Strong predilection for peregrination

[Joe Hancock]

On the current Pebble Beach thread, Rihc Goodale said this:

"Sand dunes--whether natural or created--have a strong predilection for peregrination.  We see this even today with course like Sand Hills, Kingsbarns and Pacific Dunes, which were built with much more knoweldge, money and technology."

My first response was typical of me; being a smart ass and finding fun in Rich's choice of words. But I followed through with my threat, and looked up the definition:

pred·i·lec·tion  
n.
A partiality or disposition in favor of something; a preference.

And,

peregrination \pehr-uh-gruh-NAY-shun\, noun:
A traveling from place to place; a wandering.

The word "predilection" got my attention because it indicates preference, or choice. So, my tired little brain got to thinking,

 "maybe that's why there seems to be such an overwhelming preference for dunesland or sandy site golf courses. Even though the architect initially places bunkers and features, the nature of the soil allows the features to prefer (predilection) to wander (peregrination). In other words, the natural processes will eventually get it right, even if the architect originally didn't."

That's a wild staement, I know. I doubt that nature could overcome some really poor designs to eventually make them good....but what about this? Do any of you historians think some courses have improved due to this "strong predilection for pergrination"? Will this happen at Sand Hills, or Bandon Dunes or any other sandy site golf course that is already very good?


Joe
 

[Eric Pevoto]

It's a very interesting situation.  Sort of an inherent and natural variety over time.  Do the keepers of these places tend to roll along with it and change the course to fit what's there?  Or do they control mother nature in an attempt to preserve what is original?  Hmm...a palimpsest comes to mind.  

[ForkaB]

Eric

Wouldn't what we are talking about be an inverse palimpsest?  A traditional palimpsest is a fixed medium which is overlayed by mutable acts of human creativity.  On the other hand, any piece of sand-based land on which an architect has placed his hand is the mutable bit and the architect's design intent is what remains fixed.  No?  (My brain is hurting now , too....).

This is all really hard to envisage, as some of the processes we are talking about are geomorphological in time frame.  I do not doubt that the land on which Sand Hills is built will be very different in the year 2525, and I am particularly confident that I will not have to defend that statement.  SA to more realistic gtime frames.......

I believe (and have said more than a few times before on this site) that bunkers buiilt (or even largely found) on true linkslandy type soils will morph in their early years.  From the little information I have read, from Bandon, Mullen, etc., this seems to be true.  Since the building of new links courses is a relatively recent phenomenon, to learn how much this is true, we will really have to wait and see.

As for later changes, I do have an inkling which could be interestingly true or just my imagination, that the fairways of old golf courses built on lower linksland (i.e. that leand closest to gthe dunes, and the most fragile, do in fact move, to a degreee perciptible in our lifetime.  For example, I am increasingly convinced that the fairways of 8 (lower),9, 11, 12 adn 14 at Dornoch are significantly more "bumpy" than they were 25 years ago.  Maybe I am shorter or more myopic, but they sure look bigger!  My theory is that since balls tend to settle in hollows, there is more foot traffic there (as well the removal of soil through divots) which lowers that land relative to the humps.  Could this be possible?

[Eric Pevoto]

Inverse palimpsest?  Oh boy, I throw out some half-baked term (I assure you sir, it's fully baked!)  I half learned many years ago!  I think I may need a chart to figure this one.  

The original palimpsest would be a stone tablet or writing surface on which writings were partially erased, then covered again with writing leaving a hodge-podge of styles.  I learned the term in relation to streetscapes or buildings that sort of organically grow over time.

So I guess I see what you're saying.  The land, or tablet, in this case is not fixed.  It naturally changes over time.  The design, or writing, is preserved.

It's interesting to wonder what the land and its changes will do to the design at Sand Hills.  I don't know enough about geomorphology, agronomy or anything else dealing with the maintenance to answer the questions.  Here's a dangerous assumption: We know green space and fairways can change in a very short time of changed mowing patterns.  As the land morphs, isn't it likely the patterns would change?  It's hard to believe Sand Hills will be anything like it is now.  Remember, you can't fool Mother Nature!

As to the lower-linksland, again, I'll defer to someone who knows something about the science.  Either the hills have grown, the dells have deepened, or you've developed fish-bowl vision!  I have a hard time imagining turf taken from divots could make that much difference.

[TEPaul]

Peregrination? A predilection for perergrination?

Rich and Joe:

You can begin to scratch your heads about how the forces of nature (wind and water) work on the earth, the land, the soil, the sand, vegetation etc or you can take some time and read something fairly informative such as Max Behr's essays, Thomas's "Golf Architecture in America", Hunter's book "The Links" and a number of other good architecture material to understand why and how golf architecture, and particularly things such as natural dunes or even man-made bunkering, "artificial dunes" bunkering etc evolve over time.

The forces of nature, the effects of golf and golfers, maintenance practices etc all have very definite and very different effects on architecture and the look of it as it evolves over time.

