[Tommy Williamsen]

I was wondering if some of the better designs have a main theme that is picked up every few holes. In music it happens quite regularly. The theme is the first main melody that you hear. It is the melody that the rest of the music will be based on.In the choral part of Beethoven’s Ninth it is quite clear what the main theme is. The same is true of Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion. You just can’t miss it.
I spent a bit of time at Dormie last year. It has a main theme; it is a dogleg left with the terrain helping a baby draw. It isn’t true of every hole but is theme that feels familiar. At Hidden Creek it is bunkering that is placed twenty or so yards from the front of the green.
Is there such a thing or am I imagining it? If so do designers have a theme that is a favorite? Raynor and the redan? Doak and ragged edge bunkers?

[Carl Rogers]

At Riverfront, the green complexes take a series of various themes, that are varied every few holes.

[Tom_Doak]

Bunkering is a style not a theme, and it changes from one course to the next.  Perhaps the placement of bunkers could be a theme, but I think that's a stretch.


Bill & Ben both like to hit a little draw (as Nicklaus prefers a fade), so what you're seeing at Dormie is just what fits their eye, more than a deliberate theme I think.


I've done courses where we thought about mimicking the style of different architects (MacKenzie, Macdonald, and even Tillinghast at Tumble Creek), or about using a feature of the property in as many ways as possible (like the views of the offshore islands at Tara Iti).  But it's not something I always set out to do, because if it's too conscious or heavy-handed I think it is more likely to backfire.  When you are reading a good book you're supposed to be engaged by the story, not the symbolism or the author's craft.

[Tom_Doak]

At Riverfront, the green complexes take a series of various themes, that are varied every few holes.

You'll have to explain how you mean that, because I don't remember doing it consciously, other than of course making each green different.


One thing outsiders miss when evaluating a course is that the greens are shaped one at a time over a span of a few months, and not in the order you play them ... the construction sequence is usually set by where the water source is, or what lots the developer wants to sell first.  At Riverfront, we did build the front nine first, but IIRC we started with 7-8-4-5 and then went around to the other side to connect 9-10-11 to the pump station, while waiting for the pond on 6 to be completed.  So the "repeating theme" could just be a thought we had the first month that we got sick of later. 


It could also be the work of a different shaper / associate.  When I've got all three of my senior guys shaping on one project, I'm definitely conscious of having certain guys work on certain greens, but again, not in the same order you play the course.  One of the reasons the renovation of Dornick Hills was so bad is that the front and back nines were done two years apart by different designers and shapers, and it's glaringly obvious how different they are.

[Tommy Williamsen]

Tom, what some examples of what you would call a theme from your own designs? I would think they vary from course to course.

[Kalen Braley]

Tommy,

Great thread topic and interesting question.

I see a routing more comparable to the various movements in a piece of music.  Start with a gentle opening, then build into some dramatic bits with tension, followed by an initial release. Then perhaps a few slower parts before another gradual climb as it transitions into the climatic parts before the final resolution. I can think of a few courses that may generally fit this.

[Tom_Doak]

Tom, what some examples of what you would call a theme from your own designs? I would think they vary from course to course.

They vary from one project to the next, but also there are some projects that need one and some that don't.


I've found that I am pretty good at reacting to other courses and differentiating the course I'm building from the others close at hand.  At Bandon I had a pretty big checklist of ways that Pacific Dunes could be different than Bandon Dunes, and tried to act on as many of those as I could.  At Old Macdonald, obviously we had the templates as a theme, but there again we consciously made the greens a different size than the other courses [HUGE!!], and made the bunkers as eclectic as possible instead of the expected Raynor look.


At Ballyneal, we knew the contrast would be with Sand Hills, and the main way I tried to make it different was to make the contours of the approaches and surrounds play a bigger role on the approach shots.


At Sebonack, we were next door to two 10's -- which is a tough place to be! -- but we maximized the exposure to Peconic Bay, and made the greens dangerously small, because those were two points of contrast with Shinnecock and National.  [If National had small greens, I'd have probably gone the other way at Sebonack.]


At Cape Kidnappers, the long tilted plain of the site made any small scale earthworks look horribly out of place, so all of the "features" are hanging off into the valleys.  But the main thing that governs play is the overall tilt of the land toward the sea.  Almost all of the holes playing toward Hawkes Bay have greens that run away from you along that natural tilt.


What Kalen is talking about [the flow of the round] is important, but it's a different thing.  The courses I know where the designers thought most about that are Kingsbarns and Shadow Creek, which are created from scratch . . . when you are finding holes on the ground, you can manipulate the sequence a bit, but a lot of times you have to let the chips fall where they may.

