An architect's porfolio - The Differences

[Tom_Doak]

Tom D highlighted the difference a different site foreman can make on a job which is true. It's also true I think, particularly of UK courses, that it very hard to spot the differences now as the courses have generally evolved over time in terms of rerouting, tweaking of designs, changed strategy due to bunker work etc. Basically, are you able to spot what was done by the original architect ? Any perceived difference might be down to someone else at a later date.

That said, generally I think these guys tended to push the envelope and then toned it down later on, in much the same way some architects are doing now eg DMK.

Part of that [for the older courses] is just a natural evolution as greens started being maintained differently, and as courses started to receive more traffic.  There are a lot of cool-looking things that just won't hold up to traffic ... that old picture of the 7th hole at Pebble Beach with all of the little mounds and sandy areas comes to mind.  It was a snapshot in time, but no way that would have lasted a year, as windy as it can be on that particular spot.


But it's also true that modern courses and architects are judged much more on opening day than courses of the past were.  Old ideas like leaving the bunkering until later are harder to sell to the client if it's possible everyone will have already dismissed the course by then.

[Rick Lane]

Tom, can you talk a bit more about "leaving the bunkering until later" and why that was a practice?
Sounds interesting.....

[Mark_Fine]

Tom’s point about courses being judged too much on opening day (or for that matter within the first year after opening) is a great one.  As he pointed out, some architects in the past didn’t complete their bunkering on their designs until after their courses were played for a while as they wanted golfer feedback before doing so.  This is VERY important to know for example when “restoring” courses.  Just looking at original plans and/or photos from opening day or shortly after a course opened is a big mistake for obvious reasons. 

[Peter Pallotta]

Architects work differently today than they did in the golden age, and golf courses function & play very much differently now than they did then. Consequently, I think we often make a mistake by  projecting back onto those architects & courses our modern day design sensibilities and golf-related value systems; or conversely, by bringing forward,
wholesale, golden age terms & concepts that may no longer apply in the same way. The processes & goals, for example, of that most valuable (and highly praised) of all architectural skill-sets -- ie the routing -- have changed so much in 100 years that it bring into question whether or not routing is still today the primary (or even an indispensable) part of an architect's tool kit; and I think that our modern-day hyper-focus on great greens as essential for an award-winning course has us making unfounded assumptions about how & why golden age architects created the greens that they did -- when the game, for the average golfer using the equipment of the day, and on the-then best & longest courses, was not only much harder than it is today, but was expected to be. I think that if this isn't recognized and appreciated -- ie the significant gulf between architecture-the game then and now -- we're probably building many of our theories about past 'portfolios' on shifting sands. Or so it seems to me.

[paul cowley]

...I agree Peter.

[Sean_A]

Tom’s point about courses being judged too much on opening day (or for that matter within the first year after opening) is a great one.  As he pointed out, some architects in the past didn’t complete their bunkering on their designs until after their courses were played for a while as they wanted golfer feedback before doing so.  This is VERY important to know for example when “restoring” courses.  Just looking at original plans and/or photos from opening day or shortly after a course opened is a big mistake for obvious reasons.

But courses back in the day were never judged the way the are today.  Very few people offered up public opinions on more than a small handful of courses.  To me, there isn't a comparison to be made between now and 1910-1940ish....ratings are an entirely modern concept with the exception of J Crane (he only rated 14 courses for publication!) and he was wholly shouted down.  Modern magazines are a double edged sword.  On the one hand they have given readers far more exposure to the lesser lights of golf. On the other hand the rankings essentially promoted "championship" style designs and still do to some degree. 

"One thing for me that distinguishes a course like Colt's Royal Portrush (just played there last week) is the site itself.  It is an amazing piece of property and that alone gives it advantages over other Colt sites.  As Tom pointed out, the two closing holes were weak (very flat somewhat featureless ground).  The two new holes are a vast improvement."

This above quote is very telling for me.  Colt was under orders to build two courses so of course he would leave some great land for the "second" course.  Basically, new orders were given to enhance the championship design at the expense of the Valley.  We can hardly blame Colt for not coming up with a good design solution because he did just that. Its the times that changed (see above for rankings).

Ciao   

[Mark_Fine]

Sean,
As you know, the courses at Portrush evolved over a long evolution starting with 9 holes in 1888.  Colt came in in 1929 and two of his holes were lost on The Dunluce (#1 and #18) as well. I don’t have his original 18 hole layout for the Dunluce but it has evolved. 


