I remember my first visit to St. Andrew’s. I marveled at the history, the examples of great strategies and all the terrific ideas that I could borrow and adapt. I also was a little taken back by how plain it was in appearance early on.
One of the most memorable things about my first visit to Pinehurst #2 was it was the hardest course I ever tried to photograph (that has changed recently). But at the same time I saw the golf course representing the greatest example of how to defend a course without hazards.
"Think simple" as my old master used to say - meaning reduce the whole of its parts into the simplest terms, getting back to first principles.” Frank Lloyd Wright
My favourite era of painting is Cubism (sorry, I’m one of those). During the late 19th century people had discovered African, Polynesian and Native American art. Some of history’s greatest artists including Gauguin, Matisse, and Picasso were inspired and intrigued by the power of such stark simplicity. There were other powerful forces at play, from politics to communication to technological revolution, which all must have played a role. But there work was more powerful through stripping away many elements and returning to core ideas.
Early Modernism in building architecture was a reaction to a period of high ornamentation. It was an attempt to simplify and strip down architecture to its essential elements and remove all the fenestration. In its purest form it was clean, precise and extraordinarily well built. It contained fascinating political undertones and reflected the coming influence of mechanization of society.
Punk music looked at all the self-indulgence and excess of the 1970’s music and sought to strip music down to its basics. Once again it was more than a reaction to music, it was a reaction to the politics and tough economic times too. The results were short, stripped down, direct, often politically charged songs. The contrast was staggering and exciting while managing to encapsulate the tension or that era.
“True ornament is not a matter of prettifying externals. It is organic with the structure it adorns, whether a person, a building, or a park.” Frank Lloyd Wright
When I look reflectively back on Modern Golf Architecture, dominant in the 1980 and 1990’s or the most important Minimalist work done in the 1990’s to now, they share something in common. They feature very elaborate bunkering and were all built to be attractive to the eye. In the last 50 years aesthetics have dominated design.
“Less is only more where more is no good.” Frank Lloyd Wright
I love history, so often I like to think about what might come next. Knowing a new movement requires a reaction to the current movement, I found there weren’t many obvious directions to go in golf. The one direction that makes the most sense is the concept of stripping down golf architecture to something far simpler, particularly in presentation. It would address the economics of this current era. It would make a nice reaction to the previous two eras of more and more visual appeal.
Interestingly, in my opinion, it would require architects to show more creativity since they could no longer depend on hazards (bunkers in particular) to visually sell their work. Don’t get me wrong, I do believe bunkering will always be essential to the game, but excessive bunkering has always been architecturally lazy. And why I always felt bunkering to frame a hole or provide a target is the lowest form of the art in our design profession.
Before you point out that St. Andrew’s has a lot of bunkers, or Pinehurst #2 is now so impressive with the waste areas. I will point out both St. Andrew’s and the previous version of Pinehurst #2 did not rely one iota on aesthetics. The courses were great because they played great and that was inspiring enough to have them be considered among the finest examples of architecture in the game.
If we acknowledge that greatness lies in how a course plays and what the ball does on the ground, isn’t it possible, perhaps even probable, that the next movement in the art of golf architecture is a lot less emphasis on bunkering and bunker style and a whole lot more on the ground contours and play.
You wanted something interesting to discuss. Take the time to reflect on what you like and how you would react to this change in the presentation of architecture. Be honest. Kill the idea if you hate it. Fight like hell for it if you think the aesthetics are overdone in general.