[Mike Hendren]

Is designing and building a "great" golf course analogous to "catching lightning in a bottle?" 

Mike

[Sean_A]

Bogey

Yes, great is elusive because its everything and nothing.  Most of all great is over-rated.

Ciao

[Peter Pallotta]

Very nice, Arbs -- thy name is Pithy!

I think it's elusive in part because it's a two-way street, i.e. a dance -- and an architect can't pick/control/dictate to the dance partner.

“Here is my secret", said the Fox. "It’s quite simple: One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.  It’s the time that you spent on your rose that makes your rose so important.”

[Rich Goodale]

I personally cannot think of any course mostly designed and mostly built by one person or group of people to be "great."  Most "great"courses are mongrels.  Even the best of the most recently built exceptional courses (e.g. Pacific Dunes, Friars Head, Castle Stuart, Trump International, Sand Hills, etc.) have their imperfect idiosyncracies, as do the oldies but goodies (Pebble, Augusta, NGLA, TOC, Dornoch, and possibly even Pine Valley (which I have never seen)).


To me, one of the beauties of golf is it's imperfections.


Rich

[ward peyronnin]

I consider it kinda like pornography.
I know it when I see it and I look in the mirror almost every day.
Greatness that is

[Tom_Doak]

I personally cannot think of any course mostly designed and mostly built by one person or group of people to be "great."  Most "great"courses are mongrels.  Even the best of the most recently built exceptional courses (e.g. Pacific Dunes, Friars Head, Castle Stuart, Trump International, Sand Hills, etc.) have their imperfect idiosyncracies, as do the oldies but goodies (Pebble, Augusta, NGLA, TOC, Dornoch, and possibly even Pine Valley (which I have never seen)).


To me, one of the beauties of golf is it's imperfections.

I thought the topic was "great" not "perfect" ?

I would agree that the word "Great" is way over-used nowadays, in part because most of the media are dying and desperately pandering to anyone who could keep them afloat.  Witness the recent thread where a project is called great but then the only people willing to put a number on it gave it a 7.  If 7 is great, then you'd need three progressively better words for the 8's, 9's and 10's.  I'm not sure what those would be. 

When I typed this I thought, uh-oh, I'd better see what I wrote as the definitions of the Doak Scale, and found to my delight that I did not use the word Great at all.  There I had it as


6 = very good
7 = excellent
8 = one of the very best, special
9 = outstanding, one of the best in the world
10= nearly perfect

So I must have decided Great was over-used even 30 years ago.

[Eric Smith]

So I must have decided Great was over-used even 30 years ago.

Sorry, no, you used the word on the first page of TCG actually.  


"which gave me the then-unprecedented opportunity to spend a year overseas studying the great courses of the British Isles."

[Thomas Dai]

Another way, way, way over-used term is "World class".
atb

[Tom_Doak]

Another way, way, way over-used term is "World class".
atb

Funny.  I suggested that one to Perry Dye in 1983 because I hadn't seen anyone use it.

[Tom_Doak]

So I must have decided Great was over-used even 30 years ago.

Sorry, no, you used the word on the first page of TCG actually.  


"which gave me the then-unprecedented opportunity to spend a year overseas studying the great courses of the British Isles."

I was just glad I didn't use it in The Doak Scale.  I'm sure I used it way too much in the book.

[Sean_A]

I personally cannot think of any course mostly designed and mostly built by one person or group of people to be "great."  Most "great"courses are mongrels.  Even the best of the most recently built exceptional courses (e.g. Pacific Dunes, Friars Head, Castle Stuart, Trump International, Sand Hills, etc.) have their imperfect idiosyncracies, as do the oldies but goodies (Pebble, Augusta, NGLA, TOC, Dornoch, and possibly even Pine Valley (which I have never seen)).

To me, one of the beauties of golf is it's imperfections.

I thought the topic was "great" not "perfect" ?

