Victoria's Secret — Are We There In Golf Design?

[Jason Topp]

I recently encountered a tight tree-lined tee shot on a miserable golf course and found myself energized by the challenge of putting the tee ball in play.  I used to play such holes all of the time.  I would not want a steady diet of such holes but it was a reminder to not be too dogmatic about this stuff.

[Tom_Doak]

It’s funny to me how there is so much perceived bias and yet there is such trouble identifying exactly what are the elements that make up the approved style. 


A good part of it is simply about working on beautiful land without encumbrance from housing developments. On the rare occasions I’ve done something with housing attached, it’s usually lost in the shuffle.  And building courses on sand allows for sexier features, certainly - but that is hardly a new phenomenon, it’s just one that people forgot about between 1940 and 2000.


It’s the nature of journalism that in many fields, a “big three” attract most of the attention.  journalists don’t like to look like they are playing favorites, and three is the minimum where it doesn’t look like you’re shilling for a friend, even if you are.  For a long time it was Nicklaus-Dye-Fazio in design, just like Nicklaus-Palmer-Player in golf.


One thing I don’t think you realize is just how much time we have spent over the years talking to golf writers etc. and getting to know them, which leads to more publicity.  That’s one reason Nicklaus and other pros have such a leg up when they get into the business - it took me twenty or thirty years of doing interviews to get even a fraction of that kind of name recognition.  But there comes a tipping point, where it goes from the writer thinking they’re doing you a favor, to thinking you’re doing them one.

[Mike_Trenham]

The way things feel like the 1980s is we’ve replaced signature holes as the marketing ploy with photogenic bunkers that play a lot easier than they look.  Plus this has filtered full force into the course restoration/renovations space unlike signature holes.


That was my first reaction to the thread title.

[Anthony Butler]

A good part of it is simply about working on beautiful land without encumbrance from housing developments. On the rare occasions I’ve done something with housing attached, it’s usually lost in the shuffle.  And building courses on sand allows for sexier features, certainly - but that is hardly a new phenomenon, it’s just one that people forgot about between 1940 and 2000.

The fact that most of the acclaimed courses of the last 20+ years have been built in non-urban environments is no coincidence. The amount of space given to the architect allows them to play with the biggest asset in their toolkit - scale. My former boss - now head of Google Creative Studios - told me that people only react emotionally to things that are very big or very small. He attempted to prove this to me one day by commissioning stick-on logotype for our ad agency's name that was at most 48pt type.. This seemed ridiculously out of scale for the 8ft glass door entrance of our 5 story commercial brownstone on Dupont Circle in DC. Over the next few weeks, however, we observed a lot of people noticing SOMETHING SMALL had changed on the building and coming closer to the door to read the name and try to figure out what was going behind the glass doors.

The same applies in reverse.. giant bunkers, acres of closely mown grass surrounding the greens, raggedy bunkers of varying sizes... all designed to reframe the notion of a neatly presented golf course and give the golfer more to think about. Streamsong is a good example of this, with much of the desired scale provided by the mining company pushing sand around for a couple of decades before abandoning the location 25 years ago. 

[Jeff Segol]

Jeff Segol — Good points. Re: Baylands, thank you for playing. I must defend "our baby" there...Holes 1, 7, 9, 11, 12 and 15 play north/south. No. 12 and 15 are par-3s, so into or downwind is not as big deal. The other 12 holes are all at 45-degrees to north/south or 90-degrees, direct cross-winds. Did you only play 1, 7, 9, 11, 12 and 15? [/size]


No Forrest, I always play all 18 of your holes.    To be specific, the holes I miss from the Bell course are 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14. They were a cross-wind short par 4, short par 3 into the wind, par 5 into the wind, par 4 cross wind and a longer par 3 that was a cross wind. As you know, those holes were lost to both the flood control project, and to the Council's insistence on the land for theoretical future soccer fields. What we have now are two fairly long par 4s into the wind, and a par three into the wind on a shot to a basically island green. It's just a more difficult start to the back when the wind blows. Like I said, the course is fine, it's just more difficult than before, which has changed the nature of tournament play there, and who is in our membership. We're still friends. I'll be playing in the next tournament there on the 11th. Looking forward to it as usual.[/color]

[Jeff Segol]

We have indeed entered a  throwback era architecturally that requires a certain topography to render its aesthetics and strategy. But the requisite type of land and soil is far away and so we see more remote course complexes that are miles away and require a private plane to a small airport. Doak and Coore/Crenshaw seemingly limit  much of their work to those terrains that meet their concept of what golf should be about. That is their right. But most golfers can’t make it to these remote destinations. They want to play where they live, which often doesn’t enjoy ideal old age golf topography. This begs the question: are architects who limit their work to the best palettes better than those  who work with the land that they are given?  Architects in other fields would appreciate the debate. Their work is reflective and incorporates the surrounds that they are given.

