[Don Mahaffey]

 I’m not a golf architecture historian, so I’m going to shy away from specifics in that area. Throughout the history of golf architecture it does seem like the current cultural, and maybe better said golf culture, does seem to drive the architecture. Obstacle course architecture, golden age, work programs, RTJ, Dye Nicklaus golf should be hard, minimalism…etc…. Seems like whenever we talk about the history of golf architecture we end up in discussion about the succession of styles. I’m not going to rehash them all, partly because I’d do so poorly (as evidenced by my attempt above-see my first sentence) but also because I’m more interested in where we are today.   
Speaking specifically to the creation of new golf courses now, I’m curious what trends or styles are driving new course golf course architecture.
Minimalism, natural looking course – not getting into definitions here, but seems like this trend still influences design, at least in marketing pieces.
Fun – golf architects and developers have rediscovered that golf is supposed to be fun and seem to be driven by the fear that difficulty of the game is driving away players
Scarcity – this one is most interesting to me. There are so few new courses, does that scarcity of opportunity impact design style? Swing for the fences because you must get noticed to get another gig? Or play it safe and piss no one off? 
Any modern examples…Gamble Sands? Streamsong Black? Others?
 

[Mark_Fine]

Don,
You post requires a lot of thought and it is too early on New Year's Day for that 


I will say that the few courses you mentioned are the very high end and where those courses go is mostly independent of money.  For the other 99%, design and maintenance costs will be a big factor in new course construction and re-design/restoration as will the fun factor.  Time to play is also an important consideration.  You can go play tennis for an hour.  Unless you are just practicing, it is hard to do that with golf.  I could see three-six hole loops becoming a new design concept.  We've also been building A LOT of forward tees to speed up play and make the game more fun for shorter hitters (or just different for anyone who would like to play from there).  Most love it.  We are also encouraging courses to set a side times where their 18 hole par 72 golf course plays as an 18 hole par three course (or maybe they only use 9 holes on a particular day or timeframe in that way).  Golfers love this as well and can play faster and get a different golf experience.  Sometimes it is as simple as placing tee markers in the fairways and creating a temporay score card. 


Golf could use some more creativity and it will and it is happening.  Most things that stagnate die.  That won't happen with golf.  It will continue to evolve as it always has. 

[Peter Pallotta]

I don't know, Don. But it's a question worth asking. Because unless, for the first time in recorded history, every golfer and architect and critic has suddenly attained Enlightenment and now resides permanently in the liberated state of the Eternal Now, we are all as much of *our time* as the golden age, tree-planting, Dye, work programs, Nicklaus-hard, and RTJ golfers, architects and critics were of *theirs* -- with all the blind spots and social conditioning and 'prejudices' that come with a time-bound experience. And so it's useful, I think, to step outside of the current conventions, even if that's simply to recognize that there *are* conventions at play, and that today's great approach is not the last word.

[Don Mahaffey]

Peter,
Exactly. We don't usually know the "current" trend until well after the fact when it gets labeled by historians and critics.
Are we not always in search of a "constraint-free" design mind? To reach that state don't we have to recognize what cultural constraints, possibly unknown and unseen or just accepted as norms, are in place before we even start? Golf seems to be full of those.

[Peter Pallotta]

Don: your second post in particular gets to the heart of it, I think -- the constraint-free mind. Of course, I'm not in any position (and really have no 'right') to say what you just did; you are in that position, and do have the right.

This reminds me of one of the few modern/popular musicians that I know well: Paul Simon. When only 15 years had passed since he'd recorded his early 'folk' songs with Art Garfunkel, and while he was stretching out and writing-recording his more varied solo work, Simon himself didn't miss an opportunity to dismiss and even denigrate that earlier work as the product of a young artist who had not yet matured, or mastered his craft. But, *40 and 50 years* later, when he had a better perspective on himself as an artist and on the work as a whole, he was then able to see songs like "Bleecker Street" and  "Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M." for what they actually were: beautiful and affecting work that could take a proud place among the best examples of the singer-songwriter's art.

[Tom_Doak]

Don:

I get asked about trends in architecture and "the future of architecture" all the time, but there is no good answer.Forecasting the future is a waste of time. 

Golf architecture, like fashion, sees a lot of copy-catting; young designers train under the guys who are having success and learn along the same lines.  And whatever new projects are receiving attention are bound to be imitated by others seeking a share of that attention.

When business is slow -- and it looks like it will be slow for the foreseeable future -- designers don't take many risks because developers don't hire them to do so.  You usually find the risk-taking and attention-seeking when there is a crowded market and the obvious choices are all too busy.  Pete Dye got into design when an acquaintance asked him to help find a designer for a little nine-hole project, and Pete couldn't get Trent Jones or Dick Wilson to even look at it!

