Some quotes on architecture, guess who?

[David Stamm]

"Every serious study or article on golf course architecture all the way back to Old Tom Morris has grasped the cardinal principles of strategic golf course design but, strangely enough, these principles are not understood as clearly today. One reason for this is that modern designers don't give themselves enough room-or are not allotted enough room by the developers-for their layouts. A golf course with different ways to play each hole requires a good deal of land."


"If you add to the concept of strategic design the concept that the course must appear to be entirely natural, you would then have the perfect golf course. Some modern courses do not get high marks in this regard."

"Any hope of originality in design will come only after time, patience, study and intimate familiarity with the old classic courses."



All made by the same man. Any guesses?

[JESII]

Ron Prichard.

[Garland Bayley]

RTJ

[David Stamm]

No and no. Garland, emoticon was forgotten?

[Jason Topp]

Mackenzie would be my guess

[Garland Bayley]

No and no. Garland, emoticon was forgotten?

As Dan Kelly would tell you, emoticons are for those whose humor can not otherwise be discerned.

[Ronald Montesano]

Barack Obama?

[Bart Bradley]

Sounds like MacKenzie to me.

Bart

[Jaeger Kovich]

Is it Mr. Doak in Anatomy of A Golf Course?

[Matthew Hunt]

Bill Coore

[Adam Clayman]

Klein?

Whitten?

Dye?

[Greg Tallman]

Kurt Bowman?

[Peter Pallotta]

David - well, I'm not thrown off by the word "modern", but I am a little by the word "developer".  Nonetheless, I'd suggest that perhaps we needn't be unduly surprised to find that those quotes come from none other than Mr. CB Macdonald!!

Peter

[BCrosby]

Peter - You sound utterly confident, so I'll vote with you.

Bob

[Peter Pallotta]

Thanks, Bob. I feel like I've just drawn to an inside straight!

I was mostly banking on David being a veteran of these guess-the-quote games, and thus on him trying to confuse us.

But since I can't imagine that you cast your vote willy-nilly or on such a flimsy premise, I have now grown very confident indeed!!

Peter

[Dick Kirkpatrick]

Harry Shapland Colt

[David Stamm]

Bill Coore

Matthew came the closest, as the quotes came from the partner of Mr Coore, Mr Ben Crenshaw. These were quotes taken from thr afterword of the Classics of Golf reprint of Bernard Darwin's The Golf Courses of the British Isles. Now a simple question, is he right? Do you agree with him?

[Adam Clayman]

"Every serious study or article on golf course architecture all the way back to Old Tom Morris has grasped the cardinal principles of strategic golf course design but, strangely enough, these principles are not understood as clearly today. One reason for this is that modern designers don't give themselves enough room-or are not allotted enough room by the developers-for their layouts. A golf course with different ways to play each hole requires a good deal of land."


"If you add to the concept of strategic design the concept that the course must appear to be entirely natural, you would then have the perfect golf course. Some modern courses do not get high marks in this regard."

"Any hope of originality in design will come only after time, patience, study and intimate familiarity with the old classic courses."

I agree with each and every one of those.
 What's great is that these guys go out and actually do that bit about marrying the strategic with the natural, if they're given the opportunity.

[Peter Pallotta]

The old double cross!

Adam - yes, but what's particularly interesting is how Ben ties insufficient (physical) space with insufficient (philosophical) vision/understanding.  It's an intriguing idea, but I'm not sure I understand it, and I'm not sure that he's right. (Weren't many of the classic courss designed to fit relatively small sites?) What do you think?

Peter

[Jonathan Cummings]

"Every serious study or article on golf course architecture all the way back to Old Tom Morris has grasped the cardinal principles of strategic golf course design but, strangely enough, these principles are not understood as clearly today. One reason for this is that modern designers don't give themselves enough room-or are not allotted enough room by the developers-for their layouts. A golf course with different ways to play each hole requires a good deal of land."


"If you add to the concept of strategic design the concept that the course must appear to be entirely natural, you would then have the perfect golf course. Some modern courses do not get high marks in this regard."

"Any hope of originality in design will come only after time, patience, study and intimate familiarity with the old classic courses."



All made by the same man. Any guesses?

You know this is the height of collective arrogance on our part.  Suggesting that the Golden Agers "had it" and until now only we gca-ers "have it", completely ignores all the practical considerations the architects of the "in between" age  had to contend with. 

For the most part those designers were well-versed in what needed to be done but constrained in what they were allowed to do.

Until about the 1990s there were no business models and attendment funding to support the modern golf course designs.



JC

[Jeff_Brauer]

I find this interesting:

"Any hope of originality in design will come only after time, patience, study and intimate familiarity with the old classic courses."

Is he saying that the only way to be original is to copy or emulate the old courses?  Doesn't sound quite right to me.  A perfect example would be Mike Strantz work.  To me, its as original as they come, the most original since Pete Dye and while I see some basic elements of old school strategy, the envelope is pushed so far that its hard to see where that influence comes in. 

Basically, it makes more sense to me to say that original design would come from doing something opposite of the old courses.  And, RTJ, Dye and a few others were quite original when new.......then they got successful and started repeating themselves out of sheer number of golf holes to design.  Of course, the book remains out on the current crop of designers to prove that they can be original time after time.....myself included, of course!

[Rich Goodale]

Anybody who has "intimate familiarity with the old classic courses" would never say such a thing as "A golf course with different ways to play each hole requires a good deal of land."  Ben must have mailed that "afterword" in.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Rich, he may have been talking about the classics before the overplanted trees grew, no?

That said, how many centerline bunkers and double fw occur at Sand Hills where they certainly had all the land they wanted?  Other than similar playing surface, rather than defined fw and rough between the natives, the playing corridors aren't that much wider than most new courses that haven't grown in over time, is it?

[Rich Goodale]

Jeff

As usual I'm thinking about links courses--Old Course, North Berwick, Dornoch, etc.--which still do not have any trees, but are built on the least amount of land practicable.  In the US I'd add Merion and NGLA.  Very few people have the freedom to do what you want that Ben and Bill had at Sand Hills.  No?

Rich

PS--I should add that building courses like TOC and Dornoch and Merion, where it is very possible to be hit by a golf ball coming from another hole, is probably impossible in this age of litigation and gormless golfers.

rfg