[Joe Hancock]

Twenty three posts into it and the word FUN hasn't been mentioned yet?

 

Joe

[Adrian_Stiff]

I think you should look at the orginal question. What are the three most important criteria for judging golf course architecture? To me this Question means... what should you take into account and evaluate when deciding if the golf architect did a good job or a bad job. As an architect you can get good and bad golf sites. I quite like the idea of producing something from a dull site, is that worse architecture than discovering a great hole that needs nothing done to it. I guess we all read questions differently.

[Tom Huckaby]

And Besides, he forgot the flask.

Huck, You seemed to get ruffled by my comment. I was actually impressed with your answer, BUT, I sensed MM meant golf courses already built.
The process and indiosyncrasies that individuals bring to a project are very important. All but a few wouldn't be privy to those, once the course is in the ground.  

I was absolutely not ruffled by the comment.  You do read me incorrectly quite often, Adam.  I took it as a compliment and went with it.

However, my answer did assume we are talking about courses already built.  And you hit it right on anyway - we're talking about COURSES, not ARCHITECTURE... which as Adrian so astutely picked up, are two different things.

TH

[mike_malone]

 Adrian,

   ( As a native Philadelphian I can't help but hear Rocky saying your name!- sorry !)


     I intended the judgment to be about components of architecture found on golf courses as one can experience them. It's like all art.


     For instance, I highly value movement in the ground and elevation changes in my evaluation of a golf course's architecture. I don't really care if it was there before the architect arrived or not. Although I usually prefer courses where it mostly was there beforehand.



   

[Tom Huckaby]

Michael:

Then you are judging golf courses, not architecture.  That's just fine and how this SHOULD be done.  It's just nice we finally clarified that.

TH

[Joe Hancock]

Michael:

Then you are judging golf courses, not architecture.  That's just fine and how this SHOULD be done.  It's just nice we finally clarified that.

TH

Tom,

Be patient with me, but how is it different judging a golf course vs. judging architecture?

Here's my line of thinking, and yes, I understand that it's usually flawed. When the Mona Lisa was painted, the paints and conditions to paint were less than ideal, compared to today, I would assume.(Climate control, lighting, etc.) But, we judge the painting on the end result. If you know of a painter who has "limitations, physically", does that make their particular paintings better? Or, are they what they are?

Explain Oh Great Yahuckaby....

[Adam Clayman]

Joe, Did you know Micky Angelo didn't even bother to finish painting one of her fingers?

Can you imagine if you and Mike left some detail out of finishing a hole?

[Adrian_Stiff]

Adrian,

   ( As a native Philadelphian I can't help but hear Rocky saying your name!- sorry !)


     I intended the judgment to be about components of architecture found on golf courses as one can experience them. It's like all art.


     For instance, I highly value movement in the ground and elevation changes in my evaluation of a golf course's architecture. I don't really care if it was there before the architect arrived or not. Although I usually prefer courses where it mostly was there beforehand.



   

Michael- I can see where you are coming from; to me Architecture means the design and build process rather than perhaps the product. Let me pose this question. Finding a great natural par 3 in the middle of sand dunes, is that architecture as such? I understand when you talk about components such as routing, fun, shot values, perhaps use of all the clubs, a reasonable balance of holes moving left of right, green complexes that sit well, make use of good vistas, that challenge the player, that can be maintained within a suitable budget are all valid but should be taken into consideration in relation to what was there before if its architecture.

[Tom Huckaby]

Joe:

I've explained already how this works; I can do no better.  Please read the entire thread.

But maybe this helps:  "architecture" to me is the means by which a golf course comes to be.  A golf course is a living venue on which to play the game of golf.  

A golfer can easily assess what a golf course means to him; he cannot adequately assess the skill of the architect in creating it unless he knows all that was overcome - or not - to make it happen.

It really doesn't seem that complex to me.

TH

[mike_malone]

 Tom,

    I have no problem with your interpretation. But my goal in this thread is to find out what is most important to people when they think about the architecture of a course as they play it. And how they compare the architecture from course to course.

[Tom Huckaby]

Tom,

    I have no problem with your interpretation. But my goal in this thread is to find out what is most important to people when they think about the architecture of a course as they play it. And how they compare the architecture from course to course.

