Tom Fazio doesn't give a s*^t about Seth Raynor

[Jud_T]

Dean,

World War II was good business too.  Just saying....

[Tom_Doak]

Nothing new here.  Fazio told us that he didn't care about the old-time architects at a retreat at Pinehurst in 2003.  I bet you can still find threads that talk about this....

He said pretty much the same thing at Brad's event at Pinehurst last fall.

[Dean Stokes]

Dean,

World War II was good business too.  Just saying....

They generally are aren't they Let's not thread jack however.....as much as I like to see a great restoration job I think some in the industry probably don't care one bit...same in any industry isn't it?

[Gib_Papazian]

Gentlemen,

Hiring Tom Fazio . . . . . . . I mean TOM f*cking FAZIO?? . . . . . . to further desecrate the Dunes Course is an act of such breathtaking stupidity, short-sightedness and institutionalized madness, I am moved to question whether the entire governing body of MPCC ought to be medicated and relegated to electroshock therapy.

Admittedly, it would not be accurate to assert MPCC Dunes is a pure Raynor Course because he did not finish it (RIP if memory serves) and I believe that - aside from MacKenzie having a tiff with one of the potentates - Robert Hunter made some modifications to the Raynor plan and completed the project. It has been 12 years since I finished my copy edits for Sleeping Bear Press, so I may be hallucinating.

My sense is the golf course was a sort of Raynor/Hunter/in-house collage hybrid in the same way that several notable tracks in the east are Raynor-Tillie combinations. North Shore CC in Glen Head, NY and Sleepy Hollow come to mind, but I just spent three days in court listening to bullshit, so my brain is foggy.

Like every other thinking person with a micron of aesthetic taste and understanding of strategic arrangements, I was terrified Rees was going to transmogrify a lovely, elegant golf course into an explosion of fecal hubris, but in a rare moment of mental stability, Ress chose something in between. In truth, it is neither fish nor "foul," so given that a back alley abortion butcher was given the task of performing delicate brain surgery, at least the patient did not die.

But as the good Doctor warned in his original book, the best economy is in finality. In other words, spend the dough, do it right and be done. Selecting Rees Jones to defile the Dunes Course - apparently by dartboard, since no sane person would turn him loose on a restoration - contradicts every secular canon, tenet and defensible rationale imaginable. It is akin to playing spin the bottle and finding yourself naked in a lip-lock with Rosanne Barr.

The first rule - after making an egregious error - is to avoid a repeat. That MPCC has chosen to redo the Dunes 15 years after Rees is a tacit acknowledgement the club f*cked up, yet in another mind-bending lapse of reason, is asking a factory firm specializing in cookie cutters to turn a stale rhubarb pie into a wedding cake. It is like watching a bad-decision machine clunk its way towards a cliff.              

[Ryan Coles]

perhaps Tom Fazio doesn't give a s*^t about Rees Jones?

I'm sure this will be taken as anti Raynor, but why should Fazio care?  The member I played with last year was excited that Fazio was involved....we just can't tell people what to do with their places...

I am with Mike on this....sounds like great business by TF and apart from 1500 people on this website I am sure no one cares about Raynor. Just saying......

1499.

Fazio could have a point.

Despite all the hand wringing, is everything really black and white, old = good, Fazio = bad. Seems overly simplistic to me. Why should Fazio give a shit? he's wedded to his own ideas rather than someone else's. Good luck to him. I suspect both have examples of success and failure.

[Tom_Doak]

My sense is the golf course was a sort of Raynor/Hunter/in-house collage hybrid in the same way that several notable tracks in the east are Raynor-Tillie combinations. North Shore CC in Glen Head, NY and Sleepy Hollow come to mind, but I just spent three days in court listening to bullshit, so my brain is foggy.

