[Mark_Fine]

Though it is early in the other thread I posted on "bell curves", I implied that most architects had a "design style" that they often stuck to on not all but many of their courses.  Tommy suggested that was not the case at all.  So maybe I should pose the topic another way - can anyone here tell me the difference between what Ross designed vs. what Tillinghast did vs. Thomas, etc.?  If these guys didn't have a particular style wouldn't you assume you couldn't tell who designed what?  Is that the case and if not why not?

[rgkeller]

Careful, you might some here a headache.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Mark,
I found this on the shondor.org website defining Bell Curve
normal distribution-Also called "bell curve," the normal distribution is the curved shape of a graph that is highest in the middle and lowest on the sides (cf The Normal Distribution Discussion).

It then shows a discussion between a student and teacher on what exactly the Bell Curve is: (Yes, you are right! I can see MacKenzie, Flynn, Tillinghast, Ross and that so-called teatotaler Raynor drinking scotch and talking about how they scored on their SAT's) Mark, I'll end it here because I think I know what you are trying to get at. I just think your Bell Curve isn't a very good analogy. Yes, they had their formulas and they were found on principles from what the Great Links taught them.  If you want, call it a "Links Curve"  

The Normal Distribution and "The Bell Curve" Discussion

Student: What is the Bell Curve?

Mentor: The bell curve is another name for the normal distribution, which is a common type of graph that has more or less the shape of a bell. "The Bell Curve" was also the title of a book, a controversial book back in 1994.

Student: What could be controversial about a graph?

Mentor: Well, the book wasn't really about the graph, it was about intelligence. If you graph scores on an IQ test on the horizontal axis, and number of people who got that score on the vertical axis, you get the bell curve shape. The authors were talking about the way intelligence was distributed among people, so...

Student: So they used the shape as the title of the book. But why is that controversial?

Mentor: The book was controversial because it suggested that whole races were more or less intelligent than others.

Student: That's racist! How can someone say if I'm smart or not because of the color of my skin?

Mentor: They can't. A lot of people thought that at the time though. About a year later, a number of scientists published evidence that the book was wrong. But you know what? Even if the book were right, that someone of yours still couldn't begin to guess how smart you were, or who you were smarter than, based on your skin color. You could prove them silly with math.

Student: How? Show me.

Mentor:Well, first you'll need to know some things about the normal distribution and statistics in general.

Student: I remember mean and median from the Measures activity.

Mentor: Good. That will help. Do you remember mode?

Student: Yes. Mode is the most common value.

Mentor: There is one more number that you need to know for this, but it is one you don't see as much. The standard deviation tells you how spread out numbers are from the average.

Student: You say average. Which kind of average are you talking about? Mean, median, or mode?

Mentor: That's a good question. It is from the mean, but it happens that in the normal distribution, the mean, median, and mode are all the same.

Student: That isn't very useful, is it? I saw a lot of distributions where they were very different and only a few where they were the same.

Mentor: It gets more common when you are taking many, many data points. If you have a thousand plants, the mean, median, and mode will often get very close to the same number, and it will start representing the plants better.

Student: A lot of plants will be medium-sized?

Mentor: Yes, and a few will be extremely big or small. We see a lot of distributions in science with a lump in the middle and long tails trailing out to either side. Height, weight, number of kernels on a corncob, intelligence... all these make the same shape. Can you think of some?

Student: Speed of cars on a highway? Time it takes Derby horses to finish?

Mentor: In all these graphs, the important numbers are the average -- whichever average you use -- and the standard deviation, which you can experiment with in the Normal Distribution Activity.

[TEPaul]

I think most architects did and do have a "style" although often a style that may have evolved in interesting ways. The evolution of various architects' styles is part of the interest in architecture generally and studying it.

Look at the evolution of Ross, for instance. His career spanned over 40 years and we can easily see how his greens evolved from basically square greens (before and in the early teens--and definitely out of the well known geometric era) to greens that had "flares" on the corners in the late teens to greens that were far more multi-form later in the 1920s. I think Ross, considering all the courses he did also developed a topo routing method that lent his routings a particular style.

Bunkering generally has a particular architects' style too but one that might evolve in interesting ways. All of it is fairly identifiable I think but often gets complicated in identification as any course evolves through maintenance practices or sometimes just change.

But all great architects had particular styles that are identifiable to the trained eye. Otherwise how would both Bill Coore and Ron Forse have been able to pick out the Perry Maxwell greens on my course as they toured the course for the first time without having any idea that Maxwell had ever been there?

[Mark_Fine]

Amen Tom Paul!  That is the exact point I was trying to make with my less than ideal bell curve analogy.  If you look hard enough, you can see these things from course to course.  

