When Mackenzie lost it..

[David Stamm]

David:

With some of the shapes and edges and look of some of the bunkers originally done at Cypress it has been said that what they may've gotten into is to simply copy or mimic some of the shapes of passing clouds.

I have no idea if that is true or not but what I do know is a few of those bunker-makers that were part of that amazing "American Construction Company" that did the work there were some real creative people on bunkering. I used to know some of their names and have them around here somewhere.

Most of them were Irish guys that Mackenzie apparently got over here. I think it was the same crew that did those beautiful "artificial sand dunes" on Pebble too. The best example of them were those bunkers around #7 and #17 at Pebble Beach.

Apparently the American Construction Company ended up being run by Robert Hunter and/or his son.

In my opinion, those bunkers and their shapes that were part of that Monterrey School look were the most "artistic" bunkers ever done in and around that time and perhaps ever.

But I really do stress the word "artistic" and, in my opinion, that inherently gets somewhat away from what some of us call the "natural" look.  

Tom , was it Fleming, Dan Gormley, Paddy Cole and Michael McDonagh?

[TEPaul]

"Tom , was it Fleming, Dan Gormley, Paddy Cole and Michael McDonagh?"

David:

Yes it was. They sound sort of Irish to me. Don't they to you?

Or at the very least their names don't sound much like those good bunker making Italians that were all over and around Merion East when it was evolving.

I once asked Tom Doak how in the world Mackenzie and the Amercian Construction Company could've created bunkers like that which we all can see were originally just incredibly low profile from sand to surrounds. Some of them were so low profile they looked like they were almost pasted on the ground.

I mean there is no question at all that bunkers like that just aren't going to last long that way. For God's sake, a strong wind will immediately just whip the sand right out of those things and all over greens and tees and such.  

Tom Doak said he felt that Mackenzie probably just didn't care or that his feeling was if he could create bunkers this cool and artistic you all who are left with them can just figure out for yourself how to maintain them.

If that was the case, that Alister M wasn't exactly much of a practical futurist with some of this architecture, was he?

[Peter Pallotta]

"Golf architecture should not be representation but interpretation".

I wanted to take a stab at this because it's so interesting. I think the interpretation involved is two-fold.

The portrait painter is faced with a basic but fundamental interpretive challenge: his subject exists in three dimensions, while his painting can only work in two.  The techniques the artist uses to capture that three dimensional subject in a two dimensional painting is the 'craft of interpretation'.  Maybe analogously, nature exists wildly and freely for its own sake, in its full dimensions; and the golf course architect's craft involves capturing those dimensions most necessary for the creation of his painting, i.e. the golf course/field of play.

The second aspect, I think, is the 'art of interpretation'.  Here, the portrait painter's tastes, attitudes, desires and beliefs (in short, his personality) necessarily acts as a filter/prism through which the reality of his subject must pass;  in other words, the painter consciously and not chooses what attributes of his subject he will see and focus on, and then how he will represent those attributes in his art. Maybe that's much like how one golf course architect will see beauty and even strategic significance in a subtle and barren landform and so include it in his golf course/field of play, while another will ignore that same landform, or even flatten it out of existence.

Peter

And re-reading this, I realize I've just broken Gib P's first rule of good writing "don't be boring". Man, sorry gents!

[TEPaul]

"I would prefer a non-bunkered interpretation of the land form at 15 CPC for the same reason that I prefer Caravaggio to Raphael.  The latter stylized the human condition, and added in superflous putti which took many of his paintings over the top of art and into eye candy; the latter interpreted what he saw with all its natural imperfections included.

15 CPC, as interpreted by Mackenzie, could be any course in Myrtle Beach or the Costa del Sol, if you take away the Pacific Ocean.  By spraying bunkers all over a pristine piece of golfing ground, he was just adding superfluous golf-putti for no reason other than vanity.  Shame on him."

Richard:

Your preference in the first paragraph is my preference too.