[Bernie Bell]

I once thought briefly about whether there might be parallels between a golf course and a standard concerto, with exposition of a theme early on with ensuing development and dialogue between the soloist (golfer) and orchestra (course) across three movements (groups of holes), fast/cheerful -- slow -- fast/vigorous.  I concluded I didn't know enough about either golf architecture or music theory to make much sense of it, if any were there to be made.  That said, I am firmly convinced that flow is critical to a great golf course, and don't care for switching nines or cherry-picking the "best holes" in 36- or 54-hole facilities for a competition, especially when you mess with the first or last 3 holes.

[Tommy Williamsen]

I guess maybe what I am talking about is periodically saying to yourself, when you get to a hole and wondering why the archy did this or that, saying, "Oh right I am at ...." At Ballyhack it is big expansive greens with some wild undulations, slope, and terraces." It is a theme that is oft repeated.

[Peter Pallotta]

I was struck by Tom D's earlier point about the non-linear process of building holes and creating a golf course (eg at Riverfront, starting with holes 7,8,4 and 5 and then working on 9, 10, and 11) -- and the impact/influence this process might have on the themes and variations golfers find when playing the course. For some reason, I only today realized the importance of this -- ie how different it is from the typical essay-or-short story-or -poetry/lyrics-writing process where, one way or another, we always start at the beginning.

I can see how this non-linear process can add variety (eg again, as TD notes above, because different associates are working on separate 'pieces'); and it also suggests that the time an architect spends on site is not only important at the beginning (ie routing), but just as important at the end, ie when all the 'patchwork' pieces and potentially disparate elements can be looked at together for the first time and, if necessary/desired, smoothed out and blended together to achieve a unified whole -- or a natural looking dis-unity for that matter.

In other words, maybe the 'main theme' is discovered and made clearer only at the end of the process, and is almost as much a surprise to the architect as it is to us!

[Tom_Doak]

I was struck by Tom D's earlier point about the non-linear process of building holes and creating a golf course (eg at Riverfront, starting with holes 7,8,4 and 5 and then working on 9, 10, and 11) -- and the impact/influence this process might have on the themes and variations golfers find when playing the course. For some reason, I only today realized the importance of this -- ie how different it is from the typical essay-or-short story-or -poetry/lyrics-writing process where, one way or another, we always start at the beginning.

I can see how this non-linear process can add variety (eg again, as TD notes above, because different associates are working on separate 'pieces'); and it also suggests that the time an architect spends on site is not only important at the beginning (ie routing), but just as important at the end, ie when all the 'patchwork' pieces and potentially disparate elements can be looked at together for the first time and, if necessary/desired, smoothed out and blended together to achieve a unified whole -- or a natural looking dis-unity for that matter.

In other words, maybe the 'main theme' is discovered and made clearer only at the end of the process, and is almost as much a surprise to the architect as it is to us!

Non-linear is a great description of the process.  It's more like writing a song, in that sometimes you are putting words to music, and sometimes putting music to words.  [The parallel is golf to terrain, or terrain to golf.]  And sometimes you are depending on the musicians to fill in pieces!


When I worked for Mr. Dye, he said that he didn't want to plant grass on the first hole until the last hole was shaped, so he could go back and change his mind on #2 if he decided later that it was too similar to #17.  But, clients and contractors can't stand that because it's not practical -- at a place like Bandon, green #2 would have blown away long before you got to #17 if you hadn't irrigated and planted it!  [And to be honest, he told me that when the back nine at Long Cove was mostly being grassed, and we were still shaping the front nine.]  So, the opportunities to edit and "blend" at the end are more limited than you think.


However, where you missed a step is in the middle, when we are shaping the first few holes.  I would compare that time to a rehearsal.  The musicians [or actors] are getting familiar with their roles, and I am getting more familiar with the stage.  That's really the time when we flesh out the things that will make the new course different from the last one, which was the original topic of this thread.  We are likely to spend more time tinkering with those early holes until we have latched onto a few themes.  Once we have 6-9 holes shaped and the irrigation crew is given the green light, we are more committed to our style because it's too late to change those holes, and the back end of the seeding window dictates that we keep moving forward.


One of the things I hate most about the typical architect - contractor relationship is that the contractor tries to dictate the order of construction, and though I know what's the most practical, sometimes I'm going to resist because I need more time to sort out a particular hole, and I'm leaving it til last.  [This never really holds them up, as long as I can give them more holes to finish in some sort of logical order, but it can be a control battle and I don't want to engage in that while I'm trying to be creative!] 


