Nick Faldo the Architect

[TEPaul]

I have very little knowledge of how or what Tour pros contribute to the courses that their names go on--probably some more than others and their contributions are probably  in smaller and specific ways--if at all. Other than Ben Crenshaw, whose modus operandi I do know, any information I have on this kind of thing has been very indirect.

As for Nick Faldo, I have absolutely no idea what he contributes. All I know about him comes from spending a few hours with him as he analyzed a classic golf course with another architect. He wasn't particularly forthcoming about whatever architectural ideas he does have or architectural principles he believes in.

However, the answers he gave to plenty of questions I found to be very insightful, quite different from the general perception of the Tour pro/architect (that perception not being the public's belief that the Tour pro builds the course in its entirety but the perception from some people on here that it's mostly a marketing gimmick).

So I'm comfortable taking someone like Tom Doak's word for it that this kind of architectural contribution really is a fallacy (which he says he's been pointing out for years). And I thank Tom for the information on Faldo's articles in Links Magazine being ghost written--it doesn't surprise me at all.

However, Tom Doak seems to indicate that others get involved in the same fallacy, specifically mentioning Ron Whitten and Geoff Shackelford. That may be true too but I don't think this is something that one can just generalize about and leave it at that! I don't know Ron Whitten from Adam and I know almost nothing about his architectural philosophy or even his architectural knowledge regarding actually conceive of and building a golf course.

But the same is definitely not true about Geoff Shackelford. I know him and his philosophy extremely well. I also believe I know where his architectural knowledge and talent lies and it's in architectural analysis but particularly in architectural conceptualization in spades! He doesn't pretend to be particularly knowledgeable, and certainly not an expert, on the use of machinery or some of the other areas of constructing courses.

But this one area of architecture-- conceptualization--ie routing and hole conceptualization, I happen to think is extremely important. And it isn't likely something you can just wake up and have or whip out in a day or two, you have to put the time in--lots of time. And not only time tromping around for weeks and weeks on a raw piece of property but time (probably years) researching and analyzing golf course architecture, the courses that work and shine, those that don't and why, the men who built and build them, how they conceived and conceptualized them and on and on into much of the minutae of the art and business of golf course architecture and the creation of great holes and courses.

And if, after all that time, analysis and research one wants to put down what he's learned and understands into a number of really excellent books on architecture, its philosophies and its evolution, so much the better!

Maybe really talented architectural conceptualization is not the essence of it all but it certainly is the necessary starting point, in my opinon, without which all else will probably fail or fall short.

This is not to say that Shackelford's recent and first foray into golf course construction was done on his own. But I do think that Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner would be more than happy to confirm his significant contribution on Rustic Canyon. And of course one needs a successful product to confirm talent anyway. Time will of course tell but I predict that confirmation is in "grow in" stage right now.

But the perception that I find to be the real fallacy and actually the funniest of all is the perception foisted on the golf world that once someone becomes a professional architect that somehow they become magically imbued with talent and knowledge.

I guess this magically happens when they raise their right hand and take the oath of professionalism or whatever, when they sign their first contract or maybe their tenth in one year after having gone through the wars of reality checking!

I really don't think so--much of it is fallacy. If someone has talent, even in a specific area and exclusive of other areas of the business it should be understood and recognized. But it hardly ever is, I guess so the professional architect who can be the only one who knows the mysteries of the art of golf architecture can be perpetuated. With this illogic it would even seem to follow that the professional golf architect is the only one who ever will really understand a golf course anyway--another major fallacy!

Even the likes of a George Crump, clearly a talent, but perceived as an amateur architect, needs to be put in perspective by the professional. The fallacy that despite spending the necessary time out there (years), the work, even the conceptualizing, the routing, the individual and specific hole conceptualizing and the overall design was really done by the professionals he brought around. In this case the fallacy the routing was done by Colt and the other professionals did the actual design.

It's all fallacy, except for the fact that Colt, Tillinghast and maybe one or two others may have helped him get unstuck on a couple of well known sticking points like #5, maybe #7, and the famous greensite alteration of #13. #10 may have been Colt or it may have been Crump. And similar stories and histories are all over the place--Fownes, Leeds, Egan, Hunter, Behr etc, etc.

