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Mark Bourgeois

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Is there an Uncanny Valley in golf course architecture?
« on: November 19, 2014, 06:41:53 PM »
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley

Not humans v bots but natural v man made.
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Matt_Cohn

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Re: Is there an Uncanny Valley in golf course architecture?
« Reply #1 on: November 19, 2014, 07:19:09 PM »
I would guess not, because I don't think that "almost-nature" would ever really freak somebody out. That said, if I had to submit a candidate, maybe Shadow Creek? I would think that if Shadow Creek doesn't do it, I can't imagine where would.

Tom_Doak

  • Karma: +2/-1
Re: Is there an Uncanny Valley in golf course architecture?
« Reply #2 on: November 19, 2014, 07:29:53 PM »
For me, the offensive line is when someone tries to mimic nature, but does a really bad job of it.  I think of all those 1980's courses with mounds, mounds, and more mounds in between the holes, but where the contour barely makes it out into the fairway.  [The pictures of Ferry Point were a recent reminder.]

This is different than the uncanny valley, because there's not a threshold of getting pretty close to success before it turns me off ... it's the earlier points on the scale that turn me off.

mike_beene

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Is there an Uncanny Valley in golf course architecture?
« Reply #3 on: November 19, 2014, 08:21:19 PM »
Bad AstroTurf on bridges and the island green floating at C d 'Alane ( who can spell it?)

Tim_Weiman

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Is there an Uncanny Valley in golf course architecture?
« Reply #4 on: November 19, 2014, 08:30:56 PM »
Bad AstroTurf on bridges and the island green floating at C d 'Alane ( who can spell it?)


Mike,

I'd give Coeur d'Alene a break. Not a great golf course, but a pretty nice place to be taken on a corporate boondoggle and I don't think the floating island was ever meant to be replicated.
Tim Weiman

Peter Pallotta

Re: Is there an Uncanny Valley in golf course architecture?
« Reply #5 on: November 19, 2014, 09:01:39 PM »
MB - I've never felt "revulsion", a strong word that denotes a deeply seated and visceral reaction of the body. I might dislike (as a matter of taste) and/or disapprove of (as a matter of principle) artificial architecture, but both those reactions would come from my mind's surface consciousness, with "surface" being the key/telling word. Golf, alas, even for those who love it, must be an endeavour/interaction that only runs 'skin deep'...

Peter
« Last Edit: November 19, 2014, 09:03:34 PM by PPallotta »

mike_beene

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Is there an Uncanny Valley in golf course architecture?
« Reply #6 on: November 20, 2014, 12:48:55 AM »
Really just the 14 green with its boat dock.Did not mean to imply that it is awful, just oddly artificial.The whole place is too beautiful to complain about but the floating green stuff is weirdly artificial. It is what it is.

Matt MacIver

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Is there an Uncanny Valley in golf course architecture?
« Reply #7 on: November 20, 2014, 06:34:03 AM »
A Desmond Muirhead course?  First off you're playing golf, but it gets goofy. And keepers getting goofier, until you hit some off the wall green shape or radical design, and you become sick to your stomach.  Then you move to next hole and decide, he'll, it's just golf keep playing and try to hit a good drive here.

Scott Sander

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Re: Is there an Uncanny Valley in golf course architecture?
« Reply #8 on: November 20, 2014, 07:03:51 AM »
Interesting concept.

After reading the link, I think maybe I've felt a bit of the "uncanny valley" effect when playing an expansion, particularly when the second architect to put hand to the land intermingles with the original routing rather than strictly tacking on an entirely new nine.

Two near me are both Tim Liddy projects - expanding Langford's Harrison Hills and Pete Dye's Eagle Creek.

I played Harrison Hills fully expecting that the old vs. new would be stark and obvious, especially considering most of the 'new' fall on flat land available for Liddy.  And, yes, several of the holes on the front are clearly 'different'.  They are open, the trees are immature, etc.

