[Patrick_Mucci]

Tom MacWood has long maintained that clubs should seek to restore their golf courses to their "architectural high water mark'.

While most might agree, the question remains, how do you determine that point ?  And, equally as important,
WHO determines that point ?  And, is it an absolute ?

Sitting here in 2004, how does one determine the architectural high water mark on a golf course dating back to the early 1900's ?  None of us have the slightest familiarity with the play of the course throughout it's history, so on what basis can the determination of the high water mark be made ?

TEPaul and Tom MacWood would cry out RESEARCH.
Research may uncover facts about the course, but, that alone doesn't make the determination of the high water mark of the golf course, AND, is the research irrefutable, is it accurate and unbiased ?

Writings about a golf course only provide insight into the author's opinion.

So, will the search for the "architectural high water mark" be a search for the Holy Grail, leaving those interested in a restoration frustrated and unable to draw a conclusion ?

Would a club be better served by picking a point in time, co-incidental with a moment in their history, or a date in time that reflects the integrity of the original or favorably altered design that can be irrefutably documented through photographic and print evidence, or, a combination of both ?

What would the "architectural high water mark" be for any golf course, and who's QUALIFIED to make that call ?  

[Jim_Kennedy]

Pat,
Look at the vast amount of research that George Bahto has done as regards the Yale GC, it shows the true nature of what was originally built. If the desire is to restore a course as a showplace for the style and design genius of its architect than this type of research is essential to the task. I think it could be said that Yale's high water mark was achieved the day the course was opened.

Researching a point in time and restoring a course to it seems better suited for courses that have seen major changes, like routing or the overwriting of holes, to the original architect's work. Competent researchers can provide historical records and offer qualified opinions but it is those paying for the work who decide which page is the highest water mark for their course.    

[Patrick_Mucci]

Jim Kennedy,

I think Yale might have been an unusual situation in that George obtained an incredible amount of evidence, including construction and post construction photos.
I don't know of many club's with that depth of  documentation available to them.

And yet, with that overwhelming body of evidence, probably more evdence then any other club, Yale failed miserably in what might be called a restoration attempt.

What qualifications do those with the money have other then their bank balance ?  Yale might be a perfect example of funds gone wrong, but, I don't want to divert this thread by
focusing on Yale.

[ChipOat]

Patrick:

Your penultimate paragraph identifies what several clubs with an "historical" past have chosen to do.  When committees and multiple conflicting BIASES amongst the membership are involved, it's probably the best way to get something useful done.

But who says that there were no good changes made since that time?

It's a puzzle.  The best answer is to pass a federal law that all clubs must be governed by a benevolent dictator.  Mistakes will still happen but they are more likely to be unwound faster, in my observation.

 

[Jim_Kennedy]

Pat,
I used Yale as an example of a course whose AHWM, I feel, was established through solid research. Whatever event or period of time a club may choose as their AHWM, solid research is needed to identify these events and the state of their architecture at the time.
A club may have hired a researcher to give them data and to offer professional opinion but the ultimate choice is going to come from the person or persons who paid for it, qualified or not.

[kwl]

good topic, but you must be travellin' at the speed of light cuz i'm in 2003.

high water mark? beauty is in the eye of the beholder. no single answer. i like your autocratic/malevolent/benevolent dictator approach for the green "committee"...you got the biggest engine (most knowledge, experience, etc)-you make the decisions. then i guess we must determine how to rate knowledge and experience. shishhhhhh.

[TEPaul]

The question from one Patrick Mucci IS:

"What would the "architectural high water mark" be for any golf course, and who's QUALIFIED to make that call?"

The answer to the first part, in my opinon, and of course in the opinion of the good restoration architects I know is to take a look at ALL the available research, analyze it intelligently and then decide hopefully with the aid of minutes, photos and aerials what's the best the course ever offered for what the club's membership wants and needs that's best for all now!  

