[Mike_Cirba]

I'm beginning to believe that the word "restoration" is ill-suited for the type of architectural work that many of us would like to see at classic courses where architectural features have been lost over the years, or where overgrowth and neglect have caused a diminishment (is that a word? ) in the original playability and intent.

I say that because I've seen the term restoration used to cover a wide gamut of work, from almost total redesign of features, to just simply cutting trees, or improving agronomy and maintenance practices, to everything in between.  It says to me that it's simply attempting to breathe the life back into the patient, and that becomes a very subjective description by it's very vague nature.

Isn't what we're really hoping for in any such effort really "recovery"?   I think it would be a more difficult term to corrupt for marketing and PR purposes.   It's more descriptive and to me connotes a type of architectural archeology, where detailed research and learned knowledge of what existed prior is assumed, and is more specific to the concrete goals of bringing back architectural features, and aesthetics, and playability to what existed previously.

Such as; "the depth and shaping of the bunkers has been lost over time.  We're going to go out and recover them."   Or, "our fairways have been narrowed such that they are now about 60% of their original width and we're going to recover them."

Thoughts?

[Joe Hancock]

Would a new classification of architect be a "Recovery Specialist"?

Joe

[Tommy Williamsen]

Mike, I like recover. It makes sense to me.  Restore is one of those words that is used and misused.  Like most things in language we adapt words and phrases that make the most sense in our time and place.

[Mike_Cirba]

Joe,

That would work.  

For instance, I've seen the term restoration used too often to justify wholesale changes to feature placements on a course (most often bunkering) using the rationale that the architect is restoring the original design intent.  (i.e. bunkers placed 260 yards from the tee are moved to 280 out to account for technological changes in equipment).  

It would be much more difficult for an architect to conscientiously claim that he "recovered those new bunkers at 280" when they never previously existed.  

[Joe Hancock]

The first step of recovery is discovery. I don't know how to work that into a title though.

Joe

[Mike_Cirba]

The first step of recovery is discovery. I don't know how to work that into a title though.

Joe

Joe,

BINGO!!

I don't have to be intimately familiar with something to perform restorative measures (think of a doctor (Open Doctor perhaps? ) with a patient), but performing recovery has a much different connotation.

[Steve Burrows]

This is fine, I suppose, if we assume that language is not liquid, and that, in time, the word "recover" will not also have those connotations that you are trying to avoid and that we might think such a change would eliminate.  But meaning in all languages does shift over time (consider all of the slang and/or sexual entendre present in the English alone), which, as has been mentioned, is why this question is being posed in the first place.  I just don't think that word choice alone would solve the problem that you see.

And, there is still always going to be the question: What point in history are we choosing to "recover?"  The day after construction was completed?  The day after the original designer made his final changes?  Others?  Whether you are "restoring" or "recovering", that decision will still need to be made, and it is possible (now that I think about the word choice itself) that the inability to make this decision, and to be confident in it, is more than likely a huge contributing factor to the problem that you are addressing.

[Tom_Doak]

Mike C:

I would love to have a separate word to use, but as soon as your word gains any popularity, someone will start talking about "recovering" shot values or the intent of the designer, instead of actual features, and we'll be back where we started.

Corruption of the language is an essential element of modern-day marketing.  In hindsight, it's too bad we were all forced to read "1984" in high school.  We were meant to learn to ignore such things, but instead it taught the clever ones how to manipulate the rest.

[cary lichtenstein]

Rehabilitate

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