Why do we go easy on MacDonald and Raynor?

[Patrick_Mucci]

There are a number of courses where the template holes were forced into the routing and shaped well above the natural grade and features of their surroundings. 

Since when is shaping above the natural grade a bad thing ?

Ross's greens on many courses are almost universally above grade.

Being above grade is critical to good drainage in many areas.

Even Hidden Creek has almost every green above grade.


Now, I am not trying to say that these aren't excellent clubs, solid courses and fun shots. 

But you tell me how various holes at Fox Chapel, CC Charleston, St. Louis CC, Sleepy Hollow, Lookout Mountain, Westhampton (3rd and 7th) and even Yeaman's Hall (13th) and the Creek Club (17th) harmonize with their surrounds and don't look very out of place. 

Okay, I'll tell you that the 3rd and the 7th hole at Westhampton don't look very out of place, especially the 3rd hole which sits below the tee.

I also like the look of the 7th hole.

I don't think that # 17 at The Creek looks out of place at all.
I lament the missing donut in the green and the bunkers that used to surround the entire green.  The hole remains a neat little short hole.

If Macdonald was somewhat natural in style, especially between the tee and green, Raynor was much less so and Banks even less so than Raynor with Forsgate a solid example of fun but anti-naturalism in design.

Forsgate is a terrific golf course, sporty, fun, unique and challenging.

Its design isn't anti-naturalism.
It's design is intended to examine the golfer's skills while providing enjoyment, and in that regard Banks succeeded royally.

I believe many of those that revere Raynor and Banks courses (Macdonald was far more original and had a more natural style--though many of his greensites were poorly tied into the surrounds...he seemed to not care that much) enjoy the strength of those courses, interesting shots and prime sites. 

Wayno, you continually forget that CBM brought interesting architecture to America, vis a vis NGLA and its descendents.

The aesthetics, save for NGLA, are poor in my eyes. 


The aesthetics at The Creek are "POOR" ?
The aesthetics at Yale are "POOR" ?

Wayno, Shirley you jest.

It is a subjective analysis and just an opinion. 

On that we agree.  However I detect a Flynn bias in your typing.

There is no right or wrong.

Now we disagree.

I just don't get why more people don't object to the aesthetics of Raynor and Banks courses. 

Perhaps because you don't get it and they do.

And, perhaps because their courses present a sporty challenge to every level of golfer

Of course no two holes or templates are alike, but come on...nothing else would do in their locations? 

Again, you fail to understand that the client wanted their "BRAND", their style of golf course due to the enduring values represented in the holes they designed.

Have you ever played The Knoll ?

Most of us are not architects.  Most of us are talking out are asses when we think we know something is brilliantly routed.  We know we like the course and it sounds like we know what we're talking about when we comment on routings.  How many of us non-architects actually spent time trying to route? 

What does Tom MacWood's routing skills have to do with CBM-SR-CB ?

I know Tom Paul spent hundreds of hours doing so on several sites. 

TEPaul also spent five years in 7th grade.

I did for many hours on two sites. 

But we are kidding ourselves if we can look at a Raynor routing and really know if it can be improved upon or not.

You could say that about almost any course.

Do you not find the crossovers at Merion and Lehigh to be a flaw in the routing and hole designs ?

The GCA.com universe was highly critical of the cross overs in Rees Jones's routing of Atlantic, claiming that crossovers were a design flaw, until I pointed out that Merion and Lehigh had the same design flaw in the routing.  Then, suddenly, it became acceptable.  Many look at crossovers as a design and routing flaw.  I'm sure you'll claim that they are a great way to transition within the limitations presented by the property.  Of course you could say that about Atlantic as well.

I will ask the professional architects on this site a probing question. 

Given that Macdonald had a a tremendous amount of land to consider placing his National Links course, did he choose the best spot? 

Since when did he have a tremendous amount of land to consider ?
Could you cite your reference ?
The current site was not the first site he wanted, which was 120 acres.
The current site was on a parcel of 450 acres, of which he purchased 205 acres.

Does it matter if he chose the best spot if he produced the best course the land could produce ?

Tom Doak will be particularly interesting to hear from since he knows the adjacent land and land available to Macdonald better than any of us by a large factor. 

Tom Doak is a "johnny come lately" when it comes to that land, and I doubt he knows more about the land available to MacDonald better than George Bahto and others.

