[Jeff_Brauer]

Good morning all, and Happy Thanksgiving!

I got a few new golf books in this week, and have been concurrently browsing "The 7th at St. Andrews", "Evolution of Pinehurst" and "Evolution of the Old Course."  I will refrain from commenting too specifically because I am browsing so far, and I might get mixed up and credit Ross with the Old Course, Kidd with Pinehurst and Old Tom with the Castle Course, or something like that.

But one thing did strike me with the two evolution books -

First they are written by relatively lesser known gca's rather than historian/buffs.

Second, they focus on evolution of the courses, rather than opening day "static snapshots" of the works of Golden Age masters.  It seems that these books report more and lament less, so are better actually history, without the 'tude, as it were.

I wonder if these books are actually some kind of harbinger of the next trend in golf course architecture after the "restoration movment?"  Perhaps they signal the "evolution movement" which could combine both the sensitivity that was lacking in many earlier course updates with the practical reality that courses must change for a variety of reasons, and perhaps we have over focused on stopping the inevitable?

I think I am an evolutionist!  

[Adam Clayman]

Second, they focus on evolution of the courses, rather than opening day "static snapshots" of the works of Golden Age masters.  It seems that these books report more and lament less, so are better actually history, without the 'tude, as it were.
 

Jeff, GM and HT to you too.

This tude you refer to.... I assume it's meant as a general criticism of some of the members of this forum, or this forum's non-existent "groupthink"?

My first reaction is that it takes two to tude. Especially online.

Now, if you're refering to other authors who are not, and will likely never be, GCA's, I wouldn't know about that.

However, if you are referring to concepts or specifics like original green sizes, I will un-attitudinally disagree.  

I do love a good evolved bunker, though. One with a special nastiness, as to make it unique, and, unusual to the extent that some poor bastards decries its existence, or, unkept presentation. Now that may be just an over-reaction to how uninspired I find standardly maintained ones.

[Norbert P]

Jeff, Bernard and Charles Darwin would be proud.

 

 "(Changes at Woking...) happen at the instigation of a small secret Junta, and after a little grumbling, such as is only right and proper, the members settle down and admit that the alterations are exceedingly ingenious and the course more entertaining than ever."
B. Darwin  "The Golf Courses of the British Isles"  

[Lloyd_Cole]

Jeff

Regarding TOC,
Are you referring to the Scott McPherson book?
and Pinehurst,
is it Richard Mandell's 'The home of American Golf'? (which is subtitled the Evolution of a Legend)?

[Norbert P]

 (Paraphrased and probably garbled from memory)

"We didn't put many bunkers in. We figured we'd wait and see where the most divots were taken and then put bunkers there when the course could afford it."

   Eddie Hackett about Carne Links

[Daryn_Soldan]

Not sure I'm allowed to address anything dealing with evolution as I sit here on the grounds of a public university in the state of Kansas ... but here goes.

Regarding the books, I'll have to add these to the holiday reading list. Its my opinion that there is a lot to be learned by the inquiring mind from a comprehensive history that details all changes and the factors/processes behind them. It kind of sets one up to form their own semi-educated conclusions. As for the 'tude, or the perception thereof, doesn't it stem from the fact that when deeming a change good or bad there is a judgement based on preference involved? If its my preference, then I most likely don't have an issue with it, but someone else might.

Don't golf course architects design with the understanding that change, good and bad, will occur to their work over time? Isn't it within reason to assume that architects of years past did the same? Looking at restoration, maybe you like opening-day 1936 but I prefer the contemporary version, with its concessions for addional length, safety and improved circulation. Of course, I would like to see the golden age architectural elements restored where appropriate and necessary changes made in the spirit of the original designer. However, doesn't it severely limit potential to handcuff a project to a specific date it time? While this viewpoint undoubtably ruffles the feathers of some, why should it be considered all that bad?

Also on the subject of golf course evolution, Jeff have you been involved in the current "evolution" going on with the bunkers here at Colbert Hills?