But in the second paragraph I'm not too sure why you feel the need to call Mackenzie vain for creating something so artistic as those cool shaped bunkers at #15 CPC even if natural sand was never in the vicinity of #15 preconstruction (although it clearly was in the vicinity naturally only a few hundred yards away on the preceeding hole landforms).

If you think Mackenzie was vain for doing that then since so many other architects for so many years have used so many bunkers almost everywhere, I guess then you feel that all architects must be vain too.

But coming from you that would certainly not surprise me.  

The whole question and idea of "to bunker or not to bunker" is just a thoroughly fascinating one to me.

I really do wonder why more architects don't do it or never really did do courses without sand bunkering particularly if no natural sand was ever in the vicinity.

It just must have to do with the fact that they either do not have enough confidence in their ability to use other available architectural methods and features or even if they do have enough confidence to do that they must feel even if they did it excellently most golfers probably wouldn't understand and would be highly critical anyway.

The entire subject actually came up once in something of a joke at Hidden Creek while walking around there with Bill Coore and Jeff Bradley, that natural bunker making genius on their crew.

Bill looked from the tee down the bunkerless 5th hole and he said to Jeff:

"Jeff, if we make many more holes like this one, you'll be out of business."

In a milli-second Jeff shot back:

"Bill, if you guys make many more holes like this one, it's you who'll be out of business."




Well, nevertheless, bunkers do seem like "Mother's Milk" to most all architects of any time and it's just hard to wean them of it.

Mackenzie, who had to have been a pretty oral guy was probably just really into "Mother's Milk" when he was a young suckling. I'd like to see some of these mothers of potentially budding architect babies give the young suckers sand to suck when they fasten themselves onto their mother's teets and see how they like them apples.

[TEPaul]

Peter:

Your post isn't boring at all. Stop saying things like that.

Sully's explanation is a very good one, in my opinion....

"Representation leaves ownership of the concept with the original...Interpretation makes it your own."

....but I'm still grappling with the various ways it can be applied to golf course architecture.

Perhaps it has something to do with the golf architect's over-all purpose which is not merely aesthetic as is the painting artist's. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the golf architect is not just creating some aesthetic art form upon Nature and the ground but at the same time he needs to fulfill some necessary requirements for an interactive game with to be played on that aesthetic and artistic interpretation.

The fact is for a golf architect, no matter how good or interesting a site is, it can be really hard to just about impossible to leave the ownership of every part of that site to or with the ground itself when you must put a golf course with its own sometimes unnatural requirements (tees, fairways and greens) upon it.

[Mark Bourgeois]

To get this back on track, could someone show me where Mackenzie used the style of The Old Course in a way that would show that he loved the place.  This should be easy.

(I struggle to articulate the point I want to make, so I apologize for a rambling post...)

My limited understanding of what Mac took away from TOC were his principles, that his way of working out what he liked about TOC was to discern hidden order or "truths" of a sort, that old Romanticist notion.

And then he tried to apply those principles, realizing that to copy TOC somewhere else was inartistic: maybe counter to that Behr distinction Tom Paul dredged up and offensive to him as an artist. Or did he see himself as a draftsman?

And that he saw himself as an artist and that his work as an artist was to find the genius loci of that "somewhere else" and apply his principles. The result is a body of work that for me appears amazingly diverse in appearances.

I just find it fascinating this discussion is kinda sideways and seeking discussion: isn't that the effect of an artist, and could we have such discussions about very many GCAs?

MacKenzie is one of the few whose works defy stereotyping, isn't he? I for one have struggled to identify a "MacKenzie Green," even on courses where is he one of several GCAs whose work is represented. Instead, what it seems like he has are "periods," like a "Monterey Period" or a "Sandbelt Period" that are like entire schools of design or art. Of course maybe "period" is the wrong word, as these are tied to place as much as time.