Regarding how courses were judged back then vs now; courses were heavily scrunitized back then and much was written about them.  Maybe the “rankings” weren’t as prevalent but architects and golfers in general sure knew which were the best courses out there. 


Maybe someone like Tom Doak is designing/building his courses to satisfy course ranking panelists and with the primary intention to make the Top 100 lists but I doubt it. I think most architects today are doing the same thing they did 100 years ago - trying to satisfy their clients and building the best golf courses they possibly can given the property and resources afforded to them. 

[Niall C]

Sean

They might not have had Top 100's back then but that's not to say they didn't criticize or judge. In fact I tend to think the discussions back then were more detailed simply because they didn't have a ranking to hang their hat on.

Niall

[Sean_A]

Sean,
As you know, the courses at Portrush evolved over a long evolution starting with 9 holes in 1888.  Colt came in in 1929 and two of his holes were lost on The Dunluce (#1 and #18) as well. I don’t have his original 18 hole layout for the Dunluce but it has evolved. 


Regarding how courses were judged back then vs now; courses were heavily scrunitized back then and much was written about them.  Maybe the “rankings” weren’t as prevalent but architects and golfers in general sure knew which were the best courses out there. 


Maybe someone like Tom Doak is designing/building his courses to satisfy course ranking panelists and with the primary intention to make the Top 100 lists but I doubt it. I think most architects today are doing the same thing they did 100 years ago - trying to satisfy their clients and building the best golf courses they possibly can given the property and resources afforded to them.

Your above comments don't really address the issue I raised of Colt preserving good land for a second course...a great section of which has been sacrificed for the Dunluce.  While not directly related to rankings, it does speak to hosting championships which is greatly in favour with rankings. 

Yes, courses were scrutinized, by far fewer, by far less people and with far less consequences. I am positive course design has been effected by rankings because there is such a focus on delivering the money shot...at least once in a round....to the point where the actual enjoyment of the round is arguably sacrificed somewhat.  I can't say the same for 1925.  There is simply no comparison to today.

Ciao

[Ally Mcintosh]

Sean,


Don’t forget that by most accounts I’ve heard, both the Dunluce and the Valley have been improved by the recent changes. Maybe Colt has been trumped.


More likely, he sensibly decided that going down in to the Valley (old 5&6) was not the most compact and walkable solution.


Mind you, he wasn’t even responsible for those two holes down there. That was Babington.

[Mark_Fine]

Ally,
I heard the same about both courses but only played The Dunluce this past trip so can’t really comment on The Valley. 


Sean,
No question golf course rankings have had an influence on design but not sure it all has been negative.  If I had to say what has had the biggest negative influence on golf course design (lots of room here for debate) it would be The Masters/Augusta National and Pine Valley.  The infatuation with excessive maintenance at Augusta helped drive maintenance costs at thousands of clubs through the roof, and Pine Valley’s hole by hole separation with trees was one of the factors that lead to over planting of golf courses to have similar hole to hole separation.  Many other reasons for trees but I won’t go into that here.  My point is that rankings were just one of many factors influencing design. 

[Peter Pallotta]

Niall, Sean - you've both read many articles from the golden age, by some of the great writers/best observers of the day. Have you often come across in those contemporary assessments many references to specific aspects of design? Have you seen, for  example, singular/pointed praise for:
- a great and varied set of greens, with contours/undulations that create 'strategic options'?
- especially wide playing corridors and the resulting 'choices off the tee'
- expertly done blurring of fairway edges/transitions that create a naturalist aesthetic and 'hides the hand of man'?
- green surrounds that are well integrated/tied-in to the putting surfaces to provide 'a variety of recovery options'?
- an elegant routing that brilliantly 'utilizes the existing features' and that maximizes 'fun'?

You may well have read such things, but in my (no doubt more limited) reading, I haven't. And I don't think it's merely a question of language/changing language. I think they understood golf courses and the art-craft of gca in a very different way than we do today; and I think the 'average golfer' back then was a very different fellow from his modern day counterpart.

[Tom_Doak]

Niall, Sean - you've both read many articles from the golden age, by some of the great writers/best observers of the day. Have you often come across in those contemporary assessments many references to specific aspects of design? Have you seen, for  example, singular/pointed praise for:
- a great and varied set of greens, with contours/undulations that create 'strategic options'?
- especially wide playing corridors and the resulting 'choices off the tee'
- expertly done blurring of fairway edges/transitions that create a naturalist aesthetic and 'hides the hand of man'?
- green surrounds that are well integrated/tied-in to the putting surfaces to provide 'a variety of recovery options'?
- an elegant routing that brilliantly 'utilizes the existing features' and that maximizes 'fun'?

