GolfClubAtlas.com > Golf Course Architecture Discussion Group
The Consensus Problem: Classic vs Modern
Ben Sims:
BLUF: Modern courses are getting screwed.
TL;DR: Using Golf Magazine’s Top 100 in the US list (someone please feel free to do this with other lists and across other regions or worldwide), by my count, only 1 of the top 10 were built in the last 40 years. 4 of the top 30. 25 of the top 100.
Were the ODG’s just THAT much better? Or is consensus too hard to break? Or are a lot of those classic courses that are still great precisely because a lot of the new good guys have worked extensively on them?
Philosophically, it just doesn’t add up to me. I’ll go one further. I think overall that the top modern courses are distinctly better than their classic counterparts.
Kyle Harris:
If time is truly a crucible for great architecture, as many have said, then perhaps this is what distinguishes the various iterations of holes 100-600 yards in length combined to form 18 as much as anything else.
Mark_Fine:
Maybe the fact that they are still golf courses 100 years later says something about them. Maybe a course shouldn’t even be on the list until it is 75 or 100 years old to prove it can stand the test of time! Golfweek does make this distinction but many don’t like that because a golf course is a golf course regardless when it was built and they want to see them all compared to one an other.
Let’s face the elephant in the room, this game and the courses it is played on have a lot to do about tradition for many (not all) and there is something about standing on the tee at The Old Course or Merion or Shinnecock Hills,…, and recognizing the history that happened there. Maybe golfers will feel the same way one day when they stand on the tee 100 years from now when they play some of these “modern” designs that survived and persevered until then.
I have to laugh, we had two raters show up at my club last fall (neither from Golf Digest by the way) who didn’t know who William Flynn was or had any idea what courses he designed (including ours). Are you kidding me and these guys were raters for a major golf publication trying to decide how good or bad our course was!!! Then it got me thinking, maybe raters shouldn’t know a thing about GCA history or anything about the course before playing it or who Donald Ross is or Tom Doak or Bill Coore,…. Maybe then they would truly just be looking at the design with no bias. It’s a great concept but Good luck finding those kind of panelists who are really capable of determining the best of the best. That kind of panelist doesn’t exist at least not for long ;)
Ben Sims:
Kyle and Mark,
Sorry I’m not buying. If you care about architecture even just a little bit, it shouldn’t be too hard to identify features and characteristics of good holes regardless of how long they’ve been around.
If time indeed IS a crucible, you’re going to need to identify characteristics that classic courses tend to feature that modern courses don’t. Hosting a tournament or Bing Crosby having a lark don’t count.
Kyle Harris:
--- Quote from: Ben Sims on February 20, 2025, 08:58:22 PM ---Kyle and Mark,
Sorry I’m not buying. If you care about architecture even just a little bit, it shouldn’t be too hard to identify features and characteristics of good holes regardless of how long they’ve been around.
If time indeed IS a crucible, you’re going to need to identify characteristics that classic courses tend to feature that modern courses don’t. Hosting a tournament or Bing Crosby having a lark don’t count.
--- End quote ---
Is it your position that a course can’t be tied, then? I can’t think of much else. How do you break a tie?
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