I really struggle to see how Mac copied himself across his career. Help! I keep getting stuck at "inspiration," "homage," and
"influence," as opposed to: "here is Mac's RMW 10th rendered on a links /clay-based soil" etc etc. (And where the hell did RMW 10 come from? I tie it to Ganton 14 but there are a fair number of design steps from one to the other; is this a case of connecting dots that where no honest connection exists?)

His work for me defies easy categorizing. Try as I might, I can't stereotype his courses. To be honest, this drives me crazy. This is a man who designed wide open RM and straight jacket KH. The closest I can come are his crazy greens and a preponderance of a bunker style (CPC and Valley Club bunkers seem to look alike, but all I know is from pictures - and is that the extent of his repetition? If it's down to bunker styles on a few courses in the same area, I'm not sure that counts), but even there many have changed over time so we don't always know what the original looked like, or they were built by someone else. For example, I think many of those capes on the Melburnian bunkers were not part of Mac's original plans...yes?

Maybe in my ignorance I am giving him too much credit, but I do think it is a mistake to confuse a man's personal life with his work, whether he philandered or drank to excess or made a mess of his finances, or even a man's level of intelligence with a genius he might have, for the nature of genius is you can be an idiot or a cad in many respects and yet be in possession of this thing, or more accurately perhaps this "thing" be in possession of you!

And so - completely in my humble and (partially) ignorant opinion - JohnK, I don't agree with the underlying premise of your question, at least as far as I understand it, which probably is wrong or incomplete for I try never to underestimate your obviously high level of intelligence: "Mac loved TOC, therefore he would have copied it - and if he didn't, then he would not have copied it (in style)."

I figured he did not copy it in style or function, but he did seek to export its inherent qualities of function.

For me, I see what Mac thought of TOC via the large greens at Alwoodley and its curious nature of blindness and disorientation, in the wide, choice-laden playing corridors of RM West, in his flashing up of the bunker on Ganton 14 so that it could be seen off the tee.

Undoubtedly future posts will prove me a presbyopic idiot, but this is the way I have seen it, or not seen it, as the case may be!

Mark

[Peter Pallotta]

Okay,Tom - maybe I'll just say "dry" instead. I'm suprised at how "dry" some of my posts come out.

Your last post and JES' bring me right back to the question; in fact, to an even more basic question, i.e. WHAT should not be represented in gca, but intepreted instead?  

For Behr, is it a given that NATURE (in the context of a golf course) will either be represented or interpreted?

If so, wouldn't as faithful a 'representation' as possible (given that we want to play golf on it) be most desirable?  

Or could it be the other way around? Could Behr be talking about golf course architecture "interpreting" golf's STRATEGIC PRINCIPLES so as to best fit the nature of the site?

Peter

[TEPaul]

Mark:

Excellent post! Excellent, excellent, excellent!

It is very right of you to question John Kavanaugh's contention that if Mackenzie loved TOC so much he should have copied it.

The thought of someone copying a course to such an extent that we all would actually notice it is frankly a pretty odd thought anyway.

Where exactly has that ever happened in architecture, and of course the obvious question is why should that ever happen in golf course architecture?

In my opinion, you just took care of JK's contention.

And since you did that pretty much takes care of his next contention that since Mackenzie did not copy TOC which he said he loved that must mean that he actually hated TOC.  

[John Kavanaugh]

And since you did that pretty much takes care of his next contention that since Mackenzie did not copy TOC which he said he loved that must mean that he actually hated TOC.  

This only proves that either Mackenzie did not have the talent to copy TOC or that he hated American golfers to the point that he thought we would be too stupid to appreciate it if he did.  This leaves three possibilities.

Mackenzie hated American Golfers.
Mackenzie hated The Old Course.
Mackenzie hated himself.

[BCrosby]

If you've gone to enough cocktail parties, you develop pretty sensitive antennae about conversations to avoid.

Tip-offs are lines like:

"The Dungeons and Dragons convention in Vegas was awesome."

or

"Wanna see my spider tatoo?"

or

"Have you seen the new accelerated depreciation tables?"