So, I don't think that amateurs should be allowed to just hang out shingles and claim to be talented and knowledgeable, and I do think that professional monitoring of some sort is probably benefical, but I also think that talent should be recognized no matter how it may have come to the fore!

And it should be looked at fairly and confirmed with whatever background that person may have brought with him to the art and business--that's important. And if you have any talent, still time taken to conceptualize, time taken in the field is also immensely important and golf architectural history has clearly shown us that!

I'm more than willing to look closely at the apparent contributions of some in architecture, but I don't think there should be this generalization of those in the business versus those that aren't (the amateur, so called by the profession). And if someone wants to make those generalizations anyway and even include specific examples in it, I would not include Geoff Shackelford any longer--not unless you want to be proven wrong!

[Paul Turner]

Tom Doak

That doesn't surprise me.  Nick Edmund used to pick two top 50's for both links and inland courses in "Following the Fairways".  And the last time I looked his number 1 inland course was Chart Hills!

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Tom Doak,
Prior to the construction to Rustic Canyon, I was fortunate to spend some time out there with Geoff, walking through the tall rattle snake-infested grasses, looking for features that had yet to be uncovered.

The funny thing about it was Geoff knew this land better then most simply because of inordinate amount of time he spent analyzing it as well as eventually assisting in it's refinement.

While I can claim inexperience as this being the first time I had seen a golf course being designed, first hand, in the field from start to finish. (My time there has been more in line with the tour pros mentioned in this thread.) there is little doubt in my mind just how much involvement Geoff has had in the project.

Geoff wasn't a finger-pointer nor a critic. It was VERY clear to me that he was in fact co-designing and building a golf course with Jim Wagner and Gil Hanse.

Ultimately, you need to come out to Rustic Canyon and see for yourself. It is clearly the product of all of the above mentioned.

It is a 10 on the Doak Scale, just on Geoff's efforts alone.

[Paul_Daley]

Some of the posts on this topic have been excellent, and really educational.

And now, a different perspective:

What Nick Faldo does and does not bring to the table is up for grabs. But what is not in question is his upcoming appearance in the Heineken Classic at Royal Melbourne.

I have no doubt the attraction is to study the RMGC architecture - realising that in all probability he will miss the cut. Rest assured, he will 'poke about' other sandbelt courses during his stay.

One of the highlights of my new book on the Melbourne Sandbelt is Faldo's essay on the relative virtues of RM vs Kingston Heath. It will become a classic piece of literature.

He states, quite simply, that he plans to play and study more Melbourne courses over the next few years.

I have to beleive that Big Nick is serious about learning his craft.

[TEPaul]

Paul:

I agree with you--Faldo is a serious man, and if he actually does get into arcthitecture full-boat it will be interesting to follow.

Up until now and at the moment he seems to have partnered with established architects more for business or player-agent reasons, but who knows, once his playing career winds down if he really gets into it time-wise and with his own people or serious partnering he probably will be very interesting to follow.

He's clearly a very analytical person and in many ways not exactly what I would have expected. Although analytical, he is definitely not myopic, in my opinion! He seems extremely observant of many things one would never expect and he may also be what I would call a "quietly digestive listener".

He appears to be the type who probably has strong beliefs but my take was he could be a Tour player who has an unusual ability to visualize the "spectrum of golfing levels" into golf course architecture.

Looking back at his playing career he might be one whose architectural career (if he's serious about one) could go through a number of interesting alterations and iterations.

Like all the others in the business, though, a lot might depend on the clients he gets--I hope he understands that as well as he appears to understand some other things about golf and architecture. He might be stubborn, though, and that might help!

[BillV]

TommyN

My buddy.  You are hereby taken to task for your Doak 10 scale statement for Rustic Canyon. !

You may retract the statement if you wish.  I will post no further on it and I will let the post as it stands speak for itself.