-Daryn

[BCrosby]

(Paraphrased and probably garbled from memory)

"We didn't put many bunkers in. We figured we'd wait and see where the most divots were taken and then put bunkers there when the course could afford it."

   Eddie Hackett about Carne Links

Are you suggesting this is a good way to design a golf course? Really?

BTW, I would guess that the changes Darwin admired at Woking might have been those conceived and carried out John Low and Stuart Paton. Not exactly your average greens committeemen.

Bob

[Bill_McBride]

(Paraphrased and probably garbled from memory)

"We didn't put many bunkers in. We figured we'd wait and see where the most divots were taken and then put bunkers there when the course could afford it."

   Eddie Hackett about Carne Links

Are you suggesting this is a good way to design a golf course? Really?

I've ready that this is how Mr. Fownes handled the problem of improbable shots at Oakmont.  When he saw somebody hit a shot where he didn't think they should be able to, a bunker appeared there almost overnight.  This would be dictatorial evolution.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Daryn,

Yes, they consulted me about the bunker removals and reductions. I was up there last year and made a report. I got photos of the first few bunkers they built yesterday, via email from Dave Gourlay.  

Lloyd,

Yes those are the books I am reading right now......I guess I thought everyone would know that, since I ordered them last week after seeing discussion of same here recently.  Maybe I am wrong on that groupthink thing.

Adam,

I am not sure who I am referring to exactly although most of the books that have influenced preservation have come from historians rather than gca's in the last 15 years or so.  Tom's book on MacKenzie was an exception.

That said, I am not so sure that makes as much difference to me as the fact that these books are on courses rather than gca's.  And, they seem to discuss their evolution very factually rather than an attitude of "Here is what they put on the ground originally and here is what got changed (or, IMHO "ruined" at least according to some authors.  MacPherson goes into the changes inspired by equipment changes and the Open.  Richard Mandell also discusses some of the fianances and ownership issues, all of which affect the evolution of any course, but of course he is discussing Pinehurst.

Just as a point of view of writing, I found that approach refreshing.  Then I extended that thought to wonder if there is a new paradigm shift (you may recall me raising that topic earlier this year here) on how to look at golf courses.  In other words, they are what they are, and not they aren't what they were?

As Daryn alludes, I think most gca's figure their work will get changed someday, either by forces of nature, money, etc.  I esp. liked the MacPherson book which seems to document that there was considerable study on ball flight, etc. and changes to the Old Course were made for very specific reasons, like changes to equipment.

If we look at changes to golf courses, they can be reflections of nature (like shifting dunes) money (depression) equipment (longer drives) equipment (maintenance) grasses, etc.  If change is inevitable, then a thought process to accomodate that might be more beneficial than one that focuses on preserving a museum piece (although I think there should be some, like NGLA, but agin, thats my preference)

I think most of the changes on classic courses people oppose here were ones made where the course was changed in style simply to look different. (of course, sometimes the market dictates that, too, such as when private clubs go public)

Evolution is the perfect term, I think.  If we look at a golf course as a collection of design features, then perhaps only the "fittest" of those features is worthy to survive for all time.  If others prove a bit less than perfect, they don't survive and are changed.

Anyway, that thought occurred to me, and this is a discussion group, so discuss!

[BCrosby]

There is no reason to suppose a priori that a course evolves for the better. It might, but it is equally likely that it might not.

The mere fact that a course has changed over the years says nothing about whether those changes have been for the better or for the worse.

Where the course was originally designed by an architect of recognized skills, the presumption ought to be that his design be given great deference. That doesn't mean you can't ever change anything. It does mean that those seeking change ought to have the burden of proof.

Bob

[Jeff_Brauer]

Bob,

Actually, that is kind of the opposite of my point!  While its possible that a course might be changed willy nilly for the worse, I usually tend to give those old guys who were in charge then the credit for generally doing what's best under the circumstances they faced.  What makes our opinions, decades after they happen automatically better (other than hindsight, of course!)

