A question about the architectural

[Patrick_Mucci]

"high water" mark of a golf course.

How would it be determined ?

And, who would make the determination ?

[Kirk Gill]

Can I assume that the point of this question is, if a club plans on doing a restoration, how do they go about selecting what point in their history represents the peak point to which the course should be restored?

Obviously, if a course was changed in the past, there were reasons that seemed valid at the time. And of course, sometimes a lot of changes were made at once but many other times little changes were made, one at a time, bit by bit. Behind each of those decisions was a human mind thinking "this needs to happen because......."

I suppose one way to go about determining a "high-water mark" would be to examine the major differences between the course as it is and the course as it was originally designed, and attempt to determine the thinking behind each of the changes, either through finding documentation or sheer guesswork, if necessary. It may turn out that there wasn't any one specific time where the entire course was at its best, but instead a time when each of the changes that have been made had their greatest validity, and that a restoration based on those decisions might not necessarily take a course back to one period in time but instead make the most of the course as it has existed over its entire history.

And who makes that determination? The people who always have - the chosen representatives of the members, both internal and external, yes?

[Mark_Fine]

Pat,
You know my one of my approaches as I've showed and discussed it a few times on here.  Sometimes the decision is obvious using that technique.  
Mark

[TEPaul]

Who makes the decision of what the "high water mark" is to restore back to?

The representatives of the membership who are charged with those kinds of decisions make those decisions. Who the hell else could make those decisions or who the hell else would a club let make those decisions?

Should those decision-making representatives learn how to make better and more informed decisions in that vein? Of course they should and there's a thousand ways to go about that. But to suggest or ask them to give up that decision-making responsiblity is neither going to happen nor should it.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Kirk Gill,

Do you examine the question in the context of a single date with respect to the entire golf course, or, do you undertake the evaluative process on a feature by feature, hole by hole basis, ignoring any particular date ?

[Gary Slatter]

Pat, not trying to be funny but what year would the "high water mark" for BAGDAD be if we asked the survivors?

[Kirk Gill]

Do you examine the question in the context of a single date with respect to the entire golf course, or, do you undertake the evaluative process on a feature by feature, hole by hole basis, ignoring any particular date ?

That IS the question. I suppose it depends on the history of each individual course. For a course that was designed by a prominent architect and subsequently altered by who-knows-who, the choice to go back to the original design seems like a no-brainer. But what if the big name blew it on one particular hole, or feature? What to do then? It seems like either approach could have some validity. These are the exact choices the members and their representatives (or their chosen restoration architect) are going to have to make.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Pat, not trying to be funny but what year would the "high water mark" for BAGDAD be if we asked the survivors?

That's easy,

Pre Saddam.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Kirk Gill,

Some of the other questions related to the issue are:

Does the club know what's original ?

Do they have the documented evidence, usually, heavily photographic, to substantiate what existed and when ?

This is why I favor a "1936" restoration at GCGC.

The date has historical significance because the US Am was held there on that date, and because the US Am was there, it probably accounts for the abundance of aerial and ground level photos circa 1936.

In another topic I lamented the loss of bunkers and sand wastes to lush rough.  GCGC is one of those clubs where restoring the sand wastes would be incredibly attractive, less dependent upon water, and more challenging.

[Doug Siebert]

Pat, not trying to be funny but what year would the "high water mark" for BAGDAD be if we asked the survivors?

That's easy,

Pre Saddam.

More like 1000+ years before Saddam.  It reached its peak probably only 100 years after it was founded,, when it was the largest city in the world and home of the most advanced thinkers, mathematics and science in the world at that time.  Its all been downhill ever since...