Percentage of Your Golfers that Really Care About Your Golden Age Architect?

[V_Halyard]

The further down the road I get, the smarter Garden City seems. Take the handful of members (likely they are familiar with the Treehouse) who have actually read and fully grok George Thomas' book, hire the best architect/historian they can coax in the door, disband the Green Committee, shut up and get out of the way.

We're not quite this extreme.  We're more along the lines of:

"Because you guys and gals didn't "F" it up last time, we now hear crickets from your tree loving haters.
We're still sitting pretty good after a 145mph wind aided natural disaster so we might as well leave you alone this time."

[Gib_Papazian]

Speaking of "tree loving," members who readily admit knowing nothing about Golden Age design all seem to fancy themselves qualified dendrologists when it comes to the sacred pine tree, planted on the very spot old Joe Shnook's ashes were sprinkled - putting aside it blocks the green from the middle of the fairway and its roots have grown through the bunker liner.


I remember the shrieks and rancorous clubhouse rows over thinning out wooded areas on the Lake Course so dense, nothing but lime-green poa would grow in the adjacent fairways.


"Oh no, if we cut the trees and trim some of the overhangs, it will "make the course too easy."


Yeah, but once our former Green Chair (a Treehouse member - and one of those guys who actually studies the subject endlessly) ramrodded through the renovations and tree clearing, not only did we have actual grass on the fairways, but the same swirling breeze that complicates the Ocean Course on the windward side of the bluffs, added another dimension to the Lake Course.


In other words, the windblocks were gone, the fairways got dry and the golf course began to play as intended for the first time in decades.


The problem is, most Green Committee's have too many seats and therefore votes. If you have two or three members who know the difference between a curator and a wannabe artist, best not to give those social climbing ass kissers any power.


In our case, once the Chair rotated, it has been like giving a retarded monkey a loaded pistol - except it is easier to reason with el mono than an egomaniacal doctor or lawyer nobody ever tells to sit down and shut up.


Better to find the right 2 or 3 members up for the job and make the appointment for life.   


 

[Wayne_Kozun]

I would say that it is about 25% at my club which has a Tillinghast course.  The main lounge is the Tillinghast lounge, and some of the other rooms are named after Tillinghast designed courses like Baltusrol, Winged Foot, etc.  So there is a decent degree of awareness due to those names.

[Gib_Papazian]

95% of my club probably think Willie Watson is either Tom Watson's father - or a character in a Sherlock Holmes story.

[Tom_Doak]

Unpopular opinion:  why should anyone care?


Presumably the better the architect, the better the course, but shouldn't the course [instead of the name] hold up that end of the bargain?


The only reason that the architect's name matters is that it can sometimes be invoked to stop members from thinking they know how to make the third hole better.  But, even then, only sometimes will it stop them.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Tom beat me to it.  So much the better, if I said it, it would have been like throwing in a hand grenade.


But seriously, even barring the original architect, the members don't know what the original course looked like or more importantly, whether or not they would have liked it as much as the course they know well.  And, almost every course has been changed over the years, and without looking it up, they probably give their elders credit for doing it some good reason (in most cases, that fish pond by the 15th green, or overplanting should have never been approved!)

[Ira Fishman]

Unpopular opinion:  why should anyone care?


Presumably the better the architect, the better the course, but shouldn't the course [instead of the name] hold up that end of the bargain?

Spot on. I played dozens rounds on a Langford course not knowing his name. It is a lousy site and a mediocre course. I truly appreciate Ross, but as a kid, I snuck onto one of his courses that was just a place to sneak onto for convenience not because it was a good course, and as an adult I played Grove Park Inn which is pretty mediocre but gets rated well probably because it is a Ross. On the other hand, I have zero idea who designed Elie, The Island Club, Kahili, or Kilspindie, but they all are good to great courses.


Ira

[Gib_Papazian]

Tom,


In a vacuum, there is no reason for any casual player to give a rip whether their home track was designed by Seth Raynor or Seth Rogan . . . . . . but once you get past the "I like this wine vs that one," the tendency to learn more about a subject of interest tends to lead down the rabbit hole of no return.


