"The show is about nothing!"

[Peter Pallotta]

From what I've read about the courses he designs with Ben Crenshaw, I find Bill Coore fascinating. He seems to be moving ever closer to a Seinfeld-like "this show is about nothing" design philosophy, i.e. ideally it seems, he'd like to do almost nothing at all to the land in order to turn a potential green-site (or fairway) into an actual one.  

It seems to me that you have to be either a very humble man or an egomaniac to try to work like that; and from what I've read about him, my bet is on 'very humble'.  (I have to admit that I think most of the great and good work done in this world is done by the humble, though I find humility a very hard quality to define).

This is not about attacking any other design approach. This is not 'give me minimalism or give me death'; I want to see as many golf courses as possible built, on all types of land, including old landfills, and that means I value many different approaches.

But the C&C We-Ko-Pa thread made me realize that I also  believe this: that, when it comes to minimalism, Coore's approach of pushing that philosophy to its absolute limit is really the way to go, and that it has the potential to make acceptable and valued a whole new range of inexpensively built and maintained golf courses, each one a unique and interesting reflection of the land on which it sits.

Any thoughts? Thanks

Peter

[JESII]

Peter,

I am trying to sign off and go to bed, but this thread struck me.

I have not read of Bill Coore's writing or his interviews but I did hear him speak for about 45 minutes at a gathering Patrick Mucci put together almost two years ago at Hidden Creek.

Let me say this as a total non-expert on what these guys try to do...Bill Coore would much prefer finding a piece of land that he could just mow down and play golf on than he would building "his" idea of a good hole. It requires an equal amount of humility and arrogance to do this. I think he did something pretty damn close to his idea at Hidden Creek (my only C&C).

[Patrick_Mucci]

JES II,

You may recall that I asked him how he went about selecting holes.

His response was, that he walked the property "until it felt like golf".

I think that takes intuitive or inherent talent

[JESII]

Pat,

I remember and was really impressed with his answer.

I  might be unique in this viewpoint, and Bill Coore might not appreciate it, but I think it takes a certain degree of arrogance and ego to do what he did at Hidden Creek.

note: I say HE in terms of his partnership with Ben Crenshaw and their staff.

[RJ_Daley]

Well, I think it is just like most other enterprises, golf or other business.  There is probably a very strong and well defined culture in the C&C organization.  What is most fascinating to me it what I have called cross polinization between some of these GCA camps.  The obvious is some of the guys from C&C have worked with Renaissance.  I don't pretend to know these men personally, but Doak strikes me a very different personality wise than C or C or any of the fellows I have met that worked for them.  Yet, they also seem very much in tune with eachother's work.  Not that their work is the same style necessarily.  But the work products are at the top of the profession.  They both have very strong company cultures, with a great deal of integrity and creativity.  

Isn't it odd that TD and BC both love architecture in such a passionate way, yet one has a personality and makes a big effort to contribute here on GCA, and the other apparently hasn't found the on button on a PC yet.

Just random thoughts.... but I think I see what you mean about both BCs.  Maybe it is a Texas thing.  They remind me of the Woodrow Call and Gus MacCrea in Lonesome Dove...

[TEPaul]

If one described Bill Coore accurately, arrogant would be just about the last thing you'd say about him. More like super quiet and thoughtful would be the description I'd use. Frankly, I've always been pretty fascinated that he speaks so well in public about architecture because he can be so quiet when he's out there on the ground.

I guess I've learned ten times more about golf architecture from him than any other man and I could probably write it all down on about two pages.

It appears to me he may sort of work on the philosophy that the best thing to do is to "know what you don't know" and it seems like he's always searching to understand something about a site and its ground, even if its very small.

It is my sincere hope that what Coore is really doing is trying to find things or even make things where any golfer just may feel that when he sees them and uses them for golf somehow he may feel he is finding them all by himself----that it is his own unique discovery. If you really think about that----what could be better than that?

And I will give you a very good example of it that I heard him say even though I'm not sure exactly what he meant or how it works.

Once we were standing in front of the unfinished 7th green at Friar's Head and Coore was very excited about something to do with the left front of the green.

He threw a few balls along the ground and said: "You see that in there, all kinds of interesting things can happen with the ball in there. Maybe no one will ever see it or use it on purpose but at least it's there."

By the way RJ, I don't think Bill Coore comes from Texas---I think he came for North Carolina.

[Peter Pallotta]

One of the neat things about gca.com: say "I find Coore fascinating" and get back "met him, met him, know him, met him". Thanks for the insights, gents.