Eventually, someone will come along and do something really different, and others will start to chase that, instead, but I don't think you can predict when or who or how.  I knew what sorts of things appealed to me, but I didn't have an idea of what direction I could take things, until I got out and started working on it.

[Thomas Dai]

Copy-catting within a generation happens, not just in golf. But isn't there also a tendency for some within a generation to do pretty much the exact opposite of the previous generation?
Down the line I suspect water usage, acreage in relation to other uses and speed of play will be pretty important. 

atb

[Tommy Williamsen]

Certainly one trend that I don't see waning is the search for beauty. Sometimes the beauty is in the distant vistas. Sometimes the beauty is in the use of water, be it stream or lake. Sometimes the beauty is in the way bunkers are built and placed. The canvases have become more varied but most of the new courses I have played have a certain beauty. Someone asked me once what my picture of God was; I told him beauty. God is beauty. I guess that means that God does play golf.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Peter,
Exactly. We don't usually know the "current" trend until well after the fact when it gets labeled by historians and critics.
Are we not always in search of a "constraint-free" design mind? To reach that state don't we have to recognize what cultural constraints, possibly unknown and unseen or just accepted as norms, are in place before we even start? Golf seems to be full of those.

Don,


First, congrats on the new project with Mike. Nice start to the New Year!


I agree with the first sentence, and probably the last. The statement bolded in red is not quite cut and dried.  Frankly, I agree that we probably design too much too accepted norms, but believe the way forward is more constraints we place on ourselves to finally design golf courses on the mantra of "form follows function" rather that form follows awards, photography or what is needed to host some never to be had PGA Tournament, which is what most courses have been designed to.  So, we may be saying the same things.


Short version, design for the golfers who actually will use the course, no matter what form the course ends up taking (probably much shorter, maybe more par 3 holes)  Maybe back tees in housing areas will be converted to tomato gardens, who knows.


For that matter, instead of designing for grandpa's tastes, start to really consider what the grandkids might want out of golf.  We know we don't enjoy the game the same way our grandparents did, and its a sure bet Millennials won't enjoy it the same way as we do.  If they stay as idealistic as they are now (surely not a given) they could probably embrace golf it is was more inclusive (sixsomes anyone?) more environmentally sound, higher tech, and a few other things.


Sure, a lot of that is more management than design, but design can support that to a degree.


Cheers.

[Derek_Duncan]

Peter,


I agree that Bleecker Street and Wednesday Morning 3AM are beautiful and affecting songs, probably Simon's most spiritual in my opinion. Then again I never moved far past his early period.


To the point of the topic, from where I stand it seems like the ideas and notions that were being developed and verbalized here on golfclubatlas.com 13-17 years ago have fully been mainstreamed by the majority of the golf architecture world.


When I first found this site in 2000, concepts like greater fairway width, naturalism/minimalism, tree removal, historic restoration, natural roughs, anti-USGA greens, template holes, MacKenzie-esque bunkering, short green-to-tee walks, reverence for Golden Age architects, rejection of expensive vanity projects, half-par holes -- and dozens of other design trends we see popularized all over the world now -- were just beginning to be fleshed out and analyzed closely in these forums. Not to suggest they didn't exist before, but many of them were nascent in modern designs and cut against prevailing notions of what golf courses should look like and be.


Now it's second nature to assume that many of these ideas are virtues. There are many current young architects and shapers and writers and media figures who were still in school or unaffiliated with golf when golfclubatlas.com and, specifically, Tom Doak was here helping give voice and shape to design ideals they take for granted. But at the time those ideas and trends were not as clearly formulated or widely accepted.


I guess that's how trends work -- they begin as iconoclastic ideas, take hold slowly, others imitate what becomes successful and eventually another generation is born into the soup and knows nothing different. In the future will the aforementioned recipe become stale and provide an opening for artists to cut back against? It's hard to imagine golf going backwards, but it happened once before so who knows. One thing's for sure, art doesn't sit still for long.

[BCrosby]

Well said Derek.


I too think it striking that what we at GCA thought was edgy in 2000 has now become something like mainstream. I don't mean to suggest we should take credit for that. Tom D, other architects and developers took the risks and did the heavy lifting. But I think it fair to say we helped. That was a part of the excitement of GCA at the time.   


Which raises the question of what next? I think it is less likely to be something new than something old that is re-purposed in imaginative ways. In any event, golf architecture is always evolving. I look forward to seeing what is over the horizon.


