Why have we not improved?

[JMEvensky]

Peter,you must be a Lebowski fan.

[BCrosby]

Casablanca won three Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It was hardly unappreciated.

Something similar goes for the great Golden Agre courses. The best were identified as the best early on.

Bob

[Jeff_Brauer]

I'm with Lou, as its an erroneous premise.  We are much better at building golf courses.  No one has mentioned drainage either, but that is 100X better than the old guys, who left courses that added drainage nearly every year, sometimes in large quantities.

I would also disagree with TD about the "maximizing profits" for a few reasons.  First, tell me all those Ross paper jobs weren't about pure profit over style?  At least when JN took on dozens of courses, he had an associate on all of them that he trusted.  Pretty much ditto with RTJ, etc.  Or tell me that Mac's temporary partners, or leaving folks in charge after his short trip to Australia weren't about raking in revenues.  Let's face it, after TD stopped driving his bulldozer, he was at least somewhat concerned with the business end of it, too.  Not that its bad, and you could argue that if someone ISN'T concerned with the business end, they don't end up being very successful architects.

Yes, styles come and go and you may or may not appreciate all styles equally, but that has little to do with BUILDING golf courses and all to do with the architects style, and how it relates to your tastes, biases, etc., all have which been directly altered if you visit this website too much......

[Ted Sturges]

I'm with Lou, as its an erroneous premise.  We are much better at building golf courses.  No one has mentioned drainage either, but that is 100X better than the old guys, who left courses that added drainage nearly every year, sometimes in large quantities.

I would also disagree with TD about the "maximizing profits" for a few reasons.  First, tell me all those Ross paper jobs weren't about pure profit over style?  At least when JN took on dozens of courses, he had an associate on all of them that he trusted.  Pretty much ditto with RTJ, etc.  Or tell me that Mac's temporary partners, or leaving folks in charge after his short trip to Australia weren't about raking in revenues.  Let's face it, after TD stopped driving his bulldozer, he was at least somewhat concerned with the business end of it, too.  Not that its bad, and you could argue that if someone ISN'T concerned with the business end, they don't end up being very successful architects.

Yes, styles come and go and you may or may not appreciate all styles equally, but that has little to do with BUILDING golf courses and all to do with the architects style, and how it relates to your tastes, biases, etc., all have which been directly altered if you visit this website too much......

Jeff,  With apologies for not drafting my question as precisely as I might have...what my question was attempting to ask is "why haven't we improved at producting more great golf courses?"  Your answer (above) might be in reply to "why are we not better at BUILDING golf courses".  I agree that drainage is one specific area that we are better at today than 100 years ago.  If you believe that we are "much better at producing great golf courses" today, please tell us why you believe that and what your evidence for that position would be.

TS

[Jason Topp]

I have speculated and hypothisized as to the reasons why -- less entertainingly but perhaps more cogently than did you.   

This should go in the GCA Hall of Fame

[Gib_Papazian]

Bob,

True enough about the 3 Oscars, but it was hardly a box office boffo in the first run.

Citizen Kane, arguably the greatest movie ever made, won exactly one Oscar in 1942 - for Screenplay.

"How Green Was My Valley" won Best Picture.

The Maltese Falcon was also the same year - ZERO Oscars.

Citizen Kane did not win Best Cinematography (B&W) - which is the most idiotic travesty in Academy history.

Sometimes critics have no clue what they are doing.

[Adam Clayman]

The client's desire to make the "list" could be what holds back the creativity, needed to breakout.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Cost of land and PERMITTING constraints.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Gib,

Remember the words of David Susskind.

There are no bad shows, only bad audiences

[Don_Mahaffey]

The modern architect and builder (at least most of them) would echo what Jeff Brauer writes, as in we are better at building golf courses. But, I don't think that is the question. The question is, why aren't we better at building BETTER golf courses?

Everyone in the business has there own reason, and I have mine as well and it is very simple. I believe, that in most cases, our great golf courses were created and built by always putting GOLF first. Not club house location, not real estate, not ease of maintenance or state of the art maintenance, nothing came before the game of golf. I understand that may be viewed as a naive position, except I've had the pleasure of being a part of two course developments were both were 100% about the golf. And both are damn good golf courses.

I've been doing some irrigation design lately and I recently picked up a couple of commissions.  In one, I was questioned about my design by a manufacturer. They felt I was under designing (the client was happy BTW). I asked them for empirical evidence that putting more into the ground equaled better golfing turf. They offered no evidence, just industry guidelines.

We can build better golf courses, but we have to be focused solely on the GOLF, not the turf or the process or the industry or the rankings or any of the other BS associated with working in this business. And that is very hard because more of us are trying to make a living in golf then golf can support. We can all say whatever we want, but IMO, today's society is all about making $$$. Our lives are measured by how much we have and what we can afford, not by what we build.

[Lou_Duran]

Lou Duran,

I don't want to hijack this thread, but if Texas really bests Ohio when it comes to "value golf" I would be shocked......and pleased.

