Golf Club Atlas
GolfClubAtlas.com => Golf Course Architecture Discussion Group => Topic started by: Mike Hendren on March 22, 2018, 10:58:53 AM
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Can golf architecture be "good enough" for most of us with having to be "great?" Stated otherwise, don't you enjoy a solid 7 as much as a perfect 10?
Mike
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Can golf architecture be "good enough" for most of us with having to be "great?" Stated otherwise, don't you enjoy a solid 7 as much as a perfect 10?
Mike
Bogey...I think a 7 is a great course! I am more than happy playing an interesting 5/6. I could do a lot worse than Kington, Perranporth, Goswick, Welshpool, Cavendish, Aiken, Corballis, Southerndown, Reddish Vale, Reigate Heath, Cleeve Cloud, Leckford Old etc etc. Greatness is over-rated, but necessary...if ya know what I mean.
Ciao
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Great is an ideal to try and attain to and while in a Scottish context very few courses reach that ideal, there is not many that I’ve played that haven’t had some great golf even if they aren’t great overall. So, even though they aren’t great doesn’t mean they aren’t fun and worth playing but neither does it mean you shouldn’t try and attain the best you can.
Niall
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Big fan of the forgotten 4-5
though I usually personally rate them much higher than that, often higher than the big guns due to all of their entrappments.
Northwest is a great example
But the well known "great" courses do tend to keep the belt notchers busy (and elsewhere) so I fully support their existence :)
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Hard to beat a member/guest at a great course. With so little time left to enjoy ourselves it's a bit of fun to take part in the best life has to offer.
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Isn't "great" a relative term, however? Shouldn't we be evaluating golf courses on the basis of the land present, rather than comparing it to other courses? If a "7" is the best a course can be on a given parcel of land, then it most certainly is "good enough," and I would hope is enjoyable.
In broader terms, it is rather the company one is with, rather than the architecture itself, that the average golfer enjoys. I would have to imagine, at least for the average golfer, it's the company that matters, rather than the course.
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I was thinking the same thing, Kevin. I’d rather golf with great company on a bad course than golf with bad company on a great course. The game is as much about bringing people together in a positive way as it is about belt notching and expounding and extolling....
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While this may be hard for some of you to hear…From my experience the members of great courses tend to be pretty good company to keep.
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While this may be hard for some of you to hear…From my experience the members of great courses tend to be pretty good company to keep.
Then all the better.
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I was thinking the same thing, Kevin. I’d rather golf with great company on a bad course than golf with bad company on a great course. The game is as much about bringing people together in a positive way as it is about belt notching and expounding and extolling....
Joe,
While that's almost always true, I think the more realistic scenario is:
Play a bad course with good buds
or...
Play a great course with people you don't know where its polite, but not much interaction and you mostly keep to yourself.
P.S. Dont know if I'm lucky or not, but I can count the times on one hand where I got stuck in a group where I couldn't wait for it to be over cause they were intolerable.
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Kalen,
As posed, Bogey is asking our opinion (no right, no wrong) about what we need to be happy playing golf. John needs more than I do from the course, and that’s OK. You haven’t been lucky, you’ve just decided who you were golfing with more often than not.
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Joe,
I made friends at the GCSAA convention after all the crap I have spewed on here for years. There is something about a true love of golf that defies not enjoying the company of anyone with the same interest. At a great club it goes without saying. It ain't like the dog food isle at Walmart. No matter how much you love your dog.
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Hopefully, all of us would prefer the company of family and good friends.
However, back to the original question - I think it depends on the land in which the course sits. I will take solid architecture on great land rather than great architecture on flat or over undulating land. That feeling of being out in nature on a great site is just more important to me than the difference between solid and great design.
When you get great architecture on great land (ala Sand Hills)....that is what makes all of us love the game as much as we do.
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Michael,
Are you saying you'd much rather play Sand Pines, OK course on great land/location over something like Chambers Bay?
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How do you ever join a new club if you are worried about leaving old buddies behind? Or take a new job, or move to a nicer home, or grow up for that matter?
Let's do away with great hotels and restaurants while we are at it. Should make for some interesting golf trips. Bada bing bada boom, Comfort Inn and the local muni.
