The MacKenzie Conundrum- Principle#6

[Bart Bradley]

"Tom
Could you give us a precis about what Behr wrote in his "Blindness" essay?  Thanks in advance."


Well, aaah, yes indeed-do, you betchya bippy I could give you a precis about Max Behr's essay on "Blindness", Oh Magificent One, who married a pretty Scottish lass and eventually hied on over to Scotland and expatriated his homeland, The United States of America!!

Behr wrote in 1926 in an article entitled "Blindness" that the linksland, particularly TOC, offered a form of partial blindness that looked natural (because it was natural ) as the undulating, tumbling terrain is such that it allows the golfer to pick up distance as his eye wanders from one hillock to the next until it arrives at the pin. And that in that type of natural terrain the golfer can learn to play to certain points that affords him a greater or lesser degree of visibility.

Behr also contended that blindness offered a form of delay as to results that served to make a call upon intelligence (the effective dealing with both deception and mystery) both as to one's own shot as well as that of an opponent's. Behr felt the foregoing ramification and factor should not be considered objectionable but an asset (again, as it made a call upon intelligence (experience) to effectively dealing with something less than instant visual feedback).

If you are extra nice to me I may consider typing out for you Behr's entire article on blindness because it isn't all that long.   

pretty please with sugar on top 

Bart

[Bart Bradley]

I don't think he wanted to make his holes harder by deception, not in a suggestio falsi sense.  As the quotes imply, he probably didn't mind making a hole play harder than it looked.  There's no shortage of holes he designed to fit that bill!

Blindness of a green wouldn't count as suggestio falsi.  Not seeing the green is suppression of sensory inputs, it's supressio veri.

By the way, where do we stand relative to your initial questions?

Mark

Mark:

I still am left uncertain as to the general feeling about this principle on this board.  Certainly, Mr. Brauer has come out and stated that MacKenzie was right and Mr. Cirba that MacKenzie was wrong.  Others have given reasons why blindness might be more tolerated now (artificial yardage aids) but some in this same group argue strongly that these aids should not be used.  Still others have implied that MacKenzie didn't really mean it, or at the time meant it and then changed his mind.

I am still intrigued with the subject.  MacKenzie uses exceptionally strong language in condemning blindness...he was not equivocal.  I have yet to hear any explanation of what basis MacKenzie would be so harshly against partial blindness, if he was not condemning making holes harder through deception.

Thanks everyone for the interesting input,

Bart

[Sean_A]

I don't think he wanted to make his holes harder by deception, not in a suggestio falsi sense.  As the quotes imply, he probably didn't mind making a hole play harder than it looked.  There's no shortage of holes he designed to fit that bill!

Blindness of a green wouldn't count as suggestio falsi.  Not seeing the green is suppression of sensory inputs, it's supressio veri.

By the way, where do we stand relative to your initial questions?

Mark

Mark:

I still am left uncertain as to the general feeling about this principle on this board.  Certainly, Mr. Brauer has come out and stated that MacKenzie was right and Mr. Cirba that MacKenzie was wrong.  Others have given reasons why blindness might be more tolerated now (artificial yardage aids) but some in this same group argue strongly that these aids should not be used.  Still others have implied that MacKenzie didn't really mean it, or at the time meant it and then changed his mind.

I am still intrigued with the subject.  MacKenzie uses exceptionally strong language in condemning blindness...he was not equivocal.  I have yet to hear any explanation of what basis MacKenzie would be so harshly against partial blindness, if he was not condemning making holes harder through deception.

Thanks everyone for the interesting input,

Bart

Bart

I am neither for nor against blindness except to say that blindness does offer variety.  However, I do worry about those that quickly dismiss blind shots as less than ideal because it makes me believe that in the end, these folks think they can outshape nature in their vain attempts to create an ideal course - and I am not buying this for an NY second.  So, my bottom line is that sometimes, we should leave well enough alone even if it means a blind shot or two.

Ciao

[Bart Bradley]

Sean:

But I think you have often listed Tobacco Road as one of your favorites.  Clearly, Strantz didn't leave well enough alone there...he was clearly searching/creating blindness.  Surely, MacKenzie would have questioned this ...so the question remains, why does this group think that MacKenzie was right about everything else but this?

I am not sure there is an answer but it is sort of interesting..at least to me.

Bart

[Sean_A]

Sean:

But I think you have often listed Tobacco Road as one of your favorites.  Clearly, Strantz didn't leave well enough alone there...he was clearly searching/creating blindness.  Surely, MacKenzie would have questioned this ...so the question remains, why does this group think that MacKenzie was right about everything else but this?

I am not sure there is an answer but it is sort of interesting..at least to me.

