Weaknesses of the great designers?

[Mark_Fine]

We all offen talk adnauseam about how great many of the classic designers were.  The same goes for many of the best modern architects.  We all love these guys and find it hard to be critical.  I remember presenting at one club some years ago how great I thought the work of George Thomas was.  A member of the club said to me afterwards that I was over selling the guy to the point where he thought my bias could make people very skeptical.  He was probably right and his comments helped temper my enthusiasm and made me look for a more balanced approach.  

Anyone care to elaborate on one of their favorite architect’s shortcomings or do you still feel that is sacrilegious?

[wsmorrison]

I never did feel it is sacriligeous to critically analyze an architect.  If I were to criticize Flynn, and I find little to criticize, it would be that his par 3s almost always seemed to have multiple bunkers on one side and a single one on the opposite side.  I don't think there's much else for me to criticize.  Some might not like the way he boldly routed into around and along dramatic topography and rarely shied away from those areas.  But I like that aggressive design approach.

As for Ross, I think his penchant for high tees low landing areas and high greens was too formulaic and he missed some good grounds for golf.  Maybe this was his MO on courses he didn't see or spend much time on.  A comparison of Flynn and Ross at CC York (Ross was awarded the design contract) illustrates this point very well.

Raynor and Banks were too engineered looking.  They didn't seem to get in step with other designers that used a more natural look to the engineered portions of the golf course nor offset their greens to the line of play for more interesting angles except for road or redan holes.

How's that for a start?  Nobody is sacred in my book, classic or modern.

[TEPaul]

I sort of hesitate to mention this but it's something Ron Prichard mentions a lot and he even emailed me the other day, perhaps for the purpose of putting it on here.

Mind you, this will probably come off sounding critical on his part in the opinions of some on here but I absolutely know he doesn't mean it that way, and that he only means it in its context of historical accuracy.

His feeling is that we really do need to know that a great many of those who worked in the business back then were essentially pretty uneducated people who were probably simply doing things in design that were far more in the way of being just basically only functional and far less in the way of sophisticated artistry than most of us realize or are willing to admit now.

Obviously there were exceptions and probably numerous ones, and certainly ones we are all well aware of, but I think his point is very well taken and obviously historically accurate.

I think his real point is we should probably keep that in mind before we tend to both overthink and glorify every imaginable thing they ever did, or we think they did and why. And I think his ultimate point is this is the only way to come to truly understand the evolution of golf course architecture.

By the way, Ron Prichard, in my opinion, has been the most interested the longest in the details of the history of golf course architecture.

[Tom_Doak]

Dr. MacKenzie's weakness was in trying too hard to use a natural feature more than once in his routings, to the point of making holes dangerously close together.  Either he didn't anticipate the ultimate success of a course like Pasatiempo, or he counted on golfers to be aware of others on the course and dismissed the potential danger.

Every time I have seen a MacKenzie course which had later problems, this is the root cause.  It caused later committees to plant trees to try and mitigate the safety issue, taking the natural features out of play on both of the holes in doubt.

[wsmorrison]

That's a very interesting, point Tom D.  I guess it would have been difficult to imagine how litigious our society would become.  MacKenzie may have planned elasticity into his courses but he didn't plan for the tort system in America.  I'll leave the blame due the Democrats for another thread  

[A_Clay_Man]

Tom, Is it any wonder some on here are forced to over-emphasize what others think is minutiae? When intelligent design gets mutilated by those with the power but not the knowledge, it's hard not to appear radical.

I'll cite the example, on the tenth at an old Egan design, East Moreland. This short two shotter had a small green complete with radically steep faced back bunkers. The powers, in the Portland Dept of Recreation, in thier infinite wiisdom added over twice the green space to the front of the green. Removing all semblance to intelligence for the justification for the eye winking rear bunkers.

[James Bennett]

Dr. MacKenzie's weakness was in trying too hard to use a natural feature more than once in his routings, to the point of making holes dangerously close together.  Either he didn't anticipate the ultimate success of a course like Pasatiempo, or he counted on golfers to be aware of others on the course and dismissed the potential danger.

Every time I have seen a MacKenzie course which had later problems, this is the root cause.  It caused later committees to plant trees to try and mitigate the safety issue, taking the natural features out of play on both of the holes in doubt.

