Most Influential Courses/Designs

[Matt_Cohn]

Which designs and courses have had the most influence on future architecture?

A few that definetely belong:

Augusta National: Contributed to super-green conditions, clean-cut bunkers, and risk-reward par-5's

TOC: Classic holes like Eden and Road; double greens; and the basic blueprint of what a golf course ought to be, including the number of holes.

Royal Melbourne: THE blueprint for golf across an entire contintent.

Shadow Creek: The realization that money can build anything, anywhere. (Inspired Trump, Bayonne and Liberty, at least). Created the look for many new US desert courses.

Two I think belong:

-Whichever RTJ course made the cloverleaf bunker/runway tee thing really "take off".
-Bethpage Black: For headlining the current trend of 7,200+ yard public courses built to host majors.

Two to provoke discussion:

Leave out NGLA. What courses were built in its style?
Leave out Cypress Point. Same reason.

What courses belong, or don't, in the category of "Most Influential"?

Remember - great and influential are not the same thing!

[Jim Nugent]

Some of Pete Dye's designs should make the list, shouldn't they?  I don't know his courses, but keep hearing he is the one who rescued golf course architecture from the 1950's and 1960's.  

From Mike Young's posts on another thread, some of Jack's courses should make the list too.  Again, I don't know the courses.  

[John Kirk]

Sand Hills Golf Club is influential for its minimalist design, and for its choice of the sand hills region of the Great Plains to implement that vision.

[Tony_Muldoon]

The answer, was, is and will always be, Scottish ones.

[Brad Klein]

Scottish ones weren't all that influential once guys got inland on heavier soils. The parkland tradition became its own school of thought and practice.

As for influential Pete Dye stuff that turned heads and helped shape thinking and design, you could not do better than:

The Golf Club, New Albany, Ohio, 1967
Harbour Town, Hilton Head, S.C., 1970
TPC at Sawgrass-Stadium Course, Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.,   1982

other Dye courses might have been better (Long Cove, Oak Tree) or more distinctive (PGA West-Stadium), but those three (above) shaped everyone's thinking of what was possible in modern design.

[ForkaB]

I agree with Tony and disagree with Brad.

There is golf and then there is links golf.  The former should never be confused with the latter.

Brad is right that once designers were forced to go inland (as there is only a very limited suply of linksland in the world, very little of it near accumulations of money) they gave up the ghost of trying to recreate links golf and created their own style.  However, this does not mean that links courses were not on these earlier designer's minds, nor that they are not firmly implanted in the subconscious of the designers of today.

I see the development of GCA over the 1st 1/2 of the 20th century in part as a failed effort to recreate links golf in non-links environments. This is not to say that great courses were not created (Pebble Beach, Pine Valey, Merion, Sunningdale, etc.), but that they were only pale imitations of the courses that the finest designers cherished, particularly those inherent in the Old Course at St. Andrews, relative to their playing characterisitcs.

The first 1/2 of the 2nd half of the last century represented surrender.  RTJ and his contemporaries gave up on trying to recreate Scottish golf and focused on their own version of the game, bigger, more predictable, more manicured and more "modern."

Pete Dye began the rebellion against this tendency, and it has been continued by disciples of his such as Coore and Doak into the present time.  It is not for nothing that most of the greatest new courses being built today are being done on sites which best reflect linksland--Sand Hills, Bandon Dunes, Pacific Dunes, Kingsbarns, Ballyneal, etc.--and even those which are not blessed with such great linkslike golfing land are giving increasing homage to the home of golf.

In conjunction with my last book I asked a number of leading desingers and developers about the Old Course.  They effectively responded in one voice, in line and in tune with the great old Ian and Sylvia song, "You were on my mind."

I wonder how many architects today sit down to work and say to themselves--Pine Valley is on my mind, or Merion, or Huntercombe or Morfontaine?  How many are saying to themselves, "What would Crump do?", or Flynn, or Fownes, or Park, or Colt or Mackenzie?

I would guess it is far, far fewer than were saying something to the effect of:  "How can I coax just a little bit more of the look and feel of links golf out of this piece of ground I have been given?"

[Tom_Doak]

Lots of modern courses have been designed with Pine Valley in mind -- pretty much all the desert courses in Arizona, and even the TPC at Sawgrass.

And I would say that the TPC was the most influential of Pete's courses.  After that, everyone started building "waste bunkers" and putting more ponds into play and building bulkheads and island greens -- by 1990 it seemed that most courses looked like the TPC.

