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John Kirk

  • Karma: +0/-0
John:

You have a strange sense of humor.

Ideals should be simple:  Honesty.  Integrity.  Heroism.  "Rules of thumb" are not ideals.

Hi Tom,

I rate my sense of humor as "sometimes strange".  This thread sat on top of the board as a sticky topic for a couple days without a single new post, so I figured it was dead.  As a Kirk, I will look to McCoy to inspect the subject and determine if it is dead.  To summarize, The Bones McCoy reference was not ideal.

I figured you and everybody else was done with this subject.  I sure enjoyed your last posts, plus Jeff's and Ian's responses.  Superb.

Jeff,

If the title was changed to "Can Course Ideals Be Used To Measure (or Evaluate) GCA?", I think the answers are still the same.
« Last Edit: April 11, 2014, 02:10:41 PM by John Kirk »

John Kirk

  • Karma: +0/-0
This showed up this morning on my Facebook page, courtesy of "Letters Of Note".  It is a letter by Nick Cave, an Australian musician, writing to MTV in 1996, declining an award nomination.

    21 Oct 96

    To all those at MTV,

    I would like to start by thanking you all for the support you have given me over recent years and I am both grateful and flattered by the nominations that I have received for Best Male Artist. The air play given to both the Kylie Minogue and P. J. Harvey duets from my latest album Murder Ballads has not gone unnoticed and has been greatly appreciated. So again my sincere thanks.

    Having said that, I feel that it's necessary for me to request that my nomination for best male artist be withdrawn and furthermore any awards or nominations for such awards that may arise in later years be presented to those who feel more comfortable with the competitive nature of these award ceremonies. I myself, do not. I have always been of the opinion that my music is unique and individual and exists beyond the realms inhabited by those who would reduce things to mere measuring. I am in competition with no-one.

    My relationship with my muse is a delicate one at the best of times and I feel that it is my duty to protect her from influences that may offend her fragile nature.

    She comes to me with the gift of song and in return I treat her with the respect I feel she deserves — in this case this means not subjecting her to the indignities of judgement and competition. My muse is not a horse and I am in no horse race and if indeed she was, still I would not harness her to this tumbrel — this bloody cart of severed heads and glittering prizes. My muse may spook! May bolt! May abandon me completely!

    So once again, to the people at MTV, I appreciate the zeal and energy that was put behind my last record, I truly do and say thank you and again I say thank you but no...no thank you.

    Yours sincerely,

    Nick Cave



Mac Plumart

  • Karma: +0/-0
People can, and will, rate, rank, and compare.

They can, and will, make lists of criteria to formalize and/or validate 'their' process and line of thinking.  I say have fun with that... knock yourself out.

But, in the end, it doesn't mean a thing and/or make the conclusions valid.  Rather it can be a form of entertainment, but if someone takes it further than that... they are wrong.  No list can make a course the undisputed best in the world, just as a list of 'ideals' can't provide a definitive list of what makes for a great course.  No matter how loudly someone proclaims that it does.

Tom said, "In the end, I think there is one and only ONE ideal -- for the golf course to make the most of the land it sits on."

I see where he's coming from and agree, for the most part... but, for myself, I'll add, 'Do I want to play the course, again, and again."

Build a course like that and you've done something worthwhile and enhanced the game of golf.
Sportsman/Adventure loving golfer.

J.D. Griffith

  • Karma: +0/-0
My ideal is fairly simple:  how much of a specific course can I recall months, if not years afterwards?  It may be more the architecture of course, but if I can recall a course hole by hole years after playing it, it has a very good chance to be high on my list.

Bart Bradley

  • Karma: +0/-0
Tom

I understand your point.  But, on another thread you said it was very difficult to analyze a course by trying to compare it to the best it could be given the constraints of the property and the owners wishes.  Isn't "making the most of the land it sits on" impossible to know.  You said that even professionals, let alone hobbyists, would have a hard time making this evaluation.  Heck, even an expert like yourself might fail to see a novel or imaginative solution to a property conundrum.  If that is true, how are we left to discuss architecture in a thoughtful and scholarly manner.  Perhaps we can't.  But, you and other experts have done so in the past and I think course evaluation is a legitimate field of thought.  

I still don't see why you keep equating ideals with rules....ideals are ethereal, not practical.  Rules are practical and not ethereal.  Ideals allow discussion, rules inhibit discussion.  Thanks for your participation.

