[paul cowley]

Bill...good post....I need to Google Ozymandias.

And Forrest...just a correction.
None of the forts or ruins or rice fields were found and improved on. They never existed on any of thier sites previously.

They were invented as part of the design and their construction was such that they would be a believable part of the landscape.....similar conceptually to Desmond Muirheads more extreme hard-scape expressions, but much more natural, believable and less in your face.

I think incorporating these elements as part of the strategy of a course is unique enough.....whether they are worth a damn is another question.
...and one I'm not asking.

[paul cowley]

....Oh Bill...you trickster [I just Googled Ozymandias].

Its not good to fool true Primitives.

Because....[unveiling my new motto]....teasing hurts!

[Bill_McBride]

Are the minds in golf design today wasted on re-birthing looks and styles and approaches of the past? Are the minds of today forceful enough to dare to try new things? Are the minds of today contributing something other than to define an era known as "...the era when courses began to look like courses people had seen in books...it was good, but it was no Golden Age for certain..."?

Anyone looking for "new things" in golf design today need look no further than the Links at Las Palomas in Puerto Penasco, Sonora, Mexico.  Amazingly, the eleventh hole sort of fits right in when you are playing the course, after you wind your way through a series of solid holes in the encircling dunes and then find yourself in the open center of the course.  Here's #11, is there anything more new and different than this being designed today?



This has to be as "outside the box" as anything designed anywhere since Desmond hung up his drawing board.  And it works!  It's a very good downhill par 3 at about 175 yards, and featured a critical audience of dozens of seabirds sitting on those horizontal fountain-walls the days we played there in February this year.

[Forrest Richardson]

Paul — I stand corrected. I had read about the one ruin hole (not ruined hole!) and forgot about it. As for the others, I had thoughts they were found...that is why I lumped the thought together I supose.

I believe Tom P. is onto a good thought — this is breakthrough in thinking.


Bill — That is be more of a return to Desmond's Temple Hole, all-be-it Richardson-esque.

Speaking of Desmond...is there anyone here who applauds his many innvoations in community design, integrating golf, oriented housing, building island fairways, multiple tees, etc.?

[Bill_McBride]

I haven't ever played one of Desmond's courses - at least so far as I know - but I really enjoy his book with Tip Anderson on playing The Old Course.  He knew his stuff and also how to ask Tip the right questions.

[Mike_Young]

"that knowledge from the past, from great players not addicted to the current ways of playing the game, must be brought forth to regain your thinking.

Wille,
Why would a player wish to go back to the old way of playing the game?
Just wondering....

[Forrest Richardson]

Willie — Having written three books on golf architecture, including much about the history of how and why the game developed, strategy and design philosophy, I am not sure why you would think I "need" to regain some insight on old ways of how the game was played. I feel I have a good handle on that, but am always yearning for more insight. That is independent of the question posed.

We must keep in mind that the game is no longer played through the streets of villages, nor is it played among dozens of people all weilding clubs with little regard for protocol. However, those, too, were part of the history of the game.

We no longer play the watery filth, the stymie or much match play*. But those were all a part of the game.

My guess is that you no longer play with wooden implements, but I cannot be sure. I am fairly certain that you no longer play with feathery balls.

None of this is to say that the ground game, width or certain other hallmarks of good courses are out of style — or should they be.

___

*As a whole, golf is not a game of strokes in a majority of the time.

[Forrest Richardson]

I think everyone benefits from playing the old game — to see what it was like and to appreciate the differences.

Is that — perhaps — what we are doing too much of? Living in the past?

[Forrest Richardson]

It is not the roll! It's the carry that is out of hand. I am not sure...maybe more.

Of course I recall the grand print — and, by the way, it just turned May 5th (Cinco de Mayo) here...we missed you and the brothers!

[Bill_McBride]

Forrest - I guess part of the question is, would you prefer to play a game where the greens are receptive, the players employ devices that measure the yardage to the target precisely and know to the yard how far their irons fly --- or a game where you have options and the shot at hand might require the player to land a low trajectory shot twenty yards in front of the green to get within birdie range?

A game where it's all played in the air, or one where rolls, bumps, knobs, ripples require one to employ a certain expertise in the ground game because there is no way to play the aerial game?

I think some of you golf architects are on the right track, but there are as many who are building those aerial game courses.  Too many new courses have holes you can't distinguish from most of the others.

Mike Hendren referred to Pensacola CC, paraphrasing here, as a course based on classic principles using modern construction techniques.  To me that's the ideal.  Love the old courses, appreciate the new technology.