[ForkaB]

Thanks, Tom

I was just guessing re: Pine Valley, but what was in the mind of the desert designers?  Surely not trees!  Was it the "splendid isolation" between the holes?  If so, did they use that characteristic to justify routings that were just a collection of golf holes and not a real "course?"

Glad to hear that TPC Sawgrass has been so influential, since it is one of my favourites, and I belonged to the club for a few years.  However, weren't "waste areas" a passing fancy, as they were too easy for the pros and too hard for the punters?  Also, can you really blame Pete for all the water holes that are out there now?

Rich

[wsmorrison]

This idea comes from Tom Paul's fertile mind and I am in agreement; he feels that the bunkeing at Merion East became a prototypical style in American golf course design.  Tom, forgive me if I get this wrong.

The use of raised toplines and sand flashed high on a face was replicated in America and offered a counterpoint to grass faces down to the flat bottoms of sand.  Were they first seen in the UK in the Heathlands?  I'm not sure of that--I've only played a few Heathland courses.  Further, the use of contours on the floors of bunkers, which often followed natural grades, added an iffiness creating a variety of lies that could lead to a higher demand for shot-making precision.

[TEPaul]

Wayne:

It wasn't from my mind that came the idea Merion's bunker style may've become the basic style of the prototypical American bunker. It was from Ron Prichard.

I think you did a pretty good job of describing what it was and what it looked like originally. But where did it come from? Where did probably Hugh Wilson get the idea of that bunker style?

That's the question and in my mind the most logical answer would probably be from the best of the Heathland courses, probably Sunningdale and Huntercombe, Worplesdon, Coombe Hill, Woking et al and the rest of that early Heathland, Surrey group that were the work of Park, Abercromby, Fowler, Colt, Low and Paton that were in existence at or before 1910. Merion was going to be an inland golf course and so were the Heathland courses and it seems logical that Wilson understood that, even if he clearly took design ideas and concepts from some notable linksland architecture of that time too. But his bunker style seems to be a different case. That may've just come from Heathland architecture that preceded Merion East, and interestingly not by much--eg by less than ten years in any case. The fact that some of those early Healthland courses may've still been in a state of construction or initial evolvement is also probably telling to what Wilson saw over there. Just to prove this point that Wilson logically picked up what was going on over there at that time we also know he apparently picked up the idea of "Mid-Surrey" mounding from perhaps J. H. Taylor who was just beginning to experiment with that when Wilson was over there. We know that some of that was built at Merion East even if it didn't last long.

It would have to be those since one has to appreciate how early Merion East was as well as when it was that Hugh Wilson spent those six months studying the architecture of the linksland and the Heathlands. Wilson was over there for six months in 1910 as was Crump. If Wilson got the idea for the sort of dished or semi-shell like bunker shapes with sand flashed faces from over there that were done originally at Merion East he had to have gotten the idea from the courses over there that existed at or before 1910.

The other reason Merion East's bunker type may've set the stage and style as the prototypical American bunker style is what other bunkers were done over here like that before Merion's?

Frankly none that I can think of. The best of the American courses that preceded Merion---eg Oakmont, Myopia, GCGC, Brookline, NGLA did not have bunkering that looked much of anything like that. Theirs were adaptatons of the far more geometric and rectangular pits and berm style bunkering that evolved out of the first of the early GB inland courses and even some of the man-made sunken pits of the linksland.

I believe Ron Prichard has a very interesting point here but the evolution of that particular bunker style both before and after Merion East obviously needs to be studied and researched more.

[T_MacWood]

Including Royal Melbourne shows that the most influential courses vary based on geography...Hirono and Tokyo in Japan and Humewood in S. Africa are similar examples.

I agree that the old links courses were the most influential and have been the most influential: St. Andrews, Prestwick, Musselburgh, Hoylake, Westward Ho! and Sandwich.

Then the early Heathland, in particular Woking, Sunningdale and Walton Heath....all for slightly different reasons.

Brancaster (Hutchinson & Inglesby) a very testing new links

Princes, the super modern links, a precursor to the NGLA  

The redesigns of Ganton (Colt), Sunningdale (Colt), Westward Ho! (Fowler), and the Old course (Low).

In the US: Myopia, Ekwanock, the redesign of GCGC and the NGLA.

Then Pine Valley, the redesign of Oakmont and Merion of the 20s.

Dead period.

RTJ's redesign of Oakland Hills and ANGC.

