[V. Kmetz]

SN,

I'm not familiar with the Jungian archetype of artist-scientist...

I don't know if its Franklin or DaVinci...AND my knowledge of 1860-1900 GC architects is cursory at best, but I interpret CB MacDonald as "single," "first," "important first leader" of GCA, as he seemingly combined knowledge of the Art (the making) with the Science (study) in his GCA's career.  There was a voluminous thread two or so years ago that slolicited opinion about whether CBM was the "Father" of golf Course Architecture...but it invariably got lost in terms of what "Father" meant or what importance it holds.  I was one who was willing to bestow that moniker on him and Bahto certainly cemented a term with the "Evangelist" title.

don't know if this advances your question at all.

cheers

vk

[Sven Nilsen]

Does it change the conversation if we use creativity in place of art and practicality in place of science?

[V. Kmetz]

It does for me, to an extent...meaning....

Is Golf Course Design more a measure of creativity or practicality?

if that's worthy of the thread you've begun, then I would say the former, "Creativity,"...

Maybe if I cut to my own chase, it would advance the thread...

I'm a believer  of GCA as the most unique, most dynamic form of Art we have instituted in eons.  I used to think of cinema as the top of "entirely" new...but I came to realize that it drew on theater, writing, photography, which drew on pictorial representation, whereby we can get to Aristotle in a few moves...but GCA?

Where else is there an art that is intended to be used, changed, altered...even abused by millions and is never the same for anyone user...EVER .  If you take a divot at Versailles, the gendarme will cuff you, if it's a hot day, the Night Watch doesn't change...it's a form of designed art that mingles nature, man, visual aesthetics, and function in a completely personal and human way at a pitch that is rarely experienced in other arts, but is "de rigeur" for GCA.

If I ever prospect to be able to pay my bills while doing it, I wish to make it my life's work...to advance the Art of GCA as a its own distinct worthy pocket in the field of Arts.  the major cultural barrier to it (besides my own finite life and economy) is that it needs to break free from the "shell" of Golf in reputation.  Golf is so limited, so small - as to the concepts we're dealing with in the history of culture that the prejudice to this consideration is monumental now.

However, we're only in the first 150 years of the "Art" at all, so I have hope...

But 100, 200, 2000 years from now...I would like to be counted in that number who signaled to future man that we did something pretty amazing starting in the late 19th century.

cheers

vk

[Sven Nilsen]

Vinnie:

To continue with the Socratic method, in what other ways is land made fit for a purpose that requires more than a visual interaction?

Sven

[V. Kmetz]

Well that is well-directed and to the point about my developing thesis...

there aren't many even in the basic sense...

part of it is essence of the act of "Recreation" that is at the heart of golf... "Re-Creating" in the plain etymological sense.

in that vein: Beaches, Ski Complexes, Public Parks, Man-Made Lakes (Swimmin' holes) perhaps the "Prize-winning Victory Garden" but they all have a demand...some primal necessity that is not in direct control by the designer whose been given a canvas (a shoreline...snow and a mountain...water)

cheers

vk

[Colin Macqueen]

Sven,

In a mundane sense   "..other ways land (is) made fit for a purpose that requires more than a visual interaction" would be agricultural.
Where marshy, acidic, boggy, clay ridden earth can be drained, weeded, mulched and improved for cultivation. No recreation here just toil!

Now that wee statement has brought this thread back to earth!!

It is interesting though that, from what I can gather, early golf courses did get created out of land that was considered relatively barren and of no use to the agriculturalists so that was a practical thing to do.

Great thread by the way, sorry if I've besmirched it!

Cheers Colin

[Joe_Tucholski]

Is Golf Course Design more a measure of creativity or practicality?

If that is the question my opinion is practicality is more important in a golf course design.

A golf course has a purpose and that is to play the game of golf.  Without the practicality you are left with a park.  Which interestingly enough vk mentions in his list of land made fit for a purpose beyond visual.