I would agree that the word "Great" is way over-used nowadays, in part because most of the media are dying and desperately pandering to anyone who could keep them afloat.  Witness the recent thread where a project is called great but then the only people willing to put a number on it gave it a 7.  If 7 is great, then you'd need three progressively better words for the 8's, 9's and 10's.  I'm not sure what those would be. 

When I typed this I thought, uh-oh, I'd better see what I wrote as the definitions of the Doak Scale, and found to my delight that I did not use the word Great at all.  There I had it as


6 = very good
7 = excellent
8 = one of the very best, special
9 = outstanding, one of the best in the world
10= nearly perfect

So I must have decided Great was over-used even 30 years ago.

7=excellent...isn't excellent another way to say great?  If not, how does great fit in with very good and excellent 

Ciao

[Ira Fishman]

I want to try to come back to the OP about catching lightening in a bottle.  And I hope to do so from the perspective of the things that have to go right for the architect, particularly a younger one. My analogy is the Vietnam Memorial.  Maya Lin as a college student needed to be fortuitous enough to learn about the competition, plus she needed the internal confidence (and probably the support of her Professor(s)), plus she needed a Committee to have the guts to pick and defend her design. She is a genius, but she still needed to catch lightening in a bottle.  I would imagine for a golf course architect, lightening in a bottle consists of at least very good land and a developer with guts and vision.  But maybe more is necessary.


Ira

[Tom_Doak]

I want to try to come back to the OP about catching lightening in a bottle.  And I hope to do so from the perspective of the things that have to go right for the architect, particularly a younger one. My analogy is the Vietnam Memorial.  Maya Lin as a college student needed to be fortuitous enough to learn about the competition, plus she needed the internal confidence (and probably the support of her Professor(s), plus she needed a Committee to have the guts to pick and defend her design. She is a genius, but she still needed to catch lightening in a bottle.  I would imagine for a golf course architect, lightening in a bottle consists of at least very good land and a developer with guts and vision.  But maybe more is necessary.

More is necessary.


I was at Cornell when Maya Lin won that competition.  We were all blown away by her design ... and it works even better on the ground than I expected when I saw the design.


But building a golf course is more sculptural and detailed.  It isn't "done" with a plan or a concept sketch.

[Ira Fishman]

Tom,


My point is not which is more difficult from a design aspect. That can be debated endlessly. The question is what factors outside of the architect’s control constitute catching lightning in a bottle. The odds in that era that a federally appointed committee would pick her design, let alone stick with it through all of the controversy, were pretty low. So the question is what are such factors, if any, for a Gca.


Ira


PS I was two years ahead of Ms. Lin at Yale so followed the decision process reasonably closely.

[Tom_Doak]

The question is what factors outside of the architect’s control constitute catching lightning in a bottle.

When clients ask me what it will take to build a top 50 course or a 10 on the Doak Scale, I tell them we will just need to have everything go our way for two years, during which time the crew will have fun and do great work every day, and nobody [local opponents, environmental agencies, clients] will come out and tell us we can't do something we want to do to make the course better.


The odds of that happening are pretty long, but I've had it happen a few times now.  Even then, it's rare to get to a 10 ... but you can't get there if someone intervenes to stop you.

[Peter Pallotta]

Tom, Ira - but what if Ms. Lin created her wonderful work, and the federal agency remarkably stood by her, and yet the general public and those the memorial was most meant to serve ended up *hating* it? 
I'm assuming both of you (like me) would still say that it was "great" work, but in your view would it still be great "work"?  Do you see what I'm asking?
Any created work is both what it *is* (i.e. in-and-of itself) and what it is *perceived to be* (i.e. in relationship with an audience); and as such, it can succeed in the former sense and yet fail in the latter sense.
Now, my mind and temperament has always leaned heavily towards focusing on what a work *is* (and, as Tennessee Williams once put it, on how it 'captures the eternal in the ever-fleeting').
But I know others approach it differently.
That's why I answered Mike's question the way I did, i.e. in the latter sense/way of thinking, great is an elusive goal because it depends on the *relationship* between object and audience -- a relationship that the creator simply can't control.
Do you think a golf course can be an example of "great work" if no one but you and me think that it is?
Peter


     

[Tommy Williamsen]

Bogey

Yes, great is elusive because its everything and nothing.  Most of all great is over-rated.

