Tim Weiman said;
"It seems like Matt Ward envisions a game whereby skill and skill alone will the outcome. That's never going to happen. Random bounces will always be "dominant" - to use Matt's term."
This remark on this thread and subject of "Fair & Unfair?" in golf and architecture and how far the concept of it should be taken is a great lead-in to try to explain Max Behr's philosophy on the necessary part of what he called "Nature" (randomness, unpredictability, even apparent inequity) in golf and architecture, since inherently that has a lot to do with the subject of "fairness or unfairness" in golf.
To distill Behr down even further on this particular subject and to perhaps shed some more light on what Behr meant with his distinction between golf the "sport" and golf the "game", it should be mentioned that one of the clearest distinctions he drew on the subject of "sport" vs "game" by way of analogy was with a comparision of golf to tennis in the context of time and space.
Behr makes the point that as tennis involves two or more opponents vying for a common ball, something that golf does not do, then inherently they are vastly different but he also makes the point that a tennis court is necessarily a playing field on which the dimensions must be both exact and standardized. The reasons for that in the context of time are obvious but the reasons for that in the context of space is merely to create a playing field that’s as efficient as possible to basically isolate and highlight the physical skill of the player! This obviously includes the player coming as close to that OB line as possible with his shots so as to make the retrieval of the ball more difficult by his opponent. But since a tennis court is exact and standardized in its dimensions for this particular purpose, Behr, correctly, views the playing field of tennis as completely man-made and the entire dimension and construction of a tennis court as man-concocted which is one of his definitions of a "game" (completely man-made, apart from any necessary inclusion or preservation of Nature's part in the contest).
Golf, on the other hand, is a recreation whose playing fields are in no way as exact or standardized and further should not be, as golf depends on its playing on the somewhat unadorned and somewhat unaltered landscape of Nature itself for much of the essence and challenge of it.
Behr believed that's the way golf began and the way it evolved and that the essence of Nature in its random unadorned form should be preserved to maintain the spirit and essence of what a "sport" is about which anyone knows is vying or recreating with something---a fish, a bird, a horse or even a golf ball on the landscape of Nature as the partial challenger!
This is part of Behr's distinction between golf the "sport" vs golf the "game", the latter which he did not want to see obtrude into the "sport" by becoming highly defined in dimenson and man-made in look (he believed it was necessary that an architect should strive to make whatever he created at least look like Nature). Golf course architecture that gave golfers little choice and no real requirement for thought by being designed so as the golfer could clearly see he must hit the ball right down the middle (the difference between good (fairway) and evil (hazards) or be penalized was not particularly thought provoking (as a sport involving Nature) or ultimately enjoyable because of it.
But the most startling thing of all and one I recognize may be completely resisted on here and elsewhere is Behr apparently believed that golf and architecture should never be designed in such a way as to attempt to ISOLATE physical skill for the purposes of completely HIGHLIGHTING them alone--as does a game such as tennis--which again is completely man-concocted and man-made as to the nature and dimension of its standardized playing field!
Again, apparently in his opinion, golf and architecture, through over obtruding rules, highly dimensionally defined design, any form of good or evil moralizing regarding the features of the recreation of golf should be guarded against!
They should be guarded against and those who valued the essence of the recreation of golf the "sport" should strive to preserve that other opponent--"Nature" (or at least the percepiton of it)! Nature, whose very randomness and unpredictability never offered any man the kind of "fairness" or equity or reward for raw physical skill the way some man-concocted game that was merely designed to isolate and highlight physical skill felt it must! Nature never did that simply because occasionally even the best executed shots were subject to unfairness and luck within the randomness of Nature! Behr believed even the most physically adept sportsman accepted that and accepted it well as a given! Behr also believed that "thought" should be maintained even over raw physical skill in the sport of golf. I guess, in a sense this isn’t probably much different than the old ballad; “You take the high road and I’ll take the low road and I’ll be in Scotland before Ye!”
Behr didn't want to see rules abolished or architecture or man-made design abolished he simply felt that in the application of those things Nature's necessary part of the balance SHOULD BE PRESERVED within the recreation of golf. The very presence and maintenance of Nature in golf frankly made it a "sport" as distinct from a completely man-concocted "game", in his opinion.
And all this he explored only because he felt it would be more pleasurable, gratifying and interesting for any golfer as he played golf.
There is one last point I believe that Behr implied because he didn't specifically mention it per se. I'm not sure even Geoff Shackelford agrees with my feeling about this.
I believe that when Behr wrote these essays always interlacing the theme of Natural golf architecture and Nature's necessary part in the balance as the essence of golf, what he was also consciously doing is making a fascinating comparison between man's fundamental relationship to Man VERSUS Man's fundamental relationship to Nature itself.
I believe Behr felt man always strove to define and control and dominate most anything including not just other men but Nature as well! Behr obviously felt that man, the golfer, felt more content and comfortable, perhaps resigned somehow in a sporting sense vying against Nature, an opponent he understood, even if subliminally, was larger than himself —an opponent that was more powerful and more indominable than Man. This is apparently why he felt the golfer was apt to face less critically an obstacle he perceived to be put before him by Nature than an obstacle he perceived to be put before him by another man (architect). This is why he proposed that architects should utilize Nature and what they made should be made to look like Nature to the golfer. That, and the fact he believed that if an architect understood the forces of Nature (wind and water) he would be able to create man-made architecture that would last longer. These two ideas formed the basis of what he referred to as “Permanent Architecture”.
Was Behr right? It’s hard to say isn’t it? It’s safe to say not many really listened to him. Should they have listened better? I think so. We should listen better to him now because in some real ways we can see, 75+ years later, that many of the things he feared have happened. Golf courses were severely changed in the ensuing years and now many of them are being put back to the way they once were.
Behr was probably right in his reference to the “game mind” of Man in architecture that Man can be a super defining, controlling, dominating and in some ways a destroying force. Behr was talking about golf and golf architecture. He did write most of these essays in the 1920s but he did live until 1955. The supreme irony when he was initially writing these essays about the dangers of Man disrespecting Nature and perhaps destroying golf courses due to that disrespect that the time would not be long in coming when Man came to realize he could also completely dominate and ultimately destroy not just Nature but himself as well!