The case for Architectural Criticism - A 1925 Manifesto

[wsmorrison]

Grantland Rice, writing of Pine Valley in September 1916,

...There are no parallel holes here, for each fairway is a separate proposition.  And there are no copies of other great holes.  These are all new unto themselves a departure form the general order of things but departure that will make for finer golf for those who play the course; and a departure that will either make for the greater competitiveness of one's soul, or that will drive one in rout to the softer pastures and the fewer traps beyond Pine Valley's secluded borders.

[TEPaul]

"PPS Re your Reply #73, remember, they didn't design courses that had only template holes, and their templates weren't always entire holes but specific shots, too.  (This was something I picked up from George Bahto's book, so that's solid ground right there.)"

MarkB:

It's really not a matter of whether or not they built courses that were entirely template holes. If architects back then were in some way critical of template holes at all or of Macdonald, Raynor and Banks et al for using them at all that is probably what we need to consider if we care to stick to the issues of that day.

Frankly, I think the controversy over template holes was much more one of the use of plasticine models of holes particularly if those plasticine models were template holes. The use of plasticine hole models in some applications is what was really criticized, and the reasons given were if they were templates it may be very difficult to get them onto particular landforms properly.

For instance, I spent about a half hour walking around the redan at Piping Rock the other day. There's no question at all about the entire left 3/4 of that green particularly in front is a massive fill operation that certainly doesn't flow naturally with the natural grade out there. It is starkly obvious all that was man-made but the fact is the golf hole just plays beautifully despite the fact it definitely does not fit or lay gracefully or naturally on its original landform.

Tillinghast wrote critically of the use of plasticine models for holes but he must have meant template holes because he used plasticine models himself for some of his own holes but they were original holes and apparently only served as construction tools.

[Bill Brightly]

Tom,

What is a plasticine model?

[TEPaul]

A plasticine model of a golf hole is a detailed scale model of a hole in something they called plasticine which must have been some precusor material to plastic.

Some of the architects in the 1920s and 1930s used plasticine hole models probably as either hole examples or as construction tools to be copied on the ground.

Eventually some criticized the practice for the reasons I gave above.

[Bill Brightly]

Well that is pretty cool. So that means an architect like Tillinghast might have crafted a set of 3-dimensional models for all 18 holes, and told his project manager to follow the models, while he went off to another course?

So the model would replace a topographic drawing? Perhaps that was easier for non-educated workers to follow?


Or are you saying that the same models were used over and over at different courses? That would be pretty bad.

Have you ever seen any of these models? Seems to me they would be amazing collectors items.

[JC Jones]

1.  Phenomenal thread.  The very reason why I am a member of this group and the very reason why I respect the hell out of Wayne Morrison and Tom Paul and, now, Mark Bourgeois, despite having never met them.

2.  I wanted to discuss a point that was buried in the thread, which I find ironic.  The fact that the post-classical school, the obsurantist/naturalist school, a.k.a. "the americanization of golf (course design/architecture)" is really nothing more than an evolution to the beginning.  American GCA had to evolve to a point where we would "take what the land gave us," i.e. the beginnings of golf.

Moreover, isnt this, more than anything, the realization of CBM's dream?  Could it be that he fought against what he really wanted, unknowingly?  Those holes that he thought were ideal, were so, because they werent made by man, but rather, made by nature.  Maybe he didnt trust himself or anyone else to be able to build (or not build) a course the same way.  By letting nature do most of the work.  

But, a movement towards "naturalism" is exactly what CBM would have wanted, at least as he professed, for America to embrace golf and by extension the UK golf courses and their architecture.  Isnt the yielding to nature and the "taking of the land" exactly what he loved about the "UK school?"

Obviously this is speculation, and certainly I am not as well educated on this as those others posting on this thread, but, with my little understanding of CBM (entirely based on reading Scotland's Gift and what I've read on this site), it seems to me that the post-classical school of naturalism is exactly what CBM would have wanted despite him not realizing the same.

So, in case it seems confusing, I am essentially raising these two points:

1.  The irony that the "Americanization" is really an evolution to the beginning of golf course design.

2.  That "naturalism" is America's way of fulling embracing the game of golf because we have "realized/decided" that the first way is/was the best way.

[Jeff_Brauer]

TEPaul,

I was waiting for a response like No. 73 by Mark B.....

Does it occur to anyone that gca can emphasize a lot of different things, and should, including playability, challenge, etc. plus naturalism?

