What should be the purpose of a renovation or restoration?

[Tom_Doak]

I have arrived at the view that restoration is only for a very select few courses where it’s very clear that the original was outstanding. The archival evidence is strong.




 The restored course needs to stand up to modern golf once completed and the status of the restored course should rise.


It isn’t about going back. It’s about recovering a better course.


If these things aren’t true then have at with whatever you think should be done.

But this is exactly the sales pitch.  YOUR course is one of those rare few that deserves restoration. 

[Tom_Doak]

   Or, are a golf course and a constitution intended to adapt and change with the times? You can have Scalia, Thomas and Doak.  I’ll take Warren, RBG and Brauer.

I felt better about this on my first pass when I thought my team included George Thomas, but then I realized you meant CLARENCE Thomas.


I can only conclude that Constitutional Law must be different than golf course architecture, if you’re putting me with him.  But otherwise your point is sound.


I am not one who wants to let guys rewrite the Constitution until there is nothing recognizable left of it, and then b.s. their way through that this was what Thomas Jefferson would have thought if he were alive today and could have married Sally Hemings.  If you’re going to interpret the Constitution to throttle the right to protest and to go through people’s emails, don’t take Jefferson’s name to do it.

[Jerry Kluger]

First, let's put aside this Constitution analogy as it so much different than what we are talking about here.  No one individual wrote it, approved it, amended it, interpreted it, etc.  So let's just put that aside.


I have to believe that when a course is designed it isn't simply someone looking at the land and saying this is what we should build and how it should look.  There are so many other factors that go into designing a golf hole including how will it play.  Sure the land can be a factor but dirt can be moved, land features removed, etc. so while minimalism is great, it is not always what was the primary consideration of the architect in designing the course.  There have been so many discussions about what has been done at AGNC and how it compares to the way Mackenzie and Jones envisioned the course. Surely Jones was very interested in how a hole would play and Mackenzie no doubt respected that and integrated it into the design.  How about Doak and Nicklaus at Sebonack and how I believe they both learned from the experience of a joint design.  I am not saying that they were both 100% happy with the end result but I think that in the end they came away with additional knowledge.  So getting to my point, how a hole plays is important to the architect when designing a hole, perhaps more to some than others, but still a factor, and if a restoration becomes a renovation shouldn't that intent still be present in the new product?

[Ira Fishman]

I do not believe that one can determine an architect's design intent regardless of how much research one does unless he or she has left behind detailed annotated drawings. I am also not an Originalist in Constitutional interpretation because it is even more daunting to devine the intent of 50 or so men (Jefferson was not one of them although Tom Doak's general points are well taken) from 250 years ago especially when the meaning and context of language and grammar has changed so much (see America's Constitution: A Biography by Amar).


But I do wonder whether math is math. If we know from drawings or aerials that a bunker was placed X yards from the tee which would translate to Y distance now given technology, is it not a true restoration to keep the original distance through moving the bunker or adding a tee? My question is limited strictly (no legal pun intended) to fairway bunkers.


Part of the question is motivated by playing Pine Needles the other day with a very good player. He hit a nice controlled draw in the range of 260-280. Several of the bunkers on the corners required just enough carry for him to present a real risk/reward situation. In looking at Fought's notes from 2003, it seems as if he did the math (not referring to other changes he made). Franz appears to have also done the math on his most recent fairway bunker changes.


Thanks.


Ira

[Peter Pallotta]

They used to tell us as kids that we'd get to break the rules of grammar, but only after we'd learn to use them perfectly.

Is that still true? Do they still say that?

Metaphorically, are there any perfect architects around these days, allowed to break restoration's many rules?

[Mike_Young]

Metaphorically, are there any perfect architects around these days, allowed to break restoration's many rules?

Peter,I don't think such an animal exist....IMHO restoration can only exist in idealism but not in realism...
AND as always, I enjoy your writing...
Mike

[Mark_Fine]

Ira,
Some architects left detailed annotated drawings and more importantly wrote about their holes and courses “after” they were constructed (which is far more valuable then conceptual drawings that often changed during field construction). If an architect wrote, “This is a fine example of a par three demanding a well struck long iron.”  What did the architect mean when he said that?  If the hole now only requires an 8I for a good player is that fulfilling the architect’s design intent?


If an architect wrote, “A long par five to an elevated green which makes the third shot difficult to judge even for the first class player.”  And now even a decent player is knocking it on the green in two shots with a mid iron.  Is that fulfilling the architect’s design intent? 


If an architect wrote, “The par four 6th hole demands an accurate drive to the corner of the dogleg and a precise mid iron approach to a well defended green.”  And now the green has had both original bunkers removed and longer players now carry the corner leaving a pitch shot to the green.  Is that fulfilling the architect’s design intent for the hole?


When an architect writes about a carry bunker or a deception bunker or a false front or a true three shotter or a long approach shot or a forced layup,…, are you saying because this was maybe written 100 years ago we no longer really understand what they meant by that?

[Joe Hancock]

Mark,


Is the “well struck long iron” needed to fly the ball to the green, or to bound it on? I don’t have the ability to understand the architects intent solely based on “well struck”…..

