Golf Architecture is a Craft, not Art

[Ben Malach]

I was walking into the pro shop of a well-known club that I am working on.


As I walked in the door to have a visit with the golf pro, a cadre of members was there having a hit and giggle around the simulators they have set up to keep their members engaged as we work diligently on their golf course.


As I enter the room, one of the members pipes up, "Here is the artist."


I politely thank them, but in my guts, I bristle.


"I am not an artist; I am a craftsman."


I repeat this internally, as a majority of golfers aren't interested in the philosophical difference.


Why do I make such a distinction?


Well, there's a clear difference between art and craft. I am not saying that great craftsmen's works can't and aren't regularly elevated to the level of art (I haven't been to an art museum worth its salt that doesn't have at least one piece of furniture on display).


But even in those pieces, the craft is different from the art it hangs across from, as it has to function and it had to have an economic reason to exist. Nobody is frivolously making ornate cabinetry, for instance.


Nobody learns how to turn a chair leg without apprenticeship.


Nobody looks at a freshly tightly bound basket and says, "Hey, this is art." That judgment comes after with time.


Golf architecture and construction is clearly a craft, and it was recognized as one in the golden era of golf architecture. As articles on the subject made their way into the high temples of the arts and crafts movement, such as Country Life and other craft-focused publications, it's this spirit in which our best firms work.


With a keen-eyed master guiding the development of their apprentices, editing and encouraging their growth. It's why I think it's important for golf architects to have experience in all aspects of construction, not just from the textbook but with their hands.


Not saying that David McLay Kid needs to lay the drainage pipe himself, but it might have helped him in a place here or there.


It's the same reason I have encouraged some of the architects I have worked with to help me shape, as they have never sat in that chair for eight hours whittling away at the clay to uncover the forms that will define the golf course. Those experiences make you better not only as an architect but as a person, as it enables you to have a connection to the process, which is the heart of craft.


Nothing happens in craft outside of the process. Everything extraneous must be stripped bare as it doesn't help the final product to waste time and mental/physical energy on things that won't get us to our final functional product.


That's my view anyway.

[Ally Mcintosh]

Good view.

[Niall C]

Ben


An interesting read but I'm still not sure of your definition of art and craft. For instance, just because an object has some practical application does that automatically preclude it from being art ? I don't believe Country Life was purely about craft and not about art. Indeed I'm not sure there was any great effort to make the distinction. Personally I think if an architect makes their design better looking and more attractive to the eye then surely that goes beyond the functional and therefore can be considered art ? That goes for building design as well as for golf courses.


Niall

[Ben Malach]

Niall,


The line is what is the initial intent of the object.


Take the work of the artist Tom Sachs' for instance some of his work is very functional, but it's purpose is art.


The purpose of a golf course or a chair is to first be a good golf course or a chair first. Not saying ornamentation and other choices can't elevate the piece to being considered art. It's just not the point of it to begin with.


That makes the main concern of the craftsman building the thing the function rather than the aesthetics. Yes, aesthetics are important to the goal of building a good chair or a cabinet. But they aren't the key driver in the process. A skilled craftsmen can turn an integral part of one of these pieces into something beautiful like some of the joinery I have seen on Japanese cabinets. But the point of the joint is to hold the piece together not to make the cabinet look better.


Much like the horizon line on the back of a green can be made to wash into the surrounding. The point of doing so isn't to make it more beautiful but to make the green function better in its environment.

[Ira Fishman]

Ben,


I am far from an artist or craftsman, but your post strikes me as on point. We often analogize to music, literature, and art. Those analogies can offer insights, but they do have the limit that art is not tethered to function in the same way as gca.


Building architecture is a craft, but analogies to it have their own limitations because buildings do not need to support/conform to the specifics rules of the sport/game.


Ira

[Niall C]

I think it is the Royal Family that has one of the biggest collections of Leonardo Da Vinci drawings existing. They are largely (or so I believe) preparatory drawings for his paintings. As such they have a function but they are also undeniably beautiful and I think most people would call it art and be very happy to hang them on their wall.


