Cult Courses, Architectural Wastelands, and Serious Criticism

[Kalen Braley]

The audience for even the best GCA criticism—as written—is small and will remain small because there is no money in it and the focus is too narrow. A multi-disciplinary approach would reach some new people, albeit still a small niche—and perhaps retain some of the present company. My hypothetical “serious” GCA critic would resemble the aspiring book art critics in having a passion for something without its neat place in the hierarchy (hire-archy). Here’s the resume of someone whom I would love to see supplement his existing gifts by boning up on our favorite land art and its history, taking up the game and then letting fly:
 

Greg,

I may be entirely wrong and Tom can chime in if he likes, but I'm guessing he has in fact made money off writing frank course criticism.  So much so that he did additional volumes in his CG series.  Perhaps its just to fulfill his writing itch, but i'd have to think there was money to be made.

[Jason Thurman]

 Here are a couple things I wanted to share:
 
 1.  Bringing It All Back Home was recorded in three days, while Folklore was finished over the course of somewhere between two and four months.  In the olden days of the mid-20th century, studio time was expensive, and even famous artists felt a sense of urgency to complete the work.  As a result, the music has an imperfect, less refined sound.  Certainly, some of Bob Dylan's song required numerous takes, and songs like "Like a Rolling Stone" were only played all the way through once, and a final version was spliced together from the tapes.  But many of these songs are just tried a few times, and the decision is made to move to the next song.
 
 I would suggest this is relevant for golf architecture, that course designs are best done in a few takes, and not necessarily with concrete, detailed plans.  Striving for perfect is the enemy, and compromises human inspiration.

YES! I love a little ramshackle in the sound. As a musician, I've never liked playing the same thing twice or doing a ton of rehearsing, and I've always been enamored of the idea that guys like Young Dylan and Iggy Pop could show up in the studio and basically just freestyle lyrics and arrangements on the fly. St. Vincent is one of my favorite musicians today, and apparently her next album (out on May 14) was mostly done in single takes, and your final sentence above was basically the exact quote I read from her about why. The next two months can’t go fast enough for me.

And yes! It relates to GCA! It feels akin to all these Pete Dye stories of starting with a general plan, but then letting good results be good results even if they don't follow the plan exactly... I think that's a real thing but I'm not the guy to elaborate on it.

2.  One of the greatest songs on Bringing It All Back Home is “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue”.  It is a duet, with Dylan on vocals, guitar and harmonica, and Bill Lee (Spike Lee’s dad) on bass.  Lee is a trained jazz musician, so I’m sure Dylan simply tells him the chord sequence, and then he starts playing the song, with Lee following along and improvising throughout.  I can listen to this over and over, focusing on any of the four voices, three provided by Dylan, or Bill Lee’s wonderful contribution.  The performance swings so hard.  It’s the best song of the album, along with “Mr. Tambourine Man”.
 
 So far I’ve listened to two hits on Folklore, “Exile” and “Cardigan”.  Thanks for the suggestion.  They’re really good.  I can see why many consider this her best work.  On this album, she is working with her friend Jack Antonoff, and a new collaborator, Aaron Dessner from the National.

YES! On literally all the above. Check out "Peace" from Folklore. Based on the things you love about It’s All Over Now Baby Blue, I think you'll dig it.
 
 

A key difference between these two songs and a good Dylan record is that the musicians on Folklore establish the background for Taylor Swift without making their own statement.  Everything is geared to be of service of Ms. Swift and her story.  Being an old basketball player, old enough so that Mom and Dad loved Dixieland jazz, I like music where each artist’s voice is heard.  The modern style of popular music has strayed from the Dixieland ideals of improvisation and spontaneous inspiration.  It abides by a star system at the exclusion of the team.
 
 In a sense, golf course development at the highest level seems to abide by these Dixieland ideals.  Plans and general concepts are discussed at the nightly pow wow, and the "associates" go out each day and put their stamp on individual design features.  The lead architect oversees the whole project.  Sometimes he suggests changes, and within a few takes he says “good”.

Again, I'm with you. There opening 3 beats of Bringing it All Back Home makes a bigger instrumental statement than, like, the entirety of the backing instrumentation on Folklore.

As a guitarist who always wanted Trey Anastasio’s freedom to solo incessantly, the most significant realization for me musically was when I really came to grasp that the best thing I bring to the table, musically, is to chunk and groove and riff all in service of the tune. It unlocked me as a (totally unaccomplished) songwriter, and gave me my voice musically. That approach to instrumentation is part and parcel of Bringing it all Back Home, Highway 61, Blood on the Tracks... Nashville Skyline! It’s not that Robbie Robertson is soloing his ass off. But every note he plays lives on forever in my head.