[Forrest Richardson]

Maybe modern golf is about variation — no standards at all. An aerial course might be fun...so, too, a bump-and-roll course...and, also, one embracing a blend.

[Bill_McBride]

Maybe modern golf is about variation — no standards at all. An aerial course might be fun...so, too, a bump-and-roll course...and, also, one embracing a blend.

Options, options, options.

Hopefully the days of fairway bunkers left and right, greenside bunkers left and right, hit it here or else, are over.

[TEPaul]

Forrest:

You know, I get the feeling on this thread (your thread, and a very potential subject) that you aren't getting even close to any real satisfaction with the answers you're looking for.

Where do you want to go from here? Ask some more specific questions if they're in your mind even if you feel things may get real critical for some reason---either from you or from others about things you may say.

I'm glad to see Bill McBride make that post with the photo of your #11 hole at Las Palomas again. Is that a good place to start for you to carry on this discussion?

Shall we really try to get contributors to post responses about what they think of that photo and that hole even if they've never seen the course? Bill's right, that hole is the closest thing I've ever seen to Desmond Muirhead's Stone Harbor.

That's a course I know. I think you know the feeling most people have of Stone Harbor (or the way it was originally) and you may know my feeling about it.

I've said I think it should be restored to the way it once was and in many ways I'm not kidding. It certainly isn't my favorite course by a long shot but I actually like it to play sometimes as it's so different in play than most courses and artistically and aesthetically it really does define an outside edge of the entire art form.

Time and history has sort of told us that it didn't work in the sense of being popular or perhaps in the sense of the beginning of a new direction in golf and architecture. But is that all there is---eg popularity, acceptance? It was a gutsy, perhaps crazy move on Muirhead's part but for my part I'm glad he did it. Mostly I'm just fascinated he did it, and why.

And now it looks like you did a hole very much like it, at least in the minds of golfers.

Would you mind telling all of us why you did that? This is not a question that's based on criticism---I really want to know and I think it relates perfectly to this thread of yours.

I get the feeling not many have commented on your Las Palomas #11 because they may feel they don't like it or shouldn't like it or the way it looks and they just don't want to say so on here.

Encourage them to be critical if they want.

I like "out side the box" thinking. No, I actually love it.  Whether it works or is popular or not is another thing to me. It's related, of course, and probably closely related but it's another thing anyway.

This thread you titled "A mind is a terrible thing to waste" should probably be more about the mind of the artist and what's in it anyway, not necessarily just about what he's already created.

[Bill_McBride]

This has gotta be quick because I'm headed for the club for a Mother's Day round with my wife   , but I do want to say the only comparison between "Jaws" at Stone Harbor and #11 Las Palomas is the jagged concrete walls.  I've only seen "Jaws" in photos, but it has a lot more in common with #17 at TPC Sawgrass than #11 Las Palomas.  "Jaws" and #17 are do-or-die target golf, hit it or reload.

By contrast, there are many ways to play #11 at Las Palomas - the green is huge - 10-12,000 SF? - and there is water on the right side only.  You can play a big cut from outside left, you can play a high shot toward a center pin, you can run the ball onto the front.  Only a slice is going to find the drink.

So it's largely psychological - but boy is it psychological!  

[TEPaul]

Bill:

The photos we almost always see of the "Jaws" hole of Stone Harbor with those two bunkers flanking the green but separated by water hasn't been that way for years now. Those flanking bunkers are now totally attached to the green with no intervening water.

[Mike_Young]

Bill and TomP,
Come on you can't be judging golf holes from aerial photos...most people would never know it was a "jaws" hole if they only saw the hole from eye level and the same for the Las Palomas hole.....so I don't think FR is thinking of these as being groundbreaking...heck..most of the Raynor stuff was just as angular....BUT I do think one of the biggest flaws with modern architecture is making sure a hole looks dramatic from the aerial view.....

[Bill_McBride]

Mike, can't comment on the Jaws hole as I've never seen it in person (the Mucci Rule) - but I can tell you that #11 at Las Palomas is downhill, maybe a 20' drop, and you can definitely see its full outline and shape.  The website photo of the hole is an aerial but from pretty close to the ground.

[Forrest Richardson]

OK, Tom P., here goes...

