Who departs most from their mentors?

[Jeff_Brauer]

In the internal green contours thread, I posted this:

"Perhaps some never think about it past the fact that their old boss did them that way."

That got me to thinking. What gca has departed most from the style of their mentor? (and was it a good or bad departure?)

[Ryan Crago]

jeff,

good question.. i suppose it depends on how you define "departed", since one could also interpret a change or adjustment in style as an "evolution" of design thought...

i'll throw out Trent Jones' departure from Stanley Thompson to get things rolling... though, said "departure" may be more attributed to changing technologies (earth movement etc) as we moved from the Golden Age, into post war...

now i'm just thinking while i type.

[Craig_Rokke]

A Doak course looks a fair amount different than a Dye. Not better or worse, just different.

[mike_malone]

 Craig,

    This seems to be supported by the differences between Bulle Rock and Beechtree which are not far away from each other. Possibly that is where you came up with the idea.

[TEPaul]

Doak and Coore from their mentor Pete Dye.

But the one who departed the most from his mentor was Desmond Muirhead during his psychodelic/symbolism era. You ask who his mentor was he departed from? Frankly, that doesn't matter with Desmond Muirhead because whoever it was he still departed more from him than any other architect ever did from his or her mentor. That is unless Desmond's mentor was LSD.  

[Jim Nugent]

Pete Dye, I suppose.  

[Jeff_Brauer]

Jim,

What, did he use a different technique to sell insurance than his mentor?

[A_Clay_Man]

Jeff,
I often think of your mentor as I read your thoughts. I'll never forget that feeling I had at Cowboys. However, while Cowboys is my only Brauer, I saw plenty of differences from the K&N projects of my youth. Honestly, I thought the bunker complex on #1 was the cleverest way to hide the eyesore, beyond. And when I did see those tanks(?) I found it quite humorous, too. Welll done. I also chuckled at the width of that par 3. I don't ever recall chuckeling at Forest Preserve Nat'l or Kemper Lakes. {Ok maybe the pond in front of eleven)

[Ryan Farrow]

How long did Strantz work under Fazio? I would say he sure departed for the better.

[paul cowley]

....wait now, I don't remember ever having one [at least not for golf]....is it too late to have one assigned or could I be adopted?
Forrest and Valerie seem real nice........remember + =

and not to mention that I'm not even on the GCA family tree....no wonder they call me sport....

[Jay Flemma]

I'll echo Ryan's analysis...

[Tom_Doak]

Dr. MacKenzie, if Harry Colt was his mentor.
Jim Engh.
Mike Strantz.
Pete Dye, if his mentor was Bill Diddel.

[Mike_Young]

Jeff,
I think I did since I only considered Bb Dylan and Jerry Jeff Walker my mentors.....
But to carry this mentor thing further....
How often do we see someone say they worked for some architect when all they did was dig a few ditches one summer...when I was in the turf equipment business I would work during my vacations on different sites where the supt would let me....and happened that all were Pete Dye sites...Richmond hill,  Long cove and Honors...but the architect did not even know who was on the site..hell I was just laying pipe or whatever could be done to hang around.....now that is not mentoring but I have seen it represented as such.....I am amazed sometimes how many guys show up as having worked for these different guys and literally it is correct but......
if you are not in the architects office everyday and taking it from emptying the trash forward for at least a few years, I don't consider it mentoring.....agree or disagree???

[TEPaul]

Paul Cowley:

Anyone who can manipulate smileys as cleverly as you did above can never again claim to be less than completely computer savy.

[Ryan Farrow]

How many great architects did not have a well known mentor? It seems like those with out someone to point them in the right direction have a harder time becoming successful.


Golf Club Atlas will always be my number one mentor. Thanks Ran!

[paul cowley]

Ryan...have you done all your homework? its getting late.....good night!

[Jim Nugent]

Jim,

What, did he use a different technique to sell insurance than his mentor?

Jeff, I don't know firsthand what I'm talking about.  But I've heard it said here that Dye is the gca "rebel" who opened up golf architecture again, after the kind of black hole it had sunk into during the 1950's, 60's and early 70's.  If so, Dye departed from his predecessors, if not his direct mentors, in a huge way.

[Craig_Rokke]

I have yet to hear the word "diabolical" used to describe any of Pete Dye's proteges.

[Craig_Rokke]

We'll, good point, Eckstein. I'm not real familiar w/ PB's stuff, other than Iron Valley in Central PA. I know he supposedly had to go back & tone down his layout in Maryland.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Jim,

What, did he use a different technique to sell insurance than his mentor?

Jeff, I don't know firsthand what I'm talking about.  But I've heard it said here that Dye is the gca "rebel" who opened up golf architecture again, after the kind of black hole it had sunk into during the 1950's, 60's and early 70's.  If so, Dye departed from his predecessors, if not his direct mentors, in a huge way.

Pete really didn't have a mentor, unless you count his father who built a nine hole course, or the Old Course.  He was an insurance salesman and fair amateur player before deciding to chuck it all, go to Scotland, and become a golf course architect.

Legend has it that he went into U of M, with no experience and used those sales skillls to land the job against a few other well established golf architects who were left to wonder how and why a staid establishment could be so bamboozled to have hired a newbie in the biz.

[Dan_Callahan]

Looking at Silva's newer Raynor-inspired work, it could not be farther removed from the courses Cornish was developing in the 70s and 80s.