Bob

[Peter Pallotta]

Bob, Derek - but isn't it interesting that these modern qualities that were fostered here were actually 'timeless' ones - as if there is indeed a perennial philosophy when it comes to gca, even though the practitioners themselves often suggest that the art-craft is mostly subjective. In truth, I think this latter term is often used as a synonym for what is (currently) acceptable to golfers while not pandering to them. And, to Don's initial point: I think fully embracing the reality/truth of a perennial philosophy would actually lead to less conformity, not more, and to the 'constraint-free' mind he asks about -- just as the actual 'perennial philosophy' embraced has led to an enormously varied experience of the Sacred across all time and cultures, and to a remarkably rich diversity of expression.

[Sean_A]

As I am want to, getting more into the nitty gritty realistic and everyday aspects of architecture (sticking to the purely theoretical rubs me seriously the wrong way), is there a connection between naturalism and width?  Is there something about constructing/designing courses to look more natural which requires more space and hence results in wider fairways?  Or is width simply a luxury of the huge sites which are now chosen for big gun golf?   

Ciao

[Mike Hendren]

Is today's architecture generally too big?

[Mark_Fine]

The average acreage for a new course is MUCH larger today than it was in the Golden Age.  Ask Tom Doak if he ever built a great course on 100 or so acres like Wannamoisett or Merion or if he would even take a property that size and try? His lawyers probably wouldn't let him 😉

[Thomas Dai]

Acreage - presumably if you rolled back the equipment, especially the ball, you wouldn't need the modern scale size of acreage? Or amount of water etc either.
atb

[Tom_Doak]

The average acreage for a new course is MUCH larger today than it was in the Golden Age.  Ask Tom Doak if he ever built a great course on 100 or so acres like Wannamoisett or Merion or if he would even take a property that size and try? His lawyers probably wouldn't let him 😉

We [re-]built the nine holes at Aetna Springs on about 50 acres.


And I would love to build a course on a small piece of land, if that small piece of land was as interesting as Wannamoisett or Merion.  You are right that we couldn't get as close to the roads or the homes as they do at Merion, so we might need a little more buffer around the edges, but there's nothing inside the lines at Merion that would be a problem.  It's just hard to find a piece of property anymore where you can use every bit of the acreage like that.

[Tom_Doak]

As I am want to, getting more into the nitty gritty realistic and everyday aspects of architecture (sticking to the purely theoretical rubs me seriously the wrong way), is there a connection between naturalism and width?  Is there something about constructing/designing courses to look more natural which requires more space and hence results in wider fairways?  Or is width simply a luxury of the huge sites which are now chosen for big gun golf?   

Sean:


Naturalism and width are two independent variables that the same architects and developers tend to like.


However, if you don't have width [of fairways], you will require some sort of playable rough area where people can find their ball and continue forward progress, which isn't available on all sites.


I am starting to think like Michael H that modern courses are getting too big, but I've suggested building something smaller to three different developers lately, and they all had issues with it.  They have probably realized that the "biggest" courses are the ones that win awards.

[Ally Mcintosh]

The routings I have done - either theoretical or for real - that have provided the most fun have all been on small sites that barely fit 18. In my opinion, those sites can separate the wheat from the chaff. For instance, they would have been much more suitable for the few armchair architect contests run on here.


The skill on a 1,000 acre site is finding the great routing in among all the excellent or nearly great ones.


Needless to say, you don't get any of the latter type in GB&I. Those sites are an American luxury primarily.


And I do appreciate a beautifully routed compact course above any others. I think courses are definitely becoming too big (on average - a few big courses are always welcome).

[Mark_Fine]

Ally,
Most architects would say they need at least 150 acres for a good 18 holes of golf (and that is small for most).  You need at least 10+ acres just to accommodate a decent practice range.  It goes without saying, the bigger the courses the greater the cost not only for the land but for the maintenance.  I like the idea of 3-6 hole loops on smaller acreage. 

[jeffwarne]

Well said Derek.


I too think it striking that what we at GCA thought was edgy in 2000 has now become something like mainstream. I don't mean to suggest we should take credit for that. Tom D, other architects and developers took the risks and did the heavy lifting. But I think it fair to say we helped. That was a part of the excitement of GCA at the time.   


Bob

Good summary Duncan and Bob.


Having discovered this site around the same time due to the virulent response to a certain modern course it is interesting to see the change in opinions in golf evolve.


That said, I think many of us related on a more personal level -i.e.by putting into words why we loved Athens CC and didn't like nearby modern courses (think Atlanta)whos budgets and sites should have yielded better. Or in my case why I loved Augusta CC or Forest Hills (pre bastardization) and hated Jones Creek. It took a website to bring together like minds and or put into words what dark ages architecture and "modern" architecture was lacking.


As we discuss how far we've come, and the compactness we mostly prefer and modern trends may well require, it's absolutely amazing to see how many otherwise architecturally enlightened people continue to resist any attempt to logically restore the scale of the equipment and fields we play on-while continuing to glorify the concept of restoration.


