My Rant For The Day (Warning!!! Non-GCA Politcally Correct)

[Tommy_Naccarato]

I'm on fire right now. I just got done reading some Max Behr to revitalize my soul, and I know I can say this with all sincerity and true heart............

To the Golf Architect Lemmings, who denounce Classic Golf Course design, and that you think that YOU can improve upon it, well, lets see you design something as powerful; as naturally inspired and impressive as what our grandfathers once gave us--which we--ALL OF US--as golfers have abused and destroyed beyond recognition in the name of making it better or improving it with your name on it.

In the same way James Earl Jones once expressed in Field of Dreams, We Americans have run through our most sacred courses with an army of bulldozers erasing all that was once good and designed with the grandest of knowledge the GREAT LINKS once inspired in us.

In turn we've (ALL OF US GOLFERS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD) destroyed those GREAT LINKS, dressing them up in grasses and unnatural bunkering that make them look no different then a $100.00 whore, dressed to make you buy, but quick to get on to the next customer.

We should be ashamed of ourselves. All of us. I could go on further but wish not to start pointing fingers. (with the exception of one)

Tom Doak: Max Behr wrote on Permanence in Golf Architecture way more then MacKenzie ever did. He even advertised it.

[RJ_Daley]

OH com'mon Tommy, is that all you got big guy?  

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Dick, I've got more, but so little time!

[Tom_Doak]

Tommy:

I know Dr. MacKenzie stole that stuff about "permanent architecture" from Behr, or at least I assumed he did ... the phrase wasn't in his 1920 book (before they met) but it was certainly in the latter one.

[Bill_McBride]

How could MacKenzie talk about "permanent architecture" and then talk about making sure there was room behind each tee for future lengthening of the hole?

[Mike_Young]

To the Golf Architect Lemmings, who denounce Classic Golf Course design, and that you think that YOU can improve upon it, well, lets see you design something as powerful; as naturally inspired and impressive as what our grandfathers once gave us--

Tommy,
Can we agree to argue that there is a lot of BS flung about classic architecture w/o DENOUNCING IT?  

[Tom_Doak]

Bill:

MacKenzie thought that the routing and the greens amounted to the "permanent" part of the course and constituted much of its quality.  He stated proudly that none of his courses had been changed in these regards, except for those people at Sitwell Park.

I do not recall him specifically saying to leave room to lengthen golf holes, however.  I don't have his book at my home, but would be curious if you can find a relevant quote, or whether it's just crossover from someone else's book.

[Adam Clayman]

Mike, Can the same be said of the modern over-hyped cuma sum laude MBA marketing speak. The difference, there are still some examples left of original and permanent architecture which can be analyzed studied and reveered.

Great challenge Tommy!

[Bill_McBride]

Bill:

MacKenzie thought that the routing and the greens amounted to the "permanent" part of the course and constituted much of its quality.  He stated proudly that none of his courses had been changed in these regards, except for those people at Sitwell Park.

I do not recall him specifically saying to leave room to lengthen golf holes, however.  I don't have his book at my home, but would be curious if you can find a relevant quote, or whether it's just crossover from someone else's book.

I would love to be able to get into my MacKenzie books, but my entire library is boxed up while our home is being remodeled.  I would much rather be able to just relax over one of his books!  I do seem to recall that note in one of the books, maybe somebody else can look it up.  I remember wondering how he was planning to lengthen #6 at the Valley Club - but who would want to?  

