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Peter Pallotta

What changes, I wonder
« on: October 20, 2015, 01:34:47 AM »
I was looking at a set of fine photos from Fishers Island, and it occurred to me that of all the things I've been wrong about regarding golf course architecture I've never been more wrong about anything than I was in my original and long-maintained dislike of/lack of appreciation for the "engineered look" of golf courses by Messrs MacDonald and/or Raynor. In their expert hands at least, I have now come to see how perfectly 'scaled' and 'presented' are the classic features and principles of gca. Now, the obvious answer is that I was blind and biased before, but now my eyes have cleared. But what actually changes, I wonder -- what is happening when a formerly unseen "quality" is suddenly recognized? If something similar has happened to you, how do you explain it for/to yourself?

Peter     
« Last Edit: October 20, 2015, 01:36:54 AM by PPallotta »

Sean_A

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Re: What changes, I wonder
« Reply #1 on: October 20, 2015, 04:52:29 AM »
Pietro


I too didn't care at all for the manufactured MacRayBanks style and heavily leaned toward naturalism as the go to style.  I realized that a lot of very cool features look distinctly manufactured...that hard edge earth works style we see Fowler use at Yelverton and Walton Heath, others used at Kington and Huntercombe. The issue for me became how are the blatantly manufactured features used. If the archie places them in the centreish of the park I now could not give a tosh how they look (well almost). MacRayBanks didn't mess around...their features must be addressed.  I still am not a fan of their style so much, its not wild enough for my taste and yet still be totally fake looking.  More importantly, I never bought into the template system of design, but there can be no question that from an individual course by course basis, the system delivers engaging golf. 


I think the syle is somewhat hampered by modern travel golfers who see many of these designs and may think been there done that.  However, the same is true of Colt.  There is a sense of deja vu once you see enough designs...same for Ross.  The age of guys seeing 250, 500 or 2000 courses in a lifetime has removed some of the magic out of the body of an archie's work.  Then again, I wonder if ODGs even thought along those lines. They were probably too busy working to worry about a legacy.  Today, am I am convinced some archies think about their body of work and try to mix things up a bit.


Ciao
New plays planned for 2024: Nothing

Adam Lawrence

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Re: What changes, I wonder
« Reply #2 on: October 20, 2015, 04:56:56 AM »
I have thought quite hard about why the Macraybanks style is attractive and concluded that it's to do with the lack of visual clutter. The manufactured lines are very simple, and they don't get in the way of the surrounding landscape.


Which, on many of those courses, is pretty spectacular.
Adam Lawrence

Editor, Golf Course Architecture
www.golfcoursearchitecture.net

Principal, Oxford Golf Consulting
www.oxfordgolfconsulting.com

Author, 'More Enduring Than Brass: a biography of Harry Colt' (forthcoming).

Short words are best, and the old words, when short, are the best of all.

Paul Gray

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Re: What changes, I wonder
« Reply #3 on: October 20, 2015, 05:03:56 AM »
It seems to me that the human mind is happy to accept man made features when they don't attempt to mimic nature. We struggle however where there is a question mark, meaning when something attempts to look natural but our minds are recognising something isn't quite right.
In the places where golf cuts through pretension and elitism, it thrives and will continue to thrive because the simple virtues of the game and its attendant culture are allowed to be most apparent. - Tim Gavrich

John Connolly

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Re: What changes, I wonder
« Reply #4 on: October 20, 2015, 08:33:47 AM »
Golfers know, with rare exception, they are playing upon manufactured grounds. When the manufacturing was done to mimic nature, and done well at that, we are inspired. But we as humans can be found in a state of wonder when encountering heavily contrived constructs as well - read: Empire State Building and Big Ben. Our cognition can morph into either realm and adapt and relate and revel. It is when the product displayed accomplishes neither very well that we call foul.
« Last Edit: October 20, 2015, 10:20:42 AM by John Connolly »
"And yet - and yet, this New Road will some day be the Old Road, too."

