Why cant golfers accept odd/quirky features on golf courses?

[jeffwarne]

A couple of things that eliminates quirk:

medal play over match play... a quirky bounce or the ball going into a quirky severe spot, can ruin a round in medal play... and only one hole in match play.

building quirky features or keeping natural quirky features is playing on the edge, it's taking risk...
and to take that risk, you have to see every inch of it...
Tom Doak talked about needing a great shaper on site to build the quirky features. I think it's more about having a person on site that will be able and willing to evaluate whether the feature works or not... Sometimes, moving the feature 2 or 3 yards to the left or right, building the feature a foot higher or lower... would make all the difference in the world.
You can't do those things from a plan... and it also takes time. you might have to build the feature, demolish part of it, and fix it... It's time, it's money.. especially in a plan / contractor basis...

and finally... golfers complain... for some, it's a hard, cruel game and they have a hard time seeing the bright side of it
                  people complain... for some, it's a hard, cruel life, and they have a hard time seeing the bright side of it

very true.

and it's also critical that those fielding the complaints are placed in a position where they can weather them to allow the feature enough time to be understood, accepted,embraced, or tweaked.
many are not and therefore adding/keeping a quirky feature can be potential suicide, and hence golf is generally the poorer for it.

[Jeff_Brauer]

TD says:

"The more we pay to play the game, the less tolerance we have for something outlandish; and the more the architects make from designing courses, the less likely they are to put their future earnings on the line by building something controversial."

Absolutely and something true in virtually all professions.

It may have been a blessing that Golden Age architects never became wealthy nor ever expected to become wealthy.

Bob

I think at least a few of them were very wealthy to start with, no?

For that matter, I don't see a whole lot of real quirk in the work of Ross, Mac, Tillie.  Most of them, by and large, set the blue prints for what is more or less the standard course of today.  They worked hard to get rid of the quirk and unfairness (and maybe even more, the unnaturalness) of the pre 1910 architecture.  Construction limitations may not have allowed them to be 100% successful, but they all wrote against blind shots, all diagrammed zig zag fw with bunkers edging in, but not in the middle, etc.

I think we are not being entirely factual here if we draw the quirk line at 1990 or so....

[Ally Mcintosh]

TD says:

"The more we pay to play the game, the less tolerance we have for something outlandish; and the more the architects make from designing courses, the less likely they are to put their future earnings on the line by building something controversial."

Absolutely and something true in virtually all professions.

It may have been a blessing that Golden Age architects never became wealthy nor ever expected to become wealthy.

Bob

I think at least a few of them were very wealthy to start with, no?

For that matter, I don't see a whole lot of real quirk in the work of Ross, Mac, Tillie.  Most of them, by and large, set the blue prints for what is more or less the standard course of today.  They worked hard to get rid of the quirk and unfairness (and maybe even more, the unnaturalness) of the pre 1910 architecture.  Construction limitations may not have allowed them to be 100% successful, but they all wrote against blind shots, all diagrammed zig zag fw with bunkers edging in, but not in the middle, etc.

I think we are not being entirely factual here if we draw the quirk line at 1990 or so....

Generally, I agree with Jeff... It has been a process over the last 100 years or so...

Disagree about centreline hazards though. Plus they are going through a second coming at the moment - I see them on every new course... Would never call them quirk, just interesting design.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Ally, agree on the centerline hazards, at least I use one on nearly every course where I can find a good spot.  So do most others, so it falls in the "rediscovered" category, like pot bunkers in 1980 after ASGCA went to Scotland for the first time.

That said, I get the impression that at least a few posters here believe center bunkers were a staple of the Golden Age, and I don't see it. I see angled bunkers, a la the bottle hole.  I would characterize the "standard" tee shot of golden age archies to be the optional carry over angled fw bunkers (if there was a standard) and would characterize most of the post WWII era with "LZ flanking bunkers (a la Wilson and RTJ, with Wilson doing more staggering, and Jones doing more US Open style bracketing)

[Brett Wiesley]

Personally, when I visited Ireland, I was most excited to play the "Dell & Klondyke" holes.  I had read about the quirky holes, and after playing them felt they were perfect on the course.  I wouldn't mind a similar hole on many of our American courses.  A course full of those shots would be a little tiresome, but 1 or 2 a round could be very exciting.  I don't think they are much different in challenge than a uphill shot to a green with flag stick visible only.  

I also appreciated the style at many of Europe's links courses of overlapping tees/holes.  If insurance liability wasn't so big a concern, this could certainly give many courses strapped for land the opportunity to modify their courses to fit the modern day needs.  The process of groups moving around a course, pausing and waiting for another group to tee off on different holes is almost like conducting a symphony.  

[BCrosby]

Jeff -

Let me clarify. No Golden Age architect expected to get rich from his work as an architect. Nor was the inherited wealth of those who had that advantage subject to the acceptance or rejection of their work as architects.

I fundamentally disagree that the work of the Golden Age architects is marked by an absence of quirk. To the contrary, at least compared to modern gca. Examples abound. They were doing things few modern architects would dare try. That's a big part of why we call it a "Golden Age".  It ties in with TD's point about the conservatism of modern gca. As the money stakes have increased, the willingness to take design risks has decreased. TD is undoubtedly right about that.

Finally, can I ask one more time that we stop using "fairness" as a way to talk about golf architecture?

Bob