Do we each give it our own meaning?

[Jeff_Brauer]

On the candid discussion thread, Mark Bourgeois stated that "a part of me that doesn't want to know any of the behind the curtain stuff or especially the designer's intent because I feel entitled to own the meaning."

Own the meaning?  What does he mean by that?  What does it mean to you?

I agree that a paying customer has the right to enjoy the golf course any damn way they please, whether enlightened (by my thought process) or not.

Do we overlook this in design?  When a Geoff Shackleford explains in great detail how a strategic hole means you ought to play near a bunker to open up a line of play, does that really translate for all golfers?

Do some attribute some other meaning to the design, whether it be beauty, peace of mind, or even totally different strategic lines of thought, base on his game (like a current big hook tee shot) that the gca never considered? 

If so, what % of golfers view a hole and understand it in the terms the gca intended?  And, does it matter?

[Lester George]

Jeff,

I truly believe very few understand what the designer intended and even less care. 

It's hard to demonstrate or defend or explain intent.  Few golfers(even some PGA Tour Professionals) care about anything but score and how to get a good one (relative to their skills).

Design intent is relative mostly to the designer.

Of course, an entire could be written on this subject, but not by me.

Lester

[Jeff_Brauer]

Lester,

"Design intent is relative mostly to the designer" would be a great catch phrase for the bottom of your posts, or even the post of your bottom!

I agree. I was really struck by Mark's phraseology that a golfer is entitled to figure meaning out for him/herself. Perhaps that was self evident to all, but on a board where we discuss the meaning of designs, and there can be a groupthink about what it should mean, I just got the impression that Mark was really, really, deep! (In contrast to you and me, who are really deep in something.......)

I have relayed the story of a grand opening where a golfer (swear to god this is true) complimented me for the great angle into the green from a nearby parking lot! I guarantdamtee you that I thought of no such thing (and for all the lawyers, wouldn't admit it if I did?)  But, I guess if he found his way to play the hole, it makes it all that much better doesn't it?

And for that matter, those Golden Age holes so many revere, how do they stack up?  The inside-outside bunkering for instance, really dictates one good way to play the hole, no?  And forces bogey upon those who can't muster the forced carry?  Is not the Fazio anti strategy hole, or the Pete Dye inside inside bunkered hole to make it play harder for the longer hitters really better at providing multiple EQUAL options that allow golfers to find their own meaning?

Or perhaps the Doak (although he hates the Whitten phrase) "Random bunkering" would be the all time best (albeit at some maintenance cost) at providing multiple meanings for all that could be wildly different, rather than "I understood it, but I just couldn't play it that way!"

[Lester George]

Jeff,

Well said, couldn't agree more....

Lester

[Ken Moum]

When a Geoff Shackleford explains in great detail how a strategic hole means you ought to play near a bunker to open up a line of play, does that really translate for all golfers?

It's interesting that you should mention Shackelford. His "Grounds for Golf" probably had more influence on the way I assess golf courses than any other single thing.

It offers a rookie GCA aficionado the tools to figure out why they like/dislike a given hole or design. Until I read that, I was aware of some of the things I like or dislike in golf courses, but never put the puzzle together.

So my answer to your last question is "The architect's intent isn't really a big factor for me."

This new appreciation for GCA is a mixed blessing, however. Now that I understand better how the routing and design impact my game, I am a lot fussier about the courses I play.

OTOH, I am less likely to overlook a bad (by my criteria) because it's in great condition. And I am more likely to enjoy a day on an interesting design, regardless of the condition. (Note -- even before my current job, I wasn't one to complain about conditioning.)

Ken

[Jeff_Brauer]

Ken,

Funny you mention that book. I was thinking of it as an example was because I pulled it off the shelf to re-read at lunch today!

I agree that great things about his books are that many golfers have appreciated golf courses in new ways (i.e. understood or just thought about architecture for the first time) because of it.  As with anything written down, it can tend to be gospel to some as the "right way" to interpret a course, which I don't think is the case.

