The Solace of Open Spaces

[Steve Burrows]

Has anyone ever read the novel of this name by Gretel Erlich?  The narrative itself has nothing to do with golf, but listen to this passage:

“We have only to look at the houses we build to see how we build against space, the way we drink against pain and loneliness.  We fill up space as if it were a pie shell, with things whose opacity further obstructs our ability to see what is already there.”

Isn’t this the argument used against bad design; that it is contrived, that it doesn’t utilize the features of the natural landscape, that it "build against space?”  Conversely, isn’t the opposite of this (using the natural features of a landscape) the very thing for which we celebrate courses such as Sand Hills, Pacific Dunes, etc.?

The point of this post, ultimately, is to ask: does anyone else think at times that the best way to learn about golf and design is to distance your self completely from it, by studying art and science or by reading a seemingly random work of literature, by focusing on anything but golf?

[TEPaul]

"The point of this post, ultimately, is to ask: does anyone else think at times that the best way to learn about golf and design is to distance your self completely from it, by studying art and science or by reading a seemingly random work of literature, by focusing on anything but golf?"

Good post Steve, but no, I don't think that last paragraph explains the best way to learn about golf and design at all. I think the best way to understand golf and golf architecture is to do what most all great architects have done which is to concentrate on the land itself and all its nuances until you've figured out every single thing you can do with it for golf just as it is.

At that point if something is lacking for golf than figure out the simplest way to enhance it for golf.

For quite some time my prime concern has been how to remove from golf course architecture as many of the design principles of landscape architecture that has become attached to it as possible, particularly if they are nothing much more than just aesthetic.

And yes, I'm familiar with Erhich's book, The Solace of Open Spaces. It's around this farm somewhere. I happen to live in a township in Pennsylvania which I'm quite sure has more private conservation open space per square acre than any township or community in America. This township I live in is approximately 12,000 acres of private land and as of now just about 5,000 acres are under federal conservation easements including my own farm that happened to be the first about 30 years ago. That means that today 5,000 acres of this township are now undevelopable---and permanently. That means those 5,000 acres (and growing) will be open space forever. There's a lot of solace here.  

[Steve Burrows]

"I think the best way to understand golf and golf architecture is to do what most all great architects have done which is to concentrate on the land itself and all its nuances until you've figured out every single thing you can do with it for golf just as it is."

I guess that I am just not convinced that such a single-minded devotion to anything is wise.  Nature itself desperately searches for equilibrium, for some sort of balance to the assorted elements that comprise it.  It allows for mutation, for something outside the status quo to alter it, and it learns and grows from this outside agency to the degree that soon the changed product becomes part of the whole, and the cycle continues.  

Similarly, thinking about golf course design independent of other disciplines is to ignore the nuances of human thought and our capacity for adaptation, for learning, and for growth.  I share part of your sentiment about removing Landscape Architecture from the profession, but only in the sense that it should not be the focus.  Rather, I propose that all human experience should be used to supplement the design process.  Without a well-rounded education (including all sciences and humanities (and even LA) design decisions are often based in ignorance of the totality of a situation.  Truly, literature was used initially in this post as an analogy to show that THEORIES of spatial relationships, with respect to the design and construction of a golf course, are not confined solely to a designer standing in the field; writers have a knack for expressing the connnectedness and unversality of the world we live in.      

[Garland Bayley]

I knew Tom Paul was old, but now it seems that by his own admission he is a protected relic in need of preservation.
 

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Steve,
You do know you are opening up a landmine of a subject that is sure to go at least 8-9 pages deep with the majority of them a back & forth between Tom MacWood and Tom Paul.

Could this be the thread that is the War To Settle The Score?

God willing!

The website is really pissing the shit out of me lately.

Great thread by the way. I've never even heard of the book, but before some of you start ragging on me because of it, please remember your only ragging on a working class scum. God Forbid they allow them into some of your worlds.

Sounds like a good book though and I'll tell you this, all of this back and forth has gotten me so completely pissed off that I thnk it's about that take a very long stretch of time off.

Everyone on this website has become and authority of he can't do this and you can't do that or your wrong, I'm right--again!

This website sucks right now. So much, I feel like going out on to one of Gretal Erlich's open spaces for some solitude and some fresh air. You know Steve, some of these guys have taken this one beautiful little lark of a subject and have twisted and turned it into their own sick perverse mindfuck. I wish Karl Jung or Ziggy Freud were new members so they could analyze the living hell out of everyone on this God-forsaken freeking stupid website, maybe even prescribe to have it take off line.

[Brad Klein]

By the way, it's not a novel but a set of essays and musings -- and a very good collection at that.

The point is well taken, but a bit misplaced. There is a already a considerable literature on public space, planning, the culture of land, the ability to see and work with nature, and Ehrlich's essays are embedded in that tradition. From the classical landscape theorists to such modern writers as Sharon Zukin ("Landscapes of Power"), Tony Hiss ("The Experience of Place"), Michael Pollan ("Second Nature"), J.H. KInstler ("The Geography of Nowhere"), and Virginia Scott Jenkins ("The Lawn"). There's no need to leave golf behind; the need is to integrate golf with a serious study and practice of landscape aesthetics and an appreciation of debates about naturalism and modernism.

[ForkaB]

The best writing is full of "open spaces."  The worst tries to fill in every space with argument or "fact."

[TEPaul]

Steve Burrows:

Regarding your reply #2, again, it is a very good one.

