[NAF]

Read today from www.geoffshackelford.com


Looking at the architect credits next to the current Golf Magazine Top 100 lists, it's surprising how many of the listings are inaccurate or missing key original design contributions.

It'd be nice if, say, William Flynn got some credit for his extensive to shape Merion into the course we know today.


Same for Press Maxwell, who did 9 holes at Prairie Dunes. How about a little something, you know, for the effort? The Prairie Dunes listing simply says "Maxwell, 1935-56" (meaning dad, Perry, who did the first nine holes that opened in 1937). Perry died in 1952, five years before the second nine opened in 1957.


Mike Clayton is not included in the credits for the newly opened Barnbougle Dunes. (Actually, it's listed as Barnbougle, which definitely is not its full name.)  That's like listing Sand for Sand Hills.

Then there are the incorrect years. (Torrey Pines, Bell, 1926? Try William F. Bell, 1957). Hey, they were related.


And one of these days, some magazine will get the Riviera opening year right (1927) or that L.A. Country Club-North was Fowler in 1921, Thomas/Bell 1928.


Why isn't Fazio listed at Augusta National (along with about 40 other people)? Or what about the parade of stars that have been through Bel-Air and Quaker Ridge? Only Trent Jones is listed next to Tillinghast for Quaker Ridge.


Again, no big deal except to the courses themselves or whoever it is that put the listing together (the magazine doesn't say).


Yet if either Rees Jones or Robert Trent Jones did restorative or non-restorative work at your course, they are likely listed. (Well, except Baltusrol Lower, where Rees is mysteriously left off, but he is included on the Upper listing!)


If an architect mangled a classic badly enough, he gets credit. Ex: Fazio at Oak Hill and Inverness even though no one likes his additions.


But then folks who do restoration work are only mentioned a handful of times for no apparent reason other than someone thought to include them (Doak at Yeaman's Hall, Silva at Baltimore CC). Why not Doak at Valley Club or San Francisco, or Silva at Seminole, or Hanse at Plainfield, or Coore/Crenshaw at Riviera, etc...

 Meanwhile Rees Jones is listed at Bethpage and The Country Club, which were sold to us as restorations (or were they?). Robert Trent Jones is listed at say, Olympic Club, while original contributors Willie Watson and Max Behr are not included. And Trent pops up at Baltusrol, Congressional, Interlachen, Oak Hill and Oakland Hills, but not Augusta National where he added a pivotal hole?

Not only is the listing inconsistent and confusing, there is a troublesome aspect to it as well. It could (or maybe already has) sent the message to architects that the only way to get your name on a ranking list is to make changes.


Just restoration? That won't get you listed. Changes? There's always hope.


Most of the courses on this list do not need to be changed. Restoring a few features? Sure. Major changes, no way.

After all, they're the best courses in the world. Right?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Noel,

I think you have to draw a distinction between a restoration and an alteration.

C&W seem to do that with an (r)

If an architect returns a golf course to its original design, why should he get credit for that ?

On the other hand, if a architect alters a golf course, as Fazio did at Inverness, then he deserves an (r).

I don't know if the magazines have the resources to determine the exact extent or details of the work to each golf course, and as such, I"m sure you'll find an abundance of questionable attributions.

Remember, it's a magazine, not a legal document offered as irrefutable evidence.

[Dan_Callahan]

 . . . but it is journalism, and one would assume that a big magazine like that has a fact-checker on staff.

[Scott_Burroughs]

. . . but it is journalism, and one would assume that a big magazine like that has a fact-checker on staff.

yes, his last name is Burbeck....related to some old course construction engineer.

[Joel_Stewart]

Geoff is just touching the surface on what is wrong with Golf magazines criteria and panelists.  I should talk being a Golf Digest panelist which has its own problems!

[Patrick_Mucci]

Dan Callahan,

In the olde days, I believe Journalists had to confirm with two reliable sources.

Today, they just spout what they want.

[Paul_Turner]

Or crediting architects whose work no longer exists on the course-like most for Old Tom?  Royal County Down's credit is the "wrongest".