Ciao

Sean, not sure great is overrated, but it sure is overused.

[Sean_A]

Bogey

Yes, great is elusive because its everything and nothing.  Most of all great is over-rated.

Ciao

Sean, not sure great is overrated, but it sure is overused.

Tommy

For me, the question of greatness is the wrong question to ask.  The question to ask is do I like the course enough to return? Great, good, world class etc aren't really helpful if the course doesn't do much for you personally...for whatever reason. Its very easy to think a course is great, but not have that much time for it. Courses are like cars, there are loads of great (good, exceptional etc etc) ones out there, but how many really turn your head?  Its not that the car or course is great which turns your head, its the product, however it is described.

Ciao

[David Davis]

Naturally debatable but "Perfection is Elusive"


Greatness is acheived quite often. I would also say great = excellent so on the Doak Scale it's a 7.


The difficulty with the scale for me is that a 7 = C growing up in terms of school and grades and if I acheived anything less than a 9, I was disappointed. Therefore it's tough to erase 18 years of schooling just like that and think that a C = Great.


Different scales of course but one certainly affects the other.


IMO Great is not Elusive

[Ira Fishman]

Tom, Ira - but what if Ms. Lin created her wonderful work, and the federal agency remarkably stood by her, and yet the general public and those the memorial was most meant to serve ended up *hating* it? 
I'm assuming both of you (like me) would still say that it was "great" work, but in your view would it still be great "work"?  Do you see what I'm asking?
Any created work is both what it *is* (i.e. in-and-of itself) and what it is *perceived to be* (i.e. in relationship with an audience); and as such, it can succeed in the former sense and yet fail in the latter sense.
Now, my mind and temperament has always leaned heavily towards focusing on what a work *is* (and, as Tennessee Williams once put it, on how it 'captures the eternal in the ever-fleeting').
But I know others approach it differently.
That's why I answered Mike's question the way I did, i.e. in the latter sense/way of thinking, great is an elusive goal because it depends on the *relationship* between object and audience -- a relationship that the creator simply can't control.
Do you think a golf course can be an example of "great work" if no one but you and me think that it is?
Peter


     

Peter,


A great (pun intended) set of questions.  I am plenty arrogant but not so much to believe that if I think something is "great" or "terrific" or "outstanding" and no one or very few agree with me, that it must still be "great".   Taking the position that I do in other threads that judging gca, music, literature, etc. largely is subjective means that no one person's view can determine the final categorization.  How many people or what types of people (other architects, people who have played a large number of courses, etc) must think a golf course "great" or "outstanding" for it to be true?  I have no idea.  Perhaps that is why "great" is such an elusive concept.  But it also is the case that the other proposition holds:  when a sizeable number of knowledgeable/experienced people think a course is "great", it must be true and hence the concept is not so elusive. 


Ira

[Mike Hendren]

Sean, I love the concept of "good enough" and generally that's my litmus test.  I credit Gib Papazian for this concept expressed more thoughtfully (as you would expect) many years ago. 

The genesis for this thread was my thought that it is far more difficult to design and build a great golf course than even the cognoscenti here believe and that anything "great" is a remarkable professional achievement that should be celebrated and not cheapened by casual hyperbole or thoughtless analysis. 

I would never tire of Talking Stick North, Tumble Creek, Miami Valley or CC of Troy - each is, as Sean says, "good enough." 

But today's practicing architects must earn the "great" label and it's no knock against them when someone here or elsewhere doesn't fawn over their newest creation.  Streamsong's no Ballyneal and Sand Valley's no Sand Hills.  So what?

For discussion purposes only.

Mike 

[Garland Bayley]

Bogey

Yes, great is elusive because its everything and nothing.  Most of all great is over-rated.

Ciao

I remember when Firestone was considered great. What's it now? A Doak 3?

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