                                                      Neil Munroe (1863-1930)

Ben Hollerbach

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Re: What changes, I wonder
« Reply #5 on: October 20, 2015, 11:26:06 AM »
My appreciation for MacRaynor style work has been the greatest change GCA has had on how I view golf courses. Coming from an design/engineering background its hard not to value the way they can efficiently influence the play on a course. Beautiful structural engineering, while it may clash with its surrounding natural environment, can enhance the overall beauty of the scene and overtime begins to take on a timeless place. Think about the hills surrounding San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge, its hard to think of one with out the other, even though they are so drastically different from each other. Macdonald and Raynor's work appears manmade, but seemingly never out of place.

jeffwarne

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Re: What changes, I wonder
« Reply #6 on: October 20, 2015, 11:48:38 AM »
I have always loved artificial mounds/slopes-especially those that DON'T tie in neatly(like the old steeplechase hazards seen in old photos of course from the turn of the century)
Cape Arundel comes to mind as well.



I do wonder if such features and Mac/Raynor features are given more of a pass because we see them on older, fully mature courses, and would like them less on a course where the landscape hasn't had 80 + years to mature
"Let's slow the damned greens down a bit, not take the character out of them." Tom Doak
"Take their focus off the grass and put it squarely on interesting golf." Don Mahaffey

Terry Lavin

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Re: What changes, I wonder
« Reply #7 on: October 21, 2015, 06:53:55 PM »
My appreciation for MacRaynor style work has been the greatest change GCA has had on how I view golf courses. Coming from an design/engineering background its hard not to value the way they can efficiently influence the play on a course. Beautiful structural engineering, while it may clash with its surrounding natural environment, can enhance the overall beauty of the scene and overtime begins to take on a timeless place. Think about the hills surrounding San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge, its hard to think of one with out the other, even though they are so drastically different from each other. Macdonald and Raynor's work appears manmade, but seemingly never out of place.

Great post!!!
Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.  H.L. Mencken

Peter Pallotta

Re: What changes, I wonder
« Reply #8 on: October 21, 2015, 09:44:51 PM »
Yes, it is indeed.

The analogy of the Golden Gate Bridge and the hills around San Francisco is a very striking one. I've never been there (it is, with Chicago, the city I most want to visit in the US), but have seen many pictures and never once found the image anything but lovely. I wonder now why I so readily accepted that while it took me so long to appreciate Mr Raynor.

Peter

Dan Kelly

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Re: What changes, I wonder
« Reply #9 on: October 22, 2015, 01:30:24 PM »
I wonder -- what is happening when a formerly unseen "quality" is suddenly recognized?


Peter --


You are channeling the late Mr. Tom MacWood, who called it "The Raynor Paradox."


Stated as simply as possible: Why do I like what I don't like?


I think your brain is simply growing, as you abandon prejudices.


Dan



"There's no money in doing less." -- Joe Hancock, 11/25/2010
"Rankings are silly and subjective..." -- Tom Doak, 3/12/2016

David Kelly

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: What changes, I wonder
« Reply #10 on: October 22, 2015, 01:58:54 PM »
I was looking at a set of fine photos from Fishers Island, and it occurred to me that of all the things I've been wrong about regarding golf course architecture I've never been more wrong about anything than I was in my original and long-maintained dislike of/lack of appreciation for the "engineered look" of golf courses by Messrs MacDonald and/or Raynor. In their expert hands at least, I have now come to see how perfectly 'scaled' and 'presented' are the classic features and principles of gca. Now, the obvious answer is that I was blind and biased before, but now my eyes have cleared. But what actually changes, I wonder -- what is happening when a formerly unseen "quality" is suddenly recognized? If something similar has happened to you, how do you explain it for/to yourself?


Are you just talking about appreciating the courses through looking at photographs or was your mind changed by the experience of playing the courses?



"Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent." - Judge Holden, Blood Meridian.

Tim Gavrich

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Re: What changes, I wonder
« Reply #11 on: October 22, 2015, 02:14:01 PM »
Whether or not he is conscious of it, whenever he moves more than a little dirt around, a golf course architect is committing an act of hubris. It's in some ways a statement that Mother Nature/God did not do a good enough job providing adequate golfing ground on a particular site. There seems to be a spectrum that houses the different ways architects have responded to that tacitly perceived inadequacy of the terrain.

At one end of the spectrum seem to sit earlier architects like William Flynn and contemporary ones like Coore & Crenshaw, whose mission seemed/seems to be to fit the golf course into the existing terrain/landscape.