It occurs to me that CBM was a good player, and his designs simply focused on the shots and challenges he thought important.  Aesthetics was secondary to him, and growing up in the primitive USA design era, plus being influenced by TOC, which ain't no thing of beauty or naturalism as it later became known, it simply wasn't as of much importance to him.

If it was, perhaps he would have hired someone more in landscaping and less in engineering, although Raynor had both skills to a degree.

[Mark Bourgeois]

I'm sorry; my last two posts don't contribute to answering Wayne's question, so I deleted them.  So...

Why did the obscurantists' view prevail over the architects?

In part, I think "architecture" as a metaphor just couldn't hold up to the reality of the game: the materials used in construction are organic as is the surrounding environment.

No advantage is gained in making a golf course out of steel.

Somehow I think the reason why the obscurantists' view won out has to do with the fact that golf course designers work in the same materials as their surrounds.

At least they do ideally: desert courses clearly are "architectural" and clearly are manufactured, yes?

Is there a parallel between Macdonald and desert courses?

Weird...

Mark

[TEPaul]

"I have a question per Piping Rock Redan's lack of nature fakery: Does the National's Redan look natural or manufactured to you?"

MarkB:

Yes, to a very large extent NGLA's redan does look natural to me and the reason for that is to a very large extent it is!

Believe me, both I and we have been all over that hole and its surrounding landform and the way to tell is to simply follow out to the right and out to the left and it's not hard to pick up on what really is natural grade. With that establishment, the trick is to then just follow inward until you hit what either may've been enhanced of changed earthwise or not when you get to various parts of the green.

Unfortunately with a course as old as NGLA no really good preconstruction topos exist, and if they did that would basically prove this one way or the other.

That overall ridgeline I think really is essentially natural, unlike Piping Rock's redan.

Whether the basic ridgeline the green sits on was slightly broader side to side is hard to say---it probably was and that's why Macdonald might have cut into the front along the diagonal and also along the back of the diagonal but I very much doubt he used all that fill to build that green surface. I just don't think he needed to.

Macdonald may've used a good deal of fill from cuts in the front and back of #4 on the two holes fairly close to the redan---eg #3 and #15 or perhaps even along the teeing area of #5. But again, I think that basic right to left diagonal ridgeline NGLA's redan green sits on is natural unlike Piping Rock's.

Frankly, it's not hard to tell where Macdonald got the massive amount of fill he used for Piping's redan if one takes the time to look. The real irony is the cuts he made to get that fill look about ten times more naturally occurring than what he made with the green itself.

[Rich Goodale]

Kyle,

I have no idea.  Perhaps Brad, who is infinitely more familiar with Ross or Rich, who is infinitely more familiar with Dornoch, can answer your question.  Ross was a carpenter in Dornoch and left to get his start in golf at St. Andrews (apprenticed with David Forgan) and didn't return to Dornoch until 1893.  I don't know what he knew about golf architecture at that point.  It seems doubtful Ross was given much liberty to influence the design of Dornoch before he left for America in 1899.

Wayne and Kyle

The first hole at Dornoch was 220 yards when Hutchinson wrote his book.  The green pictured was in the middle of the current fairway, just past the defile between the ridges right and left. The second hole was 240.  Both were designed by Old Tom Morris, and the lengths were fairly typical for short par-4's in those pre-Haskell ball days.  In 1921, Sutherland decided they didn't fit the (then) modern game and as Ross was over visiting, he asked him to redesign the holes, which he did by designing a new green for the 1st (where it currently sits) and laying out a new second hole as a par 3 (helped by the gift of some additional land from the Duke of Sutherland).  (John) Sutherland built the 1st as Ross designed it, but changed the 2nd from Ross's proposed saucer (punchbowl) green to the volcano green we know today.

As for the picture of the 4th, that is actually a picture of today's 17th.  At that time, the 3rd hole was a 215-yarder, perpendicular to the opening two, heading out to the sea, with a green somewhere in the vicinity of the right hand side of the current upper 17th fairway (maybe even into what is now the gorse).  The 4th tee was near there, and one played down into the valley and then up to where the 17th green currently sits.  It was 340 yards, which was a long two-shot hole in those days.  If you look at the picture of the green closely and know the features of Dornoch well enough, you can see that the site is the same we play as 17 today.

As to the general drift of this thread, the rectangluar nature of those two greens was not at all uncommon in those days, due to the fact that greens weren't designed, they were just found and mowed, usually in a square.  If you look at old pictures of places like Royal County Down and Royal Protrush, you will see similarly shaped greens.  Over time, greens such as the 4th/17th at Dornoch changed two-dimensional shape as mowing technology improved and the courses had more money for tweaking and maintenance.  However, like many of the really good ones "found" by Morris and others which survive today they was chosen due to their third-dimensional (i.e. vertical) interest.  If you look closely at the two pictures, you will see that there is a good deal of movement going on inside those mowed squares.