In a mundane sense   "..other ways land (is) made fit for a purpose that requires more than a visual interaction" would be agricultural.
Where marshy, acidic, boggy, clay ridden earth can be drained, weeded, mulched and improved for cultivation. No recreation here just toil!

Colin have you never met an individual who participates in agriculture for recreational purpose?  Didn't Garland start a thread called flowers of GCA recently?

[Carl Johnson]

To be creative, you need to master a craft

Bingo! Art, science or craft?

[V. Kmetz]

JT,

Just for your first part ("more practicality"): I honestly don't see it that way. 

...to use your follow-up about purpose "a golf course is to play" for explanation - I think the "game" is really part of the medium, one of the materials one is working with.  It's a given that if you defy the game...(? no greens, no tees...I dunno?) you're no longer in this art.  The enduring feature of St. andrews to this extent is that it WAS a park (sorta) that men designed to put the activity on.  It may have been simple at first..."Ill bet I can get this rock over to that mound in less than you") but it was the game in principle.

Non-GCAers or Golf people always ask me:

"so I've heard that no one actually built St. Andrews...is that true? that nature built it?" I say yes, but man "coursed" it, designed how what exists would be used, modified, tempered to his purpose"

In a similar vein, think of Reid and the Old Apple Tree Gang, especially the Feb 22, 1888 first course...3 holes on Lake Street in Yonkers, NY (currently Lennon Park if anyone is up for the pilgrimage)...the game was about the only material they had to work with...on land they were compelled to use...the result?  No creativity, no memorability, no regard...just facility to hit the ball about. and the course was gone by the thaw...

If there's no surface and no paint...there's no painting...if there's no movement...there's no dance....if there's no instrument or device being acted upon, there's no creation of music...if there's no tee corresponding with a hole to putt the ball in, there's no golf...and no golf course and no golf course architecture.

I think the game is one of the fundamental mediums of the art, the art does not begin until we approach the stricture of the game with creativity.  Even comparatively - as a matter of building, engineering, construction, crafts (an oft controversial distinction with art) a building or bridge must have the practicalities and geometry of physics in place or nothing happens.  with a golf course, you don't need one element of practicality to satisfy what it is...beyond a place to tee and a place to hole out...the game.  From that basic medium, everything else builds...

cheers

vk

[Ian Andrew]

I've been stumped by this question all day.
I'll keep reading responses as they come, but even those aren't helping me out.

[V. Kmetz]

Just an annex follow-up for those who have mailed me privately:

After the public airing I exchanged and private contact, TEPaul and I had after his April "Feature Interview" one of the promising avenues (of many) that Tom and were considering for further exchange, were going in this direction:

Tom has, to me, a revolutionary insight about golf as an activity (some of you may know this already); that it is the only "Ball and Stick" game in which the Ball is NOT competitively vied for.

To this, I brought my lesser speculation tangent; that a golf course (and I myself DO make a sub-distinction between courses I think are moreso Match Play courses and Medal Play courses) measures fortune more than skill.

There was a hope on my part that from these two areas we could convene an exchange that would illuminate some fundamentals about what logos, pathos, and ethos makes the game and golf courses upon which its played...what they are.

I can't speak for Tom, but that was before I made 130 loops and got a college teaching post.  Ahh life!

cheers

vk

[Sven Nilsen]

I've been stumped by this question all day.
I'll keep reading responses as they come, but even those aren't helping me out.

Ian:

If it Means anything, your thread regarding perfection had a big influence on the direction of this thread.

Sven

[Sean_A]

Well that is well-directed and to the point about my developing thesis...

there aren't many even in the basic sense...

part of it is essence of the act of "Recreation" that is at the heart of golf... "Re-Creating" in the plain etymological sense.

in that vein: Beaches, Ski Complexes, Public Parks, Man-Made Lakes (Swimmin' holes) perhaps the "Prize-winning Victory Garden" but they all have a demand...some primal necessity that is not in direct control by the designer whose been given a canvas (a shoreline...snow and a mountain...water)

cheers

vk

So it sounds like you are saying golf courses (golf parks - many courses have "park" in the name which is also where parkland comes from) are a subset of public (or perhaps not public) parks and perhaps more specifically parks which have specified recreational use.  While it is true the game is older than than the concept of a public park, it could be that golf was the first specified recreation on what was essentially public parkland - ie links.  We obviously still have the public park hangover with some places like Carnoustie and St Andrews and later with golf on common land at loads of places.  Do you think its possible that our modern idea of a public park which includes areas for specified recreation originated from golf?