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Michael,
Are you saying you'd much rather play Sand Pines, OK course on great land/location over something like Chambers Bay?
No, why introduce "OK" into the discussion? I haven't played Sand Pines but given the grief it takes on here, I'm guessing it doesn't quality for the 5/6/7 that I had in mind. How about Chambers Bay and Tacoma Golf & Country Club? A toss up.
An example: Brora and Royal Dornoch - a toss up. Another: Black Creek and The Honors Course - a toss up.
Is the only difference bragging rights and the need to buy merchandise?
I have become a Moraine apologist, but nobody's interested that I've played there.
Hey girls and boys, how about your toss-ups?
Bogey
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Michael,
Are you saying you'd much rather play Sand Pines, OK course on great land/location over something like Chambers Bay?
No, why introduce "OK" into the discussion? I haven't played Sand Pines but given the grief it takes on here, I'm guessing it doesn't quality for the 5/6/7 that I had in mind. How about Chambers Bay and Tacoma Golf & Country Club? A toss up.
An example: Brora and Royal Dornoch - a toss up. Another: Black Creek and The Honors Course - a toss up.
Is the only difference bragging rights and the need to buy merchandise?
I have become a Moraine apologist, but nobody's interested that I've played there.
Hey girls and boys, how about your toss-ups?
Bogey
Sorry Bogey,
I should have specified, I was asking the other Michael... ;D
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"Great" architecture is "unnecessary," but it can sure make up for a whole lot of other shortcomings. Or at least, that's my synthesis of what I've read above.
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Great architecture is "unnecessary," but it can sure make up for a whole lot of other shortcomings.
I like this. As a former coach, I liked the phrase: "enthusiasm is like a good coat of paint, it covers up a lot of mistakes."
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Kalen:
In answer to your question, the architecture must be solid. It cannot be poorly designed. I don't care how good the land is if the architecture sucks.
In essence, I guess what I am saying is that there are some very highly regarded golf courses that only have solid architecture, but they are put in that class because of the land. Meanwhile, there are plenty of wonderfully designed golf courses that aren't highly regarded (even though the architect did an amazing job), because the land is boring (excluding historical courses that can overcome this due to their history).
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Michael,
Are you saying you'd much rather play Sand Pines, OK course on great land/location over something like Chambers Bay?
No, why introduce "OK" into the discussion? I haven't played Sand Pines but given the grief it takes on here, I'm guessing it doesn't quality for the 5/6/7 that I had in mind. How about Chambers Bay and Tacoma Golf & Country Club? A toss up.
An example: Brora and Royal Dornoch - a toss up. Another: Black Creek and The Honors Course - a toss up.
Is the only difference bragging rights and the need to buy merchandise?
I have become a Moraine apologist, but nobody's interested that I've played there.
Hey girls and boys, how about your toss-ups?
Bogey
Bogey
Brora/Dornoch is a good example. How bout Valley Links/Dunluce....ooooh. Eh...how bout Corballis/Portmarnock? Mid Pines/#2?
Ciao
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Good architecture is more necessary than great architecture is unnecessary. Playing a good solid course with in a comfortable environment is much more fun to me than a golf trip to great course where people fly thru them so they can play two a day...if all was grear the game would be gone...
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The quality of the course has become more important to me in recent years. I really do not want to spend much time playing an uninteresting course. I live in a little golf/ski resort in the VA mts. The course isn't awful, maybe a 5, but I don't think I played it a dozen times last year and only when some guys "demanded" I played. I used to just love hitting a golf ball and didn't care much about the course. I wish I could go back to that, but I can't. The course doesn't have to be "great", whatever that is, it just has to hold my attention. It seems fewer and fewer courses do that.
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The quality of the course has become more important to me in recent years. I really do not want to spend much time playing an uninteresting course. I live in a little golf/ski resort in the VA mts. The course isn't awful, maybe a 5, but I don't think I played it a dozen times last year and only when some guys "demanded" I played. I used to just love hitting a golf ball and didn't care much about the course. I wish I could go back to that, but I can't. The course doesn't have to be "great", whatever that is, it just has to hold my attention. It seems fewer and fewer courses do that.