That's the point I was trying to make, and I'll also add to it the issues surrounding how the design of a course impacts the cost of maintaining it, which at least somewhat relates to the cost to play it. All the handwringing that was occurring pre-pandemic about the cost of golf, the time it takes to play, the loss of players, etc., has been substantially muted by the pandemic-based boom that the game experienced. If we have another signficant recession (I hope not) and start getting course closures again, maintenance costs could again be an issue.

[Tom_Doak]

I would respectfully disagree with the claim that I only choose sites that are suited to my style.  My style is the result of the places I’ve worked, and that includes such atypical sites as Stone Eagle, CommonGround, and St Emilion.


However, certainly I try to choose the most interesting projects and best sites I’m offered.  Who wouldn’t?  That’s also key to being able to retain talented associates instead of them all going their own way.



In the end, the only goal is to build great courses.  I’m not trying to prove that I’m a better designer than anyone else; I just want to leave behind as many cool golf courses as I can.

[jeffwarne]

IMHO, the tide turned when architects began doing less numbers of projects. and made bold choices to say no more often to shite sites and unholy developers.
Building golf for golf's sake rather than to provide yet another amenity in a valley to sell homesites.


It took patience and discipline to follow such a path. rather than just jumping at every job presented by yet another developer with zero interest beyond selling homes.


I was told repeatedly in the 80's and 90's that all the best sites were gone...lol.

[Daryl David]

I would respectfully disagree with the claim that I only choose sites that are suited to my style.  My style is the result of the places I’ve worked, and that includes such atypical sites as Stone Eagle, CommonGround, and St Emilion.


However, certainly I try to choose the most interesting projects and best sites I’m offered.  Who wouldn’t?  That’s also key to being able to retain talented associates instead of them all going their own way.



In the end, the only goal is to build great courses.  I’m not trying to prove that I’m a better designer than anyone else; I just want to leave behind as many cool golf courses as I can.

So true. I have played 20 of your designs. All very different sites. All very good courses. That should be the test of competency. Turn all different kinds sites into very interesting and fun courses. In my book, you have hit that bar. 

[Ally Mcintosh]

IMHO, the tide turned when architects began doing less numbers of projects. and made bold choices to say no more often to shite sites and unholy developers.
Building golf for golf's sake rather than to provide yet another amenity in a valley to sell homesites.


It took patience and discipline to follow such a path. rather than just jumping at every job presented by yet another developer with zero interest beyond selling homes.


I was told repeatedly in the 80's and 90's that all the best sites were gone...lol.

I don’t really understand this point, Jeff? Sure, architects like Tom chose to not build the wrong type of courses. But the developers of those housing courses didn’t just say “Ah, Tom Doak said no so I’m not going to build it”. It has nothing to do with the architects why there are less of those courses being built now.

[Tom_Doak]

IMHO, the tide turned when architects began doing less numbers of projects. and made bold choices to say no more often to shite sites and unholy developers.
Building golf for golf's sake rather than to provide yet another amenity in a valley to sell homesites.


It took patience and discipline to follow such a path. rather than just jumping at every job presented by yet another developer with zero interest beyond selling homes.


I was told repeatedly in the 80's and 90's that all the best sites were gone...lol.

I don’t really understand this point, Jeff? Sure, architects like Tom chose to not build the wrong type of courses. But the developers of those housing courses didn’t just say “Ah, Tom Doak said no so I’m not going to build it”. It has nothing to do with the architects why there are less of those courses being built now.

Well, I haven't been called to look at that many development courses, but I've been surprised how often I've looked at a project and passed, and the project never happened.


And Jeff is right, that the conventional wisdom when I started in the business was "all the good sites are gone".  LOL.

[Michael Morandi]

I would respectfully disagree with the claim that I only choose sites that are suited to my style.  My style is the result of the places I’ve worked, and that includes such atypical sites as Stone Eagle, CommonGround, and St Emilion.