Ciao

[V. Kmetz]

SA,

I got up @ 4am, saw your post and am thinking about it...perhaps an answer late morning.

cheers

vk

[Mike_Young]

I've been stumped by this question all day.
I'll keep reading responses as they come, but even those aren't helping me out.

Ian,
I explain it to myself by trying to use science as an art.  BUT that's here in the South

[Travis Dewire]

I think somehow over the years we've narrowed down the concept/definition of 'creativity'. Today we tend to think of the creative person almost exclusively as the painter, the poet, the musician, in short, in terms of what someone does. (And many of the creative people themselves, including golf course architects, share that idea.) It's a shame we don't think more holistically, i.e. in terms of an attitude, one that is fully participatory: heart, soul and mind, and a mind not divided against itself in terms of right brain and left brain, art and science, but one that values and lives out of the whole person, moment by moment and in every aspect of life. The creative person participates in life and in the people and events and tasks they face, responding freely and without undue restrictions and constructs in the infinitely varied and unique ways that life's varied and unique people, events and tasks call for. The golf course architect who 'turns off' his creativity the moment he walks off a site probably isn't bringing much true creativity to the task in the first place.

  

This was amazing

[Peter Pallotta]

Thank you, Travis.

I do think a point is being missed here, i.e. we're talking as if, in the act of creating (something great), there were these creatures called "scientists" or "artists" who follow some well-proscribed and narrow path like programmed robots, or as if some less-robotic types clearly and consciously separate and act out of their right brains or left brains, as artists or scientists, as the case demands. I just don't see it that way. I could be very wrong, of course, but my point is simply that these kinds of, to me, artificial distinctions and constructs are the very things that curtail true and ongoing creating living, of which golf design is only a part.

Peter

[Tom_Doak]

Thank you, Travis.

I do think a point is being missed here, i.e. we're talking as if, in the act of creating (something great), there were these creatures called "scientists" or "artists" who follow some well-proscribed and narrow path like programmed robots, or as if some less-robotic types clearly and consciously separate and act out of their right brains or left brains, as artists or scientists, as the case demands. I just don't see it that way. I could be very wrong, of course, but my point is simply that these kinds of, to me, artificial distinctions and constructs are the very things that curtail true and ongoing creating living, of which golf design is only a part.

Peter

I'll second that.  The best golf architects have all of these pieces as part of their makeup.  The ultimate expression of design is when you solve a technical problem with an artistic solution.

Being able to think in three-dimensional space is a big part of that.  I've seen plenty of architects who get the length and width right, on paper, but who can't incorporate the third dimension well at all.  They can't seem to design a hole incorporating the contours that are already there; they have to simplify the problem by flattening everything out so it fits their ideas of proper size and contour.

For example:  if you've got a bunker at one side of the green with a steep lip down to the green, you don't have to eliminate the lip by flattening the ground, you just have to make the green a bit bigger to compensate for the difficult recovery.

[Sean_A]

For example:  if you've got a bunker at one side of the green with a steep lip down to the green, you don't have to eliminate the lip by flattening the ground, you just have to make the green a bit bigger to compensate for the difficult recovery.

Cha-ching.

Ciao

[Peter Pallotta]

Tom, Sean - yes, that's a perfect example: the capacity/ability of some to "see" in three dimensions, and then to make that manifest. That's not science or art -- it's something more and/or different. I have no such capacity.

Peter

[Carl Rogers]

Does it have to be one or the other?

No one can (or should) argue that places like Kiawah Ocean, Sagebrush, Cape Kidnappers, etc., etc., etc.  are not works of art.  They stir a gamut of emotions from everyone.  And yet, no way any of them could have been built without scientific/engineering prowess.