Then quit using that one word that ruins the discussion.  The "a" word, you know?

Ask this:  what three things about a golf course make you enjoy it the most?  Some may answer in exactly the same manner, some won't.  And like I say, if you allow more than three then it gets very interesting.

But it's your thread, and I guess I've mucked it up too much as it is!

TH

[Brent Hutto]

1) Do I have fun playing it?

2) Would a much better player than myself have fun?

3) Can I easily imagine a course that used the available landforms to better advantage?

The desirable answers of course are Yes, Yes and No respectively.

I'll take as an example my own club, Columbia CC in Blythewood, SC. The main 18 was designed by Ellis Maples in 1961, with slight updating of fairway bunkering and a few greensites several years ago.

1) Yes. Of the courses I've played regularly (say more than a dozen rounds) it's the most fun. The greens have interesting contours, the most challenging shots required are either well within the capabilities of a short-hitting bogey golfer or can be played conservatively to make them so and there are indeed options off the tee and into many greens so as to allow a certain degree of "strategy". But mostly the greens are great, a major requirement for me to have fun.

So on balance I give it a B+ on the "fun for me" dimension.

2) Yes. It has always been popular for local tournaments, US Open local qualifiers, mini-tour events and so forth catering to better-than-scratch players. It plays long enough to challenge anyone short of a Tour pro yet without feeling like a total slog even when played from the way-back tees.

I'll go with B- on the "fun for good players" test since I think there are probably some who would prefer a longer course or one with more hazards in play.

3) No. While I might have a handful of ideas for how this or that hole could be arranged to better suit my own game, taken as a whole the course very efficiently utilizes the moderately rolling topography and the few water features. What wind we have in central South Carolina seems to be effectively brought into play by the course routing so that it isn't just one hole after another into or against the wind.

So I'll grade it with a solid B on the effective use of available land features. It it a little repetitive with the number of holes featuring a slightly elevated tee over a depression with the landing area into or over (depending on the player's length) a ridgeline. Not every hole repeats this them but perhaps a few too many.

[mike_malone]

 Brent,

 Are you coming up with the criteria to explain what you like about the course rather than trying to create some form of objective evaluation tool ?

   I wonder if that is what I do ?

[SL_Solow]

Tom;  How does your system evaluate the skill involved in not "screwing up" an excellent site?  Is Coore and Crenshaw's effort at Sand Hills any less outstanding because the site presented numerous opportunities for great golf that drained well?  They had to pick the holes, route them and build them.  Do you think many others would have done as well?  Similar questions re Cypress Point etc.  Is a mediocre golf course on a difficult site (eg Harborside in Chicago) a better job of architecture than a great course on a great site?  Do you think other architects would have routed Pacific Dunes the same way Tom Doak did it?  If not, can't you judge the architecture based on the end result even though we know the site was special?  I will agree that great courses built on limited sites say something special about the architect, particularly in the period before earth moving was relatively easy.

[Tom Huckaby]

Shelly:

I've never said I have the answers, I'm just asking the questions.  And to me the fact you ask the questions you did rather validates my "system" - all those questions need to be asked if we are to evaluate "architecture"; whereas they matter not really if we are talking about "golf courses."

What turns it for me is that damn near all the time us normal golfers have no clue about the site, nor the other obtacles faced.  

So to me it seems rather odd that any normal golfer would even try to evaluate "architecture."

But people have done odder things.  

To me it just seems so easy to evaluate "golf courses" instead - then you leave nothing out.

But to each his own....

TH

[Brent Hutto]

Are you coming up with the criteria to explain what you like about the course rather than trying to create some form of objective evaluation tool ?

Well...I'm just saying if I get to choose three criteria for a sort of three-parameter summary of the architecture those are the three that top the list. I guess my list is retrospective in some sense but frankly I'm not sure what first principles I'd reason from to come up with a more "objective" version.

So in other words, I'm not saying this is how everyone should evaluate architecture. I'm saying that it's what I'm able to contribute to the evaluation. I'm temperamentally ill disposed to thinking in terms of "shot values" and all that other supposedly objective stuff that course raters are asked to assign numbers to. I can really only operate at two levels, simple questions such as the three I've outlined and then a more or less anecdotal accounting of my own experience and knowledge w.r.t. those simple criteria.