I agree. The downside of getting to play some very good courses (they do not need to be great) is that mediocre courses do little for me. I would rather go to the range to get the enjoyment of hitting balls.
Ira
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I agree with Mike Young on this one. By human (ranking) nature, we all tend to put one above another, or as he says, if everything is a 9, there are no 10's, right?
The same thing has happened to individual courses, trying to eliminate less spectacular holes. Thinking PGA West for one example. Each one is engineered to be visually spectacular, but after a while, the all run together. Few would consider a bland hole in this day and age to make the holes around it stand out.
And, I have agreed with this from day one on this site. For your everyday course, muni or affordable club, 7 architecture really is 10 architecture, i.e., form follows function. And part of that function is speed of play, easier maintenance, playability, etc. For those who need examples, what TD did at PD or any of his other destination resorts would not be applicable at Common Ground, so he designed it with his target audiences. Which of course, could be defined as great in its own context.
For that matter, sites matter to great architecture. One reason Torrey Pines or Sand Pines are not liked is the sites are 10 and the designs really don't even get to 9 or 8 on the scale.
So, it is certainly situational, but like Mike says good is more a requirement to enjoyment than great. As architects, I wonder if the old saying of "Don't let perfect be an impediment to good" applies?
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I don’t know about the premise on this thread as I think it sometimes takes great architecture to create a 5 or 6 on a 2 or 3 site. Great architecture and great courses don’t always go hand in hand as the site has so much to do with being great. But, sometimes it takes a great architect to be brave enough to let the land be the star.
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Should make for some interesting golf trips. Bada bing bada boom, Comfort Inn and the local muni.
done that at Shennecossett many a time
[size=78%]Goat Hill coming ang going[/size]
good times
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For that matter, sites matter to great architecture. One reason Torrey Pines or Sand Pines are not liked is the sites are 10 and the designs really don't even get to 9 or 8 on the scale.
So, it is certainly situational, but like Mike says good is more a requirement to enjoyment than great. As architects, I wonder if the old saying of "Don't let perfect be an impediment to good" applies?
Jeff:
I'm sorry but that last quote makes me want to cry after Pres. Obama used it to justify his compromises on so many issues of importance (starting with health care). Perfectionism is a vice, but I believe we should strive for excellence instead of settling for the crap that others deign to give us.
One reason I'm a minimalist is that in the context of the above, it helps to have some natural limits on what one can design. I strive for greatness but accept the limitations of the site, so the focus is on creativity rather than budget and earthmoving power.
And therefore site selection matters a ton. The funny thing is that neither of your examples was a good site, in my opinion! Sandpines was too open, while Torrey Pines had too many restrictions about going close to the cliff edges. Most people look at the beautiful surroundings and assume that the golf had more potential, but I don't know if I could have done much better with either of them ... though I would have argued like hell about the restrictions with La Jolla, instead of just giving up on it.
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"Perfectionism is a vice, but I believe we should strive for excellence."
Great quote/thought Tom. I may "borrow it" for a different paradigm.
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Don' t all of the Trump Courses proclaim greatness by their Owner, where if not trying to so hard to be great, a pretty good course could had for 1/10th the price?
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Sitting around trying to make the perfect decision is not realistic in many professions. It is a series of best decisions made in succession that strive for improvement that matters. Paralysis by analysis is something the military for example is cognizant of, you have to make the best decision right now as the situation is most likely dynamic and as new information comes in you never get out of the analysis. It is incremental decision making advocated most in dynamic environments, perhaps in the art world, or novelist you have the luxury of time, but I can't think of many jobs where you do.
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Jeff,
While I agree with you in concept here, I would think Golf Course design to be one of the few where you can take your time. From Inception to Final Product it takes years to get a course in the ground, so its seems there would be tons of time for analysis in this profession.
I recall a few posts about how C&C will walk a site sometimes for weeks before coming up with a routing....
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I don't know why the idea of perfect crept into the discussion. There is an immense gulf between great and perfect.
Ciao
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I don't know why the idea of perfect crept into the discussion. The is an immense gulf between great and perfect.
Ciao
Indeed there is a well known book titled "Golf is not a Game of Perfect"
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Jeff,
While I agree with you in concept here, I would think Golf Course design to be one of the few where you can take your time. From Inception to Final Product it takes years to get a course in the ground, so its seems there would be tons of time for analysis in this profession.
