[Jeff_Brauer]

On the Geoff slams Medinah thread, I danced around my major - and serious - question.  I'm not trying to slam Geoff (or Brad or Ron) but have a question.

Does a critic need to change his paradigm over time to stay fresh, just like a gca must to avoid stereotyped, repetitive designs?  

IMHO, reading every course review/opinion under the prism of it doesn't have ragged edges, wide fw, options, ground game, whatever gets boring.  I certainly knew that Geoff wasn't going to be a big fan of Medinah.  Fair enough, but Geoff has been beating the drum for a decade about returning to Golden Age design, (with side themes of major golf organizations don't know much) which, IMHO, makes his writing more and more predictable.  

I read his stuff and buy his books.  I enjoy much of it.  However, I wonder if he could freshen his magazine/blog writing for his audience if he came up with a broader/different world view/method or whatever in which to review courses?  Could he extend/expand his career/writing by, in a baseball analogy, going to the knuckleball?  What do other writers go through in the course of a career?

Admittedly, I am just using one article as an example of this.  I haven't hung on every word he has written, so I may be dead wrong. And, he might be able to offer some thoughts on how his world view has changed that aren't readily apparent to me, his casual reader.  I know I have changed my thought process, but it may not show up in my work to many reviewers, so its very possible.

Also, its fun for a gca to turn critic on his critics, but since we all discuss gca here, I do think its a valid question, which may bear discussion here.  Its sort of like knowing the bent of a newspaper before reading its editorials.

As always, I could be wrong.......have a great weekend and go play golf somewhere where its not 100 degrees!

[George Pazin]

Jeff, as I alluded to on the other thread, I believe your premise includes many things that are either inaccurate or misleading, depending on your point of view.

I disagree entirely that width, options, ground game, etc., lead to repetitive sameness. It is the lack of these 3, among others, that lead to sameness, imho.

Hit it in the middle on the fairway, what's my yardage? Rinse club and repeat.

Okay, you might have to consider which way the hole doglegs, but outside of that, there isn't much variety.

You are describing a simple physical challenge. Geoff seems to be seeking a mental challenge as well as a physical challenge.

And in case it's not clear, I agree with him.

I will add, however, that I think this is an important and interesting question, thanks for the thread.

[PThomas]

hopefully Geoff will chime in

this is probably another way of making one of your points Jeff:  does "the other Geoff" "admire" any courses like Medinah, or does he lump them all into the same category.long, tough tests...I guess WF would be another, Baltusrol, etc

[Jeff_Brauer]

Paul T,

Thanks for making my point shorter!

George,

As I said on that thread, I don't generally disagree with the premise that Geoff puts forth. And in your response citing several courses that are obviously different, its true that the land and hazard type (PV sandy waste vs. Olympic or Medinah trees, for instance) won't doom all courses to look alike.

That said, they might play alike at championship level golf, and I don't think there is much question that wide fairways favor the longest hitters and power game, so I think there is room for a narrow fairway kind of course, (or room for a variety of fw widths on any given course) precisely so the Corey Pavin, Larry Nelson kind of player has a chance to win at the major level, and the 60 year old, 200 yard hitter has a chance to win weekend matches at the club over bigger hitters.

Short version: I think narrow fairways are getting a blanket bad wrap in certain quarters. They have their place.

However, this is trying to get some information about how critics process their information, not the specifics of any particular course.  If you want to do that, start your own damn thread!

[George Pazin]

However, this is trying to get some information about how critics process their information, not the specifics of any particular course.  If you want to do that, start your own damn thread!

Okay, I'll answer this one as well: critics should have principles and stick to them. Reflection may cause them to change said principles, but not simply a desire to maintain someone else's idea of balance or variety.

P.S. Width only helps the bombers disproportionately if it's soft.

[John Kavanaugh]

Why does someone become a critic..

[JWL]

John

Because it is a whole lot easier than coming up something original.

[John Kavanaugh]

Who is the greatest critic that ever lived..Jefferson, Moses, Ghandi..

I have to say that I have had a few golf critics explain to me that they only do it for the good of the game...Do you beiieve it..

[Bryan Izatt]

Jeff,

As an analogy, would you be suggesting that it's like a movie critic who likes comedies and criticizes negatively movies of all other genres - drama, action, horror, etc.?  I suspect most people would detect the bias and ignore the critics comments on all movies outside the critics critical preference.

People who beat the same drum incessantly over long periods of time often lose the attention of their audience.

[George Pazin]

There is no difference between banging the drum repeatedly for your principles, and banging the drum bashing a critic for having principles and sticking to them.

Check that, at least the first instance requires formulating principles in the first place.

[John Kavanaugh]

There is no difference between banging the drum repeatedly for your principles, and banging the drum bashing a critic for having principles and sticking to them.

Check that, at least the first instance requires formulating principles in the first place.

George,

You seem to give more value to the critic than the artist...  Wouldn't your prefer ten "bad" courses to one beautiful critique..

[George Pazin]

John, there is no way you can honestly draw that inference from my posts. Defending critics and valuing architects are completely separate. I defend posters of all types on this board quite regularly.

[John Kavanaugh]

Critics are no different than gossips...To read Doak's Confindential Guide is no different that eavsdropping on ladies bridge....Interesting, valuable, leaning toward mean spirited, can't turn away information.

