[Mike Hendren]

From the forward of my re-print of The Architectural Side of Golf :  "What does good golf architecture accomplish ?"

Mike

[ed_getka]

It causes the golfer to think!

[wsmorrison]

A furtherance of the art and sport in golf.  

Crump, Wilson, Macdonald, and other Golden Age architects firmly believed that great architecture would promote better play.  In the Philadelphia district, the layouts at Pine Valley and Merion certainly helped local golfers become more adept players.  Eventually, the quality of play improved enough that Philladelphians at last became competitive in intercity matches.  

[Mike Hendren]

In my mind it forces the golfer to access what he is capable of doing and what he is incapable or doing and then requires him to execute a shot consistent with that assessment.

[TEPaul]

"What does good golf architecture accomplish?"

Any golf architecture accomplishes just another perfect example in the endless list of Man's incursions on the beauty and glories of raw nature. With Allan Robertson's "remodeling" of the 17th green at TOC in 1848 (apparently the very first known instance of man (an architect) actually creating something in golf) the never ending infliction of what Max Behr appropriately referred to as the 'game mind of man' began and it's been getting worse every year for the last 156 years.

Wayne and I have been talking about creating a truly natural and wonderful golf course for about a year now. How exactly to do that has been an intense subject of discussion. We've thought of all kinds of unique possibilities but I believe I've come up with the very best conceivable way this morning. It'll take a lot of thought and hard work to accomplish it but I shall propose the best way to go about it is to do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING except seed it, mow it and play it! As for that bald eagle on contemplated hole #5 or #9 I shall propose to the Maryland Dept of Natural Resources that he can play too! I'm even willing to make him an honorary non-dues paying member and his nest high in that tree shall become known as Lot #108A!

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

I like Mike's answer

[TEPaul]

"In my mind it forces the golfer to access what he is capable of doing and what he is incapable or doing and then requires him to execute a shot consistent with that assessment."

I like Mikey's answer too!

However, I've always been partial to those holes that are adept at forcing a golfer to assess (he can access if he wants to but it's probably better for him to just assess   ) what he's capable of doing that require him to execute a shot consistent with that assessment and then occasionally fakes him out anyway!    

If golf architecture is a figurative game of chess between the golfer and the architect should the architect somehow help the golfer do the right and proper thing? I don't think so! I like the idea of Mackenzie's style of "looks hard, plays easier" and I like the other side of the coin of Ross's style of "looks easy, plays harder" but in both seemingly opposite approaches to architecture there has to be a degree of deception that a clever golfer should always sense!

[TEPaul]

"Isn't the hallmark of great GCA utter confusion?"

Shivas, now you're really stretching!

The hallmark of truly great golf course architecture is to get almost any golfer to not take personally WHATEVER happens to him when he plays the golf course! If a golf course and it's architecture could get Matt Ward to actually do that it's provably probably the greatest ever known!

[Don_Mahaffey]

I know I encounter what I think is good architecture when I find myself completely absorbed into the course and the shot at hand. I notice bad architecture, I feel good architecture

[ed_getka]

Shivas,
   In what scenario would you not think? When it comes to thinking, introducing doubt is what I am getting at, which is what I tend to like in the courses I enjoy. Thinking also refers to putting yourself in a less than optimal position on the course, but by paying attention and looking, there are times where you can find a way to get the ball where you want it to go by using some feature the architect has incorporated into the hole. I think Barona Creek is a great example, at least for my game, when it comes to finding a way to salvage something by paying attention to the ground features.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

I think the answer is to seek and find the pleasurable excitement of being in an environment that has been gifted with a grand nature and refinement to the scheme of creating a sporting challenge.

It doesn't get any simpler then that.


Aristotle once said:
The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.....

He also said:
In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.

And then he said:
Nature does nothing uselessly

And in closing:
If one way be better than another, that you may be sure is nature's way.


I think that these quotes offer a lot to the art of golf architecture.

[TEPaul]

TommyN:

Those are all interesting and apropos quotes and completely in line with Max Behr's observations about the physical ways of nature and the surface of the earth of constantly evolving and devolving, of simultaneously building up and breaking down. Those were the processes of the surface of the earth that Behr believed an architect should understand and to a large degree follow in what he created and how.

[Steve Curry]

Strategic Thought!

[Brian_Gracely]

A round in less than 4hrs that makes you want to head back to the 1st tee after the last putt on 18 is holed.

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