At the other end of the spectrum seem to sit Macdonald and Raynor and Langford and Moreau from the olden days, and Pete Dye and maybe Mike Strantz from more recent times. These architects were fully aware that the features they were putting on the land would not likely fool anyone into thinking they were naturally-occurring. So, those features needed to clearly add something. In the case of landforms like Biarritz green at Yale, that "something" is both visual novelty and practical/literal golfing interest. The Dye Course at PGA Village has a lot of features - pot bunkers, abrupt mouding - that is plainly not natural, but it is in service of a deliberate aesthetic that ties in with the physical demands of the course that is ultimately successful. Similar things go on at Tobacco Road and Tot Hill Farm and Bulls Bay. Strantz built a 70-foot-high hill there, in the center of the property, for crying out loud! The audacity! And yet, it works spectacularly (IMHO).

I'd put architects like Tom Fazio and Rees Jones somewhere in the middle of this spectrum, I guess. A lot of the plainly man-made features on their less successful courses seem to be examples of them/their teams disfiguring Mother Earth more or less because they can, rather for a specific practical reason. And so we have holes with horrid chains of mounds that seem less a thought-out feature than a manifestation of some tic the architect has. That's the emptiest kind of hubris, I think.
Senior Writer, GolfPass

Eric Smith

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: What changes, I wonder
« Reply #12 on: October 22, 2015, 02:25:57 PM »
Beautiful structural engineering, while it may clash with its surrounding natural environment, can enhance the overall beauty of the scene and overtime begins to take on a timeless place. Think about the hills surrounding San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge, its hard to think of one with out the other, even though they are so drastically different from each other. Macdonald and Raynor's work appears manmade, but seemingly never out of place.


In the same vein, I think the great National Golf Links of America is made whole with its iconic windmill standing sentinel over the course. Truly one of the most unforgettable (and beautiful) sights in all of golf.

Kirk Gill

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Re: What changes, I wonder
« Reply #13 on: October 22, 2015, 03:57:59 PM »
I don't know that Mother Nature, et. al., took "creating golfing ground" into account when creating our world. Perhaps they were very forward-thinking, anticipating the eventual existence of golf. Interesting notion also regarding the hubris of the architect. When man first moved into caves, for instance, was that also an act of hubris? What about inventing the airplane? I've never thought about it that way!


Peter, my question is, were you wrong then and right now; right then and equally right now, or right then and subsequently polluted to the point where you actually believe what you're thinking now?   :-*


I honestly love the interaction between nature and the hand of man, on golf courses and otherwise. It's like when Bob Ross was painting a meadow and would say "and I think a little cabin lives in here......" 
"After all, we're not communists."
                             -Don Barzini

Mike_Trenham

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Re: What changes, I wonder
« Reply #14 on: October 22, 2015, 04:07:44 PM »
It seems there is a resurgence in the popularity of these courses.  Could that be as much related to the restoration work that has returned the distinctively engineered look back.  What I am thinking here is that before restoration, years of aging had these features morphed between engineered and natural looking.  It is never good to be in the middle. 

Couple that with the work of George B and Tom D. and others to educate the less informed.  This has also benefited green superintendents who have some good templates to follow.

Proud member of a Doak 3.

JESII

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Re: What changes, I wonder
« Reply #15 on: October 22, 2015, 11:09:28 PM »
Peter,


In my view, it's the manufactured insistence that our golf courses need to imitate nature that's thrown you off...


Can you be fooled that easily about anything else in your life?


Golf courses are built to be played...all one has to do is read CBM's intentions for how a Redan can be played to realize his entire focus was to engage the player in trying to hit a golf shot. It's about the golf!


While his holes may fit into the landscape 100 years later, it's the golf shots that make them worthwhile.


The courses people criticize for not imitating nature, as the reason for not liking them are; poor golf courses, or poor evaluations! Can anyone name a course where the golf is truly good but are simply not natural enough to enjoy?


What I've learned? More difficult isn't better. Better is better! Length isn't the challenge that matters. For me it appears in the fairway when I think I should hit a good shot and have a chance at birdie. If I've played a course a few times and still don't know what I should try to do with this wedge, I like it.


Not sure how much credit Pat should get for that but it's probably most...

Tim_Weiman

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: What changes, I wonder
« Reply #16 on: October 23, 2015, 12:11:10 AM »
It seems to me that the human mind is happy to accept man made features when they don't attempt to mimic nature. We struggle however where there is a question mark, meaning when something attempts to look natural but our minds are recognising something isn't quite right.