When we are in charge of the whole process, I will set up the order of holes in advance to give myself more time where I think I'll need it.  At High Pointe, I built the holes in the back first because it seemed like there would be less to shape back there, and that really pushed me to be more of a minimalist on the front nine when we got to it.

[Ira Fishman]

Tom and other architects listening,


What do you do if you discover that one or more holes did not work as you intended thematically or otherwise? I assume budget and other practicalities make it difficult to make changes.


Ira

[Tom_Doak]

What do you do if you discover that one or more holes did not work as you intended thematically or otherwise? I assume budget and other practicalities make it difficult to make changes.

It's really up to the client in large part.  I would not go back and tear something up that's been planted* unless they were on board with the decision, and after the course is open we are certainly not going to make a change unless they also feel it's important.


There are a few things I'd like to do on particular courses that I have not, because golfers like them fine as is, and the client is inclined to leave well enough alone, and I can't argue with that in the interest of perfectionism.  A place like Barnbougle is not likely to spend $$$ on the possibility of moving up a few spots in the world rankings, though they will spend $ to enlarge their tees and spread out the wear and tear.




* I have only torn up holes that have already been planted twice in 30 years.  One was a small change to a green at Lost Dunes [which looked more severe after it had been finished and seeded than I had intended], and the other was to tighten up the 17th at Tara Iti, which was at the client's suggestion.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Tommy,


Since routing is more a function of the land, and may control rhythm and sequence of a round, I tend to think of theme in terms of either the backdrop and setting, i.e. mountain, prairie, parkland, etc., or of features.  And, IMHO, there is too much tendency to repeat features endlessly in the same style to either create or be accepted as a theme, i.e., narrow fw of Medinah or Olympic, the big greens of RTJ or small greens of Harbor Town, etc. 


Regarding tree clearing/planting one course that disappoints to a degree is Shadow Creek, in that they had the chance to plant whatever they wanted, and all holes seem to have similar width corridors and similar looks with those pines they imported, again, just MHO on a fabulous course.  I might have considered 2-4 wide open holes for contrast, and it would still have the same course them, IMHO.


Sometimes, it only takes 2-4 examples of a feature to create a theme.  One conscious way I try to create a theme, without being repetitive, is to replicate a feature 2-4 times, in slightly different ways.  If it is chocolate drop mounds, then (maybe) 2 as fw hazards, left and right, and 2 as green hazards in various locations that make sense, as an example.  I don't feel like I need those on say, 15 holes to make it a theme, although, I could see that theory vary quite a bit.   Or maybe one around a tee complex somewhere, even though its not really an integral part of the design.


For example, I don't think a course needs 18 greens with vast swathes of fw height chipping areas to establish a theme, and when you do that every hole, it becomes monotonous.  Depending on a lot of things, I tend to think 6, 9, or maybe up to 12 greens with that (vs all rough grass and a few bunkers) would be enough for a golfer to remember those features as a big part of the course.


Or as one landscape architecture professor once told me, continuity doesn't have to equal continuously.  And, as TD noted, architect probably think in terms of making every hole different for variety and memorability.  I think non designers are more prone to saying "that hole is so different than the others."  Architects tend to say, "Well, that was kind of the point."

[Kalen Braley]

Tom certainly makes a good point that musical movement is about flow.

So after thinking about it a bit more, perhaps themes can be broken down by architect:

- Rees theme - Fugly bunkers with containment mounds
- Fazios theme - Pretty and immaculate
- Jacks theme - Left to right holes that require high approaches, rinse/repeat
- RTJIIs theme - No tee box is ever long enough
- MacK's theme - Wild greens and deceptive bunkers
- Ross's theme - Crowned greens and greenside bunkers aplenty.
- Players theme - Leave those damn trees alone

[Peter Pallotta]

Tom D - thanks for that terrific description/explanation.

Jeff B - thanks for your excellent post, which brought to mind my initial reaction to the subject line, ie that I don't so much 'see' themes as 'hear' genres -- eg easy listening, pop rock, opera, country & western, folk, jazz etc.

Most of the courses I play are easy listening; some (my least favourite) are smooth jazz; and those high end courses with cart-driven-routings that bring you up time and time again to tees set high atop of hills (with fairways and vistas down below) seem to be aiming for opera/the operatic -- but with only the arias and none of the plot or character development.
Peter

PS - I've mused (unhelpfully) on this before, but I find it interesting that in America the Golden Age coincided almost exactly with the Jazz Age.

[Tom_Doak]

Tom certainly makes a good point that musical movement is about flow.

