[Peter Pallotta]

If except for one set of persimmon woods and blade irons and a single golf ball *all* other evidence of the game of golf and its fields of play were wiped completely out of existence (including, sadly, all the architects and their books, and all of us here), what if anything would re-emerge in the next generation?

If we stumbled across that set of clubs and realized we could make a stick-and-ball game out of them, would the history of gca repeat itself? Would the underlying principles of great golf course architecture manifest/be discovered once again? Would links courses emerge first, and later the debates/differences between penal and strategic design? Would the next generation's version of Old Tom Morris appear, followed by the Colt and Ross-types, and Dr Mac, and RTJ etc? Would some kind of "Old Course" soon grace this new world, and later a Pine Valley and/or a Sand Hills?

Some background to this:  the great psychoanalyst Carl Jung once wrote:  "One could almost say that if all the world's traditions were cut off at a single blow, the whole mythology and the whole history of religion would start all over again with the next generation" -- the thought being that, while the (temporal) *plant* might be cut down the (eternal) "roots" would remain intact, and produce in the next season another plant, remarkably similar to the first.

Do you think it's the same for golf course architecture?

Peter
 
 

[Jeff_Brauer]

Peter, you are sooooooooo deep.  I can't even think on that level......

That said, I do see the next gen really not caring about golf traditions, etc.  I can only imagine if golf started now, many of them would not evolve the same way for the next 100 years.  It would probably be more social (six or eight players to a group) and less competitive.......

[MCirba]

Peter, let me go get high first.  I'll be right back and I'll read that again. Thanks. 

[Tom_Doak]

My guesses:


1.  It took +/- 200 years for golf to evolve to something like its present form, where the number of holes and the size of the cup was pretty much standardized.  Nobody today, or in the future, is going to be so patient.  Whatever was invented, it had better work and work fast, or everyone would give up on it.


2.  I doubt they would settle on 18 holes.  Probably fewer, or maybe not always the same number, because parcels of land are more broken up now.  I think the next generation could handle variations on the theme better than our fathers did.


3.  I doubt the game would be as hard.  The hole would be bigger, and/or the equipment easier to hit.  If the corporations took over, for sure they would make it easier so that more people would play.  But even the enthusiasts of today would be less likely to make it so frustrating, though I could be wrong about that.  Some of their video games are pretty hard!


4.  It might just be Top Golf, and/or virtual golf, and hiking, but no more using 200 acres for a silly game.  Sadly.

[Bill Shamleffer]

Golf was invented and evolved among people who gathered in large clear areas (primarily seaside fields), with unscheduled time available, and they wanted to compete while casually meandering.


That activity is now almost non-existent.  I expect that a new game with sticks being used to strike balls would most likely be done by meeting to hit the balls towards a single target, perhaps with some movement of the hitting point.  Think the game of horse combined with TopGolf (without the happy hour aspect).  So NONE of the traditions and NONE of the architecture would come to be.  The closest that anything near our version of golf could come to be, is an activity by the uber-rich using large fields to take the common person new target game, and try to have many targets over a much larger span of acraage, where few people would be around to interfere.


This is a great question.  I look forward to many interesting responses, and disagreements of where I am wrong (or maybe even a little bit right).

[Peter Pallotta]

Sadly, you may all be right; but I'd like to think that eventually some bright young descendant would realize/intuit/discover the importance of *angles* in making a stick and ball game more fun and challenging, and how bounces and *rolls* in the "fairway" add interest, and that on the "greens" (after all, that short flat stick must be used for something) the *contours* add to the excitement. Later, another descendent might realize that these angles are created and given meaning/purpose through the use of dangerous spots sprinkled here and there that might be called "hazards". I can imagine all that happening; so far, though, I can't envision someone creating more than one "tee box".

[John Kavanaugh]

Mothers against drunk driving killed any chance for golf to evolve into what it once was. Our only hope is Uber and the return to one income households. Poetry is not written by someone who has to be home by 5.

[Jay Mickle]

Can you say Top Golf

[Tim_Cronin]

Everything would be different. Someone could look at the clubs and think it was an early form of field hockey. I'd doubt if anything close to the game as we know it would emerge.

