Landscape architecture and golf architecture?

[TEPaul]

I'll assure anyone right now who comments on this thread that I have very little idea what landscape architecture even is exactly but it occurs to me that some of the very best architects ever may've had very little idea about it and even if they did probably couldn't have cared less. Is it possible that in some ways landscape architecture may not have been a very good thing for golf architecture? I was just reading about it and its influence on golf architecture in the back of Cornish & Whitten's book and began to wonder. Next time I see Bill Coore I think I'm gonna tell him I think he's one of the best natural landscape architecture talents I've ever heard of just so I can watch him stare at me in disbelief!

[Norbert P]

   Tom asks, "Is it possible that in some ways landscape architecture may not have been a very good thing for golf architecture?"

    I don't think there's anything wrong with landscaping but I do think that lack of restraint of that knowledge can diminish a golf design.  If the peripheral visuals get plenty of attention and the original sites personality gets relegated to subordinate importance,  the landscaper has imposed too much of what he knows onto the land.  

    It's a priority of balance.  The land first, the game and its playing characteristics next, then safety considerations, then the other gook (or hopefully not).

[ForkaB]

There was a recent interview in the (London) Times with the noted artiste Todd Rundgren.  He was asked if he played golf since he lived on a golf course.  His reply was, in effect:

"I think that golf courses are beautiful pieces of landscape arhcitecture, but anybody who actually plays the game has to be a raving lunatic!"

[TEPaul]

Norbert:

Very fine and thought provoking thoughts of yours there.

I wonder if the far more prevalent use of the medium of landscape architecture in golf architecture probably brought about by the prevalence and effeciency of modern earth-moving equipment after WW2 as much as just the application of the medium of LA itself didn't just go way too far overboard in that 2nd half 20th century golf design era---and ultimately to the detriment of a more truly natural form of golf design and architecture.

When I read in Cornish and Whitten the complete application of "Art Principles" (Harmony, Proportion, Balance, Rhythm and Emphasis) which are presumably the building blocks of Landscape Architecture, I wonder if those "principles" and how to actually effect them in golf design didn't just create a massive result of at least a NECESSARY formula in golf design.

When I look at some of the very old holes in golf that use odd and even unchangeable (in that time) features that some today value and prize and sometimes refer to as "quirk", I wonder if the modern ability to apply landscape architecture principles didn't just complete destroy features and character like that by wiping it all away (in the name of a more proper application of LA) and eventually rendering it obsolete and probably unacceptable in GA to some.

Tom MacWood once said something on here I'll just never forget about landscape architecture and even some of the well known principles of even the best of the old landscape architects such as Humphery Repton.

As I recall Repton's landscape architecture principles were being quoted by C.B Macdonald (perhaps as an ideal application in golf architecture) and the quote mentioned that man (the landscape architect) should attempt to hide his own hand in the creation but he should also remove what is natural that might be described as unsightly or ugly naturalism. Tom MacWood took great exception to that LA thought (principle?) of Repton's presumably as an example of what was not right with LA in GA.

I've just never forgotten that remark (of Tom MacWood's). It may be the most fundamental point in this whole subject of how and how much LA should or shouldn't intrude on or be used in golf architecture.

[MikeJones]

You might find this paper by Dr Laura Stocker interesting

Can We Design Nature? 1997

http://wwwistp.murdoch.edu.au/su/html/nature.html

Although not related directly to golf it does make some interesting points.

[TEPaul]

Mike:

That's a wonderful article--thank you. You're right it's not precisely on this particular subject but generally speaking it certainly is. That author and Max Behr would have a great deal in common to talk about! That author is talking about various actual results but Behr was speaking more about a perception in the minds of golfers. I believe Behr began to discover and analyze a comparison between Man's fundamental relationship to Nature vs Man's fundamental relationship to Man himself! And those two fundamental relationships can be and probably always have been in high conflict--and in that is the everlasting dynamic! But I think in many ways with Nature, golf and architecture Behr was talking as much about an aura, a feeling, even if subliminal!

[Jeff_Brauer]

TEPaul,

Most definitions of landscape architecture center on arranging the landscape for specific human uses, much as the building architect arranges a floor plan for interior human uses.

It is entirely possible to have a landscape arranged without the art principles - in fact, urban planning is related to landscape architecture, and many engineers lay out cities on a strict grid for economic, as well as world view reasons.  (Organizing things symetrically is the way they are taught....)