And you're right - the musicianship on Folklore is polished and excellent, but the voices of the musicians don't always shine through. My impression is that much of TSwift’s catalog to this point (which we should note, I’m mostly unfamiliar with) hasn't really unlocked the voices of her backing musicians, partly because she's always been a great songwriter but maybe not such a great singer/performer that she could front a really fully uninhibited band. Totally fair for someone who debuted at 15. I think she's grown enough as a performer that her masterpiece is hopefully ahead of her, and involves that classic formula of Killer Songs + Killer Musicians + Killer Performances All Around.

All else being equal, music is better when that happens. I love the craft of Taylor’s songs. She’s just a fabulous writer. But to compare her to some other contemporary divas, I do prefer the musical presentation of Gaga, Adele, St. Vincent… there’s a difference, as you outline, between playing deferentially to the star and playing in service of the song while letting the star do star-level things.

And yes, to listen to Doak talk about getting out of his associates' way, the same way Pete Dye did for him and others, you hear the same ideal. You see it with great basketball teams too. It’s the contrast between the James Harden Rockets, where the other guys played in ways that served the star, and the Beautiful Game Spurs, where the unique skills of 10 guys were all maximized. I prefer the latter almost every time, except when it requires me to cut a solo short…
 
 

3.  We don’t know yet whether Folklore will be remembered as a classic.  How many songs will become “pop standards”, remembered by fans and coveted by musicians fifty years from now?
 
 As GCA fans, speculating on which courses will become “standards” is what we do.

True, although I’d suggest that with the death of the monoculture, and the unique circumstances of Folklore’s release that really made it the “album of the pandemic,” that it’s as well positioned to become a classic as any 7 month old album has ever been. I think it’s too uneven for me to really consider it a GREAT album… there are some real dirges on that thing. But in the Spotify era, it’s easy enough to mitigate that. My Everlore playlist is one of my favorite albums ever! (https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2VdYQLUH166uh4gS7MC2h3?si=eaba3318b9f54c5f)

You could say the same about Sweetens Cove. I don’t know if it’s a great course given that I find 7 largely forgettable, 4 remarkable but not quite great, and I’m not sure that 8 really works. Top 100 seems crazy to me. But it’s one I look forward to returning to again and again. I think Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness is at least semi-classic even though it only has 6 good songs on a preposterously long double album. Both Folklore and Sweetens are much better than that, and they’re both iconic/groundbreaking enough to elevate them beyond their (pretty minor) weaknesses.
 
 

4.  I admire Taylor Swift’s music more than I love it.  The recordings are too flawless for me.  I generally pursue syncopated music that makes me excited and happy.  Swift is earnest and sings about love almost exclusively.
 
 I like Kacey Musgraves a little more than Swift, and my favorite modern female singer/songwriter is Natalia Lafourcade from Mexico, especially when she performs with Los Macorinos.  What a team.     
 

I’ve only started my Kacey Musgraves deep dive in literally the last few days. I have a long backlog of music to listen to at all times, and she’s been working her way to the top of the list for years. She’s wonderful. I’ll check out Natalia Lafourcade. I always believe that the only thing any of us are playing for, when it comes to having “well educated opinions” on music, golf courses, or anything else that’s purely subjective at the end of the day, is for anyone else to give a shit what we think. So I’ll check out ya girl. That’s the highest compliment I can pay to anyone’s criticism. I question Tom Doak's critiques sometimes too, but I also pull out the Confidential Guide before I plan a trip.

[Greg Hohman]

Greg - good post there, and you may be absolutely right about how small a niche is the niche for serious critiques of gca. Mr. Weiss sounds a fascinating fellow -- you need one heck of a subtle and diverse mind to produce that interdisciplinary range of experimental performance art! Ha -- I'm chuckling at the thought of what he might do with a small bit of turf from a C&C course and a lock of Ben Crenshaw's hair, as it relates to the concept of par! But before you posted, I was thinking along much more 'main stream' lines. Earlier tonight and out of the blue I thought: if gca had even one writer who wrote about it like David Foster Wallace did about tennis, we wouldn't have need of this thread at all, nor any of our posts. The truth would be there for all to see, the inherent value of the endeavour self evident. But we don't. We don't have anyone who writes about gca with the insight of an expert, the precision of a scientist, the heart of a poet, and the literary talents of a Willa Cather. There's at least a few courses in the world merit that/that treament.

