[Mark Bourgeois]

Looking for a 5th-percentile, anti-groupthink post.

What is the smartest, most-interesting, on-topic statement you can make that despite your obvious genius would produce disagreement from 95 percent of posters?  Rephrase: the goal is to post (goalpost?) an intelligent, on-topic, architecturally-related opinion that only manages support from 1 GCA.com poster in 20.

I say we see what emerges and then we tear that person to pieces have a good discussion.

Mark

PS  If you think a 5th-percentile bar is too low / easy, and you can limbo lower – yet still qualify for an intelligent post – make it a 1st-percentile post: agreement from 1 poster in 100.  And if the 5th percentile is too hard to meet the standard of a smart post, then how about a 10th-percentile post?

[Mike_Cirba]

The basic flaw of purist Minimalist Philsophy is that while you can build a 10 on "10 land", you can only build a 5 on "5 land".

[RJ_Daley]

By the year 2050, there will only be 1/3rd of the courses that exist now.  The game will be played only by the elite and wealthiest people throuout the world, and golf course architecture as a profession will be relagated to a few practitioners that can restore and remodel aging facilities.

These are the golden times.

[Mike_Cirba]

By the year 2050, there will only be 1/3rd of the courses that exist now.  The game will be played only by the elite and wealthiest people throuout the world, and golf course architecture as a profession will be relagated to a few practitioners that can restore and remodel aging facilities.

These are the golden times.

I'm really sorry to say that I agree, Dick.   That's what the current demographics strongly suggest.  

Guess you need about 20 naysayers.  

[RJ_Daley]

I'm finding it hard to be controversial or an out-of-the-box thinker about gca.  Maybe this thread is more suited to Barney.

[Tom_Doak]

MP Cirba:

I'd disagree with your post.  I know I'm not alone but I think I am qualified to disagree.

I think you can build a 6 on any site if you build great greens.  Now, if it's dead flat, that means you have to do some earthwork to make it work ... but heck, you have to do some earthwork just to make it drain.  Even a minimalist has to go that far.

[Mike_Cirba]

Tom,

I figured you'd be here...  

Dead flat land would likely be a 2 or 3...a predominance of wetlands and an industrial site background might take it to a 1.

But a 5 suggests some ground with at least a bit of elevation change and some interest, whereby it would be more difficult to create greens that standout in any way but sloping with the native terrain.

Would you post suggest that minimalism mostly applies tee to green, but once at the green, anything goes as long as it could be somehow tied in?

[Peter Pallotta]

Mark

The basic challenge to the purist Minimalist Philosophy is that so few golfers wish the land to be honoured above all else.  

Peter

[Dan_Callahan]

The role of a golf course is to provide a playing field for competition. The importance of architecture is secondary to the ability of one golfer to get the ball in the hole in fewer strokes than his opponents.

[Andrew Summerell]

Macdonald's use of templates at NGLA, although improving American golf at the time, was due to his lack of understanding of golf course architecture. Forcing templates on to any landform gave rise to many unnatural courses pre WWI.

The concept of the ‘template’ gave permission to post WWII ‘dark ages’ architects to force their designs, with post war machinery, on any landform & make the last break away from minimalist ideals. The religion of 'Macdonaldism' set post WWII architecture back 40 years.

 

[Mark Bourgeois]

Lessee...

Mike, I think it comes down to how you define minimalism in the siting and construction of greens.  I take it for example you would not consider Pinehurst #2 or Royal Worlington as qualifying for minimalist status?  If you would, then I disagree with your statement! (Which puts your post so far in first place, at the 33rd percentile.)

Dan, I'm not sure I disagree, but I'm not sure I agree, either!  Let me think this one through...The "ability" of a golfer is measured by his ability to hit the shot the architecture demands.  If you are saying a golfer's ability trumps the architecture; i.e., he may ignore the shot "recommended" by the architecture and still succeed by hitting a vastly different shot; then that's probably course-dependent and golfer-dependent, yes?  For example, what about Nicklaus's courses that are supposed to "demand" the high fade?

So....I guess I disagree! (You're in the 50th percentile, 1 out of 2 agree with the post.)

RJ, I disagree entirely -- and with Mike's agreement. The history of golf is a story of greater inclusion not less and strongly tied to the growing wealth of economies.  So far that puts your post in the 67th percentile. (Mike and you vs. me: 2 agree, 1 disagree.)

Peter, I've started in on yours about five times and each time get tangled up thinking about how golfers I know would respond.  (Pause.) And now that I've done that, I disagree very strongly with your statement. 50th percentile...

Here's mine: the PGA Tour should strip The Masters of its major status on the grounds of architectural malpractice and bestow it on a course that presents the type of test for which ANGC formerly was known, even if that course is nowhere near Augusta, GA, geographically or culturally. The options may include building an entirely-new course somewhere else, be it in the hinterlands of China, on an island in the North Hebrides, or on a methane-ridden landfill in the shadow of the Whitestone Bridge.

