Do most golf architects improve with experience?

[THuckaby2]

Count me in on the team, Rich.  If NGLA is indeed two stars, they need some help.  Fast.

And dammit are you right on re your life status in 6 months... just don't forget the little people, will ya?

TH

[TEPaul]

I will not come inside that tent UNTIL you admit that NGLA is 3 stars! And I'm prepared to wait for your answer outside that tent and TO HOLD OFF TAKING A PISS until hell freezes over!

So consider carefully and "Apres nous le deluge"!

[Rich Goodale (Guest)]

Tommy P

Since I know your wife is a trained nurse, I'd be watching out for catheters, if I were you!

More seriously (how could anything be more serious that a catheter?), just buy me a few Macallan's in the Burghfield House Hotel when you visit Dornoch as my guest and I will say anything about NGLA that you want me to say.

Or, just get me on the invite list for the Singles (Senior division) and I'll make up my mind for myself after I've seen the course play the way it ought to......

Grovellingly Yours

Rich

[THuckaby2]

Er, uh... ahem...

Forget everything I've ever said in here before.  NGLA sucks donkeys and doesn't even get one freakin' star.  CB MacDonald was a raving lunatic and the course is boring and too easy.  It plays way too slow, too.

TEP:  come to San Jose and play Santa Teresa (as my guest) and buy me a Coors Light at the bar and I'll change my mind.  Alternatively, get me in the Singles (38 year old fat guy division) and I'll be glad to assess for myself, shutting off the very easy imagination required to see NGLA in the conditions the course next door had when I was there before, and just taking into assessment what is at hand.

On my kneesingly,

TH

[Mark_Fine]

Tom,
One, two or three stars, what's the difference?  It's all just the degree of separation you want to invoke.  A 1 - 10 scale can serve the same purpose can't it?  And why is the criteria to judge the course any different?  Use what ever criteria you like, just be consistent.  

Let's agree to disagree.
Mark

[TEPaul]

Guys, I'm don't bribe and I'm not bribeable and NGLA's architecture can stand on it own 3 stars, thank you very much!

Now, Tom, you're a great guy and I'd be happy to come to Calif. and buy you any number of Coors no strings attached! And Rich I'd fly to Scotland and pay all my golf fees and buy you as many of those Macallams as you want--but watch that poison my boy, no strings attached either!

Sorry, NGLA was slow when you guys played it but I don't consider that NGLA's architecture--only it's "maintenance meld" and they can get a "maintenance meld" going with that architecture of NGLA's that would absolutely blow your socks off!

NGLA's ideal "maintenance meld" (screaming fast!!) was probably the single biggest breakthrough to really understanding architecture so far for me---and by far!! It was then and there (NGLA) how I finally came to realize how all the pieces need to fit together!! It was a real revelation!

[TEPaul]

Mark:

Ok, let's agree to disagree then, no problem at all!

[THuckaby2]

You're preaching to the choir with me, Brother Thomas E. Paul - I was just having fun with the both of you!  I have no problems imagining it in the perfect maintenance meld, and my roundabout point was that certain others ought not to either, given it was exhibited in spades about 200 yards from the 10th tee....

We'll keep working on close-minded DornochMan.  I feel confident he'll see the light.  A little more Macallan might help though....

Cheers!

TH

[Rich Goodale (Guest)]

Tommy P

OK.  This bribe didn't work, but there will be others...... Hey, I'm 55 and this 4.8 index ain't goin' to last forever....

The disturbing thing about the Huckster is that he played the course with me on a day where the greens resembled porridge and the fairways had more holes in them than Bill Murray's unmadeup face, and still he thought it was "a freakin" bitchin' RF!!!!"

No, I don;'t know what he means either, but obviously the two of you agree.....

All the best

Rich

[THuckaby2]

I believe "bitchin'" was only ONE of the complimentary words I used for the place.  

The heathens need proof to believe.  Those of us in the faith need no such material conditions.

As I told our host that day in an email, "after hitting my pitch shot into #2 green, walking up to where your ball was, it HIT ME.  I was hooked, I was a believer.  By the end of 3 I was ready to sob.  After 4 it was almost too much to handle."

I BELIEVE!

TH, CBMacdonaldism Convert

[ian andrew (Guest)]

With the first course the architect often has some ideal/idea that they want to share. The first course is usually the one that is most pure. The courses that follow are further variations, or refinements of theier beliefs. I think most architects get technically better as they go, often the courses are better too. But the boldest statement most make is the first.

Look at many architects first work and you might find many of them to be your favourites. I do.