Tying it back to the intentional vs. accidental theory, again, I believe that most gca's can intentionally design for the best players for the main shots, and all players for recovery shots areound the green, but that the wide range of average players do discover little nuances in how THEY can best attempt to play the hole (and recover) that none of us can truly appreciate because of the broad spectrum of game talents.

[Kalen Braley]

Jeff,

I'm going to have to go ahead and agree with your last post!  It really is about how each individual interfaces with the architecture.  And yes this means its the wide variety of skills by the average players that really finds all of these hidden treasures on the golf course.

For example, notice during PGA tour events, a fairway will be divot free, then there will be a 30 yard long area where most of the divots are, and then nothing again.  If anything this would suggest to me that the pros pretty much interface with golf courses in the same way.  Perhaps they are the ones who lack creativity and imagination, or more likely are just all on the same page...who knows. 

It really takes great skill, or perhaps a lack there-of to the think about how you will negotiate that mound 150 yards off the tee if thats where your tee ball will land.  It takes some thinking to decide where to layup on the short par 5 when a massive baranca sits 100 yards short of the green.

I think the best designers are the ones who can envision all the shots from the 20 yr old flatbellies to the 80 yr old grandmas, that make the game interesting for anyone. 

If nothing else though, because we all see the world thru only our set of eyes, and none else, by definition, we always give everything our own meaning.  That being said it sure helps when the archie gives you something nice to look at...

[Peter Pallotta]

Jeff -

I don't think it's all that complicated - the architect just needs to leave room for the golfer to be a participant and not merely an observer.

Pulp fiction can be great fun; but great literature doesn't prescribe characters and feelings and plot in the same way or to the same extent, and thus leaves room for a fuller participation, i.e. by the whole person, not merely by the reader.   

That most books and art and golf courses don't now and rarely have left that kind of room doesn't invalidate the concept.  It's just that few artists in any field have the necessary humility and/or the technique to manifest that humility. When I was writing for a living I know I didn't.   

Peter

[Rick_Noyes]

Jeff,

I read that as not "owning the meaning" but entitled to my own meaning.  We can design with an intent being this is best way to apprach this golf hole, but everyone is entitled to thier own interpretations as it fits their game.

Peter,

Thank you for that post.  I have been trying to come up with the words as to why I don't care for Tobacco Road (Not trying to stear this thread into another TR discussion).  Strantz was a graphic artist prior to becomming a gca.  I always felt his courses are great to look at and/or photograph.  I couldn't put my finger on as to why I didn't like it.  Strantz engages you as an observer, but I personally feel that his design left out the particpant.

Rick

[Tom_Doak]

Jeff:

I agree that everybody is entitled to enjoy a course on their own level.  That was certainly one of the things I saw in Scotland, where courses came in all shapes and sizes, and there is no course with more different meanings than St. Andrews.  It is a concept I think Tour pro / designers really don't understand at all ... they think they know what "good golf shots" are and that's all it should be about, which is why a lot of them struggle to like The Old Course.

To that end, I really don't like being asked all the time to write text for yardage books, promotional stuff, etc.  If I write it all down, there's not much room left for the players to attach a meaning of their own, so I usually try to write just an introduction.  But then the club pro writes instructions on how to play the holes, and usually gets at least 3 out of 18 wrong!

One of the things I liked best about MacKenzie's diagram of the fourteenth hole at St. Andrews (or his own hole for the Lido competition) is that he didn't suggest any of those different ways of playing the hole was BETTER than the others, just different.  In fact on the Lido hole the best angle to the green (from the island to the left) required a bit of a lay-up tee shot ... the longest hitters could go straight and make a longer carry, but had to hit to a narrower part of the fairway, too.

[Dan Kelly]

Own the meaning?  What does he mean by that?  What does it mean to you?

I have no idea what it means to him! But to me, it would mean ... figuring out what I think without first listening to anyone else's views.

I never, ever read a movie review before seeing the movie. (I just check to see how many stars the critics are giving it. I read the reviews afterwards.) I want to know as little as possible about a book before I start to read it -- just that the topic sounds interesting, and that a smart-sounding critic somewhere (in the family, or outside it) thinks it's well-done. And I don't want to know anything about a golf course before I play it -- except that people I "know" and "trust" (you know, you GCA guys) think it's worth the trouble of playing. (This is why I hate the nouveau scorecards, with the "Pro's Tip" for each hole.)