[Peter Pallotta]

One of the many things interesting about this topic (summarized in the Mark-Joe exchange above) is how it reflects back on/informs another topic altogether, i.e. that of the importance or unimportance of 'par'.

For the 'par is just a number' crowd, it's the golf hole itself that's most important by far -- e.g., if it's 460 yards long over interesting terrain with a fantastic putting surface, this crowd says, it doesn't matter one bit whether we call it a 'Par 4' or a 'Par 5'.

Okay. But what if it's a course from the 1920s, currently being restored or renovated, where the original architect wrote something like about that particular 460 yard golf hole: "A well struck drive and a precise second shot to the left side of the fairway will leave the fine player a short pitch up and over broken ground to the green that slopes away from him and to the water beyond".

Is "par" still irrelevant for you in a case like this? If it was *your* course that was being restored or renovated, would you want -- despite your imperviousness to such a flimsy and intangible concept as "par"  -- that the architect honour the golf hole's original "three shot" designation, and make changes accordingly? 

[Sean_A]

Should a restoration's purpose be to put the course back to the way it was when it was built or should it be how the course would be if it had been built today.  How would Tillinghast or Raynor or Ross, etc. have designed their courses today - what would they look like and how would they play?  There were so many limitations 100 or so years ago as they did not have the equipment or the materials that we have today.  We could all speculate that they would identify more with the minimalist movement but would that be because they were often not in a position to move a whole of dirt to carry out their design.  Say they now have the ability to move as much dirt as they want and they can use all types of grasses to achieve their goals.

Jerry, if its a restoration the work must necessarily restore something which previously existed. A renovation is improving something that is usually run down and in need of serious work. IMO, the vast majority of recent (past few days cades) work done to courses is renovation with perhaps a decent or even a strong nod toward restoration. I don't think there is any such animal as pure restoration especially if we include playing conditions as part of the deal. A restoration is really a visual restoration with approximated playing conditions due to modern standards etc which is the real goal. I don't believe many people want to actually restore playing conditions of 100 years ago. Although, longer fairway and green height may ironically be the one single best thing that can be done to really restore a course.

Ciao

[mike_malone]

Proper restoration isn’t rocket science or some mysterious effort. It recovers the valued lines of play by tree removal , the green shapes and sizes, fairway recontouring are some examples. The evidence should be obvious.


  As I said it isn’t going back in time but revealing what is determined to be better than the present course.


Tom Doak,


   I doubt each major metro area should have more than a few restorations. The rest are renovations or efforts to pay homage to the original principles.


Llanerch was smart with Brian Schneider. They said make a special look with classic elements that ends up being distinctive in a crowed field of Philly Golden Age courses. The result is magnificent.

[Niall C]

To my mind the architectural history of a course should inform any future design decisions rather than dictate them. In the UK we don't seem to have caught the same puritanical bug to reset courses entirely to what they once were at one moment in time the way you seem to have in the US, and on the whole I think that a good thing. 

I also don't consider that classic courses by ODG's should be sacrosanct but instead that where the course is a recognised classic by an ODG and that it hasn't been buggered about with too much, then there is a very high bar to get over in order to judge any changes as being beneficial. Any changes should also be looked at in the context of the round rather than just the individual hole where they occur ie. do they fit in with the rest of the course.

Just my two bobs worth.

Niall

[Ally Mcintosh]

Niall, I agree with everything you say above.


I will reiterate the “high bar” statement though. Too many people seem keen to lower that bar.

[Mark_Fine]

Joe,
What do you think the architect meant by "a well struck long iron"?  As Mike Malone said, this is not rocket science even though some would like us to think it is. 


Maybe I learned from the wrong guys but understanding design intent is a pretty important aspect of restoration for guys like Ron Forse and Gil Hanse (at least they sure talked to me about it).  Maybe they don't know what they are doing or maybe they are just better then others at understanding what an architect meant when he said something like this hole should require "a well struck long iron" or ...


I was on an old course the other day and on the one green I "dropped" a ball from knee high about three quarters of the way from the back of the green and it rolled all the way off the front.  The one committee member I was with asked me, "Do you think that was what was intended?"  Maybe I should have just answered, "How the hell would I know, the original architect is dead!"


When someone here says, "The greens back in the day were only rolling at 5 or 6 (if they could have measured them) and the original architect never expected them to be this fast."  Isn't that statement an interpretation of original design intent? 


This is not rocket science and while we will definitely never know what a past architect would do today for sure, with careful study and research we can gain a pretty darn good idea of what they intended in their original designs and then go from there.


By the way, several architects wrote about building "elasticity" into their designs - what the hell did that mean     I guess we will never know!

[Niall C]

Niall, I agree with everything you say above.


I will reiterate the “high bar” statement though. Too many people seem keen to lower that bar.

Ally

I suspect the issue in practical terms is not the lowering of the bar but recognising that there is a bar to get over in the first place. Then of course it comes down to a matter of opinion whether someone has got over that hurdle.

Niall