History, tradition, etc. etc. should be secondary to presenting the unique, architecturally-defined test that was The Masters.

Mark

EDIT: Andrew S., oh do I disagree. 50th percentile...and counting.

[wsmorrison]

Mike Cirba,

Flynn's Boca Raton South course was on essentially flat ground (10' of elevation change) and that course would probably be a Doak 9 or 10 if it were intact today.

My anti-groupthink statement would be something like,

Macdonald overlooked more interesting land and better turf for NGLA because he relied too much on template designs thus selecting the site for its suitability for template holes.

[Steve Lang]

 

I think the last ice age glaciers have had more influence on North American/Canadian gca than gc architects.  People have finally warmed to the idea, like in KS & NE & AB, eh?

[Mark Bourgeois]

Wayne and Andrew, it sounds like you two agree!

[wsmorrison]

Mark,

I didn't even read Andrew's post.  YES.  I agree with him completely.  I am glad (and relieved) to find someone else that thinks like I do.  It was lonely in the wilderness  

[Kalen Braley]

Since Mr. Mucci hasn't chimed in yet, I'll be a proxy stand in:

"If Pebble Beach were not built near the ocean, it would be a 3 on the Doak scale instead of the 9-10 that it is now.  If you take all those GCA posted pictures and scribble out the non-course backdrops, you can cleary see the course for what it really is."  

[Mark Bourgeois]

A 3?! No way.  I would have plenty of fun playing the 6th for example if it were inland, unless I had to deal with the childish quality of the blacked-in sky.





Those coastal courses in SoCal show how Pebble's quality isn't all about the ocean.

Mark

[Dan King]

Bifurcation would be excellent for golf, but nobody is proposing it be taken to the appropriate extreme. The pro golfers’ tournaments should stop being played on golf courses, where nature tends to add too much of the element of luck. They should play on virtual golf courses, where they can control the course and weather with the push of a button. I’m not sure if they should bother traveling around to different parts of the country, or just build a state-of-the-art studio in Ponte Vedra, Florida. Playing only in Florida would solve all of the golfers tax issues needing to deal with taxes in every state they make money. Since the government is footing the bill, it shouldn't matter if the pros travel or the ams for the weekly pro-am. I like the idea of a studio audience, with lighted prompts telling them when to clap and when to oooh and aaah.

This might actually grow out of a Supreme Court® decision when a journeyman golfer sues the PGA Tour® for giving the better tee times to the better players. The virtual golf would be the best answer for making tee times fair for all competitors.

Eventually the game would become bifurcated with those that want to play just like their favorite pro who only play their golf at PGA Tour® facilities, and the rest who play on the old-fashioned natural courses. They would be called Nature Golfers. Us nature golfers (I will be one) will need much less manicured courses, because we will rebel against the entire idea of technology golf. The game for the few of us will return more to the idea of cross-country golf – or maybe more courses like Sheep Ranch.

Cheers,
Dan King

The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog.  The man will be there to feed the dog.  The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment.  
 --Warren G. Bennis

[Kalen Braley]

Dan,

They already have such a game... And its online...and its free to play!!!!

http://shotonline.gamescampus.com/

While I doubt I could beat many on this site in the real game of golf, I would own you in the virtual world where my character can hit 210 yard 7 irons and my drives often go 360-370.    But only cause I'm a level 54...  

[Mark Bourgeois]

Three more:

"Golf architecture isn't overrated, but architects are.  The value of one architect over another is purely a matter of minor aesthetic issues."

"The major failure in the game today isn't the ball but architects' poverty of imagination.  If only today's generation were as willing to experiment and take chances, then today's courses would be as fun today as those of yesteryear designed for the Haskell."

"Even putting 'golf architecture' in the same sentence as 'art' is a joke.  Golf architecture fails the test of art on many, many levels."

[Mike_Cirba]

Am I still in the lead?  

I think my batting average is .000 with Tom Doak, Mark Bourgeois, and Wayne Morrison disagreeing with me.

I'll show them how they are all wrong later.  

[George Pazin]

Macdonald overlooked more interesting land and better turf for NGLA because he relied too much on template designs thus selecting the site for its suitability for template holes.

Now THIS is a bold, anti-gca post (not anti in any negative sense, just anti in the against the prevailing tide sense).

Of course, I have no idea if it's true.

I'll disagree with Mike C as well, to help out his average.

My statement is that the two best Opens of recent memory setup wise were Shinnecock '04 and Sandwich '03.

ADDENDUM: Mark B, you're making a strong push for best non-architect, non-greenkeeper poster. And, no, that's not my 5% statement.

[Mike_Young]

Most ODGs could not survive today.....

[wsmorrison]

Seth Raynor was only a fair architect.  However, he is the best damn surveyor/architect ever!

[George Pazin]

Most ODGs could not survive today.....

And yet their work is most cherished by all.

Figure that one out.

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