Why Is Golf Architecture So Fascinating To Us?

[Slag_Bandoon]

 Why is golf architecture so fascinating to us?  I've got books,books,books and more books on the subject of golfing grounds and the people that created them.  Books of reason and passion, wisdom and ignorance.  Technical books, spiritual books, categorizing books, books with pictures, books with opinions, books with humor, books of layouts and the best way to play them, books with yardages, books on geology and climates.  I've got VCR tapes of the Best of Golf Courses of Scotland and Ireland.  I've got calenders, hats, scorecards, coffee mugs and towels with course names on them.  I've got a seemingly incurable sawed-off shotgun drive that should tell me that this is NOT my game. I should stick to Chess and hiking and Scrabble and biking and sex, drinking and rock and roll.  But, I've got this insane desire to understand the infinite minutia of dirt, and mankinds whims in manipulating it for my pleasure and taking my money. The whole notion has got a straightjacket hold on me.  What is the cure?  I don't want to know.
 

 Why is golf architecture so fascinating to you?

[Mike Hendren]

Slag,

I honestly don't know and frankly don't care to think about it.  I was smitten early.  My parents recently discovered a stack of poster boards in the recesses of my boyhood bedroom.  There were nine golf holes routed on each side scaled to permit them to be "played" with the Sports Illustrated Golf Game pieces.  I was about twelve or thirteen at the time.  Maybe I'll get them and scan them in for debate by the treehouse.  

I've got to ween myself from this dad gum web-site.  Paging Dr. Katz.

Regards,

Mike

[RJ_Daley]

Slag, just as you tell us all the things you got, you say:

I've got a seemingly incurable sawed-off shotgun drive that should tell me that this is NOT my game.

I think this phenomenon is worthy of a new terminology called:
"Bandoon's Paradox"

The mirror side of this phenomenon is that there are gents out there that have the sweet swing and plenty of game, and don't know or care one iota about any of this GCA subject, nor do they know a scintilla about the legend and lore of the game.  Go figure...

[A.G._Crockett]

There have been a multitude of times while playing golf that I have looked a golf hole or course and wondered how the architect "saw" the holes when the land was covered with vegetation of some sort.  I know a good hole when I see it;  I just don't know how architects see 18 holes in a piece of raw land.
My mother, sister, and brother are all endowed tremendous artistic talent.  I, on the other hand, can't draw a straight line with a ruler.  But my total lack of artistic ability has forced me to really appreciate and value it in others.  That's the same feeling that seeing a great golf hole or course gives me.

[JohnV]

Dick,

Most of the those guys with the sweet swing are on the PGA Tour and will be "designing" many of the courses we'll be talking about the next few years.

Slag,
I can't believe you put Scrabble ahead of sex, Chess maybe, but Scrabble?

Just remember, everyone has their Jones, ours just happens to be GCA and this site.  Certainly a lot better than some.

To answer your question, architecture is fascinating to me because I love golf and the course is the key to what distinguishes the game from all others.  We are lucky to play a game where every playing field is unique.  All basketball courts are the same, all baseball parks are basically the same, with the exception of the boundaries, all football fields are the same, but each golf course is a new experience and as such, we got hooked loving them , evaluating them and talking endlessly about them.

[Slag_Bandoon]

I honestly don't know and frankly don't care to think about it.  

  Apparently, with only 85 Views, (I think the Golf In Beirut thread had more.) this is a frightening question to ask and one that we may be afraid to delve into.  Perhaps too general a question anyway.  

  Dick, Bandoon's Paradox works well for me.  I'll be sure to give you royalties when I get my instructional golf book published.  Wait, Leslie Nielsen already took that route.  

  JohnV,  Scrabble is merely foreplay.  We use a lot of nasty words.

  AG, Of course you can't draw a straight line with a ruler. Try using a pencil, instead. (oy)  I agree with your sense of wonder about how the archies see through the scrub and hills to create.   I do it sporadically but never for 18 holes.  
  

[Mike Hendren]

Slag,

Great question.  It indeed scares me because I might pop a blood vessel in my forehead thinking about it - much less trying to articulate any cogent thought I might muster.  With Spring just around the corner, I don't want to risk it.

Regards,

Mike

[D. Kilfara]

Well, for me there was a progression through several stages:

1) I discover (at a very early age) that not all golf courses are equally fun to play - some are more fun than others.

2) I start to travel around the country, and golf is often on the agenda. Therefore, I start trying to look for courses to play which I'll enjoy.

3) As I play more and more different types of courses, I finally ask myself, "Why do I enjoy course A more than course B?" At first my answers are fairly general, but as my tastes become more sophisticated, I start looking more at the architecture of individual golf holes. (Incidentally, at this stage I discover that my tastes have changed - architecture becomes more important than tradition or conditioning or the plushness of the clubhouse, for example.)

