What is Minimalism?

[John Mayhugh]

I'd like to add one other thing about the "minimalists".
They seem to have a better understanding that if you don't disturb the ground, there will be less remediation required to grow quality turf.

Thanks for making this point.  Nature seems to have figured the drainage thing out.

[Ryan Coles]

I'd like to add one other thing about the "minimalists".
They seem to have a better understanding that if you don't disturb the ground, there will be less remediation required to grow quality turf.

Thanks for making this point.  Nature seems to have figured the drainage thing out.

This one needs exploring. I don't believe the statement stands up to even mild scrutiny when related to golf.

[Ryan Coles]

Paul:

I think minimalism is not primarily a philosophy, it is much more importantly a skill-set. It is the ability to recognize, value and utilize the site's features and characteristics to maximum effect (qualitatively) and to a maximum degree (quantitatively) in the creation of an engaging field of play; and it is a practical commitment to altering the landscape only as a last (but still viable) option, when it is determined after due consideration that the site's existing qualities do not offer sufficient golf-related challenge and/or interest. Some architects have that skill set, and a few of those to a greater degree than most; and then some architects don't. They simply are unable "to see" the possibilities and potentialities inherent in the existing site as well as others can. 

I think the same skill-set is required if the goal is naturalism (which I believe many confuse with minimalism), but in that case the greater aesthetic and strategic value placed on hiding the hand of man as thoroughly as possible (while at the same time creating the appearance of true golfing freedom/almost limitless strategic options) re-orders the architect's commitment to the site's pre-existing features/characteristics and places it a little further down (but not too far down) the list of priorities. Again, some architects have the required skill set and, in this case, also have the practical know-how (e.g. effectively blurring the lines between fairway and rough; subtly extending green contours out into the surrounds etc) related to creating a naturalistic field of play; and some architects don't.

I'm not sure this is any more of a grey area/question than is the distinction between restorations and renovations; but in both cases it obviously serves the purposes/ends of many in the golf industry to make it appear so.   

Peter

This is a great explanation highlighting pragmatism and not just idealism.

[Adrian_Stiff]

I'd like to add one other thing about the "minimalists".
They seem to have a better understanding that if you don't disturb the ground, there will be less remediation required to grow quality turf.

This is factually correct only for a fraction of golf course design/constructions. Most sites are not ideal, often you need to make good topsoil (by adding sand) because the soil was crap to start with. Most sites you need to make features. The utopia golf project is rare and we are talking of degrees of minimalism if some ground is altered.

[Don Mahaffey]

I'd like to add one other thing about the "minimalists".
They seem to have a better understanding that if you don't disturb the ground, there will be less remediation required to grow quality turf.

This is factually correct only for a fraction of golf course design/constructions. Most sites are not ideal, often you need to make good topsoil (by adding sand) because the soil was crap to start with. Most sites you need to make features. The utopia golf project is rare and we are talking of degrees of minimalism if some ground is altered.

Adrian, you've made my point perfectly. The modern view is unless you have a utopia like site, you must sand cap. You'd fit in just fine with most of the US golf industry.

[BCowan]

''Adrian, you've made my point perfectly. The modern view is unless you have a utopia like site, you must sand cap. You'd fit in just fine with most of the US golf industry.''

   So when Rob Collins sand capped Sweetens Cove, he was being wasteful?  I'd consider it hardly fitting in with Most of the US Golf industry. 

[Ryan Coles]

I'd like to add one other thing about the "minimalists".
They seem to have a better understanding that if you don't disturb the ground, there will be less remediation required to grow quality turf.

This is factually correct only for a fraction of golf course design/constructions. Most sites are not ideal, often you need to make good topsoil (by adding sand) because the soil was crap to start with. Most sites you need to make features. The utopia golf project is rare and we are talking of degrees of minimalism if some ground is altered.

Adrian, you've made my point perfectly. The modern view is unless you have a utopia like site, you must sand cap. You'd fit in just fine with most of the US golf industry.

Is there a course in the whole of England that's been sandcapped?

Mother Nature on clay will often close you in the winter.

Is it really being suggested that we go back to push up greens in heavy clay soils?

[Don Mahaffey]

This is what makes it so hard to discuss anything here anymore.

This site has turned into a game of gotchya.

Sand capping refers to plating the entire golf course with sand. That is becoming the default position in much of the world. I don't think a course should be sand capped until working with native soils has been shown it to be impossible to produce golf quality turf. Unless the owner just has tons of money and doesn't mind spending it.

I don't like default positions when it comes to agronomy, soils, and irrigation. I believe solutions are site specific, but the golf world is marching ever forward in it's effort to standardize. I do not think that approach is progressive.

[BCowan]

Don,

   How was your reply to Adrian, a response that would further the discussion?  I agree with site specific.  Oakmont may or may have not used ditches to deal with fairway run off.  Meaning it may have been meant as a design feature (Penal) or functional or both. 

   One thing I do know is a wet golf course that is closed and or has no carts when +.5 inches of rain comes loses money.  How do you determine beforehand through testing if the native soil will produce golf quality turf? 

   Would you agree or disagree that money spent on capping is more important than building a clubhouse right out of the gate?  I'd rather a course sand capped then paid $90 a yard in sand for bunkers, when they most likely can get it for a LOT less.   

[Ryan Coles]

This is what makes it so hard to discuss anything here anymore.

This site has turned into a game of gotchya.

Sand capping refers to plating the entire golf course with sand. That is becoming the default position in much of the world. I don't think a course should be sand capped until working with native soils has been shown it to be impossible to produce golf quality turf. Unless the owner just has tons of money and doesn't mind spending it.

