Is a course's surrounding a part of the architecture?

[Matt_Ward]

Tom hit the mark in saying that the architect has total control of what is ON THE SITE. The architect does not have total control of WHAT'S OFF SITE (i.e. surrounding, beautiful views).

If the architect can add to his site by weaving the course at or near elements that are gorgeous more power to him and the routing plan.

I'll give you a good example of a top flight course that opened this year -- Carnegie Abbey in Porstmouth, RI.

The course is a tour de force design by Donald Steele and weaves its way on property that is absolutely dynamite. The holes and accompanying strategy is something all GCA interested observers should play if possible.

On the 16th hole just over a mound that separtes the fairway from out-of-bounds is a hideous factory plant.

Did that take away from the total experience -- not one iota!!! There are plans by the ownership team to eventually buy that parcel for expansion purposes, but it's still there now. Hell, the Homestead, America's mega luxury example of accomodations and quality golf, has a paper mill plant just down the street from the course. Ever sniff the beautiful fragrance these babies produce???

Another example is Commonwealth National in Horsham, PA. I like the course, but given what a number of people have already stated I guess the course must be considered in a less than positive manner because of the immediate proximity of Willow Grove Naval Air Station and all the attendant noise from arriving and departing military jets.

Do we demote East Lake because its surroundings is clearly modern day urban America and not the traditional bucolic setting??? What about a number of classic courses in the UK and Ireland that have adjacent railroad tracks and the like and the incessant noise that comes from that type of location? What about pre-existing abutting homes. Do we demote the course because of noisy kids??

I can go on and on and on with different examples. Bethpage Black has a garbage dump in the immediate distant view from the 1st tee. You get an even better view from the 13th tee. Does that take away from the Black. Again, not one bit.

Too many times surroundings are a camouflage to designs that are just average. I'll say again -- play Pelican Hill in So Cal and you're mouth will just drop with the views of Catalina Island in the distance on a clear day. Fazio did a splendid job in giving the golfer superlative views. The golf, minus a few holes, is really ho-hum. Ask most people about the course and they will tell you it was gorgeous -- the question is what was gorgeous? -- the views or the course???

Guys, it's time to understand the "dumb blonde theory." Looks good ... but has nothing inside the old noodle.

As I said before the surroundings do influence me, but it's more of minor role. Do we give credit / bonus points for courses simply because they are in beautiful Hawaii as opposed to some gritty urban location?

The architecture is related to the on-site property that the architect has a direct hand in shaping. That's first and foremost for me. I'll look at the other aspects but only in a secondary role. I play golf on real holes with real strategy. Botton line --my eyes notice the surroundings, but my mind is focused on the golf course within the boundaries. That's my priority ... first and foremost.

[Mike_Cirba]

Tom Paul,

I may have overstretched my point slightly, but what I was stating is that part of the job of the architect is not only to work on the land available to him, but also to integrate that work into the surrounds.

I'll cite two examples.

At Stonewall, part of the charm of that course is the fact that one feels isolated in the Chester county farmland.  Doak recognized this, and also recognized that part of what detracted from that experience was the public road coming in as well as the access road to the course.  What did he do?  He built considerable mounding along both to effectively shield those distractions from the playing experience.  Now, on holes 1 & 2, instead of watching autos passing, one completely forgets that any road is there at all.

A complete opposite example concerns a course in DE called Bear Trap Dunes.  On a FLAT piece of property surrounded by soybean fields, architect Rick Jacobsen molded a psuedo-links style course, moving enough dirt (sand, actually) to creat faux dunes throughout.  When one plays the interior holes, the effect is somewhat believable and it's fairly well done.  However, when one plays the holes along the perimeter of the property, the contrast between the shaped features and the surround flat soybean fields creates one of those effects where it appears the course had been airlifted into place.  There is really no "transition", and although it is clear that the architecture is all "on course", the clear artificiality one sees on the perimeter is distracting and ultimately detracting.

Perhaps there would have been a better way to make the course appear as part of the natural surrounding, perhaps not.  

However, I'd argue that part of the job of the architect is to consider such quandaries, and attempt to solve those problems as part of the architectural process.

[Mark_Fine]

Tom,
I'm going up north next week to see some S. Thompson courses.  Don't you like the "size" of his bunkers and greens are in some way related to the vastness of the surrounds?  Take away the surrounds and the bunkers look way out of scale.  

It's all part of the golf course not just the golf experience.
Mark

[TEPaul]

I think we're all on the same page now! I think we are all agreed that what surrounds a golf course can be of enormous importance. I learned some things from Coore about that that were fascinating--he is brilliant at useing basic "lines" that are on the property and certainly ones that are off the property and even extremely distant ones. Doak said not long ago he is paying more attention to that than ever before. But he can't really work with those lines and things that surround his actual site other than to let them influence him in what he does on his site and in some way surely what he does on site can influence those surrounds although he never actually touched them.

But what the architect works on (presumably the property of his project) is what he can directly influence and directly control to intergate with whatever surrounds his Palette (his site). He can't influence his surrounds in a real and actual sense, but he can probably enhance, hide, minimize or even deceive golfers with how he handles his actual design (on site) in relation to how his architeecture relates to the surrounding (generally visible) areas.