But among the changes he made to and around the old holes later in the round, Liddy built a par 3 that wigged me out a bit in its "Langfordishness", embraced some diagonal fairway canting that I would have expected a modern builder to iron out, and when he straightened out a longer hole toward the corner of the property, he added a decidedly non-modern dose of quirk from the approach on in. 

The expansion at Eagle Creek makes me feel slightly senile. 
Where he had to build on wide-open farm-flat acreage, the difference between his holes and Dye's much earlier work on severe land are, as at HH, fairly obvious. 
But where he had access to the same topography and very mature woods, the holes are much harder to distinguish - so much so that I often cannot immediately remember which are his and which are Dye's, even though I played dozens of rounds at the original.

In both cases, the obviously-new holes don't do anything odd to my brain, but the more seamless ones sure holes do.
Whatever that feeling is, it is certainly NOT "revulsion" as described in the link.  It's maybe a cool kind of unsettled, but it's not revulsion. 

And while I can only guess, I do think the clear contrasts of the "other" holes serve to accentuate whatever that strange feeling is on the more similar-to-original holes.

Mark Bourgeois

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Is there an Uncanny Valley in golf course architecture?
« Reply #9 on: November 21, 2014, 07:08:52 PM »
Some very nice thoughts all around. Let me rephrase the question with two questions:

1) If you see something that doesn't "look natural" ie it's somehow off to your eye (and you might not know why it looks off, you just know that it does), how does that affect your impression of the hole / course -- how does it change your experience?

2) If you learn that something -- a feature, the terrain...something -- is not natural, especially something you thought was, how does that affect your experience? Not how well you play the hole / course, not whether you think it makes the hole / course better / worse, just how does it change the way you experience the hole / course? Does it matter if you know it's fake?
Charlotte. Daniel. Olivia. Josephine. Ana. Dylan. Madeleine. Catherine. Chase. Jesse. James. Grace. Emilie. Jack. Noah. Caroline. Jessica. Benjamin. Avielle. Allison.

Tom_Doak

  • Karma: +2/-1
Re: Is there an Uncanny Valley in golf course architecture?
« Reply #10 on: November 21, 2014, 07:31:22 PM »
Some very nice thoughts all around. Let me rephrase the question with two questions:

1) If you see something that doesn't "look natural" ie it's somehow off to your eye (and you might not know why it looks off, you just know that it does), how does that affect your impression of the hole / course -- how does it change your experience?

2) If you learn that something -- a feature, the terrain...something -- is not natural, especially something you thought was, how does that affect your experience? Not how well you play the hole / course, not whether you think it makes the hole / course better / worse, just how does it change the way you experience the hole / course? Does it matter if you know it's fake?

For both questions, I go back to playing with Ran at Lost Dunes years ago.  He didn't like my 2nd hole because of the mound we had built in front of the green ... but then when I told him it had always been there, he changed his mind and loved the hole.

[In fact, the mound was probably man-made, but it was made by the sand quarry operation many years before we got there.]

As much as I enjoy trying to make my courses look natural, I don't mind seeing an old course with obviously man-made features.  And if someone tries to make something look natural and pulls it off, more power to them.  But it bothers me most when somebody tries to make them look natural, and does a bad job of it.


Mark Bourgeois

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Is there an Uncanny Valley in golf course architecture?
« Reply #11 on: November 21, 2014, 07:39:15 PM »
Here's one for you: what if a hole is completely natural, ie virtually no dirt moved, but because of its natural surrounds appears unnatural. Do you manufacture a more natural-looking hole?

Lest this seem idle conjecture, I recall pictures I've seen of a hole at C&C's Lost Farm. The fairway appears smooth, in contrast to the heaving dunes on either side.
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Bill Brightly

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Re: Is there an Uncanny Valley in golf course architecture?
« Reply #12 on: November 21, 2014, 09:15:57 PM »
Mark, I assume that you are getting at the aesthetics of how a golf hole looks. But I would would judge it by how a golf hole plays, especially considering repeated plays by a wide variety of golfers.