Peter, I was displaying false modesty, would try for the DG commission if the kitty isn't chump change. The course would not have to be great. I can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. I love DFW, but the tennis book was a stretch, could not finish. Oblivion in the Oblivion story collection has a golf angle.

[Steve Lang]

1986?

Tom D,

1986??  Just thinking that the periods outlined by GOLFCLUBATLAS.COM, need to be extended... its time.  With minor license I paraphrase the 4 periods first described by Ran:   

Pre-1899: Naturalism

1900-1937: Movers and Shapers

1949-1985: The Dark Ages

Present: Manufactured Impact and Profiles in Courage

I don't know the beginnings of your Renaissance Golf Design (as much as 8th St. in TC), but its ethos has been much appreciated helping to lead things out of the Dark Ages...   So you pick a date

Steve:

I'm not going to pick a date if you insist on putting "2021" as the close of it   

Tom D, OK that's cool, how about


1989 - 2019,  Big Impacts and Minimalism Profiles in Courage?


Present:  Design by Generational Mantra

[Tom_Doak]

I may be entirely wrong and Tom can chime in if he likes, but I'm guessing he has in fact made money off writing frank course criticism.  So much so that he did additional volumes in his CG series.  Perhaps its just to fulfill his writing itch, but i'd have to think there was money to be made.

Yes, I've made some money . . . possibly even enough to cover the expenses of seeing those 1500 courses!  But there is no way to make a living at it, unless some generous media organization offers to pay you a salary to do it, and even those come with lots of compromises.  GOLF Magazine was always very frugal about paying for its architecture editors to actually go see anything, but started allowing developers to pay their expenses, which created some whopping conflicts of interest.  GOLF DIGEST did give Ron Whitten a decent travel allowance, but certainly not a blank check.

[Tim Gavrich]

Earlier tonight and out of the blue I thought: if gca had even one writer who wrote about it like David Foster Wallace did about tennis, we wouldn't have need of this thread at all, nor any of our posts. The truth would be there for all to see, the inherent value of the endeavour self evident. But we don't.

Is this really true? Between Tom's writings and those of folks like Brad Klein and Tom Dunne and others - not to mention golf writing's ODGs like Darwin, Wind, Jenkins - I think there are plenty of examples out there of writing about golf courses that yield as nice a mix of pleasure and insight as Wallace's "Federer Both Flesh and Not" or, outside of tennis, "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again."


I would have loved to read what Wallace thought about golf, but I don't think it would have been overly positive. At any rate it's a disservice to the writers we have, and their craft, to hold them up against DFW.


Perhaps we can mail each of golf writing's best living practitioners a bandana if you think that might help.

[Peter Pallotta]

Tim - no offence intended to any writer or to those you mentioned --all of whom, as I did when I wrote television documentaries, fit their talents into a specific 'format' and tailor those talents to fill specific functions/needs; but DFW was to me one of the finest essayists of all time, and in quoting me you left out the part about what, in my mind, made him so special and so good: that unique/very rare combination of deep insight, careful precision, soulful poetry and sheer literary talent. Yes: I'd like very much to have read DFW writing about golf course architecture; it wasn't a criticism of what we already *have*, it was a longing to read what we currently *don't*, and with DFW never will.

[JMEvensky]

Tim - no offence intended to any writer or to those you mentioned --all of whom, as I did when I wrote television documentaries, fit their talents into a specific 'format' and tailor those talents to fill specific functions/needs; but DFW was to me one of the finest essayists of all time, and in quoting me you left out the part about what, in my mind, made him so special and so good: that unique/very rare combination of deep insight, careful precision, soulful poetry and sheer literary talent. Yes: I'd like very much to have read DFW writing about golf course architecture; it wasn't a criticism of what we already *have*, it was a longing to read what we currently *don't*, and with DFW never will.

Should've figured you for a DFW fan--respect.

[Tim Gavrich]

Tim - no offence intended to any writer or to those you mentioned --all of whom, as I did when I wrote television documentaries, fit their talents into a specific 'format' and tailor those talents to fill specific functions/needs; but DFW was to me one of the finest essayists of all time, and in quoting me you left out the part about what, in my mind, made him so special and so good: that unique/very rare combination of deep insight, careful precision, soulful poetry and sheer literary talent. Yes: I'd like very much to have read DFW writing about golf course architecture; it wasn't a criticism of what we already *have*, it was a longing to read what we currently *don't*, and with DFW never will.

