[Jordan Wall]

How much does visual matter on a course, especially compared to the architecture on the course??

Also, if you could name the top 5 architects that created the best visually appealing courses, who would they be??

Thanks!

[Yannick Pilon]

Jordan,

I don't know if a lot of people will back me up on this, but to answer quickly, I feel the visuals are just as important as the strategic placement of hazards.  Simply for the fact that too many players don't understand the strategic placement of  hazards, or don't get to play stategically because their hability does not allow them to, so they don't necessarily notice.

In short, the way the course look, and most of the time that includes conditionning, will drive what they think of the course and how they liked it. And if they liked it, they will tell their friends who will tell their friends....  The same way a golfers who liked a course because of its strategic features will tell his friends, as so on and so forth.

In my mind, its definately as important.... But don't get me wrong, I am not saying that a course that could be perceived as ugly or not visually stricking by the majority of the market can't make it in today's market, but they better be classics if they are not up to today's "standards" of aesthetics, whatever that means!

As for my list of architects, a could name a lot more than 5 for different reasons, but I would go with the following because I really like the style and value they bring to the new courses they put out there (or used to put out there, unfortunately...).  So, in no perticular order....

Mike Stranz
Tom Doak
Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw
Mike Devries
Gil Hanse

Somehow, I've got the feeling I'll be backed up by most on this site with these five guys...

Good post.

Yannick

[Tyler Kearns]

Jordan,

I'll certainly back up Yannick on this one. I think a golf course must be visually stimulating in addition to being designed along strategic lines. Sadly, most people are only interested in visual appeal and conditioning, and this majority are the players who are supporting golf through green fees and annual dues. Golf is supposed to be played amidst a beautiful landscape, and let's face it, we do not play our most inspired golf every day, so we must be able to enjoy the walk and the scenery along the journey.

I'll add Tom Fazio to the list.

TK

[Jeff_Brauer]

Everyone can enjoy aesthetics, no matter what the score, so yes, they are important in my eyes.

As to who the greatest artists are, I would add Thomas (or really, Billy Bell for the bunkering he did) and MacKenzie to the top of any list.  Strantz would be in there, for sure, but your minimalist-centric list seems kind of counterintuitive to me.  Minmalists can shine on spectacular sites, but may not fare as well visually on other ones, unless they abandon their philosophies.  Granted, many mentioned on that list have a nice bunker style and a tendency to random bunkers, both of which can be very aesthetic. And bunkers are usually a key to the aesthetics we seem to like.

I note Tyler has added Fazio to the list.  His bunker style varies quite a bit with each associate, with some tending to plain jane (under designed and scaled to my eye) and others to the intricate gingerbread style, which is sometimes too much (although I don't mind it, some do) Overall, I think his pleasant effect comes more from his grading fairways into gentle valleys we seek in routing and from a large landscaping budget as much as bunkers.  

For that matter, Doak's bunkers often seem about 5% exagerated in scale (lobes go just a bit too high in relation to the noses, for example) for my tastes, and Rees' work at Bethpage is similar that way.  On the opposite end of the spectrum for Rees, I think you could boil down the millions of words of critisisms of his bunkers on golfclubatlas.com to being a bit too simple in shape for their size.

I am not criticizing anyone. I am merely pointing out that I give the idea of aesthetics quite a bit of thought.  And its amazing how often (and I bet other gca's do this, too) we spend time pacing off bunkers to see what kind of proportions make a bunker look good to our eye.  Designers in other fields have studied all the ideas of rythm, balance, etc. that most people will find visually pleasing.  At some point, for all the artistry, there seems to be a little bit of math and science involved in creating it, rather than intuitive feel......

