I want to thank Geoffrey and Brad for responding to my request to quote specific statements from Fazio’s book and cite the page numbers. I don’t happen to agree with either’s interpretation of the passages they quoted, but at least I am pretty sure they have read the entire book.
I don’t imagine that anyone who has posted on this thread is likely to change his mind in spite of anything I (or Tom, Lou, Rich, or Mark) might say. Fazio’s statements can be interpreted in a variety of ways depending on the perspective or pre-disposition of the reader. It’s sorta like my own pre-disposition to find something negative and self-serving in any words spoken by Bill Clinton.
My original post was aimed primarily at the hundreds (?) of lurkers and occasional posters who may not have read Fazio’s book and know only what they hear on this DG. I was trying to get verbatim quotes from his book posted to allow anyone interested to form their own opinions.
I think that most of his statements, which could be interpreted as dismissive of the Golden Age architects, have already been cited in previous posts. I would like to offer a few others, which, I believe, add balance to this picture.
In a 1995 interview (which I have on tape) Fazio was asked what he thought Donald Ross would be doing if he were alive today. His reponse: “He would have many telephone receptionists answering calls seeking his service, and the rest of us architects would be competing for second place”
On pages 33-34 of his book he says, “One of our advantages today is that we can see examples of the works of past masters like Ross, MacKenzie, Tillinghast and Flynn. Golf designers can study their courses and decide what they choose to accept as models of good golf course design. Those are our textbooks, out library of golf architecture.”
Excepts from the following passages from pages 68-74 have been quoted in previous posts. With the reader’s indulgence I would like to quote it in its entirety as I believe the context is useful.
“In the so-called classic era, designers picked ideal sites whenever possible where golf holes could be easily fit into interesting terrain, but even those ideal sites often had flat or unattractive area that couldn’t be avoided. So designers connected the interesting areas with holes that were not so grand. That’s one reason we find a few ordinary on SOME (he didn’t say all) of our most famous courses. Today, we couldn’t get away with that. After playing a new course, a golfer might say something like: ‘Well, it was pretty good, but there were one or two weak holes.’ In other words, the golfer didn’t like one or two holes. The challenge of the 1990’s has been to build golf courses with no weak holes.
The competition among owners and designers to gain instant recognition is probably the principal reason for the current trend toward grander and more dramatic golf courses. So much is written about golf courses and golf design that stories and press accounts now have become part of this competition. In the past, clients were satisfied with, and golfers were content to play, a course that had three or four memorable holes. Now every new course has to have eighteen ‘finishing holes’, each of which can be the subject of a spectacular photograph for a magazine advertisement or the front cover of a tournament program. Is that a good thing? I won’t judge either way, it’s just the way things are.
We don’t find too many memorable photographic scenes on SOME of the older, classic designs. Pinehurst #2, for example, is not dramatic in appearance because it was designed to be played rather than photographed. My photographer friends tell me it’s a hard golf course to photograph, probably because it has so few sharp features or contours. There are no creeks or lakes or waterfalls on Pinehurst #2, nor strong elevations. Yet it’s one of my favorite golf courses and certainly ranks among the best second shot courses in the world. Does that mean the newer courses are overdone? Perhaps some of them are, but I also wonder how high some of the top twenty courses would rank on today’s lists if they were brand new and hadn’t been designed by a famous architect. If a golf course with the quality of Pinehurst #2 were built today, one that had great shot values and design features but little sizzle or flashy eye appeal would it be well received by golfers and writers and resort owners? The expectation people have today for instant visual impact, the ‘wow’ factor, suggest to me that those days are gone. Golfers want to be thrilled, and they will compare each new course with the best they have played before. Golfers and owners alike want instant gratification. A phrase we hear a lot today is the ‘now generation’. And it’s as applicable to golf course design as to anything else in our culture.”
Judge these comments as you wish. My view is that he his not dismissing or criticizing classic architecture as much as he is lamenting the expectations of most modern golfers, journalists, raters and owners. I presume he is specifically thinking of those big-bucks clients he usually deals with and the members/guests who play their courses. I have never seen the quote directly, but someone here recently attributed to Tom Doak a statement that if The Old Course were newly opened today, it would probably not make Golf Dogest’s Top 10 New list. If Tom Doak actually said that, does anyone really think he was criticizing the course? Of course not! I think Fazio was trying to make the same point.
BTW Tom MacWood, to answer your question, I agree completely with Fazio’s comments about Pinehurst #2.
I was in the room at French Lick when someone asked Fazio when/if he was going to design a classic golf course. His response was “What IS a classic golf course?” Many in the room (including Brad and BillV) apparently took that to mean that he is so ignorant that he has no idea what a classic course is. I took it in the same manner I would if someone were to ask, “What is a beautiful woman?” meaning that the term has a variety of definitions. What’s yours? Much like the term “old days”. As he points out, different folks of different generations have different definitions of that term too.
It is a fact that the tastes and expectations of most golfers and owners are different today (not this group, of course!). How would we react if Steven Spielburg were to suggest that he could make better movies today than in the “old days” because of technologically advances and that if it were released today, Gone With The Wind would not win an Oscar?
Wonder if Sinatra, Valentino, Elvis, Buddy Holley, orHank Williams would be stars if they were just now appearing on the music scene. I would still love them all, but I doubt that most consumers of today would.
If you read this far, you have no life.