I'm also sure there would be many artists who would say that there is purpose to their art, be it to solicit an emotion in the viewer or simply to cover a damp spot on the wall with their art.


Niall

[Tommy Williamsen]

Prior to and in the early Renaissance, those who painted were considered craftsmen, doing menial work like bricklayers and carpenters. In fifteenth-century Florence, Leonardo and Michaelangelo began to be called artists, but workers in their workshops who did some of the work were still called craftsmen.
Courses like Whistling Straights and The Lido originated in Dye’s and McDonald’s heads. They built more than functionary courses. They made them beautiful. Standing on the second tee at the Cliff’s Course at Cape Breton, I wished there were a bench; I just wanted to sit and admire the hole. It was not just the Ocean on the right or the vistas beyond that were beautiful hole but the hole itself.

Ben, call yourself whatever you want, but some of us look at a course or a hole and see visual art and the person who built it an artist.

[Mark_Fine]

I think the greatest architects are both.  I would take it as a compliment to be called an artist as well as a craftsman. 

[Cal Carlisle]

Is Hokusai (Under the Wave off Kanagawa, aka The Great Wave) an artist or a craftsman? He drew the design, probably did the color separtations for each block. What he didn't do is the carve the actual woodblocks. He didn't print them either. He most likely advised the carvers on changes and the approved the colors for the publisher. In my mind he is most definitely an artist. Ukiyo-e was is a Japanese art form where there are three distinct discplines working together - the designer, carver, and printer. I would consider the last two craftsmen, and the first one an artist.


In the 20th century an art form called Sosaku-hanga took root. These prints were designed, carved, and printed by the same person. As professional printers began to disappear with the introduction of mechanical printing in Japan, carvers too, began to become scarce. Since WW2, the decline in those two professions had accelerated and as a result, most designers now carve and print their own work. The quality level (or the speed at which the work is produced) is nowere near the level of those that were dedicated to just one discpline, but the artist has now been forced to become a craftsman as well.


Are you an artist or a crafstman? You seem to have attached yourself to one definition, but an argument could be made that you're both.

[Mark_Fine]

I have posted on this in the past, but I have never seen a great golf course or even a great golf hole that is not beautiful in some way.  And yes beauty is in the eye of the beholder. 


And by the way, that does not mean every hole that is beautiful is great.  There is style without substance but never substance without style when it comes to great.


Yet another reason the best canvases often yield the greatest golf courses.  The less ideal canvases need much more creativity and effort to elevate their status to the greatness level.

[Thomas Dai]

As an aside within various Craft/Trade Guild professions the levels of seniority were apparently usually seen historically as ….. apprentice-journeyman-master.
Perhaps this could be enhanced as: novice-apprentice-tradesman-craftsman-master craftsman?
Would intern now be seen in some countries as the equivalent of novice/apprentice?
One for Guild history buffs?
Atb

[Andrew Harvie]

There's no doubt a level of functionality to golf architecture. Ideally, bunkers don't wash away in a rainstorm, or someone doesn't break their ankle walking on a fairway because of a random sinkhole/loose ground or whatever. They are living and evolving things, too: sand splash from bunkers onto greens, as an example, is constantly changing a golf course. The Mona Lisa doesn't have to live with weather or the changing conditions on a daily basis like Augusta National has to; it is behind lock and key and a bunch of security measures at the Louvre. Golf courses are out in the open, certainly not immune to storms, hurricanes, human wear, etc, so there are other considerations in play.


I'd argue that, at a certain threshold, golf architecture does transition from purely craft to equal parts art and craft. Is that a Doak 4? Doak 5? Doak 6? Not sure. The local course down the round is simply there to function as a place of recreation and hobby, but I'd be hard-pressed to not call Banff Springs or Cypress Point art, where there is obviously a lot of thought into not just the strategies, but the aesthetics (Banff with its bunkers mimicking the bunker peaks, Cypress with some bunkers mimicking tree lines, and so forth). These elevate themselves into art in my view, while functioning properly and how they should. It goes without saying, but that's the ideal combination.


