I think I was subliminally tuned into GCA when I was about12 and we would go to Lawsonia on golf trips a few times a summer. The uncle that taught me to golf would be very enthused and explain to me the great work the golf course architect did with creating the wild and wonderfull greens and bunkers that were so much fun and so much more interesting than the muni stuff we had back in our home town.
Then, when I rekindled my interest in golf at late 30s, I began to think about the courses I was playing, and how they were different in style, yet nothing approached the sheer fun and excitiment of Lawsonia. But, I had it wrong in those days of the late 80s. I had read C&Ws book as an intro stdy of GCA, but was not fully understanding it, because I hadn't travelled and golfed at many great courses. So, my knowledge was book learned at that point.
But (to make a long story shorter) I did get hooked on the game, then realised that my playing skill would never be too high, but really started to wonder more about the architecture. I then went into a period where I was studying all the "wrong" ideas, thinking that GCA at its finest was GCA at its max, or the big mega dirt moving projects. I started to visit golf construction sites, and got so interested, I started to really study golf course construction techniques and design principles. I joined the GCSAA just to avail myself of their continuing ed courses, where I took Hurdzan's construction techniques seminar and various others related to design, remodelling, etc. I had ideas of developing my own golf course project. But, I was still in the mega construction mode of being wowed at the enormous efforts of ground shaping, and I was in the mindset of how cool all the buried elephants were as they 'contained' hole corridors and looked so nice and symetrical. I thought the more interesting 'water courses' of artificial or enhanced streams, and interesting ponds with holes cleverly designed around them was the most artfully of design. I was still not getting it. I went to LV with an old cagy archie. He was not enamored with all the glitz and extra expense and eyecandy of the trend at that time for big water projects, big earthmoving construction of buried elephants, etc. We sat together at Wynn and Fazio's dog and pony show about Shadow Creek. Of course, they were hyping that project and the contruction of it from nothing in the desert as the biggest thing in GCA, since they moved off the 'links'. I went out to see the just finished course, and was still impressed, based on all the technical stuff the contruction folk had explained they did to get the ancient brook look, the imported trees, etc. My willy old GCA friend, still rolled his eyes. But, I was starting to listen to him more, considering the cost of all that glitz and that it really was not so related to the game as it was eyecandy and superfluous.
Finally, not so much a seminal moment as a reorientation of thinking, in many ways through the on-going early discussions on GCA.com, and the old site we came from where I cyber met many of the old gang here, I began to see the minimalist value and reverence for intelligent use of natural golf routings and construction. The preference for firm and fast conditions, the maintenance meld concepts of architecture and maintenance to bring out the best characteristics of golf design, slowly seeped into my understanding.
I took a ride out west on another matter, but decided to detour on my way back home to see what all the hub bub was about in Mullen, as I had read about SHGC opening the year before in Golf Course Management Magazine of the GCSAA. I visited with Corey the super, got an immediate sense of his enthsiasm and mission for the maitenence meld of the entire minimalist nature of the project design, and was hooked as a theme ever since.
While I don't try to apply that minimalist sand hill design style or complete minimalist rigor to every course I see; I do consider the economy of construction in all courses now, the design to maintenance overall scheme to achieve the best traditional golf playability, that being a nod towards presentation of firm and fast as often as possible, wide and varied FWs, natural green sites or manufactured ones to emmulate natural ground, with features tying into surrounding land, and hazard placements used for something beyond eyecandy with a real relationship to strategy and challenge.
I am no longer wowed by the Shadow Creeks and Whistling Straits of the world (other than appreciate the talent of the constructors i a pure technical sense) for their shear exageration and over-the-top efforts of design. Such mega projects are in my view wasteful, don't add to the common enjoyment of golf, and create eletism in a sort of race for extravagance, not really in tune with the craddle of the original game.
People want to play more, not pay more (which was another seminal phrase that Tim Weiman coined on GCA.com and I firmly believe)