Let me figure it out for myself!

[Bill_McBride]

Jeff:

I agree that everybody is entitled to enjoy a course on their own level.  That was certainly one of the things I saw in Scotland, where courses came in all shapes and sizes, and there is no course with more different meanings than St. Andrews.  It is a concept I think Tour pro / designers really don't understand at all ... they think they know what "good golf shots" are and that's all it should be about, which is why a lot of them struggle to like The Old Course.

To that end, I really don't like being asked all the time to write text for yardage books, promotional stuff, etc.  If I write it all down, there's not much room left for the players to attach a meaning of their own, so I usually try to write just an introduction.  But then the club pro writes instructions on how to play the holes, and usually gets at least 3 out of 18 wrong!

One of the things I liked best about MacKenzie's diagram of the fourteenth hole at St. Andrews (or his own hole for the Lido competition) is that he didn't suggest any of those different ways of playing the hole was BETTER than the others, just different.  In fact on the Lido hole the best angle to the green (from the island to the left) required a bit of a lay-up tee shot ... the longest hitters could go straight and make a longer carry, but had to hit to a narrower part of the fairway, too.

I LOVE that diagram by Dr MacKenzie of the Long Hole and players A-D.  You can imagine my excitement when I played the hole the first time in 2004 exactly like one of them, tacking left of the Hell Bunker and playing a nice bump and run from the edge of the fifth fairway onto the green for a par.  One of the neat things about the Old Course (and golf architecture in general) is the large body of written work available to learn about historic courses.

I think most golfers - 99%? - don't pay a lot of attention to the designer's intent because most of the golf they see is the professional tours on television.  Those players don't work the ball any more, they hit it prodigious distances on straight lines with square-grooved clubs that take strategy out of golf.  Knowing the distance is all that counts.

The average golfer tries the same stuff without knowing how or being able to do it, and would have a lot more fun if he paid attention to how the GCA designed the hole to be ideally played.

We've discussed in the past the thought that women play holes much more as the architect designed them, for practical purposes.

Is there an answer?  Or is golf going to stay in its current mindset from now on?  Is it really important as long as everybody has fun in his own way?  Maybe that's what Mark was trying to say about "owning the meaning."

[Mark Bourgeois]

I guess in the spirit of the thread "own the meaning" can mean whatever *you* decide! (For me it means two things: first, think things through -- decide on a meaning.  Second, as long as you've internalized that meaning, then it carries the same legitimacy as anyone else's meaning.)

Interesting the notion that an architect can design for individual meanings.  Here's MacKenzie's writing on "ideal" holes:

"An ideal hole should provide an infinite variety of shots according to the varying positions of the tee, the situation of the flag, the direction and strength of the wind, etc.  It should also at times give full advantage for the voluntary pull or slice, one of the most finished shots in golf, and one that few champions are able to carry out with any great degree of accuracy."

Here is MacKenzie's list of ideal short holes:
1. 11 TOC
2. 7 Eden St. Andrews
3. 14 Eden St. Andrews
4. Gibraltar Moortown

Of two and three shot ideal holes, he writes there are few if any in existence.  He writes 16 TOC is *almost* ideal for its length.  He likes 14 TOC better ("probably the best holes of its length in existence").

He makes what for me are two interesting comments on this hole, one explaining why it's ideal and one why it's not.

Why ideal: the tilt of the green from left to right, "so much that it is impossible to approach near the hole from the right...this tilt of the green has a considerable influence on the tee shot 530 yards away."  Then he goes on to recount how each golfer in a four-ball match played it differently!

Why not ideal: bunkers are not made visible.  "If these bunkers only looked as terrifying and formidable as they really are, what thrills one would get in playing this hole!  What pleasurable excitement there would be in seeing one's second shot sailing over Hell!"