However, certainly I try to choose the most interesting projects and best sites I’m offered.  Who wouldn’t?  That’s also key to being able to retain talented associates instead of them all going their own way.



In the end, the only goal is to build great courses.  I’m not trying to prove that I’m a better designer than anyone else; I just want to leave behind as many cool golf courses as I can.

And if I were you, with your talent and passion, I’d do the same and have the same objectives. In retrospect, my point in asking whether today’s great “classical” architects would choose a nursery in Augusta was another way to note how  great MacKenzie was that he could design Cypress Point Club and Augusta National.  Quite very different looks. I’m not a historian in these matters, but it seems he had to have both the courage and the confidence to work on such different properties. 

[Sean_A]

I would respectfully disagree with the claim that I only choose sites that are suited to my style.  My style is the result of the places I’ve worked, and that includes such atypical sites as Stone Eagle, CommonGround, and St Emilion.


However, certainly I try to choose the most interesting projects and best sites I’m offered.  Who wouldn’t?  That’s also key to being able to retain talented associates instead of them all going their own way.



In the end, the only goal is to build great courses.  I’m not trying to prove that I’m a better designer than anyone else; I just want to leave behind as many cool golf courses as I can.

And if I were you, with your talent and passion, I’d do the same and have the same objectives. In retrospect, my point in asking whether today’s great “classical” architects would choose a nursery in Augusta was another way to note how  great MacKenzie was that he could design Cypress Point Club and Augusta National.  Quite very different looks. I’m not a historian in these matters, but it seems he had to have both the courage and the confidence to work on such different properties.

The pull of Bobby Jones must have been hard to ignore.

Ciao

[SB]

Styles come and go, but I see it more along the lines of home architecture.  At any given time, there are lots of different types of homes being built, but a particular style starts to stand out and be associated with the era.  Take this list (not mine)

• TUDOR STYLE (1920's) ...
• CRAFTSMAN-BUNGALOW (1930's) ...
• RANCH (1940's) ...
• MIDCENTURY MODERN (1950's) ...
• SPLIT-LEVEL HOMES (1960's) ...
• CONTEMPORARY STYLE (1970's)
• NEO COLONIAL (1980's)
• McMANSION (1990's)

Whether it's houses or pleats on pants, eventually the style changes, and what was popular is no longer popular.  Eventually it comes back around and becomes popular again.  Midcentury Modern homes are all the rage now, but you couldn't sell them at any price 20 years ago.  I live in a neighborhood of classic colonial homes built in the 70's (which was itself recycling colonial homes from earlier), but that style is not popular now and people are going out of their way to hide that fact.  A guy in our neighborhood just painted half of his house black to make it look different!

Golf is no different.  Golden age courses fell out of favor, then were back in favor.  Frilly edge bunkers have been popular for the last 20 yearsbut eventually people will try something new.  I'm guessing at some point all of the courses built in the 50's and 60's will become popular and RTJ will be appreciated on this site.  Clubs will tear out their frilly edged bunkers and put in big round disks.  Then those will get ripped out and replaced with 1990 era Fazio bunkers.  Then frilly edged bunkers will be back.  Trees will be planted.  Then cut down.  Runway tees will be cool again.  The cycle rolls on.

[Cal Carlisle]

Golden age courses fell out of favor, then were back in favor. 

Were they really ever out of favor, though? Seems to me (at least here in Ohio) beloved Golden Age golf courses have always been popular. They may have fallen in the eyes of course raters over the years, but they've always been popular even if they've received less-than-successful makeovers.

[Tim Martin]

Styles come and go, but I see it more along the lines of home architecture.  At any given time, there are lots of different types of homes being built, but a particular style starts to stand out and be associated with the era.  Take this list (not mine)

• TUDOR STYLE (1920's) ...
• CRAFTSMAN-BUNGALOW (1930's) ...
• RANCH (1940's) ...
• MIDCENTURY MODERN (1950's) ...
• SPLIT-LEVEL HOMES (1960's) ...
• CONTEMPORARY STYLE (1970's)
• NEO COLONIAL (1980's)
• McMANSION (1990's)

Whether it's houses or pleats on pants, eventually the style changes, and what was popular is no longer popular.  Eventually it comes back around and becomes popular again.  Midcentury Modern homes are all the rage now, but you couldn't sell them at any price 20 years ago.  I live in a neighborhood of classic colonial homes built in the 70's (which was itself recycling colonial homes from earlier), but that style is not popular now and people are going out of their way to hide that fact.  A guy in our neighborhood just painted half of his house black to make it look different!

