Good architecture = good golfers

[T_MacWood]

Is there a coralation between the progress of architecture within a nation and the champions they produce?

I think you can make the case for it with the US, Australia and S. Africa, but Japan and Canada may produce a counter argument.

[Tyler Kearns]

Tom,

I think the rise, albeit medioric, of Canadian golfers like Mike Weir, Jon Mills, David Hearn, James Lepp & Richard Scott are likely attributable to better player development program instigated by the R.C.G.A. Further, more and more junior golfers from Canada are being recruited by NCAA colleges in the United States, especially Kent State.

I do believe that better golf course (read: better golf architecture) will improve the playing ability of golfers in general. However, the NCAA schools and national player development programs are what seem to be producing touring professionals in the 21st century - not architecture. While Australia is blessed with a healthy number of great golf courses, the recent explosion of Australian talent is more a facet of a thriving sporting nation, whose government funds sports programs generously.

TK

[Chris Kane]

Australia has good architecture and good players (with many more coming through the ranks), but I think the link is tenuous.  

Good players have the opportunity to play our best courses (Royal Melbourne, Kingston Heath etc), but most learn the game and play the majority of their golf on ordinary courses.

I agree with what Tyler said - we have very good development programs such as the Victorian Insititute of Sport program, which in about fifteen years has produced players such as Robert Allenby, Stuart Appleby, Geoff Ogilvy and Aaron Baddeley.  I should also mention that golf is generally fairly accessible in Australia, which means that more kids are exposed to the game.  This means that more talented young sportspeople are taking up golf.

[Mike_Clayton]

Chris is exactly right when it comes to our best players.
Almost all learnt to play on poorer courses although in Melbourne they gravitate to the sandbelt when they get good enough to attract the attention of the recruiters for the club teams.

The link with government programs is tenuous.
The AIS has produced very little in both golf and tennis (not Rafter,Hewitt or Philipoussis) although the Victorian Institute produced Allenby,Appleby Baddeley and Ogilvy - and others who have done well
That was more to do with a pair of great teachers - Steve Bann and Dale Lynch - than anything.

[James Bennett]

Not sure what great architecture influenced the games of those Queenslanders like Greg Norman, Wayne Grady, Ian Baker-Finch (and Peter Senior, and ...).  They would have enjoyed a periodic visit to the 'great' courses in the more southern states once or twice a year, if they were lucky.

I know Charlie Earp was regarded as a key component for the development of Norman (he was the head pro at Royal Queensland, where Norman did his professional apprenticeship).  I wonder what the architectural quality of Mt Isa Golf Courses are (where Norman started to play).  I wouldn't be surprised if they were average.

James B

[Kyle Harris]

I think it's more along the lines that good clubs are more likely to produce good players, good architecture or both.

A better exercise for this thread may be to list courses in those categories.

Off the top of my Philadelphia biased head:

Good players:
Moselem Springs CC

Good Architecture:
Rolling Green CC
Manufacturer's G&CC
Gulph Mills CC

Both:
Huntingdon Valley CC
Merion CC
Philadelphia CC

On the fence between both and good players:
Tavistock CC (I've never seen it, but it's been described as "eclectic" to me and I know they are doing some renovations).
Llanerch CC

Coincidentally, both at Alex Findlay.

[Tony_Muldoon]

Tom are you differentiating between 'good' players and those at the very top?

Women's golf?  Sweden has long had a development program and Anika often talks about the influence of one man (sorry can't remember his name) who encourages them to try for a round in 54.  Also why so many Korean ladies in the LPGA?

On the other hand look at Clarke and McDowell flying high in the listings and both in their youth played at Portrush.

[Mark_Guiniven]

Let us hope that as a result of better work in designing and constructing courses, Australian golfers as a whole may be even more intrigued by this fascinating game. Let us hope too, that the standard of play will be raised thereby and that Australians may thus take their place in the big golf of the world.

Alister Mackenzie, Nov. 13 1926.

[ForkaB]

Pretty sure we had a thread on this before.  I felt then, and still feel, that the opposite is more true.