No scientist, or ahem lawyer would presume anything would they?  Why do we do it when assessing golf design?  

For that matter, given the absolute thrashing and public debate occurring over any substantial issue - whether FDR and the New Deal or W and the war in Iraq, why exactly should golf architectural features get a free pass because of someones "credentials?"  

It seems to me that if the design were truly great and could foresee all that might happen in the future that it would survive on its own merits, after open debate, no?  On the other hand, I kind of agree that those making changes ought to sort of have the burden of proof for changing specific features. In short, propose to change X because of reason Y, rather than "just because."

That's what the TOC book seems to look at.  There were many studies done on how much further the balls were going, and that seems to have led to certain bunker removals, tee additions, and much more.

[BCrosby]

"[W]hy exactly should golf architectural features get a free pass because of someones "credentials?""

I don't think we have a big problem with Golden Age courses that have not been changed enough. I don't hear complaints that we have too many museum pieces from the 1920's.

It's quite the opposite. Thousand of GA courses with impeccable credentials have undergone many, many changes. The majority of which are quite bad, done for bad reasons. That seems to me a basic fact on the ground.

That's what feeds the market for restoration work. People are unhappy with their current, changed courses.

Architects from eight decades ago shouldn't be expected to anticipate changes in the game. Cases can and should be make for changes in light of the evolution of the game. But that's the easy part. Doing that well is the hard part.  

But I see no reason to think that because changes were made, they must have been for the better. That seems to me to be untrue as an empirical matter.

Bob

[Rich Goodale]

Thousand of GA courses with impeccable credentials have undergone many, many changes. The majority of which are quite bad, done for bad reasons. That seems to me a basic fact on the ground.
Bob

That's a pretty sweeping statement, Counsellor. Evidence, please (or perhaps you would like to withdraw the statement....).

I'm generally in Jeff's camp, partly because I have a lot of experience playing golf courses that have been improved, some just a bit, some vastly, since the "golden age."   Most of these are on this (Eastward) side of the pond, but they include some of the finest courses in the world--Royal County Down, Portmanock, Royal Dornoch, Carnoustie, Western Gailes, Royal Aberdeen, Lahinch, even the Old Course.....  There are others that have changed neither for better or for worse, but certainly in line with the wishes of the ownership/membership.

I think it is far more arrogant for someone who is not a "stakeholder" in a course to think that he or she is somehow more qualified to decide what to do with a piece of property than the owners, than for the owners to choose to do something which will make that piece of property they own more pleasurable for them.  This is the MacWood fallacy.

Yes, there are some courses out there (e.g. NGLA, Cypress, but the list peters out soon after these are mentioned) that might deserve some sort of protected status, but hands up how many people beleive that the membership of either club will ever agree to having their hands tied (even very loosley) by a bunch of internet geeks who think they know better about what should or should not be done to their course than they do?  This is Walter Mitty territory.

Golf courses do evolve, regardless of whether or not significant artichetctural changes are made, for reasons of geology, weather, the effects of golfers and maintenance practices.  Anybody who thinks they are playing today on the same course that was here 80-100 years ago is just dreaming.  In fact I would posit that the all of the great courses of today also look, feel and play far differently than they did even 25 years ago.

Change happens.  GCA is not a static art.  Let's deal with it rather than set lines in what will always be a shifting sand.

[Mark_Fine]

Back in 2003 I did a presentation at the Penn State Turf Grass Conference titled, What is Hiding Under All Those Years of "Improvements".  The answer of course is your original golf course.  The point of the talk is that all courses are alive and changing.  One of the key points is that "Some improve with age but some don't".  I've always felt that it was important to figure out what you had before going ahead with any kind of renovation program.  Once you've done your course evolution research, then you can decide on a plan for the future.  Chronologies of how a course has evolved is a great way to show such change.  