Phew!

[Mark Bourgeois]

"I have a question per Piping Rock Redan's lack of nature fakery: Does the National's Redan look natural or manufactured to you?"

MarkB:

Yes, to a very large extent NGLA's redan does look natural to me and the reason for that is to a very large extent it is!

Believe me, both I and we have been all over that hole and its surrounding landform and the way to tell is to simply follow out to the right and out to the left and it's not hard to pick up on what really is natural grade. With that establishment, the trick is to then just follow inward until you hit what either may've been enhanced of changed earthwise or not when you get to various parts of the green.

Unfortunately with a course as old as NGLA no really good preconstruction topos exist, and if they did that would basically prove this one way or the other.

That overall ridgeline I think really is essentially natural, unlike Piping Rock's redan.

Whether the basic ridgeline the green sits on was slightly broader side to side is hard to say---it probably was and that's why Macdonald might have cut into the front along the diagonal and also along the back of the diagonal but I very much doubt he used all that fill to build that green surface. I just don't think he needed to.

Macdonald may've used a good deal of fill from cuts in the front and back of #4 on the two holes fairly close to the redan---eg #3 and #15 or perhaps even along the teeing area of #5. But again, I think that basic right to left diagonal ridgeline NGLA's redan green sits on is natural unlike Piping Rock's.

Frankly, it's not hard to tell where Macdonald got the massive amount of fill he used for Piping's redan if one takes the time to look. The real irony is the cuts he made to get that fill look about ten times more naturally occurring than what he made with the green itself.

Sorry for the cross-post deletion.  (Did I include Macdonald's comment on the National Redan in the deleted post?  If not, he says all they needed to do was dig the bunker and place the tee.)

[Paul_Turner]

"The attempt at reproducing well-known holes with hopelessly different materials is the most futile nonsense of the lot.  How often have I seen a piece of ground suitable for a good short hole spoilt by a silly attempt at reproducing the 11th (Eden) at St Andrews!  No; I firmly believe that the only means whereby an attractive piece of ground can be turned into a satisfying golf course is to work to the natural features of the site in question.  Develop them if necessary, but not too much; and if there are many nice features, leave them alone as far as possible, but utilise them to their fullest extent, and eventually there will be a chance of obtaining a course with individual character of an impressive nature."

HS Colt.

Paul,

What's the date on that quote?  Does it correspond to this debate CBM referenced?

Also, do you have a sense of how much MacKenzie's ideas flowed to Colt?  I unthinkingly assumed that as senior partner Colt would have taught MacKenzie many things, but I have been thinking of Colt's visit to Alwoodley.  Did he document what he thought of what he saw?  Did he find what he saw radical?

Mark

Mark

The quote is from 1912.

Apart from the intro to Mackenzie's book, Colt didn't write specifically about Alwoodley as far as I'm aware. He was called into Alwoodley (1907) because of his experience in redesigning Sunningdale Old over several years;  he'd also just started consulting at Ganton.

[Mark Bourgeois]

Paul,

What did Colt take away from the Alwoodley design?  Does anything show up in Stoke that points to an influence?

Did Colt commit his ideas to writing prior to visiting Alwoodley? As far as designs go, there's not enough in Colt's pre-1907 portfolio to draw out any before-and-afters.  Or is there?

Also, did he write that before or after his Toronto course opened with its rendition of Redan?

Thanks,
Mark

[TEPaul]

"TEPaul,
Does it occur to anyone that gca can emphasize a lot of different things, and should, including playability, challenge, etc. plus naturalism?"


JeffB:

Sure it does, of course it does. But I think golf course architecture and all that it deals with is a big enough subject that it helps to consider and discuss specific aspects of it separately. If we don't do that these threads can just get too unwieldy and too hard to follow and participate in.

The only risk I see of some of us getting too specific and too detailed in our thinking and discussing is that we may run the risk of just goingh right past the things they really were thinking about and caring about and dealing with out there back then.

In that vein, I've always said perhaps the most valuable lesson on golf architecture the participants on this website who are not in the business can learn is by going out in the field on a design construction project and spending a couple of days out there. I will almost guarantee anyone on here who's never done it they would be very surprised at the things that go on out there and influence things. Stuff goes on out there I'm pretty certain they never thought about or even imagined.

