I'll boil my idea down to the following thoughts.  Please bear with me on the hypothetical bits.

Hole A resides on a golf course that by modern GCA standards would be considered "minimalist."

Hole B resides on a golf course that is obviously manufactured.  Lots of dirt moved, et cetera.

When taken on heir own, Hole A is as strategically interesting and merit-worthy as Hole B.  They have essentially identical interest from tee to green, movement within the green, the whole shebang.  The only difference is that the architect of Hole A didn't need to move much dirt, and the architect of Hole B had to create it out of whole cloth.

My question: Why do most people seem to think that Hole A is superior to Hole B?  

In reviews of golf courses I've read on this site, the lack of movement in land is lauded, while nimble manipulation of earth is downplayed.

What gives?  Why is the "creation" of a good golf hole inferior to the "discovery" of a good golf hole?

Heck, I'll even go so far as to posit that I believe it is more impressive to create a great hole out of nothing than to stumble upon a plot of land that would yield a good golf hole with relatively little shaping.

What say ye, ye wise (wo)men of GCA?

Personally I think the measure of a course should have nothing to do with quantities of earth moved, but instead should only be concerned with its play characteristics and the setting.

Extreme earth moving, lake or water feature construction or  massive landscape efforts are all interesting budget side notes and background info about how the course was created......but they really have no relevance when trying to analyze how good a golf hole is.

The setting of a course is important. How the site and setting previously existed, or how the setting came to be, is not the way you analyze a courses strengths or weaknesses

How a course came to be constructed shouldn't be a way we measure its substance. Its the final form we assess, not the methods taken to create the form.

Paul:

What about my favorite quote from George Thomas' book?

"No matter how skilfully one may lay out the holes and diversify them, nevertheless one must get the thrill of nature. . . . The puny strivings of the architect do not quench our thrist for the ultimate."

I would agree with you that it doesn't matter how much dirt one moves, but wouldn't you agree with me that it's hard to invoke the thrill of nature on something that is glaringly man-made?

One reason that I ask the above question is because of late I have been bouncing back and forth weekly to three very different sites.

One is the ultimate "thrill of nature" site in massive sand dunes.

Another is a good site, but compact and requiring a more traditional approach......the entire course could be a shaping cut and fill exercise because the contours are already there.

The other course needs alot of help, being flat coastal plain with poor drainage. We are creating 40 acres of faux rice fields just to give four of the holes an interesting setting....and creating so many drainage features elsewhere that I joke we might want to re name the course Gullyfield.

I've had to do a lot of gear switching lately....which is good.

Part of it lies in the fact that Hole B, most likely, requires plans — drawings and foresight in terms of a written plan of attack for construction.

Meanwhile, Hole A requires less of this.

Many here — many golf designers, too — are uncomfortable with drawings, plans and a more detailed plan of attack.

The golf architecture enthusiast will typically see nature and be able to imagine a golf hole. Rarely does the enthusiast see a flat site and imagine a golf hole. He/she would also not "see" a hole that is totally different from what exists today — natural, flat, or in between.

The natural, nearly-perfect golf site allows creation to happen mostly in the out-of-doors. This is where many here and elsewhere truly believe golf architecture must occur. To tip the scale toward plans, drawings and a formal attack — that is a sign (to many) of weakness, modern practices gone array, etc.

This does not make one approach necessarily better...or worse. I think the question is a good one as it causes us to reflect. Certainly Tom D. brings up a great point about nature — it being a terrific quality for golf and one people find a great positive in sites and courses.

Tom,

I always took that Thomas quote as a slap at earlier chocolate drop mounds and obviously artificial construction of the pre golden age era.  An elegant way of saying the same thing you said - use enough dirt at the base of the slopes to tie in any fills.  And a call for grading long, gentle slops where possible.

The Golden Age guys were generally good at that, as were the guys in the 50's.  I always thought that Plummer, Diddell, and others moved less earth overall, but never skimped at tie ins. Also, many used 5-6:1 slopes on their gently sloping midwest sites.  