BTW, this is an aspect of MacKenzie's designs which for me elevates him: his thoughts ordered to psychological ends.  The imitation of nature, the design of holes, design features, etc etc -- it seems to me all the tools of design for him were means to an end rather than, as is the case I think with many designers, as ends themselves.  His end was the psychological impact on the golfer. 

I find that approach genius-like.  I think a lot of this philosophy he developed in the context of his two avocations (after medicine!): golf-course design and camouflage.  Camouflage in particular would have given him keen insights into the workings of the human mind and eye as they processed "visual signals" of the environment.

Mark

[Sean_A]

Jeff:

I agree that everybody is entitled to enjoy a course on their own level.  That was certainly one of the things I saw in Scotland, where courses came in all shapes and sizes, and there is no course with more different meanings than St. Andrews.  It is a concept I think Tour pro / designers really don't understand at all ... they think they know what "good golf shots" are and that's all it should be about, which is why a lot of them struggle to like The Old Course.

To that end, I really don't like being asked all the time to write text for yardage books, promotional stuff, etc.  If I write it all down, there's not much room left for the players to attach a meaning of their own, so I usually try to write just an introduction.  But then the club pro writes instructions on how to play the holes, and usually gets at least 3 out of 18 wrong!

One of the things I liked best about MacKenzie's diagram of the fourteenth hole at St. Andrews (or his own hole for the Lido competition) is that he didn't suggest any of those different ways of playing the hole was BETTER than the others, just different.  In fact on the Lido hole the best angle to the green (from the island to the left) required a bit of a lay-up tee shot ... the longest hitters could go straight and make a longer carry, but had to hit to a narrower part of the fairway, too.

I LOVE that diagram by Dr MacKenzie of the Long Hole and players A-D.  You can imagine my excitement when I played the hole the first time in 2004 exactly like one of them, tacking left of the Hell Bunker and playing a nice bump and run from the edge of the fifth fairway onto the green for a par.  One of the neat things about the Old Course (and golf architecture in general) is the large body of written work available to learn about historic courses.

I think most golfers - 99%? - don't pay a lot of attention to the designer's intent because most of the golf they see is the professional tours on television.  Those players don't work the ball any more, they hit it prodigious distances on straight lines with square-grooved clubs that take strategy out of golf.  Knowing the distance is all that counts.

The average golfer tries the same stuff without knowing how or being able to do it, and would have a lot more fun if he paid attention to how the GCA designed the hole to be ideally played.

We've discussed in the past the thought that women play holes much more as the architect designed them, for practical purposes.

Is there an answer?  Or is golf going to stay in its current mindset from now on?  Is it really important as long as everybody has fun in his own way?  Maybe that's what Mark was trying to say about "owning the meaning."

Billy McB

Do ya reckon that most golfers pay little attention to designer intent because they spray the ball all over the place?  This is the biggest problem with so called strategy - it must include the guy whose only strategy (or lack of) is to whack the ball.  In other words, there is a hell of a lot to be said for hitting a ball, finding it and hitting it again.  We have all been there and can appreciate some latitude.

Ciao

[Adam Clayman]

First off, the distinction between a golfer and those who infrequently play the game needs to be made. I believe every golfer understands the strategy of the hole as the designer intended. (if there is any). A golfer understands these nuances because he/she has devoted the time and effort into understanding the finer points of this sport by figuring out where they want, or need to go. This is at the heart of calling someone a golfer.

From the subtext in some of the posts in this thread I'm concerned at the lack of credit people are giving to these real golfers.

Is it another example of dumbing down the golf course architecture inorder to accommodate the customer?

[TEPaul]

Jeff and Lester:

You know you two guys really do need to start reading some Max Behr. You sure need to read him if you ever want to come anywhere near answering some questions on this thread and certainly ones like you mention from MarkB;

It's no wonder someone or a few on here said one of Shackelford's books was so meaningful to him on this subject---Shackelford has always been a huge student and proponent of many of Behr's philosophies. So apparently was Mackenzie towards the end and likely Bob Jones too.

Behr talked about such things in golf and architecture as "an adventure of the spirit" for the golfer or the feeling of a golfer of "finding his OWN way around a golf course". He even got into the importance of "emotion" in golf and architecture and how something like that simply cannot be mathematically or scientifically analyzed.

