[Jeff_Mingay]

Of course, there's a learning process involved with becoming a successful golf course architect. However, I wonder, how much of the talent possessed by the greatest course architects throughout history is learned versus inherent.  

Any thoughts?

[Garland Bayley]

It's all learned. The learning facilities of people differ vastly. That's what accounts for the difference.

[TEPaul]

Good question and probably one that's damn near impossible to answer comprehensively.

I know one guy who I think may have more inherent talent for this stuff than maybe anyone out there. I really get that sense from him, and ironically it just may not be a great idea if he learns about the way some things are actually done today, just like some say if Frank Sinatra was ever actually given a music or voice lesson it may've ruined him or effected him negatively.  

[Aaron Katz]

I don't think it's all learned.  We don't think that anyone can learn to be a great painter.  Conceivably, anyone can learn the brush strokes, just like any architect can learn drainage, sculpting, and contouring techniques.  However, like the artist, the number of permutations for routing a golf course are endless.  How many people, let alone artists, for example, could "see" things in the same way as Jackson Pollack, Monk, or Picasso?  In the same way, I think that guys like Tom Doak, Bill Coore, Ben Crenshaw, etc. "see" holes on empty land at a much higher and creative level than run of the mine architects, and certainly differently than guys like Nicklaus, Fazio, and Jones do.

[Bryan Izatt]

Although much of the mechanical part of designing and building golf courses is learned, the genius that many here see in the artistic side of routing and design must be inherent in the architects.  If that side was "learnable" then all architects would learn it and the less revered amongst architects would have more classic courses on their resumes.  Or are the lesser architects learning disabled?

[Garland Bayley]

It is learnable. It is just that some don't have the proper learning facility to achieve greatness.

For example. I knew no geometry when I got to high school and took the class. Very quickly it became evident that my brain was organized in a fashion that allowed me to learn it to the point of being better than my teacher, whom I was always correcting. At the same time, there were students in the same class having the same instruction that couldn't make heads or tails of it.

[Gary Slatter]

Jeff, are you any relative of the Mingays from Creemore?

Does the RTJ family answer your inherent talent question?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Jeff,

I can tell within a few months if the person I have hired has the artistic ability to be a gca in my firm.  I can tell most of them by their resume art work and college projects, but sometimes, they spend weeks redoing their best projects to professional quality and I get fooled.

For that matter, as I track the other 13 Landscape Architecture graduates from my class, the people who were hotshot designers in school own their own firms, and the ones who weren't work as park administrators or are out of the business completely.

There are a lot of different personality types. I took that disc test and scored right at the top end of the "designer" profile. I doubt someone who had an "engineers" profile or other could successfully design a golf course. That Seth Raynor did, but only by copying other holes is both the exception that proves the rule and testament to my theory.

So, there is an inherent bent towards design, and while you might find some good designers who aren't, I would bet that 99% of even moderately successful ones have that type personality, vision, etc.

As always, I could be wrong, but I have seen and can tell when someone is a "natural born" designer.

[Adrian_Stiff]

I think that its certainly not necesscary to be a very good golfer (professional) to be a very good golf course architect. I have always believed that the best training to be a golf course architect is to study golf course management/ greenkeeping. A sound understanding of how grass is managed and its behaviour in relation to a golf course is very important. Too often 'a golf pro architect' will design a hole purely for how a hole will play, little thought given to how that green will be managed. Localised compaction that may occur by creating a singular entry/ exit spot for golfers or maintenace equipment. I definitely feel that the best combination of skills that would make a golf course architect would be a low handicap greenkeeper/ superintendent, if you can draw your ideas into a construction type drawing, design to a budget then thats a great start. We all continue to learn everyday, seeing more golf courses and sharing ideas on forums such at these is all good, I think every architect learns more with each project andthe 'next baby' is gonna be better.

[A.G._Crockett]

It is learnable. It is just that some don't have the proper learning facility to achieve greatness.

For example. I knew no geometry when I got to high school and took the class. Very quickly it became evident that my brain was organized in a fashion that allowed me to learn it to the point of being better than my teacher, whom I was always correcting. At the same time, there were students in the same class having the same instruction that couldn't make heads or tails of it.

