Mark:
I think golf architecture as an expression is in a pretty good place right now. It's going in a lot of directions, creating good diversity which to me is sort of the essence of it all. Some of the new stuff is really great retro or renaissance stuff and others are going in other directions like Stranz and even Fazio. Even in the area of strategy how can one deny from even photos that a guy like Lester George with Kinloch is not moving in an interesting direction with strategic application. Kinloch, from the little I've seen of it isn't just subtle strategy it's "in your face", "must notice" and "must deal with" strategy! A golfer isn't being one dimensionally dictated to with that stuff, he's being almost required to make up his mind about a bunch of very diverse choices. It's obvious in its stark distinctness but is that a good thing--a different direction from most of the more narrow center dictation architecture of the last few decades? Sure it is, or it certainly is to me.
Look at that course in the west of Spann's. Is that another level and a good one even if a reuse? It seems pretty obvious it is.
And no one can deny the directions and levels that some of Doak, Hanse, De Vries, C&C's et al stuff is going in. That's some stuff that looks and plays as good as it ever got, in my opinion. Some elements of it are a return to some of the more important naturalism philosophies of a former era but none of them seem to be into duplication and all of them seem to want to find their own unique expression on partiuclar and diverse sites. All that is great and a higher level than the sort of boilerplate stuff of the "Modern Era" of 1950s to 1980s, excepting of course a guy who basically went his own unique vaguely retro way such as Pete Dye.
But a real, wholly unique and original new or next level? I don't know but there is one that GeoffShac sometimes alludes to that is borne out of some of the ultra naturalistic thoughts of those such as Behr, and perhaps Mackenzie.
That next level apparently was the dream to attempt to take golf architecture with the help of sophisticated machinery and possibly other technologies like agronomy or even just application to a level that would take it where it would appear almost seamless in more ways than we might now imagine with Nature itself.
This appeared to be Behr's dream and perhaps Mackenzie's too--afterall this would be the true architectural expression of his fundamental ideas on camouflage and Behr's on golf as a return to a true "sport" instead of a highly and architecturally defined man-made "game".
How could that ever be possible? The only way I can see is to attempt to blend better, or perhaps blur would be the best word, those "lines" or "divisions" between those few necessary but inherently artifical aspects of golf--tees, fairways, greens, and even the odd architectural prevalent vestige, the bunker feature, with that which either was or really does appear to be nature itself.
That appears to have been one dream and certainly would be one of a next level, if it were possible. Certainly golf architecture veered sharply from that idea or dream following that time when those men may have dreamed that dream. But could it come back to that, even in a small way now? I think it probably could and the various applications of it could turn out to be truly fascinating in maybe even some next level of all comprehensive ultra naturalism in architecture.
How to do it would be immensely complex in a whole variety of ways, but if it were done would golfers of today accept it and perhaps enjoy it even more? That's the unanswered question. Golf is definitely fighting far more locked in perceptions in architeture today than it was in Behr and Mackenzie's time though.
I'd like to see someone really try to go almost full-boat in this direction even if just to see what would happen and what the reaction would be. To do something like this, though, architects and others would probably have to give up and lay aside some of their locked in dictums and completely accepted formulae and philosophies. That would be such things as "directing the golfer's eye" in architecture. What's wrong with letting him look around for himself and figuring out his own best way to go? It might be foregoing some of the applications of landscape archtiecture in golf architecture. I never heard of a man who architecturally landscaped Nature the way nature itself did. In that vein even the old classic landscape architectural principles such as removing Nature's apparent deformities might have to be rethought! Tom MacWood is an advocate of this! There are numerous other apparently accepted ideas that may need to be rethought!
Behr believed it was possible somehow obviously to do some of these things and the reasons he thought it would be better and far more fundamentally enjoyable to golfers were for the damnedest reasons which almost delve into the inherent nature of man and his inherent relationship with Nature itself.
No one listened very carefully to him (or Mackenzie's dream) back then but maybe somehow they will now. Wouldn't that be ironic?