[TEPaul]

MarkB:

Concerning your post #86 and some of the points you are trying to make in it, you have just got to read Max Behr's articles, all of them on that subject. He goes deeper into the art of golf architecture in that very vein by a factor of about ten than anyone else ever did!

You said:

"(Did I include Macdonald's comment on the National Redan in the deleted post?  If not, he says all they needed to do was dig the bunker and place the tee.)"

I know it well, Mark. I can't tell you how many times I've read his book and particular passages of it. Not just that, I found a series of articles that Macdonald (and sometimes Whigam) wrote about some of those template holes, what they were abroad and what they were trying to do at NGLA with them, their basic concepts and strategic principles.

That's also why I've been saying on here for years that Macdonald and Raynor never tried to exactly COPY those template holes or their prototpes abroad as so many people seem to think they were and often criticize them for----eg the fact some of them don't look or play exactly the same.

Those guys were after duplicating BASIC architectural principles and concepts, strategic concepts, that they felt made those prototypes so famous, so classical and so enduring.

Regarding Mackenzie, Colt and Alwoodley read Tom Doak's book on Mackenzie.

[Bill Brightly]

In that vein, I've always said perhaps the most valuable lesson on golf architecture the participants on this website who are not in the business can learn is by going out in the field on a design construction project and spending a couple of days out there. I will almost guarantee anyone on here who's never done it they would be very surprised at the things that go on out there and influence things. Stuff goes on out there I'm pretty certain they never thought about or even imagined.

That is a very good point. I'm sure the professional architects on this site know it all too well.

I went to look at the work done at Sleepy Hollow by Gil Hanse and George Bahto, and my host pointed out all the rock outcroppings that were discovered during the course of the work. Several planned bunkers had to be shifted (or abandoned) because of the massive rock that was discovered.

I'm sure this happened time and again to CB Macdonald while building the original course. I see know how such conditions could  increase the routing problems that a GCA might face.

[TEPaul]

"Have you ever seen any of these models? Seems to me they would be amazing collectors items."

BillB:

Yes I have. I think I've seen maybe two in my life. You're damn right they would be amazing collector's items and if anyone knows were any of them are, particularly for significant architecture or courses I can guarantee you this USGA Architecture Archive I'm working on with a few others on here would just love to have some.

But something like that is obviously not easy to either keep well or store over the years. Most of them weren't exactly small. I'm sure they can be and have been damaged very easily probably leading most people to thrown them away.

Obviously there are probably a whole lot more photographs of plasticine models out there today than the actual models.

[TEPaul]

J.C. Jones:

Sorry, I missed that really good post of yours until now.

Even if you think this thread is a phenomenal one, and maybe it is, even these kinds of threads tend to wander for a while and they can wander right into oblivion and into the back pages for months or years unless somebody inserts a really good post asking some really important questions as you did above, and then hopefully people take up on that post with some good and thoughtful answers and the thread continues on with perhaps some relevent variations and just gets better and more valuable in the end.

Thanks. I'd love to try to deal at least with one or both of your two last questions after a little while.

[Mark Bourgeois]

I've read those articles, too.  As to Behr, can you give me specific references?  I get lost in that guy.

As to the Doak / Scott book, I refuse to pay $400 for a book! Maybe interlibrary loan...

But how bout a little help there -- did Alwoodley teach Colt anything about nature fakery?  Then Fowler goes up there -- is there a before and after for him, too?  A course whose design was the first or one of the first post-Haskells, who's got MacKenzie, Fowler and Colt crawling on it...

You know, MacKenzie did camouflage in the Boer War, Alison ciphered in First World War...I see a pattern and to mix my metaphors that pattern runs right through Harry Shapland Colt.

Mark

[Jim_Kennedy]

But seriously, I just thought of something pretty interesting and pretty indicative.
Did either Macdonald or Raynor or Banks EVER even try to build a golf course WITHOUT one or a number of those template holes on it?
I don't think so and if not that really does tell you something pretty important about what they were up to and why they all stuck with that style, doesn't it?
I don't think a single other architect in the entire history of the art or business ever did anything like that.-TEPauL

Tom,
Excuse me, it's Monday and I'm a bit slow, but, indicative of what?

...and, if no "..other architect in the entire history of golf ever did anything like that", does that mean that someone like Donald Ross created 7,200 unique holes? Certainly somewhere along the line he 'referred' to his mental bank of greens he had built, greens he had seen and loved, or entire holes he had previously created. As he walked a property, or scoured a topo, he must have 'seen' holes that he had used before, and with a tweak here and a kink there, voila, a 'new' golf hole.

What's the diff, unless you believe that CB and his proteges never put an original thought on the ground.  