Are all of the finest essayists/other writers of all time maximalists like Wallace? Presumably some (read: all) of his peers worked more economically but no less poignantly. It's not an essay, but my all-time favorite short story - "The School," by Donald Barthelme - is less than a thousand words. The impact it makes in such a short amount of time makes it feel like magic. I struggle with brevity/economy in my own writing so perhaps my admiration for that story is in part from jealousy that I can't replicate its effect.


This may seem like a tangent, but I think it connects back to the nature and evolution of GCA criticism. I think we need to push back on this blinkered (IMO) position - everyone who is not Wallace is inferior - and its analogs with regard to our much narrower area of interest. To adopt a title from an opposite of Wallace's, Ernest Hemingway, golf course writing should be concerned with identifying the "Clean, Well-Lighted Place" in the world, communicating why they are so and encouraging their proliferation. The "serious criticism" of high-profile (often not widely accessible) courses is good, but it needs to continue to be supplemented by greater coverage of the Clean Well-Lighted Places.

[Steve Lang]

   The Clean Well lighted place is now Top Golf...


How can there be a larger popular audience for serious criticism when human attention spans are now approaching those of a goldfish?  Declining with the electronic media explosion of the 21st century.


See  link human-attention-span

[Peter Pallotta]

Tim -
I agree. The quality of the criticism is more important than the style of the writing. The concise and crystal-clear critique can be wonderful -- but in any case (and to get back to Tom's initial post) I'd like it to be 'serious criticism' rather than, say, a 'review' that tends to confuse/conflate "I don't like this" with "This doesn't work".

[Tom_Doak]

Perhaps we can mail each of golf writing's best living practitioners a bandana if you think that might help.

Wouldn't cost much to send out a handful of bandanas, at most. 


The standard of golf writing is not what it used to be, but that is probably because nobody wants to pay for writing anymore.  I was re-reading Patric Dickinson's book, A Round of Golf Courses, this week, and his descriptions of courses [and diagrams!] make most of today's pundits look like monkeys at a typewriter.  Of course, Dickinson was a poet and a translator of Latin and Greek classics, and a scratch golfer to boot.

[Edward Glidewell]

Totally fair for someone who debuted at 15. I think she's grown enough as a performer that her masterpiece is hopefully ahead of her, and involves that classic formula of Killer Songs + Killer Musicians + Killer Performances All Around.

All else being equal, music is better when that happens.

I don't think that's always true -- an individual with a clear, specific vision of exactly what they want in all aspects of a song can be as good or better than anything else. Of course, I mainly have Brian Wilson in mind when I say that (one of my all-time favorites), and there aren't very many like him in numerous ways. Not that he didn't have an exceptionally talented group of musicians (the Wrecking Crew) to work with, but they were almost like instruments he was playing rather than people adding their own voices to a song.

[/size]On the other hand, Van Morrison is also one of my absolute favorites, and a lot of his work has revolved around collecting a group of talented musicians and letting them just play/improvise along with whatever songs he wrote.

[Lou_Duran]

I was 27, and that was tongue in cheek.  It is absolutely amazing to me that 30+ years later, the book is taken so seriously that Lou Duran is going to doxx me for not spending more time at the Ohio State University Golf Course [the version they blew up!] before giving it a 5.  I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

.....

I'm certainly not always right, and everything's a matter of opinion, but there is so much bulls**t around the golf business that even a passing glance of the Truth is downright dangerous.

You should do neither.  I had to look up the word "doxx" to understand what I supposedly have done to you.  It does not much matter to me what you thought about Scarlet.  But you are Tom Doak not Harvey Schwartz and your opinions on golf architecture do carry some weight widely.  It does matter to me, however, when you call someone a liar for essentially telling the truth.


BTW, Scarlet in 2018 was not that much different than when I played it regularly in the 1970s.   The biggest differences are that Nicklaus denuded the site of junk trees, deepened and moved some of the bunkers, and relocated #4 green to the east closer to the lake.  The Athletic Department has made it more difficult and expensive for students to play, and it appeared to be in much better playing condition and less busy than when I was a student member (for around $100 annually).  I suspect that if you took an hour tour of the course today, you would probably still give it something around a 5.  Despite its MacKenzie routing, it is just not your type or style of course.


