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Paul Rudovsky

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Which architects today don't use templates?
« Reply #75 on: January 28, 2021, 05:29:35 PM »

I don’t get your comparison of #1 at NGLA and North Berwick. To me the 1st hole at NGLA screams “you better be serious, there is some great golf ahead”. The 1st at North Berwick makes an even more grand announcement: “you have arrived at heaven”.


But, maybe it is me that is crazy!




Tim--


I always thought "great golf" = heaven

JWL

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Which architects today don't use templates?
« Reply #76 on: January 28, 2021, 08:01:12 PM »
Tom,
I just read your comment that said that you overheard JN team say they were 'mapping out at least 3 of 'your greens' at Sebonack for future use.


I was [*fill in the blank*] to find that when we got done with building Sebonack, my co-designer had his team map out three of the greens, so they could drag and drop them into future plans.
[/size][/color]
[/size]Since I was the leader of the JN team at Sebonack, it dawned on me that I should know something about this.   [/color]
[/size]So I ask, Are you referring to me when you said you 'overheard' JN team talking about copying your greens?[/color]

[/size]Before you answer, Let me be perfectly clear, I have never heard or said anything close to that, and I have never mapped out any green that you or anyone else has designed/built.[/color]

[/size]Please clarify who you were referring to in this thread on the JN team.[/color]

BCrosby

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Which architects today don't use templates?
« Reply #77 on: January 28, 2021, 10:33:55 PM »
For Peter:


Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the hierarchies of angels?
And even if one of them pressed me suddenly against his heart,
I would be consumed in that overwhelming existence.
For beauty is the beginning of terror which we are just able to endure,
We are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Every angel is terrifying.      Rilke, The Duino Elegies


I am counting on you to bring this back to gca.


Bob

Peter Pallotta

Re: Which architects today don't use templates?
« Reply #78 on: January 28, 2021, 11:11:02 PM »
Bob,

thank you: I didn't know that poem, and it's wonderful -- for my tastes, just what I look for and what resonates. [It's the same reason I love Lester Young's playing: if it was a happy love song, Pres would add/interweave a touch of melancholy; and if it was the blues, he was sure to work in one little run of lilting and uplifting joy.]

Yes, I think it can be worked back to gca -- ie Max Behr, and the golf course that results when the (hidden) hand of man works gently in concert with the site, and in a spirit of collaboration with Nature instead of one of imposition and domination. To whit:

When features and the work are so
wrought as to seem inevitable
they manifest a Beauty -- an art, and
a Significance
and a field of Play that promises
to Endure.
Unadorned Nature, unblemished
by the hand of man
is that delightful expression of Freedom, wherein
the obvious -- and the oft-used -- must be
felt as a Violation.
It is a Law that lies outside Ourselves:
for the Architect, working in the medium of
the Earth, only
Nature, and its forces alone, can be
the Master. 
And it is in just this Humility, and just in this, that he may find
his Genius --
if this be what he Seeks above all else: a Beauty, and an Art and
an Enduring Significance that will seem to be,
to those among us who long for Liberty,
Inevitable.
We are allowed to lose Ourselves in It, and thus find Peace.   


 
« Last Edit: January 28, 2021, 11:49:05 PM by Peter Pallotta »

Mark_Fine

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Which architects today don't use templates?
« Reply #79 on: January 29, 2021, 09:19:21 AM »
It is almost a waste of time these days to even talk about new courses because so few are built and those that are tend to be are on amazing sites.  Special/unique pieces of property should yield original golf courses.  But isn't it a little different if you have a relatively flat and featureless piece of farmland to build a course on?  If the land speaks to the architect on a unique site like Sand Hills or Bandon Dunes, what does it say on a flat piece of farmland - "maybe better to plant corn" :D
« Last Edit: January 29, 2021, 10:21:05 AM by Mark_Fine »

Tim Martin

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Which architects today don't use templates?
« Reply #80 on: January 29, 2021, 09:37:32 AM »
It is almost a waste of time these days to even talk about new courses because so few are built and those that are tend to be on amazing sites.  Special/unique pieces of property should yield original golf courses.  But isn't it a little different if you have a relatively flat and featureless piece of farmland to build a course on?  If the land speaks to the architect on a unique site like Sand Hills or Bandon Dunes, what does it say on a flat piece of farmland - "maybe better to plant corn" :D


I would think that the good/great architects have to be judged on what they were able to do on less than stellar sites. Cue Donald Ross.

Jeff_Brauer

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Which architects today don't use templates?
« Reply #81 on: January 29, 2021, 10:02:18 AM »
It is almost a waste of time these days to even talk about new courses because so few are built and those that are tend to be on amazing sites.  Special/unique pieces of property should yield original golf courses.  But isn't it a little different if you have a relatively flat and featureless piece of farmland to build a course on?  If the land speaks to the architect on a unique site like Sand Hills or Bandon Dunes, what does it say on a flat piece of farmland - "maybe better to plant corn" :D


I used to say I listened to the land when routing....they I started working in Asia, and I never quite got a translation from Chinese to English!  Real problem.