I do think that's where the art comes in.  There are lots of designers who just don't think that way about golf courses.  They are all over the shot values and the drainage, but almost never think about whether they are building something beautiful or causing the golfer to get excited about a particular feature.  It's sad to say, but there are some golf course architects who don't have much fun at golf.

Tom, I am beginning to think that for those of you that have excelled in the field a strong Landscape Architecture background was needed as you subminumally "solve problems".

[Tom_Doak]

Does it have to be one or the other?

No one can (or should) argue that places like Kiawah Ocean, Sagebrush, Cape Kidnappers, etc., etc., etc.  are not works of art.  They stir a gamut of emotions from everyone.  And yet, no way any of them could have been built without scientific/engineering prowess.

I do think that's where the art comes in.  There are lots of designers who just don't think that way about golf courses.  They are all over the shot values and the drainage, but almost never think about whether they are building something beautiful or causing the golfer to get excited about a particular feature.  It's sad to say, but there are some golf course architects who don't have much fun at golf.

Tom, I am beginning to think that for those of you that have excelled in the field a strong Landscape Architecture background was needed as you subminumally "solve problems".

Carl:

What part of the above are you identifying as landscape architecture?

My knowledge of what's beautiful and exciting in golf (or in life) didn't come from my studies at Cornell.  It came from observing so many other great courses, and seeing the big picture as opposed to just the technical bits of them.

[Carl Rogers]

(Tom, I have typed in 3 different answers only to erase them all and start over) .....  

Then how did Cornel start, contribute or hinder you? ............ I do think the formal background gives you a beginning frame of reference, even if at some point you move beyond it or re-define it.

Even without the Pacific Ocean, I see Pacific Dunes as a thrilling Landscape that just happens to be a golf course.

At the the end of his life, the french architect, LeCorbusier, he said that he should have gone to school.

[Philippe Binette]

Art needs creativity...

but to be creative, you need to study, learn and develop a craft.

a craft is skilled work... and your skill come from talent and more importantly, experimentation.

experimentation is the basis of science.


in golf course architecture.. you can have a great idea (creativity)

but if you haven't study and learn other courses, you won't know if the idea will work...

so you study and your idea work.. conceptually...

now does it work technically, can it be grown, does it drain, would it be maintained under your inital intent...

this knowledge comes from experimentation.

if you've done enough experimentation, like learn the minimum slope to drain in a pipe or on grass, and you documentate it... then it becomes science.


That's why there are a lot more people who talk golf architecture (any players does) then those who can built a golf course.

[Tom_Doak]

(Tom, I have typed in 3 different answers only to erase them all and start over) .....  

Then how did Cornel start, contribute or hinder you? ............ I do think the formal background gives you a beginning frame of reference, even if at some point you move beyond it or re-define it.

Even without the Pacific Ocean, I see Pacific Dunes as a thrilling Landscape that just happens to be a golf course.

At the the end of his life, the french architect, LeCorbusier, he said that he should have gone to school.

Carl:

I had started studying golf courses when I was a kid, before I went to Cornell.  Indeed, none of my professors at Cornell knew much about golf courses.  They did know about drainage and grading plans and DESIGN, and what I learned about was a design process that I could adapt for my own special needs.

Plus, they gave me that scholarship to go overseas when I was 21-22, to learn all the stuff they couldn't teach me in school, with the credibility of the university's backing.

They never tried to teach us about aesthetics or how to make the most of 3-D space, that I can recall.  The classes I remember most fondly were on the history of Landscape Architecture ... just seeing beautiful places and being inspired by them.  Also, there was enough urban planning work that I got a sense of what the guys who are doing master planning for golf course communities must be thinking -- which was a big help on some future projects, because those guys sure don't understand what I'm trying to do.  (Or, they understand that we are both competing to use the same elements and views on our own side of the fence.)

I can't imagine going back to school.  But I will never run out of places to travel and be inspired with new ideas.

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