Bart

Bart Bradley

  • Karma: +0/-0
My ideal is fairly simple:  how much of a specific course can I recall months, if not years afterwards?  It may be more the architecture of course, but if I can recall a course hole by hole years after playing it, it has a very good chance to be high on my list.

J D

I remember terrible holes  as clearly as great ones?

B

J.D. Griffith

  • Karma: +0/-0
B

Agreed.  And some great courses have an annoying hole or two.   I should have clarified that recall brings a smile to the face, rather than a frown, or  just confusion.  An example is Big Fish in Hayward.  I love that course, I love the way it plays, and the memories it provides.

Chris Shaida

  • Karma: +0/-0
Ideals allow discussion, rules inhibit discussion.  
Bart

Bart, I am with you in spirit just as I am with Jeff B's VERY practical notion that there are a hundred things and if you get a bunch 'right' that's good.  But we have seen in spades here that 'ideals' have been brandished as ironclad RULES that are then applied with little flexibility or discussion as though we are all ice skating judges with automatic demerits for missed tricks.  If one goes back and reads the objections to 'ideals' I think one will find that THAT is the objection -- that they are used to END discussion rather than START it.

Aren't there really two distinct (related but distinct) clusters of questions or discussion topics here:

1) are there ideals? what are they? how do they get created? how do they change?

and

2) how do the ideals get applied in evaluating/measuring architecture? is every instance of straying from/challenging an ideal automatically a 'deduction'? or might that challenge actually open up a new way to think about the ideal? (one is invited to hit over OB and over a rather unsightly building on a rather 'ideal' hole in one case and more recently one is required to take a rather long but beautiful walk AWAY from the course but closer to the water on another -- are those courses great DESPITE violating an ideal or BECAUSE they do, sparingly).

Or, for the 'idealists' -- what is the 'ideal' number of times that a course should violate ideals?

Mr Kirk,

Great letter! Thanks for posting.

« Last Edit: April 11, 2014, 10:28:57 PM by Chris Shaida »

Tom_Doak

  • Karma: +2/-1
Tom

I understand your point.  But, on another thread you said it was very difficult to analyze a course by trying to compare it to the best it could be given the constraints of the property and the owners wishes.  Isn't "making the most of the land it sits on" impossible to know.  You said that even professionals, let alone hobbyists, would have a hard time making this evaluation.  Heck, even an expert like yourself might fail to see a novel or imaginative solution to a property conundrum.  If that is true, how are we left to discuss architecture in a thoughtful and scholarly manner.  Perhaps we can't.  But, you and other experts have done so in the past and I think course evaluation is a legitimate field of thought.

Bart:

We should quit pretending it's "scholarly," for one thing.  Or scientific, which is what your use of the word "measure" brought up for me.  Chris really said it well, in the first paragraph in the post just above this one.

I don't believe you can judge whether someone did the best he could given the constraints.  I can't even do that, except maybe for my own courses, and I'm biased about those.  :)  But I think you CAN get a good sense of whether the course takes advantage of the features of the property ... that's really how I should have phrased it.

The important thing to me is to keep the focus on what the course DOES do, rather than on some other person's ideals that it DOESN'T achieve.  That's what irks me about so many of the panelist reviews I hear and read ... they are too busy looking at their checklist, and not busy enough appreciating the merits of what's there.

Here's a thought:

The ideal course will contribute something new to the progress of golf architecture.

Something that's not on the checklist.

Peter Pallotta

Chris: your paragraph there -- i.e. how ideals can be brandished as ironclad rules and then used the end discussion rather than start it -- really seems to me where the rubber hits the road on this, both in terms of application in the field and discussions around here.

The challenge for me about what you wrote is this: history shows us that in every area of human endeavour, from religion to politics to art, there have always been those (the majority) who can't do anything but turn ideals into rules, and who want nothing more than to then use those rules to end all discussion; and there have always been those (the very small minority) who have risked talking about and promoting ideals even though they know full well the risks involved, i.e. they know full well that the 'spirit'  they want to experience/speak about will likely become the 'law' that others will stop speaking about and start proscribing for everyone else. And yet, what mystery and beauty and love and glory would we have in the world today if those spirit-filled few hadn't spoken out despite the risks?