In golf course architecture, we like to apply both the site arrangement elements (ie, 18 holes of some generalized amount of length and combinations of par 3, 4, 5, practice areas, clubhouse and maintenance, et al) in ways that have been learned through experience over several centuries.

Knowing artistic principles can never hurt golf course design. I do agree that the trend for a long time, and perhaps continuing, is to eliminate quirk, which most people would simply say is learning through experience what works for the most people on a golf course, including the superintendent, course manageer, better and average players.  

I pursued a landscape architecture degree because it gave me the technical skills and artistic principles you mention to pursure a career in golf course architecture.  Capability Brown certainly had no similar formal training, but intuitively knew those principals.  Alistar McKenzie had no formal training (save the camoflage work, although I think that was part marketing story, myself) but understood those artistic principles.  I didn't become a golf course architect until apprenticing with a respected firm that taught me the unique aspects of that field.

Golf course architecture and landscape architecture are related fields, and GCA is not a branch of LA.  Again, semantics, but there are several related and similar skills required, but other skills that are unique, and learned only through  apprenticing in your respective field.  Ie, Landscape architects aren't automatically golf course architects, and vice versa.

Norbert,

"Landscapping" is the frosting on the cake for landscape architecture, after the elements are sited properly.  For that matter, I really think that the game of golf comes first in design - not the land.  This may be "semantics" since we try to disturb the land the least for a variety of reasons, like economy and artistic principles, not every site allows that.

While not arguing that it takes great land and a design well suited to that land to create a great golf course, if you followed a "Land first" philosophy too strictly, you would more than likely have one crappy golf course on most sites, so that isn't the right order of thought, IHMO.  

[Tom_Doak]

Tom:

You're right, you don't really know what landscape architecture is.

Landscape architecture is a VERY broad field.  At Cornell, the people in my department were involved with everything from urban planning [we all entered the Vietnam Veterans Memorial competition] to regional planning [zoning issues] to resource management [the use of state forest lands] to landscaping around buildings [from skyscrapers to McDonalds] to designing of golf courses and housing communities.  It was a good, broad-based education, 75% of which I have never used in practice, but the other 25% of which was really valuable.

The most important building blocks of my formal education were to learn the rudiments of drawing grading plans for 3-D surfaces, and to learn a process of design.  The grading exercises were the key to understanding drainage and the reading of topo maps, although golf architects have to be far better at it than most landscape architects because the shape of the ground is our primary medium.  As for the design process, I skip a lot of the steps to design golf holes, but I don't forget to think about any of the influences of the site.

I don't remember spending much time on the "princples of art," but I already knew that symmetry and balance are fine for urban spaces but not for golf courses.  Mostly I learned by studying other golf courses.

Norbert,

I agree with Jeff that a golf architect must be looking at the land in the light of the game of golf when designing a course.  However, I think where many architects fail is that they have too rigid a view of what a good golf hole should be, and thus are more inclined to move earth in support of that ideal.  By far the best part of my year overseas was seeing how many unusual but interesting golf holes were created in the days before golfers had the power to bend Nature to their sort of golf.

[TEPaul]

TomD;

I certainly don't know anything about landscape architecture or its broad and basic principles. But I think you wrote a fine post there explaining some of the distinctions. It's probably the "art principles" mentioned in C&W's book I'm talking about anyway---perhaps only a part of landscape architecture. Those, of course, would be harmony, balance, rhythym, emphasis, proportion. You seem to instinctively know when to use them and not use them in golf architecture even though you said you never got all that involved in learning them in college. It seems to me other architects, past and present just may've gone too far in pounding them onto landforms and situations that would have been better served in the long run without them or just left alone even though they may not have possessed them naturally in some formal "art principle" way.

Some say somehow nature and the way it is and the way it sometimes looks is some form of organized chaos and in many ways that medium may not fit that well into what some architects and golfers think a golf course should be. Obviously not all agree with that though.

I'll give you some real examples of how I feel about this or what my eye tells me. On pages 182 and 183 of C&W are four photos of golf holes. The one on the bottom left and the top right I don't think the "lines" of the architecture look right at all--certainly not natural to the pre-construction setting. The top left photo (Fazio) I think all the "lines" (natural and man-made) look very natural and the entire setting is really good, and I think the "lines" of the bottom right photo (Coore and Crenshaw) do too other than that bowl thing to the immediate right of the green (with the tree in it). I don't really like the look of that and it seems sort of unnatural (its "lines" and formation) and out of place in that setting. But who knows maybe there's a very good functional reason for it like drainage or something. If not for that reason, though, I'd like to see the "lines" on the right of that green (in place of that bowl) just sort of gently flow away from the green.