Garland,
Unless I'm misreading this, you are saying that you had an aptitude for geometry that bad teaching couldn't kill.  Further, I can guarantee you that there are those of us who couldn't learn geometry despite world class teaching!  

We all have different aptitudes.  Of course, good or bad instruction can alter the outcome of the final product of that aptitude, but I can't accept that I would EVER be able to see in raw land what Jeff Brauer, Paul Cowley, Tom Doak, Forrest Richardson, and the other pros see.  I appreciate their work when I see it, like I appreciate great guitar playing.  But I took guitar lessons from a really good teacher, practiced hard, and still can't play a lick.  I don't think those guys could teach me to design a good golf course in a million years.

[Garland Bayley]

A.G.

Nowhere did I write the teacher was a bad teacher. He was generally acknowledged to be one of the better teachers in the school. All I wrote was that my skills quickly surpassed his. Other than me, his skills were better than anyone else.

[A.G._Crockett]

A.G.

Nowhere did I write the teacher was a bad teacher. He was generally acknowledged to be one of the better teachers in the school. All I wrote was that my skills quickly surpassed his. Other than me, his skills were better than anyone else.

Then even moreso, I would contend that you are arguing for aptitude.  I, too, had very good teachers, but my math skills then and now are abysmal.  I just didn't get it...

My wife is an artist (though not professionally).  I LOVE her stuff, and I can see what makes it great.  But I can't do it myself.  GCA is art.

[JNagle]

The ability is honed through both education and inherent talent.  I learned a great deal in school.  Geometry, engineering, grasses, drainage, theory of design.....and so on and so on.  The ablilty to communicate can be learned and enhanced, yet I have seen some of the best names within thier respected industry fumble and stutter through a simple presentation, so there is definately an inherent quality to communicate properly and that all leads into selling an idea (i.e. design).  

TEPaul and I had a conversation about this the other night.  The jist of that conversation dealt with the ability to see something in the z axis, not just in the x and y axis.  To take something from plan view and put it into the third dimension within your own mind.  That is certainly inherent.  As stated above that relates directly into the routing of a course.  Also, it allows an architect to visualize the finished product (bunkers, mounds, greens, swales.....)  A photographic memory, the ablility to recall features, holes and the various subtleties of a green is inherent.  The ability to communicate via sketches and drawings is both inherent and learned.  Through practice and the use of the craft of drawing and sketching one can become quite good.

IMHO it is those inherent qualities that will separate the good from the bad, the great from the good and the genius from the great.  That is in any field or profession.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Just a little more on the "design personality" as taken from the DISC test. BTW, you can find those on line in simplified form to see what you might be....

There are four categories, with my typical designer scores, and self comments, all on an "out of ten" scale.....

Dominance - want to do it your way - 7
(of course!)

Influence - try to influence others - 2
(together with above, don't care if others agree and conflict avoidance, which somewhat describes the "temperamental artiste personalilty sometimes associated with designers and artists of all types)

Sensitivity - sensitive to others feelings - 3
(more idea/task/thing oriented than people oriented)

Conscientiousness - 5
(try hard to do well - but a mid score. Most designer types need assistants to do, as Matt Ward calls it, the "heavy lifting."

[Dan Kelly]

Of course, there's a learning process involved with becoming a successful golf course architect. However, I wonder, how much of the talent possessed by the greatest course architects throughout history is learned versus inherent.  

Any thoughts?

My unified theory of life is that the talent possessed by the greatest ___________________________ (name your pursuit) is 100% inherent -- and that the sole purposes of education (outstanding purposes, AGC!) are to identify that inherent talent and help it emerge.

My guess is that you can educate a person to be a very good golf-course architect -- but you cannot educate a person to be an artist.

[Garland Bayley]

...how much of the talent possessed by the greatest course architects throughout history is learned versus inherent.  
...

My primary objection here has been the implication that they had an existing talent that was inherent without having to be learned. None of them were born great course architects. They all learned to become great course architects.

I think the real question is did any architects become great, because they worked long, hard, and deligently at it. Or are all the greatest course architects ones that gained a brain organization that allowed them to come upon their greatness easily?