Bart

Bart

The Road may make my top 50, its close.  I admire the course because it re-introduced bold design and Strantz didn't shy away from blind/obscured shots and utilizing massively punishing natural hazards.  In short, I think he designed the course to be very much in the style of old links with one major, very major flaw (and the reason I would never consider joining this place if it were a members' course), the course offers practically no ground game, but some of that is done to very wet maintenance.  How many shots he actually built-in blindness I don't know.  I do know that giant sand hill separating 9 & 1 is fake, but this hill doesn't create any blind shots and it does allow for a great green site for #9.  So far as I recall, Strantz more or less used what was available and then shaped the shit out of green site areas to create little design quirks that take a few plays to learn how to use. 

I am not one who thinks Dr Mac was right about everything.  I very much detest his penchant for framing greens with loads of sand during his "California Period".  The inevitable result was that many of these great looking bunkers would be made more formal and touched by the hand of man (perhaps for very good reasons) and the Good Doctor should have known better.  I also don't think his ideas about camo completely justify some of the bunkering.  Personally, I think the guy was seriously into aesthetics and was very high on his new California look.  More power to him as he was really able to transform what golf courses look like - though I am not nearly convinced that he created proper original strategies with his theories. 

Ciao 

[TEPaul]

Rich and Bart:

Here you go;


"As to visibility, Mr. A.C.M. Croome gave the British view when he remarked in the London FIELD that "St Andrews suffers no loss because the approach shot to round a dozen of the putting greens is in greater or less degree blind." By this is not meant that they are in greater or less degree blind from all angles. It is simply means that, according to the British view, blindness is on occasions a legitimate and delightful hazard, and especially so when it forces the player to make a placement shot to attain visibility.
        But blindness in an undulating and tumbling terrain such as that which links land presents is quite different from what we are subject to in this country. The greens are not separate creations apart from the whole. They are as the Creator made them. They belong. The eye can pick up distances as it wanders from one hillock to the next till it arrives at the pin. It does not meet with a sudden blockage such as an artificially created green, the contours of which are separate and apart from the surroundings. Such is the character of blindness at St. Andrews.
         Blindness is certainly a subject in golf that one can go blind arguing about. There would seem to be no justification for it. And yet I would like to make an observation which may possibly explain the pleasure it excites with some. It is certainly true that as a player of games we endeavor to prolong the time when we must show our hand. We try to blind out opponent to our intent. This imposes upon him the task of anticipating our hidden purpose. Thus there is occasioned a sparring of wits aside from the mere skill required to play games. Blindness, therefore, makes a call upon intelligence. It comes down to whether the character of the deception is legitimate. The pitcher in baseball cannot make a fake pass to throw a player out at first base. That is not playing ball. Thus if blindness be such that we are continually deceived, it is only natural that we should object to it. But if the deception is such that we can with intelligence overcome it, then it most certainly must be accounted an asset.
           Blindness is the one type of hazard in golf which contains the element of mystery. If we were not all so concerned with out scores, and, instead play golf for the pleasure of playing the strokes, blindness would not be so abhorrent to us as it is today. At St. Andrews it is perhaps the peculiar blending of blindness with visibility that has intrigued one great golfer after another to pronounce it THE great course. Mere skill in stroking the golf ball is not sufficient to solve its problems. One can play upon it year after year and never fully fathom its secrets.”

“Blindness”
Max Behr
1926

[Mark Bourgeois]

Tom, Mackenzie did formulate his principles before WW1 and a striking aspect of his views is not only how early in his career he apparently developed them but how true he remained to them acorss his career.

Niall, as Rich says Pitreavie was mid-career for Mackenzie.  Mar-teh (as in Par-teh) is the expert on the Pit so hopefully he will chime in -- the club got into a tussle with Charles Mackenzie over the construction of the course so perhaps that's at the bottom of your comment re the burns!

Bart, as Sean notes blindness then versus blindness now are on opposite ends of the spectrum.  He wrote in unalloyed terms to communicate his ideas clearly but also to reduce misunderstanding; he was a teacher not just a philosopher.   (It didn't hurt commercially that as Sean notes his ideas, being different, set him apart in the field.)

Who knows? Perhaps if Mackenzie came back today and saw blindness had disappeared only to be replaced by a different insipidity, he might start banging on about the blandness of modern courses and push for a return to blindness as a restoration of the "spirit of adventure," something to generate an emotional response.

And Mackenzie wasn't right on everything else.  He violated his principles here and there, as he would have to.  Not only blindness, but not routing returning nines, failing to give the weaker player a way to play a hole, etc etc.

But he was right a lot more than he was wrong, and he was right on the big things, like the ideal being enjoyable, exciting and challenging for all, not just a few.  (He was Isaiah Berlin's hedgehog in that respect.)  Blindness cuts both ways in that regard: it can create challenge and enjoyability for many, but it can force a shot beyond the ability of weaker golfers.

All IMHO.

Mark

[Bart Bradley]

Tom:

Isn't it striking that Behr claims blindness would be more acceptable if people cared less about their score.  And yet, MacKenzie also railed against the "pencil and scorecard" crowd, but did not find justification for blindness in this defense.

