David Davis
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Re: A definitive description of what makes a golf course great
« Reply #52 on: Today at 01:37:35 PM »
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I'm a little disappointed in this thread. Perhaps it just is an impossible question however I can't help but to feel that we could do much better than this.
David,
Your desire for some objective criteria is understandable, laudable, and, in the way you wish to pursue it, impossible.
As previous threads on objectivity and subjectivity in course evaluations have shown, many of the people you'd most like to contribute their lists are almost adamantly insistent that all evaluation is purely subjective. I'm with you in believing otherwise; and we, and those like us who know that objective bases are available, even though they ultimately began as subjective judgments, can be encouraged that some of the most prominent and thoughtful of the "original" golden agers -- CBM and Dr. Mac and Tilly among them -- not only thought your quest possible, but they made serious efforts at listing criteria.
Because there are so many individual traits or characteristics of the great courses that can be pinpointed, making a list of them would be never-ending; the list itself might be infinite, if all the subjective viewpoints about characteristics were compiled. That's the road to madness.
In another thread, I suggested that we make our quest for objective bases by examining the established characteristics of what constitutes great visual art. Some will argue that even those bases, which have descended to us through centuries of thoughtful art evaluation, were originally subjective. That's true, but if we're to judge intelligently and communicate our judgments, we need a language for doing so, one that has some authority and acceptability by those who really wish to communicate. So, if we look at the characteristics of great visual art, as they've evolved into principles for art criticism, we have the following list.
1 Movement
2 Unity
3 Harmony
4 Variety
5 Balance
6 Contrast
7 Proportion
8 Pattern and rhythm
My sense is that if we examine courses in terms of these principles, rather than in a quest to find a complete list of traits, we are likely to have more productive discussions on this site and, more importantly, better golf course criticism generally.
Thus, instead of listing all the ways a golf course exhibits variety -- long holes and short holes, doglegs left and right, sand and grass and cross bunkers, uphill and downhill and sidehill fairways, small and medium and large and flat and undulant greens, ponds and streams and lakes and babbling brooks and no water at all, etc., ad infinitum, if we can agree that a course exhibits great variety in many of its particular characteristics, we'll be on the road to an objective assessment of its greatness as a work of architecture. Then, if we can agree that the course demonstrates that it embodies the other principles to a large degree, we can be confident that we are approaching a more thorough evaluation of the course's merits as a work of art.
That is, our focus should be, first, on assessing the course in terms of the principles of art. Then, knowing that art manifests itself in an infinite variety of individual traits, we can judge the particular course's traits in terms of their representing artistic principles.
Another question might well arise -- does a beautiful work of golf course architecture represent, in itself, a great golf course -- but that's a subject for another thread.