Or something like that.

[Adam Clayman]

MM, Perhaps your initial post is a bit vague?

I re-read it and don't understand the premise involving the courses you cite.

How do you evaluate the two?

It would be a safe guess that many people use the same crit you do.

Shel, Your post as par usuale was thought provoking. It made me think of Doaks' Lubbock effort. Flat cotton field turned into a tasteful medium to enjoy the sport. Amazing is how I'd judge it.

[Tom Huckaby]

Shel, one more thing - you may want to read back in this thread... I said already that THE RANCH in San Jose is one hell of an architectural achievement - and I truly believe it is.  It's also an absolutely horrid golf course.

Situations like this make me question the validity of evaluating architecture.  I'm not looking to hire an architect.  If I was, I'd sure as hell give strong consideration to Casey O'Callagahn (GCA for that awful course), particularly if I was fool enough to want to develop a course on a site totally unsuited for golf.  

As a golfer though I can see enough to know I don't want to torture myself playing that awful course.

Which assessment has more value?

TH

[Kalen Braley]

I used to think Tom H was quibbling over ticky-tack definitions when he made statements like this on this topic, but I think he makes a very good point.  The finished product, i.e. golf course, really has little to do with the process of architecture that is used to create the finished product.  Whether something was naturally occuring or not is different when compared to evaluating the golf course as the end-user sees it.

I think this link gives some good insight:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landscape_architecture

[Tom Huckaby]

Me quibble over ticky-tack definitions?  Why, I never....

 

Actually that is a very valid way to look at it.  It's just that golf course "architecture" seems to be the coin of the realm here, and to me damn near everyone misses the point of what that really entails.

I personally prefer to leave things at the discussion of golf courses, which has so much more meaning to so many more people.

But the point remains, to me, that if you are going to evaluate architecture, you necessarily have to ask the questions I asked as a starting point.

TH

[SL_Solow]

Tom;  I can't accept a definition that suggests a horrible golf course is a significant architectural achievement.  It may be a great job of engineering by establishing a golf course on an "impossible" site but if the end result is a bad golf course its not good architecture.  The end result has to count for something.  While I might agree that the degree of difficulty has some impact on the overall rating of the architectural effort, in the end a "bad" course cannot be viewed as good architecture because the objective is to create good courses.  An olympic diver who belly flops on a dive with a high degree of difficulty gets more points than abelly flop on an easy dive, but a perfect swan dive should and does garner more points.

[Tom Huckaby]

Shel:

Well at least you've hit on the main purpose of all of this:  I agree that it's a silly system where a horrible golf course is a significant architectural achievement.

But my reaction to that is not to question the definition - because said definition does make such logical sense - but rather to try to evaluate what really matters to a golfer - and that is not the "architecture", but the "golf course."

You can choose to quibble with the definition; I just wonder if you were trying to hire an architect and you had a difficult site, would you not give Casey O. a look.  I guess one has to know THE RANCH to get the full meaning of this, but I am absolutely not kidding when I say that is one hell of an architectural achievement.

And that matters in one situation... but doesn't at all in most others.

I tend to prefer to look at the "most others."

TH

[Kalen Braley]

SL,

I think the point is that putting the course on the site is the architecture, nothing more.  So I think Toms original statement holds up.  Great architectual feat?  Yes.  Is it a golf course?  Yes.  Was it a good idea?  Probably not..

[Tom Huckaby]

SL,

I think the point is that putting the course on the site is the architecture, nothing more.  So I think Toms original statement holds up.  Great architectual feat?  Yes.  Is it a golf course?  Yes.  Was it a good idea?  Probably not..

Thanks, Kalen.  That's it in a nutshell.  The evil at THE RANCH was the idea that one ought to put a golf course on that brutally awful site to begin with.  But once that decision was made, well... Casey O. showed freakin' genius to make a golf course happen at all.

And that to me is an example of great "architecture."  But yes, the golf course still sucks to bejesus.

Thus my preference to evaluate golf courses and not architecture... as the latter can yield situations like this.

And my insistence that if one does want to evaluate architecture, then the three criteria I listed are the necessary starting point.

TH

[Kalen Braley]

Great feat of architecture??  Sure looks like it

Ugly as all get out??  Hell yeah

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