[Peter Pallotta]

Tommy
I only started reading Behr a few months ago, and up to now maybe only six or so of his article. Can you give me a min-lesson in what he meant by 'permanent architecture'? For some reason, I'm imagining that he didn't mean only that it was architecture/design that wouldn't change over the years. Did it also have to do with a sense of 'nature' as a permanent element? Please feel free to tell me I'm flat out wrong, as I'm only guessing here

Thanks
Peter  

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Panhandle Bill,
As Tom says, it was about the greensites and routing, as well as the permanence to not have to do much else to the course except maintain it's evolution in a practical manner. The Architecture was all there, The strategies. Instead we have may modern day architects claim that nothing is worth preserving, only expounding upon to merit their existence; and abilities as golf architects. They think they can make it better through science and techniques, which is possible--only they destroy that permanence with the thinking that they can make it better. Only they don't, and that's why they call the Tom Doak's and Gil Hanse's of the world to rebuild it, even though these guys are good enough; busy enough to be doing their own creations. They find themselves having to repair what others have destroyed.

Tom,
 Yes, I know you know that, and I'm going to say that the statement was due to either jet lag or over-work or probably both.

Extra room for tee lengthening was MacKenzie's 3rd rule, expounding on them to be elastic for lengthening them in the future if necessary. Later in the Spirit of St. Andy, I think he gave a more pronounced reasoning--the ever increasing length of the golf ball.

[Mike_Young]

Mike, Can the same be said of the modern over-hyped cuma sum laude MBA marketing speak. The difference, there are still some examples left of original and permanent architecture which can be analyzed studied and reveered.

Great challenge Tommy!

Of course we can.....Adam...I think many on here must think I am not into the old dead guy stuff....that is about all I play and i am into it.....I am just not into the BS as much as some others....I don't have an all out respect for everything that the old dead guys did just because they did it.....and I think most of their drawings were not that great etc but I do like the courses that have maintained most of the original integrity..and I like the clubs that are curators of such courses and the maintenance that has been allowed to happen over the years.....I like the PATINA much more than the original product of that day and think many on here do also they just won't acknowledge it...I just think that many of the old dead guys could not have made it today....JMO
Mike

[Bill_McBride]

Extra room for tee lengthening was MacKenzie's 3rd rule, expounding on them to be elastic for lengthening them in the future if necessary. Later in the Spirit of St. Andy, I think he gave a more pronounced reasoning--the ever increasing length of the golf ball.

Glad to hear I wasn't suffering from one of those pre-Alzheimer's things!

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Peter,
The word Permanence, when used in Golf Architecture can be many different meanings to many different people. But most it has everything to do with the need to adhere to the style of architecture which expounds on nature; it's strategies, otherwise Golf ceases to no longer be a SPORT involving nature and it's elements. It involves the human to be the participant, thus leaving nature to be the sole guiding element in it's purest form, and only when necessitated, the hand of man utilized to recreate that nature to help in its governing or direction.

It all means a permanent direction for Golf Architecture as a whole.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Adam,
Knowing Mike very well, my rants weren't directed generally at him, but more the entire process.

I find Mike is probably just as much an admirer of the GREAT classics as much as anyone here, but it's the method of his profession; a method he is very experienced with--which he abhors, thus the practice of consultants and wanna-bees dressing themselves up as something they really aren't, which usually requires vast amounts of schooling, and experience. Suddenly everyone is an authority. (including myself) That's the B.S. Mike doesn't care about, and I've seen what he has gone through first hand.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Glad to hear I wasn't suffering from one of those pre-Alzheimer's things!

Hey, Alzheimer's in a prerequisite when dealing with people such as myself!

[Mike_Young]

Adam,
Knowing Mike very well, my rants weren't directed generally at him, but more the entire process.

I find Mike is probably just as much an admirer of the GREAT classics as much as anyone here, but it's the method of his profession; a method he is very experienced with--which he abhors, thus the practice of consultants and wanna-bees dressing themselves up as something they really aren't, which usually requires vast amounts of schooling, and experience. Suddenly everyone is an authority. (including myself) That's the B.S. Mike doesn't care about, and I've seen what he has gone through first hand.

