"The show is about nothing!"

[Peter Pallotta]

Adam - thanks. Can you expand a bit? Is "creating a canvas where the discovery is done on an individual basis" a given, i.e. something all designers know about and have always strived for? Is it something that C&C are exploring most fully, or in a different way, or anew?   Is all this something everyone knows about except me?

Peter

[Phil McDade]

"If so, am I right about the potential upsides? (and are there any downsides?)"

Well, one potential downside is the available land for Coore's notion of minimalism. Take a few recent designs dubbed as minimalism -- Sand Hills, Wild Horse, and Ballyneal (the last perhaps a semi-minimalist design). These places aren't exactly near anything. Erin Hills here in Wisconsin is another example of minimalism near something at least (and on really interesting land), but it took years and years of land acquisition, and single-minded determination by one guy, to make that happen. I've been to quite a number of newly built courses in Wisconsin, and I wonder/doubt if Coore's philosophy would work on most of them -- most of the new courses need some kind of work beyond what you describe as Coore's guiding philosophy, because the land just can't carry 18 neat and interesting holes that are just sitting there waiting to be discovered (to borrow from Crenshaw).

[TEPaul]

"In my last post, my main point was that Coore may be exploring new ways to provide strategic interest, and I was making a (mystical and moisty, yes) leap by assuming that he may now be recognizing how much the GOLFER HIMSELF brings to the table in terms of seeing those strategies. It's of the same nature (but to a different degree) as exploring how blind tee-shots or other kinds of visual deception work, isn't it?"

Peter:

Apparently you have just arrived at the door of the philosophical house of one Max Behr who in the minds of a few on here may've been the ultimate philosphical genius on architecture or necessarily natural architecture and the underlying reasons why it should be that way or is better that way.

Of course there will always be some relationship between a course's architect and those who play his courses but Behr thought the best architects were able to provide golfers something where they felt that playing the course was less about a contest with the architect and more in the way of some contest or interrelationship with Nature itself. Behr actually had a remarkably interesting reason why it should be that way or would be better that way.

Behr felt a golfer should be given as much FREEDOM as possible to feel he was finding his own way, figuring out his own unique strategies for himself. He felt that kind of thing was a 'call upon his intelligence' and that that kind of experience would be the most gratifying.

If you open the door of Max Behr's philosophical house, go in inside, and get to know him, I will almost guarantee you will never be the same again and you will never look at golf architecture the same again either.

There's only one problem with Behr---his writing style is so odd it takes about half a lifetime to understand what he's saying.  

[Peter Pallotta]

TE - thanks. I've encountered Max Behr's name often, but honestly I had him quite down the list of who/what I was planning to read next. I think I won't find his oddly written philosophy TOO daunting; I've been trying to straighten out my own writing/ramblings for 10 years, so I have some practice.

If he explored then (in the way that Coore is perhaps exploring now) the way truly or apparently random features are given strategic significance by golfers THEMSELVES, I'll find it particularly interesting.  

"Well, one potential downside is the available land for Coore's notion of minimalism"

Phil - yes, there IS that. But on the other hand, there's not all that much fantastically interesting sea-side linksland available either, or at least not close by me; and what I was trying to suggest is that perhaps the debate about of how inherently 'interesting' a piece of land is may be the very thing C&C's future work will alter (but that's a stretch, I guess).

Peter

[RJ_Daley]

TEPaul,
god help you if you are in BC's company some night at dinner or whatever, and he turns to you with a 40 yard stare and says in a monotoned and ethereal voice, "a wet bird never putts at night".  

[TEPaul]

"TEPaul,
god help you if you are in BC's company some night at dinner or whatever, and he turns to you with a 40 yard stare and says in a monotoned and ethereal voice, "a wet bird never putts at night".    

RJ:

Funny you should say that. That's a question I've actually been grappling with, and very seriously for, oh, maybe ten or fifteen years now. I haven't talked to BC in a good long time. Maybe I will call his cell phone and leave a message for him asking both how and why he thinks he can be so damn sure that it's true that a wet bird never putts at night?    

[Adam Clayman]

Peter, As I wrote that I was actually thinking of a few of Doak's designs as well. And No, I don't think most modern day archies have the freedom philosophy at their forefront.

The canvas is the medium for the sport. Having dictated tasks, dolled out in a predetermined fashion, is the flaw in many of the courses built post WWII. I can't expand further right now. Stick with reading a little Behr. I think you can find some of his stuff at Michigan States turf schools website (but i'm not positive)