[John Kavanaugh]

Read the rules thread. Most people on this site don't want golf to be what it once was. They just want to get back home in the shortest time possible at the least cost, taking the fewest strokes possible all cloaked in the hope of getting permission to play again. TopGolf is perfect for the budget minded clock watching bitches. You don't have to buy clubs or balls and your wife is at your side to make sure you don't. Ok honey, here's enough money for exactly an hour and since you've been a good boy take this sawbuck and treat yourself to a couple of those craft beers you so enjoy. See you home in time for Housewives...Love you.

[MCirba]

Priceless.

[BHoover]

As an observer, I just have to say that this has been the best GCA day ever!

[BCowan]

As an observer, I just have to say that this has been the best GCA day ever!

+1

[Jonathan Mallard]

If I leave here tomorrow,
Would you still remember me?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxIWDmmqZzY

[Mike Sweeney]

12 hole golf courses.

And not just because of the time issues. There are WAY too many Doak 3-4's squeezed into properties that should be 9-12 holes and maybe some sort of TopGolf facility.

[Mike Sweeney]

Read the rules thread. Most people on this site don't want golf to be what it once was. They just want to get back home in the shortest time possible at the least cost, taking the fewest strokes possible all cloaked in the hope of getting permission to play again. TopGolf is perfect for the budget minded clock watching bitches. You don't have to buy clubs or balls and your wife is at your side to make sure you don't. Ok honey, here's enough money for exactly an hour and since you've been a good boy take this sawbuck and treat yourself to a couple of those craft beers you so enjoy. See you home in time for Housewives...Love you.

I did not see your post when I posted my 9-12 hole comment.

I have gotten into hiking in the past year with my younger Autistic son. We just did a 7 hour "Stratton Pond Loop" in Vermont. It was awesome and way better than 6 hours on a crowded course. Tomorrow I will drive to New Hampshire to play a beautiful 9 hole course as I just can't do 18 holes with him and there are no 9 hole courses in this area.

My older son burns out after 12 holes. He is doing stuff that I could never do but he just does not love the 18 hole experience.

My wife is hundreds of miles away this week so that is not a reason.

Life evolves.

[Steve Lang]

   Peter,


Are you or have you ever answered to Kilgore Trout?


Of course or by course, certainly stick and ball arts and crafts would re-emerge, but there would be no artificial love of fescue or fast and firm.!

[Tim_Weiman]

One of the best threads ever on this site. Given that I live pretty close to a Topgolf, I come to a sad conclusion, the same others have already pointed to.


Glad this is just an academic question.


Topgolf sucks.

[Peter Pallotta]

Mothers against drunk driving killed any chance for golf to evolve into what it once was. Our only hope is Uber and the return to one income households. Poetry is not written by someone who has to be home by 5.

Fuck my answer.  This answer is  amazing.  Bordering on scripture.

Dave - I've been thinking about the sublime excellence of that post ever since John wrote it. As you know, he tends to swing for the fences, and when he misses he can miss badly and look foolish doing so, especially on off-speed breaking balls. But this...this....this time, the Big Man put a perfect swing on it, and the fat part of the bat hit a 97 mile an hour fastball on just the right trajectory....and it was gone....

I'm haunted still by the reality that "poetry isn't written by those who need to be home by 5".   

[Rich Goodale]

If except for one set of persimmon woods and blade irons and a single golf ball *all* other evidence of the game of golf and its fields of play were wiped completely out of existence (including, sadly, all the architects and their books, and all of us here), what if anything would re-emerge in the next generation?

Interesting, Peter, but in reality, if such a discovery were to be made, once that single golf ball was lost (probably in the first 30 minutes or so), the clubs would be broken up for kindling and/or melted down for scrap.  It is not a game for the 21st century.

[Matthew Mollica]

Peter - Thank you for yet another fascinating cerebral OP and interesting thread. You have a habit of penning them regularly!


I have spent parts of today pondering your questions, and the Carl Jung quote. In composing a response, I've thought of alternate views to Jung's sentiments (Darwinian theory and evolution, as well as homology and the metamorphosis of plants, proposed by goethe more than 220 years ago).