Dye: Crooked Stick, The Golf Club and Harbor Town.

Muirfield Village and the collection of individual signature holes.

I'm not sure which courses are the most influential today.

[Jeff_Brauer]

It may still be Scotland in a myriad of ways.  Those courses influenced the original American designers, some quite successful ones like Pete Dye, who influenced others, and thanks to ASGCA's periodic pilgramages over there, many others starting in 1980, which produced several faux links couress with clusters of pot bunkers, etc.

For an offbeat selection, how about Van Cortlant Park, the first muni by Bendelow, which became the prototype for all the munis that would follow?  I can't think of a seminal course in that arena at the moment that affected how golf factories developed, but there are so many of them that the prototype must exist somewhere......

[Tommy Williamsen]

Scotland is obvious as aare some early Anerican courses.  But I would also submit that early heathland courses around London served as models for many inland courses whether heathland, moorland or parkland.

[TEPaul]

"For an offbeat selection, how about Van Cortlant Park, the first muni by Bendelow, which became the prototype for all the munis that would follow?"

JeffB:

As perhaps a more influential first step in public or municipal golf in America I think I'd pick the interesting collaboration of Willie Campbell and Frederick Law Olmsted at Franklin Park in Boston that preceded Van Cortland Park. This was Willie Campbell's attempt to bring to America the first "public land" concept for democratic on public or "common" land as it had existed in GB for so many years.

[TEPaul]

In my opinion, the sort of spiritual model for all golf architecture was the linksland model, particularly TOC, but incredibly ironically that almost total "natural" model was very little used elsewhere on inland sites and the actual model of most all inland golf architecture to follow the first major and massive migration of golf and courses out of Scotland to inland courses was not the linksland model at all but just some adaptation of particularly convenient obstacle models of those locales such as the world of horse recreation and competition such as steeplechasing.

The reasons for this, although seemingly confusing today are actually remarkably logical and are all contained in the preface of one of the best books ever done on golf architectural design and construction (and one of the first books devoted to comprehensive golf architectural design and construction), Robert Hunter's "The Links".

He points out that in that early inland era it was just not feasible or even possible to replicate on inland sites of that time the remarkable linksland terrain which was totally natural anyway.

In my opinion, that explanation of Hunter should put to bed forever why the linksland model was not copied on new inland sites that were springing up all over the place. Even if those early clubs and architects wanted to totally emulate the linksland model they were simply not capable of doing that because of the land they were using elsewhere.

But the discovery of the Heathlands and its use for inland golf around 1899-1900 changed all that forever. That was the first time archictects began to attempt to somewhat copy by man-made means some of the concepts and even some of the look of the natural linksland architectural model.

And there was another particularly fundamental reason the Heathlands changed all this forever. The Heathlands was the first inland area outside Scotland that actually had a soil structure and characteristic remarkably similar to the linksland's.

[T_MacWood]

Sean
In the great sceme of things I don't think Engineers was all that influential. There are a long list of great or unique designs that did not impact an era of golf architecture: Lido, Timber Point, Morfontaine, Alwoodley, Dornoch, Ponte Vedra, Banff Springs, Jasper Park, Shinnecock, Cape Breton, Cypress Point, Pebble Beach, Riviera, Bel-Air, ANGC, CC of Havana, Pinehurst #2, Seminole, etc.

They were all influential to a point, and some remain influential and in some cases more influential, but I wouldn't put them in the seminal design catagory...inspiring an era or period. Economics, war and geography have effected why certain courses were and were not more influential.

Is it possible that the original Augusta National or the lost Lido could have more influence on a future generation than they had on their own generation? I do.

I'm not certain how much influence Fowler had at Cruden Bay. From what I've been able to figure out the first major redesign was done around 1908, 1909 or 1910 by Fowler and Simpson. It was there that Fowler first saw plasticine models for greens...made by Simpson. My impression is that the modern work at Cruden Bay is more Simpson than Fowler, but I'm not certain of that.

[ForkaB]

Sean

The basic routing of Cruden Bay (i.e. 7-8 holes out, 6-7 up over the hill and back, 3-4 coming home), was done by Old Tom Morris.  Simpson and Fowler did most of their changes to the first 5-6 holes and the last 2-3 holes, although they used OTM's greens in about 1/2 of the cases (most interestingly the 6th).

They also apparently made some changes to the "middle course" (St. Olaf's), which was also designed by Morris.