4) Surfing the web, I stumble upon this website - opens up a whole new can of worms!

Actually, I'm not sure whether stage 3 or 4 came first for me. But that's pretty much a curt summary of where I'm coming from...

Cheers,
Darren

[A_Clay_Man]

A couple of thoughts come to mind... And that is probably the reason. That it allows for continued activity in the grey matter.
Why that is... IMHO it's like most other sports that stimulate,  it's rarely the same everytime you come down the field/court or whatever, it always something different.
Slight changes in variables makes us experienced. There are those who choose to learn and there are those who choose to have the lesson, easier, already taught or more mundane. Like a Tf course.

[Mike_Sweeney]

While there are many reasons for me, today's finish on the 10th hole in the playoff at Riviera is a big reason. One golfer challenged the hole/architect, and the other played it safe. Yes, Howell lost due to his putter, but what a recovery shot from that bunker.

Every person on this board would go through a similar thought process as Weir and Howell, even though we can't play with them.

[Jason Hines]

Slag,

I never really thought about the architecture side of things.  The actual playing of golf is easy, birdie putts, good drives and the brotherhood.  For the architecture side of things it would have to be because it is so opposite my everyday life.  For example, its creative, no numbers for me to crunch, being outside, etc.  Also, reading about theories and learning during the winter while it is 5 degrees with the wind howling helps pass the time.  

I guess for me, if I had to put it one sentence as to why golf architecture is so fascinating, it would be because it is one of the things at the core of my true passion.  Golf.

Jason

[Slag_Bandoon]

This question has pulled at my shirt sleeve ever since I read Lorne Rubenstein's "LINKS" book which was within a few months of me taking up the game with regularity.  

  Before that book, I was into the "How to Cure a Slice" vein of mags and books.  It didn't take me long to figure out that that wasn't very interesting.  I was more interested in the "Why to play" as opposed to the "How to play".    
  I loved basketball as my primary sport but a wobbly knee and diminished leaping ability took me out of my vision of how the game should be played, and how, seemingly it wasn't the team game I grew up with.  
  Golf was nice.  It got this suburbanite away from the confines of civilization and still giving me sport and exercise.  I began playing every week with a buddy who eventually moved away.  I could have easily quit by virtue of being without a golfing partner but the game was fascinating to me so I just kept going by myself.  To this day I usually play as a walk-on and think it's a great way to meet people without being intrusive into their lives.  Golfers, I've found are generally good, considerate people.
  Fishing is wonderful but I don't get the exercise that golf gives.  Mountain climbing and hiking are enjoyable
 but they can require a lot of preparation.            . . .

[ed_getka]

I became interested in architecture years ago when I read a book by Palmer (Situation Golf). I found it fascinating to read about the various angles and strategies used by golfers of different levels to play a hole. The ideas of how hazards dictate the way a hole is attacked. For years thereafter I was always interested in architecture, but was lucky to find out who designed the course I was playing that day, let alone find someone to discuss it with. In that way GCA has been a godsend, not only to I have someone to discuss architecture with, I also have a community of like-minded individuals to golf with.

[Slag_Bandoon]

 There is a certain amount of guilt with golf.  It's a very selfish endeavor on one level but very connecting on another.  The score is for the ego, the experience is for the soul.   And that experience needs things to be honest in it's venue.  The more natural a course is and how wisely it is routed and how enchanting every aspect of the land is all connect me to forget my selfishness and sway more to the selfless.  I am no great person, or philanthropist, or donater of time to charities or causes, so that feeling of selflessness is fleeting and shallow, but it is at least a sway.  
   Going to Ireland, Scotland, Nebraska, Colorado, Barona Creek, Arizona, Hawaii (Kahuku!), and Bandon (my first worthy wow experience) have all infected me with fascination of architecture of land.  I need to see honesty.  Perhaps that's why I love Robert Price's geologic book "Scotland's Golf Courses" so much. It presents the course as viewed from underneath. But when I see a playing field that I see as disrespectful to the craft and disregards the worth of the land, it saddens and infuriates me.  When I go somewhere with "Carts only"  or "carts complimentary", I'm rarely going back because its motives are impure and their priority skews what I golf for.  If Talking Stick can be made on flat land and without destroying the feel of the desert and lipsticked up with gimmickry and expense, why can't more land on less appealing (to some) acreage be made into respectable and affordable golf?   I vote with my wallet and praise with my words when I can.  Thanks to all who have made my journey a very rewarding one.    "In all your giving, you give is the answer." IA
  
   So, I don't think the question of "Why Golf Architecture Fascinates Us" should be answered but one that we should ask ourselves over and over again for the rest of our playing lives.

[Jeff Fortson]

Because it shapes the shots we hit.  Without strategy there would be no game, withut beauty there would be little enjoyment, and ultimately without good design there would be no game.

Jeff F.