TD sort of smacked me down for a similar sentiment, but what you say seems to be common sense to me.  Maybe it's been lost, but when I started in gca, the only reason to use artificial hazards was when nature didn't provide any.  Having worked primarily in flattish Illinois, and then flattish Texas, I haven't gotten too many sites with those great contours and natural hazards.  I will disagree with you on the fact that the ODG got a lot of those in comparison.  For every Cypress Point there were hundreds of flat cornfields, because golf courses need to be placed where the golfers are.
Jeff Brauer, ASGCA Director of Outreach

Mark_Fine

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Which architects today don't use templates?
« Reply #82 on: January 29, 2021, 10:35:25 AM »
Tim,
I agree with you.  It is a much different story dealing with a piece of property that doesn't take your breath away before you even get started.


Jeff,
Yes that is the reality; most sites that most of us work on are what "God meant to be a golf course"!  Can you imagine building a golf course when the land developer takes all the best land for the houses and leaves you to figure out what to do with the rest?  Many architects have had this situation many times and honestly it is amazing what some of them come up with.  But most of what they end up doing has to be manufactured because as you say, those great natural contours or hazards just don't exist. 


I had a client of a club I have been renovating just ask me about designing/building three golf holes on a large piece of farmland.  I have only seen pictures of the property so far but it looks a lot like what I am describing above.  He is debating what he wants to do (he has 300 acres so he can do what he wants) but he was thinking three holes to start.  I promise I won't build a redan or a biarritz hole  :D  But I am also not sure I will take the Ted Danson approach and forget everything I ever saw or learned  :D

Jeff_Brauer

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Which architects today don't use templates?
« Reply #83 on: January 29, 2021, 11:24:17 AM »
Mark,


You know, in designing dozens of real estate courses, I have rarely had that be a problem.  Every so often, all the holes have to go one side of a ridge, because getting sewer to that area is problematic for the developer, or something like that.  In most cases, they want you to use the valleys, and in most cases, the golf holes run best in the valleys.  At least, shallow ones and/or before filling the center of them became a problem regulations wise.  And, in most cases, both developer and I want to limit the number of road crossings and long rides between lots (where cart paths impact value of those lots beside the connector).


One of the worst discouraging moments I had in my career was having a major developer visit my first design, being impressed, and asking me to take a look at his nearby project, which had a land planner lay out a course to be finished off by Arnie.  I put my all in it, routing a better course (he admitted it) which also increased frontage and value by over 10%.  I called him after his review and asked if we got the job. 


The answer was, "Of course not, we have to go with Arnie."  Also, he didn't want to pay his land planner to redo the plan, so he stuck with what he had. :(  I'm not sure, but maybe this post belongs in the intellectual property thread?
Jeff Brauer, ASGCA Director of Outreach

Peter Pallotta

Re: Which architects today don't use templates?
« Reply #84 on: January 29, 2021, 12:11:36 PM »
I suppose it could be argued that on great sites the land tells you how to design the course -- but only in a whisper, so you have to listen very carefully to hear what it's saying; whereas on a poor/featureless site, the land says nothing at all and the architect neither has to listen to nor look for anything in particular in deciding what to design. In other words, the architect with a mediocre site actually has more freedom than the one with an excellent site, and can do exactly what he pleases and thinks best to build a great golf course -- including using as many (what we're calling) 'templates' as he wants!
No?   



« Last Edit: January 29, 2021, 12:13:34 PM by Peter Pallotta »

Mark_Fine

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Which architects today don't use templates?
« Reply #85 on: January 29, 2021, 03:12:23 PM »
Jeff,
It is hard to compete with those guys.  Certain names sell real estate as you well know. 


Peter,
I still remember walking the Whitehall site with Gil Hanse back in 2002. Sadly we never got to build the golf course but I distinctly remember him saying he was more excited about the farmland portion than he was about the area with the stream and the hills and rock outcroppings, etc.  He said something along the lines that parts of the property dictated certain kinds of holes where as the farmland allowed him to do as he pleased.  So much for the preferred theory of finding holes vs creating them yourself!  I don't recall Gil every talking about "templates" but we did talk a lot about different holes and courses we had seen and studied around the world.  He has since been blessed with some very good sites so I will have to ask him if his opinion about relatively bland farmland has changed? 

Ira Fishman

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Which architects today don't use templates?
« Reply #86 on: January 30, 2021, 03:56:55 PM »
Tom,
I just read your comment that said that you overheard JN team say they were 'mapping out at least 3 of 'your greens' at Sebonack for future use.


I was [*fill in the blank*] to find that when we got done with building Sebonack, my co-designer had his team map out three of the greens, so they could drag and drop them into future plans.

Since I was the leader of the JN team at Sebonack, it dawned on me that I should know something about this.   
So I ask, Are you referring to me when you said you 'overheard' JN team talking about copying your greens?

Before you answer, Let me be perfectly clear, I have never heard or said anything close to that, and I have never mapped out any green that you or anyone else has designed/built.


Please clarify who you were referring to in this thread on the JN team.



Has there been a response?


Ira

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