[T_MacWood]

TE
Both Macdonald and Behr quoted Repton, I don’t believe I questioned Macdonald’s quote, it was more or less used to rationalize or defend his use template holes. The practice of incorporating famous models really never caught on beyond Macdonald’s disciples, and in some quarters was criticized.

I had more of a problem with Behr’s Repton quotation, in particular the thought that the designer must always hide or eliminate ‘natural defects’. IMO the natural defects are what makes Nature interesting and are the essence of interesting golf architecture.

What is more interesting in golf than ‘broken’ ground? Broken ground is not something I would associate with English Landscape movement and the works of Repton, Capability Brown, et al. The linksland amongst the dunes; rugged Pine Valley; the sand hills of Nebraska; Addington, St.Georges Hill and the rest of Surrey; the barrancas at Pasatiempo; the rough ground at Adelaide & Melbourne are (it seems to me) the antithesis of the idyllic view of nature promoted by Repton & Co.

IMO soft flowing curves, very regular grading (often without relationship to existing features), framing, landscape mounding and still water features are modern golf design practices which can be traced back to the influence of LArch.  You can see these design philosophies expressed in the desert of Arizona, tropical Florida, the Rocky Mountains, a rural Midwest landscape, Long Island, etc…site means next to nothing, we must always strive for an idyllic vision of nature. (I must add the naturalistic movement of the English Landscape movement beats the hell out the formalized gardens that proceeded it).

On a related note, I did not understand the comparison of MacKenzie with Capability Brown in Doak and Scott’s MacKenzie biography.

[Norbert P]

"... if you followed a "Land first" philosophy too strictly, you would more than likely have one crappy golf course on most sites.... "

  Agreed.  The point I was hoping to make was... when the ego of man and his knowledge professes to know the balance of natures by qualitatively defining nature through emphasizing or elimintating existing landforms, and feels compelled to practice human dominance over land, the golf course, or general landscaping, loses the honesty of history.

  If we admire a Monet painting, do we admire nature? Or do we admire what he saw in his minds eye of what nature was to him?  Was Monet a better artist than Ansel Adams? I would say no.  Each knew they could not capture nature or its essence, but the pursuit of capturing it was art in itself.  

  A high worth value ethic of land relates into less manipulation and higher truth.  It comes down to balance of choices and displacement theory; i.e., if you add manmade articles, then natural is subtracted.  And vice versa.  

  This is what, I believe, separates the golf course designers from golf course artists.  

  Perhaps we need more non-18-hole golf courses.

   Sincerely, the idealistic and naive GCA wannabe,  Slag.

[Norbert P]

"... many architects... have too rigid a view of what a good golf hole should be, and thus are more inclined to move earth in support of that ideal."

  Thus, the designer is elevating his/her dogmatic beliefs above the truth of nature.  Obviously, there must be a balance of land and golf, and those that reach for what's in the land appeal to me more than the one's that reach into their portfolio.

  What is the goal of a Golf Course Architect? To present the historic personality of golfable land or to present one's idea of a golf course? The answer is unanswerable, methinks, but the pursuit of a higher goal makes the challenge more interesting.  
   For me, a novice of no talent, discovering and playing golf courses around the world is a painful passion.  I spend way too much time dreaming of faraway places and not enough time actually going. Still, every man must have his vices and to sometimes forget about the reality of his own limitations.

   Hope is powerful escapism.
 
 

[TEPaul]

"TE
Both Macdonald and Behr quoted Repton, I don’t believe I questioned Macdonald’s quote,"

I don't either. My recollection is you took some exception to ONE of Repton's listed LA "principles" that Macdonald listed in his quote. That particular "principle" said something to the effect that the landscape architect should remove that in nature which was considered unsightly to his composition. I think you took exception to that in golf architecture (or a landscape architectural application in GA and I always agreed with what you said about that---I thought that was a most interesting observation as it's probably the very thing that many of today's architects automatically and easily remove(with today's effective equipment) as unsightly too.

[TEPaul]

Tom MacW:

I don't remember Doak's comparison of Brown to Mackenzie. In my opinion the most interesting facet of Mackenzie was his application of the theories of camouflage in golf architecture.