You may well have read such things, but in my (no doubt more limited) reading, I haven't. And I don't think it's merely a question of language/changing language. I think they understood golf courses and the art-craft of gca in a very different way than we do today; and I think the 'average golfer' back then was a very different fellow from his modern day counterpart.

Peter:


Well, George Thomas and Alister MacKenzie and Tom Simpson all wrote books about golf course design.  They all spoke about undulations within the greens, and what sort they favored, and how they should be made to look natural.  And of course MacKenzie wrote a bit about his conflation of camouflage and golf course architecture, and how he could build a bunker that went unnoticed in the landscape when viewed from the reverse angle.


Only CB Macdonald to my memory wrote anything about the ideal width of fairways - he said sixty yards - but a quick look at aerial photos of golf courses of that era shows that nearly all of the great courses were that wide.  That's where I got the idea that wider courses could be okay.


Even the recent fetish for connecting fairways and connecting greens to tees with short grass comes from imitation of the old courses.  Of course, I was familiar with St. Andrews having short grass from the green right out through the next tee, but when we started actually building courses like that [as a regular thing and not just the occasional hole like the 3rd & 4th at High Pointe] was just after we started working at The Valley Club of Montecito and noticed that's what MacKenzie and Hunter had done there.


In short, many of the things we are designing today are direct imitations of classic courses.  They may not have written about some of those details in the literature of the day, and as far as I know I was the first golf course architect to write about the notion of designing courses so players could have fun ... but I sure didn't come up with the idea out of the blue.

[Peter Pallotta]

Thanks much, Tom.
I know it's not an ideal approach, but an analogy comes to mind:
In the mid-to-late 1920s Louis Armstrong played music that was almost immediately recognized as both the foundation, and prime/best example, of jazz. Some 25 years later, Charlie Parker, astute and dedicated and talented student of the genre, took everything he'd learned/heard from Armstrong and all the greats that had followed him and 'revolutionized, the music -- so much so that some critics gave it a different name (ie bop).
Those first critics, however, had missed something: yes, Parker played faster, more complex melodic 'lines' using a much richer harmonic palette -- but it was still obviously and recognizably 'jazz', and the foundation that Armstrong laid remained wholly intact, and could still be heard 'as an echo' in the background.
That said, however: what this '2nd generation' great was doing with his music, how he understood it and the function that it served, was much different than that of the '1st generation' great.
To say that the 'art' had become in those intervening years more self conscious and self aware might not be completely accurate, but I think it's not too far off.  And the effect/impact of those intervening years *changed* the music, not (in my view) making it 'better' or 'worse' but certainly
different.
I deeply love & appreciate bop, but I can't dance to it!
P

[Sean_A]

Niall, Sean - you've both read many articles from the golden age, by some of the great writers/best observers of the day. Have you often come across in those contemporary assessments many references to specific aspects of design? Have you seen, for  example, singular/pointed praise for:
- a great and varied set of greens, with contours/undulations that create 'strategic options'?
- especially wide playing corridors and the resulting 'choices off the tee'
- expertly done blurring of fairway edges/transitions that create a naturalist aesthetic and 'hides the hand of man'?
- green surrounds that are well integrated/tied-in to the putting surfaces to provide 'a variety of recovery options'?
- an elegant routing that brilliantly 'utilizes the existing features' and that maximizes 'fun'?

You may well have read such things, but in my (no doubt more limited) reading, I haven't. And I don't think it's merely a question of language/changing language. I think they understood golf courses and the art-craft of gca in a very different way than we do today; and I think the 'average golfer' back then was a very different fellow from his modern day counterpart.

Peter:

Well, George Thomas and Alister MacKenzie and Tom Simpson all wrote books about golf course design.  They all spoke about undulations within the greens, and what sort they favored, and how they should be made to look natural.  And of course MacKenzie wrote a bit about his conflation of camouflage and golf course architecture, and how he could build a bunker that went unnoticed in the landscape when viewed from the reverse angle.

Only CB Macdonald to my memory wrote anything about the ideal width of fairways - he said sixty yards - but a quick look at aerial photos of golf courses of that era shows that nearly all of the great courses were that wide.  That's where I got the idea that wider courses could be okay.

