Did the "dead" guys see it differently?

[Mark_Fine]

Tom,
We did go through a through restoration at Lehigh with Ron but we did really nothing to "modernize" the course to address what you say is the biggest difference today -

"The biggest impediment to real restoration today are things like the distance problem, how much the game really has changed and clubs and even architects and contractors not really understanding how to actually restore a look or a playability or even what it really means".

If Lehigh had said (many members did say this), we like our course and think what Flynn did back in 1926 was probably great, but this is 2003 and we want to change it to address today's "distance problem, club and ball issues,..etc." as you state above.  What would you have told them?  

That's my question!
Mark

[Mike_Cirba]

My point about the Great Depression and Tillinghast (and other architects like Maxwell whose careers survived most of the 30s) is simply to point out that yes, he did "redesign" many courses during that period, but that in many cases, those changes were minimal, at best.

A good example is Reading Country Club in PA.  While he visited and suggested changes, only one hole of Alex Findlay's original design was substantially altered.

[Paul_Turner]

From my knowledge it was much the same in the GB&I.  A lot of the courses by the famous architects were total redesigns of basic courses designed by architects such as Tom Dunn and Old Tom.   Even a great course by a great architect like Park's Sunningdale went through major changes (by guess who?) when the ball switched from gutty to rubber.  Open course like Hoylake and Muirfield are other high profile examples.

In Australia, weren't there basic courses already in place before Mackenzie did his stuff?

[Forrest Richardson]

Mark F. said, "It's a dangerous thing and probably why we see so many restorations that are not restorations." 

I do not see too many restorations at all. (is this what you're saying, Mark? If so, I agree.) And I'm not speaking about my own work — I've never done a restoration by definition, nor would I find this type of work particularly appealing. I believe a true bona fide restoration team does not need as much time of a designer, but more of a good historian and a good shaper. Of course the technical issues are still crucial, so an architect would be called for, to be certain. And an architect's knowledge of the past would always be helpful, just as it would on a building project.

I call your attention to the list I provided at the top of this discussion:

1 Remodel
2 Restoration
3 Renovation
4 Re-build
5 Reroute
6 Rehabilitation
7 Transformation

What percentage of work ever done to golf courses was in category 2, "restoration"? 1%? 1.5%? Probably not even this large. My feeling is that this thread is not about "restoration" as it simply does not exist in large volume. It is, as Monty Python would say, "A dead parrot!"

Mark asks "whether the dead guys saw it diferently..." and "no" they did not. Their work was largely in categories 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 — just as it is today. Restoration is a very small, very specialized and very, very orphaned segment of any/all work done to golf courses. Very few people are willing to invest in simply restoring without also changing, bettering, altering, updating, and modernizing (dangerous word, sorry).