My question was, "What has TRULY broken new ground in our age/era"

• I was not looking for just the outlandish, but that would qualify. (I was not looking for Bill M. to post No. 11 from las Palomas, but I do consider it a unique design, even though it draws from Muirthead — and also Dye's zig-zag stone walls at The Golf Club)

• So far we have:

   > Minimalst (throw-back) designs in an age where they had all but vanished

   > Pete Dye and his many breakthrough contributions

   > Bill M's thought that there are really no rules

   > Muirhead (like it or hate it; it was still breakthrough...and his 1970s and 1980s work was solid in the area of planned communities)

   > Cowley's manufactured ruins

   > Mike Y's thought that replication is a breakthrough because it had not been attainable previous to new equipment and tools

   > Don M's comment that restraint is, in itself, a breakthrough in an age when there is not enough (restraint)

  > And, I threw in Engh as a comment, which may be aptly added because Jim has done some interesting things that are not really classifiable


Are these it? Is this all? Because if it is, I think it is really not very meaningful. Maybe a step would be to break down some of the smaller "eras" and disect what breakthroughs there may have been within them.

[Mike_Young]

Forrest,
After reading your last post I guess the biggest breakthrough in our age related to golf design would have to be desert golf.....where it was once not possible it has now taken completely worthless land and transformed areas into thriving communities....now some may say that is not about the golf...but it was the catalyst....JMO

[Bill Gayne]

Although I don't have data to back it up my sense is that there has been a revival of the golf club (as opposed to the country club). The golf club being a place of retreat for the sole purpose of the enjoyment of the game. With air travel coming to the masses and growing affluence many of these golf clubs have been in a remote locations with national and international memberships.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Forrest,
The reclamation of toxic sites for golf courses is notable, IMO. Also, aren't there a few courses that are self contained, where no water runs off the property, or at least not until it's been collected and treated. Isn't Old Marsh built that way, and also one in Oregon? The self-contained island green at Couer d'Alene is another example. Improving golf's image as it relates to the environment is an important contribution to this era.



p.s.Cupp's course, the one with the sharply defined geometric shapes, deserves a nod.






 

[Forrest Richardson]

I certainly think that rendering once ill-suited land to golf use has been a breakthrough. Of course, many here will cite this as a bad hallmark — one responsible for long cart path connections, carts only and a host of other bad habits.

Mike Y's desert golf may be along this same line of thinking — that this era has certainly crossed the threshold of taking entire regions where golf was not popular and spawning the game.

Also, I failed to give much weight to Bill M's great comment about what might be a great breakthrough: Affordable golf — again.

It would be great if our attention focused on making really low-cost golf, and interesting golf, and also shorter rounds — Anthony's great book, "To the Nines" is a worthwhile starting point. Perhaps we might just look back a few decades and realized that 9-holers might be a fantastic answer to many questions.

Also, technology — while it may be ill-used often — is certainly a breakthrough in terms of irrigation, turf and construction.

GIS/GPS in an amazing breakthrough in that — forever more and from now on — there does not need to be ANY dispute on how a course was originally opened for play. With incredible detail afforded by GIS technology in topo generation and laser data, no one will have to EVER have a GCA debate on what Doak, Crenshaw, Young Cowley or Brauer "meant" or "intended" as these records — the exact-to-the-inch as-built records — will forever be a part of the history and documentation.

Ran might as well pack up his site and be ready a dramatic drop in business!

[Mark_Fine]

As some of you know, Forrest and I are working on several projects together around the country.  Most know that I am pretty much a purist or what I would call a lover of the best of classic architecture (mnay of my favorite courses are the old links in the British Isles).  So you can imagine Forrest and I going back and forth about how we want to design our golf holes.  But that is what makes it fun and we really have a good time kicking different ideas around.  I've learned a lot working with him and we find we agree on more things than one might expect.  Furthermore, when he flys off on some wild tangent, I just let him wave his hands and yap and then reel him back in     And everyone once in awhile (just to keep him grounded) I have to take him out to play and see what great golf is all about like we did this past week in CA  

[Forrest Richardson]

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mark is almost always right. Each of you can conjure which may be those very few moments when he may miss the mark.

So, where's the beef?  In 200 years what will the golf course lovers say about the period 1970 — 2020?

Fifty years is a long time. What are the contributions OTHER THAN a return to early values and concepts?

[TEPaul]

MikeY:

I'm not judging Stone Harbor's "Jaws" hole from an aerial. I've known the course well all the way from the year it opened to now. The "Jaws" hole was changed a number of years ago. That photo posted is what it was like originally. I really do think that hole should be restored to original, if for no other reason it may've been the only hole in history where any greenside bunker shot had to carry water. It was probably in the top five most radical golf holes ever built. If the club really wanted something like that originally, and they did, I think they should've preserved it.

The real knock I had with that hole was it was just too long for what it was. How would you like to play #17 TPC from a raised tee and about 190 yards?  

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