Tom

If you think that Dornoch did not have much impact in the early era of "modern" GCA, you must have forgotten about Donald Ross.....

rich

[T_MacWood]

Rich
Is your information based on the club history? I wouldn't put too much stock in that book.

I don't think Dornoch had much of an impact (too isolated), perhaps it was on Ross, but I even wonder about that. Ross's design career did not take off until he made a complete study of the old and modern courses in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland....like Macdonald, Wilson, Crump, etc. I think it could be argued that trip had more influence. Before that trip his work wasn't much to write home about...in fact it was pretty bizarre.

[ForkaB]

Rich
Is your information based on the club history? I wouldn't put too much stock in that book.

I don't think Dornoch had much of an impact (too isolated), perhaps it was on Ross, but I even wonder about that. Ross's design career did not take off until he made a complete study of the old and modern courses in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland....like Macdonald, Wilson, Crump, etc. I think it could be argued that trip had more influence. Before that trip his work wasn't much to write home about...in fact it was pretty bizarre.

No, Tom.  My opinion conforms to the club history, but is supported by additional information.  Do you have any information that contradicts the club history?  If so, please share it with us.  And be specific, please.


As for the influence of Dornoch and Ross, you are pissing into the wind.  The winds of History are very much not on your side.

[T_MacWood]

Rich
Yes. I have shared some of the contradictions on past threads. If I recall correctly the history has no mention of Weir's changes or the redesign of 1909 (and how that version differs from the 1899 course and the 1940 course), nor the changes to the greens.

What changes did Fowler and Simpson carry out in 1926?

As for the influence of Dornoch and Ross, you are pissing into the wind.  The winds of History are very much not on your side.

I don't know if the winds of history are on my side or not, but I'm pretty sure I'm not pissing into the wind. Ross's architectural tours overseas (and their influence) are not very well documented. No doubt Dornoch had an influence but was it a greater influence upon his architecture than the courses he studied on those tours? The quality of his work before and after 1910 may answer that question.

[Mike_Cirba]

Wayne:

It wasn't from my mind that came the idea Merion's bunker style may've become the basic style of the prototypical American bunker. It was from Ron Prichard.

It would have to be those since one has to appreciate how early Merion East was as well as when it was that Hugh Wilson spent those six months studying the architecture of the linksland and the Heathlands. Wilson was over there for six months in 1910 as was Crump. If Wilson got the idea for the sort of dished or semi-shell like bunker shapes with sand flashed faces from over there that were done originally at Merion East he had to have gotten the idea from the courses over there that existed at or before 1910.

The other reason Merion East's bunker type may've set the stage and style as the prototypical American bunker style is what other bunkers were done over here like that before Merion's?

Frankly none that I can think of. The best of the American courses that preceded Merion---eg Oakmont, Myopia, GCGC, Brookline, NGLA did not have bunkering that looked much of anything like that. Theirs were adaptatons of the far more geometric and rectangular pits and berm style bunkering that evolved out of the first of the early GB inland courses and even some of the man-made sunken pits of the linksland.

Tom,

Given that historical backdrop, irrespective of any famous tournaments or other mitigating factors, do you think the new bunkers at Merion do justice to their original historical and architectural significance?

I'm not looking to restart the debate...only looking for your honest opinion of whether their present incarnation are truly representative of Ron Prichard's contention that they were so uniquely original as to influence bunkering for most of the next generation and beyond as he believes.

[TEPaul]

"Tom,

Given that historical backdrop, irrespective of any famous tournaments or other mitigating factors, do you think the new bunkers at Merion do justice to their original historical and architectural significance?

I'm not looking to restart the debate...only looking for your honest opinion of whether their present incarnation are truly representative of Ron Prichard's contention that they were so uniquely original as to influence bunkering for most of the next generation and beyond as he believes."

Mike:

No I do not---not at all. And I don't feel Prichard does either.

BUT, of course there is always a "but".

Merion's bunkers today, even if they LOOK very little like anything the course has had before in bunkering because of their heavily grassed bunker faces do serve a purpose that Merion wants their bunkering to serve (I can explain that more fully later).

The bunkers of Merion East before the recent bunker project were almost completely dilapidated in almost every way---eg their drainage had totally failed, their sanding was a total mess and their surrounds were completely dilapidated and also most of them were pretty much clipped up to the tops of their sandline faces.

Were those "grass surround" lines, pre-project, acceptable? That's pretty much the question, isn't it?