Did he compromise the best golf course he could have built because he found the right spots for some of his templates? 

Let me see if I understand your question.

First, MacDonald begins to create the course of the century in 1906, a revolutionary course unlike any other in America, a course that remains in the top 10 or so, 100 plus years after it started, and you ask if he compromised the best golf course he could have built because he found the right spots for some of his templates ?

Second, the current site was not his first choice.
Initially he wanted to buy 120 acres further west, close to the Shinnecock Canal, but, the owners of the land wouldn't sell it.

Third, the land that NGLA now sits on had never been surveyed when CBM wanted to buy it, it was part of a 450 acre parcel.  The land abounded in bogs and swamps.  And, the key to the purchase was the reasonability of the selling price.

Horace Hutchinson and Bernard Darwin were pretty effusive in their praise, but, old Wayno thinks a better golf course could be built on different land ?
You must be kidding, and don't call me Shirley.

Why do you presume that the decision to buy the parcel was entirely dependent upon the predetermination of the routing and hole design ?
CBM himself states that the template holes he had in mind fit in NATURALLY to the land he wanted to buy.

Could the existing land he built on be better routed if he had not insisted on templates and designed with a perfectly clean slate?

Evidently, you don't know much about that land.

Please call Tom Doak and have him explain the routing restrictions of the property to you, basically, only permiting an out and back routing.

I know that Macdonald and Raynor provided us with excellent work, particularly Macdonald. 

But I don't think Raynor is in the top tier because he is so compartmentalized (even though he didn't clone designs...they are not exactly alike) and with concepts that are not his own, even if they were only a fraction of hole concepts on each course. 


First you tell us that Raynor provided excellent work, then, in the next paragraph you tell us that he's not in the top tier.
Which is it ?

What if Fisher's Island was completed and the bunker plan fully implemented?  How would it differ from what exists today?

The routing would be the same.
You don't know if the bunker plan would remain because you don't know what the effects of the Great Depression and WWII would have been on it.

Stick to Flynn where you're recognized as not being a novice and out of your element  

[TEPaul]

"As for a possible majority of golfers preferring the manufactured look of Raynor and Banks, I don't think that has been tested since most of their courses are very private and rarely seen outside the memberships.  Why is that?  Few of the courses have stood the test of time as tests of the very best players.  A lack of elasticity and bunkering schemes relegate a lot of these courses to enjoyable club courses but are they championship courses that have stood the test of time like other designers have in their portfolios?  In general, I think the answer is clearly no.  There was, in my mind, a lack of foresight from Macdonald, Raynor and Banks that wasn't evident in Wilson, Crump, the Nature Faker, Tillinghast, Thomas, Colt, maybe MacKenzie and a few others of that era.

OK, I'm off to bed.  But I will say this, you can have man over nature, but hidden out of respect for nature.  That is a much more agreeable and less egotistical approach.  And guess what?  It looks a HELL OF A LOT better!  To me, golf architecture reaches its zenith with great golf presented in a naturalistic fashion.  It is simpler to create interesting and fun golf without regard to a natural aesthetic, but if you can have both, why not?  The Nature Faker also thought, with his green keeper background, that natural lines and tie ins would hold up longer (Max Behrian if you like) and cost less to maintain over time.  So perhaps it isn't just about aesthetics but also practical as well.

However, to each his own.  As I said, my position is my opinion and it is no better or worse than anyone else's, especially Big Donnie Beck!    "


Wayno:

I do hope you have gone to bed. You'll need your rest because after this post you will need all the strength you can muster for the Great Naturalistic Golf Architecture Revolution that may begin tomorrow.

You said your opinion is no better or worse than anyone else's, especially Donnie Beck's?? Are you kidding me? Of course your opinion is better than theirs. You are a true Naturalist, my friend, and you are about to take on that entire old elitist super-arrogant ruling class that thought they could not just take on but put a full court press on good old Mother Nature and pin her to some horribly artificial man-made contraption like the berm behind the "Alps" hole at NGLA until she couldn't take it anymore and cried "Macdonald/Raynor" in defeat.

These arrogant Nature dominanting wankers apparently don't appreciate the true meaning of "One never fucks with Mother Nature."