Even the recent fetish for connecting fairways and connecting greens to tees with short grass comes from imitation of the old courses.  Of course, I was familiar with St. Andrews having short grass from the green right out through the next tee, but when we started actually building courses like that [as a regular thing and not just the occasional hole like the 3rd & 4th at High Pointe] was just after we started working at The Valley Club of Montecito and noticed that's what MacKenzie and Hunter had done there.

In short, many of the things we are designing today are direct imitations of classic courses.  They may not have written about some of those details in the literature of the day, and as far as I know I was the first golf course architect to write about the notion of designing courses so players could have fun ... but I sure didn't come up with the idea out of the blue.

Pietro

I agree with Tom.  The first golden age was due precisely because the would be archies knew there were better ways to design and better designs to be had.  These guys got into the solution so deep as to find the best land for inland golf not in terms of of style, but playability.  That approach is what was amazingly lost for all thse decades, to the point where even when courses were built on sand it was often not an emphasized feature...some places even tried to maintain the sand out of the picture...sounds crazy right? To me, the recent renaissance is at least as much about where the game is played as the type of design.  The best of both worlds has the style of design matching the soil/turf....and if things are really great its in sand.  It has always been my belief that courses on sand need to be wider (than your typical parkland design) and have more open greens (just as I think the ODGs believed) if they are going to be truly successful as designs and as all round cherished places to play the game.   

Still, none of what the ODGs talked about was really about rankings...it was about good, interesting and enduring golf courses.   

Ally

You don't think the 5 & 6 of the Valley fit in well with the Duncluce? 

Ciao

[Niall C]

The discussion on what Colt did at Portrush brings to mind Colt's redesign at Montrose where he broke new ground into the dunes. Those holes were quickly abandoned due, I believe, to problems of establishing the turf. I wonder if that experience had a bearing on what land he used elsewhere ?

I think perhaps we sometimes forget the limitations these guys had compared to today.

Niall

[Thomas Dai]

The discussion on what Colt did at Portrush brings to mind Colt's redesign at Montrose where he broke new ground into the dunes. Those holes were quickly abandoned due, I believe, to problems of establishing the turf. I wonder if that experience had a bearing on what land he used elsewhere ?

I think perhaps we sometimes forget the limitations these guys had compared to today.

Niall

+1.....and imo it accounts for why things were done or positioned they why they were.
Atb

[Adam Lawrence]

The discussion on what Colt did at Portrush brings to mind Colt's redesign at Montrose where he broke new ground into the dunes. Those holes were quickly abandoned due, I believe, to problems of establishing the turf. I wonder if that experience had a bearing on what land he used elsewhere ?

I think perhaps we sometimes forget the limitations these guys had compared to today.

Niall

It wasn't that quick, it took about ten years for the whole Montrose thing to work through. And from the start there was a lot of opposition to the work. My conclusion is that trying to do a major project of that kind when opinion is split right down the middle is a recipe for disaster.

[Niall C]

Adam

I'll bow to your detailed knowledge. Montrose is a course I haven't played so don't know the lay of the land as it were but the new holes, one of which was along a dune ridge from memory, must have been a challenge to establish given the limited budget and construction practices of the day. Did they eventually abandon all of Colt's work or just some of it ?

As for facing membership opposition, I've got to imagine that that was not an uncommon scenario given how conservative sections of the membership tend to be. They can be won round mind you if the work is a success. Therefore there must have been some issues beyond the initial objections to make them give up on the new design at Montrose perhaps ?

Niall

[Adam Lawrence]

Niall, I have to save this for the book, but the Montrose project seems to me to have been something pretty unique in regard to how split the locals were. Colt originally reported in October 1913, saying 'there are several [holes] without any distinctive natural feature owing to a portion of the Links being laid out on dead flat ground'. Even then the local paper said there were 'mixed feelings' about the plan, as the changes he proposed were so sweeping and involved the overturning of a lot of recent -- and quite expensive -- work:


'Water pipes were laid, bunkers innumerable were opened up, greens were nurtured, tribute was laid on the ditch, hazards were treasured -- all to no purpose.'


There was considerable debate over the proposals in the papers, but eventually they were passed.


By 1921, the papers were reporting that 'Unanimity of opinion in regard to Montrose medal golf course, laid out by the golf course expert, Mr Colt, does not exist even amongst our most expert local golfers'.


Montrose was losing money -- it was reported that it needed £2000 to clear its debts. And by 1925 it seems that there was a consensus to go back to something closer to the old course.


A hell of a mess!

[David Davis]

 I remember joking with Richard Sattler that if my 13th green didn't work out, it wouldn't matter because few of my critics would see it anyway. 