However, I believe many have misunderstood what he meant to say and do with the theories of camouflage in golf architecture. In its very broadest result and effect, though, it's obviously precisely why so many said Mackenzie's architecture looks much harder to play than it really is, as well as of course the theory and technique of how to tie everything together to accomplish the illusion that man had not done anything (the Boers technique with their trenches). The antithesis of Mackenzie's effect and result, in my opinion, was Ross whose architecture looks easier than it actually plays.

But I completely agree with the things you say in post #9 about the unwillingness of golf architects to use seemingly natural defects in golf architecture as it might sort of violate the principles and applications of LA and the sort of pristine look of it all.

Although I personally feel much of Mackenzie's architecture is perhaps the most beautiful of all, and best expressed at CPC, it's no secret that some of the bunkering on that course was apparently conceived of by those talented Irish contractors of the American Construction Co. who got into imitating the lines and shapes of clouds in some of the bunkers they built at CPC.

Perhaps the best example may have been on hole #15 or at least on that hole it was the most unusual juxtaposition to the rest of what that landform was and is. The bunkers behind the famous 16th hole have always made me scratch my head too in the context of what we're talking about here. Of course they're probably there as an interesting visual backdrop to the green itself but again what an odd juxtaposition they are on such a beautiful and totally rocky promontory!

Personally I feel that hole and green would've been even better without those eye catching bunkers behind the green. Of course the green wouldn't have been so easy to mentally and visually focus on without those backdrop bunkers on #16 but I consider that to be an architectural asset while many architects obviously think that would be a drawback!

[Norbert P]

            The 16th at Cypress Point

[TEPaul]

"Or do we admire what he saw in his minds eye of what nature was to him?  Was Monet a better artist than Ansel Adams? I would say no.  Each knew they could not capture nature or its essence, but the pursuit of capturing it was art in itself."

Norbert:

Your remark there almost perfectly reflects what Behr said about this in his essay called "What Is Art in Golf Architecture?"

He said it was not an art of representation but one of interpretation.

"Golf architecture is not an art of representation; it is, essetially, an art of interpretation. And an interpretative art allows freedom to fancy only through obedience to the law  which dominates its medium, a law that lies outside ourselves. The medium of the artist is paint, and he becomes its master; but the medium of the golf architect is the surface of the earth over which the forces of Nature alone are master.

Therefore, in the prosecution of his designs, if the architect correctly uses the forces of nature to express them and thus succeeds in hiding his hand, then, only, has he created the illusion that can still all criticism."

Both of those two factors became the foundation of what he referred to as "Permanent Architecture."
 

[cary lichtenstein]

This is one of the best threads on GCA that I have ever read. Very informative and educational. Keep it up

[TEPaul]

Norbert:

Thanks for that photo. I don't think those sand bunkers on that hole are bad or anything like that. I just think they're not necessary! My God, why bother to enhance a natural setting as visually powerful as that one with sand bunkers? But I do think I understand why he did it. It was probably to simply define a few of the parameters and the placemant of that green in that enormous and almost overwhelmingly visual natural setting. But my point is---why define the green's (the destination and target) parameters with SAND bunkering (an odd and out of place material juxtaposition in that particular hole's setting)? Let the golfer look more carefully at that setting and let him figure out the positon and dimensions of that green for himself. That to me is what dealing with truly interesting raw nature in golf architecture is all about---you should feel your finding things and the ways to them on your very own--not necessarily the architect's way! What's better to a golfer actually or subliminally---feeling he's making and finding his very own strategies or simply following the path laid out for him to follow by some golf course architect?

This is where, in my opinion,  Behr starts to make his comparative analysis of Man's fundamental relationship to Nature itself vs Man's fundamental relationship to Man!

In the end he figured the golfer would feel more inspired if he challenged and conquered obstacles put before him by Nature rather than clearly artifical obstacles put before him by another man. But if he failed and those obstacles defeated him he'd be less likely to be critical of them if they were natural or the illusion of them was. In other words it was more subliminally acceptable to him to be conquered by the all powerful Nature rather than some other conception of Man (and his "game" mind!). This is why he felt that nature, the look, feel and aura of it, should never lose it's important part in golf course architecture.

[Norbert P]

Tom, the following remark I will make is very presumptive but it's a statement I feel can be made without too much crossfire. There is no belief in it, just a drifty notion.  ...