You are the new ruling class, Wayne Morrison, and don't you forget it. Tomorrow you go out and learn to shit in the wood as well as Maxie Baby Behr could while I email the Fates and Spirits and call in this next hurricane brewing in the Carribean and bring it up this way and unleash all its fury on Fishers Island G.C. that will make the 1938 hurricane look like a BURP!  

[Patrick_Mucci]

Wayno,

Seems to me that Baltusrol, Winged Foot, Quaker Ridge, Ridgewood and Bethpage have withstood the onslaught of hi-tech a lot better than any Flynn courses.

AWT should be proud.

[TEPaul]

"TEPaul also spent five years in 7th grade."

Hey look, you snark-assed bozo, if you did 7th grade at Seabreeze Private in Daytona Beach, Florida with rock-headed people like Fireball Roberts' brother and then had to go to St Mark's School in Boston with juvenile protoge geniuses like Herbert Leed's sister's grandchildren you would've spent ten years in 7th grade!

[TEPaul]

Donnie:

Post #49's old and new photos are two of the coolest comparative golf architecture photos I have ever seen. Way to go Man. By the way the new one really does prove how much photography flattens out topography.

[DMoriarty]

It is too easy to just lump Macdonald and Raynor together, intermingle their work, and then make broad generalizations across both.   While I generally agree with Bill Brightly and Donnie Beck and a few others, I am commenting on Macdonald only. 

Macdonald was not importing and blindly and mechanically copying golf holes, he was importing the fundamental principles of strategic design and applying them in new and varying situations.    His supposed "templates" were vehicles for expressing some of these principles, but even these varied greatly from site to site.   They were not meant as "templates" in the sense of any sort of mechanical copies, but were unique expressions of some key fundamental principles.  Macdonald said of the Redan (emphasis added:) 

There are several Redans to be found nowadays on American courses. There is a simplified Redan at Piping Rock, a reversed Redan at Merion Cricket Club (the green being approached from the left hand end of the tableland) and another reversed Redan at Sleepy Hollow where the tee instead of being about level with the green is much higher. A beautiful short hole with the Redan principle will be found on the new Philadelphia course at Pine Valley. Here also the tee is higher than the hole, so that the player overlooks the tableland. The principle can be used with an infinite number of variations on any course.

"Infinite variations on any course" . . . .  this is not rote copying from a template.

Could designers could get away with this now?   Yes, and the do get away with it.  Many if not most architects build the same holes over and over again, often times even building the same basic hole multiple times on the same golf course!  Unfortunately for us, most these designers do not have nearly as diverse or repertoire as Macdonald, who could at least design a full course without repeating himself.    As Macdonald said in the same article after noting that there are only four kinds of good golf holes, "the local scenery supplies the variety."  I'd venture to say that those who best grasped the fundamental principles made the best designers.    I'll go even further and suggest that these same fundamental principles are what made the "golden age" golden. 


________________________________________________

I will ask the professional architects on this site a probing question.  Given that Macdonald had a a tremendous amount of land to consider placing his National Links course, did he choose the best spot?  Tom Doak will be particularly interesting to hear from since he knows the adjacent land and land available to Macdonald better than any of us by a large factor.  Did he compromise the best golf course he could have built because he found the right spots for some of his templates?  Could the existing land he built on be better routed if he had not insisted on templates and designed with a perfectly clean slate?

A related question.   Don't designers oftentimes find one or two key holes and then base the rest of the course around those holes? 

As far as I am aware, the Alps and Redan were the two "template holes" that were placed before the rest of the routing was done.   It is difficult to imagine better use of that land. 

Also, second-guessing the routing at this point seems a bit presumptuous even for the professionals. Non-golf factors often limit the routing possibilities and we don't know what were those limitations.  For just one example that we do know, NGLA was planning  on using the hotel as a clubhouse, and this may well have impacted the routing.   

[Patrick_Mucci]

...

Donnie,

Great photos.

Wayno keeps refering to CBM's-SR's-CB's unnatural designs because he read about it somewhere.

Anyone who's viewed that photo or played the hole/course knows how off base he is.

Forgive him, he's a blind Flynnophile.

[Peter Pallotta]

Anthony - I don't kow how to answer your question. I just have more questions:

What would American architecture have been like without him?

Did he fill a need, or create one?