As we moved to the 80's and moved more earth, but with relatively tighter budgets, adding that fill became a lost art to many.  Also, as the style was to higher mounds, it made sense to use 3-4:1 slopes to get higher quicker as well as use less earth.  So, the choice of style not only made the look artificial, but sort of required other changes that made it more artificial, compounding the error as it were.

Frankly, this is what Fazio corrected and perfected - moving earth to where you need it, but not making it look like it was moved, at least to most golfers eyes.  But, the Fazio style fw with gentle and long earth ridges requires perhaps 600K of earth when a (for lack of better example) Rees Jones or Jeff Brauer mound lined fw requires perhaps 300K.  That of course, varies from site to site.

I'm glad Yale has been mentioned now.

What I love about Yale is that Man's hand is not only evident, but obvious.  It doesn't seem to provide the "Thrill of Nature" that a golf course like Sand Hills obviously provides.  What is so impressive about Yale is the fact that it represents an incredible feat of engineering.  It's brilliant to me because Macdonald and Raynor had to sculpt the golf course.  Call me strange, but I find incredible beauty--beauty equal to that caused by the Thrill of Nature--in that sort of artificiality.

A modern example of Yale's genius, in my opinion, is Whistling Straits.  I can't remember the exact figure, but I know Pete Dye moved millions of cubic feet of earth in order to sculpt such a rugged course out of a flat lake shoreline.  And while I've never been there, I'd imagine that the land on which Whistling Straits is situated is quite unlike the surrounding area.  I personally see no problem with this.  Its reputation as a really good individual golf course should not be hindered by the fact that it doesn't look like the land around it.

Tim,
  A and B are equal from the standpoint of architecture and how it effects your golf game. Sand Hills is a great example of finding holes on the ground. A course near me that is artificial is Stevinson Ranch. Basically a flat piece of land to start. The owner and architect designed some very interesting holes there, but when you see any elevation change on holes or built up features you know they are obviously artificial. The challenges and strategies of the holes are excellent most of the time. Both courses test your game and have lots of interesting architectural features, but one is considered one of the great modern courses while the other is pretty much unknown outside of architectural circles. I enjoy both courses immensely within the context of playing the holes. However, I consider SH to be the best golf course I have ever played.
    On the other hand following your line of reasoning one would probably considrer SR the greater accomplishment since they had to create all the challenge. At SH they just needed to identify the holes (given they found over 100 it obviously wasn't horribly difficult). The trick was tying 18 together to get the best flow possible. So it comes down to which you think is more challenging, building holes on a blank canvas so to speak, or finding 18 holes that fit together.

In the course of thinking about this it got me wondering if SH would be so highly acclaimed if it were a $20 per round public course, or is it just too hard to seperate out the "experience" of being there? In the end it all boils down to personal preference
   

Ed, if SH were near a market of public golfers, I see no reason why it would cost more than say $35-40 a round to play.  Maybe less, if a muni ran it.  But, of course that is dreamland.  It has to be run as a private, with no practical availability to public access.  That is why I contrasted WS to WH rather than Bally or SH.  

We appreciate a Chambers Bay or WS because they provided great golf, and an approximation to a rugged dunesland setting.  But, we aren't fooled that it is real.  The cost to play each is relatively high.  Actually, WS is astronomical.  But they are both damn good golf.  But, what is the bias?  For the manufactured and expensive by simple math of what it cost to build, yet damn good golf, or the minimalist, economical, well routed natural?  I think that is a no-brainer.

Paul:

Late getting back to you, sorry.

I do believe that a designer can create something totally artificial which provides the "thrill of nature," and I've seen it many times over the years.  Perhaps that big bunker at St. George's Hill which Robert Hunter chose as his cover photo for THE LINKS was the earliest example; and Mike Strantz left us a lot in that category.  (For that matter, some of the recent quarry courses provide a "thrill of nature" that was man-made by somebody who wasn't even thinking about creating a golf feature.)

