[Neil Regan]

The first principle of all hazards is to attack the mind of the golfer, never to waylay the ball.[/size][/color]

A well-known subject of GCA discussions said this.
Who was it ?
Do you agree ?

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Neil, I think it is a very good statement.

[Evan Fleisher]

Max Behr is the author.

I guess I would have to agree that first and foremost hazards (and all other parts of the course for that matter) should cause some form of mental action to make you think srrategically about a hole...not so much from the standpoint of impeding your progress, but how to attack what lays out before you.

[Neil Regan]

Evan,
 Correct, it was Max Behr. (An impressive display of GCA knowledge, if you ask me: the right answer in less than 20 minutes time.)

The article by Behr is titled
Design in Golf Architecture[/size]
by Max Behr[/color][/size]
in
USGA JOURNAL AND TURF MANAGEMENT : NOVEMBER , 1952[/size]
http://turf.lib.msu.edu/1950s/1952/521117.pdf

[Neil Regan]

I think a hazard can never attack the mind of a golfer, unless it can waylay a ball.

But I don't think I have ever seen a hazard that never did waylay a ball. I have often seen this happen, though: Someone says, "That bunker is pointless, no one ever goes there." And, bingo, the ball is topped or strikes a tree, and there you have it.

[ForkaB]

Thanks, nregan.

Behr's article is hilarious!

[Evan Fleisher]

nregan,

I CANNOT claim an impressive display of GCA knowledge...just a fast hand for typing and an excellent user knowledge of Google!  

It is a pretty interesting article, however.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

That's O.K. Evan, At least you show more intellect then Rihc.

[A_Clay_Man]

All I can say is wow. He is sure pissed at whats happened to the game and this was in '52.

He emphatically dsagrees with the "golf is a big place and theres room it for everybody" theory. And he even gives justification for his reasoning.

Tommy- Where's Lakeside? Private, public, Valley? DO tell please.

[RJ_Daley]

The Behr article is really something one should read occasionally as a sort of refocus when one's thoughts about architetural intent and course management get a bit out of whack.  I'm trying to think of a word to characterize Behr's subject.  Some combination of strategy-emotion-psychology.  'stratemotionology' ?

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Adam,
Lakeside is directly right next to Universal Studios. In fact, some of Max Behr's greatest work has Universal on top of it. 1938 was a spellbinding year for many great golf courses in SoCal. Riviera, Lakeside, Pasadena and many others suffered extreme damage from what seems to have been an El Nino-type year.

Lakeside is known for some of it more famous members such as W.C. Fields; Bob Hope and Bing Crosby and Bob Wian, founder of Bob's Big Boy Hamburgers (which is now sadly based out of Michigan) just to name a few.

Behr's work consisted of sandy waste areas mixed witht he sandy and scrubby creek beds mixed with electrifying greens and a variety of great golf holes. Somebody named A. MacKenzie in a book called the Spirit of St. Andrews claimed Lakeside as one of the best courses he had ever seen, and that it's less bunkers/more natural sandy waste areas would be perfect for a public golf course.

It's ashame that the members sitting on the green commitee didn't think the same way!

[TEPaul]

Behr was interesting. There was a theme that can be seen in that 1952 article that wove through many of his essays for years. That ariticle by Behr, linked in this thread is basically a rewrite of very similar articles he wrote on the same theme up to 25 years before 1952. The article in this thread from 1952 is very similar in both theme and wording to his essay "The Nature and Use of Penalty" or the "Correct Use of Penalty" written in 1926! It's a really fascinating description of how the idea of penalty in games and particularly including golf (which Behr viewed as not a game but a sport) came to change from something intended to encourage a golfer to take a risk to do his best to something that was considered to be a punishment (Behr's mention of morality) for doing something bad (a bad shot).

In a nutshell Behr believed bunkering to be most effective needed to be inside fairway lines guarding the ideal place that a golfer might feel he wanted to go and not flanking both sides of fairways to catch missed shots not hit down the one dimensional middle of narrower fairways.

But he also believed in what may be termed the progressive strategic function of hazards which could have an influence on a golfer even if that hazard may not be on the shot at hand which might even be unguarded in any way. This is how he visualized what he called the architectural and strategic "unity" of entire golf holes.

[TEPaul]

nregan;

I think it was you who put a link somewhere on this site to the USGA green section reports beginning in the 1920s. I can't find it. Would you put it up again or direct me to where that link is on here?

[Neil Regan]

TEPaul,
 Here is the link:

USGA® Green Section Record and predecessors 1921-present

Neil

[TEPaul]

Neil:

Thank you very much!

[ed_getka]

Neil,
   You must be finding a treasure trove of stuff on the Michigan State website. Thanks for sharing some of it with us.
    The first principle of architecture should be to get into the head of the golfer. This is accomplished not only with hazards by the way. Crystal Downs is a great example of this in my mind. The greens there get into your head all the way out to your approach shot, because once you know the course you know how important it is to place your approach shot appropriately to have a decent chance at not 3-putting. Granted, some of that is greenspeed related, but mostly it is the slope and contour of the greens.
   I still have to laugh at myself thinking back on my first visit to CD last year. Scott Clem and I were up at the pro shop looking out over the front nine and I remarked how "flat" the greens seemed to be (especially considering all the comments I had read about the contours over the years).
   The hazards at CD rarely enter my mind.
   A course that has a good combo of hazards and greens getting into your head is Sand Hills.

[Mark_Huxford]

Neil, thanks for the resource. I thought February 1932 was another good one. I think one of Geoff Shack's books featured the Jones article.

[Mark_Huxford]

<lazy>Anything there by MacKenzie? Claude Crockford?</lazy>

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