I believe the 'law makers' will always be with us and all be always making/trying to rules of one kind or another (they can't help themselves) -- the small minded and the un-loving and the power-hungry will always be with us (heck, often I find myself worrying that I myself am them); but if the 'idealists' let the likelihood that their words will be twisted and turned shut them up into silence, what then?  It's a messy complicated process, no doubt, filled with misunderstandings and byways and sideways. But is the solution to that to say "there are no ideals"? That just doesn't seem very satisfying to me; and to be honest, it just doest ring/feel true.

I have an ideal of what it means to be a good husband and father, for example, and I fall short of that ideal almost constantly -- and yet I don't ever find myself questioning whether the ideal is true and right and proper.  I find myself just trying again.

Peter
« Last Edit: April 12, 2014, 09:41:47 AM by PPallotta »

Jeff_Brauer

  • Karma: +0/-0
"The important thing to me is to keep the focus on what the course DOES do, rather than on some other person's ideals that it DOESN'T achieve."

An interesting observation on human behavior.  A few years ago, a rater plays Firekeeper, Colbert Hills and Sand Creek(ranked 1,2,3 public in KS) and calls to tell me about it.  So I ask, "What did you like about the courses."  Try as he might, all he could muster was generally positive comments, with very detailed negative comments about what he didn't like......
Jeff Brauer, ASGCA Director of Outreach

Tom_Doak

  • Karma: +2/-1
Chris: your paragraph there -- i.e. how ideals can be brandished as ironclad rules and then used the end discussion rather than start it -- really seems to me where the rubber hits the road on this, both in terms of application in the field and discussions around here.

The challenge for me about what you wrote is this: history shows us that in every area of human endeavour, from religion to politics to art, there have always been those (the majority) who can't do anything but turn ideals into rules, and who want nothing more than to then use those rules to end all discussion; and there have always been those (the very small minority) who have risked talking about and promoting ideals even though they know full well the risks involved, i.e. they know full well that the 'spirit'  they want to experience/speak about will likely become the 'law' that others will stop speaking about and start proscribing for everyone else. And yet, what mystery and beauty and love and glory would we have in the world today if those spirit-filled few hadn't spoken out despite the risks?

I believe the 'law makers' will always be with us and all be always making/trying to rules of one kind or another (they can't help themselves) -- the small minded and the un-loving and the power-hungry will always be with us (heck, often I find myself worrying that I myself am them); but if the 'idealists' let the likelihood that their words will be twisted and turned shut them up into silence, what then?  It's a messy complicated process, no doubt, filled with misunderstandings and byways and sideways. But is the solution to that to say "there are no ideals"? That just doesn't seem very satisfying to me; and to be honest, it just doest ring/feel true.

I have an ideal of what it means to be a good husband and father, for example, and I fall short of that ideal almost constantly -- and yet I don't ever find myself questioning whether the ideal is true and right and proper.  I find myself just trying again.

Peter

Peter:

Wonderful post.  I wouldn't argue with anything you said.

The funny thing is, I have always been an idealist at heart.  I've just seen first-hand the pitfalls of self-identifying as one, one of the worst of them being that it makes one prone to judging everyone else.  God knows I've already done a lifetime's worth of that.

Luckily, my job allows me to practice what I preach, and put my future success on the line for taking risks and doing things differently.  Ethics is about having an opinion and then living with the consequences of it.  You can't take risks if you don't have anything at stake.

Peter Pallotta

Tom - thanks. And you point to one of the reasons that discussions around here can be so difficult, i.e. that ideals, almost by definition, have to be actually lived and practiced, otherwise they get turned into rules even quicker than usual. In fact, ideals that are only discussed ARE the rules, it seems to me. The reason this current discussion is challenging is that, when it comes to gca, there are only a handful of you around here who can actually practice what you preach. And for that handful of architects, the 'idealizing' from the rest of us can't help but seem to be rules/laws we're suggesting that you follow, instead of the 'spirit' which enlivens your work.

Peter

PS - I hear you re judging other people's work. But I try not too hard on myself; without excusing my past tendencies, I find that the law-makers out there are a heck of a lot MORE judgemental, and they don't even seem to need any 'ideals' to base that on. Their OWN rules are enough for them!!
« Last Edit: April 12, 2014, 11:29:53 AM by PPallotta »

DMoriarty

  • Karma: +0/-0
Peter,

Ironic, isn't it, that by collapsing "ideals" into "rules" you are essentially taking a position that would seem to end any reasonable conversation about the role of "ideals" in the analysis of golf course design?  While Tom, you, and others, are insisting that ideals are necessarily being collapsed into rules, I don't think anyone on this thread had done any such thing.  Perhaps if you gave some examples it would make more sense to me. 
Golf history can be quite interesting if you just let your favorite legends go and allow the truth to take you where it will.
--Tom MacWood (1958-2012)