[ed_getka]

Jordan,
   When you talk visuals, are you talking about visual intimidation or aesthetics? I presume aesthetics and I would say Fazio would be hard to beat for that. I also agree with Jeff that without a great site that is visually spectacular I wouldn't list most of the guys you did. I'll use Rustic Canyon as an example, it is one of my favorite courses, but I doubt there are many golfers who go there and think it is very high on the visual appeal scale. Its not ugly by any means, and to me it is beautiful how it fits into the land there. It just doesn't have the bells and whistles for the most part that say a Fazio course does. And in the one case where Gil did add something more visual (on #4 par 3), it diminished the hole a bit in my mind.
    For me the architecture/strategy comes first and foremost, particularly at the green end and surrounds. Next would be conditioning, and finally visuals are nice, but they are the least compelling part of what I like in a course. Visuals are more of a "all things being equal" I'll pick course X over course Y because of better visuals.
   Another architect I would add would be Jim Engh from what I have seen in pix. I haven't seen any of his work in person.

[Jordan Wall]

Yes, I am indeed talking about aesthetics and the iverall look of the course.  

The reason I actually started this thread was a conversation I had yesterday about bunkers and how a course is bad just because the bunkering does not look very good .....I did not agree with that.


I was talking with a friend yesterday who said that he felt Raynor-type bunkers and courses were not visually pleasing at all, and that they could be a lot more visually appealing as the C&C type bunkers you would see at say, Kapalua.  I feel that if you stick with only one type of bunker on every course designed, it would be very boring and plus I could never imagine Augusta with C&C Kapalua-type bunkers.

I have always seen Raynor's bunkers as very unique, and I have always felt that the look of his courses seemed to fit the surrounding environment very well.  Of course I have not yet played a Raynor course, but when I see some of his better courses such as Fishers Island, Camargo, and others, I love how they seem to all fit the environment.

[Jordan Wall]

Is there such thing as bad visual where a course is say, way overbunkered or an architect has an ocean site or a beautiful river site and instead of picking the best 18 holes a course could have they overuse the river or ocean too much...?

[ed_getka]

Jordan,
   I have seen courses that are way overbunkered and that is a negative visually to me.
   I do like a certain look of bunkers, as done by most of the guys in your first post of this thread, but the position and purpose of the bunkering is paramount. The other bunkering issue is depth, it is supposed to be a hazard after all. After all that I will worry about what the bunkers look like.
   As an example of bunkering that works in the important ways to me, but blows it visually is on TV today. Those are the most sterile looking bunkers I have ever seen, but they are a hazard and they are strategic so they work.

[Joe Hancock]

Is there such thing as bad visual where a course is say, way overbunkered or an architect has an ocean site or a beautiful river site and instead of picking the best 18 holes a course could have they overuse the river or ocean too much...?

Jordan,

This is the very thing Mike DeVries intentionally addressed with his routing at Greywalls in Marquette, Michigan. There were many places to take advantage of dramatic views of Lake Superior. The trick was to balance that drama with good golf. To make every hole a visual of Lake Superior was not going to provide the best holes or routing.

The temptation to "cash in" on views is great. Everyone likes them, and most golfers aren't capable or knowledgable enough to discern between great golf and great views. To create a course that stands on its own merits rather than being enslaved to dramatic views is not easy. Great architects are first and foremost great routers of the golf course.

Joe

[Tom_Doak]

Joe:

Using the views is part of routing, too.

Jordan:

I do believe visuals are very important both in routing the course and in construction.  A lot of what we do is to try and take out the distracting elements in the landscape so you will focus on what we want you to see.  The exact elevation of a green in relation to the fairway and to the background is one of the most important elements visually.

There is a lot more to it than building pretty bunkers, though some people are so mesmerized by the bunkers they don't look at anything else!

P.S.  Just out of curiosity, can you name an example of a course which used its views of the ocean too much?  I agree you don't want to focus on that to the exclusion of building interesting golf holes, but if you build interesting golf holes and ignore the ocean views on a site which offers them, that's a pretty bad mistake as well.

[Joe Hancock]

Tom,

Not using any views wouldn't be very balanced, would it?

Joe

[Jordan Wall]

Tom,

A course that I have played which almost seemed to force the routing for the ocean was Kapalua , The Bay course.  I thoroughly enjoyed the course but felt all except for three holes on the front nine were really all that good.  Then you got to the ocean, and left back to the clubhouse.  I think if the course had been more like the back nine, it would have been better.  The ocean holes were indeed decent holes, but another thing that bugged me was the housing, which seemed to detract on the view.  I felt this was a big mistake for the course, but that is just me.

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