Peter 

 

[Thomas MacWood]

I believe Wayne & TE have done a disservice to Flynn with their constant harping on Macdonald and Raynor (and Ross for that matter). You get the impression they believe tearing down M & R somehow elevates Flynn (and Wilson). I think the opposite is true, which is sad. Flynn was a brilliant architect. Ironically Flynn has more in common with Macdonald & Co and Ross than he does with the ultra-naturalistic architects like Mackenzie, Simpson and Thomas.

IMO one of the reasons golf architecture is so interesting is due to the diversity of styles. Alison, Thompson, Travis, Langford, Strong and Colt all have very different styles - I say viva la differance. I don't know how a reasonable judge of golf architecture could play the NGLA, Yale, Chicago and Fishers Island and not be totally blown away by their talent.

[Donnie Beck]

Wayne might have a point on this one...

[IMG]

[Bill Brightly]

Wayne,

I have played CC of Charleston 25 years ago but I was too young and ignorant to look around for the arcitecture...at that time I had no idea that Raynor was Banks' mentor. I am playing Fox Chapel next month. Driving 7 hours just to see it and can't wait.

Don't worry too much about the front section of Biarritz greens, the pin should rarely be there anyway. The idea was to thread a long tee shot in between the70-yard long bunkers with enough force to roll down and back up the swale and stay on the green. I dont think the front sections were putting surfaces, but advances in agronomy and turf management left the front sections as "properly-irrigated" (soft) fairways rather than the hardpan that must have existed 80-90 years ago. So I've come to believe that today's putting surfaces are the closest we can get to the "firm and fast" approaches required to execute a proper "Biarritz Shot." At the time these holes were built, this tee shot had to be the most difficult shot on the course: 220 to the green with wooden shafts, etc. No golfers could fly the ball to the green as we can now. Had the architects have made the swale in a "non-linear" manner it would have been way over the top.

I never claimed that Raynor and Banks did not leave engineered looks. I simply try to point out that most golfers still like the look and love to play the holes. I know it bothers you that most golfers don't take points off for the look as you do.
 
And I try to place their construction technique in the proper historical perspective, because it is important. These courses were built in the early part of the 20th century. Raynor and Banks are probably the two biggest examples of "Man over Nature" movement exhibited on golf courses. In any event, these courses represent an important segment of the spectrum of great courses that exist today.


As TE pointed out so eloquently, you have a great eye for naturalism on golf courses. I think that is cool and I am learning to look for that. But to use your love for naturalism as a reason to denegrate MacRaynors is simply wrong. It is like going to a heavy metal concert and screaming at the band that aren't playing enough acoustic ballads...

[TEPaul]

"I believe Wayne & TE have done a disservice to Flynn with their constant harping on Macdonald and Raynor (and Ross for that matter). You get the impression they believe tearing down M & R somehow elevates Flynn (and Wilson)."

Tom:

I have never done anything like that at all and if you really don't know that you should. I'm telling you right now I have never done that with Macdonald/Raynor or Ross or Flynn or Wilson or Crump and I'm definitely telling you right now that is not the way I feel--never have. If you don't pick up on what I'm telling you right now and engage me as to why I say that and mean it----well, then Mr. MacWood, you really are going to show yourself to be the gutless and arrogant little purveyor of total triviality and untruths this website has ever had the misfortune to suffer.

Are you going to engage on this now Mr. MacWood? Can you do it? Do you have the guts to even try?

I will guarantee you it will not be painful whatever your insecurities are or whatever mine are. You and I need to get to the basics of some of our sensibilities and if we do this website will be a whole lot better for it. I just know it will.

Do you have the guts? It won't be a fight, it will be a catharsis--I can feel it and I'll guarantee it.

[Rich Goodale]

Anthony

Excellent posts which have provoked some interesting thinking from others.  Thanks.

Even though this may be a kiss of death, I agree with you regarding the "humor" to be found in any and all discussions of Macdonald and Raynor's work and/or theories.  I am continually amused when playing with good friends from this site who feel obliged to tell me when I get to some hole on one of their favo(u)rite courses: "This is our 'Redan!'" or "Doesn't that green have a Biarritzy feel to it?" or "That tuft of grass obscuring the green is an "Alp."