But I've got a new one:

"MacKenzie didn't care much for The Old Course."

Bob

[John Kavanaugh]

Bob,

I thought it was well documented that Bobby Jones at least at one time hated The Old Course.  Doesn't it seem strange that he would hire an architect that supposedly loved The Old Course to build a course that replicates The Old Course on a rolling Georgia nursery.  I think that behind closed doors both Mackenzie and Jones got together and talked about everything they hated about The Old Course and built quite the opposite calling it Augusta National.  Is was a big inside joke between the two of them.

[TEPaul]

Peter:

Good questions above, I guess. I say, I guess, because despite JESII's apparently fine explanation of the distinctions between "representation" and "interpretation" the whole idea of that remark has just got me more bolluxed then ever before.

Then on top of that my old buddy Paul Cowley throws in that he thinks it's representative interpretation. Next week he might even tell me it's interpretative representation. And if all of that or even any of it is true, I'd like to know what in the hell he plans on telling Maurice the bulldozer operator in Newark DE. Maybe I'll just tell Maurice to go into the woods for an hour or so and contemplate his toothpick which appears to be his "comfort blanket" as he bounced around in that dozer, and then come up for #11 green on the ground with whatever comes to him from that.

Look, I'm not very bright and this stuff is getting the better of me.

I'm even beginning to wonder if anything that ever came to me from Behr is legit. At this point the only thing I recognize anymore as legit is a "Mrs Grundy Bunker".

And PaulC promised me he was going to create at least one really good set of "Mrs Grundy Tits" mounding in Maryland. A few weeks ago he said he'd been thinking about some natural looking Martian Debris Fields on one hole.

This stuff is crazy. I've given away a bunch of flasks to my architect friends but now maybe I better to get one of my own.

[TEPaul]

JohnK:

I'd say your first one is probably true.

Didn't you know that most all golf course architects think golfers are really stupid?

And that may even be true to say, particularly when golf architects keep implying to so many golfers that only they know what's good for golfers and also how they should play any hole.

[John Kavanaugh]

And that brings me back to my earlier point that Mackenzie did not design courses as great as they should have been.  We may just have now discovered it was because he didn't think we deserved any better.

[TEPaul]

"I thought it was well documented that Bobby Jones at least at one time hated The Old Course.  Doesn't it seem strange that he would hire an architect that supposedly loved The Old Course to build a course that replicates The Old Course on a rolling Georgia nursery.  I think that behind closed doors both Mackenzie and Jones got together and talked about everything they hated about The Old Course and built quite the opposite calling it Augusta National.  Is was a big inside joke between the two of them."

JohnK:

You told me in no uncertain terms that you were going to be 100% serious on this thread.

If that's so then that last remark virtually proves you are certifiably nuts and you should be either institutionalized or forceably put into institutional observation for at least seventeen and a half days.

[John Kavanaugh]

I am not the first one to question why they chose to build a tribute to The Old Course on a rolling nursery.

[TEPaul]

"And that brings me back to my earlier point that Mackenzie did not design courses as great as they should have been.  We may just have now discovered it was because he didn't think we deserved any better."

Barney:

That's entirely possible.

It very well may've been that Mackenzie was just waiting and waiting in hope that a guy like you would finally come along and understand him and only then would he feel he should finally design and build something he was truly capable of.

[Mark Bourgeois]

Bob,

I thought it was well documented that Bobby Jones at least at one time hated The Old Course.  Doesn't it seem strange that he would hire an architect that supposedly loved The Old Course to build a course that replicates The Old Course on a rolling Georgia nursery.  I think that behind closed doors both Mackenzie and Jones got together and talked about everything they hated about The Old Course and built quite the opposite calling it Augusta National.  Is was a big inside joke between the two of them.

The way I heard it, Roberts had Mac killed (with the candlestick, in the conservatory) and then it was Roberts and Jones who got together and sorted it all out.  Later on Jones got that big key to St. Andrews and came home and renounced his earlier views and said he was going public so Cliff shot himself.