Hey tommy,
Thanks for taking up for me.....I am not naive enough to think that there are not those on here that have spent countless hours studying these dead guys and have much useful information...there are....much more than myself or other many other architects....I honestly think they know more about the dead guys than the dead guys knew about the dead guys....and some that haven't really delved into it as far may end up writing statements etc that will become fact.....AND some will go into clubs ad start a line of BS that sounds pretty convincing until one ask them to prove it...so mch of it is just marketing for guys looking for work...and that is ok if the club falls for it....
I just enjoy the old dead guy stuff....someone else can have all the hype that has been genersted around it.....most of it was just common sense that has EVOLVED into what is is today......BUT THAT MIGHT BE TOO SIMPLE to make a good story.....
IMHO
Mike

[Peter Pallotta]

Thanks, Tommy.

It reminds me of a couple of points I've been wondering about on and off since I got here (and every time a Behr-type thread appears):

Can a new course, created out of nothing (perhaps an old landfill site), and utilizing modern and cutting edge techniques for both construction and agronomy/maintenance, possibly provide a natural-enough setting for the kind of golfing “experience” that I think Behr describes, one that draws out the fullest possible participation of the golfer, as a person and a sportsman?

I don’t know the answer to that, Tommy. But it seems to me that, if it has any chance of happening, we (modern-day architects and critics alike) can’t treat Max Behr like some dusty museum piece, or like the batty old uncle everyone disapproved of but we loved because he slipped us some candy when no one was looking, or told us things that our hearts wanted to hear. It has to stop being about what Max Behr said and did in the PAST, no matter how noble the intentions are behind that nostalgia; and he has to become for us a genuine and living guide for the PRESENT, with all that this entails, perhaps even to the extent of carefully, painfully, modernizing the ways in which his ideas are put into practice.

By the way, I know that there are many here who know a LOT more about Behr than I do, some of whom were my introduction to Max Behr. I don’t at all mean to suggest than anyone here has been treating Behr as a museum piece; in fact, I’m probably talking mostly to myself, as I recognized that I was starting to do that almost right away. I tend to forget the practical side of things for my love of the "ideas".

Peter    

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Peter,
First off, Max Behr was a Hun. From my take, he pitied no fools that would talk more then they really knew on the subject of Golf, or worse those who tried to change it from the direction which he felt golf wa at it's most pure form--the GREAT LINKS. It was all deep subject that was very dear to him.

When I say Hun, I'm talking both about his German heritage and how the Hun's, by nature would only expect perfection or complete knowledge of the subject at hand. Heresay wouldn't abide him at all. (once again, this is my opinion)

I have friend that is much the same, He too is a Hun and he isn't even a golfer, but more, a mechanical genius whose endless knowledge of ANYTHING/ANY SUBJECT leaves me in such awe that it could literally sometimes bore you to tears because he anaylizes EVERYTHING and it's sometimes beyond comprehension. It's so complex.  

Tonight at dinner, he saw my Lakeside hat which has this little tag on the side that says, A Max Behr Design, and instantly asked me if that was the same Behr that manufactured paint, which of course it is. (this is how observant he really is, and if a can of Behr paint was around, he could probably tell you the different chemicals in it; how if you water it down a bit, you still have the same quality paint that will go even further. (Typical German. He is always thinking how to save money! So much, he is using the same styrofoam coffee cup from three weeks ago. And yes, it's getting pretty ugly!)

Max Behr was probably much the same way. He analyzed golf & golf architecture, no differently, at times making it so economical to move all sorts of ground to make you think it was natural, yet did it in a way you would have never thought for one instance what you were looking at wasn't natural. But it was only done in areas where he needed it. (Lakeside) The strategies were practical and simple, but never boring. Much of it based off of the land he had or created which is more permanence in how it was built. (And probably the more accurate description of what Permanence really meant)

The unique thing about Max Behr designs is that the routings (root-ings) if looking at them in an aerial photo don't look like much. Many of them look like they are simply back & forth, until your out there on them and see that most, if not all Behr courses feature 18 holes of different character. What you see in the air isn't necessarily what your not seeing on the ground. Even the wind swirls in different directions despite the back & forth routing.