Golf is no different.  Golden age courses fell out of favor, then were back in favor.  Frilly edge bunkers have been popular for the last 20 yearsbut eventually people will try something new.  I'm guessing at some point all of the courses built in the 50's and 60's will become popular and RTJ will be appreciated on this site.  Clubs will tear out their frilly edged bunkers and put in big round disks.  Then those will get ripped out and replaced with 1990 era Fazio bunkers.  Then frilly edged bunkers will be back.  Trees will be planted.  Then cut down.  Runway tees will be cool again.  The cycle rolls on.

It’s an interesting analogy between home architecture and golf course architecture. Of the home styles listed in your example I have always been enamored of the 1920’s Tudor. They carry a level of detail and charm not found in the other examples referenced and emulate the english manor homes of the 17th and 18th centuries. The Golden Age of golf architecture had its heyday in the 1920’s as well with a level of detail and charm not seen since until this new Golden Age of roughly the last twenty years. The current golf architects practicing the style have a leg up with construction and design practices not unlike a modern day home builder would have when constructing a Tudor style home. I don’t think the new Golden Age courses will fall out of favor as those of the original period did but in time the current design practices most likely will.

[Michael Morandi]

I would respectfully disagree with the claim that I only choose sites that are suited to my style.  My style is the result of the places I’ve worked, and that includes such atypical sites as Stone Eagle, CommonGround, and St Emilion.


However, certainly I try to choose the most interesting projects and best sites I’m offered.  Who wouldn’t?  That’s also key to being able to retain talented associates instead of them all going their own way.



In the end, the only goal is to build great courses.  I’m not trying to prove that I’m a better designer than anyone else; I just want to leave behind as many cool golf courses as I can.

And if I were you, with your talent and passion, I’d do the same and have the same objectives. In retrospect, my point in asking whether today’s great “classical” architects would choose a nursery in Augusta was another way to note how  great MacKenzie was that he could design Cypress Point Club and Augusta National.  Quite very different looks. I’m not a historian in these matters, but it seems he had to have both the courage and the confidence to work on such different properties.

The pull of Bobby Jones must have been hard to ignore.

Ciao

Good point

[Michael Morandi]

IMHO, the tide turned when architects began doing less numbers of projects. and made bold choices to say no more often to shite sites and unholy developers.
Building golf for golf's sake rather than to provide yet another amenity in a valley to sell homesites.


It took patience and discipline to follow such a path. rather than just jumping at every job presented by yet another developer with zero interest beyond selling homes.


I was told repeatedly in the 80's and 90's that all the best sites were gone...lol.

I don’t really understand this point, Jeff? Sure, architects like Tom chose to not build the wrong type of courses. But the developers of those housing courses didn’t just say “Ah, Tom Doak said no so I’m not going to build it”. It has nothing to do with the architects why there are less of those courses being built now.

Well, I haven't been called to look at that many development courses, but I've been surprised how often I've looked at a project and passed, and the project never happened.


And Jeff is right, that the conventional wisdom when I started in the business was "all the good sites are gone".  LOL.

Weren’t most of the good sites within a reasonable distance of where people live gone or soon to be gone or unaffordable, in part explaining destination golf in remote locations?  When I played LACC recently, my host said that only the land comprising NY’s Central Park was more expensive than that  on which his club’s 36 holes reside.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Forrest,


I re-read your original thread post.  It strikes me that I have always and will always prefer the girl next door look, and maybe women in jeans, since that is what they typically wore when I was in HS and college.  No amount of glossy ads will tell me what to like in a woman!  How does that translate to golf?  There may be an equivalent to gca in that some women and some courses just try too hard to attract attention, which makes us suspicious of what we are seeing...........


I tend to agree that the media just fixates on what story will sell magazines, clicks, whatever.  RTJ was big because his style was different, Pete Dye was big because his style was different, some pros got big because they were already big, and a few names got big for designing big budget courses that were more friendly to play......perhaps the only ones to get recognition for a real design issue.....