And all this got wrapped up by Hootie into a "design bomb" -- except he chopped off the end of the story about the recanting -- and he lobbed that sucker over to Fazio, saying "it's you or I get someone else, bub" and so Fazio thought what the hell, if Jonesy could do that then why not me...

Only Billy P knew about the recanting and so now he's set in on chopping trees but thinking all the while I'll be dang-nabbited if somebody tries to lob a design "bum" my way for getting that stupid-looking splat bunker on 10 up agin *my* green...

[TEPaul]

"I am not the first one to question why they chose to build a tribute to The Old Course on a rolling nursery."

JakaB:

No, you certainly are not the first to question why Bobby and Alister decided to do a tribute together to The Old Course in a rolling nursery in Georgia.

Bob Crosby has done some great heretofore untapped research on ANGC and all this and his studied assumption, at this point, is that Jones and Mackenzie were basically tortured souls who hated themselves and as a result were closet queens.

He believes Bobby and Alister were exploring their delicate and feminine sides and things like flowers and fruit sort of filled that bill---hence the purchase and use of the famous fruit orchard or nursery for a tribute to TOC.

Bob Crosby feels that Bobby became really excited by the thought of Alister in his kilt and Alister had apparently become turned on by how sensually Bobby turned his hips during his swing.

[BCrosby]

What TEP said, though he left out the part about MacK's wide stance.

Bob

[JESII]

Peter:

Good questions above, I guess. I say, I guess, because despite JESII's apparently fine explanation of the distinctions between "representation" and "interpretation" the whole idea of that remark has just got me more bolluxed then ever before.

With representations all you get is the same box full of stuff just shuffled around a little bit.

With interpretation, you let a guy take what he thinks is unimportant out of the box and put in some things he thinks are important...

Now...after 5 or 6 representations, you are quite likely to recognize the box as very similar to the one you saw a week ago, but with 5 or 6 interpretations you may well have a box with almost none of the same ingredients...or you might have made a full circle, you just don't know...isn't this how golf course architecture has evolved?

[TEPaul]

Nice try with the rock comment Paul, but its a stretch to buy.  How do you know when Dr Mac was mimicking clouds or rocks?  I imagine a representation of each could look quite similar when using sand.  I tested this theory of bunkers mimicking rocks with my wife, who is very well versed in garden and landscape architecture/theory, by showing pix of CPC's bunkering.  She laughed at the suggestion and asked how often GCA geeks make stuff up.  To be honest, I am inclined to believe her."

Sean Arble:

I'm not sure if you're replying to me but if you are what is this about mimicing rocks with their bunker shapes? I didn't say that but maybe someone else did. Actually it might be a bit tricky to mimic the overall shapes of the craggy rock formations of the coastline that are right next to you and they probably didn't have an aerial of the course when they were building there that we were looking at above.

Mimicing the edges and shapes of clouds would be a bit easier to do, it seems to me.  

The story about the American Construction Company crew mimicing clouds in the shape of their bunkers out there has been around for years and years and written many times in many places, probably last included in Shackelford's book on CPC. The story of that is not just about Cypress either via the American Construction Company.

But you and your wife are completely free to buy that story or sell it or believe it or not. I couldn't care less, but I doubt either of your opinions has much to do with the facts of that matter.

When your wife wonders where people come up with stuff like that, I guess something reported that often could conceivably be a bold-faced lie right from the git-go but personally I guess I'm just not enough of a Devil's Advocate to believe that it's always been a lie. And maybe you might want to tell your wife that although there certainly has been plenty of landscape architecture techniques used in golf course architecture they most certainly are not the same thing.

[Mike_Cirba]

What TEP said, though he left out the part about MacK's wide stance.

Bob

He was reaching for his plans that had dropped on the floor.

[Mike_Cirba]

Left handed, palms up.

[JESII]

But only because the toe-tapping didn't work...