  Perhaps Mackenzie and his Irish bogtrotters placed the bunkers there as a juxtaposition of the unseen waves from beyond the peninsula. A sort of cubist view of what is amidst  the land ... the implication that there are crashing waves against the rampart rocks around the perimeter, as well as a churning life within the land.  It may represent the inner tumult and subconscious termoil as unbridled and chaotic as the trust in our golf swing for such an awesome and momentous setting.  Truly, a battle of man versus his own nature.

  I think of the fairway bunkers at 15 at Pacific Dunes.  They are a bit out of character with the bunkers on the rest of the course yet they carry the image of the crashing Pacific, now well behind us, yet with us in our memory.

[TEPaul]

Norbert:

As you know I think Behr was an out and out genius, but as time goes on I feel more and more he may have seriously OVERestimated Man---the golfer! Apparently he didn't fully understand that despite his best efforts of explanation and creation there were just far too many dumb clucks out there playing golf like Rich Goodale with seriously impaired subliminal and visual sensibilities. Behr must not have fully understood that if you give these people a starting point and put a flag at the end of particular stretch of nature they'd be likely to not notice all the wonderful stuff in between!  

[TEPaul]

Norbert:

Regarding your post #18 I think that probably depended on when those Irish pubcrawlers of the American Construction Co. did that hole. It's sort of like the Tillinghast am or pm thing directly relating to "flask architecture". Tillinghast was always far more creative in the end of the day when his flask was lighter than he was in the morning.

Those Irish lads probably did #16 very late in the day when their imaginations were firing on all 8 1/2 cylinders about the very things you mentioned in your post.

This hole may be the rare case when am architecture would've been much better. There's just so much raw and powerful nature going on at #16's raw setting it doesn't need the enhancement! They should've just placed that green there as it is and left the setting alone and moved on over to #18 later that day when their imaginations were enhancing or fully enhanced!

[Norbert P]

   Apparently (Behr) didn't fully understand that despite his best efforts of explanation and creation there were just far too many dumb clucks out there playing golf ...  

  Tom, you, of all people, should be able to relate to his endless struggle to illuminate the phillistines.    

   On! Rocanante!  Upward Sisyphus!

  (Richard is still a hero, though.)

  "Shine on you crazy diamonds!"  Roger Waters

[TEPaul]

"(Richard is still a hero, though.)"

Norbert:

You're joking right? Richard Goodale simply supplies the lowest common denominator that sets the low end of the spectrum from the high end of the spectrum created by one like you and thereby increased the overall dynamic on here.  

[Adam_F_Collins]

As this thread moves more toward the discussion of GCA as an art form, I find myself trying to find a good comparison between Golf Course Architecture and another form of art - and I find it difficult.

Sculpture? I remember reading quotes from great sculptors about how they had to "let something out" of a piece of marble or stone or wood.

But no, I think Golf Architecture is really a unique art form - especially in its 'purest' form - that which seeks to change the least about the existing landscape (minimalist - arts and crafts - whatever). In this form, nowhere is an art form so intimately tied to the canvass as it existed BEFORE the artist intervened.

A great golf course architect has to have the rare ability to envision interesting golf holes based on what the land offers. This is where the real difficulty lies.

It is certainly challenge enough to envision holes on a landscape, move earth as needed, truck in what's not there and put it all together in a nice composition - and let's not belittle that, for it would be like saying that creating great sculpture or painting is easy -

But to create a golf course through more of a true process of discovery - to unearth what largely exists already and to know just how to accentuate the features that are there and to have the RESTRAINT that it requires to maintain an artists ego yet resist the urge to overpower the subject and raw materials and just force the landscape to do what you want it to do...

That's the trick of it.

We've all seen great golf holes. We all have pre-existing images and layouts in our heads of Pine Valley and Pebble Beach and Augusta. So there's incredible pressure there to remake those...to fall back onto the familiar.

The truth is, (at least to me) is that so much education, be it in Art, History, Landscape Architecture, Golf Architecture, or whatever just ends up as a well-justified, clearly described, balanced, manicured, picture-perfect band aid for courses which are just plain uninspired.

And hey, that's alright in a way - no field or subject is populated with an overwhelming percentage of greats. There can be only so many Classics. The summit is a small place where only a few can stand.

[Norbert P]

  Tom Paul,          hubbida hubbida hubbida

  Can you convert that into an algebraic equation for clarity?  

  How about dna spectrum analysis?

  Better yet, convert that into binary language and I'll translate it with my transcryptomogrifying babelfish.  

  (P.S.  All you statesider folks; don't forget to put up Old Glory, tomorrow)