Homogenizing Ross

[Rick_Noyes]

I personally have always had a little trouble determining the "intent" of an architect unless I could ask them.
This is particularly difficult in Mr. Ross' case.  It seems there is a plethora of people out there that know exactly what Ross intended.  From that stand point all we can do is make educated guesses.  There are certain features that could have been built that he did not like or want but never got the opportunity to correct them, who knows?  Ross did a lot of plans where he not only did not see them built, he never saw the site.  In the event the course was built, the club can fairly say they have a Ross design.  After Pinehurst #2 was built, Ross continued to "tweak" that design until his death.  Those "tweaks" may or may not be on paper.  I have a running joke with a friend when discussing Mr. Ross.  Imagine a number of "experts" gathered around discussing the architecture and strategy that Ross intended concerning some mounds at #2.  Ross suddenly appears and someone asks him to settle the discussion.  Mr. Ross, why are those mounds there?  "Well, lads, thats where the mule died."

[RT (Guest)]

That sounded like a typical Pete Dye quip.

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

Patrick
I'm appreciative that Aronomink and Skokie are different. But with Skokie being largely the work of Langford if they weren't  wouldn't we really have a problem? I have no complaint with Pritchard or Silva or any restoration architect. I have no desire to blame anyone, I'm not even certain there is problem. A restoration involves architect, contractor and the Club - they all can influence the outcome. I'm just expressing my concern based on some observations.

Rick
Your right that Ross didn't see all his courses. I think it is agreed he had very capable and talented associates - that is why I believe it is important to differentiate the work of Ross/Hatch from Ross/McGovern from Ross/whoever. I also agree - unless the architect wrote down exactly what he was thinking, its nothing more than educated guess to claim what his intent might have been. That is why conjecture that he may have wanted to change certain features if given the chance is dangerous. Conjecture like that has led to more than a few old designs being overhauled unnecessarily - which is a different topic.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tom MacWood,

I think most of us share the same concerns.

Hopefully, GCA and other public influences will have a positive impact on work that a club seeks to undertake.

[TEPaul]

Rick Noyes:

In my opinion, in your post above of less than 20 lines, you've absolutely NAILED the misperceptions on this website and probably amongst so many of us who are very interested in golf architecture, it's history and evolution!

And those misperceptions of ours, generally, revolve around the unsupportable fact that some of these famous and really talented old architects agonized and conducted plenary sessions over ever single mound, bunker, green contour, etc, etc on every single golf course they ever did!

That is simply not so--not even remotely close, in so many more instances than we seem to care to admit!

By saying that though, I certainly don't mean to take anything away from them or many of their products or creations--just that certain obvious facts indicate the  unavoidable reality of how they worked and had to.

Ross did a huge amount of courses at certain times and the fact he did as well as he did with that work load says a lot about him and the way he organized his company, and his general modus operandi.

But given that fact with Ross, Tom MacWood may have a bit of a point here which ironically could be supported in a way by Brad Klein! Many of the courses and most particularly their smaller details could and probably did have more to do with other people, and their own work, than it ever did with Ross himself!