In my opinion, the scale of the distance the ball travels will drive the next trends in architecture.
Perhaps by an ever increasing number of 1/2 par holes, or hopefully by applying some of the restoration energy to equipment and scale.

[Sean_A]

As I am want to, getting more into the nitty gritty realistic and everyday aspects of architecture (sticking to the purely theoretical rubs me seriously the wrong way), is there a connection between naturalism and width?  Is there something about constructing/designing courses to look more natural which requires more space and hence results in wider fairways?  Or is width simply a luxury of the huge sites which are now chosen for big gun golf?   

Sean:

Naturalism and width are two independent variables that the same architects and developers tend to like.

However, if you don't have width [of fairways], you will require some sort of playable rough area where people can find their ball and continue forward progress, which isn't available on all sites.

I am starting to think like Michael H that modern courses are getting too big, but I've suggested building something smaller to three different developers lately, and they all had issues with it.  They have probably realized that the "biggest" courses are the ones that win awards.

I think you are right.  A look at a place like Co Down confirms this, but I think that is a fairly rare example.  Following on your words of width I don't think Co Down delivers in the width department...though it could.  It does, however, seem like if naturalsim is pushed to the extreme (and that is easy to do on large sites), archies are tempted to spread out design to incorporate the cool natural features as much as reasonably possible...and the notion of reasonable no longer seems to have much of a limit.  Of course, the larger the site tends to mean larger footprint courses which ultimately means the pressure on the design as walkable is increased.  What I am finding is the idea of a good walk is slowly (and regretably) becoming a non-issue.  There are the young guns who don't mind the extra effort now, but they will one day  and for the rest of us there are carts or skip the course.  I do wonder if folks will look back in 25 years and think the big foot print trend was a bit of a lost opportunity.  Might it have been wiser to tone down the ambition and scale back the designs for the sake of walking and sustainability?  Time will tell, though I suspect not so long as the trend doesn't continue too much longer.  There are already seems to be realization that things have become a bit too excessive even if the courses are excellent. 

Ciao

[Lou_Duran]

The routings I have done - either theoretical or for real - that have provided the most fun have all been on small sites that barely fit 18.

Fun for whom, you, the architect, or the blokes who play the course?

Some interesting insights in the book "Why Golf" by Bob Cullen on the wide appeal of large, green open spaces.  IMO, "proper" (as Sean A might qualify) scale is what often separates (wheat from chaff).

My money is that the little new golf development going forward will evolve along a Burkean line- i.e. the proven and familiar with limited trial and error on the edges.  Architects will no doubt attempt to differentiate themselves, but I think it will be more on style than substance.   

[Peter Pallotta]

Sean -
or, as Don may have intended to ask/explore in his OP, is our very definition of 'excellence'  (currently) shaped & informed by this 'excessiveness'; and, in a time of scarcity (re new course developments) and of profit-driven value systems, is the celebration of business success too easily being confused & conflated with architectural success -- so that even on here we talk in terms of the 'model' and set our expectations by it.
Nothing wrong with business, of course, or with successful business, and if I was a businessman on a website dedicated to the business of golf course development I'd be exploring the subject very differently. But we're on a site dedicated to frank and open discussion about the art-craft of golf course architecture.
And in that context a discussion about an expansive, wide open course that fits the model and is very successful and has won much praise but that is light on strategy should, I think, focus on the 'light on strategy' bit.
But judging from the talk here and the magazine rankings, the number and percentage of 8s & 9s being built these days is truly remarkable (and I'd suggest, unprecedented). Maybe it's an example of 'grade inflation'; maybe we've all become (and taken on the perspective of) marketers, unwittingly or not.
Sorry if this leans towards the theoretical and is setting people's teeth in edge; but I think/guess that these might be some of the issues related to Don's question.

[Ally Mcintosh]

The routings I have done - either theoretical or for real - that have provided the most fun have all been on small sites that barely fit 18.

Fun for whom, you, the architect, or the blokes who play the course?

Some interesting insights in the book "Why Golf" by Bob Cullen on the wide appeal of large, green open spaces.  IMO, "proper" (as Sean A might qualify) scale is what often separates (wheat from chaff).

My money is that the little new golf development going forward will evolve along a Burkean line- i.e. the proven and familiar with limited trial and error on the edges.  Architects will no doubt attempt to differentiate themselves, but I think it will be more on style than substance.   

Lou, proper scale goes without saying. But that is my point. Give 10 architects an awkward 140 acre site and you'll get some pretty bad routings. You wouldn't get nearly the variation in quality on a 1,000 acre site.


Fun for me is what I meant.


But if I give you the best routing on an interesting 140 acre site, it will be fun for you too.

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