I don't like default positions when it comes to agronomy, soils, and irrigation. I believe solutions are site specific, but the golf world is marching ever forward in it's effort to standardize. I do not think that approach is progressive.

Don

It's not a case of Gotcha. More that crap cliches about Mother Nature etc should be scrutinised against the reality.

Similarly when someone highlights that the reality in the ground on most sites is that some modifications are often needed, hyperbole and straw men about sand capping the entire property, should in a healthy discussion be called into question.

Your post above is much more sensible and realistic.

We've now seen several threads start of with a holier than thou purity of idealism, indignation when this is highlighted for marketing blurb, followed by sensible discussion about mistakes and taking things to excess.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Even in my recent experience, sand cap is certainly not mandatory, unless working in Asia, where they really do have a "why bother saving soil" mentality. 

We do what Don suggests...study the soil and usually make the best of it.  Like nearly everything else, the general trend is away from the old way of just using what you got, and towards using agronomists in hopes of somehow improving it, adding to it to make sure you have a full 6" or more, etc.  But, that is a lesson learned the hard way, as supers have a hard time growing grass if not given the proper soils. 

[Jonathan Mallard]

Dear Collective,
 
Really and truly, we should be passed this. Then again, and without wishing to start a fight, a few recent posts have got me thinking that the whole concept of what minimalism really is is not so clear cut. So the question is simple: what is minimalism?

Please see Justice Potter Stewart, concurring, Jacobellis v. Ohio 378 U.S. 184 (1964).


"I know it when I see it,"


Applied originally to a different concept.

[Tom_Doak]

I'd like to add one other thing about the "minimalists".
They seem to have a better understanding that if you don't disturb the ground, there will be less remediation required to grow quality turf.

In my experience, it seems most in golf think you can completely destroy the soil and just bring it back by ripping it, adding a few amendments, or putting a thin layer of sand on top of it. What no one ever talks about is the long term consequences of modern golf course construction techniques. It is a large reason why our maintenance budgets are so high.

The sand capping part is a separate discussion, and while I agree with Don that it is often wasteful, I'd like to address the first part of his post, instead.


When I set out to design courses I was only trying to mimic what architects built in the 1920's [and before] and to move away from the heavy construction I'd seen in my apprenticeship, which a fellow associate described as "rape it, shape it, and grass it."  There was no such term as minimalism in golf architecture, and I hadn't thought through the ramifications for the environment or the turf.


After I built a couple of courses that way, people who were interested in sustainability started seeking me out, because they saw the benefits of our approach ... and I started being aware of it, seeing how fast the courses grew to maturity and how quickly they looked like they'd always been there.  As Don says, having big portions of the golf course where you haven't turned over all the soil and killed off all the natural seed bank and microbes has a HUGE impact on the health of the sward six months or a year in.  When we started shaping bunkers with excavators instead of bulldozers [I learned on a dozer], a light came on for me when I saw wildflowers coming up around the bunkers at Pacific Dunes ... it was another step up, because the area around the bunker hadn't been disturbed at all.


I do not talk about these aspects of our work much, because I don't want to look like I'm trying to market them, and I don't want to be pointing the finger at the rest of the golf business in comparison.  But there are real advantages to this approach, and that's one reason it is catching on among designers who are not famous golfing icons.

[Paul Gray]

Tom,
 
Thank you for that excellent post.
 
Ryan will now explain to you just how your failure to market certain aspects of your work is, unbeknown to you, a cunningly underhand way of promoting your own "syrupy marketing copy."     

[Ryan Coles]

Tom,
 
Thank you for that excellent post.
 
Ryan will now explain to you just how your failure to market certain aspects of your work is, unbeknown to you, a cunningly underhand way of promoting your own "syrupy marketing copy." 

No he won't Paul.

But he may highlight that Paul Gray in his 'oh, we all know what it is, must 'we' explain it it again to the great unwashed' said: 'it's nothing to do with earth movement'.

Every lucid explanation on here says it's not doing anymore earth movement  than necessary whilst acknowledging that some sites need more than others.

The wise man knows himself to be a fool. The fool thinks himself to be wise.

[Jaeger Kovich]

Generally speaking, if you are not "building" fairways, you are on to something. If you are finding ways to keep any earthwork local, and limit hauling, even better. If you are not disturbing much or planting beyond play areas , thats pretty minimal too.

[Jon Wiggett]

Paul,

for me it is a simple concept. Don't use two bunkers when one will do. Don't use one bunker if it is not needed. If you look at WS (USPGA venue) then to my mind if it were to be a minimalist design then you could get the same strategic design with less than 30 bunkers instead of the reputed 1000 that it has.

Jon

[Paul Gray]

Tom,
 
Thank you for that excellent post.
 
Ryan will now explain to you just how your failure to market certain aspects of your work is, unbeknown to you, a cunningly underhand way of promoting your own "syrupy marketing copy." 

No he won't Paul.

But he may highlight that Paul Gray in his 'oh, we all know what it is, must 'we' explain it it again to the great unwashed' said: 'it's nothing to do with earth movement'.

Every lucid explanation on here says it's not doing anymore earth movement  than necessary whilst acknowledging that some sites need more than others.

The wise man knows himself to be a fool. The fool thinks himself to be wise.

Right, so where's the contradiction? "It's nothing to do with earth moving" has only been reaffirmed by the notion that you have to move far more earth on some sites than others. On some sites minimalism means moving lots of earth, on others it doesn't, ergo, "it has nothing to do with earth moving." What's complicated?


Your reaction to everything you don't understand, rather than to bother learning, is to reject it as bullshit. If it's not immediately obvious, it must be a scam. That's a shame.