[TEPaul]

JeffB:

I think the next phase of the so-called restoration renaissance for those clubs and courses really dedicated to it just may be what I call "Holding the Look" through specific maintenance practices designed for that purpose.

[BCrosby]

Rich -

I promise, I am not making this stuff up.

There are as we speak hundreds of courses by GA architects that have been changed over the last eight decades. And those clubs now want to restore all or a part of their original designs.

Neither I nor Tom MacWood nor anyone else is shoving that idea down anyone's throat. It is the clubs themselves that want restorations. Because they are unhappy with the changes to their courses.

I think it is empirically untrue that course changes tend to be for the better.  Some might be. But there is no reason to think that because changes have been made they are presumptively improvements. I see no reason why special credence ought to be given to the design changes Joe Everyday Golfer made in 1976 to a 1924 Ross course.

In fact, the burden ought to be reversed. Deference ought to be given to the design choices of the GA architect. As noted, I am urging only deference. There may be cases where changes make sense. But I would hope those changes are made only after a careful weighing of what the original architect was trying to do.

But the notion that change is good per se is just wrong. And if it is buttressed by some Darwinian notion of evolution, it is a misapplication of Darwin.  

Bob

[TEPaul]

Richard:

As usual you pretty much miss the point in your post #12.

I don't think Bob Crosby is saying that the geeks on this website should have some kind of architectural or maintenance authority over some Golden Age courses and what the memberships do with them. It seems Bob Crosby is saying that a whole host of memberships are now into restoring their courses both architecturally and via maintenance practices that make those old courses play a lot more like they were designed to be played.

Some of the things Tom MacWood proposed were frankly down right inconsiderate of memberships or perhaps even completely oblivious to them. When asked about that and questioned about it he merely responded that was not his responsibility---only trying to protect those old courses was his responsibility.

That probably sounds good to some on here as it sounds very purist but it's totally unrealistic. There's no course in the world Tom MacWood is going to be able to preserve or protect without convincing the membership of the utility of doing that.

The fact he could never understand that or accept it is just beyond me.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Bob,

To start with, I too think your arguments need some factual basis.  It is a value judgement as to whether its worse, better, or equal but different.  I agree with Mark Fine - a real study of the course and its changes is superior to an assumption that the original plans ought to be followed.

The problem is, you are buying into a fantasy that doesn't exist! Looking at the Pinehurst book, the greens were changed numerous times by Ross himself and then by others. It didn't start in the 1970's.  It started almost as soon as the course was done, changing greens from sand to grass, updating and toughening for the 1936 tournament, and then tinkering as Ross found things wrong (or more positively, that could be better) with the course.

And the bunkers were flashed up, while now everyone thinks they know that Ross bunkers have the sand in the bottom.  Frankly, many of the old bunker pictures in the book don't make the original PH bunkers look all that great.  Not bad, but probably not worthy of preservation if other southern resorts had developed a better client base because their courses were more visually spectacular.

The process continued (for better or worse, and actually, probably a lot of both) until today. Looking at the pictures of the original greens in Richard Mandell's book, its clear that even Ross changed a bunch of them. On one photo, Rich notes the green contours were above the caddies head!

TEPaul,

Not sure I see people trying to artifically maintain courses to anything other than today's highest standards, so I would love to hear a real world example of that if you have one.

If you are talking about holding the look of rough edge bunkers, I understand what you are talking about, although we could also make the argument that they should be subject to evolution, as well, rather than maintained exactly as restored.  I do understand the need to keep up what you paid to build, restore, whatever.

OF course, you may be the first evolutionist, with your wonderful study of GM, which I thought to mention earlier, but didn't.

[TEPaul]

"OF course, you may be the first evolutionist, with your wonderful study of GM, which I thought to mention earlier, but didn't."

Jeff:

Maybe I was the first to track just the design evolution of a golf course in a report done for no other reason than to track the design evolution of a golf course.  