Chris Shaida

  • Karma: +0/-0

I believe the 'law makers' will always be with us and all be always making/trying to rules of one kind or another (they can't help themselves) -- the small minded and the un-loving and the power-hungry will always be with us (heck, often I find myself worrying that I myself am them); but if the 'idealists' let the likelihood that their words will be twisted and turned shut them up into silence, what then?  It's a messy complicated process, no doubt, filled with misunderstandings and byways and sideways. But is the solution to that to say "there are no ideals"? That just doesn't seem very satisfying to me; and to be honest, it just doest ring/feel true.

I have an ideal of what it means to be a good husband and father, for example, and I fall short of that ideal almost constantly -- and yet I don't ever find myself questioning whether the ideal is true and right and proper.  I find myself just trying again.

Peter

Amen, brother Peter! I'm very much with you but two points to tease out:

1) a close reading of the discussion here and elsewhere in related threads I think reveals that 'there are no ideals' is NOT really getting said.  But rather that most discussions about 'ideals' move very quickly to the application of those ideals to measure a particular instance in a specific way -- and that that specific way happens to be, for some, dispiriting and lacking in interest.  Surely this is what MacKenzie meant when he regretted having published his list: he wasn't saying 'I now believe that returning nines is bad' but rather 'in my experience that expression of an ideal gets turned into a rule that is then used to cut off exploration and new ideas in specific instances of architecture'

2)  a second case for when an ideal is challenged by a specific instance.  That is when you say quite movingly 'and I fall short of that ideal almost constantly -- and yet I don't ever find myself questioning whether the ideal is true and right and proper.  I find myself just trying again.' aren't you referring to the first case (admittedly common, universally experienced) when in a given instance one falls short and then tries again WITHOUT questioning the ideal ('I can't go on, I'll go on' indeed).  But isn't there a second case when the specific instance DOES cause us to question the ideal -- or at least or common expression of it? Your reference elsewhere to Lear and Moby Dick as instances of this case or in golf architecture the long walk from green to tee at Friar's Head that give one a marvelous experience of the sound and makes (some of us anyway) explore whether this diversion is actually a good part of the golf journey in this particular instance. And, if it is, makes us reconsider a bit the 'ideal' about tee-to-green-proximity and/or about its common expression ('tees shall be near greens').  Maybe the ideal 'ideal' isn't as simple as that and maybe -- though it would take more words -- the ideal-er ideal would allow for occasional longer journey if in that particular instance the longer journey makes us think in interesting ways about the ... golf course.  That is, in this case it isn't that Coore 'fell short' and 'will try to do better next time' but rather, as artists often do,  found a situation where the ideal fell short and where the instance was BETTER. Or something...

Bart Bradley

  • Karma: +0/-0
This has become a great thread since its death  ;).

In all sincerity, some really thoughtful and interesting posts.

Taking off from Peter's post about falling short of ideal.....

I have generally found that life's most important and meaningful opportunities for growth and learning have been when I or someone around me has fallen short of "ideal".  As a surgeon who does the same procedure 1000 times a year, I find that it is the challenging cases that teach me, including those that unfortunately go in a less than ideal fashion.  I am told that I am too hard on myself when I obsess over the imperfect cases even when the final result is perfect or nearly-so (they are successes despite the shortcomings...not because of them).  Of course, discussing where I felt short of ideal isn't easy and can be difficult.  But, I know that no one, no surgeon, no procedure is entirely perfect.  It is a fact of life. 

Only discussing the positives of a golf course surely is not a thorough analysis and likely misses a least some opportunities for learning.  I do understand that this website has struggled to display frank criticism in a thoughtful, kind and respectful manner.  That fact, however, is a practical one...and theoretically speaking, pointing out compromises should (or at least could) be a valuable part of the exercise.  Isn't that one of the strengths of the Confidential Guide?  Even Ran seems to be unwilling to write anything but positives in his wonderful course profiles, so perhaps we should follow his lead.  But it seems to provide only part of the whole picture.

Again, tremendous awesome and frank stuff. 

Bart






 

Colin Macqueen

  • Karma: +0/-0
Gentlemen,

Bart writes "This has become a great thread since its death".