[T_MacWood]

Golf architects today are ultra-sensative to criticism. I really don't understand why they believe their particluar art should be the only creative endeavor immune from criticism.

That hasn't always been the case...when golf architects (like MacKenzie, Travis, Macdonald, Simpson, Tilly, etc) would often debate and critically review (and defend) each others work. There is something to be said for the ability to articulate why you designed what you designed...and to articulate your design ideas and preferences. Ultimately your work benefits from that excercise IMO. A prohibition on criticism is not healthy for any art form....which is the case right now with the ASGCA.

IMO Darwin was the best critic...he had a very tactful way of analysing, exploring and identifying both good and bad.  

[Tom_Doak]

Tom M:  Darwin being the best critic is a slam dunk.  I don't write 1/10th as well as Bernard Darwin, and neither does anybody else whose work I've read lately.

I also agree that architects today are more thin-skinned than our predecessors ... probably the result of all the ridiculous press adulation we get from the golf media and marketing companies.  But, how does that relate to critiquing a seventy-year-old course?  Bendelow and the original designers aren't going to learn anything from Geoff's critique, and Rees-bashing is getting kind of predictable, which I think is part of Jeff B's point.  

Moreover, the members at Medinah seem like they couldn't be happier with their course, despite whatever I wrote about it years ago and Geoff's more recent article.

[John Kavanaugh]

Doak,

If all you had done with your life was remain a critic...would you have been a failure.

[Adam Clayman]

If it bleeds it leads.

Sound familiar?

Without the over-the-top positions, who really is going to listen?

Jeff, When i started reading these pages, there were very few new courses being built, with the same characteristics  that are being built today. It would be presumptive to assume that Ran's folly led to this change, yet it did change.

Many of those old pages, apparently lost to current access, were full of reasoned arguments why the direction, GCA had taken post WWII, was an inferior direction. There were over-the-top critics, and they were impactful.

My point, which is often hard to find, is that without the controversey no one pays any attention.

[Mike Hendren]

Adam,

Good point.  

Questions:  

1. Out of 1,000 golfers, how many have even heard of Geoff Shackleford (just to pick one critic)?  

2.  Out of 1,000 movie-goers, how many have even heard of Siskal & Ebert?

Mike

[Tom_Doak]

John K:   Failure?  I don't know, I guess it would depend on whether my words had much influence on what happened in golf afterward.

But it would sure as hell have been a waste of education and ability.

[John Kavanaugh]

John K:   Failure?  I don't know, I guess it would depend on whether my words had much influence on what happened in golf afterward.

But it would sure as hell have been a waste of education and ability.

Truer words a mother never spoke..Funny thing I seem to recall a new poster coming aboard a few months ago that was a doctor and wanted to give it all up to be an architect...it should be criminal..

[Tom_Doak]

John:  I don't agree with your last statement at all.  People should do whatever makes them happy.  When I was 17 I felt some pressure from somewhere (not particularly my parents) to make the best use of my math/science oriented brain ... so I forgot about a career in golf architecture and went to M.I.T.  By March of that year I'd figured out that all my classmates were just as capable and much more interested in those pursuits than me, and I went about starting to pursue this career instead.

[John Kavanaugh]

John:  I don't agree with your last statement at all.  People should do whatever makes them happy.  When I was 17 I felt some pressure from somewhere (not particularly my parents) to make the best use of my math/science oriented brain ... so I forgot about a career in golf architecture and went to M.I.T.  By March of that year I'd figured out that all my classmates were just as capable and much more interested in those pursuits than me, and I went about starting to pursue this career instead.

Tom,

I don't understand why being a critic would be a waste of your education and ability when doing what ever makes you happy would not.  My brother does what makes him happiest why I sit here stuck running this God forsaken family business for the benefit of many families besides my own.  The world can only have so many golf course architects no matter how many people it makes happy to do so...Damn roads..

[Jeff Goldman]

Folks,

I've said this a few times in the past, but the job of a critic is not to tell us what is good or bad, or to help us to decide whether to play this or that course or to see this or that movie, but to educate, preferably in an entertaining way.  That requires extensive knowledge and erudition, which Tom Doak, Shackelford, Klein and others on this board have demonstrated in spades.  

The fact that they praise some course or other that I hate, or that they dislike some course I treasure, is irrelevant; what matters is why they hold these opinions and whether their reasons are well articulated and help us refine our own thoughts.  Obviously, when someone slams a course we like, there can be some hard feelings, but we must not take these things personally.  

Just to say Medinah is a "tough slog," or that Erin Hills did or didn't cut it isn't enough.  We need to know why.  That's what matters, and the "why" is why we need critics good.

Jeff Goldman

[Mike Hendren]

John,

It must really stink when Ken comes back home and gets the gold ring, best robe and sandals and you have to kill the fatted calf.  

I feel your pain.

Mike

[Tom_Doak]

Well, I don't know how many guys would actually be happy scrapping around for work as a golf architect, it's not as easy as it looks, as all of us architects who participate here frequently relate.  There is a bigger equation to "happiness" than I can do for anyone but me.  I only know that for myself, I'd never have been happy unless I had a chance to build some golf courses on great sites, and I feel lucky and blessed that I have had those chances.  

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