I am mostly in agreement with your last sentence.  Approaching "the Truth" is only dangerous if we take ourselves too seriously and react badly when our personal views are challenged.  I am fortunate in that my tastes of golf architecture are eclectic and have no expectations that anything done by humans can approach perfection.

[Tim Gallant]

Don Mahaffey made a post in the Sweetens Cove thread that I thought deserved a topic of its own.  Here it is:

The challenge for all modern cult classics with followings built on social media and the internet is sooner or later they will become the subject of a real critique. Wolf Point may be in that group and while I love the golf course and what we did, it’s never really been the subject of serious criticism like all the greats. Sweaters, WP9, WP...all deserve real study to back up the hype. I happen to believe that one or two can withstand it, but maybe not all will survive and come out on the other side ranked as high.

This post made me smile because it raised several questions simultaneously:

1.  Is there really much "serious criticism" of golf architecture?

2.  What are the other "cult courses" Don left out?

3.  The importance [or not] of rankings generally, because he did go there at the end of his post.



So, here goes my response.  Apologies if it gets a bit long.

1.  I'll keep this part short.  There is not a lot of serious criticism of golf architecture.  There certainly isn't in the golf magazines:  they don't want to offend anybody.  This web site is supposedly a leading source of such criticism, but its founder never says writes anything critical.  I used to do some, but I get attacked as "biased" half the time I try nowadays.  No one has picked up the mantle, as far as I have seen.



3.  The magazines use rankings as a proxy for criticism, because they can't be bothered to write a long form piece about design.  Most people fall into that same trap, which might be why Don fell back on talking about rankings in the end . . . plus his and Mike's work at Wolf Point has now been "validated" by a ranking, so he now believes they are important.


Rankings are pretty important WITHIN THE GOLF BUSINESS.  Golf courses advertise off the back of them; once you've been ranked you can advertise it forever, even if your course was removed years ago.  Designers whose courses are ranked can charge much more to future clients for fees, in theory anyway.  They can make or break careers, even though getting a ranking is no guarantee of business success, for a golf course or for a designer.


And, let's face it, rankings are trash.  They are the carefully assembled and collated opinions of a bunch of anonymous guys who think they know something.  When I was a freshman at MIT, there was an acronym for that:  GIGO.


[To all my panelist friends, this is not a personal attack; I was once in the same place, fighting valiantly to make the system better.  If you really want to contribute, start asking, why are all these other guys on this panel?  What do they know?]


I'll tackle the cult courses in a separate post.

Tom,


I started a thread, which I hoped would be an honest attempt at judging the merits of certain work that was happening in the UK:


https://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,67394.msg1610859.html#msg1610859


To this day, it's the thread that sticks in my mind the most, and the one that more people reached out to me about than any other.


There's so much more I'd like to criticise in the UK, but there are a few brutal truths on why I maybe don't:


- It doesn't feel good. I'm a pretty happy and upbeat person in general. I take 0 pleasure in bashing others or their work. I appreciate some will get a twisted satisfaction (particularly on social media) in calling out others, but I've always tried to encourage the good.


To this point, an example would be the new par-3 at Royal Liverpool, and the work in general that is being done at the course. I think it needs more serious criticism as Don mentions, and behind closed doors, people are having these conversations. But it doesn't feel good to blast the club on GCA (or even privately) when you're friends with members. Not because you're worried about an invite, but because you know what the course means to them. I would probably be disappointed if someone came on here and said North Berwick was a pile of crap.


- I also get nervous when calling out work as I know I'm not an expert. To Blake's point - am I jumping from 1 to 4, or can I appreciate why something was done the way it was? I know I can't to the same level that Clyde J can (for example). I don't feel ashamed about that.


I would love to have more serious criticism as long as it was taken in the right way. I know others in the UK are hesitant to seriously criticise the work being done here because they have skin in the game, and I get that. But it feels like no one else is picking up the baton as you say.


I'll leave with one example: Dumbarnie. It's a perfect example of lacking serious criticism. Everything I've seen on social media and in magazines is glowing about the place. But behind the scenes there are conversations that are much more critical. It's not to say it's terrible, and far from it. But now, if one bad thing is written about a course, it becomes the focal point rather than the 10+ good things that were written. It's like when you get asked at an interview what your weaknesses are. Everyone bullshits it knowing full well what their weaknesses are, but if you're too honest, you get marked down. So why ask in the first place?