The Second Coming of this thread has been very good but but prior to its resurrection it had been full of life and one of the best threads on GCA in my opinion. A Lazarus thread if ever there was one!

Thanks to the architects and all the other participants (including, inadvertently, Nick Cave!) for this very entertaining thread …. I've thoroughly enjoyed it.

Cheers Colin
"Golf, thou art a gentle sprite, I owe thee much"
The Hielander

Sean_A

  • Karma: +0/-0
Dr B

Maybe Ran is becoming more daring in his dotage.  I recall some criticisms of Reddish Vale and Huntercombe for tree overgrowth issues.  Interestingly, I don't recall Ran writing negative aspects about the design of a course (I have certainly heard him verbalize criticisms though).  It could be of course that if there are more than a few niggling issues, Ran may choose not to review the course.  Isn't this how Finegan usually operated? 

In any case, I do agree that ideals promote discussion and that rules (although that doesn't seem to be the case for the rules of golf  :o) shut conversation down.  However, this still begs the question of what are those prime ideals?  Or are they, as suggested previously, all a matter of personal preference?  On the other hand, if ideals can be tossed aside as an archie's prerogative, do ideals really exist or if they do, to what value?  That all sounds very wishy washy and overly philosophical.  I think in the end, each guy decides whats important to him and runs with it.  Sometimes, he can be convinced of his folly and sometimes not.  I think the only real issue I take with Tom's statements is the idea of new stuff in design and any connection with ideals.  While I can understand from an archie's POV that they would like to think there are discoveries to be made out there, in truth, I don't believe it.  That isn't to say a personal discovery isn't important even if it isn't orginal.  I guess I am saying that orginality may be the highest of ideals, but in practical gca terms, it is very, very unlikely to be achieved. 

Ciao     
New plays planned for 2024: Nothing

Tom_Doak

  • Karma: +2/-1
I have generally found that life's most important and meaningful opportunities for growth and learning have been when I or someone around me has fallen short of "ideal".  As a surgeon who does the same procedure 1000 times a year, I find that it is the challenging cases that teach me, including those that unfortunately go in a less than ideal fashion.  I am told that I am too hard on myself when I obsess over the imperfect cases even when the final result is perfect or nearly-so (they are successes despite the shortcomings...not because of them).  Of course, discussing where I felt short of ideal isn't easy and can be difficult.  But, I know that no one, no surgeon, no procedure is entirely perfect.  It is a fact of life. 

Only discussing the positives of a golf course surely is not a thorough analysis and likely misses a least some opportunities for learning.  I do understand that this website has struggled to display frank criticism in a thoughtful, kind and respectful manner.  That fact, however, is a practical one...and theoretically speaking, pointing out compromises should (or at least could) be a valuable part of the exercise.  Isn't that one of the strengths of the Confidential Guide?  Even Ran seems to be unwilling to write anything but positives in his wonderful course profiles, so perhaps we should follow his lead.  But it seems to provide only part of the whole picture.


Bart:

Thanks for your post.

For God's sake, I am not suggesting that we only publish positive critiques of courses.  I'e been polishing up the new edition of The Confidential Guide this weekend, and though it may seem somewhat less critical than before, a lot of that is just that the first bit is confined to courses in Great Britain & Ireland, where there is more variety and less modern crap.

My difficulty is the presumption that anything not conforming to the textbooks is a "compromise" from the ideal, and that those "compromises" must drag the course DOWN in some way.  [You almost recognized it in the first paragraph above -- you were about to admit that the challenging cases are the ones where you've done your best work, but then lamented that they hadn't gone perfect.]  By that logic, I'd surely have to throw many of my favorite courses out of the front of the book -- Prestwick and Painswick are anything but ideal, whereas Royal Birkdale, which some think is ideal, leaves me cold. Every golf course is a compromise with the terrain -- that's what makes them special or not special.  Necessity is the mother of invention, and perfectionism is its enemy.

Tom_Doak

  • Karma: +2/-1
In any case, I do agree that ideals promote discussion and that rules (although that doesn't seem to be the case for the rules of golf  :o) shut conversation down.    

Sean:

The Rules of Golf are a great example for this argument.

The ideal of golf is simple:  you play the ball as it lies.  But you can't quite always play the ball as it lies, so there needed to be a few Rules for what happened next.  Unfortunately, what happened next is that a bunch of lawyers started thinking about it all in terms of "fairness", and you go from a single sheet of paper to 34 Rules and a 700-page book of Decisions and refinements!