Tom, thanks for the insights on this as well. I imagine it's fair to say that a lot more of your critics made the journey than you expected?

[Sven Nilsen]

They may not have written about some of those details in the literature of the day, and as far as I know I was the first golf course architect to write about the notion of designing courses so players could have fun ... but I sure didn't come up with the idea out of the blue.

Ross had you beat by a good bit on the writing part.

[Tom_Doak]

Sven:  Did Donald Ross actually use the word "fun"?  I don't remember that.  Keep in mind that his "book" was only published in the 1990's and is a collection of small pieces he had written here and there ... but I don't remember him using the word "fun".


MacKenzie wrote about pleasurable excitement which is probably the same thing ... but I think architects mostly avoided the f word for fear they wouldn't be taken seriously by serious golfers.

[Bill Brightly]

I've enjoyed reading this thread. It is always fascinating to read what my favorite working architect says about Raynor, one of my favorite ODGs. It's so much fun because I sense that Tom wants to slam him for "building the same holes" but he can't quite do that because there is no denying that Raynor's 100-year old courses remain a blast to play. So Tom gives Raynor credit for being a superb router, and subtly knocks him for not doing anything unique and implying that only the sites differentiate Raynor's work.


It's fascinating to me because in my opinion, Raynor has had such a profound influence on Tom. Compared to 2018, Raynor worked at a time when there were VERY few high quality golf courses on the ground. He was hired to build "ideal" courses as conceived by CB Macdonald. He had no "market pressure" to build unique holes; that was never his goal. He was hired to do a job and he did it extremely well. He built great golf holes (Macdonald's templates) and was free to repeat those features. Raynor's skill was finding the best places to locate those features on a wide variety of sites and he had VERY good sites to work on which to work. His work has withstood the test of time; Raynor courses pass the "fun" test.


As a student of golf course architecture, I've come to believe that of course Tom studied Raynor's work, and then decided to take a different path. When Tom builds a great hole, I sense he feels compelled to NOT repeat it on another site. Tom does NOT want you to know where he moved dirt, while Raynor had no problem showing the hand of man. So both men faced "restrictions" but of far different types.  Raynor only used templates, Tom NEVER wants to be accused of that. Am I the only one who relishes these delicious ironies?


I sense that Raynor is in Tom's head every bit as much as MacKenzie, but for different reasons. That's cool. It also is part of the history of gca that is still being written today.  My last thought: Tom comes to the field with a bigger tool box (he is not restricted to templates) and builds great holes. Raynor built great courses with a smaller tool box. Both built courses that have (and will) withstand the test of time. So that begs the question: which one is the better craftsman? I have no answer, but I'll play any of their courses ten times in a row and not be bored.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Architects work differently today than they did in the golden age, and golf courses function & play very much differently now than they did then. Consequently, I think we often make a mistake by  projecting back onto those architects & courses our modern day design sensibilities and golf-related value systems; or conversely, by bringing forward,

wholesale, golden age terms & concepts that may no longer apply in the same way. The processes & goals, for example, of that most valuable (and highly praised) of all architectural skill-sets -- ie the routing -- have changed so much in 100 years that it bring into question whether or not routing is still today the primary (or even an indispensable) part of an architect's tool kit; and I think that our modern-day hyper-focus on great greens as essential for an award-winning course has us making unfounded assumptions about how & why golden age architects created the greens that they did -- when the game, for the average golfer using the equipment of the day, and on the-then best & longest courses, was not only much harder than it is today, but was expected to be. I think that if this isn't recognized and appreciated -- ie the significant gulf between architecture-the game then and now -- we're probably building many of our theories about past 'portfolios' on shifting sands. Or so it seems to me.

Peter,


As to the portion in red, I have to disagree.  As to routing, only a few architects, and for them, even just a few sites, don't require routing skills.  I think you are translating some of Fazio's biggest earthmoving projects into the "norm" which isn't the case at all.  If you are arguing that housing has reduced the role of routing, I also disagree, because it makes it more complicated.  And, if anything, you have to follow the land more, i.e., putting holes in valleys to create views from above, but that was always a pretty natural way to route courses anyway (not the only way, but a good way)


And, my take is that creating award winning courses focused more on creating more artistic bunkering rather than "great greens" whatever our definition of those might be.  The tendencies were to include features golfers/raters would notice on their first and perhaps only play, not some subtly that they would only notice ten rounds in.


At least, IMHO. Cheers.