[T_MacWood]

Interesting indeed. This bothers me too. All the magazine ratings are guilty to one degree or another, but Golf is the worst. If I'm not mistaken there was a time when Dick Wilson was listed with Shinnecock Hills.

These ratings are often the first introduction to the history of golf architecture (and historical golf architects) for many golfers and these mistakes create mispreceptions. There are a number of little known golf architects that don't get their due and famous architects who don't get their proper blame.

I have mixed emotions on how restoration architects should be credited. If they do their job really well their involvement should be invisible...but on the other hand they deserve great credit for successfully bring back someone else's work.

[Tom_Doak]

Six or eight years ago those credits were my job, and probably a couple of those errors are mine and are just repeated every two years.

However, I will say that it's very difficult to fact-check a list of credits like that.  There are 2-3 discrepancies listed above that I'd never heard of.  Others will provoke an argument about who deserves credit.

As to redesigns or restorations, I've always taken the position that our work on old courses should not be accredited ... I think someone at Yeamans Hall told them to put my name on that course, but I didn't really change any of the design.  I personally don't think anything but a complete renovation should be credited, but where do we draw the line?  Does Trent Jones deserve credit for rebunkering Oakland Hills?  If yes, why not Rees?  (I do think they should be more consistent on this point, but I have said so every other year for a while now without effect.)

I would suggest that this board would be a big help to GOLF if you would all get together and determine what the real credits should be, and then send the list to GOLF.  I practically guarantee you they'll print the revised version in 2007.

[Mark_Fine]

Tom,
There wouldn't be enough room to print them all.  Some courses would have a dozen architects listed as having some kind of design influence on a golf course.  Where do you draw the line?  On a "restoration" I would not put down the restoring architects name.  They are restoring someone else's work and that someone else is whose design it is.
Mark

[Rick Shefchik]

Dan Callahan,

In the olde days, I believe Journalists had to confirm with two reliable sources.

Today, they just spout what they want.

Like guys on a message board?

Sorry, Patrick, but that's a ridiculously broad generalization, based on a misunderstanding of fact.

I've been in journalism for 35 years, and while it would be ideal to confirm everything that gets printed with two reliable sources, in my experience there are many times when there is only one reliable source. If a guy tells you he rode his bicycle alone across Alaska, or a 95-year-old woman tells you most of the kids in her grade school spoke German, you take them at their word. If it turns out they are lying to you, well, it happens.

If you are talking about reporting on public affairs or business matters, yes, the standard is higher, but there are still stories that get printed when only one source is available. That's unavoidable and sometimes necessary. Unnamed sources are another matter; all media outlets are tightening up their use of unnamed sources, and that's a good thing, in my opinion.

But as for your charge that journalists just spout what they want, you might want to run that past Jayson Blair or any of a dozen other reporters who've been fired recently for making up stories. That has never been acceptable in the news business, and I will get out of the business the day it does become acceptable. In the meantime, please check your facts. I have to.

[Mark_F]

Rick Shefchik,

Sorry, but I can't buy your argument at all.

If you only have one person's word, and no other way to ascertain the truth of any statement, then you shouldn't run with the story.

Otherwise, you run the risk of having the bollocks pulled over your eyes.

Journalism is all about verifiable facts - maybe you need to come down and live in Australia, where, if the Journalists' union don't get you, the defamation laws will.  

[Rick Shefchik]

Mark --

It's not an argument, and I don't really care whether you "buy" it. There is no journalistic rule, and there has never been one, stating that a story must have two verifiable sources. Obviously two is better than one, and three is better than two, but you read stories every day, in every paper you might look at, that have one source.

Having said that, the standards of truth in daily journalism are far higher than Patrick assumes they are. Yes, sometimes we fail. If we fail honestly, we strive to do better. If we fail dishonestly, we are fired.

[rgkeller]

"If we fail dishonestly, we are fired."

If caught.

And after years of dishonest reporting.

[Rick Shefchik]

rg keller --

Every business has crooks and schnooks. I would posit that journalism works harder to catch and elminate ours than whatever field you're in.

Our failures are simply more visible.

[Tags:]

Tags:

[Tags:]

Tags:

Call to undefined function theme_linktree()