Now, all you have to do is make playing golf during the summer in Houston pleasant.... I am just asking for a miracle!

Actually I brought Texas into this thread because I disagree with what appears to be the popular belief on this site that it is lacking in quality golf, which I think ties into Ted's assertion that modern architects haven't "improved at producing more great golf courses".  Texas is lacking Golden Era courses for reasons having to do with its relative young age at the time, less wealth, different economic and commercial orientations, and perhaps more pressing challenges than those facing the NE and parts of coastal CA.  To the extent that one values the older, more exclusive, often more mature and tweaked over many decades venues- and I think that most lists and members of this DG do- it shouldn't be surprising that Texas and modern GCA take a back seat.

I've been away from Ohio since 1978, so my reference was north Texas public golf courses today to their counterparts existing when I lived there.  Not much of note around Columbus, Findlay/Tiffin/Fostoria where I lived.

Again, working off what Ted is asserting, it seems to me that if modern GCAs are building better public courses today as I think they are, it is reasonable to believe that they are better at building other types of golf courses as well, including those at the top end (subject of course to site availability limitations, changes in environmental and legal climates, access to water, etc.).  To think otherwise one would have to believe that evolution ceased, or somehow got on the wrong track.  Perhaps the artistry is different, appealing to changing tastes, but certainly the knowledge base has been expanded and the equipment and processes have been improved.

Regarding Houston weather, I have several friends who moved there from north Texas and, without exception, claim that it is more bearable.  Me, I played the Jackrabbit course at Champions years ago around 8:00 a.m. one early summer morning and I was soaked through within a half an hour (worst case of jock rash I ever had).  I used to walk 18 holes mid-day near Dallas during the summer and somehow survived it.  Part of what makes Texas golf a bit rugged is the weather.  Maybe it accounts to some extent for the lack of respect its courses receive, and probably a lot for the great many players it produces.

  

[Doug Siebert]

Don Mahaffey hit the nail on the head.

How much time is spent on the typical course determining the optimal routing of the course to maximize the numbers/views of the lots surrounding it?  Or the best location for a clubhouse to have a great view of the 18th green?  Or must use land in a flood plain that is "worthless" because it's undesirable for residential development?  Or had the area where the course is being built chosen not based on the quality of land but on marketing studies of where population centers are/will be to appease the bankers providing the loan?

The ones that are noted as the recent successes were from the tiny percentage of courses that avoided these needs.  These recent highly ranked courses were built in places like Nebraska, Bend, Oregon, or some of the last unused land on Long Island.  Bill Coore didn't have to worry about locating Sand Hills near a population center to guarantee revenue targets.  Tom Doak didn't have have to worry about where Chris Johnston is going to put the houses when he decided to route the finishing holes of Dismal's second course down by the river.  Probably only a handful of designers have this luxury, so a lot of mediocre to pretty good courses result, but doing a truly great one under the type of restrictions a typical architect has to work under may be impossible.

What would be a greater accomplishment?  To do a top 10 course in the Nebraska Sand Hills where the owner gives you unlimited freedom and unlimited land to work with, or to do a top 100 course as part of a big development where the owner can and will veto what you want to do if it conflicts with his ability to make money from selling lots and houses?  The top 10 course may be better as a piece of art, and we'll appreciate it better as golfers and GCA aficionados, but the top 100 course would require more talent from the architect (and a very generous helping of luck) to overcome all the landmines along the way.

I think there's also a tendency to appreciate old things more.  That's true for buildings, churches, books, paintings, sculpture, cars, and golf courses.  There's an inherent bias towards courses like NGLA versus Sand Hills for that reason.  It is made all the greater by the fact that most of the highly ranked moderns are in pretty out of the way places that require more effort to visit and are seen by fewer people as a result.  Supposedly if you want to be truly appreciated as an artist, you need to die first.  It is only then that your genius will be acknowledged.  The "old dead guys" have an advantage over the guys working today in that regard, too.

[Chris Johnston]

Spot on, Don!

To some, its about the money and not the art.

To others, it's about the art and not the money.

To all, the question is simple...where do you belong?

[Ken Moum]

I believe the answer is in a question.

Of the top 100 paintings of all time, how many were done in the last 30 years?

Golf courses are art, and art may not be subject to improvement over time.

K

[Tommy Williamsen]

Ted, I am not the premise holds true.  I just looked aat the currrent GD top 100 in the US and 42 were built 1980 and later.  That is a signifcant number.   I think in the last 20 years some astoningly good courses have been built.  Beyond the top 100 there is a group of courses if not top 100 quality are a just a step below.

Tommy,  First of all, I'm talking about the top 100 courses in the world...not top courses in the US...big difference.  I won't get into the debate about my view of the inferiority of the GD process and list, but please frame my question in the context of the top 100 courses in the world.

TS

Ted, the last time I checked, the US was part of the world.  As for the GD process, at least it has one. 

[JLahrman]

I love Casablanca. And The Apartment.