The guy was a freeking genius.....(The way he did things)
Also, nary ever a catch basin! Only some really interesting surface drainage!

[Jeff_Brauer]

Tommy,

Back in rare form, I see!  

I am not going to take your bait, as I really, really, don't want to argue with you.  But I do have a question or two.

First, who among us has denounced classic architecture?  (Truly classic architecture, that is?)  All I asked for was a not to generalize too much that all old stuff is great.

Second, in regards to Behr's "permanence" ideas - isn't that a pipe dream?  In all other aspects of life, the operative phrase is "the only constant is change." In golf maintenance, equipment, etc. nothing is the same.  Even grasses and greens mixes have changed and in any case, certainly wear out and are not permanent.

Why did Behr think that golf greens should necessarily never change to reflect other changes, especially if he was as analytical as you surmise from his writings as opposed to having a romantic/nostalgic view of golf and the past, as I believe you do?  I do understand the romantic view, as per Joanie Mitchell's "You don't know what you got til its gone" but that change happens everywhere, including golf for reasons beyond the comprehension and control of us all.

For that matter, why does Tommy N believe that golf design is the one human endeavor that should be exempt from change?

Make it a great day, Tommy!

[BCrosby]

Behr's notion of "permanent architecture" was about building courses that fit naturally into their settings. The theory was that courses that looked man-made were those that were constantly tweaked. Those that looked natural weren't tweaked because of people's respect for nature.

Yes, MacK stole the idea from Behr. It was one of several that he stole from Behr. Though it really wasn't stealing. They were friends and Behr was probably happy to see his ideas being used. People should recall that the person most often mentioned in MacK's SofSA - after only Bobby Jones - was Max Behr.

Tommy -

How much of Behr's Rancho Sante Fe is still there?

Bob

[Jeff_Brauer]

Bob,

Could Max have foreseen just how much our respect for nature as a society has dwindled overall?  Or that kids would spend 24/7 inside playing computer games and parents just about give up on the idea of "its a nice day, go outside and play?"

[BCrosby]

Jeff -

Heck, Jeff, I wouldn't have guessed that my OWN kids on a perfect spring day would prefer sitting at home with their video games. It astounds me.

So no, Behr is unlikely to have foreseen that either.

I do think, however, that Behr's natural/permanent thing is still relevant. The more natural a course appears, the less likely people are  to try to "improve" it. Even if its natural look is entirely man-made.

Bob  

[Jeff_Brauer]

Bob,

Of course the question is then, why have so many courses - including natural looking classics from the Golden Age been renovated?

Besides the new technology on the grass side and implement side, I have previously postulated that TV has infiltrated our thinking even more - i.e., we need more visual stimulation in this generation than in Behr's generation because we spend so much time watching TV and have become more visual and less contemplative.

Again, just some big picture thinking, and as always, just my .02.  And, for that matter, not saying its right, just a reason as to why it happened, although I will also say I don't know that an known extremist like Max should be presumed to always have been right, just because he lived in the Golden Age and wrote some neat stuff about golf architecture......

Heck, he might have been "throwing ideas out there" just as I and others do now on gca.com.  He could be laughing in his grave at how seriously we all take it!

[BCrosby]

Jeff -

Behr's claim had two objectives.

The first was to persuade people to use gca's. The good ones would build "permanent architecture" that would - in the long term - save the club money. (We tend to forget that the icons of the GA didn't write for purely academic reasons. Never far from their minds was the promotion of their profession.)

Second, he was making an empirical claim about the future of his designs. The claim is that, because his courses were natural looking, they would tend to be changed less in the future. I don't know whether that is true or not. My sense is that on the margin there is something to it. Even though lots of "natural" looking courses have been changed for one reason or another.

I do agree with your point that many people today think that "natural" requires more eye candy that Behr might have thought was "natural."

Fazio figured that out earlier than most. He is now a very wealthy man.

Bob