That's the first part--but the second part of who's QUALIFIED to make that call--all I can say is hopefully the club can identify that person who understands golf course architecture the best, the parameter of maintenance and can help explain and educate committees and memberships as to what restoratively will work best for them.

But there is a caveat to who's QUALIFIED? If any club happens to have Pat Mucci as a member or anyone like him they'll need to suspend him from the club the first day this process begins and not allow him to return to the club grounds until the restoration is totally done. Another but more risky measure with Pat or anyone like him would be to let him remain but put a Hannibal Lecter mask on him if and when he's allowed on club grounds.

I'd advise the first recommendation of suspension as the latter of only a Hannibal Lecter mask still has certain unforseen risks like total memberhip turmoil and even revolt and maiming!

That's how it's done fellows--and I think Tom MacWood might agree at this point.

[T_MacWood]

Pat
"Sitting here in 2004, how does one determine the architectural high water mark on a golf course dating back to the early 1900's ?  None of us have the slightest familiarity with the play of the course throughout it's history, so on what basis can the determination of the high water mark be made ?"

That's very true...but isn't that true with most every restoration project...having never played the old 12th at GCGC...what are your reasons for restoring it?

I agree with TE, dig up all the information, present it all to the club or designated representative of the club (with perhaps your thoughts....your opinion of lost features that should be restored and your reasons). And let the club make the final determination...with the assistance of a qualified architect.

IMO documenting the achitectural evolution is one thing, but I also believe it is useful to document (if possible) as many historic thoughts and opinions. For example what were Travis's thoughts about the old 12th, Emmet's thoughts, Colt's thoughts, Tillinghast's thoughts, RTJ's thoughts, and any other respected opinions...that way you can put the hole or features into historical perspective and understand the pros and cons.

On the other hand not every golf course is GCGC, there are many courses that aren't really canidates for a full blown restoration or any type of restoration....either because they weren't much to start or maybe they are currently at or near their architectural high point...might have Merion fell into that catagory?  

[TEPaul]

redanman:

Good thinking there with the high water mark being when an "optimization of options" was realized. That's a catchy little phrase there. Perhaps you might think about taking out a "mark" on that one before either the USGA or some manufacturer rips it off of you.

A time when an 'optimization of options was realized'. I like that a lot. Would you care to join me for a round in 1919 or should we be a bit more futuristic and play it in 1929 or perhaps get really modern and tee it up in 1939?  

[TEPaul]

"or maybe they are currently at or near their architectural high point...might have Merion fell into that catagory? "

Tom MacW;

No way! Merion was at its high point on June 12, 1971 at 9:17am! Richie Valentine told me that.

It took them 59 years, 3 months, 4 days, 10 hours and 14 minutes to get to that high point and it's been downhill ever since. High water marks and restorations are tricky and elusive business you know?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tom MacWood,

After all these years a good deal of important documentation has been lost to fires, the building of a new club house, the renovating of old club houses, house cleaning, carelessness, management changes, etc., etc..

The ability to find comprehensive and not just select documentation is often impossible.

If you played the 12th at GCGC today, you'd recognize in a heart beat why the hole should be restored.
The hole is so out of charactrer, architecturally, visually and from a playability point of view.
Tommy Naccarato took one look at it and decided to walk from the 11th green to the 13th tee.  It's that obvious.

And then, when you see and study the aerial and ground level photos of the hole, the objective becomes crystal clear.

When you say let the club decide, who decides for the club, the current executive committee ot board, composed of members who might not be in tune with architecture in general and the club's architecture in particular ??

A club needs a leader with vision, anything short of that delays or deep sixes the process.

And, after any club continues for 10, 20 or 30 years without embarking on a needed restoration, do you draw the conclusion that the club doens't get it, that the members aren't interested in restoration, and that apathy or modernization might have become their focus ??  

Not all clubs have the luxury of being able to obtain a complete documentation of their architectural history.

I've seen so many courses in New Jersey disfigured over the years, losing their distinct architectural design.  Are all of them great, no, but alot of them were good golf courses, enjoyable to play day in and day out.