1.  Look at the evidence.  Which great golfers grew up on even semi-great courses?  Nicklaus--OK. Woods?  Trevino?  Player?  Els?  Norman?  Faldo?  Lot's of reasons for this including the fact that access to the greatest courses is severely limited to young golfers, but I would also posit....
2.  The first thing that a potentially great golfer must do is learn how to go low.  If you're 15, you're not going to do this playing Shinnecock or Royal Melbourne from the tips everyday.  And, I would even further posit......
3.  Step two in this process is really learning how to score well on somebody else's dog track.  Trevino famously and accurately said something to th eeffect of "there are thousands of golfers out there who can go shoot 68 on their home course, but only a few who can show up at a course they've never seen and shoot 68."  These guys are called "pros."  So........
4.  Learn how to score first on any old course, and then and only then, start figuring out how to score on great courses.  Appreciating greatness from a playing point of view is like a post-doctorate, not high school.  There are only a very few people on this board who realy understand this, and I am definitely not one of them!

[TEPaul]

"Is there a coralation between the progress of architecture within a nation and the champions they produce?"

I doubt there's any correlation if one is talking about world class touring professional champions. Just looking at say the top ten players in the world right now would seem to prove that out. How many great courses are there in Fiji, for instance?

What Rich Goodale and someone else above said is probably true of world class champions---eg they are very adaptable to courses anywhere and I can't see how that would correlate to the architecture of their nation. The only exception to that I can think of was probably Trevino and his refusal to play the Masters because he convinced himself the course just didn't suit his game (Nicklaus actually mentioned he thought Trevino's aversion to ANGC was nuts and Jack said Trevino probably could've found a way to win there if he hadn't done such a good job of talking himself out of it).

But in a good amateur sense there may be something to good architecture=good players. In the Philadelphia district, at least, that theory was very definitely on George Crump's mind when he built PVGC. One of his distinct goals was to raise the level of tournament players from the region in regional and national championships by distinctly raising the level of a "championship test" with PVGC. (There was even a significant early member of PVGC who promiised to contribute X dollars to PVGC depending on the players from this district making the US Amateur!).

In recent years I've heard Gordon Brewer, the current president of PVGC, say in public on many occasions that the quality of golf architecture in the Philadelphia region has been directly responsible for the high level of amateur champions coming out of this region. Brewer, himself had a good career nationally winning two national championship and coming very close in another. I don't know if what he said about that is provable historically but I do know Philadelphia did produce some notable champions including J.J Mcdermott, Max Marston, Bill Hyndman, of course the incomparable modern amateur Jay Sigel and on the women's side perhaps the most successful American women's amateur Glenna Collett Vare (six US Amateur championships!). On the other side of the state, Pittsburgh, which has a number of excellent courses there is the all time energizer bunny, my old friend Carol Semple Thompson whose national championship production is somewhere around Woods, Nicklaus and Bobby Jones. Thompson has also won 20 state amateur championships! That's right, it's not a typo, that's 20 state amateur championships, and PA is no small state golf-wise.

We've felt relatively recently that some of the best players from this district come from HVGC simply because that course has so many unlevel lies and consequently HVGC players have become better ball strikers for it. But I think the real reason some clubs and even some districts produce good players has more to do with some type of synergistic golf culture within various golf clubs or even districts---eg they tend to inspire each other to do better. Hence clubs around here like Overbrook, PCC, Llanerch, even little Yardley and now Tavistock.

Tom MacWood:

I wonder where you came up with this thread's question. Have you been reading "Greens and Greenkeeping" recently because in it I believe Harold Hilton ruminated on this very subject of architecture and good players vis-a-vis the differing games of early British Isles top players depending on which course they came from. In it he said some got so used to pitching the ball they weren't good at the low run-in shot and vice versa for those from TOC I believe.

[ForkaB]

But I think the real reason some clubs and even some districts produce good players has more to do with some type of synergistic golf culture within various golf clubs or even districts---eg they tend to inspire each other to do better.

This is a very astute observation, Tom.  And, this culture can and does change.  I have two examples from my direct experience.  In the 70's and 80's, Brora dominated golf in the Highlands of SCotland, while Dornoch lagged.  Today, Dornoch has 8 players with 1HCP or less, including the best player from Brora.  My home club Aberdour dominated golf in Fife in the 70's and 80's with a core of 4 superb players and 4-6 very good wannabes.  Now all those guys are in their 40's and we struggle to put together a competitive scratch team.  And.......

....when Aberdour was in its heyday, it was a 4700 yard par 63 course, with small and fast greens.  No wonder those kids learned how to score and play!

[TEPaul]

"....when Aberdour was in its heyday, it was a 4700 yard par 63 course, with small and fast greens.  No wonder those kids learned how to score and play!"