However, the problem with those sorts of creations is that golf courses are 18 holes, so while it's eminently possible to succeed in creating such a thrill on one hole or even a few, it's very hard to keep it up for the full 18 holes -- kind of like trying to pitch a no-hitter.  And when it eventually slips, it is a huge letdown to all that has come before.

I also believe it would be possible to create an entire golf course in pop-art style that didn't look natural at all but was thrilling and fun to play -- I don't know if that's what you were asking or not -- but I suspect to make it really work you'd have to eliminate every trace of nature and take down every tree in sight, so that the course did not clash with the background.

" also believe it would be possible to create an entire golf course in pop-art style that didn't look natural at all but was thrilling and fun to play -- I don't know if that's what you were asking or not -- but I suspect to make it really work you'd have to eliminate every trace of nature and take down every tree in sight, so that the course did not clash with the background. "  

Tom ....I guess that is not directly what I was asking, but what you propose is very much aligned with how I feel.

Something in me doesn't want to admit that good golf requires some form of subservience to nature, or that the best holes succeed because they relate to the site naturally.
Primarily because then too much emphasis is placed on site selection...and I've had my share of bad ones with low budgets, and I don't want to feel I have to create nature where it didn't exist to be successful.

I like your Pop Art golf concept.....although I wasn't a big fan of the genre when it was bopping about.

Jim's comments on the uni-tee concepts were interesting....but is that name a play on 'unity', as in blending or coming together?

RJ...I might be a little strange, but the idea of golf in some of the most unnatural places doesn't turn me off....through a steel mill or oil refinery, or sky scrapers, textile mills, whatever......visually I enjoy some of the effects of the heavier hand of man.

"Paul
This is an interesting POV though I am not certain what you are saying.  Could you provide an explaination?"

Sean:

It looks like maybe he will and maybe he won't so in the meantime let me take a shot at what I think he may mean. If I'm wrong I'm pretty sure he will tell me.

First of all, Paul Cowley seems to have a natural inclination towards history, old things, regional cultures and some of their physical vestiges. If you met him on a site all you have to do is take a look at his briefcase to get some sense of this.

He also once mentioned that in his younger days he was something of a globe trotting wanderer---something along the lines of the classic peripatetic perhaps.

People like that, in my opinion, almost have to have both some serious curiosity about peoples and the historical things about them as well as a real ability to observe things carefully and process them. Sometimes people say about people like Paul--- that they're extremely visual.

He's also naturally artistic---he sometimes says he prefers to explain things by drawing them rather than explaining them verbally.

In his architecture he's created vestiges of old forts so good that even conservations didn't know they weren't real. He's created remnants of rice fields into golf holes in a region that once depended economically on the production of rice.

Put him in some old horse country and he may think of recreating something like an old steeplechase jump on a golf course or remnants of old stone walls in areas where once they were prevalent. If he sees the ruins of an old farmhouse on a site, for instance, he will try to use it on the course and even strategically in the golf. He may be as inclined to create some "debris mounds" where some once may've existed rather than make a bunker.

These kinds of things aren't exactly the things that Mother Nature made but they are history, or representations of the history of peoples and places and such---vestiges of human history and they can be just as "site natural" in a sense as something made by Nature.

The point is the remnants and vestiges of historical man-made things on sites and areas that preceded a golf course can be very interesting to use architecturally, perhaps even more interesting in some cases than natural landforms.

In my opinion, this is all very exciting stuff to consider and potentially dabble with in golf course architecture. It can be imaginative, historially significant and interesting---it can get communities on your side and it can hold their interest because it represents something about them they may be proud of and interested in themselves.

The very fact of the classic English "Park" estate designed by the likes of famous English 18th and 19th century landscape architects such as Lancelot "Capabillity" Brown or Humphrey Repton into which some of the earliest English golf courses were created is a good example of historic relevence preceding golf architecture. The fact is these massive "Park" estates were designed and built before man-made golf architecture ever existed as an art form. It is also, I believe, where the term "parkland" style golf architecture came from.

I think that may be some of what he means by what he said above about not always wanting to just rely on natural landforms within or without a golf course.