Tennis courts, paddle tennis courts, parking lot extensions, clubhouse extensions, committee decisions, selling off of holes and swimming pool construction are just a few of the factors that play a role in the disfiguration of courses.
 
Redanman,

And, how do you evaluate and determine that point in time at which optimization of options was realized ?

[ian]

Some times you don't decide on the date, the date picks you. The best accurate information may be 10 years after opening. If thats the only solid source than you must respect it.

I've had two courses with opening day photos of everything, there is no guessing, no judgement, no gray. I have worked with 60 other clubs, the rest is all shades of grey where you make the best call you can.

As for Merion, they felt that 1930 was the most important historical moment in the club's history. They feel they restored to that date. Ignoring the actual work (because I have NO interest in that tired OLD arguement), were they right to pick that date? Should it have been 1950? 1971? or a combination of dates.

I personally believe in paying attention to where evolution produced a better bunker than the origional architect. At St Georges I kept a few sections of bunkers that had evolved into wonderfully unique faces, even though I had proof that they were not origional. Was I wrong? Should the restoration been absolute? I don't think so because I don't believe every course is perfect on opening day.

Going back to Merion, it is really hard to ignore what Richie Valentine developed. Merion to me is the ultimate restoration question (especially with all the historical evidence). At Merion, I don't think one simple date gives you the answer. I think Gil, Tom and any other architect faced a really difficult question of to where?

I find Merion makes Garden City seem simple in comparison, but yet look at the length of that debate.

Pat if you want the Holy Grail, just listen for the sound of the coconuts, that's where the answer lies.

[ian]

I've just been informed that I am guilty of logorrhea and I am banished from the site.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Ian Andrew,

I would agree, there is no absolute, perfect point in time for the vast majority, if not all courses.

At best, it's an interpretive decision, hopefully made by knowledgeable, wise people, with as much evidence as they can gather.

As you indicated, having great data on only two (2) of sixty-two (6) courses proves my point, that obtaining this data is difficult if not impossible in most cases.

I also think you're correct in that a current assessment has to be made to see if alterations made since the original improve the holes.  That too is a highly subjective chore, and again, one has to hope that the right people are weighing the evidence, which is most often not the case.

If a club has an abundance of evidence for a given year or period, and little else in the way of historical data, serious consideration should be given to picking a target year from within those time frames, provided that the discovery process leads to the conclusion that they represent sound architecture, not necessarily the "architectural high water mark" which is difficult if not impossible to determine on the vast majority of golf courses.

I always thought that the various societies could provide wonderful guidance and direction in this area.

The Donald Ross Society, Tillinghast, Travis, and the soon to be unveiled Flynn Society could be spectacular resources for clubs seeking to restore those courses.

The "architectural high water mark" has a nice ring, but how on earth can you establish it, objectively and unanimously, at any club

[TEPaul]

Ian:

It really is great to have you on this site. Having gone through over sixty restoration projects--that really is going through "The Wars" my Man! That definitely gives you a huge leg up on understanding ALL the nuts and bolts of what restoration projects involve---and very much including presenting them to and passing them through memberships successfully.

Personally, I've only been intimately involved in one restoration project--at my own club. But I've watched you work--I've watched Gil Hanse, Ron Prichard, Ron Forse and Brian Silva and Tom Fazio & Co. and some others work on them. I've watched a bunch of supers work really well on restorations too--in-house! And I've had some fascinating conversations with Bill Coore about restorations, particularly why they aren't that interested in doing them!

Every golf course can be so different, though, because of its evolutionary history, and one needs to seriously take that into consideration. There is no ONE best prescription here but there are a few basic guidelines, in my opinion, that need to be considered very carefully when the restoration process starts and all the research material that could ever be assembled needs to be assembled FIRST!