Rich:

Mmmm, I'm not so sure this idea of yours that young golfers learn to go low has much to do with eventual success as a champion golfer. I mean, come on, how do you think those young lads feel who get used to shooting 57 and 58 at Aberdour's 4,700 yd par 63 when eventually they have to tee it up from the tips at Carnoustie in a national championship?? I'd say they might get a little depressed and overwhelmed, wouldn't you?

If I was training a young lad with potential I'd tell him to get used to ripping the day-lights out of it from the tips (and straigthening it out later). I don't think I'd train him to tee it up every day from the ladies tees so he could just get used to going lower!  

"In my day job for most of the past 30 years (advising large entitites in strategy and organisation),"

Rich:

During your 30 years of advising large entities in strategy and organization do you also advise them to think in a "small pond" mentality so they can get used to the feeling of dominance?  

On the other hand, I am somewhat of a supporter and advocate of your idea of playing against better players on the flat, as a general rule. To say the least, that does tend to raise one's level rather quickly as it removes any semblance of comparability that handicap strokes sometimes produces in one's mind.  

[ForkaB]

Tom

Amongst those kids at Aberdour were:

A British Boys (18 and under) Champion
A British Boys Semi-finalist
Two Fife Order of Merit (best Amateur golfer of the year) winners (one for the majority of the past 15 years)

The latter golfer turned pro for a while and qualified for two Opens, including Muirfield 1980 when he made the cut, beating players like Weiskopf in the process.

These guys could play on any track (and to some degree they still can).

Vis a vis small ponds, 99% of all organisations play in small ponds and very few have the ambition to really take the risks necessary to play with the big boys (even a lot of firms that you might think are big boys!).  The secret is to get them to understand what pond they are capable of playing in, and then letting them loose to learn how to deal with success.  The best ones will graduate to larger arenas, but most will be comfortable to swim around in their own excretions for the rest of their life, which, of course, is why WC Fields never ate fish.....

[T_MacWood]

Tony
I was thinking world class championship golfers.

[Tom_Doak]

As an architect, I'd like to believe it's true, but I think not.

It's a matter of sheer numbers.  Back in the old days when there were only a few courses in Scotland, it's no surprise that the majority of better players came from the better courses where they had to learn more shots.  

Today, there are 20,000 courses in the world.  Even if you picked the "top 10,000" [there's a list for a magazine!] the odds say there would be some great players who were relegated to the other half of the world ... and nowadays they would be exposed to some of the courses in the top half as soon as they started playing competitively.

[Philip Spogard]

I think it is a difficult point to make. The world has become so globalized during the last 50 years that a lot of people pick up the game of golf in a lot of other countries than their own.

Because a country has a lot of good golfers it is, in my opinion, more a question of how popular the game is (number of players) and in which regard the young talents are picked up by a development program that will help them all the way to the top with the best coaches, etc. That is very, very individual from country to country.

I think it is primarily a question about the total number of players in a country that will determine how many great players evolves. It is, as Tom says, a matter of sheer numbers.

[ForkaB]

Tony
I was thinking world class championship golfers.

Tom

Same principles apply.  Read the posts above.

[BCrosby]

MacD, Hunter, Mack and others argued, quite explicitly, that people ought to care about good designs in the US because it will lead to better golfers in the US.

I'm not sure anyone ever took that argument too seriously. At least not in its literal form.

But it does seem to me that great young golfers have to match themselves against great golf courses to move on to the next stage in their development. For virtually all good junior golfers who come from mediocre courses, playing a great course is a shock to the system. The good ones climb the hill and move on. Others don't make it over the hill.  

It is on great courses that the filtration process takes place. And if your country doesn't have great courses to provide those higher order tests, developing a crop of great young golfers may be delayed or blocked altogether.

Even great golfers go through a learning process. The better the school, the better and the faster they will learn. So MacD, Hunter and MacK do make some sense. Great courses are important finishing schools for great golfers. Absent great courses, great young golfers will have a more difficult learning curve.

If Vijay had spend the first 20 years of his career in Fiji working just as hard as on his game there as he worked on his game in the US, and then one day flew to the US to play on the PGA tour, he would not have been anywhere near as good a golfer. An important (though not the only) part of becoming a world class golfer is learning how you play the best courses in the world.

Bob

[T_MacWood]

Tom MacWood:

I wonder where you came up with this thread's question. Have you been reading "Greens and Greenkeeping" recently because in it I believe Harold Hilton ruminated on this very subject of architecture and good players vis-a-vis the differing games of early British Isles top players depending on which course they came from. In it he said some got so used to pitching the ball they weren't good at the low run-in shot and vice versa for those from TOC I believe.