Bart

[TEPaul]

Bart:

Your #57 about "card and pencil" and such and to what it may mean vis-a-vis Mackenzie's take on blindness or anything else to do with golf course architecture is a complex issue and probably one cast somewhat in various nuances and differences of meaning and gist. I'm trying to carefully consider how to respond to your #57.

I will try to rely on what he said and wrote rather than to try to read his mind! 

[Bart Bradley]

Bart:

Your #57 about "card and pencil" and such and to what it may mean vis-a-vis Mackenzie's take on blindness or anything else to do with golf course architecture is a complex issue and probably one cast somewhat in various nuances and differences of meaning and gist. I'm trying to carefully consider how to respond to your #57.

I will try to rely on what he said and wrote rather than to try to read his mind! 

Tom,

I agree that trying to read the mind of the author is fraught with peril.  But, doesn't scholarly study sometimes require that we try, based on what was actually said, to fill in the gaps with logical conjecture.

To clarify my point, both Behr and MacKenzie plainly decry the "card and pencil" attitude toward the game ...In Behr's essay, Behr uses this specifically to claim that blindness would not be objectionable if we were "not all so concerned with our scores".  I believe strongly from his writing that MacKenzie also feels we should "play golf for the pleasure of playing the strokes".  Despite that, MacKenzie could not have been clearer that he thought nearly all types of blindness were inferior architectural choices.  To me, this is a very interesting juxtaposition and I don't need to read anybody's mind to see there is a striking difference. .

I look forward to any thoughts you have on my #57 or my #59 .

Bart

[Matt Schoolfield]

I've been perusing the Spirit of St Andrews in preparation for the upcoming ClubTFE event, and wanted to ask about semi-blind greens and thoughts.

an even more annoying form of blindness is that which is so frequent on inland courses--that is, when the flag is visible but the surface of the green cannot be seen.

Before posting I saw this old thread, and wow..., it's such as fantastic discussion I thought I'd bump it rather than start a new one. The Max Behr essay is just so well written.

Anyway, I wanted to add #7 at Pasatiempo to the list of places where MacKenzie seem not to follow his own rule. At least, the course notes I took that day indicate the the ridge leaves a semi-blind view of the flag. Another semi-blind hole that I love is #6 at Waihu Muni in Maui. I think a well designed semi-blind approach on a par 4 may be one of my favorite kinds of holes (dare I call it a template), but I do think that modern distance tech (or at least stakes) has a lot to do with that.

So, nearly 15 years later, how do we feel about semi-blind approach shots? I think there is a large difference between a ridge-line you can walk up and evaluate, rather than something totally hidden except a flag. Does that distinction matter to folks? I really am fascinated about how Behr seems to think they are good, but only if we can let go of our score and play for the fun of it.

[Ken Moum]

Well, I'm currently sitting about 30 yards from the first tee of a real links course with six blind holes. Four where you can usually see the top of the flag, and one where you can see it if you hit a good drive, and one where only a drive close to 300 yards will give you a look.


Personally, I prefer being able to see the top of the flag. I also think Behr's comment, "But blindness in an undulating and tumbling terrain such as that which links land presents is quite different from what we are subject to in this country."


FWIW, I'm at Golspie, which I have played 11 times in the last five weeks.  And I'm not so sure that playing the eighteenth straight over the big dune I can see out my window is better than making the hole a dogleg around it with the option of going over to gain an advantage. There's certainly room for it.


On a side note, I am definitely coming down on the side of multiple plays to appreciate a course.  Especially one as "complicated" for a crappy golfer like me as Golspie.

[Thomas Dai]

I seem to recall a Pete Dye comment that the shot the tour pros hate the most is a pitch to a green where they can see the upper most part of the flag but not see the putting surface at all? And that this is why he designed many a greensite with this in mind?
Atb


PS - best not mention satellite distance devices nor look-through rangefinders nor the ‘rangefinder’ that inhabits the space between the human ears.

[Charlie Goerges]

Behr's comment, "But blindness in an undulating and tumbling terrain such as that which links land presents is quite different from what we are subject to in this country."

I'm curious what we think Behr meant the difference in the US blindness was?

[Ken Moum]

Behr's comment, "But blindness in an undulating and tumbling terrain such as that which links land presents is quite different from what we are subject to in this country."

I'm curious what we think Behr meant the difference in the US blindness was?

Not a mind reader,  but I have to think he means hiding a green behind a man-made mound.  I get that, but no one likes fake-looking contours.

[Matt Schoolfield]

Upon further review it seems that in the "To Be Or Not To Be" section contains a major caveat to this principal:

The only form of blindness that should ever be permitted is the full shot up to a green whose position is accurately located by surrounding sandhills. Even in a hole of this kind, it is not the blindness that is interesting, but the visibility of the surrounding sandhills. At Royal St. George's in Sandwich, which we redesigned, it was not the blindness of the green, but the grandeur and impressiveness of the huge sand dune, that made the "Maiden" such a great hole.

MacKenzie seems to be vigilantly focused on the visible scene.