Gib:

I hate to nitpick on such a fine rant ... but North Shore is now a Raynor / Doak combination.  The attribution to Tillinghast was finally proven a few years ago to be in error.  It was one of Raynor's very first designs, although there is some question whether there were pieces left over from a previous course that existed for a year or two prior.

I would just hate for such small stuff to get in the way of you fully expressing your opinion.  

[John Kavanaugh]

Strantz worked out fine for their other course.  Based on that choice I'm surprised they didn't hire Jim Engh.

[Tim Martin]

I think Mike Sweeney has it right in that Fazio's work won't be the curtain call. Someone with some sense down the line will likely undertake a sympathetic restoration. There are too many examples to cite where this has already happened and continues to happen. The lack of vision on this one is really a shame.

[Josh Tarble]

Why go for something inspired, when you could get the west coast version of this:

[Brent Hutto]

Well give the man his due. When you hire Fazio to renovate a course you know what you're getting. It won't be claimed as a "faithful to the original designer's intent" restoration that may or may not turn out to be any such thing. It will be Tom Fazio's idea of how to make the course Real Good in the Fazio mould.

[Tom_Doak]

Strantz worked out fine for their other course.  Based on that choice I'm surprised they didn't hire Jim Engh.

Actually it is more complicated than that.  They hired Mike Strantz, his work met with instant acclaim, and he unfortunately passed away.

Then they decided that while the rest of Strantz's course was great, his 18th hole was no good, so they interviewed architects to fix it.  I declined to bid on that.  They hired Gil Hanse, and he rebuilt it.  And they didn't like that, either.  I think they changed it again, but I don't know who built the current version.

None of this surprises me a bit.  Many years ago, they had hired Arnold Palmer to do a complete renovation or restoration of one of their two courses -- I think it was for the Dunes course, but I can't remember for sure now.  They paid Palmer's company their full fee to do the plans, and then got cold feet ... and they called me to see if I would be interested in "building" the course, ostensibly to Palmer's plans [but not really!].

I think their grand plan must be to say that everyone has worked there at some point.

[Jason Thurman]

Why go for something inspired, when you could get the west coast version of this:

Maybe he'll create a par 3 replica of Lombard Street. That would be cool.

I recently read Ran's profile of the Dunes course after being moved by Bob Huntley's recent thread and recognizing how little I knew about the club. From Ran's profile, it doesn't sound like MPCC is a great embodiment of Raynor's style. Ran even goes so far as to suggest that a Raynor restoration would have been the wrong decision. I don't know anything about the course to have an opinion of my own on that. I'm just tossing it into the discussion to see what happens, if anything.

Do we have any real knowledge of what Fazio has proposed? The price quotes posted so far are certainly... alarming.

[Michael George]

I cannot opine on the intelligence of MPCC's governing body, even though the evidence does not look good.

However, the ultimate issue is whether Fazio can deliver a renovated course that would be better than a restored course.  If he can, then he is justified blowing up the Raynor course.  If he cannot, then he should be criticized.  

I tend to generally think more highly of Raynor's work than Fazio's work so I think he has a tough hill to climb.  However, if MPCC hired Doak, C&C or Hanse and they wanted to blow up the Raynor design and do something different, my guess is that most on this board would be fine (although I would guess that each of them might have more deference to Raynor's work).  

Bottom line - don't condemn the work yet.  There will be plenty of time for that when it is done.

[Greg Tallman]

Strantz worked out fine for their other course.  Based on that choice I'm surprised they didn't hire Jim Engh.

Actually it is more complicated than that.  They hired Mike Strantz, his work met with instant acclaim, and he unfortunately passed away.

Then they decided that while the rest of Strantz's course was great, his 18th hole was no good, so they interviewed architects to fix it.  I declined to bid on that.  They hired Gil Hanse, and he rebuilt it.  And they didn't like that, either.  I think they changed it again, but I don't know who built the current version.