[Sean_A]

Maybe I don't fully understand the reason for criticism. I always thought criticism exists for two main reasons. First, criticism is a personal exploration. Earnest critics delve into their subjects because they are interested. The critic gains a better understanding of the subject by going through their process which when at least partially complete will be presented to others. Which leads to the second reason, guiding others. The style of criticism can range from factual to lyrical. This doesn't matter nearly as much as being honest. There is no point in expressing a dishonest opinion or suppressing an honest opinion...if you are a critic.

As has been pointed out previously, there is virtually no platform, money or future career prospects in proper criticism of golf courses. Maybe things are on the turn with podcasting. I am waiting for narrated drone work to be used as a tool for public criticism. I can definitely see this as a possibility in conjunction with podcasting.

Tim, I get your point about critism. It is easy to get led down rabbit holes which are usually pointless. I miss Ian Andrew on this site because I knew an in depth exchange with him would lead to better things. But I never worry if folks don't like my favourite courses. In the end I hope to be entertained and learn something thru the discussion.

Ciao

[Tim Martin]

Tim, I get your point about critism. It is easy to get led down rabbit holes which are usually pointless. I miss Ian Andrew on this site because I knew an in depth exchange with him would lead to better things. But I never worry if folks don't like my favourite courses. In the end I hope to be entertained and learn something thru the discussion.

Ciao

Sean-I was happy to see that Ian posted on the Cherry Hill thread yesterday replete with some photos. I missed him as well as a fan of his restoration work and writings. He’s got quite a body of work that some may be unaware of.

[Don Mahaffey]

I've been away from GCA since this "criticism" driven thread and other's started days ago. Busy at my day, and night, job of building golf. And every day that I get to do that I am indescribably grateful to earn a living working in the dirt with others building golf. So I always feel a little hypocritical if I start to criticise the very business that affords me that living.


I've read Blake's very well written post in reply to my "emotion" driven theme of criticism, or maybe not criticism, but simply the liking or disliking of the golf experience on a given course. And while I haven't read every word on this thread and the others that it has spawned, I've yet to see anyone really describe why we like what we like. And maybe that's the way it should be as I just don't know how you bring empirical thoughts into something you feel. I know we try, and I know it's done in the various arts by experts, but I play golf; I look at paintings and listen to music. Landscape and building architecture is a little more participatory than just observation as one experiences the look and the spaces, but no art I know of involves the critic as much as golf architecture. And my game is different than yours.


So I could go on the Streamsong thread and say, #7 feels awkward to me, but I want to play it, and what sense does that make? I don't like how the routing works in that part of the course, but I like very much that the green complex doesn't work as predictable as so many in golf think things should. I like courses that have bad bounces, and that's probably the biggest difference I have with most who build golf as eliminating the bad bounce seems to be at the top of so many lists. You can give me a checklist of steps or qualities I'm supposed to follow or look for, and I doubt bad bounce is going to be on it, at least on the plus side.


So when Blake and Peter and I had our little run of name dropping threads, and I brought up the quote "educate the creativity out" that is sort of what I was trying to get at. We spend so much time planning and building and finishing and maintaining assuring it all works, but some of the best doesn't. Explain that.


The first time I played #7 at the blue, I  didn't like the how it fit in the flow of holes, it made me a little anxious....thinking WTF Tom, but the setting was nice, and the company too as we waited. Then I hit what seemed like a great shot, and it hit the green and ended up in the water. And I said I'll get you next time you SOB. I don't want Tom to fix the hole, I want to play it until I get my fair share of good bounces.


Golf holes with no uncertainty are dull, and making them appear hazardous while building concave shapes to protect golfers in the name of fun is the most boring golf of all.

[Tom_Doak]

The first time I played #7 at the blue, I  didn't like the how it fit in the flow of holes, it made me a little anxious....thinking WTF Tom, but the setting was nice, and the company too as we waited. Then I hit what seemed like a great shot, and it hit the green and ended up in the water. And I said I'll get you next time you SOB. I don't want Tom to fix the hole, I want to play it until I get my fair share of good bounces.

Golf holes with no uncertainty are dull, and making them appear hazardous while building concave shapes to protect golfers in the name of fun is the most boring golf of all.

Hi Don:


I will post something about #7 here and hope it does not interrupt people from posting about it on the Streamsong Blue thread.


From the first time I set foot at Streamsong, our client Rich Mack pointed over the lake at the green site for #7 and said, "What about a hole playing over to there?"  Bill Coore pointedly did not have a hole there on any of this routings, though he did have what became #16 Red at the end of the lake, to a green site that was not so obvious to me or to Rich Mack.


