A Doak scale of golf course architects

[Mark_Rowlinson]

One of our sages, Tom Doak, has been known to rank golf courses and we eagerly await the next installment.

What criteria would you use to evaluate golf course architects?

Most innovative? Most influential? Most majors/tour events played on his/her courses? Most consistent at a high level? Most cost-effective? Most ecological? Most inventive, given the restrictions of the age in which they worked, or are working? Most variety around the world?

These are not my criteria, but simply some suggestions to get your superior minds and experience into action.

How do you compare architects who have designed hundreds of courses with those who have done but one or two?

[Ronald Montesano]

You lost me at "gods."

[Alex Miller]

One of our gods, Tom Doak, has been known to rank golf courses and we eagerly await the next installment.

What criteria would you use to evaluate golf course architects?

Most innovative? Most influential? Most majors/tour events played on his/her courses? Most consistent at a high level? Most cost-effective? Most ecological? Most inventive, given the restrictions of the age in which they worked, or are working? Most variety around the world?

These are not my criteria, but simply some suggestions to get your superior minds and experience into action.

How do you compare architects who have designed hundreds of courses with those who have done but one or two?

I like Tom Doak's courses, but is this really how you want to kickoff a thread that ranks golf architects?

This reads as some sort of attempt to instill bias in the responses, or the result of brainwashing. It seems Pat was more correct than I would've thought possible.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Give us your criteria as to why he is not a god.

[Bart Bradley]

Relax you guys.  Mark is referring to the title next to a poster's name.  Those with a lot of posts are called YA BB gods.

Bart

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Gods have now become sages, so let's move on.

[Ronald Montesano]

Having moved on, I'll examine the proposals:

"Most innovative? Most influential? Most majors/tour events played on his/her courses? Most consistent at a high level? Most cost-effective? Most ecological? Most inventive, given the restrictions of the age in which they worked, or are working? Most variety around the world?"

It must be challenging to be an artist when your hands are tied by your owner/developer. I would begin by asking each candidate for the list (presuming she/he is still alive and willing to speak candidly) what the nature of the build was: free reign or hog-tied?

I believe that each of your mosts could be an independent list, which would then give us 8-10 lists from which to ... do something.

[Sven Nilsen]

As an agnostic, my only criteria is whether or not I associate the name of the architect with fun golf.  The highest ranking architect would be the one meets this criteria on the most consistent basis.

[jeffwarne]

a tough assignment. given we don't always know the constraints placed upon the architect.
Also, quantity vs. quality would be a consideration

[Bart Bradley]

How would you compare an architect who mainly worked on good-great sites, and produced 10-20 good-great works as oppossed to some one who produced 100-200 or more good works, often on very average pieces of property?

The same way we rank links courses vs. parkland vs. heathland   ...and modern vs. classic.  INACCURATELY  .

Bart

[Sven Nilsen]

How would you compare an architect who mainly worked on good-great sites, and produced 10-20 good-great works as oppossed to some one who produced 100-200 or more good works, often on very average pieces of property?

Or, who falls higher on the scale, CBM or Bendelow?

[Mark Saltzman]

% of financially viable/successful projects?

[jeffwarne]

How would you compare an architect who mainly worked on good-great sites, and produced 10-20 good-great works as oppossed to some one who produced 100-200 or more good works, often on very average pieces of property?

The same way we rank links courses vs. parkland vs. heathland   ...and modern vs. classic.  INACCURATELY  .

Bart

Yaeh agreed, my thoughts were so incoherant I has already edited my post

 I must say, I can't tell you many times I've enjoyed a course only to find out later it was James Braid(who never never talk about here)
Was it the sites he was given, the maturity of the property, or his genius?

[Bill Brightly]

How about this way? List the 18 best courses each architect has built. Then apply the Doak scale: a 10 would be an architect who, if you missed playing one of his 18, you would be missing something special.

[Jim Sherma]

How would you compare an architect who mainly worked on good-great sites, and produced 10-20 good-great works as oppossed to some one who produced 100-200 or more good works, often on very average pieces of property?

The same way we rank links courses vs. parkland vs. heathland   ...and modern vs. classic.  INACCURATELY  .

Bart

Yaeh agreed, my thoughts were so incoherant I has already edited my post

 I must say, I can't tell you many times I've enjoyed a course only to find out later it was James Braid(who never never talk about here)
Was it the sites he was given, the maturity of the property, or his genius?

Could it be that so much of Braid's work were re-dos of existing courses as a response to new equipment causing distance gains. Do we really know how much of what's on the ground is really attributable to Braid on these courses?

[Jeb Bearer]

How about this way? List the 18 best courses each architect has built. Then apply the Doak scale: a 10 would be an architect who, if you missed playing one of his 18, you would be missing something special.

But what about those who might be just as capable but don't get as good property etc? I think it comes down to how we are defining "great architect" here.

[Bill Brightly]

How about this way? List the 18 best courses each architect has built. Then apply the Doak scale: a 10 would be an architect who, if you missed playing one of his 18, you would be missing something special.

But what about those who might be just as capable but don't get as good property etc? I think it comes down to how we are defining "great architect" here.

Not a problem. Building a great, or near great, course on a modest site can only help the top architect's ranking. How did Tilly do at Winged Foot? What great sites did he get to work with?

[Tom_Doak]

I really detest when people try to rank architects.  The entire exercise comes down to making extreme generalizations about people's lifetime of work.

You can only evaluate our work one course at a time, because that's how we do it.

[Jim Sherma]

I really detest when people try to rank architects.  The entire exercise comes down to making extreme generalizations about people's lifetime of work.

You can only evaluate our work one course at a time, because that's how we do it.

How about we rephrase the question as such:

If you were to spend the time and money to spend a year or two playing and studying a single architect's work, whose work would you try to get to first? Second? You would have to eliminate access as an issue in considering this.

This question does not necessarily make the singular guys like Wilson or Crump off limits, it would only mean that you would be limited to the very few courses with some connection to them.

Whereas someone with a wide swath of work, geographically and stylistically, like Dr Mac might move up based on volume and interest of where the work was done.

Food for thought.

[David_Elvins]

I really detest when people try to rank architects.

How can ranking architects as a concept be any more flawed than the concept of ranking anything else (golf courses, football teams, composers etc etc etc.)

Surely the strength of weakness of any ranking is in the person doing the rankings and the approach they take. 

A blanket condemnation of any ranking of architects seems a little strange. 

[Sean_A]

I sympathise with Tom D.  I am not convinced that archies are only as good as their courses indicate.  A heck of lot goes on in designing a course which may or may not be in the control of an archie.  Then you may also have archies who are working toward an over-riding goal such as building affordable publics etc.   

To me, a list of great courses by each archie falls well short of measuring the skill of an archie.  If I were to seriously explore the idea (and I never would) of ranking archies a few over-riding factors are important to me.  First, how good are the holes on less than good land?  Second, how well does the archie use what it given to him?  Third, what sort of budgets were allowed and were they commensurate with producing quality designs?  What sort of sites did archies get to work? 

The first two archies I would delve into in this fake investigation of mine would be Fowler and Simpson. 

Ciao

[Ronald Montesano]

"If you were to spend the time and money to spend a year or two playing and studying a single architect's work, whose work would you try to get to first? Second? You would have to eliminate access as an issue in considering this. "


and if time and money were no object. The reason I say this is, I could collect a whole lot of Walter Travis a lot quicker and cheaper than I could up my collection of Coore trading cards. Same with Strantz versus Doak.