The Monet analogy used above by others is illustrative of this particular form of mania.  It would work if MacRaynor's ouevre of Redans actually consisted of "water lillies," but the irony is that none of them that I have seen (including NGLA) are actually water lillies, but rather other varieties of flower.  NGLA is a tulip, Wailae is a hibiscus, etc., ad infinitum.  If Monet painted a hibiscus and called it a water lilly, we would all laugh.  Why are we less critical when discussing a golf hole?  Why do we fail to see the humo(u)r of it all and even more importantly why do some of us react so negatively to those of us who enjoy a good laugh or even just a sly giggle from time to time?

Rich

[TEPaul]

"As TE pointed out so eloquently, you have a great eye for naturalism on golf courses. I think that is cool and I am learning to look for that. But to use your love for naturalism as a reason to denegrate MacRaynors is simply wrong. It is like going to a heavy metal concert and screaming at the band that aren't playing enough acoustic ballads..."

BillB:

Wayne isn't really denigrating MacRaynor, he's just telling you what he likes and what he doesn't like and he doesn't like the MacRaynor style because it doesn't look natural to him. So What?

We just don't need anyone and certainly not these two complete jackasses constantly lambasting Wayne Morrison and telling him he's trying to perpetuate some glorification campaign of Wilson or Flynn because he doesn't like the look of MacRaynor architecture. Both he and me hardly even know those two clowns---as everyone can see they came after Merion and us over five years ago with this hard-on for Macdonald/Whigam apparently that we or Merion were slighting and minimizing them. Why did they do that? What did we or Merion ever do to perpetuate or inspire that? We never minimized or denigrated MacRaynor, it was not the case, never has been, and all we've done heretofore is say so.

If anyone needs slighting and minimizing it is both MacWood and Moriarty, I know it, you know it and everyone else should too.

Get real and get honest here Bill, you know damn well what I'm saying is the truth. If you want to see the thread both where and how this all began I'll find it, bring it up and show it to you and you can see for yourself.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Read Anthony's first post again Rich, then his second. All he came on here to do (it appeared) was slap a friend in the face, and all the negative reponses were from buddies who were standing up for the slap-ee.
Maybe if he started the conversation with his third post the reactions would have been different. 


p.s. I missed the humo(u)r, he airmailed it right over my Double Plateau.    

 

[Rich Goodale]

Who is the "friend," Jim?  If it is Macdonald or Raynor, now that is funny.

[TEPaul]

Anthony Fowler:

I promise I will give you my best and consdered response and opinion to your initial post, after a while.

But in the meantime, congratulations, you started a pretty hot thread here with a ton of dynamics but you knew that would happen when you thought up the subject, didn't you?

Your thread has just made me realize, for the first time in my life. that I actually grew up on nothing but Macdonald/Raynor courses. I never actually thought about it that way before, and so I'm going to tell you what my opinion was of them and their various holes through the eyes of a "clear clay" kid that just might be more pure and more "real" than a bunch of jaded golf course analysts on this website.

Now, I'll tell you what they were and the way I looked at them and the various holes. I wasn't much into golf back then but because my dad was who he was and what he was as a player I saw these ones all the time as a kid. He belonged to them all and the only one he didn't he played all the time anyway because of his friends.

They were: Piping Rock, The Links, NGLA, The Creek, all on Long Island.

The holes that fascinated me the most were the template holes. I may've know their names but I doubt it, I can't remember now, so the very idea of "copy" holes meant nothing at all to me. But their primary features on those template holes, what I came to understand as their primary architectural and playibility features on most of those template holes were just so cool, so challenging and so awe-inspiring if and when you ran afoul of them and had to deal with them. But when I did it right on those holes, those template holes, as I was taught to try to do with particular shots and shot requirements to play them right, it was about the most gratifying feeling imaginable in golf.

Do you get a drift here, Anthony, about what it may be all about in golf with most people and not just amongst these jaded, over-analyzing arrogant yahoos on here who are so fixated on anything and everything to do with golf architecture? Perhaps they should just let all that over-analyzing crap go and get back to the "kid" in them and play the shots and suffer the ups and downs of their wonderful time-tested concepts.