Citizen Kane...definitely great from being a visionary way to tell a story and I absolutely agree that the cinematography was way ahead of its time and should have been produced an easy Oscar win. That said...who actually enjoys watching that movie? It's like the Ulysses of movies.

This is an interesting question...and I think the answer actually relates a lot to how we (at least in the US) look at food.  For the longest time it was trying to manipulate food, add to the food to improve upon nature, bigger more artificial.  I'm not sure if there was a single moment or if it was gradual but now, the best food is as fresh and natural as it can be.

[Jeff_Brauer]

I still don't get it.  I think many draw the wrong conclusions by basing stuff on the top 100.  What about the top 100 public?  Prior to 1980 or so, you might have had a hard time finding 100 public courses worthy of any list, no?

Most seem to agree our top courses, built on great sites, etc  hold up well to classics.  It's nearly half and half on most lists, no?

I have no doubt that a Brauer or George muni is 10X better than nearly any Bendelow, given how little was expected of public courses back in the day.

I believe that if you post a thread based on unresearched nostalgia, you can come to any conclusion you want, but you are probably distorting the sample size or content to do it.

As always, just MHO.

BTW, even if courses don't seem as tailored to greatness (either in housing to be handy, or more accommodating of women or beginners, then at least some of the greatness, or lack thereof comes from an intentional desire to tailor the design to other things besides being a great test of tournament golf.  If you have a great site and set out to build a tournament golf course, I am sure those are stacking up quite well.

So what category of courses is missing where we don't stack up well?

[David Kelly]

True enough about the 3 Oscars, but it was hardly a box office boffo in the first run.

Casablanca made over three times it's budget on initial release and was the 3rd highest grossing film that Warner Bros. released during the war. 

[Ben Malach]

I think the key reason that mainstream golf course architecture has stagnated in some ways is the influence of to many demands. When we look back only 60 years. The demands on the architect were to create one or two things on a golf course such as a good members course suited to the occasional large match or a public golf course suited to the high handicapper. Now with the growth in rankings. Combined with the  availability slope indexes and yardages of championship level golf courses. This information has lead to a increase in the amount and type of demands placed upon an architect. If the person contracted to do the work is not confident in their choices or is overridden by the owners demands. Compromises will be made not in the service of a stronger end product but in search of a goal. This type of development does not help create strong golf courses but weak golf courses that have multiple demands as is the case with a some of modern designs. So that is why it is so promising to see some major golf developments being built with strong core principles.   

[Sean_A]

I still don't get it.  I think many draw the wrong conclusions by basing stuff on the top 100.  What about the top 100 public?  Prior to 1980 or so, you might have had a hard time finding 100 public courses worthy of any list, no?

Most seem to agree our top courses, built on great sites, etc  hold up well to classics.  It's nearly half and half on most lists, no?

I have no doubt that a Brauer or George muni is 10X better than nearly any Bendelow, given how little was expected of public courses back in the day.

I believe that if you post a thread based on unresearched nostalgia, you can come to any conclusion you want, but you are probably distorting the sample size or content to do it.

As always, just MHO.

BTW, even if courses don't seem as tailored to greatness (either in housing to be handy, or more accommodating of women or beginners, then at least some of the greatness, or lack thereof comes from an intentional desire to tailor the design to other things besides being a great test of tournament golf.  If you have a great site and set out to build a tournament golf course, I am sure those are stacking up quite well.

So what category of courses is missing where we don't stack up well?

Jeff

From my perspective, the moderns should be blowing the classics out the water.  Modern archies get to stand on the shoulders of ODGs, have superior equipment and technology, a better understanding of drainage (although modern maintenance practices and building methods can often negate this knowledge) and there are a lot more modern courses than classics.  My question was and is, why aren't the moderns doing much better?  I can still look at a cheaply built 2nd tier Colt course on dodgy land and be more impressed by its originality and sense of place than a mega budget modern public or private.  I don't see how this should be possible, but it often is. Somewhere, somehow, moderns archies are dropping the ball.  They should be building tons of courses which any admirer of Colt would be in awe of.  I don't see this as true - not even close.  Sure, I don't tend to play a lot of modern courses, but there are reasons why not after I look at photo tour after photo tour of the same green styles and bunker schemes of modern courses.  While I tend to believe the book on architecture had probably 99% written by the time 1945 rolled around, I still expect archies to learn from the past and show some flair, some craftmanship, some craftiness.  The thing is some do, but many do not.  Thats not good enough considering all the advantages modern archies have.

Ciao

[Gib_Papazian]

David:

Although Casablanca was an A-list film with established stars and first-rate writers, no one involved with its production expected it to be anything out of the ordinary;[1] it was just one of hundreds of pictures produced by Hollywood every year. Casablanca had its world premiere on November 26, 1942 in New York City, and was released on January 23, 1943, in the United States. The film was a solid if unspectacular success in its initial run, rushed into release to take advantage of the publicity from the Allied invasion of North Africa a few weeks earlier.[2]