Tom Doak

I had thought the same with his design at Royal Adelaide (the first was meant to be on the nothern side of the train line, not the south - it would have been congested in this area if built as designed).  RA has such great space, and then congestion.  Great clusters of holes where significant features lie, eg the crater at 11, greens at 6 and 7, tees at 8 and 12, and the 4th just to one side.  Then the 14th green and the line of the back tee on 18 are so close.

Similarly at Moortown in Leeds.  The design is somewhat 'hub and spoke', with some places concentrated with greens/tees, eg #1, #3 and #17 greens, and the nearby tees (this area does not feel congested though), followed by greens on 8 and 15 with 9 and 16 tees,  followed by another three green/three tee hub of 9, 12 and 14 greens with 10 (Gibralter), 15 and (to a lesser extent) 13 tees.

James B

[Tom_Doak]

James:

It was MacKenzie's strength when it wasn't his weakness ... he managed to get a lot out of each feature, but sometimes he would try to squeeze in more than really worked because a property line was getting in the way or something.

[Mark_Fine]

A few good comments so far but so few here are really willing to speak out.  Either that or they are just to close to their idols and won't dare say something less than glowing.  

Let me toss out a few comments and I hope people don't get too defensive.  Are you always a little unsure what you might find when you visit a Ross course?  Did Tillinghast sometimes get carried away with artificial mounding?  Did Maxwell always build great greens?  Is there a sameness to many of Flynn's courses?  Was Travis really that consistent in the quality of his designs?  Were Thompson's courses often more about beauty and aesthetics than strategy?  Was Gordon asleep when Flynn lectured him about strategic placement of bunkers?  Did Thomas need Billy Bell more than many of us realize?  Was Simpson a better writer about courses than he was at designing them?  Does Fazio sometimese build the same hole over and over again even though he claims otherwise?  Are Coore & Crenshaw starting to get a bit repetitive in their architecture?  Can you count on one hand the number of sites that Pete Dye hasn't turned upside down with earthwork?  

Come on guys, if you really know these architects you will understand that they all have strengths and weaknesses know matter how good they are.  If you feel otherwise, you have more work to do to figure them out  

[Mike_Cirba]

It's interesting to me that Tom Doak mentioned MacKenzie trying too hard to utilize a natural feature multiple times leading to some cramping in his routing.

Last April was my first visit to ANGC, and although I was wowed by the greens and the beauty of the property, I recall writing here that I left unconvinced that the routing was as good as it could be, not that I could do a better job.

It seemed to me that in going straight up and down hills, rather than utilzing more side slopes, MacKenzie ended up leaving a big under-utilized area of the property near the center, and instead ended up working himself into the corners, and then trying to get out.  Of course, when it worked, as in "Amen Corner", it came off as brilliant.  However, I'm still unconvinced that other areas of the course just don't have way too much going on simultaneously in a tight area, especially for such a sprawling property.  You can get a sense for what I mean standing on the 6th tee, or the 7th tee and green (even the old one), and overall, I find it to be a course that is elevated by the wonderful set of greens and the creative, heroic use of water hazards as a feature.  

For instance, there is no better or more creative use of a creek in golf than 11, 12, and 13.  Still, those holes could have been found with any number of potential routings.

[Mike_Cirba]

Just to elaborate on my point, let's forget the great greens on any of the following holes and only consider what's there from tee to green.  I say this simply because none of these greens really utilizes "natural" features and slopes like say Garden City does, but instead are built up on green pads and presumably could have been created virtually anywhere else on the property.

Is there any incredible use of a natural feature that would make you cry should any of the following holes at ANGC disappear tomorrow?  Remember, this is assuming that the great green on the hole could show up somewhere else on the property.

Tee to green, who'd miss;

1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 14, 15, 17, 18?

[Tom_Doak]

Mike:

Agreed, but you've gone so far that you have underscored how few natural features there were to work with at Augusta National, which apart from the area down by Rae's Creek is not full of interesting contours -- just big hills.  The Doc and Mr. Jones weren't really that weak.  Plus, the clusters of greens and tees are a main reason that the course is so exciting at Masters time.