I recall a few posts about how C&C will walk a site sometimes for weeks before coming up with a routing....
Is that why it takes these guys so long...... ;D ;D ;D ;D
I don't know who originally said it, but "you can't rush greatness."
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I don't know who originally said it, but "you can't rush greatness."
No, but you can certainly over-think it!! Routings necessarily take time to work out but great art (shaping wise) is an "in the moment" thing. Polishing if up for too long can ruin it.
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Getting back to the initial post, my belief is that the "experience" is far more important than the "architecture." A game of golf is (hopefully) only 4 hours of one's life, and if it is a "great" course and not near your abode it is probably the only time you will play the course. What do you do for the rest of the day? Well...if you are there with fellow players, are they fun people to play with and fun people to hang out with the apres golf? Is the venue pleasant and blessed with "eye candy," and are the locals friendly and joyful? All these things have nothing to do with "greatness" but they matter. For example...
....I played Royal County Down for the first time in 1979, with an old HS friend and in a downpour and with a need to get to the airport shortly after the game. Even though the club was not at all welcoming, and we were playing on the 2nd anniversary of the death of Bobby Sands (which made the avant golf in a local hotel very interesting....), it was a good learning experience and I will always rate RCD as one of the 25-30 3*** courses in the world. That being said, I have not felt the compulsion to visit Newcastle or play the course in the last 39 years...
Context matters,
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Tom Doak,
Well, I wasn't thinking politics when I wrote that, but was thinking of other art forms. Just as someone wonders how we got from great to perfect (Guess I am to blame....) going from overly perfectionistic to not striving for excellence is also a bounce back too far from great to good.
In fact, looking back at my 20 year old designs, always seeing some changes I would make now, but many (mostly the munis) all tend, trend and blend towards the median, usually a result of market and maintenance forces.
I wonder if onlookers wonder just how much effort went into trying to make the course very good, if not great. And how much time, low maintenance budgets, minor design changes in the name of maintenance or satisfying a green chairman's ego, etc. take away from the greatness left opening day. Of course, in other ways, it should get better, with maturing trees, turf, etc.
But, there are a lot of ways to look at the basic assumption of the thread. The "pure" architecture questions might revolve around degrees of strategy and/or degrees of allowable mix. Does the golfer have to hit the far edge of a fairway to have an opening, or do you soften that to the correct side, third or even half the fairway in the name of accommodating everyone?
For that matter, say you design that fairway as you see fit (let's assume tee shot right to edge of fw) what percentage of golfers even notice? For many, presumably most mid handicappers, they miss the point of some additions we might all treasure here, but might appreciate the purty flowers, etc..
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The Rich Goodale anecdote, with the emphasis on context, captures my sentiments about some experiences with courses where architectural greatness was the basis for traveling to the course.
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[/size]I've played over 160 different courses outside of North America. The travel experience over ten years began with the lower barriers to the best of the best outside of North America. The experiences with a variety of quality courses and the best of the best have helped me understand playing characteristics of what people call the best of the best.[/color]
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[/size]Over time, I have opted to return to specific areas many times, mostly based on areas having a concentrations of courses that would be ranked 4 to 6 on the Doak Scale. My latest trip to Australia was number 13 and my next trip to Ireland will be number 12. I have played two rounds at Royal County Down, two at Royal Portrush, and a single trip to the Southwest.[/color]
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[/size]Much of my decision making has related to quality time in areas with welcoming people and a great golf culture, where there is less regimentation, flexible options for scheduling, and fewer barriers to play.[/color]
[/size]Charles Lund[/color]
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"I played Royal County Down for the first time in 1979, with an old HS friend and in a downpour and with a need to get to the airport shortly after the game. Even though the club was not at all welcoming, and we were playing on the 2nd anniversary of the death of Bobby Sands (which made the avant golf in a local hotel very interesting....), it was a good learning experience and I will always rate RCD as one of the 25-30 3*** courses in the world. That being said, I have not felt the compulsion to visit Newcastle or play the course in the last 39 years...[/color][/size]Context matters,"[/color]