How in the hell is a golf architect going to inspire "an adventure of spirit" in golfers or the feeling in a golfer that he's finding his own way around if he just lays down some obvious way to go and not to go and then even tells a golfer what he must do? The Nth degree of that only requires a physical test of the golfer. What's thoughtful really about an obvious and straight physical test?

You guys need to read Max Howell Behr! If you do some of the answers to these questions may appear before you, and you may even come to see the Truth and the Light and if you're lucky you may even find the Way to the Promised Land and you may even come to inhabit the Sunlit Uplands of golf architecture and Life!

[Kirk Gill]

There was a thread late last year that touched on this:

http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,32567.0.html

There's some nice pontification to be found there (of course, you can take it however you like).  

Some "meanings" are imposed, and that's as it should be (tee is HERE, green is THERE). And while my own game (or lack thereof) creates a unique experience for me, I'm also delighted when I come up against something that the architect created that I have to overcome or interact with in some interesting way. I guess I'm saying that the story is only partly mine - I'm just bringing a little something to the table. And perhaps I enjoy a course a bit more when the architect lets me write some of the story, and doesn't dictate it all to me.......

[George Pazin]

Jeff:

I agree that everybody is entitled to enjoy a course on their own level.  That was certainly one of the things I saw in Scotland, where courses came in all shapes and sizes, and there is no course with more different meanings than St. Andrews.  It is a concept I think Tour pro / designers really don't understand at all ... they think they know what "good golf shots" are and that's all it should be about, which is why a lot of them struggle to like The Old Course.

To that end, I really don't like being asked all the time to write text for yardage books, promotional stuff, etc.  If I write it all down, there's not much room left for the players to attach a meaning of their own, so I usually try to write just an introduction.  But then the club pro writes instructions on how to play the holes, and usually gets at least 3 out of 18 wrong!

One of the things I liked best about MacKenzie's diagram of the fourteenth hole at St. Andrews (or his own hole for the Lido competition) is that he didn't suggest any of those different ways of playing the hole was BETTER than the others, just different.  In fact on the Lido hole the best angle to the green (from the island to the left) required a bit of a lay-up tee shot ... the longest hitters could go straight and make a longer carry, but had to hit to a narrower part of the fairway, too.

Jeff -

I don't think it's all that complicated - the architect just needs to leave room for the golfer to be a participant and not merely an observer.

Pulp fiction can be great fun; but great literature doesn't prescribe characters and feelings and plot in the same way or to the same extent, and thus leaves room for a fuller participation, i.e. by the whole person, not merely by the reader.   

That most books and art and golf courses don't now and rarely have left that kind of room doesn't invalidate the concept.  It's just that few artists in any field have the necessary humility and/or the technique to manifest that humility. When I was writing for a living I know I didn't.   

Peter

Terrific thread - these two posts share my thoughts far better than I ever could.

I can remember countless English teachers telling me poetry has its own meaning to every reader - and yet still telling me I was wrong each time in my interpretation.

Resolve that along with Tom D's observation about understanding the flaws in the graded rough/each shot its own just reward philosophy and you probably have a better understanding than most.

[Bill_McBride]

Jeff:

I agree that everybody is entitled to enjoy a course on their own level.  That was certainly one of the things I saw in Scotland, where courses came in all shapes and sizes, and there is no course with more different meanings than St. Andrews.  It is a concept I think Tour pro / designers really don't understand at all ... they think they know what "good golf shots" are and that's all it should be about, which is why a lot of them struggle to like The Old Course.

To that end, I really don't like being asked all the time to write text for yardage books, promotional stuff, etc.  If I write it all down, there's not much room left for the players to attach a meaning of their own, so I usually try to write just an introduction.  But then the club pro writes instructions on how to play the holes, and usually gets at least 3 out of 18 wrong!