Mark:

I'm not sure that all the things you've listed for various architects are necessarily "weaknesses" so much as they are "priorities".  Not many properties really have 18 great holes laying there with easy connections between them.  The thing which makes great designers different are their choices of how to use the features given to them ... the thing which makes them better than the rest is their ability to recognize the best features to begin with.  I don't really think MacKenzie missed much at Augusta, though it's possible he could have been swayed by landscape elements (plants) which are all different by now.

[Mike_Cirba]

Yes Tom, that was surprising to me.  For years I'd heard mention of what an incredible site for a golf course ANGC is, yet those folks must have been talking more about the lovely arboretum, flora, and tall pines than much on the ground.

In thinking about it, do you think a routing that crossed those long, broad slopes on diagonals instead of mostly up and down might not have garnered more interesting holes on the upper stretch?

I would have loved to see how a routing billy goat like William Flynn would have approached that property, and it would have been equally interesting to see what Donald Ross might have come up with.  I'm not saying that either might have been better, although Flynn did do some very cool things on some severe sites like Lehigh, but simply as illustrations of how they each approached their craft in different ways from a routing perspective.

[Tom_Doak]

Mike:  Those hills are way too steep to go up or down on a diagonal, all the balls would roll out the low side of the fairway.

[Mark_Fine]

Tom,
Which ones would you not consider weaknesses?  Maybe in a few cases a better word would be "tendencies".  I think you know what I am getting at though.  I was hoping others would chime in with their thoughts before I added too many of mine.

Mike,
I think both Flynn and Ross were great routers of golf courses.  That was one of their strengths for sure.  What you and Tom suggested about Mackenzie is also very interesting.  

[Tom_Doak]

Mark:  Maybe each of your topics deserves its own separate thread.  (Just do the one about Coore & Crenshaw before the one on Fazio so we don't have to go back to the dictionary definition for BIAS again.)

However, many of your questions go back to the the basic issue of how much one man can do.  That any designer insisted on doing everything himself is a myth -- even the great one-man designs like Pine Valley and Merion and Pebble Beach had many others working behind the scenes in some key aspect of the job.  

The designers who had great careers were those smart enough to find good people to work with them, and who used those people's strengths to their advantage.  Their "consistency" is related to the contributions of others.  That doesn't mean that Maxwell was no good when the Wood brothers weren't around to build his greens -- in fact, he probably taught them much of what they knew, it's just that he couldn't do that and everything else by himself, so if they weren't around he didn't have as much time to devote to any other part of the craft.

[TEPaul]

"......it's just that he couldn't do that and everything else by himself, so if they weren't around he didn't have as much time to devote to any other part of the craft."

TomD:

True enough. If the Woods were not around at Pine Valley there's little question Perry could not have spent the time he did at the Philadelphia Orchestra.  

[Mark_Fine]

Tom Doak,
I couldn't agree more about the importance of surrounding yourself with good people.  Did you know that Cherry Hills CC is believed to have been built for Flynn by a construction crew that just finished building a Tillinghast golf course.  Some feel that is in part how it turned out so well given Flynn's very limited time on site.  

I was going to mention that Tom Doak is heard to have multi-million dollar insurance policies on each of his design associates    I wouldn't call that a "weakness" just good business sense  

At the end of the day, however, you get judged on what has your name on it regardless of who did the work.  

[Mike_Cirba]

Mike:  Those hills are way too steep to go up or down on a diagonal, all the balls would roll out the low side of the fairway.

Tom,

Yes, I guess that's true, Tom.  

Mostly as a hypothetical exercise, I was trying to envision something that was a combination of the way Huntingdon Valley brings you down like a Nascar race track by keeping just to the edge of playabiility of the slopes, combined with something that worked against the prevailing slopes by utilizing reverse canting, similar to Olympic Lake.

I'm betting that it wouldn't be impossible to come up with a routing that was more diagonally oriented, but that doesn't mean it would be as good either.  Still, a fun mental challenge.  

[wsmorrison]

"Is there a sameness to many of Flynn's courses?"  

Hardly.  I hope Bob Crosby sees this post.  He was visiting his daughter at UPenn and snuck away on two days to meet Tom Paul and I at Huntingdon Valley (where we met up with Linc Roden).  Bob played the A and B nines and then we walked around the C nine.  Yesterday we went over to Philadelphia Country Club where it was too miserable to play but we toured the course.  Bob has now seen Flynn's work at Merion, Rolling Green, Huntingdon Valley and Philadelphia Country Club.  That's a lot of Flynn in a small geographic area.  Bob remarked and I concur how different these four parkland courses are from one another.  Yes, there are distinctive features and routings that would indicate to a sharp eye that they were done by the same architect but there's enough substantial differrences in them to marvel at his range of designs.  