I think most all golf architects and those truly interested in the subject, and informed on it, would subscribe to most everything you say in that post.

I don't though, and I do recognize I probably am on a real limb that way.

What I believe, at this point, is that golf architecture itself is now little more than 150 years old and that fact needs to be reanalyzed. Because of that extremely short history compared to other art forms what we need to do now, in my opinion, is sit back and take a very careful look at where it started and where it has come in those 150 years and how it has been transformed and what-all has been applied to it almost to the point of becoming generally percieved as necessary.

I'm beginning to firmly believe that the game itself and certainly as reflected in the creation of many of its playing fields has undergone far too much analysis by man.

I think what we need to do now is step back and take a good close look at how 150 years of analysis and inventiveness has perhaps taken the game itself and certainly its playing fields and the art form that creates them too far away from where it essentially will always need to be.

Max Behr said it is never a good idea to remove nature itself too far from the necessary equation of golf and its architecture. I think that has happened to perhaps way too much of an extent.

But why is this a detrimental plight in golf and architecture when it may not be in any other art form?

Again, Behr mentioned that the difference between the artist in other art forms, even architects in other art forms, is the medium they work with compared to the medium of the golf architect.

The medium of the artist is paint, over which he alone is master. The medium of the building architect is wood or steel or glass or whatever over which he is master. The medium of the art and craft artisan is whatever he works with to create his art over which he alone is master.

The same cannot be said for the golf course architect as his medium is the earth, the land, over which he never will be master if for no other reason he will never be able to control the forces of Nature which alone is the master of earth forms.

If a golf architect tries too hard to control this or he fails to realize it, permanency of man-made structure may suffer AND/OR the game itself and its playing fields will cease to be able to rely on that which is so essential to both of them----Nature's own earth formations.

What we need to do more of now, in my opinion, is to look back on this 150 year evolution and even if we realize we are doing it concsiously, we need to look at the earth again for golf and architecture so much more carefully as if all the things that have happened in the last 150 years to the art form never did happen.

We need to look at land again with a real sense of innocence. We need to concentrate on it far more to find the things it can give us and for golf which we too easily overlook these days.

This is no dream on my part either. I actually saw it happen and I believe happened well at a site like Rustic Canyon.

Geoff Shackleford had looked at that land for golf for perhaps hundreds of hours. It seems to me he found in it all kinds of things for golf that could work well wihout changing it much. In this way I believe he understands golf extremely well.

But the fact is, at that point, he was almost completely innocence of the things sophisiticated machinery or all kinds of applied landscape architecture principles could do to it. Perhaps I should say he was basically unaware of the details of those possibilities and I've come to view that as a very good thing.

Now I believe he is aware of all those possibilities but he has maintained the good sense to appreciate what his innonence of them may have resulted in for him there---eg a real concentration and appreciation for how to max out that land for golf as it naturally was.

Understanding the 150 year evolution of golf architecture I believe has shown that nature---the land itself---has lost too much of it's necessary part in the balance---in the equation.

Max Behr was right in that way, I believe. The only potential problem at this point is the answer to the question of whether he was right about how important this kind of thing, naturalism of earth forms, might be in the mind of the golfer.

It looks like, given the last 75 years in the evolution of architecture since Behr wrote what he did that he may've misread the importance of naturalism and the land itself to the golfer.

And if that is so, I believe Behr's theories need to be reintroduced and reanalyzed and ironically it would seem that a number of architects seem to have started to do that anyway perhaps without even being aware of Behr and his theories at all.

I guess in life it's true to say that timing is everything.

In any case I think the analysis should begin as to what can be removed from golf architecture that has to been applied to it and let us then see where that leaves it.

[Steve Burrows]

TEPaul,

It's actually amazing just how close we are to agreeing with each other..but for a few extremely salient details!

I must concede that theories and methods integral to golf course design have changed in the past 150 years since it became an accepted profession.  However, I also believe that this change is exactly what will make it better in the long run.  Imagine if we had said the same thing about our understanding of the universe.  Imagine if we would have resisted change, and simply accepted Ptolemy's notion of an Earth-centered universe.  Imagine if Copernicus, Galileo and others would not have stepped up and shown us that math and science had advanced to the extent that our understanding of astronomy, and indeed, our understanding of the world, had fundamentally changed, and we were/are better for it.

Similarly, golf and golf course design has perhaps fundamentally changed.  We must never forget the lessons of the past, but we must also accept that this profession is more complex than even we may think, and that the modern designer must be more than just golf course designer; he must also be part engineer, part agronomist, part athlete, part psychologist, and the list surely goes on.  He need not be expert in any of these areas (for it is also his responsibility to be humble and ask for advice when necessary), but he should be well versed.  

This is why I suggest that lessons about design should sometimes come from well outside design.  Citing Max Behr as an authority certainly carries much weight, but an argument is richer and even more convincing when the breadth of that argument is explored, when we can cite outside sources to confirm our suspicions, when we aim for what composer Richard Wagner (and surely all Germans) referred to as "Gesamtkunstwerk, literally translated as the "total work of art," whereby all elements of humanity--sights, sounds, smells, drama, etc.--are synthesized to create a fuller, richer, more worthwhile experience.  

In the absence of these outside agencies, golf course design may stagnate, but if/when they are used, then perhaps we will find out that the best in golf course design is yet to be seen!!!

Obviously, I may never convince you, or others of this viewpoint, but, as you state your position, so too will I state mine.