When Bill and I did the 36-hole plan, we had the 7th Blue as a short par-3 along the tee side of the lake, not playing across.  I don't think either of us really loved that idea; it might even have been one of the things that helped Bill choose to build the Red course instead.  I was concerned we'd have to do something that took away from 15 Red, and then on top of that, The Mosaic Company was concerned about the safety of golfers being on the slopes of the big lake, which were not 100% stable.  [When we worked near any of the lakes, the guy in the dozer had to have a life preserver.]  I was really not excited about building a hole where you missed the green right, and found a sign saying you weren't allowed to go hit it.


Once it was determined we would build the Blue course, I had all of my associates down to do a walk-through, and when we looked at #7, Brian Schneider asked why I hadn't gone across the lake instead?  Honestly, no one had ever looked at the green site from the current tee . . . Rich Mack had always been looking at it straight across from the line of the forward tee, which was not a good hole, and I had just dismissed the idea of a green over there.  Plus of course didn't fit well into the routing. 


But from the angle of the current blue tee, the scale of the hole reminded me of the 9th at Yale, and if we cleaned up the shoulder of dune that came in front of the green on the right, it wasn't an impossible carry for most golfers.  It was a way more appealing option than the problematic short par-3 on the near side, apart from the walk back over the bridge.  So, I suggested it to Rich Mack, knowing he would jump at it.  And people sure seem to like taking photos of it.


The green is more difficult than I intended, or realized.  There was a lot of slope from left to right and front to back, and Eric took a dozer over there three different times to soften it, but it's still nasty.  If Mike Keiser owned the place, we'd have changed it last year when they re-grassed all of the greens [if not before then], but we've discussed it more than once and the client has always been in favor of leaving it nasty. 

[Ira Fishman]

Tim, I get your point about critism. It is easy to get led down rabbit holes which are usually pointless. I miss Ian Andrew on this site because I knew an in depth exchange with him would lead to better things. But I never worry if folks don't like my favourite courses. In the end I hope to be entertained and learn something thru the discussion.

Ciao

Sean-I was happy to see that Ian posted on the Cherry Hill thread yesterday replete with some photos. I missed him as well as a fan of his restoration work and writings. He’s got quite a body of work that some may be unaware of.

Great to know that Ian may be back. His blog is so informative.


Ira

[Ira Fishman]

If there's value in our geekdom, it's that we might be just a little more willing to dig into what actually creates architectural appeal. The traveling retail golfer sees it, and consumes it. He sees it at Augusta, Sawgrass, Tobacco Road, and even locally at a place like Henry County CC that every golfer in Kentucky this side of Mayhugh loves, even though it's a $30 course that just looks like a rolling bit of farm land with a Doak 2 slapped down on it. There's SOMETHING that makes it different from the rest of the $30 farmland courses scattered around the state, and I don't totally understand it, but it's clearly there when I talk to golfers, or register months in advance to ensure I get a spot in their fast-filling 144-person Invitational.

Serious criticism, to me, is seeking to understand that appeal. We spend too much time prescribing what should be appealing, and then complaining that the average player just doesn't get it. I think that more often means that WE aren't getting it.

"Everyone in Kentucky likes it" therefore it has architectural merit is not a conclusion I would agree with. The popularity you refer to could be due to hospitality (first rate), price (cheap), or course design. I'm sorry that I did not succumb to the charms of the course as you did. I can accept that it appeals to some (maybe even many), but not that discussion of its design justifies more than a brief thread. There's little on the ground that needs to be copied or isn't executed better elsewhere.

Hey man, I don't hold it against you. I wish we'd had a little more downtime at this year's Mashie to talk through some of what we see differently out there, keeping it as brief as the course warrants. It's not in my canon by any means, but I grew up playing the Longviews, Wild Turkey Traces, Duckers Lakes, and Coal Ridges of the world. Weissinger Hills might have been the nicest course I had ever played when I first saw it about age 20. Kearney Hill blew my mind a few months later.


I probably have more of an appetite than most to dive into the nuances of a pasture links, but hell, I spent the first 15 years of my golf life playing nothing else, with people who played nothing else. A few guys at the Mashie thought I overrate Lawsonia too, but it's just about the pinnacle of that variety of golf that I love so much and I've accepted that I think it's the best course in Wisconsin. I first learned of it the same way I first heard of HCCC - through the mouths of local retail golfers I met at the munis of Madison who insisted it was a great place to play.


