[Peter Pallotta]

Is that true when it comes to gca?
And if it is true, what qualifies as 'broke'?

[SL_Solow]

Peter,  the long history of disfigured courses by well meaning greens' committees abetted by some insensitive architects should answer your question.  Much of the restoration movement is the result of the perceived need to repair this damage.  if you ever visit Chicago I can spend several days giving you a tour of courses that suffered this fate.  The issue is the second part of your question.  Since preferences for golf course architecture are a matter of taste, defining whether something is "broke" varies with time and perspective and often times, only a long view reveals fundamental errors to a large enough group of members to create a consensus to undo errors.

[Peter Pallotta]

Thanks, Shel - you brought the question down to where the rubber really hits the road, ie to specific courses, with particular members, at given times.
You know that world very well, from many angles/aspects, while I don't know it at all.
But from your post, I concluded (only partly in jest) that the history & dialectic of golf course renovations basically involves:
prior committees convincing then-members that what they didn't think was broken actually was, and current committees bringing architects in to convince present-day members they're dead wrong in thinking that nothing is broken --and (ironically, though implicitly) that previous members had been right all along!
So what happens, I wonder, when an unusually bright club member puts 2 and 2 together and asks the committee why *he* won't be right in 20 years too?
More generally: I can grant that a golf course design can be broken for some while not for others (just like a small dent in a car door doesn't bother one person but is intolerable to another). But if "being broken" is nothing more than a matter of consensus (or is that 'manufactured consent') and not based on some essential principles, how can any of these decisions really be made in good (and lasting) faith?

Thanks for the offer of a tour: that will be a genuine pleasure.
Peter

[Sean_A]

Is that true when it comes to gca?
And if it is true, what qualifies as 'broke'?

Pietro

In the big scheme of things, if it ain't broke is probably more true than not.  However, for the courses we mainly discuss if it ain't broke is meaningless.  Clubs/owners are always making changes, often when there is little if anything wrong and even then the focus is sometimes on the wrong stuff...such as bunkers rather than greens and turf health. 

To me its broke if...and I would start with the following before making any architectural changes

greens are spongy...not firm...don't roll well...by far the most important issue imo...get the greens as reasonably good as they can be then look at other issues
trees block views...especially views of cool features...including other trees!
trees create too much shade in critical areas
trees are used for interior safety
there are many trees in an area where one or maybe two will do
bunkers hold water
fairway lines don't enhance the design
cart paths are in lines of play
fairway drainage

Do what you can to maximize what exists before getting carried away with architectural changes...including adding yardage.

Ciao

[Mark_Fine]

This is a tricky one for golf because too many people try to fix golf courses, with good intentions, and don't necessarily succeed.  Sometimes it seems it might have been better to have left them them alone.


That said, when it comes to most other things, I am more of a, "If it ain’t broke, you didn’t look hard enough.  Fix it anyway."  The assumption that everything is always broke and can be improved is the essence of innovation.  Thank goodness golf architecture hasn’t assumed nothing was broke or we would still be playing on mostly sand/dirt and teeing up a ball stuffed with feathers on a small pile of sand we just removed from the previous hole we played     Everything evolves, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse, but if it stays stagnant, it dies.   

[SL_Solow]

Mark,  I disagree.  I am closer to the view expressed in the Hipporatic oath; "First do no harm".  While it is hard to argue against the proposition that nothing is perfect, it does not follow that by making changes we will create improvement.  In my experience, warning flags should go up when committee members begin to complain that nothing has been done to the course for some time and then begin to lobby for improvements.  My experience, as noted in my first response, is the numerous classic courses that were made worse by improvement programs.

[Mark_Fine]

SL,
As I said in my first statement, this is a tricky one for golf courses.  However, I stand by my statement that most innovation is a result of someone saying “there has to be a way to improve this.”  We wouldn’t we communicating via this website (via my phone right now) if someone didn’t think something could be done better.  We’d be sending smoke signals   


Golf courses and golf course design will continue to change and evolve.  If not, it will die or lose popularity.  Note:  That doesn’t mean some aspects can’t revolve back to variations of earlier concepts. 

[Peter Pallotta]

It's true that change is the only constant, but an 1800s Victorian rowhouse or a 1900s Arts & Crafts cottage can both be beautifully restored and brought completely 'up to date' while still looking (and 'feeling') exactly like an 1800s Victorian rowhouse and a 1900s Arts & Craft cottage. The reason they might *not* retain their original essence and character and charm comes down simply & solely to a lack of will in this regard on the part of the owners & architects & craftspeople. Which is why I like Sean's modest list of what's often broken and needs fixing, ie those items point not to 'change' but to 'renewal'.

[Mike_Young]

Peter,I agree with the saying.  What is so often overlooked in the golf world is if the fix is sustainable or does it have to be subsidized.  We have created a monster when it comes to fixing golf courses.  There is a reason we don't put slate roofs on $150,000 homes.  We don't follow the same when it comes to golf.

[John Emerson]

“Broke” in a clubs historical sense, seems to be keeping up with the jones’.  “If such and such did a renovation I guess we need to also”.  It could also mean Mother Nature being left unchecked for decades.  Or, it could also mean the “Augusta Effect”. 

[Terry Lavin]

I think it’s a combination of a board’s legacy building and salesmanship by architects and contractors. There’s a lot of regional wannabe work, with trend tweaking to let everyone know that my course can look as  cute as yours. The art of so called restoration has largely played out and the newer projects get sold as necessary work of a cyclical nature (green space reclamation and bunker reconstruction) and newer trends like short par 4’s and green-to-tee walkoffs.


My personal favorite course redo con job is the suggestion that the way to deal with bunker edge degradation is to make the bunkers bigger during reconstruction. That, I think, might create more opportunities for maintenance issues.


Trust me, I recognize that a lot of the older “restoration” projects were muted renovation jobs. But at the end of this current trend, I think we will find a heightened degree of visual and tactical sameness which will surely dumb down classic golf course architecture on many courses.


C’est la guerre, mon frere!

[Peter Pallotta]

The veterans speak, the raw recruit is humbled, and silenced.

As George Gobel quipped on Carson (while taking a seat next to Dean Martin and Bob Hope): "Did you ever get the feeling that the world is a tuxedo and you're a pair of brown shoes?"

Or, as Fran Lebowitz wrote: "Original thought is like Original Sin -- both happened a long time ago to people you couldn't possibly have met".

[Mike_Young]

I think it’s a combination of a board’s legacy building and salesmanship by architects and contractors. There’s a lot of regional wannabe work, with trend tweaking to let everyone know that my course can look as relevant as yours. The art of so called restoration has largely played out and the newer projects get sold as necessary work of a cyclical nature (green space reclamation and bunker reconstruction) and newer trends like short par 4’s and green-to-tee walkoffs.


My personal favorite course redo con job is the suggestion that the way to deal with bunker edge degradation is to make the bunkers bigger during reconstruction. That, I think, might create more opportunities for maintenance issues.


Trust me, I recognize that a lot of the older “restoration” projects were muted renovation jobs. But at the end of this current trend, I think we will find a heightened degree of visual and tactical sameness which will surely dumb down classic golf course architecture on many courses.


C’est la guerre, mon frere!

Agree.  WE ARE ALREADY THERE AS FAR AS “the sameness” goes.  Th[size=78%]e elephant in the room for most places is the changing demographic of the young member.  A few clubs will always be fine but so many don’t even realize what they actually pay to play their own course and the younger millennial types do.  I’m not sure there are many industries like the golf design construction business where the end user is having you place a product on the ground that in so many cases has to be subsidized and the same goes for maintenance levels.  [/size]

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