I came to the same conclusion one day while walking Chicago Golf Club.
Tim Weiman

Peter Pallotta

Re: What changes, I wonder
« Reply #17 on: October 23, 2015, 08:45:31 AM »
Thanks, gents - terrific posts. (David - no, no new playing, just from photos; but since it's always been "just from photos" I guess the comparison/change is valid, for me at least though not for others).

Prejudices dropped; a re-focus on the game itself, on playing the game; two wrongs making a right -- yes, maybe they all play a part. I'm still wondering a bit though: about that moment, that change -- before, meh, and then suddenly, aha!

Maybe all change always comes like that.

P

paul cowley

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Re: What changes, I wonder
« Reply #18 on: October 24, 2015, 07:23:46 AM »



...interesting thread Peter







« Last Edit: October 24, 2015, 09:25:37 AM by paul cowley »
paul cowley...golf course architect/asgca

BCrosby

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Re: What changes, I wonder
« Reply #19 on: October 24, 2015, 12:11:22 PM »
Well said Sully. It's about the golf. If a course is 'natural' so much the better. But what matters is the quality of the golf shots the course asks you to hit.


Bob













Adam Lawrence

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Re: What changes, I wonder
« Reply #20 on: October 24, 2015, 12:21:42 PM »
Well said Sully. It's about the golf. If a course is 'natural' so much the better. But what matters is the quality of the golf shots the course asks you to hit.

Bob


Yes, of course. Form must follow function
Adam Lawrence

Editor, Golf Course Architecture
www.golfcoursearchitecture.net

Principal, Oxford Golf Consulting
www.oxfordgolfconsulting.com

Author, 'More Enduring Than Brass: a biography of Harry Colt' (forthcoming).

Short words are best, and the old words, when short, are the best of all.

Charlie_Bell

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: What changes, I wonder
« Reply #21 on: October 24, 2015, 01:01:07 PM »
This great thread, with wonderful posts, prompted me to reflect on two man-made creations: gardens and miniature golf courses. 


There's a vast array of garden styles, some naturalistic and others clearly manufactured.  The hand of man creates both, yet one can appreciate creations at either end of the spectrum provided the final result pleases the eye.  So too with golf courses, though the result must not only please the eye but also engage the golfer's mind. 


I would happily play dozens of miniature golf courses as long as they contained interesting holes with distinctive challenges.  Totally manufactured, they would nevertheless be appealing if each course posed a variety of well-constructed questions that allowed a choice of thoughtful, well-executed answers.  I would even enjoy playing a significant number of template holes (e.g., the  windmill, the clown's mouth, the hole-on-a-slope) provided the conditions were fair and the templates allowed even a minuscule amount of variation from one course to the next.


I am blessed to have lived much of my life on the 9-hole course where Raynor met Banks.  Even after playing it for more than 50 years, I still enjoy the aesthetics and strategic challenge of every round.








Peter Pallotta

Re: What changes, I wonder
« Reply #22 on: October 24, 2015, 01:34:34 PM »
I am blessed to have lived much of my life on the 9-hole course where Raynor met Banks.  Even after playing it for more than 50 years, I still enjoy the aesthetics and strategic challenge of every round.

Charlie - that's a great way to end a post! I am very glad that you've had so many years (decades!) of enjoyment there, and that you continue to enjoy the course, and that you feel the way you do about it - the feeling of being blessed is in itself a blessing.
Peter

Jim_Kennedy

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Re: What changes, I wonder
« Reply #23 on: October 24, 2015, 03:35:12 PM »
I am blessed to have lived much of my life on the 9-hole course where Raynor met Banks.  Even after playing it for more than 50 years, I still enjoy the aesthetics and strategic challenge of every round.

 ;)

Peter,
What took you so long.  ;D
"I never beat a well man in my life" - Harry Vardon

Paul Gray

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Re: What changes, I wonder
« Reply #24 on: October 24, 2015, 08:24:12 PM »
Charlie,

I accept people will broadly think me mad for this but I have long believed there is significant architectural value in miniature golf. After all, it's fundamentally about the ground game and angles. In essence, it's core then lies in exactly the same place as good Golden Age architecture. 

It's really not such a huge leap from TOC to The Ladies Putting Course to miniature golf. It's really just the same game.
In the places where golf cuts through pretension and elitism, it thrives and will continue to thrive because the simple virtues of the game and its attendant culture are allowed to be most apparent. - Tim Gavrich

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