[TEPaul]

BillV:

As sometimes happens, your post isn't speaking for itself, not to me anyway. Would you kindly mind speaking for it?

Thanks so much.

[BillV]

Tommy

The post is for the other Tommy only.

[Paul_Daley]

T.E.Paul:

You have Nick Faldo accurately pegged as an analytical person, and the way he won his majors - chessplayer like - tells us he has a deep appreciation for strategic thinking.

Like you, I think the future possibilities of Faldo designs are tantalising, and he strikes me as one golf professional unlikely to add name ... but little else to a project.

On another level, it is going to be interesting observing how Greg Norman and Nick Flado resume their intense rivalry over the next 25 years; not with pars and birdies, but securing alluring sites around the world.

Of course there is nothing new here: Nicklaus vs Palmer vs Player vs each other.

[Tom_Doak]

Tom Paul:

Just for the record, I didn't say anything about Geoff Shackelford's talent for design, or Ron Whitten's, or Nick Faldo's for that matter.

However, I find it funny how everyone on here recognizes that there is a big leap between design ideas and actual ability ... until it comes to themselves or a friend of theirs or someone famous whom they admire.

I know Ron Whitten a lot better than I know Geoff or Nick Faldo, so I'll stick to him, and say that I think he would design some great courses on his own, and much more so if he devotes the time to learning the craft of getting one's ideas into the ground.  I know for a fact that I'm a lot better at it after 14 courses than I was on my first.

However, it's much easier to take the Tour pro route and take a smaller fee for being a "conceptualizer" as you call it.  If the course is a success then you can claim a lot of the credit, and if not you can avoid much of the blame because no one expects you to be "technically proficient."    

In fact, a lot of designers might go that route, if their name was perceived as worth half the fee.  [But it's not, so we have to blame our failures on the development or the contractor.]

I have never submitted that all professional architects are imbued with talent and knowledge.  In fact, several of them despise me for implying just the opposite ... that the world might be a more interesting place if fewer courses were designed by professionals and more by amateurs.

[You must also have misinterpreted earlier posts I've made about George Crump.  I do respect his contribution, but it's equally a fallacy that he did Pine Valley without considerable help and advice.]

In the end, there is a big gap between conceptualizing a golf hole and getting a good one onto the ground.  I believe the latter is the more important talent.  Most of the concepts of golf course design are pretty simple ... in fact, the more they grow in my mind, the simpler they seem.  It's what you can do with them that counts.  

[TEPaul]

Tom Doak:

Thanks for setting the record straight, maybe I did misread your remarks, and no, you didn't say anything about Geoff Shackelford, Ron Whitten or Nick Faldo's talent or lack of it. I thought you implied it though by mentioning them when remarking about the continuing fallacy about tour pros as architects and Shackelford and Whitten taking basically that same route. I think you said later that they are taking the route of tour pros that sign on for their nominal ideas because of their names. Shackelford isn't a tour pro though.

I'm not too sure if I do understand what you said about me mentioning things like I have about Shackelford. I do feel I know a bit about his philosophy, background and his history with Rustic Canyon. If you're saying I should understand better the differences between his ideas at Rustic (conceptualizing) and getting the design onto the ground I think you're right but I do think I understand that fairly well.

I would hope that he might comment on this here, but my understanding is that Shackelford didn't just "hire on" with Gil Hanse at Rustic for his ideas or his conceptualizing. My understanding is that Shackelford had been trying to get something done with that site well before any architect was contracted. And preceding that (or he may have been instrumental in getting an architect hired) he did quite a bit of work on the site. If so, that makes quite a difference to me. It also makes quite a difference to me what Shackelford conceived of out there before any architect was contracted and what's out there now.

And that leads to another similar subject that is far more fascinating--Pine Valley! Maybe I did misinterpret what you said about Pine Valley, Crump, Colt and possibly some other architects. I thought you said it on here maybe a year or more ago; I know I probably can't find it now, but my recollection is that you said Colt had routed Pine Valley (that is the routing that is Pine Valley) and that you'd seen Colt's routing.