Perergination? That's interesting. I didn't know some of Egan's "artificial dunes" bunkering built at Pebble in the late 1920 peregrinated! Does that mean the "artificial dunes" bunkering on #6 traveled over and did double duty on #17 if the club thought that was necessary for a tournament set-up or something? Does that mean when that particular set-up was done on Monday morning that "artifical dunes" bunkering from #6 flew from #17 back over to #6 again?  

I think the more accurate thought would probably be evolution not peregrination!

The evolved look of the bunkering on #6 Pebble (artifical dunes) from the way it was originally constructed in the late 1920s as well as the same "artificial dunes" bunkering surrounding #17 green is interesting and apparently a bit of a question mark as to why it no longer looks that way or changed in appearance so much between 1929 and 1952, for instance.

My recollection is that GeoffShac did a fairly comprehensive study of why Pebble's "artificial dunes" bunkering evolved and changed the way it did and eventually was just removed. The assumption in my recollection is because those "arctificial dunes" of Egan's at Pebble were probably very difficult to maintain as they appear in that early photo of Pebble's #6.

I feel the same is true of the original look of much of CPC that was built during the same time and very likely with the input of the same group of architects, namely MacKenzie, Hunter at CPC and Egan at Pebble. Matter of fact, it'd be my strong assumption that the same construction company probably built them all (CPC and Pebble). That of course would've been the awesome crew of the famous American Construction Company owned by Hunter and made up of a really interesting group of Irishmen!

There were a couple of letters that floated around in the last 2-3 years, at least one of which made it's way on here regarding the massive dispute Mackenzie had with the Pebble greenskeeper, probably partly over how bunkering such as this would be constructed and maintained. The letters were between Mackenzie and Samuel Morse. It's not certain to me but it certainly appeared that Hunter may have been brought in to resolve the dispute at Pebble (and perhaps who would do MPCC). This may have been why Egan did the job instead of Mackenzie at Pebble.

In any case, it seems those "artifical dunes" bunkers weren't particularly maintenance friendly. Are we right today to question if building such bunkers was a smart idea in a maintenance sense? Of course we are! Should we refrain from asking such questions because that type of bunkering may have been designed and built by the likes of the great Mackenzie, Hunter and Egan? Of course not--it's all just part of good architectural research and education!

Were those "artificial dunes" bunkers extremely beautiful in a natural sense? They sure were to me! Somebody on another thread mentioned that something like Pebble's original Egan "artificial dunes" bunkering flies in the face of what most of us believe, which is architecture should BE natural. That's only partly true, in my opinion. It's wonderful if it IS natural but if an architect such as Egan wants to build "artifical dunes" bunkering on what may have been a rocky promontory such as Pebble's #6 at least he should do it in such a way that it LOOKS natural!

Did he do that as evidenced by the photo of the orginal Pebble #6 that appears on the other thread? He certainly did as far as I can see. By making it look as it originally did is exactly what's meant by an architect "hiding the hand of man", in my opinion. But was it a maintenance headache? It certainly may have been and that may be the primary reason why it didn't survive and was changed.

Should the club have understood the value of the LOOK of that extremely beautiful "artificial dunes" bunkering better and maintained it as it was designed to look anyway? I think so, and some of us may think so, but the question is what did the club think at any particular time?

[paul cowley]

...tep
 ...i can't speak on how the club thought thruout PB' s history ,but i can speak for how it thought during 'my' time[early 1970's]

  there was no thought about maintaining anything other than keeping up with mother natures daily attempts to grow vegetation the way she felt best ....grass growing over sand ,shrubs  and other native plant material re establishing it self where ever it could.

  maintenance directives were never concerned with maintaining a previous 'look'......it was never even discussed and i feel most of the club probably knew little or had little concern about PB's original 'look'.....[by the way ,there was no club per se ,pebble was at that time wholly owned and operated by the del monte corp].......

  spy glass hill was the new kid on the block and even they were experiencing problems maintaining their dune holes....i spent days chopping out the pampas grass encroachments.

  every thing was much more wild and wooly , with much more of a low maintenance look....precisely because it WAS lowly maintained by todays standards.....un irrigated roughs ,real cart paths [dirt and sand]
....unlike some of todays highly maintained ,'low maintenance' looking courses..........un naturally maintained to create a  'natural' look.......

....pebble looked and played better then.....at least as far as i am concerned.......she was much more in touch with her natural self.

[TEPaul]

Paul:

I've little doubt that the bunkering on holes like #7 and #17 Pebble became more "formalized" because of those maintenance issues. As you said it probably does take more thought and specific maintenance to keep something looking like it's "unmaintained" and "natural" looking than maintaining it in a far more "formal" sense. The evolution shown in the the photos on Pebble's #7 would certainly seem to indicate that more "formally" maintained evolution.

What happened on Shinnecock's #5 and #6 (Flynn's constructed "undulating waste areas") is another matter altogether. That vegetated over almost completely as apparently the club never fully understood what it was and the way it was supposed to look and be!