Next post;

[T_MacWood]

Pat
"Sitting here in 2004, how does one determine the architectural high water mark on a golf course dating back to the early 1900's ?  None of us have the slightest familiarity with the play of the course throughout it's history, so on what basis can the determination of the high water mark be made ?"

You answered your own question, despite never playing the hole you said:

“If you played the 12th at GCGC today, you'd recognize in a heart beat why the hole should be restored. The hole is so out of charactrer, architecturally, visually and from a playability point of view…. And then, when you see and study the aerial and ground level photos of the hole, the objective becomes crystal clear.”

I said: present the info to the club, along with your thoughts, and let the club or an astute representative of the club, make the final determination with the help of a qualified architect. Its not fool proof. Nothing is fool proof. If they aren’t in tune with their architect, perhaps they should look elsewhere.  Maybe they (the board ) are the problem, maybe they aren’t an astute group….it happens, in those cases mistakes usually result…the landscape is littered with mistakes. Like I said its not fool proof.

Perhaps the representative will be a leader with "vision”…personally I would prefer a representative with an appreciation for architecture, and as little ego as possible, so he might be better able to absorb good advice. (a strong ego is good for preservation, not so good when change is contemplated)

“And, after any club continues for 10, 20 or 30 years without embarking on a needed restoration, do you draw the conclusion that the club doens't get it, that the members aren't interested in restoration, and that apathy or modernization might have become their focus ??”
No.

“Not all clubs have the luxury of being able to obtain a complete documentation of their architectural history.”
You are correct, sometimes it is difficult to come by the info. Maybe because the info has been destroyed or the golf course for whatever reason was not well publicized or maybe the club has no idea where to look.  If you have very little info, I would imagine it would be difficult to even rationalize a restoration.

[ian]

Sorry, I was slow to return to this thread.

I thought I would post some courses and see where YOU personally would restore to, and these are intentionally very tough. I picked a group where I would answer each dramatically differently just to get the feedback.

(I have no agenda with this question just looking to see what people think, as an architect who occasionally gets to restore, you wonder how people look at famous courses that have complete documentation and a long history; because they offer great examples both excellent and poor)

Pine Valley
-opening day the course was incredibly open
-prior to renovations by Flynn, etc.
-before the origional super began the planting program in the waste areas
-after the planting
-before the easing of difficulty begun in more recent times?
-let it evolve

Merion
1920?
1930 Bobby Jones
1950 Hogan
1971 Vallentine
let it evolve

Pebble Beach
origional layout before Egan
post Egan
after renos by Mackenzie
1971 US Open
82 US Open
let it evolve

Cypress Point
-opening day
-1980's
-just prior to restoration

Augusta
-opening day
-after Trent Jones
-after Nicklaus, Cupp, etc.
-keep it evolving

[Paul Richards]

As someone who has been a part of, and witnessed the stages you go through in a restoration, I can tell you its a pretty amazing process!

When we started on this process at Beverly about 5 years ago, hardly did I ever realize just how involved the whole process would be.

Now we are at the 'grow-in' stage - all the work is basically done (except the cart paths) - and we hope for a mild winter with a bit of snow cover for the sod to take root.

Then, come May, we can actually tee it up and enjoy the wonderful work that Ron Prichard has done in restoring our Donald Ross of a gem!!!!!

[Forrest Richardson]

Many golf courses which exist have not yet reached their
pinnacle in terms of a "high water mark". To restore such cases would be restoring to a lesser ideal.

Through changes and improvements a few of these will be improved. Improvement — when it can be realized — is a great honor to bestow on any golf course.

[TEPaul]

Paul Richards:

I couldn't agree with what you said above more. We just went through a full-blown restoration process too at my club in about the same time frame you and your club did.

Frankly, the architectural side of it wasn't all that hard to imagine--because without really knowing it at the time we were pretty darned perpared for that---eg--research. The architectural side of the project turned out just about the way I imagined it would from the beginning.

However, since nothing had been done in a restoration sense ever at GMGC naturally no one who was involved in the process had experience with the process.