As I said in the other post on bell curves, though we might be fooled at times, I believe many who post on this site (Tommy included   ) could identify Ross features, Flynn features, Maxwell features,... and so on because these guys did have a style.  

Think about some of the architects today.  How many of you know almost immediately when you step on a Pete Dye course for example that Pete was there out on his bulldozer shaping the landscape!  

[TEPaul]

Not only did various architects have various styles, and identifialble ones but how the specifics and details of some of those styles (perhaps it may be more accurate to call them "principles" (eg Mackenzie's ongoing ideas on camouflage or Ross's basic second shot architecture--a perfect form of "democratic" architecture)) is one of the most interesting aspects of studying golf course architecture. Picking out those things and trying to extrapolate how those styles and influences affected the evolution of architecture is most of what this avocation is all about--at least to me!

[TEPaul]

Not only are various architect's styles different (and different sometimes within a single architect's own career) but it must necessarily be so, in my opinion, for the art of golf architecture, and golf, to remain interesting and vibrant and healthy.

In golf, the architecture of its playing fields must remain different and perhaps vastly so unlike almost every other sport.

I think the deal is in the difference in golf and its architecture and if the spectrum of difference is vast--so much the better. I even subscribe to the theory that rainy days (bad courses) make good days (good courses) even better!

One can take all this to almost any level imaginable. The evolution of American golf and its architecture in the last half of the last century undeniably indicates a very interesting evolution and progression that in the final analysis almost killed basically one half of the fundamental game of golf--that being all the interesting and challenging things that can happen with playability through architectural application as the ball trucks along the ground with rapidity and randomness!

Just think about that! That really is about half the game of golf or should be--and can be again.

Many modern courses aren't really even designed for maximizing ground game playability and one would have to assume that's a limiting factor in and of itself.

All that can be reanalyzed and rediscovered if one only understands the vast differences in styles (and principles) that have created golf architecture's evolution---that is likely the essence of it, in fact.

This very thing is why I think I innately resist some remarks that an architect like Tom Fazio sometimes makes when he tells us that he knows EXACTLY what golfers today will accept and won't accept.

In the final analysis that really is the cart leading the horse--and I don't think in the world of golf architecture and it's ability to be creative and interesting that will ever be a good thing.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Mark, I have no disagreement what so ever that they had their certain styles, and that Donald Ross' changed as he started to let associates do the work because he had so much of it.

But, I disagree with your terminology of the word "Bell Curve." I'm also worried your going to start writing about yourself in the third person.

Please Mark, talk about why you think these styles are so different, and how Tillinghast could make each course seem different though still maintain his style, etc, etc, etc, or like the magnificent Mr. Paul does by describing characteristics--you know the meat of the subject.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Mark, I also wanted to add that yes, many of can spot certain styles a 100 miles away, especially in photos!  

I do agree with what you are saying in regards to the styles. But I have one for you. How do you tell the difference between a Perry Dye, a certain era of Schmidt & Curley, Tim Liddy, even throw a very early Tom Doak in there if you want to, (Even though his own stuff is ions different then Pete's) (My Opinion) when they are/were designing for Pete?

What design characteristics of William Flynn utilize Hugh Wilson's? How about Flynn to Dick Wilson?

[Mark_Fine]

Tommy,
I posted extensively here in the past on what I called "cliff notes" summaries on architects such as Flynn, Ross and Tillinghast.  Didn't you see them?  They are just my views (right or wrong) and could easily be debated and I said as much when I posted them.  If you didn't see them, I could email you a copy.  

Most of us write in third person.  It is not meant to be arrogant, it is just that we all draw from our own experiences and talk about them.  People read into written text too much and take things the wrong way.  I don't profess to be an expert but I do have strong opinions.  If you read some of the books you mentioned, most of the writing is pretty candid.  These guys had strong feelings about things and said as much.  

Tom Paul seemed to understand what I was getting at.  I wish I had the time and the talent to express myself as elaborately as he does.  

Interesting you mention Dick Wilson.  He is the latest architect I'm researching.  I'll try to post something on him in the near future and comment on the differences between him and Flynn.  

[TEPaul]

I don't know that much about Dick Wilson--NCR, Meadowbrook, Pine Tree and a few others are the ones I've studied but I think Flynn had a real and recognizable influence on him (since he basically worked for Flynn for a long time).

My sense was that Flynn's style, particularly the green-end and the approaches to greens was beginning to evidence a real transition to the onset of the aerial game---it was clearly a reaction to the way equipment and the shot making of golfers was going maybe starting some years before Flynn died in 1945!