I've played Lost Farms and don't recall anything that bothered me, except all of that damn marram grass. But I've played plenty of "completely natural" holes in Ireland surrounded by "heaving dunes" that are simply too severe to allow for enjoyable play for the average golfer. These holes are great to look at from the tee, very cool when your ball ends up in the fairway, but an absolute bitch if you don't play it "fairway to green."

« Last Edit: November 21, 2014, 09:17:33 PM by Bill Brightly »

Peter Pallotta

Re: Is there an Uncanny Valley in golf course architecture?
« Reply #13 on: November 21, 2014, 10:18:45 PM »
Mark - I could ramble on for pages and add very little. To save us both I'll keep it short: When a course looks natural (to a golfer that is, one who accepts fairways and greens without batting an eye) I think we stop thinking.  And that's the magic.

Maybe Crystal Downs is not the most natural course in the world, but it was natural-enough looking to me. And because of that I didn't stop for a second to ask "why" the green on the 8th was placed where it was or "if" the fairway was naturally that rumpled -- they just were.

To answer your first question: when something looks fake/unnatural/off, I'm thinking about it...and that's the kiss of death in terms of losing oneself in it.  

All else being equal, wouldn't we all rather lose ourselves in the architecture/in the game than to stand back as an 'observer'?

Peter
« Last Edit: November 21, 2014, 10:22:11 PM by PPallotta »

Paul Gray

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Is there an Uncanny Valley in golf course architecture?
« Reply #14 on: November 22, 2014, 05:04:24 AM »
For me, the offensive line is when someone tries to mimic nature, but does a really bad job of it.  I think of all those 1980's courses with mounds, mounds, and more mounds in between the holes, but where the contour barely makes it out into the fairway.  [The pictures of Ferry Point were a recent reminder.]

This is different than the uncanny valley, because there's not a threshold of getting pretty close to success before it turns me off ... it's the earlier points on the scale that turn me off.

This was very much my initial view but I then got to thinking about the artificial courses I played as a teenager and how I felt about them. I knew I didn't like them, despite such courses being promoted as pretty much the replacement for older courses which were seen as relics. At the time, I couldn't have told you why I didn't like them, not having even recognised them as imitation. The point is, my subconscious mind was perhaps naturally skeptical while my conscious mind was oblivious to the reasoning, hence the uncanny valley.
In the places where golf cuts through pretension and elitism, it thrives and will continue to thrive because the simple virtues of the game and its attendant culture are allowed to be most apparent. - Tim Gavrich

Sean_A

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Is there an Uncanny Valley in golf course architecture?
« Reply #15 on: November 22, 2014, 06:01:05 AM »
1) If you see something that doesn't "look natural" ie it's somehow off to your eye (and you might not know why it looks off, you just know that it does), how does that affect your impression of the hole / course -- how does it change your experience?

My reaction/experience if seeing something described above would nearly always revolve around where the feature is.  If the feature is in the middle of the park, chances are I will either like it or give it a pass as a good idea not quite executed well enough.   

2) If you learn that something -- a feature, the terrain...something -- is not natural, especially something you thought was, how does that affect your experience? Not how well you play the hole / course, not whether you think it makes the hole / course better / worse, just how does it change the way you experience the hole / course? Does it matter if you know it's fake?

Similar to above, I don't care if the feature is man-made or not.  In fact, if it is man-made, I would prefer it to be obviously so unless the archie is skilled enough to make it work as if natural.  That said, even if the archie does have this skill, I rather like the obvious man-made stuff if it is a bit rough...earthworks style etc.  I don't want pristine man-made stuff that looks unnatural - that is the worst combo.   This is what we get with lacey bunker rage.  The style is often too perfect to be natural..and I find this annoying...so they best be well positioned...which trumps all other considerations.

Ciao 
New plays planned for 2024: Nothing

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