[Peter Pallotta]

Ah, the unique challenge and opportunity of the artist as golf course architect - the land. Poets and painters start with a blank canvas, unfetterred but unassisted; maybe it's easier to ascribe greatness to them, or making such judgements fairer in their case, since all start with the same blank canvas. But the gof course architect has nature, and both takes his inspiration from and has to grapple with the land; and (unless he's very rich and a little foolish) he doesn't get to buy the land he wants to work with or that most insipres him. The best he can do (and hope for) is to be in a position to be offered the great sites, and/or to turn down the opportunity to work on lesser sites. Maybe that has something to do with it, i.e. genius/greatness as CHOICE.  

Peter

[Ian Andrew]

Jeff,

I'm not sure what you are apologizing for – the list of Thompson’s early work before Jasper stunned me too. Pat Howitt mentioned that he employed a lot of family over the years and was the source of work for many of them right to the end. It was a business full of brothers and cousins – including supervisors, golf professionals and golf superintendents. I’ve always wondered what role the others played in that early work. He did employ a Landscape Architect early on – a name I’ll have to find again – he may have played a bigger role than we expect. It’s funny how we know all his later associates and so little of the early ones.

It’s always struck me as interesting that Galt is so simple compared to St. George’s built at the same time. Was it money or little time spent on site supervising? We’ve always wondered how Ross or Thompson handled this much work, or how Mackenzie built great courses sometimes in his absence.

To answer your question – Stanley had far more talent than those two did. I think Nicol and George proved they could route a course but Stanley proved he was capable of a much higher art form. Nichol’s work at Brantford and Cummings work at Summit (to pick two courses) are rudimentary in their architecture. Stanley was a reader (according to Pat) and had a massive library of books (the last part only recently sold it turns out) and talked about higher concepts like borrowed scenery at Jasper and Banff. He showed his ability to work in a massive scale and had the intelligence to deal with a tough build at both.  

Stanley had an enormous talent – interestingly enough he also had very little Canadian competition (the passing of Park gave him Toronto to himself). That was where I was going with “luck and circumstance” being important. Raynor embodies this more than anyone else – how would we have known his talent without CBM. How would we have known CBM’s talent without his connections to the rich?

In contrast, there are enough significant architects practicing today that have limited talent, but they enjoy all the connections, get the sites and have the budget - and still give us average courses. As Tom said originally, true talent is rare in this business and that’s why we have so few truly great architects.

[Sean_A]

Whether we like to admit it or not - luck and opportunity are as important in identifying genius as talent.

Ian

I have long debated whether or not archies are primarily artists.  To a certain extent, they must be because they rely on the public to judge them as part of the canon or not.  This in and of itself is a large measure of luck that any archie relies on - just as any other type of artist does.  The really great archies are the ones who set the definitions for the canon.  So from this point of  view those who spoke of collective experience are spot on.  

The difficult aspect is once the art form reaches an accepted pinnacle, adding to the definitions of the greatness necessarily becomes more and more difficult.  In other words, does the archie have to look beyond the artistic side of the business toward the engineering or choice of sites (risk taking?) to really stretch the boundaries of the canon?  

I have long thought that the best archies are the ones who work with the best land.  That is not to say that land makes the archie, but it helps!  GCA is so much more than just art.  There is a massive engineering/practical aspect to the field if only because a golf course is built for a specific purpose.  I think archies are the only ones who really know the who the great archies are/were because an archie understands all aspects of a design.  For the most part, guys like me can like/dislike a style or the concept of how the course should be designed based on preferences.  An archie can see what the lynchpins of the project are in relation to what the land offered.  An archie can see where a brilliant routing decision(s) made the course what it is - either great, good or mediocre.  Its quite a unique position to be in for the art world.  But then, I never thought archies were primarily artists.  I have always believed they are primarily designers - inventors even.  

Ciao

[Greg McMullin]

Was reading Mike Bell's book "The Golf Courses of Stanley Thompson" and found the following in the section titled "Recollections of Thompson's Driver" by Garry McKay - page 142.
(John Parkinson was Stanley's driver in the summer of 1947)

-- Because he was a teenager that summer, Parkinson didn't really appreciate the genius for whom he was working. It wasn't until his later years that he came to understand why Thompson and his golf course architecture are held in such high esteem. Parkinson said much of Thompson's talent was that he could visualize. He remembers clearly one such example when he and Thompson were deep in the woods at the base of the Niagara Escarpment in Hamilton. As they walked through the bush, Thompson pointed out a knoll with a stream running away from it. "He said he thought it would be a beautiful par three, straight down the river, and when the river bends away, you would have the green," Parkinson recalls. The next day, they were back on the same spot, and Thompson asked Parkinson to pace off the potential hole, telling him he thought it would be about 150 yards, and ideal length for a par three. "I paced it off, and he was right on," said Parkinson. "He could visualize ti and see it and sense it as a hole."

[BCrosby]

How often are you architects surprised by the finished look of one of your holes?

Or maybe better put, how many of you have found that a finished hole turns out to be very different from what you would have thought at the outset of the job?

Bob

[TEPaul]

I think one of the most overlooked factors of what made many of the great golf courses great is for whatever reasons the architects who did them were basically not asked to or forced to dumb anything down. In other words, they just did whatever they wanted to do with some of them taking very long periods of time to do it---and the result of that was greatness.

One of the interesting exceptions to that ironically may've been Cypress Point. Could that course have been even better if Morse hadn't restricted Mackenzie on a few holes?

I also believe Flynn's Shinnecock has a few holes that could be better if Flynn's plans on those  holes hadn't been dumbed down---particularly the 16th.

[Jeff_Mingay]

How often are you architects surprised by the finished look of one of your holes?

Or maybe better put, how many of you have found that a finished hole turns out to be very different from what you would have thought at the outset of the job?

Bob

Bob,

We're a design/build firm, so our design work really evolved as construction progresses. Quite often the finished look of our holes are indeed different from what we were thinking about/envisioning during the early stages of design/construction. And, it's always for the better. After all, we wouldn't authorize grassing if we weren't happy with the hole(s).

[Philippe Binette]

About Frank Lloyd Wright,

he started in ''architecture'' career by sharpening pencil in a architecture firm


as for the question:
Ability to visualize is important, a lot of self-belief is important,

and a lot of scotch always help

[John Mayhugh]

How much of an advantage was it for the greats not having to deal with details like cart paths & integrating housing? 

 

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