(And RJ, you might be right about the "Lonesome Dove" characters, but I can't imagine who'd be Bobby Duval: "C&C, son, C&C! We'll pick up your golf hole, we'll drop it anywhere you please, my fine young captain! Hey, hey, six foot swales!")

Am I right about Coore moving ever closer to absolute minimalism? (or is he staying about the same, or is a new 'phase' coming?)

If so, am I right about the potential upsides? (and are there any downsides?)

Thanks,
Peter

[Dan Boerger]

This is conjecture on my part ... but I can only imagine Mr. Coore must have the patience of a saint or have set up some very good ground rules with those putting up the money to build a course. Wanting to tinker is natural, particularly from one footing the bill.

 

[Patrick_Mucci]

This is conjecture on my part ... but I can only imagine Mr. Coore must have the patience of a saint or have set up some very good ground rules with those putting up the money to build a course. Wanting to tinker is natural, particularly from one footing the bill.

Dan,

I think C&C's selection process precludes that from happening from the very get go.

[Bill_McBride]

Just "finding land that looks like a golf hole" is fine if you're in terrain like the upper portion of Friars Head in the dunes, but to me the real genius is what those guys did in the lower area, the "potato field."

Down in that area they had to do more shaping and it still looks very natural.  In the dunes they could slice off a hill and create a green or a tee.  In the flat these had to be built up but are done very gently and naturally.

[TEPaul]

"Am I right about Coore moving ever closer to absolute minimalism? (or is he staying about the same, or is a new 'phase' coming?)"

Peter:

I wouldn't exactly say it's "minimalism" Coore may be moving closer to, and probably not absolute minimalism (these guys are definitely realistic). But it may be something that perhaps could be termed greater randomness as an architectural expression. If you sense you don't know what I mean by that I'd be glad to explain what I mean by it.

[Peter Pallotta]

"It may be something that perhaps could be termed greater randomness as an architectural expression. If you sense you don't know what I mean by that I'd be glad to explain what I mean by it."

Thanks, TE, please do.

Peter

By the way, the following from your previous post I thought really good, and appropriate, and why I think he's 'humble':

"What Coore is really doing is trying to find things or even make things where any golfer just may feel that when he sees them and uses them for golf somehow he may feel he is finding them all by himself----that it is his own unique discovery."

[TEPaul]

""What Coore is really doing is trying to find things or even make things where any golfer just may feel that when he sees them and uses them for golf somehow he may feel he is finding them all by himself----that it is his own unique discovery.""

Peter:

Given that this website can very much get critical of what people on here say, I think I'd prefer to requote that remark I made above in its entirety: What I said was:

"(It is my sincere hope that) what Coore is really doing is trying to find things or even make things where any golfer just may feel that when he sees them and uses them for golf somehow he may feel he is finding them all by himself----that it is his own unique discovery."

If I don't make that clear someone might accuse me of telling this website that I know what Bill Coore is really doing or trying to do.

I don't know that! I only know what I think he may be doing and what I hope he is.  

He's not easy to figure out for me anyway and I'm pretty sure it's that way for most. Probably the only people who really know where he's coming from is Ben and the "Boys", and even they may not really know. Maybe even Bill doesn't really know, and in the end that may be the real beauty of it.  
 

[Lloyd_Cole]

Pat,

I remember and was really impressed with his answer.

I  might be unique in this viewpoint, and Bill Coore might not appreciate it, but I think it takes a certain degree of arrogance and ego to do what he did at Hidden Creek.

note: I say HE in terms of his partnership with Ben Crenshaw and their staff.

For 'arrogance' could I read 'self belief'? I see a differemnce and I'd say BC was humble, but with ample self belief in his abilities as a GCA.

[TEPaul]

Peter:

What I meant to say about him exploring perhaps randomness more than just minimalism comes from walking around Hidden Creek one time after it opened with the foreman on that project, James Duncan.

As we walked down the third hole I mentioned that if I were to recommend anything on that course it would be to tighten up a particular area of the second shot to improve the strategic consequence of the second shot.

James turned to me and simply said that he thought Bill had gone beyond strategy in some of his thinking!

I took that to mean that he was sort of getting into doing some things randomly in an architectural sense just to see what might happen with the golf.

If you think about that the way I do, that may be really pushing the envelop in this day and age. I think it could have the potential to be anything from really brilliant to roundly criticized depending on whatever one is looking at.