None of this surprises me a bit.  Many years ago, they had hired Arnold Palmer to do a complete renovation or restoration of one of their two courses -- I think it was for the Dunes course, but I can't remember for sure now.  They paid Palmer's company their full fee to do the plans, and then got cold feet ... and they called me to see if I would be interested in "building" the course, ostensibly to Palmer's plans [but not really!].

I think their grand plan must be to say that everyone has worked there at some point.

Palmer was on board just prior to Strantz getting the job.

[Josh Tarble]

Michael,
I completely agree with you.  Don't judge the work, I'm sure it will be just what they want.

I guess this my issue with the entire thing just gets back to several of the posts regarding millenials, state of the game, etc.  Why do clubs keep doing the same thing over and over.  Sure Fazio will do something that's very solid. But that's it.  It could be said the Rees' work was very solid.  They are just doing the same thing over and over and over.  Rees, Fazio and on down the line.  Destined to repeat this same process in another 10 years.

Why not take this opportunity to do something different.  It's certainly riskier, but with the land they have it could really be something transcendent. 

[Peter Pallotta]

Just as an aside: I'd be curious to know how much Tom Fazio values any concept/expression of a 'personal vision', and how he understands and articulates his own approach in this regard.

Personally speaking, and the workings of ego aside, it's hard for me to understand how an artist-craftsman who seems to so little value the personal visions/approaches of the past can feel all that differently about such visions/approaches in the present, including his own.

Maybe TF sees his own approach/style as being 'outside' the concept of vision, or 'above' the merely personal, or 'beyond' style, and so feels no deep kinship for or obligation to the past or to these ideas/ideals. 

Do you remember many years ago when Hollywood started colourizing some of the black and white movies of past filmakers like Howard Hawks and Frank Capra? I don't think it was a coincidence that one of the most inteterested and urgent voices to argue against this was Martin Scorcese's -- a personal filmaker of vision who, not surprisngly, valued the unique and personal styles of the great filmakers of the past.

Any insight you gents have into this?

Peter

[Brent Hutto]

I think over his career Tom Fazio has built quite a few golf courses on a wide variety of properties. And he's renovated many more besides.

Whether he would articulate a "vision" thing or not, anyone thinking of hiring him has his long track record on which to judge the likely results. I am much more concerned with what courses a man has built than with what mumbo-jumbo he might choose to make it sound like some sort of divinely inspired higher calling.

[David Stamm]

Classic rant, Gib. As usual, you have a way with words.

[BCrosby]

Nothing new here.  Fazio told us that he didn't care about the old-time architects at a retreat at Pinehurst in 2003.  I bet you can still find threads that talk about this....

He said pretty much the same thing at Brad's event at Pinehurst last fall.

He said pretty much the same thing in his book published several years ago. If nothing else, the man is consistent.

Bob

[Jud_T]

PP,

Excellent analogy.  Take Bill Coore for instance.  Love him or hate him, at least the guy stands for SOMETHING. 

[BHoover]

PP,

Excellent analogy.  Take Bill Coore for instance.  Love him or hate him, at least the guy stands for SOMETHING. 

Maybe Fazio stands for the money?  At least it's something.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Seems like Sir Bob chose a most appropriate time to hang (possibly) up his sticks.

[Bob_Huntley]

If one wishes to go to our Search files, I made some comments that Reese Jones made the Raynor/Mackenzie/Hunter course much better than what went before. I m prepared to defend my views.

Bob

[Sven Nilsen]

However, if MPCC hired Doak, C&C or Hanse and they wanted to blow up the Raynor design and do something different, my guess is that most on this board would be fine (although I would guess that each of them might have more deference to Raynor's work).

If the job was to blow up the Raynor design, I don't thing any of those guys would take the gig.

[Rich Goodale]

If one wishes to go to our Search files, I made some comments that Reese Jones made the Raynor/Mackenzie/Hunter course much better than what went before. I m prepared to defend my views.

Bob

I remember that, Bob, and I remember Gib agreeing with you.

Rich