If so, I guess someday I would like to know that. All I can tell you is when I did it I had nothing similar to go on that had been done before that I was aware of.

There had been numerous club history books done previous that mentioned the design evolutions of their courses but nothing I'm aware of dedicated exclusively to that subject.

Somebody once asked me why I did it and I honestly can't remmber. I think it was because I was so surprised how different the course looked when I first saw some very early aerials of it compared to the way I knew it about three quarters of a century later.

[TEPaul]

Frankly, Jeff, I just don't include modern agronomics as part of the equation to returning a course architecturally to the way it once was or even also basically returning the intended playability to the way it once was or was designed to be or intended to be.

One can have far better agronomics than say back in 1925 but the course can look and play remarkably similar to back then. The only real difference would be it would be in what so many golfers over time have called "better condition". And that item in and of itself has always been what all golfers and all architects and superintendents strove for anyway.

[Sean_A]

(Paraphrased and probably garbled from memory)

"We didn't put many bunkers in. We figured we'd wait and see where the most divots were taken and then put bunkers there when the course could afford it."

   Eddie Hackett about Carne Links

Are you suggesting this is a good way to design a golf course? Really?
Bob

Bob

Its probably an excellent way to design a course given budget limitations.  The club has been working toward building a third nine for at least 5 years now - thats the reality (and a prudent approach imo) for many, many clubs.  I for one am mighty glad there wasn't a guy standing around with a ton of dosh when Carne was conceived.  

I find it interesting that folks can draw a line maintenance-wise in restoration issues, but feel that that the architectural design should not be compromised and yet not think there is a value judgement being made.  It is clear to me that the two go hand in hand.  TomP, I think you are well off base in stating that the look and play of a course can be similar to whatever long gone year, yet the conditions far improved.  First off, we don't have proper factual evidence to know for certain how courses played.  As much guesswork goes into these, well guesses (if truth be told) as predictions of weather patterns for the next 5 years.  IMO, folks use stuff like this to justify why they want to do something.  Thats fair enough, but remember that the other sides of the argument have their anecdotal evidence and value judgements as well.  

I for one don't believe there is any such thing as a restoration (current mumbo jumbo to sell tickets) because times have moved on way too far.  There are always issues which require compromise & value judgements whether building from scratch or trying to recreate architectural integrity.  This is not a value judgement, just a statement of fact.  Evolution marches on with or without our consent.  

However, I also believe that in an ideal world some courses should be preserved as museum pieces.  But the bottom line is - SO WHAT?  

Ciao

[Mark_Fine]

Sean,
As Tom Paul knows, architects such as Flynn liked to keep "flexibility" in their plans particularly regarding pits and bunkers.  Flynn once said that the location of some of the bunkers, "can be determined better after the course has been completed and played on for a time".  I suspect Flynn would feel the same way many years later if his original design intent had changed.  

I understand that you don't believe in "restoration", but I feel the concept still has merit and is more than just a passing fad.  I look at it more as the evaluation of the course evolution history and the restoration of the original design intent more so than the absolute restoring of the original design features (though in some cases they could be one in the same).  The key as I stated above, is taking the time to figure out what was there in the first place and note how it has changed over the years and whether the change was for the better or for the worse.  

[Norbert P]

 If the implements of the sport have evolved from the time a golf course was conceived and layed out, then the course must evolve.  If someone says a course built in 1850 should be held in check for artistic or historical reasons, then let that person play the course with hickory and featherie. He or she may find they love it or will miss the modern tools and cower and say something like "well, maybe the tees can be stretched."

B Crosby, I do believe in what Eddie Hackett said because I believe in what Sean Arble said.  

[Jeff_Brauer]

I was just re-reading Hawtree's 1983 book on golf design called "The golf course - planning, design, construction, & maintenance"

In one photo, he shows changes to an old green at Moor Park 12th hole.  The caption is the typical British understatement -
"The original cross bunker evidently failed to please."

Pretty well sums up why golf courses get changed, I think.

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