[Peter Pallotta]

Sorry, TE, I haven't had any coffee yet this morning and wasn't paying enough attention to see that the dropped words could've been important.

edit: thanks for the most recent post. If you or anyone else has any thoughts on Coore going "beyond strategy" that would be great - it seems somehow a very important idea.

Peter

[JESII]

Pat,

I remember and was really impressed with his answer.

I  might be unique in this viewpoint, and Bill Coore might not appreciate it, but I think it takes a certain degree of arrogance and ego to do what he did at Hidden Creek.

note: I say HE in terms of his partnership with Ben Crenshaw and their staff.

For 'arrogance' could I read 'self belief'? I see a differemnce and I'd say BC was humble, but with ample self belief in his abilities as a GCA.

Yes Lloyd, that is a better way to say it...I knew the word arrogant would be taken in a negative light and my intention was to identify a very strong "self-belief"...thank you.

[TEPaul]

Peter:

I should probably be careful about saying Coore may be going beyond strategy or someone on here will probably accuse him via what I said about doing things like creating "eye candy" or doing man made architectural things unnecessarily.

Maybe he's thinking going beyond the more predictable types of strategies most architecture offers.

Or perhaps it's something like this----eg Imagine yourself standing on a beautiful piece of land, perhaps open with all kinds of interesting things and topography here and there and everywhere. If you put a tee somewhere and green somewhere would all the features between the two make  strategic sense?

Probably not simply because they really are random. That may be what I mean about him going beyond strategy and perhaps gravitating towards more randomness in architecture.

[Peter Pallotta]

Thanks, TE.

What you describe seems so cool and important to me, because I think it pushes the very limits of the designer-player interaction re: strategies and expectations.

I think it's deeply imbedded in the human psyche to try to make sense out of apparent randomness (that's why we tell stories).  

In this example, I think we might find that all the random features WILL have strategic significance, if only because golfers will find a way to GIVE them that significance.

Also, I'd like to imagine the Coore has somehow intuited not only this, but also that Nature (with a capital "N") has a wisdom that we can only begin to fathom when we truly respect it.

Peter

[BCrosby]

No one is a bigger fan of C&C than I, but let's not get too misty, moisty mystical here. Good golf courses don't somehow emerge from the primordial ooze. They are designed by living, breathing humans.

Certainly part of that process is being attuned to what nature is offering. But at least as important is that there is an active designer who operates on nature and moves things around. That active bit is inescapable.

How you blend those passive and active aspects tells the tale about the quaility of a particular design. I think Coore is a genius in many respects. But he is much more than a medium through which nature passes without alteration.

Bob

 

[Tommy_Naccarato]

One of the most unselfish, kindest people I have ever met.

I can get more out of just seeing him think then asking him questions. If you related to him anything about classic architecture that you found in a book and seen it inspired in his work he would shrug his shoulders and not know a thing you were talking about. yet, he could probably describe to  to you in exact natural detail a feature or bump in the ground that you were both looking at and how it related to something he once saw on some great course or what Wethered & Simpson wrote about in Architectural Side of Golf.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Bob, You've been reading way too much Max..... (and I like it!)

[BCrosby]

Tommy - I'm trying to cut back. My wife says I should. The kids haven't had new shoes for years. I worry that it's more than I can handle.  Bob

[Peter Pallotta]

Bob
I understand your point, and I know well enough that Bill Coore isn't designing his courses from a fluffy seat up in the clouds somewhere, but we're not talking about absolutes here; we're exploring the relative degrees to which various architects are open to allowing (or making room for) 'randomness' in their designs.

In my last post, my main point was that Coore may be exploring new ways to provide strategic interest, and I was making a (mystical and moisty, yes) leap by assuming that he may now be recognizing how much the GOLFER HIMSELF brings to the table in terms of seeing those strategies. It's of the same nature (but to a different degree) as exploring how blind tee-shots or other kinds of visual deception work, isn't it?

(edit: I admit that the last bit about Nature may have been a little over the top, but what can I say? My fingers ran away with me)

In general, my posts were meant to help me understand the relative degree to which Coore was moving into the area of ultra-minimal disturbance of the land, because I think this is an important 'stream' in future designs.

But a question: do you disagree with the idea that golfers themselves may be giving apparently random features their 'significance'? (or that I'm placing too much weight on this?)

Peter

[Adam Clayman]

Peter,

The name of the show is it "It's all about you".

Creating a canvas where the discovery is done on an individual basis.