How was it best evidenced in their designs, particularly the approaches? You can see from Flynn, probably best evidenced by the approaches to most of the greens at Philly Country Club and Shinnecock (and others toward the end of the 1920s) how Flynn was beginning to squeeze in the ground game approaches on the fronts of his greens with bunkering.

Flynn's primary foreman William Gordan did the same thing later when he went into business for himself in the 1950s and 1960s. You can see the same thing exactly from Dick Wilson in his early solo work in the 1950s and in the latter part of his career Dick Wilson actually got bunkering right in the middle of his approaches with ground game options on either side--best evidenced by Pine Tree--one of his last courses.

In this sense I look at Flynn as what might be called a "transition" architect--from the old ground game designs into more combined aerial demand designs but with vestiges of ground game options--just tightened up a lot more than it'd previously been!!

Early Ross and Ross generally didn't really put bunkering on either side of green approaches--at least not like Flynn did. He may have had bunkering on either side of greens occassionally but generally not squeezing in the approaches in the same way.

I'm talking generally here--there're always exceptions.

[RJ_Daley]

I commented on the other thread about this architect specific question of style and substance that terrain and soil types influence style.  I'd add that if there are identifiable traits in various architects (which I believe there certainly are) the idetifiable traits also involve where certain features are placed, such as bunkers near or far set from greens, and what shaping takes place around them.  

I think that construction techniques as they utilise more effiecient machinery as modern times and technology advances, causes more blurring of styles.  Where older architects would look at terrain and place more contemplation of how to site and place various features based on what the land gave them, nowadays the new breed can pound out what they want more readily.  I think that green sites and surrounds become more homogenized in modern times just because the equipment causes them more to form a sort of shared vision what greensites are supposed to look like, surrounded by mounds and hollows and take on a modern era "look".  This becomes homogenized by various architects using the same construction contractors, i.e., MacDonald, Wadsworth, etc.

Also, I don't think we can minimize what modern approach to maintenance translates to in terms of the modern era "looks" or stylings that get homogenized due to architect-superintendent interface.

Ii think that is why the design-build teams like Renessaince, C&C, Hanse, are getting more attention from people who think about this stuff, like contributors of this discussion.  The design-build teams are using a different process to translate design ideas "in-house" VS sending ideas to shared constructors between various architects.  But, even "in-house" operations still have to deal with their own team's personnel learned principles of trial and error techniques in terms of shaping and placement.  (Isn't that why they have big arguements on site from time to time about the "technique and method" of constrcting something they are proposing from a creativity standpoint?  They learn what works as they go, and argue about whether it can be done.  And, they all see the game played with slightly different playing preferances and strategies and styles which also factors into what design they ultimately offer as a matter of a series of challenges that they present the golfer.

Somehow when you ask; "what is the difference?"  the cream seems to come to the top, but in a vaguely identifiable manner.  I say we wouldn't always know something is definitely C&Cs and not Doaks, or Hanse, or DeVries without the benefit of already knowing BEFORE you get there to sample something new.  What if you could go to Pac Dunes, Kingsley Club, Friars Head, Rustic Canyon, or Cuscowilla with absolutely NO advance knowledge of who the archtect and team were.  Honestly, would you positively know who did it?  But, we'd know it was far better than some more homogenized techinques and presentations, I think.

[TEPaul]

In my opinion, from what little I've seen today the bunkering styles of Doak, Hanse, Coore & Crenshaw, Proctor and Axeland, De Vries, possibly Eckenrode are very distinct in styles and miles more impressive than most everything else I've seen out there today in new construction. It pretty much all falls into a rough and rugged looking style though--never a bad thing--as that's generally the look of Nature!

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Tom,
I don't believe you for one minute that you don't know that much about Dick Wilson.

I seem to remember a story about you getting to know his bunkers pretty extensively, after studying them in a pick-up truck........

Please comment......

[TEPaul]

Tommy:

I really don't know that much about Dick Wilson despite the fact he was a good buddy of my Dad--although I never met him. I only know his architecture from those few courses I mentioned too.

I don't know RTJ's architecture either really but what little I know I think I generally like Dick Wilson better. Meadowbrook is a Dick Wilson, as you mentioned about that milk truck, but back in those days I didn't know anything much about golf much less architecture. It was just a game my dad played all the time.

Meadowbrook is a very interesting course, one of the themes being some of the biggest greens probably ever built!

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Tom, It shows you how important those smiley faces really are. I should have used them after I had posted to you about riding in that truck!

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Mark, By the way, Tommy Naccarato doesn't write in the third person!

[Mark_Fine]

Tommy,
You can write in any person you want.  I was just looking for ideas, not grief.  

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