend emotional gravitas or amusement to a game? Easily walkable? There are dozens more; additional "premises" by which a hole, a course, presents itself to the player - which you or I could outline and would be true.

Inventory your own favorite course(s) whether familiar through repeated play, notorious study or both.  What do they have? What tests, challenges, and delights do they offer and how often do they combine and/or repeat them?

When I do that, I find that:

a. there are rational premises that (merely in my opinion) are actual preferable and can be agreed upon that never get old, irrelevant, but are so venerable they are invisible now as a concept:  "walkable" is one, "penalty sours, reward sweetens" is another "the worst thing about Golf is looking for golf balls" is another one.

b. the greatest variety of premises (concepts) that can be integrated into and/or among the constituent holes in any one course or body of work among an architects courses will keep that architect relevant.  Once in a blue moon, an architect actually comes up with a radical new concept, shot requirement or visual...but if that becomes his style (the radical - think Desmond Muirhead) then it no longer becomes relevant...it's all radicalness.  Having a handball wall 15 yards behind a green might keep an architect relevant in the moment, but not if he has one at every third course he designs.

c.  The Template holes are, again imo, a nice demonstration of this idea and in all their iterations, produce conceptual relevance.  Not because "Oh here's the tiresome Redan and yet another Biarritz or Cape..." its because what's in that Template name is just a title page for a whole bunch of those other premises..."diagonals, miss in front, use contour, avoid right, fortune is as important as skill" are built into that iteration.  the beauty is that the Template Hole can't be replicated...no Eden can be perfectly duplicated, but the concepts it embodies can...and are.

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 lattitude to do that independently or is that freedom sanctioned by purpose...a championship, sales of memberships or homes.

cheers

vk

[Philippe Binette]

the thing is, for a golf architect or any designer, is to keep your OWN PROCESS.

but keeping your own process doesn't mean you'll do the same concepts or the same design style.

I don't think a firm like Coore and Crewshaw or Renaissance will start doing course only from plans, topo maps and not go to the site tommorow morning. It's not their PROCESS and odds are, they would have a hard time doing it compare to another firm who does it all the time.

To stay relevant then, it's all about keep learning, keep studying and keep experimenting things. See what work and what doesn't

[Mike_Young]

David,
Good points.  i never said the local farmer courses did not have flaws.  I just said they attract the majority of the golfers in this country.
I also think you are correct regarding artist.  I don't think all golf architects are artist.  I'm not sure Raynor had an artistic bone in his body

[Tom_Doak]

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.


Vinnie:

Nice answer.  Your example of the use of template holes is particularly astute, compared to some architects who use it as a marketing gimmick and a paint-by-numbers approach.

I have always said that there are way more great ideas in golf than you can fit into 18 holes.  That's why there is no such thing as a perfect course, and why I'll never get bored with what I do.