[TEPaul]

"What's the diff, unless you believe that CB and his proteges never put an original thought on the ground."

Jim Kennedy:

Yeah I guess it is Monday and you are a little slow. Would you like me to give you until Tuesday or Wednesday and check back to see if you've figured it out by then or would you like a hint or two today?    

[Kyle Harris]

Tom,

It's entirely possible and likely that Mountain Lake was built without 2, maybe even 3 of the template Par 3s.

From Mike Sweeney's In My Opinion:


That's an aerial from sometime in the early 30s I believe. Today, the 5th hole is a Biarritz, the 9th a Short, the 11th a Redan and the 17th an Eden. The aerial shows the 5th and 17th and from the looks of the bunkering neither really seem to fit the bill of a Biarritz or Eden.

It's possible that the old 9th hole (played to the current 8th green before Banks made that into a par 5 and built the Short) was at one point the "short" hole, but the green currently features no horseshoe, donut, torus or other "Short" green contour like the others.

Mountain Lake appears to be something of an aberation for Raynor in many regards, including this one. Also note the general shape and raggedness of the bunkers - definitely a contrast to the squared Raynor/Banks look and even a contrast to today's.

[Tom_Doak]

I am late to this discussion, in persevering with my new year's resolution, but I would like to respond as to why I think Raynor and Banks' versions of design were even more stark than their mentor's.

It was because they never saw the links courses on which Macdonald's ideas were modeled.  Macdonald did, of course, so when he participated he tended to make his work look like the links he'd seen overseas.  His features weren't blended into nature, but the artificial parts were smaller and therefore don't stand out as much.  I'm not sure about Banks, but Raynor had no such hangups.

[TEPaul]

MarkB said:

"I've read those articles, too.  As to Behr, can you give me specific references?  I get lost in that guy.
As to the Doak / Scott book, I refuse to pay $400 for a book! Maybe interlibrary loan...
But how bout a little help there -- did Alwoodley teach Colt anything about nature fakery?  Then Fowler goes up there -- is there a before and after for him, too?  A course whose design was the first or one of the first post-Haskells, who's got MacKenzie, Fowler and Colt crawling on it...
You know, MacKenzie did camouflage in the Boer War, Alison ciphered in First World War...I see a pattern and to mix my metaphors that pattern runs right through Harry Shapland Colt."


MarkB:

Here's hoping Tom Doak, now that he seems to be over whatever his New Years resolution was, gave you a little guidance in his post above.

I'd love to help too but you see you're making me a little nervous in some of your assumptions and the terms you're using for them----"obscurantism, "hoodwinking", "nature fakery" even Modernism, Cubism and all the way down to big old William Randolf Hearst or Orson Welles and Citzen Kane.

Are you or anyone on here even remotely aware that any of those guys like Colt, Alison, Mackenzie, Fowler, Flynn et al ever used those terms in what they did in golf course architecture, much less even think about them??

And that question is coming from a guy, me, who tends to come up with some pretty odd references, analogies and even terms and phrases.

I think those guys were simply trying to do the best they could in architecture by "hiding the hand of man" which they considered to be fairly artificial looking in the things Man tended to make in early architecture, and even in the linksland in the 19th century.

Those guys were just trying to do a better job of imitating the lines and look of nature and natural forms and landforms in the things they made.

As TomD said above, Macdonald who decided to transport the look of some linksland holes over here that also had some rudimentary artificial characterstics about them probably just wasn't operating at that time under such a compunction about the use or look of a little manufacturing or artificiality.

[TEPaul]

MarkB:

Even if I may not be able to get into some of those concepts and assumptions like "obscurantism" and "hoodwinking" on the part of the dedicated nature imitators in architecture in the Golden Age I might be willing to explore something with you like whether C.B. Macdonald was a incurable bedwetter and what that may've done to his personality or his preferences and sensibilities regarding golf course architecture like a modicum of good old fashioned artificiality and manufacturing as well as templating in all the courses he was involved with.

I mean, Mark, look at it this way. If Macdonald was an inveterate bedwetter and he felt like if he was in a bed he wasn't familiar with, as opposed to one he was very familiar with, that it might tend to make him pee in that unfamiliar bed more often as opposed to a bed he knew really well.

Don't you think a guy like that may tend to stick with something he's very familiar with like a redan, Road, Eden hole and such on every golf course he did?

Well, I don't know about you but I sure as shootin' do!

As for the manufactured and engineered look I don't know about that yet due to bedwetting but just wait a while and I believe I can come up with something pretty plausible.