So what he actually can get his hands on is what I call an architect's architecture, it's what he creates and builds. He does not create or build things that surround his site, as we're using the word, although he can use them as they are.

[T_MacWood]

Mark
You will find similar characteristics for Thompson in Cleveland or Toronto, as well as the Canadian Rockies - and I dare say they do not look out place. Macdonald/Raynor produced features of great scale on many different sites.

[Mark_Fine]

Tom MacWood,
I'm sure you are right but I do believe Thompson considered backdrops, etc. in determining many of his design features.  I know size and scale are talked about in his book.  I'm looking forward to playing St. Georges as I have heard only good things about it.
Mark

[Gib_Papazian]

Picture Charlize Theron in a gratuitously compromising position atop a feather bed of Irish linens in an airy, candlelit room with a cool breeze blowing through an open wood framed window, in the middle of the night on a summer evening. Now, picture the same woman on a filthy mattress in a cheezy motel on the wrong side of Las Vegas.  Make sense?

[Mike_Young]

How many of the golden age courses that are discussed here were built on bad sites.  And I don't mean sites with one or two problems to overcome architecturally but sites that were not aesthetically pleasing to the golfer?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mar,, et.al.,

Can the surroundings overpower the architecture ?

Can the surroundings camoflage the architecture, good and bad ?

[ForkaB]

Gib

Not sure what you are getting at.

To me the Vegas scenario sounds pretty interesting and the "gentle breeze" one, (relatively! ) boring.

One of the great things about Prestwick is the fact that it is bordered by (going counter clockwise from the 1st tee) a railway line, a mobile home park, some cheap seaside hotels and a busy road.  It works, in part, because it is such as oasis from those surroundings.

My point is that surroundings are not about beauty, they are about context.  For some courses (e.g. Pebble Beach), that context includes beauty.  For others, it does not.  In any case, I'll not be kicking Charlize out of any bed, anywhere I might happen to be at any time.....

[Slag_Bandoon]

 Indivisible. Except for Shadow Creek.
The problem I see is why should the texture of the canvas be painted with such viscosity and globs of gook that the reality of the medium is removed like a shamed ugliness.  

 Context is relative as Rich says.

[Matt_Ward]

Pat Mucci:

In answering your questions:

Yes and Yes

P.S. What's amazing Pat is that if GCGC had an ocean alongside it or some other waterway I'm quite sure the course would be even higher rated. Too many people look "offsite" to justify the onsite criteria -- irrespective of whether the onsite elements
have merit ot not.

Too many people are judging the cover but not the content!

[Tom_Doak]

Jeff McDowell hit the nail on the head -- the surroundings are an integral part of the architecture, because we choose how to take advantage of them with every design decision.

However, as I've argued here before, I don't think most people see the "architecture" as purely as they pretend to.  If you looked at Riverfront and Pacific Dunes, purely in terms of their architecture, there isn't too much difference in quality between them.  But only one of them has fifteen threads on this site.

Golfers [including those in the treehouse] are captivated by a great natural setting.  As they should be.  They just shouldn't call it pure "architecture."

[aclayman]

On National Geo today they had a piece on Monticello and how the 2000+ acres that Jefferson had, has been visually altered over time.
The best description that is relavent to this thread was that the "magic" that was felt prior, will never be recaptured.
The Same must be true in golf and that magic therefore becomes more precious. For that reason alone courses that can stave off the reality of encroachment can justify the mil + for entry.

[BillV]

A Theory:

The surrounds can detract from the course and pull down a good course by detraction.

Nice surrounds can raise the golf experience and make one believe a course is better than it is or allow one to over-rate a course.

What I don't understand is how at SFGC the banal repetitive 3-some of holes on the back nine which really detract from the greatness of the course and the roadway (CA 1 or 19th Ave-responsible for the changes never actually needed) are overlooked by so  many as they revel in a great 15-hole course with a great clubhouse and ambiance as well as the majestic Cypress Trees and fog.  This is one place the above theory really holds.  I guess the positive outweighs the reality for most. (I give it 8-8.5, most seem to give it 9).

[aclayman]

I brought this back up to share this analogy;

I went to A wedding down the Big Sur coast yesterday, on a piece of property that was formaly a birthing center.
The lean-to outhouse was visually gray and lean-toish. Well, this backhouse had an open window to the cliffs looking south down the most magnificiant meeting of land and sea.

It was a remarkable enough experience for everyone who, upon exiting, commented on it.

Point being, surrounds are integral and a person can and will accept less about the man made beauty when it is in the presence of nature's.

[Matt_Ward]

aclayman: love the story but it only serves to prove my point.

Golfers will clearly elevate beauty because the "eye" can often look to the majesty of nature and minimize lackluster hole designs by the architect. Say it again -- take a good look at Pelican Hill (CA). Great on the eye, but mediocre on the architecture of the holes.

If a course was ever built right on top of Big Sur it could be miniature golf and people would rave about it because of the absolute drop-dead gorgeous views of the area. What does that have to do with the soundness of the holes?

I concede the offsite influenes have a role to play, but too often they are given way too much of an emphasis over the core elements of the course.