Mark, ask Bob if he thinks Flynn's bunkers are plain or boring    I'd also ask you, if Flynn stayed at Cherry Hills for 1-3 months which seems to be the range but more likely 2-3 months, why do you consider that a short period of time, especially in that era?  I think it plenty of time to get the work started right, especially if Tillinghast or another experienced crew was on the job.  Flynn usually spent a lot longer on site than his contemporaries.  I wonder if his 2 right-hand men, Lawrence and Gordon were on site for the construction of CHCC.  Any idea if Toomey was there?  Lawrence and Gordon were on construction sites almost everyday for most Flynn courses.  That isn't to say they would have been at Cherry Hills, but it is possible and to date not disproven.

[Paul_Turner]

Colt?  He frequently built only 2 or 3 par 5s on his courses and  I think he often used these to eat up the less interesting terrain (see Portrush Dunluce)....less interesting 3 shotters.  Conversely he often picked the prime green sites for his par 3s...best holes on the course.

[Mark_Fine]

Wayne,
You know how many Flynn course I've seen (close to as many as you have) and I have studied many old photos, aerials, his letters to the Green section, etc. to draw that opinion.   I love Flynn but there are others who know and love him as well and have the same opinion so it is not just me.  Don't take it as such a negative.  Please post some photos of the bunkers at the Cascades so we can see the dramatic and elaborate shaped bunkering that is being restored there.  I believe it is important to present a balanced view of any architect.  

Wasn't Flynn also designing Denver CC on that same Colorado trip?  He might have stopped in Chicago as well on the way out or back.  You can do the math as far as his own time on site.  I do believe the crews that were there had a lot to do with the course's success.  

[Mark_Fine]

Paul,
That makes some sense about Colt's par fives.  I wonder if anyone else feels that way?  I'm trying to think of some outstanding Colt par fives and none jump to mind.  You can't count the ones at Pine Valley.  I wonder what influence Alison had on this?

[wsmorrison]

"You know how many Flynn course I've seen (close to as many as you have) and I have studied many old photos, aerials, his letters to the Green section, etc. to draw that opinion.  I love Flynn but there are others who know and love him as well and have the same opinion so it is not just me.  Don't take it as such a negative.  Please post some photos of the bunkers at the Cascades so we can see the dramatic and elaborate shaped bunkering that is being restored there.  I believe it is important to present a balanced view of any architect.  "

I never said it was just you that thought that way.  However, I disagree with you and however many others regardless of the number of Flynn courses you've seen or studied.  

Just because I advocate his variety in design style doesn't mean it is out of any sort of love for his work.  I respect his work and hold it in high regard.  I don't get subjective due to emotions.  I don't take your statement about the plain and boring nature of his bunkers as a negative to Flynn.  I simply disagree with you.  Why does there have to be an emotional investment?

Flynn wasn't always designing his bunkers with a lot of flair but they were far from boring.  Especially if you consider undulating floors, grassing of surrounds, shapes and contours, etc.

Here's a Cascades bunker with some flair.  I don't know why you  ask.  There are hundreds of holes with highly aesthetic bunkering.  I don't know how you can say that the overwhelming style is plain and boring (which seems to be Brad Klein's term).  If you want to challenge me to post more, I on Cascades and other courses I will.  You would not be able to support your argument thereafter.  Maybe I will.



Here's a boring and plain bunker scheme on the 14th hole.  
Yawn!  No aesthetics there, huh?

[Tom_Doak]

Wayne:  So I guess Flynn's weakness was only knowing the alphabet as far as "Y".

Paul:  Your example on Colt was exactly what I meant by "priorities".  Colt's first love were par-3's and he used the most exciting parts of the property for them.  Same with Tillinghast.  Trent Jones was just the opposite, he looked for heroic second shots into par fives over the same types of hazards around which Colt or Tillie would have routed a short hole.

That doesn't mean Colt was inept at designing par fives, it just means they were his last priority.