[Peter Pallotta]

If you want to live a life full of Golf Course Architecture, move in next to Pat Mucci.  If you'd rather have a life full of golf course architecture, move in next to sean arble.

At its best, Golf Course Architecture (in title case) is unbeatable; the self conscious idea and ideal of creating instantly great (and enduring) courses was a powerful motivator and self-fulfilling prophecy.  Pat can tell you all about that.  

But then listen to sean for a while, and look at his latest profile Coxmoor: the lower case golf course architecture that aimed for more modest goals and reputations is more plentiful, and far less expensive, and, on average, more than holds its own.

The drawbacks: the Best, if we're being honest, don't come along very often; we tend to overuse that word. The average, on the other hand, is legion and contains multitudes and is a wide gate that lets a lot in, some of it not very good except for the price.  

One day I think Pat has got it better; the next day I think sean does.

Just some rambling thoughts. They didn't go anywhere, but not OT at least.

Peter

  

[TEPaul]

"Just some rambling thoughts."


Hmmmm. Well, as Ben Crenshaw is occasionally wont to say about certain things----"I'll sure consider it."

[RJ_Daley]

Pietro, the distinction of 'living a life' and 'having a life' is one of a sliding scale of degrees of fortune, privilege, access, desire, and passion, it seems to me.   Both Pat and Sean unquestionably have degrees of these but in different quanitites.  Maybe even the quantities are sliding in different time periods.

i think you are saying that Pat loves the topic, understands it very well, is passionate and has great access and experience to some of the most elite and exclusive courses, because he is fortunate and he can do so.  Sean, pursues the topic to as passionate of a degree and for maybe more practical reasons of fortune and different set of courses to access, looks in the more modest and undiscovered, not so elite fields of play, yet finds the GCA and appreciates it equally with Pat.  Either way, these two you've singled out are the real deal when it comes to desire to learn and experience interesting and great GCA, and share their experiences with the rest.  

Just my off the top of the head take, even though I only briefly met Pat, and never met Sean.  But they sure play a huge role in this site and sharing good GCA observations.  I guess one would call them both, generous.

[Peter Pallotta]

RJ - yup, the real deal both gents are.

And I was also/mainly thinking out loud about the courses themselves, and the value/meaning of courses like the (title case) NGLA and (lower case) Coxmoor.

There's been lots of threads about the future/business of gca.  I think there will be a future, but don't know what it will be like. 

But tonight I got the feeling that the future for Title Case courses will actually be better than for the kind of lower case courses that Sean profiles.

And tonight, that struck me as a sad thing, for many reasons.

Hope you are well -- and that the back has allowed you to play more often

Peter

[Jim_Kennedy]

Just remember this Peter, there are ca. 13 million 'core' golfers in the USA and that amount again who play at least one round per year.

Most aren't playing courses like NGLA.


edit: and somewhere around 55 million players worldwide.

[Mark Pearce]

Peter,

The lower case courses Sean visits are by no means the poor relations in their areas.  Indeed, I suspect most would be viewed as the, or one of the, premier clubs in the area they are.  They'll be fine seeing out the recession, I suspect.

[TEPaul]

Peter:

I'm pretty sure I understand your reference to upper and lower case in your first post and how you're intending to use it in the context of golf course architecture (also with the examples of Pat Mucci and Sean Arble).

In that vein it is well worth all of us appreciating where exactly this site's owner, Ran Morrissett, comes down in this particular context. It's hard for me to tell how well any or many on this website actually know him or understand where he and his lifelong passion for golf architecture emanates from or is trying to get to, but I would say it's very much trying to see that eventually the twain will somehow meet in a number of ways both actually or at least in a better understanding of the interweavings of what you call lower case and upper case in architecture in the past, in the present, and in the future!

[Sean_A]

Pietro (and upper case Dick)

Thank you for the kind thoughts.  You draw an interesting dichotomy which imo doesn't exist at least on some level.  While it is true that I will always be drawn to good value courses that rely on excellent terrain, fine turf and a thoughtful routing to make up for a bit of a lack in architectural detail, I don't necessarily believe that the best of architecture is represented by a large percentage of well established and respected US clubs.  While I often lament over the state of courses in their lack of tree or turf management, from my experience, they are still light years ahead (or more properly BEHIND ebcause kif the budgets were high in the UK I am positive the situation with trees and destroying turf with too much feed and water would be far more progressed than now) in presenting a good product at a reasonable price compared to many US conterparts.  In other words, I don't think the architecture of the best lower case courses suffers much (if at all) compared to some courses often seen as great.  Its a matter of adjusting what one is looking for AND sees.  There is a ton of great architecture all over the place, but sometimes I just don't see it or EVEN, I don't like it.   

Ciao     

[RJ_Daley]

Peter, again off the top of my head, I think the future of upper and lower case courses is pretty constant. They each have their markets of supporters.  If anything, I suspect there are more Sean's seeking lower case than Pat's seeking upper case for practical modern economic realities. Yet, if one seeks good architecture, one can find it at both ends of the spectrum.  The abundance or consistency is less or more sporadic at the lower case for obvious reasons, yet it is out there.

Somehow, this all ties in with Richard Mandells 'affordable golf' symposium, I think.  I'm waiting for Richard's summary to be written soon.

It also depends on what world we live in to a certain extent.  If you live in an upper case world, you see that and you have a different perspective.  Lower case must remain accessible via affordability if it is to survive moreso than upper case, it seems to me. 

 

[Patrick_Mucci]

I don't have a lot of time, and will try to get back on GCA.com on Wednesday, but, you might be surprised to learn that there's a movement of the upper case toward the lower case, due to the economy.

[Tags:]

Tags:

[Tags:]

Tags:

Call to undefined function theme_linktree()