I agree with TD.  Thanks to all the previous eras, golf got big.  The economy was doing well, and some guys who fell in love with golf for whatever reason (but the courses themselves were a big part, I'm sure had the resources to up the ante to great sites not many had thought about.  Architecturally, the bar has been set by the quality of sites (and the "experience" of a golf buddy trip far exceeding what they play every day.)


I also agree that some young architect is out there trying to create "the next big thing" and that this current style will eventually be looked at similarly to any other era, with the best remaining the best, and the rest dropping in rankings to something different, just because pop culture likes things to be different......ya know, maybe a course designed with no angles and typical shot dispersions being the big strategic element.


As always, just my take.

[Kalen Braley]

Tom,

I'm curious if you would have passed on a LACC, Riviera, Pebble, etc back in the day knowing it would be surrounded by housing?

Or for that matter if you passed on Wine Valley (as originally it was to include a housing development, thou still not yet thankfully)

[Charlie Goerges]

Tom,

I'm curious if you would have passed on a LACC, Riviera, Pebble, etc back in the day knowing it would be surrounded by housing?

Those are nothing like modern housing courses, I don't think you're talking apples to apples in this case.

[Kalen Braley]

Tom,

I'm curious if you would have passed on a LACC, Riviera, Pebble, etc back in the day knowing it would be surrounded by housing?

Those are nothing like modern housing courses, I don't think you're talking apples to apples in this case.

But the end aesthetic is the same none-the-less, and I think that's always been the primary beef. 

Did the ODGs talk about that much in thier writings?  I suspect its more a modern day concern than it was back then.

[Charlie Goerges]

Tom,

I'm curious if you would have passed on a LACC, Riviera, Pebble, etc back in the day knowing it would be surrounded by housing?

Those are nothing like modern housing courses, I don't think you're talking apples to apples in this case.

But the end aesthetic is the same none-the-less, and I think that's always been the primary beef. 

Did the ODGs talk about that much in thier writings?  I suspect its more a modern day concern than it was back then.

Just seeing houses from the golf course isn't the primary beef here I don't think. It's houses around the perimeter of a property vs. houses surrounding both sides of most (or all) of the highly-fragmented holes. Not to mention the fact that in the newer examples the course often gets short shrift on the quality of the land.


I'd be curious what any of the ODGs had to say about housing on the course too.

[Mike Bodo]

Just seeing houses from the golf course isn't the primary beef here I don't think. It's houses around the perimeter of a property vs. houses surrounding both sides of most (or all) of the highly-fragmented holes. Not to mention the fact that in the newer examples the course often gets short shrift on the quality of the land.

Agree, Charlie. I don't have issue with houses that surround the permieter of a property at all. However, I hate playing residential courses where the majority of holes are flanked by houses on one or both sides. It's why I purposely avoid playing most Art Hills courses. LOL!


I also agree that the course gets the short end of the stick land-wise in such situations, as often the designer doesn't get the best parcels or sections of land on the property to work with. The golf course effectively becomes an afterthought with the developer hoping the architect can pull a rabbit out of the hat and make magic happen with the hand their dealt.

[Sean_A]

IMHO, the tide turned when architects began doing less numbers of projects. and made bold choices to say no more often to shite sites and unholy developers.
Building golf for golf's sake rather than to provide yet another amenity in a valley to sell homesites.


It took patience and discipline to follow such a path. rather than just jumping at every job presented by yet another developer with zero interest beyond selling homes.


I was told repeatedly in the 80's and 90's that all the best sites were gone...lol.

I don’t really understand this point, Jeff? Sure, architects like Tom chose to not build the wrong type of courses. But the developers of those housing courses didn’t just say “Ah, Tom Doak said no so I’m not going to build it”. It has nothing to do with the architects why there are less of those courses being built now.

Well, I haven't been called to look at that many development courses, but I've been surprised how often I've looked at a project and passed, and the project never happened.


And Jeff is right, that the conventional wisdom when I started in the business was "all the good sites are gone".  LOL.

Weren’t most of the good sites within a reasonable distance of where people live gone or soon to be gone or unaffordable, in part explaining destination golf in remote locations?  When I played LACC recently, my host said that only the land comprising NY’s Central Park was more expensive than that  on which his club’s 36 holes reside.

Absolutely no question about it. Regardless of the risk, it isn't by chance that isolated sandy sites were chosen for what would become a Renaissance.

Ciao