[If there was a golf course in one of the great English gardens like Stourhead, it, too, would be probably be one of the world's great courses.]
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That could be true.
It should be true.
Alas, I don’t think it is true.
There are several, even many, of the great English gardens and parks that are now home to golf courses.
I don’t think any would be named as one of the world’s great golf courses,
though some are certainly very good.
Stoke Park, Moor Park, Stowe House are just 3 of many designs by Capabilty Bown which are now partially golf courses.
From a golfers point of view, they are fine places to play and quite beautiful.
From the point of view of the garden trust people, the golf courses mostly detract from the the great parks,
though not nearly as disastrously as other developments such as housing, parking, commercial parks, and bad neglect.
Here is a recent report by the Gardens Trust.
It has an aerial of Moor Park Golf Course as its cover, as an illustration of the “increasing threats” to the great heritage.
http://www.capabilitybrown.org/sites/default/files/vulnerability_brown_for_website_with_hyperlinks_smaller_file.pdf“Golf courses were in the 1980s-2000s the must-have facility, about which the Garden History Society and others campaigned in the 1990s. Fairways, bunkers and planting, club houses and parking did serious
damage to Brown’s concept. Luton Hoo, a Grade II*
Brown masterpiece, is a case where even the relatively sensitive hotel and golf course conversion damaged the unity of Brown’s design. The threat of golf has receded: economy and lifestyle changes have seen a decline in golf club members since 2004; clubs are struggling, some are closing. But what happens if they are abandoned? Will anyone remove the golfing landscape and reinstate the Brown park design in such a costly exercise?”
I agree with Tom’s idea, quoted above.
There is every good reason that a golf course in one of the great English parks could be unique and great.
A fundamental goal for those parks, for all great landscapes, is to discover, preserve, or create the genius loci, the unique spirit of the place.
And that of course is the goal of any golf architect trying to create a great course.
It seems, however, that even the best of those that have been built in these parks have ignored the great designs in which they are but a part.
Sort of like snapping off a large piece of marble from a Michelangelo sculpture to carve your own smaller masterpiece.
The parks had their genii. The golf courses may or may not have created their own, but they lost the spirit that was there before them.
This subject has been discussed quite well at some length here years ago.
http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,25547.0.htmlIf the upcoming book discussion choice is Wethered & Simpson’s book The Architectural Side of Golf, then the chapter “In an English Garden” would be worth some close attention.