I suspect that a thorough study of the history would show both paths work. I suspect that Tillie had the inherent learning ability, but Ross had to have vast exposure and study to gain his talent.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Garland,

As per my and Dan Kelley's answer above, and realizing we may be arguing semantics, I believe its the brain power/talent.

Of course, we all had to learn the craft, but the best have the inherent talent to realize it, take it and run, whatever.

I agree Tillie and Mac were probably more the artiste types than Ross and Bendelow, among others.

[Dan Kelly]

... Dan Kelley ...

What I'm saying is: We all have some talents, inherently, and lack others.

I, for example, am a great speller ...

(As is everyone else in my family ... while some of the smartest people I know -- extremely accomplished in some area or another; raised in the same sorts of environments, educational and familial, in which I was raised -- are terrible spellers.)

[Jeff_Brauer]

... Dan Kelley ...

What I'm saying is: We all have some talents, inherently, and lack others.

I, for example, am a great speller ...

(As is everyone else in my family ... while some of the smartest people I know -- extremely accomplished in some area or another; raised in the same sorts of environments, educational and familial, in which I was raised -- are terrible spellers.)

Dahn,

Gulf curse arch-i-tects are notoriously bad spelleers and hav bad grammeritis. I thank it come as a packaged deal with the designing skills.......Worse yet for gulf curse arch-i-tects, we am not good at counting, neither.  While ot whidely noun, meny of dem have gone to intuial presentations with 17 or even 16 hull gulf courses....

PS- Hopped that your dawter Roze is still doing good in gulf.

[Jeff_Brauer]

BTW,

I may have mentioned this before, but with the advent of computers and spell checkers, the situation certainly doesn't get any better.  

Back when I had secretaries, one kept typing the phrase "Free from defects" in my specs as "Free form defects."  One day a contractor asked, with a straight face, "How exactly, do I build free form defects?"

My question is similar - Having been told I need to "get a clue" I am having trouble buying one from Wal Mart and similar retail establishments....Do I have to go to a specialty "Clue" store?

[Tom_Doak]

There are a number of different skill sets which one can bring to this business, and be successful with.  That accounts for the differences between great architects.

But like a musician, to become really great at the talent part goes hand in hand with a lot of PRACTICE.  Being out there every day for years and years is what makes you great.  Good ideas are one thing; knowing how to make them work is key.

Of course, I suppose you can take a Tour pro with minimal technical skill or a genius as Tom Paul is talking about and pair them with someone who has all the technical background, but I still don't think you will arrive at as good a solution that way as with someone who can do both roles.

[Dan Kelly]

"How exactly, do I build free form defects?"

I recommend a can of spray paint.

Or a trip to Merion, apparently.

[Jeff_Mingay]

But like a musician, to become really great at the talent part goes hand in hand with a lot of PRACTICE.  Being out there every day for years and years is what makes you great.  Good ideas are one thing; knowing how to make them work is key.

Tom's quote, above, makes me think of Rod Whitman.

Rod's been out there, in the dirt, for more than 25 years. I don't think he's spent a minute of his career in an office. It's been everyday in the dirt, BUILDING.  

Working with Rod over the past 5 + years, it's become very apparent to me that his 25 + years experience in the field, BUILDING golf courses is his greatest asset. Combine that with an inherent talent (I believe... and, this has nothing to do with promotion) and you've got Rod Whitman.

I also think of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. These guys had no formal musical training. But, following a bunch of PRACTICE with a few musical instruments and some early EXPERIENCE at writing and performing songs, their inherent talents surfaced.

In other words, you couldn't be taught to write all those great Lennon/McCartney numbers. And, I don't think you could be taught to design Cypress Point either.

[Gary Daughters]

Not too long ago I asked an architect how he could walk a hilly, wooded, undeveloped expanse and envision a golf course on it.

His response sounded earnest, though it probably doesn't read that way.

"It's a gift."

[Jeff_Mingay]

Gary Slatter: As a matter of fact, I am related to the Mingay's at Creemore (just received an invite to an '07 reunion up there, in fact!). Those Mingay's are my grandfather's older brother's clan.

Small world, eh.

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