I'm curious if anyone here can elaborate on what's left of Behr's courses. As I mentioned in my RSF thread, many here (including myself) have read with interest what he wrote about the subject of GCA, but what do we know about his courses? I guess Tommy N could shed some light on this. Is there really anything left of his that's worth studying? Did he have trademarks in his designs? Did he emulate the design principles of his good friend, Dr. Alister Mackenzie? How many courses do we know for sure that he designed?

His contemporaries all believed that Lakeside in California was his best course, but it has undergone some significant changes over the years -- some of them required to channelize the increased drainage through the property from years of growth in L.A.

From what I've been able to gather, he was a minimalist way before I was.

Tommy N knows a lot about the evolution of Lakeside. MacKenzie thought Lakeside ranked as one of the best courses in the world. I understand that there was a flood in the late 30's that took out a number of holes on the back nine.

Bobby Jones's instructional shorts were filmed at Lakeside and another LA course (the name escapes me) in '31 and '32. There are some good views of the courses they used, but I've never been sure which was Lakeside. The brief glimpses you get on those old films show some very interesting, minimalist architecture.

Bob

David Stamm:

Let's just put it this way----the fact that there really is so little good evidence of Max Behr's architecture left just might be one of the true supreme ironies about Behr and his fundamenatal architectural philosophy that has often been referred to as "Permanent Architecture".

All the reasons why Behr's overall architectural philosophy is referred to that way, however, is endlessly fascinating, in my opinion.

The moral of all this just may be that Max should've listened to his friends and contemporaries and just not traveled out to that Sodom and Gommarah known as California and settled there and done architecture there. Clearly Max had great curiosity and respect for Mother Nature, but did not realize that "Mother Nature" was bound to punish those evil sinners who have always populated that Godless place in the far west of this majestic land of ours with all its sunlit uplands to use before reaching that seductively beautiful Hell on Earth next to the Pacific Ocean known as California.

Alas, his courses there, regardlessly how "permanently" he thought he designed and built them with respect to the observable tenets and forces of Mother Nature, were never bound to last in that sinful land of Sodom and Gommorah. Max had apparently heard that valuable cliche, but obviously had not fully mulled over the importance of it---that one should never try to "F.... with Mother Nature"---at least not in a God foresaken place like Califoria. Some who know best the thoughts and philosphies of that collective braintrust of Behr, Hunter, Mackenzie and perhaps Bob Jones, say that that remarkable group just following the Crash had actually come to realize and appreciate that if one even thinks about "making out" with Mother Nature in a golf architecture sense, it is always best to do it here on or nearer the East Coast where it must be true to say she seems to inevitably be in a far better mood.

Had Max only stayed here in the East where he came from his remarkable works of golf architecture art would still clearly stand today in all their glory for the world to see and for architecture fanatic buffs such as us to learn from!

Horace Greeley is definitely part of our American lore, culture and ethos but one certainly must realize how dead wrong the man really was!!