There was only one template that was pretty much a bust for me as a kid back then and even today and that was "The Eden". The Creek's isn't much, Piping's is really bad with no potential hope with where it is and what it is. NGLA's got my attention and if The Links had one I can't even remember it. But that Links redan hole---Oh My GOD, I'll never forget it and it used to drive my Dad and all his scratch-playing friends nuts. They never stopped talking about it as they alternately loved it and hated it.

SAVY?

[DMoriarty]

Rich,

I am sure you realize that you and Anthony are not laughing with the other but at the other.   He thinks all their holes are the same.  You think they are all different.    I think you've both entirely missed the point.

DM

[paul cowley]

TP....you are right as usual, and I have not been as faithful of late proclaiming that, but my mission lately...well has been my mission lately.

But all missions aside, people don't really want to be part of nature, as much as they want to experience nature.

Do you crave living in a house shaped as an acorn or birds nest, or something equally as contrived?....of course not, because you are not a damned idiot.....or a squirrel or a bird!

Gotta catch a plane...love...peace.

[TEPaul]

Paul, you've got a beautiful mind--and so visual. Too bad some of the opinionated "know-nothing" assholes on here can't see you and spend time with you on-site. It would be so helpful to this website what they could learn. You're maybe the most "outside the box" thinker I know and you give people the feeling you care what they think and that you're willing to listen and consider it all too. But when the time comes you pull the trigger. Somebody has to and somebody always does and that's the other part most on here don't even get the why or wherefore of.

[TEPaul]

"But all missions aside, people don't really want to be part of nature, as much as they want to experience nature."

Paul:

You're probably gone and off catching a plane but that remark reminded me of a question. Here is is:

What do you think came first, the wilderness or civilization?

[Rich Goodale]

Rich,

I am sure you realize that you and Anthony are not laughing with the other but at the other.   He thinks all their holes are the same.  You think they are all different.    I think you've both entirely missed the point.

DM

Dave

The important thing is to laugh, regardless of why.  Try it sometime.

[Sean_A]

"This is our 'Redan!'" or "Doesn't that green have a Biarritzy feel to it?" or "That tuft of grass obscuring the green is an "Alp."

The Monet analogy used above by others is illustrative of this particular form of mania.  It would work if MacRaynor's ouevre of Redans actually consisted of "water lillies," but the irony is that none of them that I have seen (including NGLA) are actually water lillies, but rather other varieties of flower. 

Rich

Never having seen a Mac/Raynor, the above sentences sum up my thoughts.  Everytime someone splashes a photo of a _____  I think WHAT?  It happened the other day with a few people claiming the 10th at St Georges Hill was an Alps.  It just ain't so.  Its really disheartening when these "truths" are expoused and yet some of the main design elements of the template are missing.  Afterall, that is what CBM was importing, design concepts, not holes.  However, the idea that these templates are in truth not what they are claimed to be gives me hope and makes me want to see these old steam engines.  The funny thing is I have played one Banks relic many times and I think it is a good course (one which Anthony should have included in To the Nines) and with TLC it could be wonderful.  There is always hope and as you say, a chance for a good laugh, or at least a smile.

Ciao   

[Mike Sweeney]

I think WHAT?  It happened the other day with a few people claiming the 10th at St Georges Hill was an Alps.  It just ain't so.  Its really disheartening when these "truths" are expoused and yet some of the main design elements of the template are missing.  Afterall, that is what CBM was importing, design concepts, not holes.  However, the idea that these templates are in truth not what they are claimed to be gives me hope and makes me want to see these old steam engines. 

When you look at the MacRaynor courses, they did get a little carried away with the Par 3's and the Redan, Eden, Short.......

However, on the 4's and 5's it is design elements at best on a few holes, and they took the great fun concepts.

When people talk about The Road Hole at National, Yale and Mountain Lake, it is a big stretch to call any of those even an interpretive copy.

[paul cowley]

"But all missions aside, people don't really want to be part of nature, as much as they want to experience nature."

Paul:

You're probably gone and off catching a plane but that remark reminded me of a question. Here is is:

What do you think came first, the wilderness or civilization?

Tom....caught the plane [strange term that], and back in EST [you know in all honesty PST makes me a little nervous, hard to relax and feel totally at home]....but, I probably should have added the need for man to tame nature as well, and I think this is reflected in golf.

Wilderness came first and the need and effort to tame it proclaimed the ascendancy of Man.....or some such gibberish.

Just called out my last plane to catch.....later my friend