I'd take the same stance with architecture in a downtown core as well: there are hundreds of normal skyscrapers that serve the functionality they were designed to do and are safe, but there are also buildings that are a work of art. The iconic structures in the city do both well

[Ira Fishman]

A craftsman can be an artist. An artist does not need to be a craftsman.

[Thomas Dai]

Watch this short video and note the age of the designer of the final hole - - [/size]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dm4ioyQNd54[/color]
Golfs essentially a simple stick, ball, hole game that’s supposed to be fun.
It’s all the other malarkey involved that makes it complicated and expensive and arguably less fun.

Atb

[Mike Worth]

Ben, call yourself whatever you want, but some of us look at a course or a hole and see visual art and the person who built it an artist.

Tom. I agree with you. You are right, as usual.


i’ve always considered golf course architecture as an expression of (landscape) art.


The design process necessarily involves personal interpretation and artistic intuition. It’s an expression of the architects views and
values

[V_Halyard]

Interesting definition. I would say the best GCA’s are by definition artists and craftspeople. You have to have the ability to deliver something aesthetically appealing
, Strategically intriguing, with the highest level of engineering and functional integrity. 

It’s impossible to deliver the aesthetics without some manner of art, artistic interpretation. By definition, you are still an artist.
You don’t have to fly that flag, But if you are defining the shapes, vistas, and visual presentation, you are by definition, creating the artistry associated with the imagery.

I give it as compliment. It takes artistic talent to blend that with the structural engineering associated with great gca.


A pretty green side bunker that washes away and falls into the creek doesn’t mean s#it.

[Simon Barrington]

Ben,

As others have said, how you wish to describe your Craft is entirely up to you. But it is clear others don't wish you or any architect to sell themselves short of the skills and necessary aspects of both being produced/expressed. I agree you are both, and for some the place on the continuum between the two will differ.


OT (a bit) and the following is not a commentary or criticism, but I think the framing of such questions (in Thread Title, or the detail) as a binary choice is increasingly the way in modern life, and on this DB, and hopefully we can nuance these discussions collectively to be more fluid, inquisitive and (certainly) less confrontational (and avoiding some of the quite personal jibes seen occasionally)

Simplifying debates into "one or other" fixed categorisations does not help debate, or indeed understanding.

Think this is a great constructive thread that others far more erudite and knowledgable than I have taken in the style and spirit I hope for on here...certainly some education coming my way (in wide ranging examples)...so thanks for setting it in motion.

Cheers!

[Ronald Montesano]

When I was 16, I wrote a poem about golf competition. I'm sure that I have it somewhere. It was meant to be art. It was not meant to craftily explain golf to the neophyte.

I initiated BuffaloGolfer to fill a void left by the disappearance of the Buffalo Courier Express. It was a newspaper; the Buffalo News failed me in many ways, but it is all that we have left, alas.

I write for GolfWRX because I want to tell stories about golf, but what I write is not art. I began to take photos for our school yearbook, when I realized that our small, student body is stretched twelved ways, and could never have time to go to events. This lead me to event and landscape photography. It is art, born of need for a craftsperson.

Each prior perspective in this thread is accurate and correct, as long as there is a reader/viewer/beholder that chooses to subscribe to that perspective. There are certainties in life, such as those that fall under the helms of mathematics and science. For the humanities, there is wiggle room.

It might be art, it might be science. Sh!t, it might be religion!

It is something spiritual, something evocative, and it inspires and sates and heals and satisfies.

It is human potential, capacity, capability, and production.

[Charlie Goerges]

I'm always glad when this subject comes up. It's important from time to time to think about it and organize our thoughts around it.


I like Ben's thesis, but I'm not sure that I fully agree with it, but then again I might.