I don't want to see architecture go down that path.

Bart Bradley

  • Karma: +0/-0
I have generally found that life's most important and meaningful opportunities for growth and learning have been when I or someone around me has fallen short of "ideal".  As a surgeon who does the same procedure 1000 times a year, I find that it is the challenging cases that teach me, including those that unfortunately go in a less than ideal fashion.  I am told that I am too hard on myself when I obsess over the imperfect cases even when the final result is perfect or nearly-so (they are successes despite the shortcomings...not because of them).  Of course, discussing where I felt short of ideal isn't easy and can be difficult.  But, I know that no one, no surgeon, no procedure is entirely perfect.  It is a fact of life. 

Only discussing the positives of a golf course surely is not a thorough analysis and likely misses a least some opportunities for learning.  I do understand that this website has struggled to display frank criticism in a thoughtful, kind and respectful manner.  That fact, however, is a practical one...and theoretically speaking, pointing out compromises should (or at least could) be a valuable part of the exercise.  Isn't that one of the strengths of the Confidential Guide?  Even Ran seems to be unwilling to write anything but positives in his wonderful course profiles, so perhaps we should follow his lead.  But it seems to provide only part of the whole picture.


Bart:

Thanks for your post.

My difficulty is the presumption that anything not conforming to the textbooks is a "compromise" from the ideal, and that those "compromises" must drag the course DOWN in some way.  [You almost recognized it in the first paragraph above -- you were about to admit that the challenging cases are the ones where you've done your best work, but then lamented that they hadn't gone perfect.] 

Those difficult cases might be my best work.  I often think you only need a really great surgeon when things don't go smoothly (the difficulty with this statement is that with a really great surgeon things go smoothly more often).    BUT even if those were my best work, those difficult cases would not be the best operations I have done.  The best ones are the ones that don't deviate from the ideal at all.  Smooth sailing, perfect incision to perfect conclusion.  The difference, of course, is that surgery has the same desired outcome every time and good golf course architecture should be unique.  So, I think in some ways we can compare and some we can't.

I do think it is key to note that when someone feels an architect deviates from an ideal that doesn't mean it wasn't the architect's best work or that, by deviating, the architect compromised the result.  In fact, that compromise might have allowed the best possible result under the circumstances the architect faced. 

I had a high school principal who always said that if your child was at best a B student and he/she was getting Bs, he/she was a winner.  That you had to judge in context.  But of course, that B student wasn't the best student in the class.

Let's ask this:

Scenario 1:

you got a job/property/set of constraints that meant the very best you or anyone else  could do was a Doak7 but you found a novel solution to produce an even better course than anyone thought possible and you built a Doak 8

vs.

Scenario 2:

You got a nearly dream property that had few if any restraints (a Doak 9 job), and you built a Doak 9 course

Which course did you do your best work?  If someone was analyzing the courses, should they give you more credit for Scenario 1 or for Scenario 2?  Would someone be wrong to point out the limitations of Course 1 so as to say that Course 2 was the better course?

I might understand why you would feel scenario 1 is your best work, but I would still be inclined to choose Scenario 2 as your best work because I would never understand how great you did in Scenario 1 (just like you likely could never understand how I was able to turn a complicated surgery into a nearly great result).

Anyway, thanks again for the inspiring thoughts.

Bart


DMoriarty

  • Karma: +0/-0
Sean:

The Rules of Golf are a great example for this argument.

The ideal of golf is simple:  you play the ball as it lies.  But you can't quite always play the ball as it lies, so there needed to be a few Rules for what happened next.  Unfortunately, what happened next is that a bunch of lawyers started thinking about it all in terms of "fairness", and you go from a single sheet of paper to 34 Rules and a 700-page book of Decisions and refinements!

I don't want to see architecture go down that path.

Tom, while I don't want to see golf architecture go down that path either, I don't understand this point when I read in conjunction with the rest of what you have said on this thread.  In short, this example seems to cut against what else you've been saying.

The "ideal" is that you play the ball as it lies.  The 700 page book of decisions is the (perhaps) inevitable result of people coming up with good reasons to move away from the ideal in certain situations.  Isn't this exactly your "ideal" for golf course architecture?  Viewing golf course design on a case-by-case basis, where the only goal is to achieve the best result given the situation, regardless of the ideal?  
Golf history can be quite interesting if you just let your favorite legends go and allow the truth to take you where it will.
--Tom MacWood (1958-2012)

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