Your post asks us not only to consider what threads comprise the fabric of golf today, and remnants of elements considered important when golf was in it's formative years - centuries ago. It also begs us to ponder how the game has evolved, and what it is today. What is viewed as important today.


I doubt golf would spring forth from the roots of Jung's theoretical plant in anything like the form it is today. And the differences would be present in myriad ways. Apparel, rules, competition. The concept of one having the honour on the next tee might not be present in whatever form of ball and stick game sprouted forth in 2016. There's scant examples of such conduct in today's society. I imagine there would be an informality inherent to the game.


Others have raised the issues of land availability, cost, time, resources. I dread that the 'new' golf would not boast the caliber of playing fields it does today. And that it would perhaps comprise some virtual element, reminiscent of Pokemon Go.


If the game were to be reborn to resemble its past self in some fashion , it may be the domain of the super rich, who commission private courses, for their own leisure. They'd perhaps enjoy layouts like the 9 hole Tilly design with three or four greens, on a modest parcel of land. Maybe places like the Sheep Ranch? I suspect courses would likely be dominated by contour, and large landforms, which provided adventure. I'm not sure bunkers would be a part of the plan either.


Who knows - they may be single hole layouts, costing $2 a play, in urban settings, adjoining skate ramps, and shopping malls.


Thanks again Peter!

[Thomas Dai]

The world has moved on, evolved, and continues to do so.


A scenario of starting golf again with a clean piece of paper:


- a similar kind of stick and ball game? Yes. 14 sticks and expensive sticks at that? No. Expensive balls that can be difficult to find and hurt if they hit someone? No. 80-200 acre playing fields? No. 3-6 hrs to play? No. Etc, etc.


Probably likely to be the same scenario with most other sports, leisure activities and pastimes as well, if not everything.


Atb

[Niall C]

Peter


To answer your basic question, the answer is undoubtedly (IMO) no. Just consider the amount of land required for one thing, be it for 9 holes or 18, and think how that much would cost. Back then no one paid for the ground. The real killer however would be health & safety. You can just imagine the discussion "you want to do what ? Sticks and hard balls flying about the place....and no helmets ?!"


Tom D


Re point 2 in your post. I'm just reading a book by Peter Lewis, the R&A history guy (not his actual title) called "Why 18 holes of golf ?" or something like that, that goes into the history of how courses evolved into having 18 holes. Only on chapter 3 (of 18, naturally) but it is clear that for hundreds of years there was a great variety in the number of holes on a course until the middle and late 1800's. Before that, what seemed to determine the number of holes was the extent and nature of the ground.


Niall

[MCirba]

I recall starting a thread one time proposing that we'd likely have better overall golf courses if we dropped the 18 hole standard, or even the 9 hole standard and instead just created as many good golf holes as a particular parcel of land might comfortably allow.   

I still need more think time to effectively answer Peter's overall question, but suspect the answer is no, for a lot of reasons that make me sad to contemplate.

[Tommy Williamsen]

     Jung was speaking more about our spiritual and social heritage. The collective unconscious contains all humankind’s evolution.  So what are those things that relate to humankind’s social and spiritual heritage in golf? I doubt they would be the “how we play the game.” So much of the game is relational and aesthetic. Golf is one the more social games because there is so much down time. Action is fleeting and the moments between shots long. Certainly this would be replicated anew. Common to the human experience is the desire for beauty. Beauty is eternal. When people ask me to describe God, I simply tell them “God is eternal beauty.” Something in us craves beauty. I was at Ballyhack for a few days this week. The walk to the first tee takes me past nine and six. As the dew glistens in the sun and the front nine unfolds before you, it takes my breath away. When I stand on the fifteenth tee and see the fairway and bunkers unfold beneath me with the mountains in the background, I will just pause and drink it in. Golf would evolve with the relational and aesthetic intact. As to what we do with the clubs, I am not sure.
 

[Tags:]

Tags:

[Tags:]

Tags:

Call to undefined function theme_linktree()