[ForkaB]

Eric

Just to confuse you (and me!) some more, we had a thread or two on golf courses as "palimpsests" a year or so ago, and I was arguing then that the land CAN be the "blank canvas" and the designer the writer.  This was in the context of "how many great golf courses could one build over the land at Sand Hills.....(or Dornoch, or Royal Melbourne, or wherever......)?"  The argument on tihs thread is just flipping that idea, just for fun and for a bit of learning, hopefully....

paul

Thanks again for your insights.

Tom P

The "peregrination" I'm talking about is fairly glacial, and would involve bunkers migrating from 7 to 17 only every 50,000 years or so, at which point I'm sure that the rulers of Earth (seven-legged kangaroo-type creatures from the planet Zog) will call in someone to "restore" the bunkers to their original place and glory!

[BCrosby]

Rich -

I think you are right, the palimpsest notion has real application to golf courses. In fact, other than brand new courses, all courses are to one degree or another palimpsests.

I'm not sure where that takes you, however. If all courses are in some sense palimpsests, that does not imply that the stratified changes over the years have been for the better. Or worse. Does it? Are you saying more than that palimpsests happen? Or are you attaching architectural values to these changes?

I ask because to see the palimpsest in a gofl course is a fairly straight forward factual statement. It does not imply a judgement about the quality of the course. Or do I misunderstand?

And since we are playing with big words here, note that:

"Sand dunes--whether natural or created--have a strong predilection for peregrination."

is no less an improper anthropomorphism than is "strategic golf course".

Bob

[ForkaB]

Bob

In the 1st instance (a year or so ago) I was saying that golf course designs are works laid over a relatively fixed (in a generational sort of time frame) medium, and that more than one interesting work could be imagined over any of those media (landforms).  In the 2nd instance, I was saying that over longer time periods, for linksland specifically, and in small increments, the medium itself can and will change, mostly over longer time frames.

Rich

PS--sand dunes DO move, golf courses do not strategize.....

[Eric Pevoto]

Rich,

I actually posted the original palimpsest thread.  It interests me with regard to any sort of strict preservation of golf architecture.  Seems futile if the landscape naturally evolves.  Like I sort of said above, that dynamic, over decades, would seem to add variety and interest.  I'm not sure how it sits with Behr's idea of permanent architecture, though.

[TEPaul]

Palimpsests huh? That's an interesting analogy to the forces of nature, particularly those forces of nature that've had an enormous effect on the landscape such as the ice age.

From my dictionaries palimpsest refers to a parchment that's had drawing or text erased or removed to make room for another drawing or text. So, to me, a more apt analogy of palimpsest to golf architecture would probably be redesign by an architect of existing architecture.

As to Max Behr and some of his analogies and references to understanding the forces of nature and how they create landforms and a natural look that a golf architect may choose to imitate, it's pretty simple really.

Regarding "Permanent Architecture" Behr simply said two things.

Firstly, that natural landforms in the way of obstacles and man-made architecture that appear natural looking to a golfer would logically be less likely to be criticized by a golfer. Behr's reasoning was simply that the golfer would be less critical or resistant of an obstacle or architecture that he perceived to be nature rather than one man-made or man-made looking to catch him up and expose his faults. And consequently golfers would be less inclined to want to change something they were less critical of.

Secondly, Behr believed that some shapes in nature were more enduring and more resistant to the destructive forces of Nature (wind and the flow of water) than other shapes. He basically believed that convex landforms were more resistant to nature's destructive forces than concave shapes. He also believed that convex shapes placed properly in conjunction or in juxtaposition to concave shapes could serve to protect those concave shapes from the destructive forces of nature better thereby rendering man-made architecture built that way more permanent.

Those two things were Behr's prescritption for what was referred to as "Permanent architecture." I don't know that Behr or any other architect was thinking in 50,000 year time spans though!  

It's sort of ironic that some of those earlier architects who believed in and plied the architectural philosophies of a form of 'permanent architecture' described by Behr and others sometimes had their courses destroyed by natural forces anyway. This may have included architects such as Behr, Mackenzie, Hunter and Egan or Thomas (who really was good at creating natural looking landforms as well as architecture that drained well regarding sheet flow) who had some of their courses or holes destroyed by natural forces anyway!

But maybe they weren't exactly thinking of natural forces quite as severe as those floods that hit Southern California in the early days of their architecture or something like that hurricane of 1938 that did so much damage to courses up and down the US East Coast! But who was thinking of things that severe in that earlier era? I see things around here and out there too that were probably built before awarness of things today like 100 year flood-plains or earthquake proof architecture!  

[ForkaB]

Eric

I did not forget that somebody started the old Palimpsest" thread, but I had forgotten it was you!  Sorry.

[TEPaul]

Rich;

And what is the essence of this palimpsest analogy of yours---that a bunker or contour on a golf course may change shape due to the forces of nature ever 50,000 years or so?

[BCrosby]

Rich -

Bunkers move all the time, but I'm not so sure they know how to peregrinate.

I'm certain, however, that they don't have predilections.

I see what you are getting at with your modified palimpsest thesis. Thanks.

Bob