I would very much like to clarify that if I did misinterpret you because at this moment I do not believe that such a routing exists. I also don't believe that the hole drawings of Colt's that do exist and are at Pine Valley are at all similar to what Pine Valley is today which is what George Crump did. Again, the contributions that Colt or others made are very well known and are relatively minimal in the overall scheme of things with what the course was and is. But if you know something different, like where a Colt routing (that is Pine Valley) is, I would love to hear it and certainly see it.

I really do appreciate your remark that you feel that amateurs such as Crump, or possibly Shackelford should do more courses. I couldn't agree with you more, certainly and particularly if they're willing and able to put that kind of time into the project.

[Tom_Doak]

Tom P:

I have seen the hole drawings of Colt's at Pine Valley.  I assumed that Colt had done the routing which led to them, but perhaps not; that was the way it was explained to me 20 years ago, but they could have had it wrong.

I thought the drawings were close.  They showed conventional bunkers, rather than the sandy wastes which made Pine Valley famous; but my drawings of Lost Dunes [then labeled Red Arrow Sports Club] would show conventional bunkers, too.  We didn't invent the style of the bunkers until we got in the field.  Crump should indeed get credit for the style of Pine Valley, but a lot of the strategy was there in Colt's drawings.

If the routing was indeed Crump's instead of Colt's, then Crump should get the lion's share of the credit.  I don't know how to know for sure.  But, if Colt didn't do the routing OR the construction, what the heck did they pay him for??

[TEPaul]

TomD:

Two things, last first. What did Crump pay Colt for? First of all the fact that Crump did pay Colt $10,000. was apparently discovered approximately 40 years after the fact, and the discovery was only a remark made by a man in the 1950s who had been part of Crump's expansive coterie. Finegan at least questions the validity of that fact.

Secondly, on the payment, there has certainly been plenty of apparently valid assumption that Crump may have paid Colt mostly for the use of his name, for obvious reasons, since in 1913 Crump was certainly not a world reknowned architect--almost the opposite, in fact, although he definitely did know a thing or two about marketing and public relations.

The strategy of the holes themselves may show up some in Colt's individual hole drawings, and that's a damn good point you make. I'm going down there shortly to look at Colt's hole drawings and see for myself just how much they do that.

As to Colt's routing--noone I've ever heard of has ever seen it, very likely because he never did one. And that fact can be very easily be determined by the fact that Crump's routing (the so-called "Crump Schematic Plan") hangs on the wall at Pine Valley to this day, and it's clearly what Pine Valley was and is and it's dated and signed by Crump PRECEDING the date that Colt first arrived at Pine Valley. It was done before Colt ever got there, and that tells me only one thing.

[mm]

Sooooooo Nick Faldo is going all the way to Melbourne to study the great sandbelt courses - although it looks like he might miss the cut? What a guy. And he's not getting any appearence money?? Hmmmmm.

I don't believe Faldo has spent any more time on any of his "designs" than any other "celebrity designer". In fact I know he visited the ones he did in Asia only a few times during design and construction. His "split" with IMG over a poor design in China (when he only saw the course at the finish) led him to teaming up with Curley & Smhmidt for an improved design elsewhere in the region. Of course he has his own design team in London now - wonder how that will go?

Despite his ghost written articles it is hard to see that he is in it for anything but the money.

[Mike_Cirba]

I would ask anyone who doubts Nick Faldo's intuitive ability to understand and implement strategy to watch a tape of his final 36 holes at The Old Course in the early 1990's versus his competitors.  

If he is able to apply even 1/10th of those thought-processes to architecture, he'd be a leg up on many of his contemporaries.

[mm]

No one questions Faldo's understanding of strategy and his ability to implement his understanding with his golf clubs.

From a golf design standpoint, it is quite one thing to understand strategy and another to apply that to design. Many people intuatively know a good golf hole when they see it but few are able to see their own ideas implemented.

I know what a good book is and I am a good reader - would that make me a good author? ditto for movies and every other creative art.

Only time will tell if Faldo has the creative juices and the time necessary to design his own great golf courses - no ghostwriting of course.

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