It was the memberhip side of the process (contributors there really are two distinct sides to a restoration project--first the architectural plan and second taking the plan through the membership to approval and then implimentation) that we weren't very clear on and that's the part where we made some initial mistakes.

But we learned from those mistakes on the membership side of it early and corrected our approach which ended up working well for and with the membership.

I did have good advice on the membership side of a restoration project from the beginning from some architect friends of mine. Basically they said almost all memberships react to restorations initially in the very same ways. I wish I'd paid closer attention to that advice in the beginning because in retrospect those architects and their advice was dead-on accurate.

[TEPaul]

Ian:

The only ones I'd be familar with would be Merion and PVGC.

I think for Merion  he 1930 they used worked out fine. There may be a few little items and such like a few bunkers here and there that were put in for 1930 and then quickly removed which maybe shouldn't have been restored. And then the left green-side #14 is interesting and hasn't been very popular with the membership (although I must say I like it).

But the thing about 1930 with Merion it was a real easy target to take through that membership for political reasons. But no other club has a date like that one that was the year on their course when the Grand Slam was won. In a political context that made 1930 sort of a no-brainer. Was that the best the course ever was architecturally? Maybe not but it was probably close enough considering no one ever really fooled with Merion architecturally after about 1932-1934. The only changes to the course after that were pretty much just the course's normal play and maintenance evolution.

As for PVGC, if they were to consider a restoration project, the only thing I'd recommend would be to remove the trees that are either in or in anyway affect the original Crump bunkering. After that just leave the course alone and preserve it.

[ian]

Tom,

You probably know already, or will be happy to know that the Pine Valley is in a slow steady mode of removal whenever the frost is heavy enough to avoid damage. They have a list of areas that will take lots of steady work.
I thought 30's made sense at Merion , but I wasn't sure about others. The only thing that I can't get my head around is the planting in the bunkers that was so unique to the course. I found I had at least 50 different pictures from the 70's to look though at home. As a player I found I didn't like the penal nature of the plantings, but as an architect it gave the course such a wonderful unique feel.

Forrest,

Your statement is absolutely true, and there is no arguement to it. I think the only reason we like to restore (a few courses) is to preserve excellent examples of earlier architects work. Same reason we preserve buildings in cities, it offers a much richer body or work to study, and more great ideas from which to learn from.

Paul,

Your excitement is contagous and I look forward to some photos of the work.

[Forrest Richardson]

Ian,

I've had several argument/discussions here about buildings -vs- golf courses. The latter being much more suited to change. In fact, a golf course in my opinion is supposed to change. Without change it is robbed of one of its given rights. This is NOT to mean that preservation is not also a valid ideal. But there needs to be discern on what is worth preserving and what should, and needs, improving.

[TEPaul]

"Should we ® the High Water Mark® as well?"

redanman:

You can try it but don't be surprised if you're named in a class action suit by the heirs of Captains Bligh, Ahab and John Paul Jones!

And if you bother to look you'll see me in the class action suit under the heirs of Captain John Paul Jones for the simple reason that once in his young life after he murdered someone and needed to semi go underground he happened to add the name Jones to his real name which was John Paul!

[Patrick_Mucci]

redanman,

redanman,

And, how do you evaluate and determine that point in time at which optimization of options was realized ?

I dunno. Wish I had the answer to that one.  The dough would be rolling in.

Perhaps it is a bit like pornography, We know it when we see it.

The problem is, neither you nor anyone else has SEEN these courses during the 20's, 30's, 40's 50's and probably the early 60's, which makes your optimization evaluation impossible.

As with most "truths" just knowing what the choices are makes it easier to decide, but any competant architect schooled in theory of strategy should be able to make such a determination, I suppose.

How can they make that determination if they've never seen these courses, from their inception to the early 60's ?
That's a pretty big gap in time and their architectural history.

TEPaul,

As you know, there is a wonderful aerial picture in the big room, hanging by the door to the parking lot.

I've always favored a restoration to that date.

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