My wife got real fired up about the literary canon last week, and at some point during a two hour debate about whether anyone should ever care about an old white guy's opinion or not (her arguments have a horrifying way of time traveling into the future), she actually brought up The Old Course to be like "Just because you and your golf nerd friends think that place is so awesome doesn't mean it's any better than some course you'd never give a crap about because it's not as fancy." So then I tried to explain that it in some ways has more in common with the unfancy courses than the fancy ones, and that it's basically the answer to every architectural question, and that those things do sort of make the case that it occupies a unique place of influence and relatability that make it canonical. And then I wondered aloud whether Dannebrog is canonical and she told me to shut up about the place with the damn cows already.


And of course, she also added "And don't even get me started on that Sawgrass piece of shit again!"


I don't know what my point is. I guess it's that I hate The Great Gatsby, but I do think there's value in everybody reading it because it gives me a nice barometer. When someone says "I like Fitzgerald" I immediately know "That's someone whose opinion I should not plan my reading list around."


I think you should definitely stop at Dannebrog on a trip to the Sandhills if you haven't already. It's useful that when I say that, you know you shouldn't, right?

Jason,


We should make sure that our wives do not team up—we would end up on the short of the stick. Mine is not as quite as opposed to the idea that some courses are just simply in a league of their own, but she does not react well when I ask, “Don’t you remember this course or that hole?” On the other hand, she did love Brora and the sheep.


I was not a lit major, but I do remember discussions comparing works by the same author perhaps not so much about better or worse but about evolution of thinking/style. And your Fitzgerald reference strikes home. I believe Gatsby to be a strong political statement but not a great work of art. On the other hand, I found Tender is the Night to be beautifully written. My inchoate point about Gca criticism: comparisons across courses by the same architect is worthwhile so long as analysis is stated. Perhaps that is what we will get if Tom Doak continues his threads about his courses.


Ira

[John Kirk]

I don't think that's always true -- an individual with a clear, specific vision of exactly what they want in all aspects of a song can be as good or better than anything else. Of course, I mainly have Brian Wilson in mind when I say that (one of my all-time favorites), and there aren't very many like him in numerous ways. Not that he didn't have an exceptionally talented group of musicians (the Wrecking Crew) to work with, but they were almost like instruments he was playing rather than people adding their own voices to a song.

On the other hand, Van Morrison is also one of my absolute favorites, and a lot of his work has revolved around collecting a group of talented musicians and letting them just play/improvise along with whatever songs he wrote.

Hi Edward. 
Just a brief response to indicate I read your remarks.  Yeah, the Beatles and Steely Dan are two more examples of artists who used the studio to perfect their work.  The first Beatles album was completed in a day, whereas their last, Abbey Road, took six months.  Some carefully produced work is very successful, and some (especially with pop songs trying to be hit songs) sounds overproduced and lifeless.Like you, I am a big fan of Van Morrison.  Van takes his new songs on the road and refines the best ones.  Over the course of a full career, the people who keep writing songs and cranking out new albums tend to get more interesting things done.Making a half-hearted attempt to relate this to golf, having a little quirk in a golf course — a few unexpected features and "imperfections" you wouldn't expect — makes me like a course more.  Unless the odd feature impacts drainage.  Like Don Mahaffey wrote recently, bad bounces are a good, natural thing.P.S. I am so tired of having to insert extra carriage returns to try and get these posts to format correctly.  Anybody know what I'm missing?  This has been going on for years.  Is there some trick to getting my paragraphs to separate with less than three returns?  In this case, I couldn't get it to format properly with a number of approaches.

[Kalen Braley]

John,

If you want your text to look like this.

With only 1 line of space in between lines.

Select the entire text of your post as shown, go to Font Size found above, and set it to 10.

Kalen

[John Kirk]

Kalen,
That doesn't work.
The issue is not the font size.
The issue is spacing between paragraphs.
This was written using the return key twice between sentences.
If I want to have the paragraphs spaced properly, I have to hit the return key three times.
In some cases like the last post, nothing worked to separate the paragraphs.

[Kalen Braley]

John,

That's certainly very odd.  If I only do one carriage return, it correctly puts no space between my lines, but if I do 2 carriage returns it will appear as if I did 3.  Selecting the text and picking a font size will resolve it thou.  Perhaps these side effects vary from browser to browser.  I always post from the same machine with Chrome on Windows 10.