I also think beauty is a red herring in the art vs craft debate. Good examples of both can range from beautiful to ugly. It's beside the point (though a nice bonus).


I think a work requires a measure of originality and of intentionality (to provoke thought) to be considered as art. Probably most golf courses will never reach the level of art, but I'll bet some do. And it's worth it that architects are making the effort.


I look forward to reading more responses.

[Tim Gavrich]

It doesn't feel entirely appropriate to analogize a golf course to a chair with regard to the notion of function because relative to a chair, a golf course doesn't have much of a function at all. Relative to human existence, a chair is infinitely more essential than a golf course. Yes, a golf course has a "function" but as a form of recreation or amusement - a very small niche. That's a far cry from literally supporting the body of a person or persons.


That being the case, there's no doubt that golf courses are art, and likely belongs closer to the "art" end of the arbitrary craft <--> art spectrum that has been posited here.


I love the template holes and concepts as much as anyone, but I think they are a lot about "craft" and not so much about "art." I think that's why there is a hint of fatigue around them of late.


It feels like the pendulum swing towards the minimalistic/naturalistic aesthetic has conferred "craft" status on that style of GCA in the last couple of decades. I think the greater strategic intrigue that has accompanied that aesthetic has raised the floor of golf courses for the foreseeable future, which is objectively great. But I also don't buy that the aesthetic and the blocking of features (i.e. "strategy") are inextricably intertwined. In fact I've seen enough Pete Dye golf courses to be certain of that.

[Matt Schoolfield]

I think I agree with you Ben, but I think it can be both. I think functional art is always different in kind to solely expressive art. I think your distinction fits on that line of thinking.

[Tom_Doak]

A lot of this thread is just semantics and I don't really care about semantics.  I did think it was odd that Tommy talked about Lido and Whistling Straits being created from thin air, and yet placed a picture of a hole at Cabot Cliffs where most of the features are natural.

[Tom_Doak]

I'd argue that, at a certain threshold, golf architecture does transition from purely craft to equal parts art and craft. Is that a Doak 4? Doak 5? Doak 6? Not sure. The local course down the round is simply there to function as a place of recreation and hobby, but I'd be hard-pressed to not call Banff Springs or Cypress Point art, where there is obviously a lot of thought into not just the strategies, but the aesthetics (Banff with its bunkers mimicking the bunker peaks, Cypress with some bunkers mimicking tree lines, and so forth). These elevate themselves into art in my view, while functioning properly and how they should. It goes without saying, but that's the ideal combination.

The strongest reaction to The Confidential Guide came from a bunch of designers or craftsmen who thought that their assignment was mostly to build a functional playing field for golf -- a 4 or 5 on the Doak Scale -- and who didn't really think there was much difference between those and the 8's.  It had really never occurred to me before then that there were a lot of designers who weren't even trying to build something better than a 5.


I think there are a lot fewer of those guys in this era, but a lot of that is just because there's 20% as many courses being built.

[cary lichtenstein]

I think the greatest architects are both.  I would take it as a compliment to be called an artist as well as a craftsman.

I agree 1000% with that statememt

[Jeff_Brauer]

Like Tom, I haven't answered because it seems mostly "difference without a distinction" type talk.

A few things caught my attention.  Tim G said:

It doesn't feel entirely appropriate to analogize a golf course to a chair with regard to the notion of function because relative to a chair, a golf course doesn't have much of a function at all. Relative to human existence, a chair is infinitely more essential than a golf course. Yes, a golf course has a "function" but as a form of recreation or amusement - a very small niche.

Oddly enough, there is a lot of effort in getting folks out of that chair for their own health, so maybe golf courses are equal in function to chairs.  But, I think the point was that gca's need enough engineering skill to turn that pretty picture into something that works as a golf course, i.e., drainage and irrigation.


Which convinced me that gca's are craftsmen, like furniture makers. They need to design something beautiful but also practical, working, suited for purpose, etc.  Art just hangs or stands there and has no other function.