One of the things I liked best about MacKenzie's diagram of the fourteenth hole at St. Andrews (or his own hole for the Lido competition) is that he didn't suggest any of those different ways of playing the hole was BETTER than the others, just different.  In fact on the Lido hole the best angle to the green (from the island to the left) required a bit of a lay-up tee shot ... the longest hitters could go straight and make a longer carry, but had to hit to a narrower part of the fairway, too.

I LOVE that diagram by Dr MacKenzie of the Long Hole and players A-D.  You can imagine my excitement when I played the hole the first time in 2004 exactly like one of them, tacking left of the Hell Bunker and playing a nice bump and run from the edge of the fifth fairway onto the green for a par.  One of the neat things about the Old Course (and golf architecture in general) is the large body of written work available to learn about historic courses.

I think most golfers - 99%? - don't pay a lot of attention to the designer's intent because most of the golf they see is the professional tours on television.  Those players don't work the ball any more, they hit it prodigious distances on straight lines with square-grooved clubs that take strategy out of golf.  Knowing the distance is all that counts.

The average golfer tries the same stuff without knowing how or being able to do it, and would have a lot more fun if he paid attention to how the GCA designed the hole to be ideally played.

We've discussed in the past the thought that women play holes much more as the architect designed them, for practical purposes.

Is there an answer?  Or is golf going to stay in its current mindset from now on?  Is it really important as long as everybody has fun in his own way?  Maybe that's what Mark was trying to say about "owning the meaning."

Billy McB

Do ya reckon that most golfers pay little attention to designer intent because they spray the ball all over the place?  This is the biggest problem with so called strategy - it must include the guy whose only strategy (or lack of) is to whack the ball.  In other words, there is a hell of a lot to be said for hitting a ball, finding it and hitting it again.  We have all been there and can appreciate some latitude.

Ciao

But Sean, even the most awful dub can stand on a tee, see the green 350 yards away is angled left to right with a deep bunker in the right front, and at least TRY to hit his tee shot toward the left side of the fairway, right?   The fact that he might slice the shot into the right rough doesn't mean he didn't get the strategy.  Failure to execute is not the same as failure to comprehend!

[Carl Rogers]

Well, of course, yes.

To my consternation now, it took me 3 or 4 rounds to 'get' the 10th hole at Riverfront, Suffolk, VA, because I was in the midst of playing a round and blocking out the bigger picture design elements.

It took me many more rounds at Riverfront to understand the directions (as stated on the web site) Tom D gave Mr. Iverson in shaping the green slopes and fairway landing areas.

Time time time....

I ask my self what do we wish to measure or are willing to observe?

[Lloyd_Cole]

Flexibility, then, is what makes much art enjoyable to many people - all of these people cannot be 'getting' the same thing. In literature and some music, this flexibilty allows the reader to find his own understanding, or meaning, and his own enjoyment of the work. Flexible art is the antidote to the didactic.
Is strategic design the antidote to penal? I'm not suggesting it is that simple and as we know few courses are all one and none of the other.

What I do think, and I've been thinking about this a lot recently, is that there is high brow art and there is low brow. The high brow is more demanding, it requires more of the reader, or the listener, but it offers more in return. We can make a similar distinction in GCA, but I do not suggest that one is better or worse than the other, unless they are competing in the same areas. Once or twice around Merion will not be enough to have a full enjoyment of its subtleties, but once or twice is all you get around  a resort course and it should surely be designed with this in mind.

[Lester George]

TEP,

I have read Max Behr, and I think I get it.  Pretty sure Jeff has too. 

As far as "an adventure of the spirit" and finding ones way, I think my courses speak for themselves.  Hell, I have been criticized by some (are their opinions any less valid) that I present too many options. 

The view must be pretty good from where you are sitting.

Lester

[Jeff_Brauer]

Lester and TePaul,

Yes, I have read Behr. I will read it again soon, just because TePaul suggests I do, just as I periodically re-read all my gca books, including Geoff S. work, which I generally like.

Of course, I tend to read them while watching yet another hockey game, so for some reason, I figure Behr must be a treastise on fighting or something.  Maybe I gave HIS stuff my own meaning though.

Sean Arble,

You are aware that day before yesterday was Gordie Howe's BD, I presume.  Did you use one of those web sites to send him a card?