I'll ask this in the simplest, bluntest way I can.

[John Kavanaugh]

I just want to know why Mike Devries is suddenly a King of Kings.

[Mike_Young]

IMHO the good routings and strategic plans of today will hold up as well as the same of the GA.  I think the common thread of so much of the crap built during the dark ages was the routing/strategic plan of the courses.  So often they focused on housing and golf cars more than golf and it showed.    Where I see this site having a kink is in renovation/restoration which is hyped simply because there is nothing else to talk about.  We have guys across the country being hyped when all they have done is try to copy the style of some GA dude and find the right guy to put it on the ground.  So if some guy on here is praising some classic bunker and green rework on a bad golf course to begin with, it might be duly criticized and reworked with the most up to date styling from now on. 

There is still plenty of bad stuff out there built in the last 20 years.  Whether or not much of the good stuff remains will be up to "highest and best use" and populations.  OH and Top Golf..it will always be the batting cage of the game.  I don't get it or see it being here for the long haul.  The game as we know it will be fine....JMO

[Peter Pallotta]

JK - Mike D is on the list because I met him once and I liked him. Also he built Kingsley, among other courses. But mostly because I met him once and liked him.
Peter

[John Kavanaugh]

TopGolf is to golfers what lazertag was for wanna be Navy Seal douche bags. Take your cooch and show her your "game".  Pitiful.

[John Kavanaugh]

JK - Mike D is on the list because I met him once and I liked him. Also he built Kingsley, among other courses. But mostly because I met him once and liked him.
Peter

Peter, please don't tell me he got you on CD.

[BCowan]

TopGolf is to golfers what lazertag was for wanna be Navy Seal douche bags. Take your cooch and show her your "game".  Pitiful.

Ur drinking the good stuff tonight!  Cheers

[Mike_Young]

TopGolf is to golfers what lazertag was for wanna be Navy Seal douche bags. Take your cooch and show her your "game".  Pitiful.

It's worse....

[Peter Pallotta]

 
No, JK, he didn't - seriously. If he had gotten me on CD I wouldn't  have included his name, because then I'd feel like I was disrespecting him and the gesture by mentioning him only as a means of 'paying him back'
Peter

[John Kavanaugh]

No, JK, he didn't - seriously. If he had gotten me on CD I wouldn't  have included his name, because then I'd feel like I was disrespecting him and the gesture by mentioning him only as a means of 'paying him back'
Peter

Thanks. He generously offered to get me on CD once. Anyone got a match, I have a bridge to burn.

[Peter Pallotta]

In one of my favourite films, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, the lead character Cosmo Vitelli (played by Ben Gazzara) says: "You know the people who are happy? It's the people who are *comfortable*. That's right. And it's hard work being comfortable - you gotta work *overtime* for that. Me - I'm only comfortable when I'm angry, when I'm sad, when I'm playing the fool - when I'm being what other people want me to be instead of who I am. And that's hard work".
You, JK - I think you're most comfortable when you're burning bridges. So I'm here to say: thank you for the hard work!
Peter

[John Kavanaugh]

A bridge not to be crossed only blocks a good view.

[Mike_Young]

JK performs a community service here.       

[Niall C]

Is it possible that the characteristic/defining work of today's leading architects (Kidd, Hanse, Doak, Coore, Devries) will in 50 years time be as criticized for being passé and misguided as that of the dark ages' leading architects is today?


First off you have to consider how their designs might be characterised in the future and I suspect wide and open, frilly bunkers and heavily contoured greens. Of course many or all of those you list might argue against that characterisation but then they won't be about to argue the toss. A bit like MacKenzie and his MacKenzie greens.[/size]Or, to put it differently:  were the tendencies and/or foibles of the dark age architects simply ones of fashion and taste and prevailing socio-economic attitudes (and so subject, as today's work will be) to changing fashions and tastes and attitudes?


In other words what are the drivers for change ? I suspect economy/irrigation issues and ease of maintenance will be top of the list. That might see a reduction in the mown areas and a move from the super wide fairways. Frilly edged bunkers will disappear quite quickly as well for similar reasons once the greenkeeper starts to get his own way.   Or instead did those earlier architects actually tend to make fundamental/essential mistakes and miscalculations about how gca can   best serve golfers in the long term -- mistakes/miscalculations that today's leading lights have learned from and are not repeating?


The biggest problem about judging an ODG's work is determining whether you are actually looking at his work or someone elses reworking of it. I suspect that the ODG's made plenty of mistakes but you don't know about most of them because clubs/owners have had a 100 years or so to iron out the wrinkles. I wonder whether the current crop of architects will benefit from the same ?

Peter[/size]

[Matthew Mollica]

Peter, once again an interesting thread. Thanks.
I hate to answer with questions but can I please ask your opinion on the following -
what are the defining features of the handful of courses viewed through decades, as the premier courses in the world?
and
do the works of Doak C&C, Hanse, Clayton & co, deVries reflect these almost timeless characteristics?
Matthew

[JESII]

Peter,


It's a good, albeit nearly unanswerable, question. Let me add a twist...What happens to Bandon Dunes Resort (and the rest of his golf courses) when Mike Keiser passes on?


He has clearly identified a niche that works but at some point 10, 20, maybe 50 years after he is no longer making the calls that things will change. Those courses will follow someone else's vision.


My real question is, what happens if the current business model of destination golf, that's fueled the current Golden Age, begins to look non-viable?


Things will change. We're already seeing some of the courses from your short list closing.


Has good architecture ever outdone poor business environment/decisions?

[Steve Lang]

Keiser's  vision will likely be followed by son Michael's... hard to imagine that changes much of anything...

[JESII]

Steve, do you think, feel and act exactly as your father does/did?


I'm not suggesting the courses will fail...just that different priorities will prevail.

[Peter Pallotta]

Matthew - I'm out of my league trying to answer your question - especially because I don't have a single/unified vision of those old great courses: when I think of Dr Mac in Australia I have one image, and when I think of Colt in the UK I have another, and when I think of them in America I have a third, and with CBM a forth and with Ross a fifth etc. But I think the top moderns have done very well in capturing a certain "spirit" of the golden age, and in building courses that "look" 100 years old even if the don't necessarily "play" like the originals did a 100 years ago. Sorry - I didn't answer your question. But also:
Jim - you put the question/issue very well. I was thinking of whether the sprit of this current age/gca would still be intact in 50 years, but of course even if it is it might not get a chance to flourish simply because the business/economics surely *will* change.
Peter

[Thomas Dai]

Each new generation seems to think it knows better than the previous generation.
Atb