Wifey hates the fact I pay more attention to the cinematography than the story, but if I like a certain wine vintage and year, I'm going to look for more of what I like - irrespective of critics opinions.


I love Wes Anderson movies and screaming Red Zinfandels - I seek them out with an expectation of some similarities - so the next step is to examine what commonality blows up my skirt.


The point being that *playing golf* - and delving deeply into the game itself as an academic subject - are wildly different pursuits.


Driving a car and becoming expert in the history of the Chevy Camaro or original architecture of C.B Macdonald is just a different vector on the nerd grid.


We are all nerds here . . . . . smart nerds, but nerds. 


 


     

[Mark Mammel]

Unpopular opinion:  why should anyone care?


Presumably the better the architect, the better the course, but shouldn't the course [instead of the name] hold up that end of the bargain?


The only reason that the architect's name matters is that it can sometimes be invoked to stop members from thinking they know how to make the third hole better.  But, even then, only sometimes will it stop them.

Right on. I belong to a club that claimed a Ross heritage for decades- based on limited information but enough to make a case- which is almost certainly a William Watson design. But it's a fabulous course which we are doing our beat to restore with a view to today's game. The members that cared about such things were enthusiastic about Ross lineage; many continue to proclaim it with others recognize Watson's place in the Golden Age pantheon. Lots of others just know it's a great place to play day in and day (year) out and don't actually care who designed it. The good news is we all agree it's a classic we want to preserve.

[Peter Pallotta]

It's true we're nerds.
But I wonder: doesn't liking/loving come before caring?
Maybe the more relevant question is: 'What Percentage of your Golfers Love Playing your Golden Age Architect's Course?'
Maybe some of them actually like Nicklaus or Fazio or Palmer or Hills or C&c courses a whole lot more, but choose the golden age course instead because it was much closer to home and had a decent restaurant, and because all their friends played there.

[V_Halyard]

Unpopular opinion:  why should anyone care?

Presumably the better the architect, the better the course, but shouldn't the course [instead of the name] hold up that end of the bargain?

The only reason that the architect's name matters is that it can sometimes be invoked to stop members from thinking they know how to make the third hole better.  But, even then, only sometimes will it stop them.

Haha that’s ridiculous. In this era and the eras before us, architect is a brand. It conveys the impression that the members / municipality / owner invested in an expert to design the course versus the landscaping company that tends the hydrangeas.
Folks hired Donald Ross over Giles the  Gardner/undertaker down the street.
Of course members should care and know the name of their architect. Even if he writes books and has defined his own scale for the evaluation of a golf course.

[Sean_A]

Unpopular opinion:  why should anyone care?


Presumably the better the architect, the better the course, but shouldn't the course [instead of the name] hold up that end of the bargain?


The only reason that the architect's name matters is that it can sometimes be invoked to stop members from thinking they know how to make the third hole better.  But, even then, only sometimes will it stop them.

It doesn't matter per se unless folks are interested in recapturing or retaining the design elements. That ain't nothing and I think you know it.

Ciao

[Brian Marion]

Unpopular opinion:  why should anyone care?


Presumably the better the architect, the better the course, but shouldn't the course [instead of the name] hold up that end of the bargain?


The only reason that the architect's name matters is that it can sometimes be invoked to stop members from thinking they know how to make the third hole better.  But, even then, only sometimes will it stop them.

Tom, I think the answer is, it depends.


Yes, a course should hold up but so many that are 100 years old or approaching have been changed by committees, time, nature, other arch’s, that the course today is nothing like the original. And maybe nor should it be.


Also, maybe the course was never built to the OGAs design to begin with. More on that later……


So, all in all, doesn’t the OGA just serve as a baseline for comparison and ideation? Like all things, each course will fall on a bell curve of “great to bad”.


But why should the average member care except for bragging rights and marketing? I don’t think they should, no more than I care which hard seltzer is served in the halfway house. Lol