TE
No, I was reading about early South African golf, they definitely believed they could upgrade their golfers if they upgraded what was (in their opinion) the sorry state of SA golf architecture. They pointed to the United States as an example, and to MacKenzie's visit to Australia as a model of what they needed to do.

It is also interesting to read predictions that Germany would soon rival America in golf if the state of golf architecture continued to improve...this was in the mid- to late-twenties when some fine courses were beginning to be built (mostly by Colt & Co). Circumstances obviously prevented this from ever happening.

Hutchinson also predicted (around 1910, perhaps a little before) that both America and Japan would eventually dominate the game. And especually he believed the "yellow hoard" would one day dominate...he admired their mentality and temprament, he thought it was perfectly suited for the game.

[wsmorrison]

Perhaps an excellent golf course enhances the real underpinning of creating top players and that is competitive drive fostered by rare individuals but more so by club ethos.  Huntingdon Valley always had a challenging golf course, the club had many active players in local and broader competitions--both men and women.  Its course was 6300 yards at the turn of the century.  The course was an early practitioner of lengthening as players and technology got better.  When Merion and Pine Valley were built the club realized how behind the times they were and asked for three nines of increasing difficulty...and got them!  

The fact is Philadelphia fared particularly poorly in competitions with New York and Boston.  It wasn't until Merion and Pine Valley developed their championship courses that the district players started to compete on an equal footing and began winning contests.  I think Robert Lesley felt that competition would help the district players when he founded the Lesley Cup which directly influenced Walker and Ryder Cups.  This was in 1905 before the district had multiple championship caliber courses.

It didn't hurt that Max Marston moved from Baltusrol to Merion and Pine Valley  

[TEPaul]

"The best ones will graduate to larger arenas, but most will be comfortable to swim around in their own excretions for the rest of their life, which, of course, is why WC Fields never ate fish....."

Rich:

Are you absolutely sure W.C. Fields never ate fish? Perhaps you're thinking of his notorious line when someone asked him if he'd like some water;

"Water, WATER? Of course not, fish f... in it!"

[TEPaul]

Bob Crosby said:

"MacD, Hunter, Mack and others argued, quite explicitly, that people ought to care about good designs in the US because it will lead to better golfers in the US.
I'm not sure anyone ever took that argument too seriously. At least not in its literal form."

Bob:

The longer I look into this subject of golf architecture and also those early philosophers of golf architecture and what they wrote and propose in that vein, the more I'm coming to realize how much there probably is in what you just said above as it applies to what happened in the succeeding evolution of golf architecture, particularly in America. After-all we do have the luxury of looking at what the succeeding years brought---a luxury those early architecture philosophers did not have.

It seems to me as noble as that sentiment was on their parts, the thing they really missed the boat on was the sentiments in that vein of the everyday American golfer. History seems to show us that most of those philosophers on architecture at that time when golf was quite young in America just totally overestimated how much the every day golfer in America might care about certain things to do with golf architecture. History seems to have shown us in the ensuing years that you can pretty much just give them anything and they'll be OK with it as long as they can just get out there and whack a golf ball around.  

[TEPaul]

"Hutchinson also predicted (around 1910, perhaps a little before) that both America and Japan would eventually dominate the game. And especually he believed the "yellow hoard" would one day dominate...he admired their mentality and temprament, he thought it was perfectly suited for the game."

Tom;

Interesting. I guess that would make "Our Father" of all golf architecture, or perhaps amended to more accurately describe him as "Our Guide" to all golf course architecture a bit of a Stendhal, eh?

However, calling them the 'yellow hoard' might mean HoraceH wasn't too good at predicting the coming of political correctness, eh?  

[T_MacWood]

TE
From now on, to make things as easy and simple as possible, Horace Hutchinson should simply be referred to as "The Man".

[ForkaB]

"Hutchinson also predicted (around 1910, perhaps a little before) that both America and Japan would eventually dominate the game. And especually he believed the "yellow hoard" would one day dominate...he admired their mentality and temprament, he thought it was perfectly suited for the game."

Tom;

Interesting. I guess that would make "Our Father" of all golf architecture, or perhaps amended to more accurately describe him as "Our Guide" to all golf course architecture a bit of a Stendhal, eh?

However, calling them the 'yellow hoard' might mean HoraceH wasn't too good at predicting the coming of political correctness, eh?  

TEP

Can't believe you missed Tom MacW's interconnected tyops!  First "gold" for "god" and then "hoard" for "horde."  Me senses a significant moolah obsession somewhere......