So after thinking about it a bit more, perhaps themes can be broken down by architect:

- Rees theme - Fugly bunkers with containment mounds
- Fazios theme - Pretty and immaculate
- Jacks theme - Left to right holes that require high approaches, rinse/repeat
- RTJIIs theme - No tee box is ever long enough
- MacK's theme - Wild greens and deceptive bunkers
- Ross's theme - Crowned greens and greenside bunkers aplenty.
- Players theme - Leave those damn trees alone

In my terms, those are all more examples of someone's style or philosophy, like my tendency toward minimalism.  "Themes" are something that would make a specific course different than those styles, like Fazio trying to emulate Pine Valley waste bunkers at World Woods, or make Shadow Creek look like North Carolina instead of Las Vegas.  And things like that would not be a theme if they became the architect's new philosophy going forward.

[Thomas Dai]

Has anyone ever established or attempted to establish a theme to the great Herbert Fowler’s legacy of wonderful work? Maybe ‘no-theme’ is in itself a theme?
Atb

[Tommy Williamsen]

Has anyone ever established or attempted to establish a theme to the great Herbert Fowler’s legacy of wonderful work? Maybe ‘no-theme’ is in itself a theme?
Atb

Fowler used his land differently at every site. He is difficult to type I think. As was noted in Sean's thread about Bull Bay I think he had two different themes. Knob to knob holes and his use of rock outcroppings, sometimes in the middle of the fairway.

[Carl Rogers]

At Riverfront, the green complexes take a series of various themes, that are varied every few holes.

You'll have to explain how you mean that, because I don't remember doing it consciously, other than of course making each green different.


One thing outsiders miss when evaluating a course is that the greens are shaped one at a time over a span of a few months, and not in the order you play them ... the construction sequence is usually set by where the water source is, or what lots the developer wants to sell first.  At Riverfront, we did build the front nine first ......

Tom, one theme of several at Riverfront, the punchbowl:
Hole 6, a large formal one in front
Hole 7, a small one in front
Hole 8, middle of the green, right half, perpendicular to the line of play, subtle
Hole 10, similar to Hole 8, but on the left half
Hole 13, similar to Hole 8, but very very subtle
Hole 16, similar to Hole 8, but hardly more of a small thumbprint

[Mark Mammel]

This is a very interesting line of discussion, as I think it gets to golf course design as art. The idea that courses may have a theme, as in classical music, can be true, as some architects hold more firmly to a certain style, and may in fact plan for a theme to a certain design. But others may see the process as more improvisational- jazz- based on the flow of the land and the interplay of inspiration and practicality. But also, as is true with all art but especially visual art from the Armory show on, sometimes the theme is in the eye of the beholder- art allows the viewer, which in golf is a complex relationship which includes the full participation of the observer, skilled or less so, to find their own themes. Did the artist/architect have these themes in mind? It's not obvious that this matters, as great art engages people emotionally as well as intellectually, but in different ways. 

[Thomas Dai]

Has anyone ever established or attempted to establish a theme to the great Herbert Fowler’s legacy of wonderful work? Maybe ‘no-theme’ is in itself a theme?
Atb

Fowler used his land differently at every site.

Precisely.
'No theme' as a theme in relation to Herbert Fowler. There'a a lot to be said for variety and letting the site and conditions dictate.
Darwin wrote that Fowler was a genius and the best of his time.
atb

[Tom_Doak]

Tom, one theme of several at Riverfront, the punchbowl:
Hole 6, a large formal one in front
Hole 7, a small one in front
Hole 8, middle of the green, right half, perpendicular to the line of play, subtle
Hole 10, similar to Hole 8, but on the left half
Hole 13, similar to Hole 8, but very very subtle
Hole 16, similar to Hole 8, but hardly more of a small thumbprint

All true, though I don't remember being conscious of trying to riff on the idea of bowls witin greens.


Mark Mammel's point is a good one.  Over the years I've read lots of ideas attributed to my work that just weren't what I was thinking of at all.  But he is right that every golfer is entitled to their own experience. 


I hate it when the yardage book tells me what I am supposed to be thinking and feeling on each hole, instead of letting me decide for myself.

[Peter Pallotta]

Mark Mammel's point is a good one.  Over the years I've read lots of ideas attributed to my work that just weren't what I was thinking of at all.  But he is right that every golfer is entitled to their own experience. 

TD - that's interesting, because from what I've read of golfers' reactions to your courses over the years, they might not be getting what you were 'thinking' (at a micro level) but they are certainly getting what you were 'intending' (at a macro level), ie to design courses that allow golfers to have their own experience, to participate in their own way, and to play the course/game with their own individual approaches.
As Mark M also pointed out, that embodies the jazz like 'improvisational' ethos of gca.

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