As I've said many times over the years on here on this subject is that my feeling (and my advice (and Kye Goalby's who I brought over there to meet with them) to them back then) was to just redo the sanding and the drainage and to just fix the grass surrounds rather than taking them completely apart and throwing away all that turf and reshaping and reforming their surrounds. (Why in the hell Tom MacWood can't seem to digest that feeling of mine that has been on here since the beginning, rather than accusing me of proposing total redesign of Merion's bunkers is just beyond me).

But I'll tie all this together with this summation;

Maybe Ron is right about Merion East's bunkers being the prototype of what would become the basic American bunker style and maybe that would add credence to what I said to Merion's Green chairman just before the bunker project which was----that in my opinion the Merion bunkers (pre-project) looked a lot like a lot of other bunkering around here and elsewhere (actually including GMGC's before our recent project) but that if he changed that look of Merion's bunkers he probably would catch Holy Hell from the world of golf and architecture, while if we changed the look of our old bunkers in our project noone would probably care or notice.

When he asked me why that would be I said because no matter what state of dilapidation or "look" your bunkers are in or no matter how similiar they have come to look to some old bunkers around here and elsewhere you're gonna catch hell if you change them (and we won't) simply because your bunkers are the famous "White Faces" of Merion East---some of the most famous bunkers in the world of golf (and the rest of ours on our courses aren't).

By the way, the LOOK of Merion East's bunkers today  are probably at least the FOURTH iteration or a different bunker look Merion East has had in its app 90 year existence. If you or anyone else don't realize or understand that then all I can say is you don't really understand Merion East and its famous bunkering.

Furthermore, Mike, you know I don't completely agree with your feeling about this recent bunker project of your feeling about Merion's bunkers just before this bunker project. It never has been as simple, as cut and dried, and as black and white, as you've tried to make it.

Do I like the look of Merion's bunkers today? Yes I do. Do they look anything like any iteration or any look of Merion's bunkers before? No, not at all. Do I think that's an important issue? Of course I do because we aren't talking about any golf course or any bunkers, we're talking about Merion East and it's bunkers happen to be ultra famous. I think what they have today is really interesting and it certainly serves the bunker purpose they were trying to achieve but if Merion's bunker were the prototype of the basic American style bunker they certainly aren't that anymore (most any course and any membership would just freak out if they had to play today's Merion bunkers on a daily basis ).

 

[ForkaB]

Rich
Yes. I have shared some of the contradictions on past threads. If I recall correctly the history has no mention of Weir's changes or the redesign of 1909 (and how that version differs from the 1899 course and the 1940 course), nor the changes to the greens.

What changes did Fowler and Simpson carry out in 1926?

As for the influence of Dornoch and Ross, you are pissing into the wind.  The winds of History are very much not on your side.

I don't know if the winds of history are on my side or not, but I'm pretty sure I'm not pissing into the wind. Ross's architectural tours overseas (and their influence) are not very well documented. No doubt Dornoch had an influence but was it a greater influence upon his architecture than the courses he studied on those tours? The quality of his work before and after 1910 may answer that question.

As I understand it, Simpson (Tom) and Fowler pretty much changed the 1st 5 holes (although keeping some greensites), rerouted 6 and 7 (although very much keeping those great OTM greensites), redesigned 8, kept 9 and 10 pretty much as is, created a new 11th, kept the 12th as is, combined two OTM holes to make the 13th, alterd the routing but kept the green at 14, lengthened 15 from 150 to 240, but with OTM's green, added the 16th and changed the 17th and then rerouted the 18th to what was possibly OTM's green.

All in all, there is a lot of OTM remaining at Cruden Bay, but Simpson (Tom) and Fowler did make some significant improvements.

As for Ross and Dornoch, the fact that he took some trips to Europe (did he actually get to the continent, or was it just to the UK?) hardly proves that this was a life changing event for him vis a vis design.  We do know that he spent his formative years at Dornoch and then St. Andrews. My guess is that these experiences were more important to him than any visits later in life back to his home country.  I'm sure his designs got better as he got older, but that's the way life is in most professions.

[T_MacWood]

What year did Fowler & Simpson make their changes? Were F&S changing OTM's design or Archie Simpson's? No mention of Weir.

Ross's trips were strictly UK and for the purpose of studying golf arch. I think you may be underestimating there importance.

[Mike_Cirba]

Thanks, Tom.  I appreciate your candor and agree with Ron Prichard's speculation about their historical impact.